Roosters, Rats, and Rain

Sarah harvested these beets from my garden. I thought they looked pretty.

Monday gave us another gloomy start to a not-summery week, the last week of August. It was chilly and overcast and too wet to work outdoors. I fretted through the morning, trying to entertain my brain. After looking at various news sites, which made things feel even gloomier, I watched some YouTube. I like to watch Baumgartner Restorations, where Julian Baumgartner restores damaged paintings. The most recent one I watched that morning involved restoring an antique icon. I find what he does fascinating. Then I watched Words Unravelled with Jess Zefarris and Rob Watts where they explore the etymology of English words. Also fascinating. Then I checked the Netherlands Bach Society's channel to see if there was anything new since the last time I checked. I found a performance of the Minuets in G Major and G Minor BWV 841–842, by Hanna Zhang on the harpsichord. That was a lovely three-minute distraction. Then I read.

I wrote last week about my unsuccessful venture into The Odyssey. I was disappointed that I was disappointed. I really wanted it to turn out to be a great encounter with an ancient literary masterpiece—which I'm sure it is—but my ability to appreciate it is limited. That happens to me sometimes. I just can't get into certain famous works, no matter how often or how hard I've tried. Moby-Dick is on that list. I've tried several times and just can't do it. The great Russian authors are on that list, too. Maybe someday I'll be able to read Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy without falling asleep by the third page. Maybe not. So after my disenchantment with Homer, I was looking for a new direction to freshen my brain before returning to the Discworld books (I'm still determined to read them all this year). On the recommendation of Miriam and Hannah, I'm reading Anne of Green Gables. I've watched the wonderful 1985 series several times, but I'd never read the books. It has been a treat. Lucy Maud Montgomery is a great writer. Her ability to describe places, her characterizations, and dialogue are perfect. Maybe the fact that I've watched a well-done adaptation of her books has helped—I do picture Megan Follows as Anne, Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla, and Richard Farnsworth as Matthew as I read. I'm enjoying the book and now have added Prince Edward Island to my list of places I need to visit.

If you'll recall, several weeks ago I wrote about a nest of bunnies in one of my raised beds. They were too cute to do anything about, plus we had grandchildren here and they would have been appalled at even the thought of disposing of them. The bunnies eventually left the nest and went across the road to live in the scrubby brush, and I swore if they ever came back into my garden, they were fair game. Well, one of them did come back. It has made its home under the woodpile at the side of the house. It isn't especially afraid of us. It comes out several times a day to nibble on clover in the lawn and doesn't hop away until we get very close to it. It's still pretty small and cute, and despite my vow, I can't bring myself to shoot it. Living under the woodpile and eating lawn clover does no harm to my garden. It hasn't invaded any place where I have flowers or vegetables, so I'm willing to tolerate it living there. Am I getting soft in my old age?

The bunny that lives under the woodpile.

Because the weather wouldn't give us heat, I went to the gym to use their steam room. I sat in the steam and sweated, then took a cold shower and repeated the process four times. It felt great. It made me think of the few times I got to go to a bathhouse when I was in Japan. Missionaries were only allowed to use them if the bathing facilities in their apartments were not working. That only happened three times during the two years I was in Japan—once in my first area in Tsuruhashi, in Osaka, and twice later when I lived in the city of Akashi. That first trip to a bath house was a very different experience for me. I'd only been in Japan two days, and in spite of seven weeks of studying Japanese at the Missionary Training Center (it was the LTM back then, the Language Training Mission), I didn't understand much of anything that was said to me, nor could I make myself understood. This is what I wrote in my journal about that experience.

