I'm Sorry, So Sorry

I have less than 20 minutes. It promises to be a busy day. I've got 75 pounds of cabbages to bag up and deliver. Then, there's a cheese run to Muscoda with the Amish family. I have no time to proofread or to download a photograph. If there were a picture it would be focused on my face with the Pooch standing on the console table in the kitchen, whiskers full of cat lint. I'd be singing Brenda Lee's hit song, I'm Sorry, So Sorry, Please Accept My Apology...

He's been gone since 6:30 am Thursday. In the 24 hours-a return to the novel, The Agony & Ecstasy. I've had unkind thoughts. Home for two days and then gone. I felt so used. I imagined we are some form of cat Bed and Breakfast. I went up to the neighbors and asked about the Pooch, figuring he was squirreled away in their hay mow. Almost everyone I speak to on Thursday hears a sad tale of woe about the cat's disappearance, again. After Dawn gets home from work, we travel the mile and a half to the Amish farm to look at puppies. We choose the runt of the litter, a feisty black and white female. In the evening I make plans for a dog run and a containment area between the house and garage. The pup has to be confined when I go about dangerous chores on the farm, like mowing.

At 5:00 am on Friday, I'm back whistling in the foggy dawn hoping the Pooch can hear me from the haymow. I cut cabbage, peel the outside layers and bring them back to the house for a quick rinse. After a breakfast of leftover ham and cheese omelet and potato salad, I grab my keys and head to the barn that is really just a shed. Unlocking the door, the Pooch pops out and does his mrrt noise. Oh Poochie. I'm sorry. So sorry.

After a dish of fresh chicken livers and a quick brushing, Dawn and I slather him with kisses and hugs. Dawn tells him he's in for a surprise.

I know I promised a note about the cookbook. Yesterday's post which never made it online is called the Ootensile Family. It did make it to the Amish farm where everyone had a good laugh. I'll bring it to you, soon.

Dallying With Servant Girls

Mornings have been cool, bordering on cold. Unusual for the end of July. Because of heavy early morning dew/fog, I have a few moments before beginning my day. Today's choices include dallying with the servant girls, riding with m'lady, canning dilly beans, running a temporary chicken wire fence around the sweet corn patch and more mowing.

Toward the end of today, I'll return to the library with Mark of the Cross. I grab two books while delivering a vegetable care package to my library angel. I always choose two in case of a dud. When Philip, the high born groom, covers Lady Beatrice's mouth with his lips and she melts into him I knew the signed, soft cover novel wasn't my style. There's a whole lot of blushing, teasing and impetuous horse racing by a woman who angers daddy with her rash actions. Oh please.

The Pooch spends most of Tuesday sleeping upside down, mouth hanging open on the back of the couch. When he comes outside, he looks furtively in all directions. He's on me like a burr if I work in the garden. In the garage repairing a Crow Magnum whose foot fell off, he jumps on the workbench watching me glue the foot back in place. For a brief moment at dusk, he meows to be allowed outside. It is some primordial instinct to roam at night. Overnight he curls up in between our legs.

The dallying with servant girls will last about 10 seconds as the only women I might dally with are up on the ridge on the Amish farm. Since Titus is six feet four and 250 pounds, I'll not be casting furtive looks at Marion or Wilma. I'm not scheduled to return there until Thursday when we make a few phone calls in advance of a cheese run. A nearby town has a gourmet cheese maker-a new trend. I've tasted hot pepper cheese made with habanero and red pepper. Rumors of garlic mushroom, tomato basil and other exotic cheeses at a phenomenally low price for cut ends grabs my attention.

My cabbage woes are solved when the Amish patriarch calls from the neighbor to order 10 cabbages for a customer. They've planted 50 cabbage for a Korean client. They planted late and the cabbages aren't ready. Eight cabbages I deliver to the neighbor include one whopper topping the scale at 7 pounds. Our cabbage patch was planted in the first week of April. The few remaining odd balls will go into fresh coleslaw or flat noodles and steamed cabbage.

Putting pieces of the puzzle back together, I recall letting the Pooch out early Sunday morning. Usually I wait until 7 when Dawn is in the shower getting ready for work. But on this Sunday morning, I want to snooze. He's pestering to be allowed outside at first light. I stumble downstairs before 6 am and show him the deck door. At this hour numerous nocturnal roamers are making their way to their bed and breakfast. I assume he has an encounter with a raccoon. The raccoon war is back. We are on high alert. I set the live trap, baited with Wal-Mart discounted chicken liver that went bad before the Pooch could eat it. In the morning the door of the trap is tripped but empty. The liver is intact.

