No Picture, No Pork

In the days I self published little 10 page tomes, I'd send them off at anywhere between 55 cents and a dollar in postage to friends. One couple who lives on the outskirts of our former city would respond with a comment, "Oh the pictures were really neat." I referred to them once as The Living Dead and grew to regret the comment. One had to admire their sense and stability. Once visiting them, a drunken neighbor's wife burst into their apartment in the central city walked through their living room uttering, "boring, boring, boring." The scars of that association run deep.

When we pass by the road to their fancy suburban, architecturally unique, hilltop home Dawn and I wave. The old man retired at 55 from a teaching position. His middle school art classes must have been unusually loud because he wears a hearing aid. The health insurance after 25 years in teaching game was good enough to pay for a sub-miniature model completely hidden in his left ear. You'd never know that he wears one, except when driving with the couple. Then, the wife in the front seat as a back seat driver, points dramatically with her index finger in front of the dashboard to the direction he is supposed to follow.

Even now, I feel like no one will read this drivel if I don't include a picture. The time it takes to down load a medium format picture is quite long because of my miserly refusal to have have high speed Internet. In the fifteen minutes it takes for the download, I lose my train of thought and think of one thousand different tasks I should be doing. I plan carefully for the lag time by brushing my teeth, feeding the cat, washing dishes or taking a dump. So today's picture treat will come at the end of the travelogue. Because of the blogger format it initially is placed at the beginning of the blog. That's fine with me.

The morning whizzes by. When I come in for a ten minute break, it's already lunch. I've transplanted cabbages and completed the varmint protection procedures, except for baiting the live trap. In the afternoon, I plant Kandy Corn, the name for the extra sweet hybrid of sweet corn. Twelve rows running east to west, approximately 30 feet long takes me three sweaty hours. The denim jacket I'd worn earlier is too warm, even though there is no sun and the temperature is in the mid-sixties. I plant two seeds per 4-6 inch spaceing following the helpful hints on the package. If they both propagate, one plant will support the other in our strong, devil winds. Until dinner, I putter as the day's blog title suggests. Approaching dusk I call the Pooch. "Wanna go for a walk?" I ask. His raccoon tail is up and he's ready for adventure. I don't tell him it's a con to get him inside. The hills around us are shrouded in that ethereal, yellow light and mist. It's going to let loose any minute. We circle the property, say "hi" to the horses and are in the home stretch when big drops start falling. "Come on Pooch let's run." I dash for the back entrance. He runs for shelter under the deck. His paws send clumps of mud flying as he skids around the arbor vitae and ducks for cover. I open to deck door calling him. He knows he'll be drenched if he tries to come inside. The highest gutter on the second story is clogged. Rainwater cascades over the edge, splashes off the roof of the addition and floods the sidewalk. When the deluge turns to mist, the Pooch strolls inside.

Today is Chicken Day. The Amish will be butchering chickens ordered two months ago. They'll have thirty to forty ready by the time I finish breakfast. Ten are for us and the rest go to a long list of customers. I'll need to clean and prepare the summer kitchen for cutting and freezing. There are remnants plant trays, potting soil, fertilizer and mud clots on the floor from the hot frame in the south window. Overflow from the kitchen remodel needs to be organized on the old counter and cabinets I moved to this back of the garage enclave. I walk to the garden twice. Once to check the live trap( no varmint) and once to check cabbage transplants. The cabbages are wilting slightly. I look at puffy billowing cumulus clouds in the east and wish for more cloud cover, but please, no more deluge. The poor sots are wrenched from their happy home where they raise their leaves every morning to the sun, thrown into another hole with half their roots, almost drowned in water and then baked by the sun. I worry about them. I boot up the computer and the National Weather site for Lacrosse.

I look at a forecast for a 50% chance of rain Friday and-no it can't be- a low temperature of 35 degrees on Saturday night. More dumpster diving for plastic milk jugs. When I scan a back-to- nature magazine Dawn brings home, you know the ones that tell you how to make a root cellar, raise goats for fun and profit and how to live off 25 cents a day, the weather forecaster says possible frost after May 12Th from low fronts that drift across the Mississippi River. I scoff. Scoffing is only part of what I do. I wonder why I do this.