Saturday, April 15, 1978. Last night the heater on our bathtub broke, so we got permission to go to a public bath house called an ofuroyasan. The elders call it the "fud." It was just down the street from our apartment, so we walked there. The entrance was covered with a cloth banner that the elders call a "fud flag." A lot of elders collect them when the fuds change and replace them. My companion has three of them. We went into a lobby and paid an old woman some money. She gave us a plastic basin, two towels, and a key. There was a men’s side and a women’s side, completely separate. We went through a door into the men’s locker room, where we undressed. I’m very shy about being naked around other people, so I tried to wrap a towel around me, but it was too small. No one else was wearing a towel, so I just said, “Oh well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” We went into the fud room. There were hot-water spigots and stools along one wall. We sat on the stools, and using the plastic basin, we washed at the spigots. We had to soap up, shampoo, and rinse off completely. You never go into the tubs until you are completely clean. Next, we went to the hot-water tub. It was very large and about four feet deep. There were three middle-aged Japanese men and a young boy, about ten or eleven, already in it. It was made of tile and there was a ledge all around it that we sat on. You were only allowed to go in the water up to your chin. You never put your face or head in the water. The water was very hot. As I soaked in it, my face broke into a sweat. We wiped our faces with towels, then got out and went to the other tub. It was just like the hot tub, but the water was very cold. It was shocking to get in. I couldn’t stay in very long. We went back and forth between the hot and cold tubs three times. The whole time, we were chatting among ourselves in English and not paying much attention to the Japanese. My companion whispered to me that the men were talking about us. They didn't know that some of us could understand what they were saying. My companion said they were commenting on how big American boys are. I assumed he meant that they were impressed with how tall we are, but my companion made it clear that was not what they were commenting on. Until then, I hadn’t minded too much that we were naked, but when he told me that, I was embarrassed and wanted to cover myself. We stayed in the tub until after those men left. When you go to the fud, you are supposed to finish by soaking in the cold tank to invigorate the body, but my companion said not to. He said that if you finish with the hot tank, you’ll sleep better. So I finished with the hot tank. He was right. I was so relaxed that I almost didn’t make it home before I fell asleep. I slept the most relaxed and peaceful sleep I’ve ever slept. I think I love going to the fud, but I wish there were just elders there and no Japanese. I hope we go there often, but my companion says we won’t because permission isn’t often granted to go. Too bad.

This is a typical "fud" entrance with its "fud flag."

Me and my first companion, Elder Patterson, who took me to the fud for the first time.

That was my first experience at a Japanese bathhouse, a good memory. But, back to the present: Tuesday morning was another frustrating morning. It was chilly and gray again. I didn't take a morning walk. I just did the necessary chores and came back inside to wait, hoping the sun would come out. I can tolerate the chill if the sun is shining, but cloudy and chilly is too much. In the late afternoon, the sky cleared. Sarah came over and we spent some time working in the big garden. We picked another load of cucumbers. We have an overabundance of them this year. And we finished putting the plastic cover over the tomatoes. We're hoping the plastic will hold in enough heat to ripen the hundreds of green tomatoes on the vines.

The tomato tunnel completed.

That evening, after dark, Stacey, Miriam, and I went down to the chicken coop. Miriam went to shoot rats. Stacey and I went to clip the wings on the renegade young chickens and to catch two young roosters. These young chickens thought they could roam outside their yard all day. They even started going across the road. And they liked to perch on the railing of the barn bridge and made a mess of it with their poop. So we clipped their wings to keep them from flying over the fence. When we bought this last batch of chicks, they were all supposed to be pullets, but two of them turned out to be roosters. It wasn't a problem until they became mature enough to try and breed. That created a ruckus as the two older roosters wouldn't allow it. A lady who raises chickens near here takes unwanted roosters to an auction up in New York state and she was going there on Wednesday morning, so we caught the two roosters, put them in boxes, and set them on the back porch for the night. Wednesday morning I drove them over and delivered them to the lady. Things are under control down in the barn again. Except for the rats.

Two boxed roosters, ready to take away.

I don't know why there are so many rats this year. Most years we go through a cycle where a few move in, we kill them, and we're rid of them for a while. This year there are so many and all our efforts to get rid of them have been in vain. I decided to make a multipronged attack. I bought four new rat traps and a bag of poison pellets. I baited the traps with peanut butter. Then I set up a rat smorgasbord in the middle pen of the coop where I could keep the chickens out. Now I also make sure the chicken feeder is empty by nightfall so there is no chicken food available for the rats. Thursday morning, when I went down to check, all four traps were sprung and three had dead rats in them. And all the poison was gone. I emptied and reset the traps and put down more poison. On Friday morning, there were three more, and Saturday morning another two. This morning, before I got ready for church, I went down to check and there were five more. Thirteen down—how many more to go?

I know it's gross, but it also feels a bit triumphant.

