The Dog Days of Summer

Charles Schulz once said that happiness is a warm puppy. He wasn’t wrong.

This week was the popular observance of Lughnasadh, a harvest festival dedicated to the Celtic god Lugh. There are actually three dates associated with Lughnasadh depending on the calendar one uses; in 2023 those dates would be August 1 by the Gregorian calendar, August 7 by the astrological calendar (hey, that’s tomorrow!), and August 16 by the Coligny calendar.

You may remember that Lugh was also mentioned in our recent D&D campaign as my character, Garrett, ended up wielding the Spear of Lugh.

I was pleased when at least three different people sent me links to the song “Sonnenreigen” by the band medieval folk band Faust. The lyrics are in German, but there’s a YouTube video with a decent translation captioned. I’m linking to Spotify because that’s what I use most.

You let your ravens go

When the fields turn to gold

And the bright wheel

Revolves around Lughnasadh

“Sonnenreigen” Faun

I made waffles:

On Thursday, Belgian Malinois puppies came to visit us at work:

I did not hold any of the puppies. Working in an animal shelter for many years taught me that picking up small sleepy puppies for snuggles is perhaps not the best of ideas if one does not have an extra clean shirt on hand.

I wasn’t wrong . . .

This weekend I helped my SIL paint the trim in her dining room; in exchange I got this nifty leaf thing:

We’ve also had some storms move through and my back is feeling it. But I got up this morning and had some Raisin Bran and a cup of coffee with a stroopwaffel and a glass of water. I’m making sweet tea and a batch of brownies is about to go in the oven. Later on today there will be leftover pizza and chicken put in the crockpot.

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What have you been up to?