Quick Takes, The Last Day of July

It's Friday already! Can you believe it? Time for some Quick Takes; here are a few things spilling over from my little corner of the world.

For a whole world more Quick Takes, run over to Jennifer's place at Conversion Diary.

1. I'm having a problem being news-addicted for some reason right now and I'm not sure exactly why. I usually avoid the news, depending on Dan to fill me in on anything that's really important, and only get hooked when there's some big event like elections or hurricanes (same difference any more). Generally speaking, the news depresses me. Pop culture depresses me. I'm happier watching documentaries and old movies, if anything on tv. But, lately, I find myself tuning in to news two or three times a day. What's with that? Morbid curiosity -- rubbernecking, maybe? Watching a train wreck about to happen?

Regardless, the midafternoon Fox news has a particular draw... Anybody else out there think Shepherd Smith is cute?

2. It's harvest time out here on the high prairies.

And it's been a good year -- except for the unusual amount of rain that has made it hard for the harvesters to get all the wheat cut. But, as agricultural bystanders, we've been enjoying the general satisfaction of seeing this year's highly productive wheat fields follow through in the natural progression of the seasons -- first there were the acres and acres of spring-green baby wheat (looked like well-manicured lawns) which slowly turned golden as the summer heated up, then the harvesters came to town these last couple of weeks, and one by one, the fields have been mowed into rows and rows of neatly combed stubble. And as the wheat has disappeared from the fields, it's appeared right here in our own back yard almost, filling up the grain towers to overflowing, and piling up in mountains of yellow grain, less than a quarter mile from our house. Look at all that. Isn't it amazing? Bit by bit it disappears, and is loaded onto trains where it's exported to mills all over the world. Colorado winter wheat is used for yeast breads and hard rolls since it is high in protein and strong in gluten. I wonder if the bread in our internet friends' sandwiches (throughout the world!) is made from some of the wheat we see stored just beyond our fences. What a neat thought!

3.

Plastic dinosaurs.

Not hip or eco friendly.

So worth the two bucks.

Check in on Laura for more Bad Haikus!

4. It's cicada season again. We're just starting to hear that late summer background noise, and that, together with the frog and cricket noises are making our normally crackly dry July sound like the bayou. Complete with skeeters. Everything we do outside is punctuated with slaps. Hoe a tomato; slap a mosquito. Pick a zucchini; slap a mosquito. Swing on the hammock; slap a mosquito -- swing, slap; swing, slap, swing, slap; swing.

It's been so humid, I just don't comb my bangs anymore. Curly-headed friends, you know what I mean when I say: dandilion-gone-to-seed-hair, right? And my house smells funny. Strangely musty, just short of mildewy. It takes forever for clothes to dry, and my bread is going green really quickly.

I guess this summer has been a good lesson for us to know how spoiled we really are here in Colorado. Not that I'm complaining. I haven't had to water the garden but once or twice this whole summer. I guess there's good and bad in everything.

5. I love this Friday feature over at Crazy Working Mom . One thing we don't lack for out here on the prairies is skyscapes. Here are a couple from my files -- the first one taken a couple weeks ago, the second one taken last fall.

Fluffy, happy summer clouds over the back ten.

Peaceful sunset behind the pines out in the Lost Forest.

(About five miles to the south of us, out in the middle of the prairie, there is a meandering wood of evergreens, I guess three to five miles wide, that wanders from the edge of Denver way out into the middle of nowhere. I don't even know where it finally ends. It goes by several names, but I like the Lost Forest best. It's a beautiful, unexpected piece of heaven, and a pretty place to go for a quick drive on a Sunday afternoon.)

6. Our Renaissance Women. This bevy of beautiful girls compete against the boys in all sports, play a wicked hand of poker (Michelle taught them the game this morning), and sing like angels.

L-R:

Emily, Maria, and Amanda (our friends visiting from Minnesota) singing the Ave Maria with Michelle in the Davis family "recording studio." We don't have a big screen tv or a wii or even a trampoline, but we have an empty grain bin with great acoustics to sing in...

7. Anybody out there want zucchini?

I'll ship it to you.