So Many Peas, So Little Time

Time is running out on summer here at Uncannery Row. It’s already dark when I get up in the morning, and it’s been cool enough at night to close a few windows. Weird. And it’s the middle of August, but the tomatoes and wild plums STILL aren’t ripe, corn-fused by the frequent rain and lack of heat. That means eventually juggling four classes at Little Town U and marathon canning of salsa and jam. Yikes & yum.

Although classes won’t start for another week, the workshops and meetings are already underway. I’ve been keeping my anxiety in check with copious carbs and frantic knitting. My newest knitting binge is a series of hoods—so you know what you’ll be getting for Christmas—called “Lyra Hoods,” named after the hood worn by the main character, Lyra, in The Golden Compass. Our Australian Shepherd Jada reluctantly models an unfinished hood in the picture. The hoods knit up fast and allow me to use up my chunky yarn stash, especially the bumpy wools I’ve spun up over the last couple of years. I still have at least two huge Rubbermaid tubs of wool and silk to spin up...I wonder how my brothers will look in Lyra hoods?

In an interesting development at the Row, all four peahen mothers still have all their babies. That’s 14 peachicks darting around the yard—the Chicklettes, the Raylettes, the Popcorn Triplets, and the Quints. Little Edgar (Winter) is the only white chick of the bunch. Usually by this time, we’ve lost a few chicks to predators, but either these well-fed peas—27 in all now—have better defenses this year, or the sheer numbers wilt the confidence of even the hungriest raccoons & redtail hawks.

Yogi, our Schnoodle, discovered two kittens in the barn recently. We knew we had an all-white mama cat and an all-black tom spooking around, and now we’ve got one each white kitty and black. I’ve also spotted—twice now—a wild turkey hen and three chicks out by the meditation tower. I figure word’s getting around the neighborhood about our corn and catfood bird buffet. Gossipy peacocks!

The flower gardens have had to fend for themselves this year, so they’re tangled beds of blanket flowers, lavender, baptisia, bachelor buttons and lilies, struggling up through lambsquarters and bindweed. Ray and I did manage to wrap the windmill tower partway up with chicken wire, and we planted a dozen trumpet vines in three colors along the fence. So next year, we hope to have one gigantic hummingbird feeder out in the yard.

I really should be hard at work on syllabi, schedules and lesson plans for Comp, Lit, Honor’s English and College Reading, but the mower, a ball of brown tweed wool, and a box of Triscuits are calling my name…