Fourth of July, at HOME!

Gosh, it’s hot!  I’m not com­plain­ing, as it’s this heavy, sun­ny, lan­guid sort of after­noon I long for all year long in Lon­don, which charm­ing though it is, is too often grey, wet and cold.

Not at Red Gate Farm.  The mead­ow fair­ly shim­mers with humid heat, over 90 degrees in the shade.

We’ve had our Fourth of July cel­e­bra­tions, the first since we moved to Lon­don eight years ago.  How won­der­ful to buy bunting and flags, hot dogs and ham­burg­ers.  At least, we bought the hot dogs and dear Anne across the road the ham­burg­ers, fash­ioned lov­ing­ly by Dave.  John grilled them all, near­ly pros­trate in the heat, and my appetite flagged a bit since I could hard­ly breathe.  Anne pro­duced a gor­geous dessert of real Amer­i­can short­cake and straw­ber­ries, rasp­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries.  Kate and I whipped fresh cream with vanil­la.  And it was a love­ly day, most­ly because of the com­pa­ny and the conversation.

Kate (just five years old): “Dad­dy, there’s a huge fly buzzing around my food.”

David: “That’s a horse­fly, hon­ey, a fly you can RIDE.”

Avery: “And I see a but­ter­fly, a fly you can spread on your toast.”

We indulged in long talks about Avery’s and my cook­book project, with pro­fes­sion­al author Dave offer­ing wis­dom about agents and such.  Our goal this sum­mer is at least to put a pro­pos­al to his agent and see if we can pique her inter­est in “Ladle to Lens: A Col­lab­o­ra­tion in the Kitchen.”  The day was deli­cious, sweaty, con­vivial and even mild­ly patriotic.

At the end of the day, we watched Macy’s “Fourth of July Spec­tac­u­lar” on the tel­ly, and had a won­der­ful moment: just when you think it’s over with “God Bless Amer­i­ca,” you’re remind­ed that’s it’s New York, so gen­er­al Amer­i­can anthems are topped by the true finale: Frank Sina­tra and “It’s Up to You,  New York, New York”!  We love that town.

The next day brought every neigh­bor we have, prac­ti­cal­ly (Farmer Rol­lie had already vis­it­ed ear­li­er in the week).  First we looked up from read­ing our books on the ter­race (new­ly weed­ed by me, as my back­ache can attest) to see Kar­rie and Tyler from up the road, come to de-fly their hors­es in the back mead­ow.  Their quick vis­it length­ened as we found books to sup­ple­ment Tyler’s sum­mer read­ing list, from our laden shelves filled with mine and Avery’s treasures.

Then we heard Kate’s lit­tle voice com­ing from the tram­po­line and went out to join her, Anne and David for a lit­tle impromp­tu jump.  Com­plete with… water pistols.

The lit­tle girls begged me to go into the “dark and scary, plus spi­dery” big red barn to find Avery’s old horse jumps, so I did, and much hilar­i­ty ensued, after I hosed them down.  Kate jumped as a bun­ny might, at first, and then cot­toned onto the pony style, one leg at a time.  The adults set­tled in for a good gos­sip.  Then Judy, big Rol­lie and Lit­tle Rol­lie arrived!  I was hav­ing too much fun to take pic­tures (although Avery caught me on film, enjoy­ing the scene).

I did get a chance to thank Judy for the gor­geous plant grac­ing my ter­race.  She nev­er for­gets me.

A love­ly, peace­ful, friend­ly after­noon with a sen­sa­tion that all the char­ac­ters I miss dur­ing the school year had arrived onstage at last, play­ing their parts: the mis­chie­vous chil­dren, joke­ster dad, devot­ed local polit­i­cal activist, nature-lov­ing Won­der­woman, bril­liant bee­keep­er, every­one’s favorite grand­moth­er.  I won­der what part I play.

Of course, sum­mer has not been prop­er­ly inau­gu­rat­ed until we’ve made the first vis­it to Rich’s Dairy Farm and Ice Cream Joint.  I can nev­er stom­ach a whole cone or dish myself, so instead bor­row from Avery’s and John’s orders.  What­ev­er was­n’t in this peanut-but­tery choco­late­ly delight is not worth having.

Every­one feels relaxed at Rich’s.

And this morn­ing we ush­ered in the sec­ond phase of our hol­i­day by dri­ving Avery — suit­cas­es impos­si­bly stuffed — to Bridge­port to catch an ear­ly train to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where she will take part in two weeks of intel­lec­tu­al stim­u­la­tion at the Nation­al Stu­dent Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence, study­ing for one week “Intel­li­gence and Nation­al Secu­ri­ty,” and anoth­er week “Polit­i­cal Action and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy,” I think they’re called.

She is extreme­ly excit­ed, and I was extreme­ly ner­vous, or a com­bi­na­tion of ner­vous and antic­i­pat­ing miss­ing her.  We’ve spent SO much time togeth­er over the last few months that I know I’ll feel the wrench.  How­ev­er, needs must, and she is near­ly 17 after all.  She’s texted to say she’s safe­ly arrived, thank good­ness.  And there are small com­pen­sa­tions to her absence, most­ly of a deli­cious vari­ety, eat­ing up all the foods she does­n’t like, start­ing with Maine lobster!

For some unknown rea­son — whether the intense heat, the wet spring or some oth­er mys­te­ri­ous Con­necti­cut phe­nom­e­non — the day lilies which are nor­mal­ly fin­ished by the time we arrive, are abun­dant and dra­mat­ic this year and by no means exhausted.

And the fern bed?  I have nev­er, ever seen it so dra­mat­ic or so lush.  As Avery point­ed out, “There could be sev­er­al dead bod­ies under there.”

Yet anoth­er of our cher­ished sum­mer insti­tu­tions has just got a lit­tle clos­er to home: the own­ers of our beloved Lau­rel Din­er, home of the best hashed-browns on earth, have agreed to let me write a sto­ry about them!

Of course a project like this requires copi­ous research.  We branched out from our usu­al orders (Peter and Stephanie say that for a lot of their cus­tomers, all they need is to see them walk in the door and they auto­mat­i­cal­ly know what to cook; we are slaves to their egg sand­wich­es and corned-beef hash) with the “broc­coli ham-scram,” the fluffi­est scram­bled eggs ever, loaded with goodies:

And quite pos­si­bly the best burg­er ever, with fried onions and pick­les.  Grilled in but­ter, if you please.  “They’re like but­ter, is the only way I can describe them,” Stephanie promis­es, and she’s dead right.

I’ll be work­ing on the sto­ry all this week, which may require… anoth­er trip.  Duty calls.

Well, neigh­bor Mark’s just stuck his head in the back door to invite us to a fire­works dis­play and cock­tail par­ty this evening, so I had bet­ter love you and leave you.  Lazy July needs me.  If I hear any more news from our Spy-in-the-Mak­ing, I’ll let you know.