Right about now, at the end of August, I start to give up. There is too much going on in the garden. It's harvest time and picking and preserving food becomes the most important task. Other tasks have to be neglected. I stop being so vigilant about deadheading flowers. I figure that, come the first frost, I'll be pulling them up if they're annuals, and cutting them back if they're perennials, so why fuss with them anymore. Same with the weeds. Soon I will overhaul the flowerbeds, the raised beds, and till up the rows in the big garden as they empty out, so why fight the weeds. They'll be ripped up and ground down soon. It's not that I'm feeling defeated exactly, I just have to prioritize things. I make sure things look tidy—as long as you don't look closely.

I spent the morning on Wednesday mowing. I only mowed our property. Miriam took over when I was done and mowed the Shilligs' yard and the Foster's property. She was at it until dinnertime. Sarah came over for dinner again on Wednesday. After dinner we went out and worked in the big garden. She, Miriam, and I dug up the places in the long rows where we'd cleared out garlic, cabbages, and basil, and we planted cover crops of crimson clover and a mix of other seeds. We worked past the sunset and finished up under the light of a primrose full moon. It was quiet and cool as we made our way back to the  house.

Sarah working by moonlight.

Thursday was an overcast day. I worked in the garden, wishing the whole time that the sun would break through. Sarah came here for dinner again, and afterward we went out to work some more in the big garden. We pulled up the row of peas. The vines were spent and mildewed. We pulled up the rest of the onions and brought them into the woodshed. We worked until it got dark.

Toward midnight, Stacey woke me up and we went out to watch the eclipse of the moon. Julie was out on her back porch watching and we walked over and joined her. Miriam and Hannah eventually joined us. We watched the moon almost disappear behind earth's shadow. We saw several meteors streak by as we watched. Far to the south of us, there was silent lightning. When the moon was obscured as much as it would be, we came back inside and went to bed.

The eclipse (not my photo).

On Friday, Miriam and Hannah went down to spend the weekend at the Thayns' house. They left in the morning, and with Stacey at work, I was alone all day. I worked part of the day on an indoor project.

Writing about going to a public bathhouse earlier in the week triggered something in me. I spent some time every day after that going through my missionary journals, editing them. I copied the entries and pasted them into ChatGPT, and had it check my spelling and punctuation. I edited my journals several years ago the old fashioned way. This time, using AI was amazing. It found many errors and inaccuracies that I'd missed before. Oh, the wonders of AI.  I corrected them as we went along. As a result of that, I was mentally immersed in that world again all week. My reaction to it surprised me. Looking so closely at who I was from the age of 19 to 21 was interesting. There were things that I wrote down that I would not remember otherwise. As I read, at times I became very emotional. I've told stories many times of the strange, funny, and bad things that happened on my mission, but reading through my journals this time, I realized that I'd forgotten some of the wonderful things—especially the Japanese people I grew to love. I wept several times as I read about them. I regret that I never kept in touch with them. But when I left Japan, I came home to a new place and was swept up in the affairs of my family and coping with that next phase of my life. I left Japan behind me. Only I didn't, really. It has always been there, in a place in my mind. It changed me in profound ways and has had an influence in everything that came after it. When I finished my editing on Friday afternoon, I did some searching online to see if I could find some of those people I loved, but time and incomplete information prevented any discoveries. Almost fifty years later, I suppose many of them are dead. I'm glad I preserved some part of them on the pages of my journal.

I find that I've been dwelling on Japan more and more of late. I often dream about it at night. It's been 47 years since I was there. I can't say that I loved every minute of my time there. That's very apparent in my journal entries. Being a missionary was difficult a lot of the time. My greatest difficulties were with the American missionaries who were my companions. But I quickly learned to love the country, its people, its culture, and its food. I always thought that I would go back again someday to visit. More and more, I feel that the time is coming—maybe it's here now. I like to sit and work out imaginary travel plans—the places I'd like to see again, the places I'd like to show my family. Should we go during sakura season, or when the azaleas are in bloom, or during the fall when the maples are magnificent? Can I find the gyoza restaurant I loved in the heart of Osaka? Is my language good enough to navigate the trains and buses? I think the translation programs available today will help with that. My Japanese is very rusty. I can dream, can't I?

