I live in Maryland in the US.  We have a designated state sport which most people probably think is lacrosse.

In fact the state sport of Maryland is jousting.  Tournaments, festivals, and clubs meet from March through October to celebrate.

One of the very oldest tourneys is held at Christ Church in Port Republic in southern Maryland, the  156^th Calvert County Jousting Tournament & Dinner.  Entry to watch the jousting is free but the traditional and optional Chesapeake Bay church supper costs $28  and includes deviled crab, chicken, or ham and all the fixings.

Charlie and I arrived at Christ Church, about 1.5 hours’ drive from our home, around half past noon.  The jousting had begun.

We took a seat among the crowd of spectators.  The announcer proclaimed each contestant, the jouster rode the course, the announcer declared the results, and we all applauded every ride.

The object is to “spear” – from horseback – 3 rings hung from 3 successive arches 30 yards apart. Including a 20-yard approach to the first arch, every rider (except in the novice class), must travel the course in 9 seconds or less. Each rider makes 3 charges, seeking a perfect score of 9 rings taken.

Rings vary in diameter from 1-3/4 inch to 1/4 inch, with successively smaller sizes used to settle ties.

As the jousting continued Charlie and I walked through the bazaar which was entertained by bluegrass music continuously played across the field.

Among the offerings were a large used book tent, a furniture shed, snow cones, flea market tables with precious items — everything selling for very inexpensive prices.

Children were also entertained with a special tent with face painting and games .  .  .

and an area of pony rides — free for the children’s pleasure.

The highlight of the day was the country supper served family-style on china plates in the air-conditioned social hall.  Meat selections were brought to the table by wait staff and everything else was served in large bowls on the table — all-you-can-eat.

No one left hungry — deviled crab, fried chicken or ham, potato salad, green beans, applesauce, sauerkraut salad, fresh tomatoes, and brownie sundaes.

On our way back to the car we stopped into the church to sample the ongoing concerts.

We felt very welcomed at this event.  Truly a wonderful summer day in lovely and laidback Calvert County.  We both highly recommend the experience.

Jo

Charlie and I each paid $49 for a Brandywine Treasure Trail Passport which was valid from May 27 through October 31 for 1 visit to each of 12 attractions including estates, gardens, and museums.

The Brandywine Valley is near Wilmington, Delaware, about an hour and a half from our home.  We visited the following sites throughout the summer in a series of 5 day trips. Without the passport I would have paid the lesser of the prices below ($84) and Charlie would have paid full price ($97).  The passport was economical and encouraged us to take more trips than we might have without it.

Winterthur  Entrance fee $22 ($20) – I thoroughly enjoyed the self-directed house tour and stroll through the gardens.

Longwood Gardens  Entrance fee $25 ($22) – Longwood is actually in Pennsylvania very near the Delaware border.  This is a huge property visited by many, many people. There are multiple venues for meals from a very casual cafeteria to a more formal sit-down restaurant and other options in between. The conservatory is fabulous but there are no “homes” to explore. (I do like a good house tour.)

Nemours Estate Entrance fee $20 ($18) – My favorite property of the 5 we visited is on the campus of Nemours Children’s Hospital.  The self-directed house tour was both magnificent and intimate.  The shuttle bus ran on time and was a relief on a hot day.

Hagley Museum  Entrance fee $20 ($16) – Hagley includes a black powder factory with exhibits and demonstrations which were both well-presented and exciting.  The house tour was timed and led by a guide.  I didn’t find this as interesting as the self-guided tours of the other properties.  Both the shuttle bus and house tour got off schedule and everything seemed a bit haphazard.

Read House and Gardens  Entrance fee $10 ($8) –  Read House has only had 3 owners since 1797 when building began.  The house, garden (always open to the public at no charge), and the city (feels more like a village) of New Castle are well-situated on the Delaware River and a delight to tour.

For no extra charge I added on the Wilmington and the Brandywine Valley discount pass which has 41 coupons for various sites, activities, and restaurants.  Since we were only there for the day and took our own picnic we did not use this pass.

The Brandywine Valley passport was certainly a bargain in terms of price since we visited multiple venues — it paid for itself after 3 visits.  In addition it was easy to use — the condition of timed tickets to the various sites was waived.

Charlie and I had a lovely summer of day trips.