The sweet corn is about a week away from first pick. I remove a burned out floodlight from the shed near the patch and remount the spotlights to illuminate the entire north and west side of the 40X40 space. I run an extension cord to the onion drying tent, connect the radio tuned to WPR and install a clamp light in the peak. In the front of the corn field where extra cabbages grew, I pull up landscape fabric and till the weedy area. Then I install all six solar lights in the front portion. Two large folk art crows-the Crow Magnums-I install at either end. Once the glue has dried on the foot of the third 3 foot tall crow, I place him(her?) in the middle. I'm hoping to strike terror in the heart of nighttime raiders. Both Dawn and I have seen a groundhog roaming the place in the daytime. I remember watching the Pooch trailing a groundhog as it lumbered toward the steel lawn shed and a burrow underneath. He kept a respectful distance from the woodchuck and eventually the chuck is live-trapped. My cement floor in the lawn shed/possible chicken coop is now safe from collapse from deep tunnels woodchucks love to dig under barns and sheds.

I've placed a lawn chair near the back door. My Elmer Fudd hat hangs in the entryway closet. A loaded rifle is at the inside door. As long as I get first taste of Kandy Corn, an extra sweet hybrid, I'll share a few ears with the critters of the night. Before my first taste, you don't want to be caught in the corn patch at night. Remember what happened to Peter Rabbit.*

* Beatrice Potter became wealthy from her children's books, buying up farms and donating the land to a rural preserve. At her death over 4000 acres of countryside were put in reserve forever.

Bean Water

Monday passes slowly. Old songs play in my boombox head. "There's a hole in my heart..." and "To love someone you must set them free..." The best remedy: dig red potatoes. The Pontiac reds have been ready for several weeks. Directly behind them another variety of red-La Rouge which the seed catalog claims to be the most prevalent red potato on your kitchen table-is overgrown with weeds. I consult the seed catalog. La Rouge are a mid-season. Ninety days after planting puts them in the middle of July. It's the end of July. I begin by pulling weeds which uncovers bright scarlet spuds. It's partly cloudy. When the sun's out, it's hard hot work. With a breeze and a cloud cover, it proceeds nicely. I break for lunch late afternoon. There are three cardboard egg boxes full of tubers. Close to a hundred-weight.

When Dawn gets home from the retirement home, dark clouds are threatening. She tells me the weather warnings are out. Severe thunderstorms, hails and possible high winds. Her first question: Still no Pooch? Glumly I reply, "No." We discuss a replacement for the cat. The Amish have puppies. In a visit in which I bring garlic for them, everyone's gathered around the table on the porch. The Patriarch refers to this area as his Amish air conditioner because of a frequent breeze blowing across the hilltop. The two youngest Amish children put puppies on the table. Most are combinations of black and white. They're Blue Heelers and a Border Collie mix. Prices are discussed and I offer to trade my Great Uncle's tackle box filled with pristine fishing gear for a puppy. The Patriarch chuckles. He likes to trade. I'd already traded two brightly colored lures in the original boxes with the price tags from 1966 still visible for a half gallon of milk. I let them get the better deal.

It's beginning to rain. Dawn and I decided to can three bean salad when she got home. The pole beans, a variety called rattlesnake beans because of blue striations on the skin, are ready. The first 10 foot row of wax beans is loaded with long, yellow beans. I don a blue and yellow slicker, my blaze orange vinyl hunting hat and walk to the bean patch. At first the rain is slight. Sweating under all that rubber and vinyl, I toss the hat on the grass. I'm watching the sky in the north. The cloud build up is very similar to the tornado clouds that ripped down the main street of Viola four years ago. Almost black at the top, charcoal gray closer to the ground and dark wisps of black trailing clouds have me worried. I pick faster. Sirens wail in Readstown. The puffy cumulus clouds appear to be passing underneath the wall of black in the north. I scrunch up my bifocals in a sneer to see which way the storm is blowing. It's coming right at us. With a plastic colander full of green beans, I trek back to the house. By now the rain is falling in drops as big as a quarter. Dawn is preparing the brine, chopping celery, opening cans of kidney beans and garbanzo beans. I think of the poor Pooch out in this mess when a particularly loud clap of thunder and lightning booms overhead.