After I was done with my journal, and a bit of daydreaming, I went out and worked in the garden. I pulled a few weeds and sowed some cover crop seed in the newly cleaned out raised beds in my vegetable garden. The day was pleasant, mild, and breezy. Later, I trimmed the onions we brought in the day before and hung them up to cure. It was very fragrant work. The smell of onions always makes me hungry. The rest of the day was quiet. Stacey and I ate a simple dinner of leftovers, and then spent the evening not doing much at all. Maybe we're just old and boring. Or comfortable doing nothing. Both, probably.

Onions curing in the woodshed.

Saturday was quiet. I didn't feel motivated to do much. I planted some clover seed out in an empty row in the big garden. I spent some time after lunch watching trailers for upcoming movies. I like to find one or two that look good. It gives me something to look forward to, although I'm often disappointed when I finally get to watch them. I wish they'd make more movies based on the great novels I love, but then, when they do, I usually don't like what they do to them. How I've pictured the stories as I've read them, and how they're portrayed on film, are usually too different. And I prefer what's in my head to what I see on the screen. And how many versions of Jane Austen's novels do they need to make? Move on, for heaven's sake. There are so many other great books that would make great movies. In a fit of misplaced ambition a few years ago, I tried my hand at writing a screenplay of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. I knew as soon as I finished it that I didn't understand the process well enough. I think with proper instruction, I might make a good screenwriter. Then I could help transform more worthy novels into great films.

Late on Saturday afternoon, I took a slow walk across the compound. My purpose was twofold: to make a note of the things I need to do this week, and to enjoy a summer afternoon with its sunshine and flowers. As I walked, I noted my successes and failures. What I'll do differently next year. The happy accidents where volunteers popped up—petunias in places where I hadn't grown them in years, pink bee balm that somehow transported itself all the way across a flowerbed. I like those happy accidents. Often the volunteers do better than the plants I planned and carefully tended. The sunflowers are blooming at their best now. I always realize, too late, that I didn't plant enough of them. Every year I think I've planted more than the year before, but when they bloom, I find it's never enough. Next year I'll plant more.

Some of the sunflowers in my garden.

Today is a fifth Sunday so, as branch president, I was responsible for what happened in the second hour at church. Starting next week, our meeting schedule changes and there was a video from Salt Lake that explained the transition. It was directed at the youth of the church, and we don't have any youth in the branch, but I watched it beforehand and determined that everything in it also applied to us more mature youth. So we watched it and the branch members said they found it applicable. Plus it was short, which meant we ended our meetings early and no one complained about that. We're home now. Lunch is almost ready. Miriam and Hannah will be home later this afternoon.

Now I'm sitting here, looking at the week ahead. Yesterday I made my list of things I need to do this week, but it looks like the weather won't be cooperating with my plans. There is rain in the forecast all week until Friday. At least it's not supposed to be chilly. I'll do whatever I can whenever I can. And I have a new indoor project for those rainy days—I'm going to edit my earliest journals. I started keeping a journal in 1975, and I wrote a lot. It will be fun to see what a silly and sloppy teenage writer I was. 

The Back End of August

The week began with another one of those Karen Carpenter Mondays. It was so dark when I got up that morning, I thought the clocks must be wrong. But no, it was just the season changing and rainclouds blotting out the approaching dawn. For the first time in months, I had to turn on a light to get dressed. It did get me down a little – until I went outside. When I stepped out the back door, I was embraced by a warm, damp, fragrant morning. It was gray and drizzling, but the air was heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine, four o'clocks and phlox—an amazing perfume. The jasmine and four-o'clocks are in pots by the back porch door. Their nightly fragrance was at its end, but still intense. The phlox is fragrant night and day and is at its peak right now. Its cut-hay-and-vanilla perfume is intoxicating. I took a deep breath and went out. I only took a short walk through the garden so as not to get soaked first thing in the morning.

Night-blooming jasmine at the porch door.

Fragrant four o'clocks.

A patch of phlox in the long border.

I went down to do the morning chores and the chickens were having a Rainy Days and Mondays sort of morning too. They only came out into their yard reluctantly when I threw them their morning scratch. After the chores, I went back indoors and tried to read for a while to distract myself, hoping the weather would clear. That wasn't very successful.

