These July Days

It's been a busy time, and I haven't been posting recently because of:

1.  The Garden.  Every year in midsummer I alternately rejoice and despair.  How can just nine raised beds, 4'x4' each, produce such quantities of organic, practically free, and therefore sacred food?   In the spring, as I push in the seeds or set out the baby plants, I never  anticipate the summer explosion.  And even if I did, I wouldn't want all that chicken-enriched compost, laboriously hauled out by me in the fall and dug in in the spring, to go to waste.

So now I have to deal with the result of my spring enthusiasm.  The kale and chard are the most spectacular, with leaves as big as palm fronds.  The tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are ripening nicely.  The zucchini took a three-day break after its initial output and now is back with a vengeance.  The broccoli is still going strong.  And the three beds of beans, which I planted with my granddaughter V's assistance, are setting fruit.  The more you pick, the more you reap is the paradoxical law of gardens.  And it's true:  I pick and pick and cannot even make a dent in the horn of plenty that is my potager.  And so I wonder, how can there be hunger in this world?  Where is the missing link between earth and table?  Is it time, focus, water, knowledge?  I am grateful for the local food bank which absorbs my plenty, but I wish I could do more.

2.  The Book.  I have, as you may remember, been working on a memoir of my decades with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).  Having finished what is known in the trade as the shitty first draft, I am now struggling with the (to me) equally shitty second draft.  It's a hard balancing act, staying true to the experience of the illness while keeping the reader and myself away from utter despair.  I'm bringing my dogs into the story to help with this, just as they helped me get through the long years.  I'm thinking of adding illustrations, the kind of drawings I did in the early stages of this blog, but wonder if I have the stamina.

3.  The CFS.  This is the big one.  For many years, July has been a difficult month for me.  Even before I was diagnosed, I would always go to a doctor in July, complaining that things weren't right.  The doctors never found anything, which, as we now know, is typical of CFS presentations.  But what is it about July that gets me every time--the solstice, the heat, the tiny shift towards darkness, the alignment of the planets, the blooming of the goldenrod?  Regardless, I find myself careening between pretty good and goddam awful days, missing events I don't want to miss, holding back from projects I'm dying to take on.  It's a shaky thing, life with CFS, never knowing what tomorrow will be like. 

But then, life itself is shaky, and we never really can be sure about tomorrow, so what I'm dealing with is basically the human condition, only more so.

Twilight With Frogs

These long, sunny evenings I sit by the pond with a book and a glass of wine, watching the frogs. 

Ours have got to be the most blissed-out, trusting amphibians on the planet.  Bisou, whose obsession with them continues unabated, will come streaking out the back door looking for them.  If she's lucky, one will be sunning itself on the slate slabs, and she runs over and nudges it with her nose.  The frog then gives one or two desultory hops, Bisou gives it another nudge, the frog hops again, and so on until it reaches the edge of the pond and dives in.

Bisou then runs around the perimeter of the pond, looking for frogs that are clinging to the pond's edge or to a close-by lilypad.  She leans way over, her ears waving like algae in the scummy water, until she can touch noses with a frog (sometimes she falls in).  Eventually she wearies of this game and goes off to graze.  (What, doesn't your dog gorge on grass?)

One or two frogs will then do their amazing frog kick to the side of the pond and heave themselves out of the water, looking like members of a swimming team at the end of practice.  Periodically, one of them lets out a croak that sounds like a rubber band snapping against a drum head.  In the low rays of the setting sun, the frogs shine like jewels, green enamel from the waist up, burnished copper from the waist down.  If I get close enough I can look right into their golden eyes.

In the forest of mint behind me a toad is singing its not-quite-birdsong.  I have never seen this toad, but I know it's there.  I made a house for it by leaning a piece of slate against the low board that borders the garden, and it's repaying me by keeping the area mosquito-free (though I have the frogs to thank for this too).

The sun has finally gone, leaving a red streak in the western horizon.  It's too dark to read, and getting chilly.  I pick up my book, call Bisou, and head indoors.  In the darkness behind me, plop! another swimmer dives in.

Five Memories Of My Father

1. The feel of his mustache on my neck.

2. His gray hat and his winter coat, which made his head and shoulders look gigantic.

3. Sitting on his lap and being accidentally burned by ashes from his omnipresent cigarette (he would apologize profusely).

4. In the summer, sitting on a little seat on the back of his bicycle and going for a ride on country roads.

5. Being allowed to make one pizzicato on his violin.

Happy solstice to all!

These Long, Long Days

The last days before the solstice, time stretches like taffy. At almost 9 p.m., it's still light, which means that I feel as though I have all the time in the world. Which is good, since there is a lot to do.

I came home tired and starving from a meeting at 6, having spent the morning euthanizing the last of the spinach and planting the nightshade trio (tomatoes, eggplant and peppers). I figured I would be no use to man or beast until I'd had some of Virginia Slim's cheese and a glass of wine and a little reading time. But Virginia Slim spotted me eating the product of her, um, loins, and reminded me loudly that it was time for the evening milking.

So I milked her. And the air was so cool and the grass so bright that I had to let the herd out for a little evening browse. Wolfie hadn't been out in a couple of days, due to heavy rains, so I thought I'd better let him out too, on leash, lest he freak out the goats.

Blossom, Alsiki and Virginia Slim sauntered into the yard and nibbled on a few sticker bushes, and the tips of some sumac, and a few blades of grass. They refused to go into the field—I think it scares them because the grass is so much taller than they are. Instead they dove into their evening follies, which consist of leaping up on top of the picnic table, leaping off, and taking off like bats out of hell for the edge of the woods, whereupon I call “girls, girls, girls!” and they come racing back, throw themselves up onto the table, leap off, and start the whole thing over again.

By the time I put the goats to bed it was after eight, but poor Wolfie had been on sits and downs while the goats cavorted, so I thought I should throw some balls for him so he could let off steam. And Lexi, despite her limp, might enjoy a saunter in the evening air.

There was dinner to think about, of course, but the light was so beautiful that I kept on throwing balls for Wolfie while Lexi limped around the yard vacuuming up goat poop.

It was almost nine when I served my uncomplaining husband some leftover quiche. But who needs to eat on a night like this? There will be time enough for slow-simmered stews and careful sauces when night comes at five and there's a blizzard outside and a fire in the wood stove.

June in these latitudes is not a season for storing up food energy, but a time for storing up and getting drunk on light.