We can eight pints of bean salad. After the deluge, the sun comes out before dusk and I take the step ladder and free clogs at the downspouts in case of heavy nighttime rain. We leave all the windows open because it's warm and humid in the house. The curtains and blinds in the bedroom are up and the windows open. Before we go upstairs both Dawn and I call the Pooch. She's calling him in a barely conversational tone. "Poochie are you out there. Time to come home now." I bellow at the back door, "C'mere Pooch. Here boy." No cat.

In a dream I walk out the back door. Pucci comes bounding across the back lawn like he always did, happy to see me. At five am I wake up. I have to pee. When I crawl back into bed, I think I hear his plaintive meow. "Probably a robin," I tell myself. Still, I haven't given up hope. I walk downstairs, open the deck door and whistle. Three times I manage a feeble tweet. On the fourth try it's a passable, shrill Tweeet. I stand there looking at the fog. The windows are covered in mist from the fog. The screens are loaded with raindrops. "Mrrrt." "Pooch? " More mrrrt. Oh Poochie, you've come back. I open the door for him. He greets me with several passes, rubbing his body on my legs. While he grabs a bite of dry cat food, I walk in the downstairs bathroom and grab a green bath towel. He's spikey wet with an oil slick down his back. I wrap him in the towel and carry him upstairs. Dawn is sound asleep. I make a mooching noise to wake her up. "He's back." Oh Poochie," she says.

The rest of the story is so smaltzy, you'd think I made it up. I brush his back fur to remove some of the oil slick. He looks at me, his mouth half open with that, "Oh, that feels really good," look. He jumps down, grabs some more food-he hasn't eaten since Saturday night and jumps back on my lap. I defrost some raw ground pork and he eats the whole dish. Then I go back to bed, thinking he'll lick and groom and nap in his favorite chair. Dozing off, I hear him calling us upstairs. Dawn says,"C'mere. Jump up." He jumps on the back of the bed and curls around her stomach with his paw draped over her leg. My arm is over Dawn's back. We're one happy family again.

Before I sit down at the computer, I lift the lid on a stainless steel pot next to the stove. "Mmm. Bean Water." My only description is that it smells like country goodness. I pick large dill heads and put them in a pink, miniature water bucket for the smell of dill in the kitchen. To keep the air circulating in the basement which remains a cool 67 dgrees, I have two window fans set to the slowest speed. The smell of fermenting cabbage wafts up the cement basement stairs. If Dawn were standing there she'd ask, "Who farted." Like the smell of manure, it's a cultivated goodness. The Pooch is sleeping in the cool basement on the laundry table. I walk past and mutter, "You little @#$%, you." I couldn't resist.

Later on we'll have a talk and he can tell me of his adventures with raccoons, possum, and as one lady at the library maintains-a mountain lion. She says pets are disappearing all over the county because of this big cat. "Oh boy," I tell myself, something more to worry about. Dawn makes a disparaging remark about her qualifications as a wildlife expert. Most afternoons you can find her at a computer in the back of the library. Her son sits adjacent to her and disapears when the school busses drops kids off in the afternoon. He has a weight problem and fears the cruel taunting from nasty urchins.

Next, the Amish cookbook. Stay tuned.

True Dawn

Thanks to the Pooch, I get to see dawn's first light this Monday morning.

Early Sunday morning, despite explicit instructions from me the night before about sleeping in, he meows at five am. Then he snoozes on the hallway carpet and occasionally moans, groans or grunts. At six thirty he soundlessly jumps on the bed and snuggles up to me. I sleep with one arm under my pillow. He uses the crook of my arm as his armrest. Then he slides one of his paws under my crooked arm and encircles my forearm with his other paw. This is his version of a cat hug. Then he licks my knuckle. The tactic works. It gets me up and he follows me downstairs. While I stop to use the bathroom, he snatches a quick bite of dry cat food and waits for me at the door. I let him out the deck door. I prop the outside storm door open with the slide on the plunger. I need a few more winks. If he wants to come in, the door will be open. The bugs are either sleeping or wet from dew and aren't a problem.