I was at the end of a literary adventure that hadn't worked out as well as I had expected. I'd paused in my Discworld series and taken a classical detour. Because of all the hoopla, both positive and negative, surrounding Christopher Nolan's film, The Odyssey, I'd decided to read the book. I haven't seen the movie and don't know if I will, but all the praise and criticism for it sparked my curiosity. I'd never really read the book, but I was familiar with the story, having read the shorter retellings of it in Bulfinch's Mythology and Edith Hamilton's Mythology as a teenager. I cannot read Homeric Greek, alas, so I looked online to see which English translations were most recommended. There were five of them ranging from one published in 1900 to the most recent one in 2017. I have two of them on my shelves. One is volume four in The Encyclopaedia Britanica's Great Books of the Western World set, a slim book of 322 pages that contains both The Iliad and The Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler (1835–1902) with The Odyssey taking up 134 of those pages. It was published in 1900 and was translated as prose rather than poetry.

The other book is The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles (1933–2008), published in 1996 by Penguin Classics. It is 541 pages long. The first 67 pages are a very detailed introduction, and the last 52 are filled with extensive translator's notes, leaving 418 pages for the actual story—almost four times the length of Butler's translation. But that's because Fagles kept a poetic structure to his translation, which spreads the text out rather than putting it into compact prose paragraphs like Butler.

I had considered going to the library to look at some of the other recommended translations, but decided to limit my choice to one of these two. To decide which one to read, I compared the opening lines of each to see which style appealed to me most.

Butler

TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many more were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

Fagles

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove –
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will – sing for our time too.

I could tell right away that I preferred Fagles's poetic version. Knowing something of the story, I expected lots of action, but there was a lot of what I can only call "blah, blah, blah" – lengthy dialogue and philosophizing (we are dealing with Greeks, after all). I began to realize pretty quickly that I preferred Bulfinch and Hamilton's short synoptic versions. I made my way through, but it was slow, and after a while I found myself skimming through the non-action parts. I finished it that morning. It was not a fun read, but now I can say I've read it. Sorry, Homer.

I went out midmorning during a lull in the rain and cut twelve cabbages to make sauerkraut. Then Miriam and I set up our processing station on the dining room table and made kraut for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. Our cabbages this year are beautiful – big, solid heads and not one caterpillar. That's because we covered the rows with fine-mesh netting. So we chopped, shredded, salted, and pounded cabbage and filled two five-gallon buckets. They are sealed and sitting on the back porch, fermenting now. If all goes well, they should be ready to eat at the end of October.

A wagonful of cabbages.

Our sauerkraut processing station.

Slicing cabbages.

Kraut ready to ferment.

It rained off and on through the day, and I didn't accomplish anything outdoors. After dinner, the sky cleared enough for the sun to shine briefly. I went out and walked the garden, enjoying its after-rain freshness and noting all the things I needed to do the next day. Sunset was lovely that evening.

Sunset on Monday.

It was foggy when I went out on my morning walk on Tuesday. By the time I reached the beaver pond, the sun was just rising over the hill, and the light through the fog was lovely. I stood at the beaver pond for a while and watched for signs of beaver activity. I'm worried that our beavers have gone away. I haven't seen one in weeks, and the water level of the pond has gone down a lot. The upper pond toward Burrell's is even lower. Before the beavers came more than twenty years ago, the place where the pond is now was a swampy field with a small stream flowing through it. It looks like it might revert to that again. That makes me sad. The beaver pond has been a source of great wonder and beauty over the years. It has brought so much life to Gold—waterfowl, fish, songbirds, frogs, even eagles.

Sunrise on Tuesday.

Heading home after my morning walk.

Our neighbor up the road, who drives by our house on his way to work in the wee hours of the morning, says he has seen a gray fox lurking around our property. That would be good news if the fox is hunting for rabbits and voles, but bad news if it's looking for a chicken or peacock dinner. One of the projects on my list is fortifying the front foundation of the barn with buried hardware cloth and stone blocks. I might have to move that project to the top of the list. Foxes are pretty creatures. I've had trouble with them before. They are smart and devastating when they figure out how to get into a chicken coop.

Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) – not my photo.

