16

An abundance of riches. The grouchiness is, mostly, taken in perspective. For instance, it rained today. But now it is sunny and dry. Erik's building a fire. The kids are over at Bridget's, playing in her front yard. We swam today. We ate salad with pepitas for lunch. Summer is too short. Summer is too much. It is almost over. It has just started. I'm pickling cucumbers to remind me of how too much it is in winter when outside is a don't-sit-still kind of situation.

1. The hummingbirds are out of control. We have one feeder. Erik fills it up every other day. The whole back yard is buzzing with their dives and bombs. We have this guy. A broad-tailed hummingbird. Image source. 

And another broad-billed. 

And the Rufous

And some Anna hummingbirds

They fight a lot. I feel bad for the little dudes. I just read that if you have one hummingbird feeder with a little more sugar in it and one with a little less, the dominant ones will flock to the overly-sweet one and the submissive birds will flock to the regular one. Such is the nature of privilege. 

2. After a marathon week of cooking: Brats (homemade sauerkraut. Not bad. A little salty. Nobody died), kabobs, tacos, smoked pork chops, we went out to eat tonight. Flagstaff has strangely excellent restaurants for the small town that it is. We narrowed it down to Coppa--super excellent, French-Italian offering moules frites, steak tartare, oysters, charcuterie, homemade Bolognese; Tinderbox with their own charcuterie,Dr. Pepper braised hog jowls, bacon wrapped meatloaf and fennel scallops; Fat Olives with their pizza oven and the 00 flour straight from Naples; and Lumberyard, with the Vietnamese Burger--a banh mi type hamburger and sometimes, a Utah burger, pastrami and fry sauce attached. We decided on Criollo which has 10 types of tacos, bacon nachos, vegetable rellenos, salmon tostado. We ordered the happy hour fish tacos, nachos and calamari for Z. We were home by 6:00. Now it is 7. The fire is almost going even though the wood is wet and so is the picnic table bench that is making my butt wet with its wetness. 

3. This.