What’s the best thing a girl can do to a torn-to-pieces, totally pitiful construction zone of a house? How about boil a big pot of apple cider vinegar so it really smells like home…

Okay, I don’t want to hear it — the smell only lasted a few days, at most. And if all goes according to plan, this little stockpile of freshly-made relish will be with us for months.

Minus the flea beetles and, of course, what we’ll go ahead and call “the great squash scourge of 2015,” our first-real-garden adventure has been mostly successful. The blistering heat of late summer has us wishing, despite ourselves, that the rain would return… but the tomatoes are loving the sun. And we may even find ourselves with an eggplant or two by August’s end – having nursed them back to health in a post-beetle world.

… we won’t talk about the squash. They were so healthy… it all happened so fast.

Regardless, we’re still swimming in the stragglers… so I suppose if there was one thing we could spare… 

But the bounty — of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, and herbs — has allowed us to get a little more creative.

… and that creativity, thankfully, includes this big steaming pot of homemade relish and the sweet, sweet smell of apple cider vinegar in the air.

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August is a lesson in slowing down. The heat and humidity set in and, against our better judgement, we find ourselves sitting longer, stalling more… taking the time to savor each moment as the last few days of summer drip away.

Would I love to have that guest bathroom back up and running after a month of staring at an empty room? I would. Would I like to eat a well-balanced dinner instead of a sweet, crisp, melt-in-your-mouth pile of buttermilk waffles with summer fruit and sweet cream?

… well no, actually I’d much rather have the waffles.

As our renovation drags on, slow as they come, the lessons in patience are piling up. But with the onset of August, it feels almost right that they should. The summer days are few, and the time left to savor them is fading by the day.

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As a little girl, I remember sitting for hours in the grass, making flower crowns from wild daisies, and occasionally from my mother’s nasturtiums… the first time I realized that flowers could be food, it seemed almost too good to be true. Despite a propensity to climb trees and roll around in the dirt, the girly girl inside me knew that something truly special made it possible to put real rose petals on cake.

Flowers are such a simple solution in a time when everything seems complicated… no matter how many obstacles arise – and arise, they do – in our home improvements, the garden continues to grow.

Asbestos tiles? Have some squash. Warped walls? The tomatoes will be ready soon. Still battling bugs? Maybe they like all those vegetables on your counters. Hmm.

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