I spent a lot of time on the mower on Tuesday, cutting the Shillig's lawn and most of the Foster's lawn next door. It took me five hours, with an occasional break. I needed to mow my own lawn, but by the time I finished all of that, I was too tired, so it had to wait another day. It was beautiful mowing weather— warm, sunny, and breezy. I love the look and smell of a freshly mowed lawn.

The flowerbed at the edge of the orchard.

The forecast on Wednesday said there was rain coming in the afternoon, so I mowed my lawn as soon as the dew was dry. Two days on the mower is rough. As much as I like mowing, it is hard on my body. Our lawns are not smooth, manicured lawns. There are a lot of bumps and ruts, and it can be quite jarring. I finished by noon. The rain came at 2:00 and fell steadily for half an hour. I was glad I got the mowing done before things got wet. 

From April to October, I spend a lot of time mowing – but not as much as I used to – at least when I'm mowing just my lawn. When we moved here, our whole yard was lawn except for one small, overrun flowerbed that eventually expanded to become the long border. Over the years, I've reduced the amount of lawn. I planted gardens. I made the whole front of the property, from the maples down to the road, into the meadow. I made the woodland garden. Our first lawn mower was an old gas-powered push mower that didn't have a muffler. Back then I had children at home. and they helped by taking turns. With all that lawn, it took us many hours of noisy, hard work to cut all that grass. By the time we finally finished, it was time to start over again. Next, we bought an old used riding mower that only lasted a couple of months before it fell apart. We had to go back to the push mower for a while. Our next mower was a used Cub Cadet that lasted us five years. We traded it in for a new model that lasted ten years. Then Kurt used that one as a trade-in on our present mower. We like our Cub Cadet mower—which is good because we spend a lot of time riding it.

Our trusty Cub Cadet (not a paid endorsement).

We're at the point in the season where we need to be processing something from the garden pretty much every day. It's hard to keep up with it all. If we miss a day or two of picking beans, or cucumbers, or especially zucchini, we end up with gigantic, overripe, and usually useless produce. We have a constant stream of beans and broccoli going from the garden to the freezer. On Wednesday, we started another batch of relish. We pulled up the first of the beets, but ate them for dinner instead of processing them. Sarah roasted them, and they were so delicious. There are many more that we will process for storage.

I grew several varieties of beets.

Cut and ready for roasting.

That evening, I worked with Sarah out in the big garden. We thinned tomato vines. They are loaded with green fruit, but the vines are so dense that the fruit isn't getting the sunshine it needs to ripen. We also cleaned up the broccoli and cabbage beds. We worked until it was too dark to do anything more. It was a nice way to spend a beautiful summer evening.

Thursday morning's glories.

My favorite one.

Thursday was the first day of school and, although I haven't been associated with it for a while now. I still feel a residual anxiety and sadness when it comes. The school bus stopped stopping at our house  many years ago, but it stops down on the highway to pick up the neighbor's children and I can hear the sound of its brakes. It makes me cringe a little. The beginning of school means the ending of things. Summer might still be here, but it doesn't feel as endless and free as it did.

The garden has a way of keeping me humble. In my hubris, I thought I had practically eliminated snails from the long border. For a week, I couldn't find any big snails and only, occasionally, a few smaller ones. I felt like I had triumphed over the destructive pests. But apparently there was a new hatching, and on Thursday morning when I went out expecting to find next to nothing, there were hundreds, probably thousands of tiny snails, most of them about the size of a mustard seed. They were so small and slippery with dew that I could hardly pick any of them up. Plus, my fingers got cold and slimy. I spent a frustrating hour collecting what I could. These tiny snails will grow and keep me busy for years to come.

The size range of the snails I collected on Thursday morning.

I know I haven't conquered the Japanese beetles. I might have made a small dent in reducing their population this year, but they can fly, so no matter how many I kill, more will come. And right now they are in a mating frenzy as they prepare to lay eggs in the lawn, where their grubs will live until next summer. That's a battle I know I will never win, but I will keep on fighting.

After my snail and beetle hunt on Thursday morning, I canned the relish Stacey prepared the night before. I drained the mash, added the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, and celery seed, cooked it up, and filled twelve pint jars. There's nothing quite as exhilarating as the rich aroma of relish filling the house on a cool morning, followed by the happy sound of canning lids popping as the jars seal.

