Balconies and Rooftops

It's raining.  My downspout extensions are sluicing water away from the foundation at a steady pace.  Part of the time, the downpour is wind driven at a 60 degree angle filling the gray nylon window screens with water, obscuring the view.

Mandy, at first, refuses to go out.  When I walk out to the front of the garage, she follows, does her business and hurries back to the breezeway enclosure.  ToughCat, surveys the scene from a window perch I made for him next to the back door.  He's out of the rain and can monitor bird activity. Then he slinks along the foundation of the house where the overhang creates a dry walkway.  He knows the area under the arbor vitae planted at the northeast corner of the house provides shelter and prime viewing.  I call him in for breakfast and he dashes through the steady rain on the deck and in the house.

Winding around my legs, I dry him off with a small towel.  Rules of the Salvatore Pucci Cat Code say outwardly one must not appear to enjoy being toweled off. The remainder of his damp fur, he dries on my legs.  Next he jumps to the island counter and puts his paws on my shoulder.  It's all a ruse-a morning show for one raw chicken liver. I fall for it every time, especially when he puts his head close to my face and pushes his nose into my beard.  A cat kiss. Mmmpf.

I expected the weather.  Yesterday, I repeated Sunday's compost extravaganza .Standing on the pile, I tell my neighbor,

"I paid good money for today's weather. You'd better enjoy it."

In the corral two horses are mating.  I've never been that close to mating horses. Oh my.  Julie is slow walking the cornfield looking for arrowheads.  My dog is digging for moles in the compost pile. Mother and foal are nuzzling.  Purple Martins are walking a straight line in the back yard picking up litter.The wind is soft and slow.

Never satisfied, I mumble feast and famine.  All day long I suffer through lingering 80's bubble gum music in this brain.Why can't my demented musical mind remember an aria or some really good jazz, Heck I'd settle for gospel music instead of Yummy yummy, I got love in my tummy.I have the same trouble writing and cliches. Durn weather.  Here we go again.  Two days of sun and nine inches of rain.

The solution. Read the NY Times online.  I catch a glimpse of a title in the real estate section.  " Back Forty In The City." Here's the link.NY Times . I feel better. In NYC balconies are 6X10 feet.  For the unfortunate, white lawn furniture left on a balcony will be covered in oily dirt and grime.  For the fortunate few, a rooftop garden complete with raised bed lawn and one of those fancy non motorized reel mowers.

The local high school principal bought the corn field behind us and two hundred acres of questionable tillable land.  I say questionable, because the field at the end of our road is under water forty per cent of the time.  The same goes for another field behind the fifteen to twenty sloping acres (pictured above) located closer to the Twisted River.Some years tenant farmers don't bother to plow or raise a crop.  Eyebrows raise when the price of the sale is quoted $1750 per acre.

All the money he forked over at auction wouldn't qualify as down payment on a rooftop garden apartment in NYC.

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