samoyeddogs

Isn’t this great? Precipitation. The strip of grass on the side of my building is a not unpleasing-looking, if you must know, straw colour.  I mean in a painterly way.

Now it’s got a chance. It’s going to get a chance to come back and be green, like the rest of us. You said what?

Is that a bug on the screen?  But it’s here. It’s all around us. The beneficent, beautiful, beneficial cool summer rain. The roses up here on the upper deck have been giving out exhaustion-repreive bleatings most of the day.  Make it hot but there’s nothing wrong with a little rain.  It’s a good day for summer rain and they think we ought to celebrate it.  So here goes.

We’ve had the summer wind and so it’s excruciatingly apt that the summer rain is here.  7:10 pm.  There.  Another little pelt of summer rain.  Just to dampen things down a bit.  Cool.

And now, from the west, a thundering crescendo of cloud-filtered sunlight.  This is the day of all hyphenated words.  Which, no matter how long the hyphenated word is, counts for just one word in writing contests.  Good to know.

It’s a “Royal William”.  “Hybrid tea”, as I recall.  Named for the prince who would be king of England.  He’s 33 so that means we’ve been in possession, owned and cared for this rose for more than a decade after purchasing it from “Murray’s”.

That’s absurd.  They shot Murry and burned down his gardening centre.  For the crime of getting on in years.  We liked and admired Mr. Murray and looked forward to seeing him.  What happened down there must have seemed almost biblical.

It’s time to forget what I’ve said.  It’s the sweet summer rain….

 

 

 

Buffalo Trace. Deep amber. Explodes in the mouth like a caterwaul of everything you’re supposed to know about this bourbon, but didn’t. 90 proof.  Meaning?  45% alcohol by volume (ABV).  Of course it is. Half a second later it’s the robust welcoming experience of a great bourbon you’d yet to try. The wait is over.  Buffalo Trace

This is a bourbon whiskey to treat with respect. We don’t want to wake up in Kentucky here. You know, when the first question is, “How did I get here?” After all this tribulation? And the police are here?

Read the label. Apparently some buffalos broke into the country before Chuck got here and were roaming and stuff and chomping too much grass. But they left their “Traces”, their paths or Route 60, or whatever it was, and got lost. Wait.

‘The ancient paths of countless buffalo led America westward. Legendary explorers followed these trails, known as traces, through rugged wildernesses to new lands and new-found freedom. One such trace was called the Great Buffalo Trace. Early pioneers who followed this trace settled along the banks of the Kentucky River, with plentiful pure limestone water and fertile bottom land, it was no wonder a rich distilling heritage was born on the site of the Buffalo Trace Distillery.’

My first thought on reading this is, “What a bunch of bull”. Buffalo bull. It’s like when I read the label on “Zubrowska Bison Grass” vodka saying there’s supposed to be buffalo that are native to Europe. Turns out it’s true.  European Bison  Shock value.  I think I’m so smart and I didn’t even know that. It’s the trouble with expertise, I guess.

And then just one more half shot of Buffalo Trace seems like it might not be a bad idea.  Hallelujah.