Addendum:If I ever wondered whether there was/is a God, I'm sure my faith is secure now. I click on the "add image" icon in the menu bar above the post. Nothing. Nada. Click again. Nothing. I have approximately 30 minutes to clean the summer kitchen. Fifteen of those thirty would be wasted waiting for the download. This is way to weird for me. I'll hit "publish post" and be on my way.

Putter

It rained overnight. Early this morning, it's lightly misting. I leave the deck door slightly ajar so the Pooch can come in and out at will. I fix my breakfast and offer Pucci bacon ends and $1.00 a can wet cat food. He's scattered his dry cat food over the kitchen floor. He decides to eat last night's leftover, something too gross for me to describe in my pre-lunch mode. I'm scheduling a morning in which I can putter.

I step out on the deck before I go upstairs to change into work clothing. The sky is totally overcast but the mist has subsided. It's delightfully cool. Pairs of geese fly overhead honking. An anonymous bird is singing a song that translates to you're a pervert ( I swear that's what it sounded like) or a bird version of tweet, tweet, tweet. Mother Earth is fully in bloom. My brain functions around an ongoing garden plan. It's the part right next to what's there to eat? and I'm horny. The past few warm, sunny days has everyone in the area working the fields. Yesterday, I planted the remaining crops except corn and carrots. I'll wait until more farmers in the area are planting field corn. The conditions are perfect for sowing tiny carrot seeds in moist warm soil. I'd also reminded myself that transplanting cabbages is ideal in rainy cool weather.

It's cool enough for a denim jacket. I grab a hoe, garden rake and seeds and walk to the far end of the front field. There's space next to the wax beans. Overnight something has dug around the wood stake marking the end of the bean row. Seeds are scattered about. Varmint alert, priority one. I jump in the pick up and drive to the neighbors to get my live trap. Then I open the barn and get all the folk art crows and other strange animals I've created over the winters, place them in the truck bed and scatter crow magnums ( 36" high crows) uncommon crows(normal size birds), Heckle and Jeckle type crows and the live trap next to the spot where I originally discovered the damage.

With the garden protected my last task is to aim the spot lights on the barn toward the garden. Then I remember, I'd left the deck door open. I imagine a raccoon at the cat's dry food dish and walk back to the house. The Pooch is happily munching on a field mouse.

I guess field mice have better flavor than the $1.00 a can cat food. I go back to the garden knowing that it could pour at any moment which is good for the baby cabbages I'm digging up and ripping apart. When I have set twenty five new pine stakes next to each plant to thwart the moles that tunnel under my garden, I wonder if I should water the new transplants or wait until it rains. If I wait, it won't rain. I haul four watering cans out to the vegetable plots and carefully make a pool around each transplant. If I carefully pack soil around the new plants, there will still be air pockets. The water helps to settle the plants and ease the shock they experience. A few fall over from fright. The Pooch walks down the lane toward the river, glancing back at me standing and counting cabbage plants. It's as if he's asking, "Is it OK Dad? Can I go down to the river? Please." Before lunch I take a few shots of trees blooming. Here's one of my favorites.

I stop counting cabbages at 50. In the basement is a whole metal shelf of sauerkraut from 2006. What am I going to do with all this cabbage. I decide to make sausage and sauerkraut for lunch.

Lunch Break

Looking out the kitchen window after lunch, I'm thinking of taking a quick break before returning to the Monday Rural Olympic tryouts. I've cut 3.2 seconds off my time running from the washer in the basement to the clothesline outside. Early this morning I practiced my garden flat hustle. That's taking all the plants I covered or put in the garage in anticipation of low nighttime temperatures. Pulling milk jugs off pepper plants and covers off the tomatoes is a two step exercise. Step in the mud and lift cover off plant. Then there's balancing flats of plants from the garage to a table in the sun. I score a 9.9 on technique for hauling plants in wet cardboard trays that have turned to rubber. In between washing clothes, I set plants and sow seeds in the herb gardens (5). Most of the time the Pooch is content to watch the activity from a safe distance-either in the sand pile or next to the rock pile surrounding the silver maples. I erect barriers around young plants when the Pooch steps on one of my sage plants. I string white nylon cord over seed rows as a warning. The Pooch crawls under one white string to get at catnip growing wild at the end of a row. I flick him with my thumb and forefinger, yelling, " Get out of my garden you bum." He gives me his the whatdidIdo look.

