Saturday, August 16, 2008

Summer Swan Song

Summer’s winding down. Wanda and Debbie’s chicks are getting big (Mitzi’s, hatched later than usual, are still dangerously small for this late in the season), Snowball’s been out in the pasture teaching kitten Snowflake to hunt baby rabbits, Yogi’s 3 months old now and a very naughty toddler, Jada’s busy herding her delinquent canine brother, and the hollyhocks are withering.

Speaking of withering, I worked all week at a workshop to assess freshman writing, and I can tell you, the English language is down on the ground, battered & bleeding, calling out for Mama. Big Brother had better quash this texting and emailing debacle, or soon we’ll all be reduced to grunts and clicks.

Speaking of guttural language, I was out mowing one morning on the rider, when a passel of peacocks fell in formation behind, feasting on cut grass and displaced bugs. Peahens teach their young what to eat (grass, flowers, grains, and occasional insects) by picking at something delicious while making a hollow clicking sound deep in their throats that sounds like hitting a wood block with a rubber mallet. So there I was, twisted Pied Piper, with Ike & Tina, Junior, Ramon, Wanda, Mitzi, Debbie and all seven chicks stringing along. When the engine killed in wet grass by the windmill, the click click clicking hens sounded like a Latin percussion section.

Speaking of hot percussion, I went out last night to hear Ray’s band (he’s the drummer and STILL won’t oil up & wear a torn black muscle shirt when he plays, in spite of my incessant begging), and to dance off some thigh poundage. Vermillion has an odd and wonderful cast of characters, and the oddest among us (myself and practically everyone I know included) come crawling out of the crevices when the band plays. It’s a musical tribal gathering of friends, relatives, enemies, secret lovers, exes, and a small contingent of folks who are mentally floating away from the rest of us, though we try to hold on. Millie had a prefunct (a function before a function) with wine/whine & cheese, then we headed downtown to the bar. Mom showed up, Millie danced in spite of her soon-to-be-replaced knee, Janine said she was only staying an hour then danced all night long, the Wild Girls put the Shindig dancers to shame, and Glenda and I got to sit in and be band chicks on a few songs. And although I adore these occasions, my recovery time from a late night out is getting longer and longer and longer…

Speaking of wild things, our first garden here, which went unplanted last year and was quickly overrun with sunflowers, is lush. We’ve picked asparagus, tomatoes, cukes, dill, four kinds of peppers, fennel, and basil. I’m making kosher dills today (what’s that slice of rye bread in the jar for??), and sometime this week I’ll freeze as much pesto—food of the garden gods—as I can manage. Tomatoes were once called “love apples”; they were also once believed to be poisonous. Anyone who’s had trouble ending a bad relationship can readily see how the two might be connected.


Speaking of endings, we’re back to the melancholy of summer’s farewell. I didn’t get to a number of things on my summer to-do list, like mulching trails out to the meditation tower, rigging up rain barrels, or finding the actual yellow brick road (more a path, really) that someone who knows the house swears is overgrown but still out in the woods on the north side of the property. If the cicadas are telling the truth, a hard freeze is due mid-September. If they’re lying, I’ll try to get to some of these projects before winter—I figure we could all use a little more yellow brick road.

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