Jo

We’re back in the Brandywine Valley for another day trip this time visiting Read House in New Castle, Delaware. Of all the properties we have visited, Read House is the oldest, begun  in 1797 and completed in 1804.

Like the rest of Old New Castle (near Wilmington, Delaware on the Delaware River), the 14,000-square-foot mansion built for George Read II and his family sits on land once known as Lenapehokink, traditional home of the Lenape people for tens of thousands of years.

By 1800  New Castle had passed through Swedish, Dutch, and British colonial control, and it was the capital of the state of Delaware.

We arrived on The Strand, the cobblestone street in front of the house, and easily found a parking space.

We arrived about 11:45 a.m. and waited until noon when the next guided tour was to take place.  While we waited Charlie and I took a stroll around the garden beside the house.  We were the only guests on the house tour.

The house is over 200 years old and the ceilings are 14 feet tall.  Although the rooms were not overly large the house felt very spacious due to limited furniture and the high ceilings.

We toured the front and back parlors on the garden side of the house, then the kitchen.

The kitchen was very basic — open hearth, no running water, no refrigeration.  Even so it was located in the house on the first floor — unusual for that time when kitchens were often detached from the house or in the cellar.

Then we headed upstairs to the second floor which contained a bathroom (of sorts) .  No privy, no running water, the tub was filled once a week for father, then mother, then seven children all of whom bathed one after another in the same water.

We visited two of the bedrooms on the second floor.

I especially admired the long hall that ran from a front window overlooking the river to the back of the house.

We were NOT able to go up to the 3rd floor or to the roof of this mansion where we were told one could see The Delaware Memorial Bridge to the North, Delaware City to the south, and Salem County (New Jersey) and its nuclear generating station beyond. That was really disappointing. Instead we headed back downstairs to the dining room.

I found New Castle charming and would have liked to spend more time in this village.  There are some AirBnB rooms available in the riverside neighborhood which would fun for a fall weekend.

The other Brandywine Valley properties we have visited:

• Winterthur
• Longwood Gardens
• Nemours
• Hagley

Jo

One of the easiest and least expensive summer salads is corn and tomato salad.

In Maryland, in summer, delicious white corn on the cob costs $3 for 10 ears.  A shallot is about 50 cents and can be replaced by a quarter cup of onion.

Tomatoes, bell pepper, and basil are abundant in Charlie’s garden so need to be used and eaten.  The best part is that any proportion will work — how much corn is available, how many people are eating, personal preference of ingredients — if the individual ingredients are good the salad will be good.  (When I used twice the corn and tomatoes I stuck with the original vinegar and oil measurements.)

The ingredients are:

•  5-8 ears cooked corn
• ¼ cup chopped red onion or shallot
• 1 chopped Bell pepper, any color
• 1-2 cups cherry tomatoes , sliced in half (chopped whole tomatoes would also work)
• 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Teaspoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt (to taste)
• ⅛ teaspoon pepper (to taste)
• ¼ cup fresh basil finely chopped or chiffonade leaves

Instructions

• Cook the corn on the cob for 3 minutes after water comes to a rolling boil. After cooling a bit, cut kernels from corn and place in a large bowl.
• Add the tomatoes, onion, and bell pepper to the bowl.
  

  The corn kernels will separate when mixed.

• Mix vinegar and olive oil with sugar, salt, and pepper and pour over the vegetables. Stir until combined.
  

  One quarter cup of dressing is enough for a large bowl of this salad.

• Cover and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes before serving.
• Sprinkle basil and Old Bay before serving if desired.
  

  Old Bay and basil add to the presentation but may be omitted.

This is a beautiful, colorful, fresh, casual salad that goes great with summer grilled foods and seafood (crab cakes especially)  and may be served cold, room temperature, or even warmed through.

Corn and tomato salad is my latest August go-to dish for parties, covered-dish, and pot luck occasions.

Jo

Earlier this summer I invited friends to a French picnic which was forced indoors by bad weather.

This month we planned to have a dog days of summer party out in the yard.  Two conditions could have sent us inside — excessive heat (too doggone hot) or rain (raining cats and dogs).

This time we happily partied in the back yard surrounded by the woods, Charlie’s garden, and my 10-feet-tall sunflowers.

We started the evening with a charcuterie tray with crackers and half hot dogs stuffed with pepperjack cheese wrapped in puff pastry.