Hanging wash, he strolls over meowing. It's the, I'm hungry meow. I let him in while I finish hanging blue jeans and T-shirts. When I come in he's already on his back on a chair in the studio with his legs up in the air. He hears me walk over to check on him and wags one paw, yawns and closes his eyes. I feel the Pooch bump into me as I watch a red pickup truck with yellow flashers and two red flags on the bumper pass by on the highway. I guess that was a short nap, I think to myself when the second part of the procession drives by on the highway. I assumed someone is moving a house. I'm partially correct. It's an old mobile home. I'm about ready to go back outside. I give the cat a few treats. I look up and see a hummingbird hovering near the window of the rear entry of the house. The kitchen and rear entryway form a protective cove. There's a white wire with a hook hanging from the previous year. The hummingbird approaches the window. He appears to be peeking in the window at the bite size crows and hummingbird nest of horsehair I find on the lawn while mowing. "Pooch, they're back," I exclaim. In the back hall closet are three washed and clean hummingbird feeders. I grab the largest which holds a quart of nectar. I mix sugar and warm water(forget the red food dye-they don't care) and shake the quart ball jar vigorously. I've gotten good at pouring from a ball jar into the narrow neck of the feeder. I forget that the hook is almost out of my reach and spill sticky water trying to hang the plastic and glass jar. Finally, after getting a five gallon plastic pail to stand on, I've got the first of three feeders up and ready for the gang. I learned that multiple feeders keep the insect size birds from fighting over territorial feeding rights. Wow, summer is almost here. I can plant my corn soon.

Dialing for Doughnuts

They're as big as the balloon tires on one of those monster trucks that jump twelve auto wrecks lined up in a row. Light and airy I wonder how they could be fried and reach this size. Dawn asks,"How does she make that glaze?". They cost fifty cents each. I buy a half dozen.

The prospect of early morning temperatures on Sunday in the 30's has me scrambling for covers for the tomatoes and, duh, Jalapeno peppers I planted in a moment of garden senility. I rationalize. Oh, so what if they don't make it. I'm out $1.89. That's less than I spend for a Cajun turkey sandwich at the Cheese Corner in Verruca.

I reach enlightenment thinking of the town dump. It's Saturday. The dump is open until 2 pm. There's a dumpster for #1 and #2 recycled plastic. On my first dive I come up with ten plastic water and milk half gallons tied together with a string the dump angel leaves me. Before dusk, I cut the bottoms off the milk and water jugs and scour the house for 28 plastic containers for my tomatoes. The peppers are tall and rangy. They need 7 inches of clearance. The tomatoes are babies and hug the ground. Before covering the tomatoes I grab a wooden spoon and drop a dollop of bone meal next to each plant. On our afternoon walk the Pooch heads right for the bone meal. Oh, oh. Another garden goof. How many wild animals will be lapping up the calcium in that bone meal? After I cover the tomatoes, I add insurance they'll be alive in the morning. My first thought is to load the .22 and sit next to the telephone interface waiting for varmints. Momentary madness subsides. I think about a magazine article that describes a current trend for crazies to swear off their medication. My guess is that they'd rather be baying at the moon then walk around half dead like my friend Mo who stuffed lithium down his craw daily. My recovery leads to throwing potting soil over the bone meal as the plants lie covered in plastic. That will disguise the smell, I hope. I'm buoyed by a simple test. I offer the Pooch a small bowl with a tablespoon of bone meal. He sniffs and walks away.

This morning it's 40 degrees at 7 am. The sky is partly cloudy. I leave the jugs on the peppers. After my lumberjack Sunday morning breakfast of tater tots, eggs and a pork chop, I lay them next to the plants. I'd already had a doughnut-or part of one. Fear of Dawn leads me to eat less than half.