That was the last I saw of the furball. By mid morning I'm getting worried. I walk up to the neighbors to ask if they spotted the Pooch in their haymow. I tell Ron that for the past two weeks the Pooch has been punctual. Regular as a clock. He's missed his breakfast and is late for the morning nap on his favorite chair in Dawn's studio. Ron says he hasn't seen the cat. The rest of the afternoon I go about late July business in the garden. It's been almost a week and the lawn is getting shaggy. If it gets too long, I'll be making hay.

In the waning afternoon I turn my attention to cabbage and kimchi saurkraut. I pick five cabbages which have a total weight of 17 pounds. Turning to the Joy of Pickling, I convert the recipe for 6 3/4ths pounds of shredded cabbage to a double recipe and 13 1/2 pounds of shred.
Dawn's been making pickles. She calls me inside. I'm in the middle of a stupid project trying to clear off my work bench. The domino effect says I must move ten other things before I can move two table top compartment cabinets of screws, washers and nails off the surface of the bench. Dawn says the cookbooks call for a complicated series of steps before she can make sweet pickles. I scan the recipes and frown. " The Amish don't have ice, " I tell her. Make something else and I'll talk to them in the morning.

When the pickles are finally taken from the hot water bath, she joins me outside in the area between the house and garage where we begin the messy side of food prep. While I shred cabbage quarters, green peppers, jalapenos, seranos and garlic, Dawn dusts each of three- 4.5 pound batches with caning salt, shredded ginger and crushed red pepper. She mixes the ingredients and presses the mix into a five gallon bucket. We go about our business mindlessly keeping an eye out for the cat.

He's been gone before. A year ago, raccoons ran him off. He was gone for two days. On occasion, he wont' come in at dusk and spends the night under the deck. This is the price we pay for having an outdoor cat. He lives to hunt and roam the property. When he comes inside either to eat or for the night, he jumps in the window, afraid that he might miss something important outside. When he jumps on the couch to curl up on the back rest, he faces the window.

I get up at 11:30 pm after being awoken by the phone. Dawn's on call. If someone falls out of bed or stubs their toe, the staff at the retirement home will call her. The answering machine takes the call. I don't replay the message. I assume it wasn't important, because Dawn doesn't get up to answer the phone. I stand at the deck door and whistle for the Pooch.

In the morning, the hills to the east are shrouded in a medium dense haze. It isn't wet enough to classify it as fog, but it hides everything in the background. The highway is invisible. By 5:30 am a rosy glow appears over the hills. The solar lights in the garden pulse red, green and blue. The light at the peak of the garage is still lit. I stand at each cardinal direction in the house and look for a gray tabby. I whistle some more. It's a waiting game. I push thoughts of him hurt or lost out of my mind. I stifle childhood memories of animal trials and tribulations. The Pooch is my constant companion. Without him, this place is a huge, empty space.

I've foregone having pigs, chickens, and ducks. Been there, done that. Chickens can't carry on a conversation. I don't want to get attached to the pigs because they become chops and roasts too soon. I raised rabbits which was a lot of fun until four rabbits became a hundred and forty. When we first moved here, a beagle puppy wanders into the back yard. He's cute as a bug and friendly. I call him Scratchy because he scratches at the back door to be let inside. Taking him with me to the post office so he doesn't get into trouble in the garage, he falls asleep in my lap. We can't afford a doctor bill or extra food bills, so I give him to the neighbors across the river.


The Pooch changes everything. We spend hundreds of dollars on vet bills, Frontline, and special cat food because he's such a joy. Now he's gone.

I'm not happy. I don't know what to do to fill the void.

Sitting on My Keester

I'm sitting on the front porch at the Amish farm. This is my second visit of the day.

Earlier I'd stopped by to drop off two aluminum pie pans and an empty egg carton. I place the Wal-Mart bag on the pine bench and sit down. The patriarch is drawing up simple plans for a new set of cabinets he's building. His neighbor was summoned by the son who walked the quarter mile to their farm down the road. On her cell phone he's taking and making orders for Bing and Yellow sweet, cherries. I put in an order for "half a lug" of cherries. With the $12 I made on cabbages the Patriarch's wife sold for me, I turn it around on fruit. In the summer kitchen the wife is finishing up processing 96 chickens. I show her the canning lid in my pocket. "What's that," she says. "Got any extra," I ask? Another of the many daughters in and around the farm retrieves a dozen. I'm told to return later in the afternoon for my cherries.

