This is going to be a quick one, because I’m deep in manuscript-revision after Lucas and I decided to run away to a writer’s conference at the end of September.

And just like that, it’s August. I’ve honestly only read half of The End of Night, our book for July. I found it slow-going to start, with the frequent quotations cumbersome to read, but about a quarter of the way through I started to connect with Bogard and really loved some of the ideas he brought—pardon me—to light.

Let’s take a summer stroll through some recent photos and sketches of things I couldn’t capture with a camera.

Two weeks ago Lucas and I were lucky to attend “Poetry and the Natural World,” a reading and Q&A with Ada Limón, the US Poet Laureate. Limón opened by asking who was attending a poetry reading for the first time.

Did you find anything new or inspiring to you in The Humane Gardener? One of the stories that stood out to me the most was Charlotte Adelman’s. I admire her work to ban pesticides in public areas like the library, as well as gas-powered leaf blowers in the off-season.

I looked out the window this morning to find Lucas sitting on the step as he listened to a few more lines of his audiobook post-run. Past him, on the bench in the backyard, stood a big, light brown bird with a red head. It was too large to be a finch, taller than a robin, but not squat.

Welcome to “Head in the Clouds, Hands in the Dirt: Learning About Our World While Building My Own” which is everything it says in the title, plus a focus on taking action to protect this incredible world of ours.