Lat week Titus' brother calls me on my cell. I'd stopped and asked his wife if he could work for me. Two weeks transpire. The second message is on the land line I never answer. He sounds agitated. I hop in my car before breakfast Saturday morning hoping to track him down. First, I stop at Titus' farm. The 'girls' are cleaning. Titus is at the neighbors. I drive the half mile back down the highway from Shady Lane to Hal's place. There's a car with Illinois plates in the drive and a crowd around the kitchen table. Hal's two brothers are up from Chicago. They are hunting for turkeys. Three Italian brothers and a loud Italian wife add ten decibels to the conversation. I'm there to learn about the Amish telephone network. Titus calls me frequently on Hal's cell phone. I ask about his brother, Hal's cell phone and how to reach Aaron. Hal will deliver messages, he says. Titus is rather philosophic about his youngest brother. Once, previously, when I mentioned being late for an appointment with Aaron, Titus quips, " If we see him running down the highway towards Hal's house, then we know we're really late."

Titus leaves to help the Italian brothers clean the wild turkey one of them shot in the butt. The remaining brother at the kitchen table says, "I hope there's some meat left on the carcass. You're supposed to shoot a turkey in the head and not the butt." One of the brothers is a cop in a small town. He tells me he's a police officer. I note the distinction. Hal's wife who's never too shy to one-up a conversation, remarks, "In a family of nine brothers not one of them ever broke a bone!" Not to be outdone the police officer tells of twenty two injuries including a broken nose suffered while in the line of duty. Hal ups the ante with multiple hernias. Hal's wife sits there smugly in her wheelchair. She's missing part of her right leg. She fell the other day and is injured while being helped to her feet. She's the Queen of Hurt and nothing needs to be said. I'm still puzzled about the Amish telephone network.

I drive over to Aaron's house with a quick set of instructions how to reach me. I'm bothered that I manage to miss two calls. The law of opposites says that the call on the cell phone comes when I'm charging the battery. The call on the land line is when I'm in the bathroom and can't hear the answering machine. Oh well, I've got all summer to split the rest of the firewood. When I pull up in the driveway, a plain white sign with black letters says, Doughnuts on sale today. Normally, I'm met at the door. The wife will open it a crack while two blond preschool boys peer out from behind her skirt. I feel like I'm the Area Slasher looking for my next victim. It's a turnabout from the "Come on in" I hear when I knock at Titus' front door.

I gasp when she tells me to come in. The two blond boys giggle and let me in. They sit on the couch poking each other while I watch the wife glazing doughnuts. She's friendly and more than helpful to get me connected with Aaron. She tells me that her husband is at the neighbors. When she mentions the name, it's unfamiliar until she adds the last name and the title, furniture maker. He lives just down the lane from Titus. I request a half dozen doughnuts and hand her a ten dollar bill. Twenty-five minutes later, she hands me three singles and four dollars in change she's carefully scrounged from jars in two cupboards. I must be the first customer of the day. As I'm leaving a well dressed English woman comes in.

I find Aaron at the home of the log furniture maker. He's standing outside the shop talking to a short blond man in his 20's who identifies himself as brother to the furniture maker. "Would you like to take a look at the furniture?" he asks. I'm impressed with the fresh pine log swing set in front of the building. My, "nice furniture" comment brings an invitation for business. The swing set could hold three bears and a gorilla, if they were friends. Inside are twenty swivel bar stools, simple plain white pine dressers and cabinets and on the far side of the red pole shed is a red cedar chest with an open lid. It has a fancy, non finger crushing safety hinge.

I arrange possible days and times to work with Aaron. I return home an hour later, happy with my doughnuts. In the country an Amish phone call is really time consuming.

There is one person I e-mail regularly. In an e-mail yesterday, I tell her I'm begging off this blog for a bit. Too much to do. Besides, I have to stretch the idea bag for something other than complaints about the way I feel of late. Other than the usual Kickapoo Center travelogue, I cannot find any humor around here. I have an idea to write about Saturday night in Kickapoo Center. It goes the way of many insipid thoughts when I can't satirize a mundane lifestyle.

