I just enjoyed a few days off. Nothing grand, just working on some little projects at home. This old house sits rather precariously on a crossroad corner, and with all the windows here -- twenty-four despite the diminutive structure -- life goes by and you just can't miss it.
Today was quiet because of the torrential rain. But yesterday, tractors, old Fords and Farmalls, started chugging by before 8 a.m., with their mowers, rakes and balers, undoubtedly on a mission to finish up the haying before the weather today. And, by sunset, back they came, hauling flatbed trailers piled high with fragrant bales.
Periodically, teenage boys with fast and furious ideas, roar up the hill on the north side of the house, stop at the intersection, and then lay on the gas and scream around the corner. A band of motorcyclists roar by. Then, the quiet of the country again.
The deer traverse the stone wall on the west property line; you can barely see them among the trees and dense brush. We had to finally put up a hot wire around the vegetable garden after they ate the beets, or perhaps more accurately, sampled them, along with a nibble of a tomato plant or two. The corn wouldn't have lasted long, I am quite sure. I'm grateful that they seem to be too timid to get near the house and eat the hosta plants.
The garden has produced beautifully this year. I have canned zucchini relish, bread and butter pickle, and dill spears. I have made just about every zucchini and summer squash recipe out there, and then finally blanched and froze the rest...and it's still coming in. Had a delicious eggplant parmesan last night, and the here come the tomatoes, finally.
And today I noticed some of the sugar maples starting to change. My mother remarked on the phone this evening that the eel grass at their place on the river was going to seed. My father always brings a small bouquet of the grass to the family plot; his mother always wistfully observed this natural sign of the change of the season, heralding the end of summer.