Since heat was an issue, after the starters, I served only cold salads: corn and tomatoes (from the garden), traditional macaroni salad, and watermelon balls and blueberries.  An ice chest was filled with canned sodas in addition to decaf iced tea made by Charlie.

Dessert was probably the easiest it could ever be: Italian ices and s’mores kits.  I had moved the ices to the refrigerator about an hour before we served them, then kept them in the cooler so they wouldn’t be rock hard when we ate them. Charlie lit the fire pit to toast marshmallows.  It seems most of us had not had a s’more since our younger camping days — it was a hit.

The party ended after dark.  Our guests departed.  Charlie and Sug dismantled the yard while I ran the dishwasher.  And Dash was exhausted.

Jo

Charlie and I are still working on our Brandywine Valley Passports. With our first 3 trips — Winterthur, Longwood, and Nemours — the passport has paid for itself in entrance fees.  At the final couple of sights we’re basically getting free admissions.

We arrived at the Hagley Museum around 10:50 a.m. and were scheduled for a house tour at 12:30 so we bypassed the bus and walked up the lane to the machine shop.

The paved lane along the Brandywine River is a pleasant walk.

We toured the small black powder museum which gave us a better understanding of the method for making gunpowder in the early 1800s.  Black powder was used for guns and pistols, canons, quarry blasting, and really anything that needed an explosion.

We finished in the museum just in time for the Gunpowder Demonstration.

Jonathan took us outside to see the powder yard.

The tour which took about 25 minutes was very informative, especially when we began to understand that a powder mill was not only dangerous but also dependent on the quality of the product.  Jonathan showed us an eprouvette, a tool which gauges the potency of gunpowder.

The explosive demonstration was my favorite part of the entire visit.  I could have watched it over and over. I took a video and have viewed it multiple times.

We waited for the bus to take us up to the house.

Before Winterthur, Nemours, Longwood, and other, famous du Pont estates, there was Eleutherian Mills—the first du Pont family home in America. High on a bank of the Brandywine River overlooking the original powder mills, E. I. du Pont, founder of the DuPont Company, built his home.

For almost a century the Georgian-style home and surrounding complex of buildings and gardens served as the center of family and business life.

Our tour guide, Ann, led about 6 of us through 3 floors of rooms where five generations of du Pont family members lived since the house’s completion in 1803, each leaving their mark. (Charlie returned by bus to the car for a snack while I toured the house for about 45 minutes.)

Today you will see it much as it was when the last family member lived there, filled with furnishings and collections of American folk art, alongside treasured family pieces and items brought with the family from France when they left in 1799.

After the tour I waited at the bus stop for the bus to return me to the parking area. Charlie was on the bus to greet me.

The narration on the bus explained some of the places we passed including where the workers would have lived in the 19th century.  Since the tours at Hagley were not self-guided, our stay there lasted longer than at some of the other duPont Estates.

Our day trip to Hagley Museum was lovely and informative on a perfect August day.

Jo

I regularly scour forage our property and the woods behind for prime edibles.

Last week almost hidden from view behind a stump under some periwinkle was a gorgeous chicken of the woods (Laetiporus) growth.

I have never seen a cleaner specimen — both front and back.  Usually the back is littered with tiny black dots from insect damage which needs to be carefully cleaned and trimmed.  Not so this time.

After sharing half the find with Sug (who also loves wild mushrooms) I tore apart the mushroom into bitesize pieces.  Wild mushrooms generally need to be well-cooked so the pieces will shrink a bit.

I started some julienned red peppers (from Charlie’s garden) and red onions in a frying pan with olive oil and butter.

I tossed in the “chicken” and let everything brown a bit before adding a little water and putting a lid on so the vegetables could be well-cooked. (Again, very important to cook wild fungi, even non-poisonous types, to prevent possible gastric distress.)

Toward the end of cooking I added some halved SunGold tomatoes (also from the garden) and 2 teaspoons of sugar and replaced the lid while it simmered a little longer.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Sometimes I serve this with pasta but this time I ate it on a tortilla toasted with mozzarella cheese.  So yummy.

Jo

There are no Federal or standard holidays celebrated in August but it has been designated “National Dog Month” so I’m going to be extra conscientious about teaching Dash to “come” consistently (#39 on my 101 in 1001 list). We’ve been working on this “new” trick for awhile now but I haven’t been careful to practice everyday.  He understands the command but being the alpha dog, Dash complies when HE wants not always when I want.  That will hopefully change this month.