My e-mail buddy is an unusual person. She's studying to be a priest. I may have the title wrong. All I know is that she spends many late nights after work studying for a degree in a course of religious studies. I think of her last night as we watch a an unusually good movie about a female rabbi called The Secrets. Her real name isn't important to this blog. If I make references to her in the future, we'll call her Ella. She'll laugh about that. Her husband Del (also not his real name) is a consultant. He's sight challenged. I'm trying to be politically correct for a chronic eye disorder which left him almost totally blind. He drives stock cars with the aid of a guide, skis in the winter and writes about using a chain saw impaired vision. They've got two really hard working and smart daughters.

My horrorscope on the My Yahoo homepage for today is as follows.


Today's going to be an easy day -- definitely something along the lines of falling off a log. So if you want, feel free to put your overworked brain on auto-pilot -- especially when it comes to the tasks you perform every day. You've impressed everyone you need to impress for now, so don't worry about your reputation. Today is all about the simple route and the ease of knowing exactly how to do everything you need to do. This effortless energy will keep you smiling all day.

I am excited.

Yesterday was a day to remember. It began with me pulling a hairball the size of a tennis ball out of the shower stall. Walking to the white lawn shed on the rear of our property, I'm looking for the lock that normally hangs on a chain for the shed doors. In a Sherlock Holmes series of deductions I realize that the shiny metal plates strewn in front of the door are the remains of the lost lock. I remember hearing a loud clank when I mowed the grass of front of the shed. I'm afraid to see whatdoes to the riding mower blades. In the basement, the whole house water filter I replaced recently is still leaking. In the afternoon, we plan to make a supply run to the big city. I start calling the Pooch at 3 PM and give up after an hour's search. I'm really angry and frustrated. He's an outdoor cat. We can't leave him out overnight, especially after my neighbor asks to borrow our live trap to catch the animal that ripped the heads off two of his chickens. Coyotes, skunks and raccoons are no match for my Pooch.

The darn cat shows up on schedule as Dawn gets home from work. He begs to come in by climbing the deck railing outside the kitchen window. I can't hear his meow through the Thermopane window. I'm still miffed that he ruined a Cinco de Mayo dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Lacrosse. I don't let him in the house. He tries a different tactic. He sits on the sidewalk opposite the north kitchen window, looking up at me washing dishes and forlornly meows. I relent and let him when we sit down to dinner.

Dawn sits at the kitchen table while I outline the New plan for El Gatto. He will stay outside all day. No late morning naps upstairs on his sheepskin Momma. No afternoon naps in his favorite Scandanavian design chair. No 800 trips inside for a quick bite of dry cat food. He gets fed once in the morning and once in the late afternoon. He has all night to munch his Meow Mix. I tell Dawn that if he comes upstairs to wake us at first light, he'll get locked in the back hall and basement. There are many comfortable spots to sleep: on the cushioned cedar chest in the back hall, the laundry table in the basement. He can monitor the mice activities while we sleep.

At first light, he's using the corner of the bed frame as a scratching post. Damn cat. I'm too lazy to get up, besides I can barely walk. I'd just fallen sleep two hours earlier. Two doses of pain medication numb my throbbing foot. There's no reasonable explanation why my left foot should be exhibiting classic gout symptoms. On Monday, I spend the day recovering from an attack of arthritis so severe I can hardly get up from a chair. Hence the reason for my career as a story teller has disappeared. I spend way too much time in self absorption. The My Page horrorscope gives me some hope.

The Pooch sits on a cut-off telephone pole I threw next to the road. He's stalking something in the weeds below the east fence. It's cool Monday morning, about 40 degrees. The sky's a hazy bright, like an old bed sheet. At 7, I move the tomato babies to a drying table converted into a small greenhouse by throwing a discarded opaque, plastic shower curtain over the wood and wire frame. It protects my babies when the devil winds throw trash cans into the air and toss my empty green plastic watering cans around. When the winds are calm I put the tomatoes on the table top. Otherwise, they're under the table protected by plastic stapled to the frame. The tomato plants are losing their first leaves. The new leaves are forest green and coming along quite nicely. I take a moment to decide if its too cold for them. The last few mornings we've had a light frost. I moved the babies outside for full sun, cooler temperatures and to make room for marjoram, sage and thyme seeds I've sown. The high temperatures in the garage greenhouse will cause the tomatoes to be leggy and thin, like the ones I see outside the Village Market. Mine are short and sumo wrestler squat.

