August 2024 – Missing summer already…

August 2024, I dunno, at some point here I guess we’re all just going to have to accept that “normal” is no longer a thing when it comes to northern Minnesota weather. Five winters ago we had record cold of -40 degrees real feel temps with dips down nearly -60 with wind chill. The winter before last we broke records of nearly 100 inches of snow and then last winter we broke records of having the WARMEST winter of all time and almost no snow lol… and the last two summers we broke heat records and went into a terrible drought!

So now this year we had the most lovely first half of the year following the warmest winter of all time with spring basically starting in March and lasting for months.

We’ve had a huge amount of consistent rain that has felt pretty much miraculous after so many years of drought.

Weirdly we didn’t see any real heat until July and now there is August 2024 which is absolutely the coldest August that I can remember. All the years I’ve lived in northern MN August has always been our most dependable month when it comes to the weather.

August is ALWAYS hot as hell and it never rains.

That was not this August.

We’ve had lows in the 40s and plenty of rain though I will NOT complain about the rain lol. But I am going to complain about the cold. I love the heat and look forward to it every year.

Even with the incredibly mild winter and months of spring weather that we all loved… I am still feeling a bit shorted when it came to summer as it really didn’t feel like we got much of one.

Of course many people would tell me to shut it lol BUT STILL!

I guess if it were up to me I would be willing to give up my hot days for the mild weather we’ve had for the last 20 months but I don’t think northern MN is going to give us that kind of choice. Of all of our weather winter is generally the one thing we know is always coming…

We had about two weeks in July of HOT, muggy (well into the 90s) weather. So, one Saturday afternoon, I put on my bathing suit, grabbed our towels and sat to wait for Lodi to get home from work…

And then an hour after he got home it torrentially down poured and the next day (and all the rest of the forecast…) was in the low 70s lol.

No beach day for me!

I was quite put out! But not nearly as put out as my mom who drove quite a ways to rent a pontoon that day… and that didn’t happen.

After that in August 2024 we barely saw another day even reach 80 but, still, it was a lovely month and September we’re looking at much of the same.

Sorry just for the weather report here folks I have been slammed at my day job and also my side hustle as a book designer. Over the last 20 years I have designed nearly 60 books… how the heck did I get this old that I can now report about crap I did as an adult two decades ago…

Can’t complain about having work but it makes a lovely reason to procrastinate on my current project of STILL taping and mudding our stairwell… So house projects are still just waiting and waiting for me!

Cheers to the hope of a long, lovely fall and yet another mild winter!

And now I’m going to totally unabashedly promote my two favorite books that I’ve designed over the years: My Mom’s book Perfect Toast and my Aunt’s book Reverie.

August 2024

Missing my vegetable garden so much this year!

I find myself out in the flower beds more than ever. I have a post coming out next Sunday all about every single bloom that opens here in the summer time. Most of them are / were my Grandma’s that I transplanted but there are a few that are just mine…

Maybe after ten years here I should start just calling them my flowers? Nah, they’ll probably always be my Grandma’s to me lol.

In the post coming out I the best pictures of all of the flowers over the last ten years because, of course, some years are just better to some types of flowers than others.

Our peonies tried their hardest to do well this year but with the constant rain and storms, unfortunately, they didn’t last long.

I still got a few of my favorite giant white blooms though! (Isn’t that vein of dark burgundy down their centers amazing?)

Our tiger lilies are always my pride and joy but have not yet stopped blooming so I’ll be sharing pictures of them in our September post.

Meanwhile, as always, my Grandma’s perennial bed by our garage is a delight when I come home from work.

Somehow a tiger lily snuck in there this year with all those gorgeous day lilies. Seriously I think I’ve spotted a new perennial in there every year I’ve lived here… Those balloon star flowers are so pretty too!