The remainder of my plans have the common thread of keeping cool.

Here’s what I’m going to try to accomplish this month.

1.  Have a party celebrating the Dog Days of Summer.
   

   Dashie is ready to pawty.

2. See a movie.
3.  Read a book —  The Scarpetta Factor 
   

   492 pages all for me.

4.  List 5 items for sale on FB Marketplace.  I have so much, too much, stuff.
5.  Concert — loads to choose from — Deanna Bogart, Shades of Blue Big Band, Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble
6.  Paint something.
   

   Maybe I’ll paint this lamp.

7.  Take a day trip.  Hoping to tick off a couple more sites in Wilmington, Delaware.
   

   Thus far we’ve been to Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, and Nemours Estate.

8. Whiten my teeth.
9. Pick a word to focus on for the month. My word: STEADFASTNESS.
10.  Write a goal list for September, 2023.

July was HOT, HOT, HOT and rainy, rainy rainy but we did survive.  Apparently the garden really adored the weather.  Charlie harvested buckets of French beans and cucumbers.

With my key word ADVENTURE in mind I tried to approach all activities, especially problematic issues, as part of the adventure.  In addition to the planned and numbered list below I:

• attended a 90th birthday party for a dear friend.  Loads of fun.  Charlie played the piano.
  

  Happy Birthday and background music from a variety of eras.

• had a French soirée picnic with friends.
  

  We were set up for an outdoor party.

  We ate and communed into the evening.

  

  When storms rolled through at party time we re-set up in the dining room.

• transformed my turquoise trays to yellow to fit in with my party theme.
  

  Before (left) and after.  A 15-minute project.

• made play dough at a friend’s house.
  

  We struggled to make a total of 12 pounds of dough!

• washed one window inside and out including the storm window.  This was done in conjunction with #6 below with about another 16 windows to go. Phew!
  

  Start cleaning one thing and another project pops up its ugly dirty head.

• took a ukulele class at a local library.  So much fun!
• indulged in my favorite meal.
  

  Steamed crabs

Here’s what happened in July.

1.  Celebrate Independence Day.
   

   This flag has been flown over the US Capitol and waved at the 1976 Olympic Games.

   Charlie had a patriotic themed gig and I made lunch:  burgers and zucchini ratatouille with mozzarella and pepperoni.  A giant zucchini was a gift from a neighbor so I made plenty.  She received cucumbers in exchange.

2. Movie — I saw Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1.  Lots of exciting chases and stunts, a little humor, characters from past films, need to see Dead Reckoning Part 2 next year.  I also saw The Miracle Club which I wanted to like more than I did.
3.  Book —  I read The Alchemist. Although I could read this book on the internet I much prefer reading actual handheld books.  I requested it from the local library and was about sixth in line for a copy.  I finally received my copy about 3 weeks after I requested it.
   

   The main character wanted to see the Egyptian pyramids in person and so do I.

   The Alchemist was an easy read but very interesting and inciteful.

4.  Start a ladies’ Bible study at home.  This year 12 dedicated ladies are meeting for 3 consecutive weeks studying God’s Call.
   

   Participation medals for everyone in the class.

5.  Concert — I saw about half an hour of  Carey Ziegler’s Expensive Hobby then it started to rain.  Too bad because I really liked the beginning of the concert — Crosby, Stills and Nash and Chicago.
   

   The guy with the bubble maker added to the fun.

   For the second time I enjoyed Magical Mystery Girls — a female Beatles Tribute Band. Charlie and I saw The Natty Beaux — every musician was top notch — the best we’ve seen so far this summer.

6.  Paint a distressed shutter.
   

   Day 1 — scrape and clean.

   

   Day 2 — shutter and trim touched up.

7.  Take a day trip.  Charlie and I traveled once again to Delaware so we could tour Nemours Estate, another duPont property. (Winterthur, Longwood Gardens)
   

   View from a guest bedroom at Nemours Estate.

   My favorite thus far.

8.   Get rid of 10 more books.  Ten more books, mostly paperbacks, have been donated.
   

   10 more books donated! Photo bomb by Dash.

9. Pick a word to focus on for the month. My word: ADVENTURE.
10.  Write a goal list for August, 2023.

Jo