The Pooch sniffs each individual stair to the deck. Some animal spent part of the night on the deck. He's hesitant to walk the length of the deck. I step outside and check to see if an errant skunk, raccoon or possum is still hanging around in the early morning. Seeing any of these nocturnal animals in the daytime is a signal that something's out of balance. It could be trouble. As I prepare my breakfast, I watch him scout the perimeter of the front field. There are Pooch standards for early morning perimeter checks. Rolling in the sand under the drying tent to disguise his cat smell is one. He stops at the pea garden and stares at the tree stump in the middle of the field. I go back to my breakfast burrito while he disappears in the brush that I pile on the stump for a burn pile. The Pooch has a tail that is ringed like that of a raccoon. Most of the time he holds it straight up in the air. It's a sign that all's well. If his tail is horizontal to the ground, he's hunting. He has different walks, too. One is the saunter, tail straight up. Another is the trot or canter. Dawn and I always laugh when he trots across the front lawn. "Boop, boop, boop," Dawn says imitating the sound his paws would make. When he does his Cheetah run, his paws sound like hoof beats, especially when the ground is hard and dry.

Dawn has a restless night compounded by a cat that wants to wrassle at 4 am. She's experiencing some of the same symptoms I felt last week. It's puzzling because she's the critter that gave me the plague early on. Sunday morning I thought I'd recovered completely from flu- like symptoms. But no, my wrists, ankles, knees and especially my thumbs are so painful, I can hardly open the bottle of prescription medication for arthritis. I learn a painful lesson that wrists ankles, thumbs and knees are necessary ingredients for getting out of a chair or off the toilet. To stand up from the kitchen table, I lay my left arm on the table top and push myself away. This is depressing. It's like thinking how to breathe or remembering how to put one foot in front of the other to walk. I become my own editor for this blog and quash any and all ideas. In my current state of mind it will not do to write about the kids and why we never hear from them, about the dead animal smell in Dawn's studio, the kitchen remodel or my lack of energy for any small task like the leaking water filter in the basement.

I'd forgot about the leaking whole house filter. Now my mind is preoccupied with the @#$% thing. Our well water has a lot of rust and minerals. The filter's once cost $20 each. We replaced them monthly. Now that they're $35, I wait to replace it. When the water pressure drops it's signal to put in new one. The filter canister is difficult to remove. Its messy. I usually spill water over the basement floor and myself. When I open the canister and remove the filter , it's covered with red slime. I last replaced it on December 15th. Uggh. We use a faucet filter and have a Brita water pitcher for things like coffee and tea. When we moved here, we had the water tested. The previous owner said he had it tested twice. The test results: near perfect, but the shallow depth, an old well casing and proximity to the river give us hard water. Very hard water.

The forecast for the rest of the week is a chance of rain and thunderstorms. There's not much happening in Kickapoo Center. I may have to go to the archives for material.

A 50% chance of rain never happened yesterday. Feeling better than I have in a week, I bounce along the front lawn on the Husquvarna leveling off grass that grows in tufts. I set the cruise on the riding mower at dead slow because the ground is uneven. For two days the flu has twisted my insides. The rough ride across the lawn is painful even at a slow pace. I named my bright orange riding mower Fred to distinguish it from the four year old Cub Cadet whose name is Ted. I spend a minimum of five hours hours on both boys, once and at times twice a week.

