The word that describes our Ohio trip is “serendipitous”.  Everything came together and worked out better than we could have planned it.  It was a recurring theme throughout the visit.

I’ve divided the trip into four parts for the four days we were there.  We packed a lot of meaningful reunions, events, returns to favorite old haunts and parks, new friends, cemetery visits, and E’s birthday observance into those four days.

Here we are crossing from Kentucky into Cincinnati.

We found this sign in the office, and this birthday greeting over our motel room when we arrived, courtesy of the very nice manager, Robyn.  Here she is with Ziggy the dog.  The motel is quaint and retro, situated in a park-like setting with deer, down the road from town.  We had some good talks with Robyn.

Of course our first stop was our old favorite HQ, Ye Olde Trail Tavern.  It was good to be back at our old watering hole.  But since their new management, their food is more to die from than for, which we found out the hard way.  So it’s safer just to drink!

Here are a few more scenes in YS that first evening, including this horse-drawn carriage.

Later we paid our respects at one of the cemeteries where E’s family members are buried, and returned to the motel, where Robyn had lit a bonfire in the fire pit for us.  We watched a large deer eating apples from the trees a few yards away.

Here ends Day 1.

I lied about the heat wave tapering off any time soon.  It’s like a desert out there.  I think it’s even too hot for the skinks, judging by their absence.  Yesterday was like mowing tumbleweed and dust.  Even the dew can’t get a grip.  I’ve had to water daily just to keep things barely alive.  Anyone know a good rain dance?

Accordingly, my photos have been drying up.  It’s challenging finding undead subjects.  Although oddly, here and there unidentified new flowers are appearing out of the parched ground, source unknown.  And the pollinators love it.  Nature is unstoppable, given half a chance.

However, expect a photographic change in the next few days, as we make our first annual pilgrimage to parts north.  I won’t give it away, but let the pictures speak for themselves.

Yesterday we (A., E., and I) had birthday cake!  It was good, if I do say so.  My son was a bit under the weather, literally, after the final demise of his AC unit, and the dreaded cost.  I hope we at least were able to help him chill.

I guess it got so hot, the sky is sweating!  That’s the only explanation for this strange wet stuff in the air.  Not that I’m complaining.  Of course I went out in it to take these pictures of flowers and pollinators enjoying the change.

It just keeps getting hotter!  We’re frying here.

Of course, this is the week my son’s AC decided to fail again, after a couple of very expensive recent “fixes” already.  The unit is ancient and needs replacement, an impossibly costly prospect, on top of all the other urgent repairs and expenses he’s facing.  He is not happy, and I feel for him.  Sometimes life is too much.  I’m just glad he was up to coming over and working from here.  (And joining us for E’s early BD cake, baked by YT.)

I had another native wildflower first this week–my Passiflora (passion flower) bloomed for the first time.  I hope it survives and thrives next year.  It’s such a gorgeous, exotic-looking hardy native vine.  Here are some other natives, and a domesticated cat chilling in the heat.

This will not be one more post about 9/11.  I leave that to the “experts”.  It’s just another distraction from urgent ongoing humanitarian crises that are being avoided.

We’re entering the challenging season for photography–flowers are fading, leaves aren’t turning yet.  But that doesn’t stop me.  There’s always a new aspect of a common subject to be explored.

For me this little aster is significant, only because it’s the first of the natives I planted in the field to bloom this year.  It’s surrounded by clouds of this bright goldenrod.

The dill and parsley are covered with these butterfly caterpillars.  While this whimsical creature is actually okra and red jalapeño from the garden.

These flowers could not be more different– lowly melon blossoms, and tropical mandevilla–but just as pretty.

Last but not least, here we have the delicate lacey roots of dark opal basil cuttings, and a blue gin and tonic laced with lemon balm and mint sprigs.  It’s all about the botanicals.

The heat wave continues, and so do the brilliant colors of summer.  I think autumn will make an appearance one of these months.  Leaves are falling in the tropical heat, if that’s any indication.  When it gets too hot to play jungle cat, Misu resorts to cooler climes.  Get it, climbs.  (Look at that formidable face.)  Whereas I adjourn to cooler drinks.  This one was a “ginger snap” (gin collins with ginger liqueur).

We’re in an official record-setting heat wave in the south, through mid-September or so.  I was not making this up!

To make up for the blinding hot orange images of yesterday, here is a collection of random cool blue things, both natural and unnatural.  Misu actually got into the pool to get a drink.

It seems as E. TN approaches fall, it just gets hotter by the day.  This coming week’s temps will be in the high 90s, with still no rain in sight.  I have to water my gardens every day.  But then I think of the Bahamas and Carolinas devastated or damaged by Hurricane Dorian, and I’m thankful to be in the weather flyover state.

Misu knows how to keep cool–in the closet or the shower!

This orange butterfly (Gulf Fritillary?) was filling up on the masses of marigolds in the veg garden (one of the few plants that did really well in the poor soil).

September is the new August, here in E. TN.  It only seems to get hotter and drier.  But there are signs of transition.  Wave upon wave of goldenrod varieties are blooming en masse in the field.  The first leaves are turning (wild cherry, I think).  Bunches of poke berries and wild grapes are hanging from the fence for birds to feast on.  Galaxies of asters and wildflowers are blooming.  Alien pod-creatures are multiplying.  And strange squash-like things are poking out from under vines.

The heat wave in the 90s continues, with no rain in sight.  These red jalapeños are just about the only veggies surviving in the garden (other than the ubiquitous okra).  The only solution for red hot days is an ice-cold red drink, in this case, my tequila cherry/cranberry cosmo.