It's sunny and humid in the valley. On the ridge top a soft breeze stirs the air. As I pull into the driveway, noting a sign and stick arrow for "night crawlers" and the signature leaning Shady Lane Cabinets sign which appears to be ready to topple into the brush next to the road, one of the daughters stands at the mailbox. I offer a ride. She accepts noting that the stones on the road are sometimes sharp. She's barefoot and I'm surprised. Not by the bare feet, but by the comment about the stones. "I thought you were used to the rocks, " I say. My imagination says their feet are as tough as treads on an automobile tire. Not so. She has a faint wood smoke smell and I remember I'd seen a cured ham placed in the smoker grill outside.

On the wooden bench at the back wall of the porch, cardboard flats of cherries are stacked five high. Buddy, the gimp dog is sprawled in the shade of the L-shaped extension of the porch. Five or six puppies squirm in laps and on the deck boards. The mother walks away when the puppies start to pester. One follows down the three steps to the ground, a precipitous journey for a nine pound puppy. The Patriarch is working on the same set of cabinet plans, commenting that this is a nice occupation on a hot day. He calls inside for a round of coffee. Another of the daughters places my half a lug on the table. The questions begin.

How do you pit cherries? Do you pit the cherries before canning? How do you can the fruit? I honestly, in all my years of gardening and home preserving, have never canned fruit. One of the daughters pulls a hairpin and pops out a pit. The Patriarch chides her for using the hairpin. "You gonna eat that now?" The conversation spins to a similar topic when another of the five kids on the porch places one of the puppies on the scale used to weigh fruit. There's a stainless steel cup on the scale. One puppy, weighing in at only six pounds, stays perfectly still, legs draped over the edge of the stainless steel bowl. "There's a good picture, " I say. The Patriarch says they'll weigh my cherries now that the dog has broken in the scale.

Rubber boots covered with chicken feathers next a post on the deck is another perfect Kodak moment. If it weren't so intrusive and obnoxious, I'd be a prize winning photographer with all these photo opportunities. Baby geese wander around the front lawn picking up bugs and snipping at grass shoots. One of the older daughters comes out with a slice of cheese and a glass of water. I'm suspicious because of the water. The cheese is a Colby/jack mix with red pepper flakes. It has a mild bite to it. Then, she returns with a slice of cooked ham on a fork. "If I stay long enough, I'll have eaten dinner," I say with a smart-Alec smile. People pull up with to pick up cherries and my car is blocked. I savor the opportunity to relax from food preservation. "I've got all my hay put up in the barn," says the Patriarch, a verbal nudge for me to get going on the kitchen remodel. I tell him about thirteen pounds of pickled cabbage, pickled beets, and now, a batch of ripe cherries to process. At night I wake up thinking about the cabbages in the garden ready to burst. I tell Dawn as we sit at the kitchen table reviewing the work to be done before supper that it's easier to throw out a young cabbage plant than to deal with 150 pounds of head cabbage.

I grab a gallon of vinegar which Dawn points out when I return isn't vinegar but acetic acid reduced to 5% acidity. I owe them money for the vinegar, but will return it because of Dawn's insistence on real vinegar.

If you have a chance go to newsweek.com . Look up columnist Sharon Begley. She's a science editor. A July 9 article, titled, "What's in a word?" Language may shape our thoughts covers some interesting concepts about gender nouns, the difference between English and Turkish usage:Turkish verbs indicate whether an action is observed or rumored and how the Aboriginal Kuuk Thaayorre use compass directions for every spatial clue rather than "left or right".

I may give up gardening and farming and raise hybrid verbs, nouns and adjectives. Perhaps then, I'll be able to adequately describe the scent of flowers wafting through the kitchen window, sandhill cranes flying overhead so low I can see their craw expand when they croak their flying song, the old cigar smell of the peat fire underneath the tree stump that's been smoldering for a week and a half and how you can feel a rainstorm approaching from the rise in humidity.

Skid Marks

Frank McCourt died.

Dawn asks if I listened to the news. "No, why?" "Frank McCourt died." I ask the cause of his death. "Melanoma," she says, and other things. He was 79. I was hoping for a sequel to Teacher Man, Tis and Angela's Ashes. Darn. Darn. Darn.