Ted is relegated to rough areas and hills. He's lower to the ground-short and squat. I have an extra set of blades for Ted, so I'm not concerned about gravel hiding in the grass from winter plows. Fred is a baby. I'd been after the lawn mower guy to make adjustments to Fred since day one. A house moving project, illness and winter interfere with lawn mower guy's tune up for Fred. A week ago I loaded Fred up in the back of my F-150. All the plywood I have for a ramp is in use, so I haul a piece of 3/8th inch oak plywood from the kitchen remodel over to a hill. I back the truck to the hill, bridge the gap between truck and hill and start up Fred. Fred has a Kawasaki engine. It growls at high rev's and purrs at low revs. Half way through the loading process the oak veneer plywood breaks in two pieces. I am a model of decorum trying to figure out how to get the mower, especially the mower deck off the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. I'm lying, of course. No one can hear me while I curse the bloody plywood and bodily lift the beastly riding mower up over the edge of the body liner into the truck. Lawn mower guy wants me to come back while he diddles with my machine. I'm wise to his ways and tell him I don't have time to drive the 18 miles back and forth. I know that lawn mower guy will procrastinate while he wastes time jawing with customers who amble in to his shop.

The shop and the lawn outside the building are a fright. It looks like a lawn mower graveyard. Parts of tillers, push mowers and walk behind trimmers are abandoned in the high grass. Inside the shop, the so-called office with one bar stool for customers is a dusty museum of used and new parts. There's not an inch of space on the floor. A used chain saw in pieces blocks any customer access to the actual repair shop in back which is also a disaster. I'd given up asking him to order parts because he would forget to order the air filter I needed or couldn't find it when he remembered to order one. Each time I brought the Cub Cadet in for service, I'd come back to Ted with a different set of keys-not that it makes any difference-you can start the beast with a set of luggage keys. I still joke with him about the original bright yellow plastic set of keys that came with Ted.

I stand mute while lawn mower guy gives me his standard ruse about replacing the old deck with a new deck under the warranty program, the amount of time required for the changeover, the weather, last minute customers wanting help and on and on. I'm thinking, " Hey, I'm standing here. I'm your first priority." When I say nothing he fills in with, "Let's put the mower up on the hoist and take a look. In one half hour he has replaced the old blades, leveled the deck(which should have been performed upon shipment to him) and adjusted the angle of the cutting deck. He takes it on a test cut. He has to drive it around back to find an open area of grass. I'm satisfied with the way Fred cuts. No longer is there an uneven swath of grass in the middle of the 42 inch cutting path.

In the front lawn the only hazards are pine cones. Normally it would take 45 minutes to cut this portion. Previously, I worked Ted over the margins and rougher areas-places with tree roots snaking across bare patches of lawn. I'm cutting back the edges between the lawn and weed barrier to the corn field behind us. All sorts of nasties lurk in the high grass. This year I'm growing pumpkins and gourds along a 68 foot single tilled lane at the edge of the lawn. I cannot sacrifice good garden space for something I feel is mainly decorative. Yet, I have to hold back the weed barrier so the vines can overwhelm the weeds which can grow to six and seven feet tall. I pull Fred into the garage after what seems like forever and break for lunch.

After lunch, I replant dwarf sugar snap peas and snow peas. It's a favorable time to replant according to moon signs. I have no idea why the germination of peas is so erratic. Is it because the weather is so erratic or something I did wrong ? This time I inoculate the peas with nitrogen fixing bacteria as I plant the seeds. The inoculant looks like fine coffee grounds. I sprinkle it over the new furrow of peas adjacent to the few peas that actually germinated. The law of opposites says if I water the new seeds, it will rain. The sky is a threatening mix of gray and black cumulus clouds. I add an extension to the hose and water the peas and the spinach that is coming up nicely. It doesn't rain as predicted, so I'll need to water on a daily basis despite today's overcast sky. I'm worried about the potatoes. They haven't broken the surface. I wonder whether I should be farming because of the amount of worry I put into the garden. I examine everything I did during the seeding of potatoes. I remember a note in the seed catalog about wood ashes and potatoes. I worry that the wood ashes I scattered last winter are affecting their germination. I thought I'd turned the soil frequently and carefully. I always save seed in case of emergencies, but the potatoes are a special order from a company in Maine. I get some seed potatoes from two sources. The ones I bought on sale in Seneca are long gone by now. The hardware store in town will run out of seed potatoes soon. If I wasn't so manic about producing my own food, I'd forget the hassle of being a small farmer and buy produce form local organic farmers. The urge to get my hands dirty and the fun I have in giving away fresh vegetables is too strong.