Between dusk and 10:30 thoughts on an early summer's evening

A storm is sneaking in outside, a light whisper of rain, so gentle. It was building up as the day’s light faded, but the darkening grey had no threat about it. Just a coverlet of clouds come to tuck us in for the night with a big slow drink of water for the parched grass, a good end to a full day.

Richard was right. It is a lost cause trying to save our mountain ash from the sapsuckers. And it breaks my heart. The bark is so acne scarred from past attacks, slathered over with black tree tar to no avail. The sapsuckers drill right into the black as if it’s a shooting range target. They first victimized the tree 3 years ago, the same autumn it was awash with brilliant orange berries, festooned like its very own Christmas celebration. That’s when they chose to swoop in. I fended them off, but even then Richard was a proponent to chop it down. “It’s no use,” he’d say. “You’re going to spend years trying to save it and in the end it will still die.” Then miraculously, it made a come back this year, against all odds. And we’d trimmed it, given it plenty of water and care, it leafed out turning impressively and healthfully green. Then the sapsuckers struck again, riddling the trees thin branches like machine gun fire. “It’s a lost cause,” Richard said from the porch the other day as I stood atop a wooden ladder, once more slathering loads of black tar on new wounds, wounds that dripped sap down its branches like blood in a triage unit. After the tar, I strung twine like garland from branch to branch then hung bits of aluminum foil to dissuade future attacks. I could feel myself getting all thin skinned and defensive at Richard’s remark and I tried to dredge up some snarky riposte, like some Camus quote I thought I'd heard years before, something about the only true causes to devote oneself to ARE lost causes.

“How much time did you spend on the tree yesterday?”

’20 minutes, a half hour tops,’ I said.

“Oh,” he gave in.

“And anyway, it’s my choice.” What a brilliant reply, so Camus-like, so existential. And now today, both this morning and this evening, new wounds. Out came the ladder, more tar, but it is a lost cause. I so love trees. It was very John Muir of me, but I patted the bark on the main trunk and commiserated with it, saying I was doing my best, but I didn’t think it was going to be good enough. It wasn’t exactly fatalistic in its reply. It was stoic, laconic. It was going to take things as they came. It would be fine no matter what happened.

The Canada Goose goslings are almost completely transformed. By tomorrow or the next day, they will look exactly like their folks. Then come the lead up to flying lessons. Quick flapping skirts across the surface of the pond, followed slowly, but surely by hikes up the rise behind our house where, following a trumpeting call from their parents like a starter’s gun, they take flight, airborne, coltish at first, a few clumsy landings, but then grace. It’s a thing to behold.

The garden’s in good shape now. After being downhearted about the devastation of certain plants by some unknown, unseen chomper, I read a piece in a gardening book, accompanied by pictures that looked very much like my riddled vegetables, that pests in certain cases were not such a bad thing. We shouldn’t be all too hasty to rid ourselves of them. And, as the pictures proved in before/after fashion, many plants bounce back admirably from such warfare and provide splendid, prolific harvests. Another lesson in faith. Still keeping my eye out for the Colorado potato beetle, however. Bright orange fellas and gals that lay lots of larvae on the underside of leaves that can devastate a potato patch in pretty short order. But I shall prevail. I shall be on the lookout and squash and squish any interlopers. My fingerling and purple potato plants are looking oh so swell. I’ve hoed them high with surrounding dirt hills and delicate purple blossoms have sprouted on several. I take that as thanks.

And because I invoked his name earlier, here's a swell Camus quote to wrap things up.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to be so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

Not bad, Albert, not bad.

Sweet dreams everyone.

First Day of Summer!

Hello Solstice! Hello longest, brightest day of the year! And it's HOT. Sweaty, drippy hot, midwestern humidity hot, change your clothes a couple of times during the day cause they're soaked right through hot!. The geese are under our porch panting, nodding off hot, the chickens are in the garage soothing themselves on the cold concrete hot, the cats are konked out on rockers and chairs, the ducklings are no where to be seen, and the blackbirds give off that quavery, quiver to their songs as if they're trying to imitate cicadas, reminding me of the hot hot, baling hay hot in southern Indiana in my youth. And I am drinking coffee, hot coffee. A clerk at my dad's drugstore always told me that it was the best thing to drink on hot days, it cooled you off. Sounds a little off, but I don't care, I like my joe, hot or not. The pond is calling me from across the road "Take a dip! You know you want to. Carouse with the trout, mingle with the minnows. Shall I? I shall soon, to celebrate summer and sweat and slow, slow, brightly lit HOT days.

Happy SIMMER, Happy SUMMER!