Pucci jumps on the kitchen table. There are a dozen, clean pint jars covered with a dish towel waiting for caps. His paw snags the dish towel causing a clatter of glass jars rattling on the table. He jumps, startled by the noise. The Pooch isn't a fraidy cat. I've noticed that as he spends more time outdoors, he's more alert. He pesters to go out this morning. From 5 am until we get up, he meows and jumps on the bed. At 7:45 he jumps on the deck railing in front of the kitchen window. The window is a new, thermo-pane. Nights have been cool. Dawn says 37 degrees near Cashton. I scoff. The window is closed. I can't hear his cry as he peers in the kitchen. His mouth opens as if he's saying "wow", peeks some more and then, more "wow". I open the deck door for him.

While Dawn is clattering upstairs getting ready for work, I slip on my sandals and walk to the potato patch. Yesterday I dug up 0ne white potato, grab a red onion from the drying tent, nip a cabbage growing on the corn patch, look for an Ace green pepper and pull a medium size beet with top. All are given a bath and bagged in Wal-Mart plastic recycled and carted off to the liberry. Helen Jane looks up from the counter as I walk in. She smiles,"You brought me a cabbage." On Friday, desperate for something to read I borrow a Billie Letts sequel and promise cabbage on Monday. She's 80ish, but lately is looking her age. If I were a writer I'd say she looks drawn. She hands me a copy of Coop by Michael Perry. She's my library angel. I couldn't live here without her. There's a story about her life waiting for a good writer.

At the front of the potato patch, I remember feeling a bunch of nubs in the soil. I don't disturb the nubs because the tops of the Kennebec's are still green and healthy. I dose them for an hour with a revolving sprinkler set sideways on a ladder that sprays fine drops in the air over the potatoes. This front portion is bone dry. Carefully I stab with a trowel and remove two fine, white specimens and wash them under cold water. While a cast iron pot heats up, I slice the clean spuds with my red Kitchen Aide julienne slicer into hash browns. Next to the stove, I previously placed a pint container of pure, rendered lard from the Amish.

I'm weary of the Pomace oil I cook everything and anything. I spoon a healthy dollop of lard into the iron fry pan, grind some fresh pepper over the potatoes, sprinkle some Kosher salt and drop them in the pan. Sizzle...

Over the weekend we host the eldest daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. Saturday is non-stop food prep. Pickled beets, sauerkraut, sugar snap peas, potatoes, chickens from the Amish and more. Sunday morning is reserved for sausage. Everyone is off kilter. E.D.(eldest daughter) isn't used to the extra firm mattress in the east bedroom. Granddaughter is up early. The cat looks for shelter from a three, going on four "dynamo." Our normal Amish bedtime becomes a late night with Netflix. By Sunday morning, I've gone from Busch NA beer to drinking New Glarus specialty beers as we slide ground pork and spices into fresh casings. The beer accompanies the required tasting session of our new batch of wurst. After they leave with their car crammed full of country goodness, I ride the mower the rest of the afternoon. It's too quiet.

Two days later, I'm hoping the rain comes before I finish this epistle. The Oxford concise dictionary is open to conundrum. "Riddle involving a pun." As I work the crops, getting them ready for the canner or freezer, I'm thinking of written topics. I work twice.. First there's the harvest and associated finagling and then I work again-writing of my work. Get my drift?

Hunky and Dory

Some form of record, I suppose.

Ella, if you're reading this on your lunch break over at the prison farm, you've done this 130 times. Blame it on Del. He's the culprit for suggesting I create a blog. I can't help but smile at Del's wry comment in a recent phone call. At the stock car races a few weeks back, he didn't crash, bump or sideswipe another car. Del is blind( sight impaired). He drives stock cars, skis and cuts wood with a chain saw. The wry comment is directed toward Jenna who crashed the family car. After Ella told me that Jenna got new contact lenses, I understood the basis for running two curbs and setting off the air bags on the Toyota.

I'm at the doctor's office for an $82 re-check of blood pressure. That's what it costs me to take the elevator to the fourth floor of the clinic, wait for twenty minutes in the outer office. Wait another fifteen minutes for the doctor. He asks me ,"How's things?" " Hunky dory, " I reply. I thought about telling him "swell" and wonder what century he thinks I came from. Actually, I consider, "I'm good," and "I'm well." I still don't know the correct grammatical form. Hunky dory works for me. OK, describing myself as "hunky" is pushing it but what about the "dory" part. Isn't a dory a small watercraft? Word play.

