Hi, everyone!
This summer, we’ve had a lot of days where smoke from Canadian wildfires has made our skies hazy! Some days the smoke is so bad that we need to stay inside.
Other days, we just have enough haze to change the color of the sunset over Lake Ontario. Those days, the sun looks really red, but Grandma’s camera doesn’t capture that very well.
The first weekend in August, we were busy at the bay! Saturday morning, Grandma weeded all the water chestnuts out of the Shaker Heights shoreline. She saw the Rose Lummis out on one of its first educational cruises! I couldn’t go along for weeding because everything in the kayak gets wet and muddy when the water chestnut plants come aboard. Later that day, Uncle Steven’s family hosted the other young families from our church for tubing and a picnic supper. I helped get the s’mores supplies ready, and Aunt Kara built a really nice fire for marshmallow toasting. Everybody who went tubing was really tired after a fun day! I hung out with Thomas before bedtime.
We stayed at the bay until Monday. That morning, it was really hazy again when the sun rose! Things cleared up a bit as the sun got higher in the sky. Grandma and I finished the jigsaw puzzle of the Sistine Chapel ceiling that Uncle David’s family brought back from Rome.
James and Thomas love Grandma’s pulled pork and barbecue sauce. Right now, that’s their favorite meal, and they have developed growing boy appetites! I helped Grandma make a new supply to freeze in larger portions. The recipe calls for a single eight pound pork shoulder, but Grandma bought a sixteen pound package at Costco. We could only make half of it at at time, even with Grandma’s biggest pot. Grandma cut up the onion, and I crushed the garlic cloves after she peeled them. Then we put in the dry spices.
The braising liquid includes lime juice and orange juice, but there’s a surprise ingredient – a can of Coca Cola! Once that was in, we put the covered pot in the oven and baked it for six hours.
In the afternoon, when the pork was done braising, the meat could be separated from the fat and came apart in big chunks. That’s when we pulled the meat apart with two forks. One shoulder makes a lot of pulled pork!
The next day, Grandma and I braised the other half of the pork shoulder package. Now the freezer is full of meal-sized packages of pulled pork!
Last Saturday, we had another tubing party at the bay! This time, it was the belated celebration of James’ birthday. He, his friends, and Thomas went tubing three times in the afternoon and evening! On Sunday night, Grandma and Grandpa took me to the Point for sunset. It was still hazy, but someone told us it was the best sunset in two weeks! There was a lot going on at the Point! Repairs on the eastern breakwall have started. There’s another barge dredging the channel, so big boats can go in and out of the bay.
Monday morning, Grandma said it was time to see the rose mallows in full bloom! We kayaked up to the wetlands where they grow and I made lots of rose mallow flower friends!
It was a very hot day (92 degrees F. by afternoon), but there was a cool breeze blowing over the water in the bay. We paddled home with a detour to Clark Creek. I made more wetlands flower friends there! The county weed harvesters had been at work, and there was a nice channel up Clark Creek all the way to the beaver dam. That’s where I made more rose mallow friends!
On Saturday, we’d seen a flock of adult swans hanging out near our dock. On Monday, we met a swan family with six cygnets near Clark Creek. There’s always some surprise when we’re out paddling!
Love,
Lion-san