Dawn's sister-the sisty ugler-makes a disparaging comment about a cherished Christmas present from Dawn. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology is a tool I use as often as my weeding hoe. If you're squeamish about insects you may want to skip this part. "Insect fear" is a reality for lots of folks. An M-Team (multi-disciplinary) meeting when I was a teacher gets postponed when the woman presiding spots a spider in the room. Earwicga from the Old English ear + wiggle is the derivative of a bug I spot on the paper towel dispenser in the kitchen. I know, I know. I promised not to write about bugs the other day.

I'm not afraid of earwigs, yet I despise the little buggers. I pick up the sprinkler on a wooden ladder used to water the corn and the things drop from the hidden crevices of the yellow, round pulser. In the summer kitchen they hide under appliances. On the paper towels? This is war. In the cartoon version of life here at Blackbird Farm, Uncle Bob shoots earwigs with a shotgun.
The newly remodeled cabinets are peppered full of holes. I need to move on.

The eldest daughter is arriving this evening from the city. The drive is three and a half hours. To complicate matters, the granddaughter gets carsick. Traveling becomes a challenge. Thirty seven, no, I'm wrong-thirty nine years ago-we traveled the country with our first born. Yikes. She's almost forty. Nynah, Nynah ( image of me sticking my tongue out at my "honey girl" ) if she's reading this. I told 'ya we'd get to this point:You are getting old, but I'm still 21 (in my mind). Am I addled? Probably due to the wacky tabacky we smoked, camping when you fit on my lap at the state park in Minnesota.

Wow! We traveled the country in our Volkswagen van. Removing the middle seat and substituting a playpen, you were a perfect traveling companion. In Illinois we camped at a rock- fest and a thunderstorm blows our tent down. My wife and I and two friends stand in the corners to keep you dry. You don't remember, but there was the infamous Arkansas trip culminating in a dog bite. Thirty nine years later and I still cringe. Trips to western Wisconsin, Lake Mary campground, Cranberry Bog Lake( I forget the name) and never a bit of car sickness. In many ways our life then was easier. I substitute the worry.

The Pooch and I take a late evening walk. The evening movie is repetitive. I can usually con the cat into coming inside before dark with the promise of a walk and a tasty treat. On the last leg of the walk, we're at the tree stump in the front field. A rabbit is grazing at the edge of the field. "Psst,Pucci. There's a varmint in your field." He turns in the opposite direction. "No, dum dum. Turn the other way!" He picks up the excitement in my voice and dashes toward the fence line. The rabbit disappears into the high grass. As we near the spot the rabbit disappeared, I point to the hole. The Pooch inspects the site, sniffs the ground and disappears into the brambles. What have I done? At this area of the front field we are ten yards below the highway and about twenty yards of six foot high marsh grass separates us from an eight foot high culvert under the bridge at the highway. Now who's dumb?

I walk away. "C'mere Pooch. Here, boy." No Pooch. You must remember that this cat has a sense of humor. I'm cutting onion tops under the tent. I walk to the new compost pile with a tub of tops. At the east entrance to the drying shelter, I install a blue tarp to protect the onions from blow-by rainfall. At the bottom of the tarp, I clamp an eight foot section of PVC pipe to weight it down in high winds. The Pooch waits until I walk by, darts out and swipes at my leg with a paw. He takes off. It's his version of gotcha. I guffaw. He plays the same game at the site of a tarp covered wood pile behind the lawn shed. There's a hole in the tarp at the ground level. I know he's hiding on the bare ground under the stacked oak planks. I get about ten yards away and he bursts out from the wood pile shelter, through the hole in the tarp which is only big enough for a cat or squirrel. I guffaw. What a cat.

Now I'm worried. I'm on the hill near the butternut squash garden. No Pooch. If he follows the rabbit through the maze of weeds, he could be disoriented and end up on the highway. I watch a red tandem wheel pick-up coming down the highway. At this point of highway 131, cars and trucks pick up speed. It's a long straight stretch after an easy coast down Freymiller's Hill. On the opposite side of the bridge is the memorial to the high school girl killed at the bridge.

You can hear the cat snickering in the weeds. A head pops out from raspberry canes. The raccoon tail flips up and he trots toward me. "Come on, " I tell him. "Do you want a treat?