Batch two of relish.

Right after I finished the relish, it started to rain. That ended my plans to work outdoors. I had to run into town to the feed store. I came home and unloaded 300 pounds of feed and managed to only get a little wet going back and forth between the car and the barn. Then that was it for me. I came in and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.

Stacey and Hannah got off work a little early and at 3:30, we all left to go to the temple. With guests and all the associated activities, we hadn't been able to go all summer. The drive north through western New York was beautiful. There was no sign of rain after we left Pennsylvania. The route we travel to Palmyra takes us through beautiful forest and farmland and lovely old towns like Avon, Lima, and Canandaigua. Our session at the temple was great. We saw several people we know there. One of the temple missionaries stopped me and asked if I was related to Joseph Howe. I asked him if he meant the chiropractor, and he said yes. I told him that he is my father. It turns out, this brother went to Los Angeles Chiropractic College and did a residency in radiology with my father. We chatted about what a great man my dad was. When we left the temple, it was just getting dark. We drove back through a beautiful twilight with Venus and a half moon shining. As we went south, there was fog, sometimes quite thick. We got home at 10:30, tired from the long drive but feeling uplifted.

After the temple.

It was chilly, 45°, and still foggy on Friday morning. It felt very autumnal. The sun shining through the fog was beautiful. I had to go to the dairy for milk early, and the drive over the hill was amazing. I took a small detour and drove up the Gazdag Road to the top of the hill to look out at the scene. I hadn't been up there all summer and was surprised to find the hill planted in sunflowers. When I got back from the dairy, I took a walk out across the front yard and through the meadow. Everything was dripping with dew and condensed fog. There were spiderwebs everywhere, sparkling with droplets.

Foggy view from the top of the Gazdag Road.

Sunflowers on the hill.

Out in the foggy meadow.

Bespangled spiderweb.

I waited for it to warm up a little before I went out to work. I didn't intend to spend most of the day cleaning the woodshed. I started out trimming the onions and shallots that have been hanging in there curing. That made a mess of trimmings on the floor, and I cleaned that up and then just kept on going. It looked good when I finished—tidy and as clean as the woodshed can get.

The tidied woodshed.

Friday's dinner was the traditional pizza. The Fosters came for dinner, and afterward we went next door and worked on burning the branch pile in their yard. When they had the trees cut where they are building their garage, they opted not to have the branches chipped, so they have a huge pile of branches to dispose of. It is too close to the power lines to burn in place, so we have to haul it to other parts of the property to burn. We had two piles burning that night, and we made some headway in reducing the size of the pile. We worked until it got dark. The fires in the twilight were actually quite pretty. We'll be working on that branch pile for weeks to come.

Yesterday morning, it was chilly again, 42°. The dew was amazing. Everything was soaked and dripping with it. After my morning chores, I went on an errand run with Sarah. I drove the truck down and picked her up, and we went into Coudersport to the Tractor Supply. We bought six hog panels that we used to make archways over the tomato row out in the big garden. Miriam and Hannah came to help put the arches up and cover them with plastic. The objective is to hold in some heat so the tomatoes will ripen. We'll see if it works.

The tomato row with the arches up.

The arches partly covered in plastic.

We haven't seen many butterflies this summer. The most common ones are Tiger Swallowtails. Occasionally, we see a Black Swallowtail. I've only seen a couple of Monarchs and have only found two caterpillars. Yesterday, I saw this beauty on my zinnias. It's a Great Spangled Fritillary. I don't think I've ever seen one before.

A Great Spangled Fritillary on a zinnia.

Yesterday afternoon was our branch birthday celebration. The Wellsville Branch turned 47 years old. We had a dinner – hot dogs, corn on the cob, a mac and cheese cook-off, and potluck salads and desserts. It was a nice affair. Lots of food, just 22 people, but they were good people.

The branch birthday dinner.

The food table.

The dessert table.

We had a terrific thunderstorm last night. Sometime during the night, the power went out. When it came on again at 2:00 A.M., all the electronics started up – the printer beeped, the weather monitor lit up, the digital clock by my bed started to flash – and it woke me up. My first thought was for the computer. This computer I'm writing on has a problem. If it gets shut off, it doesn't want to start up again. It takes numerous tries to get it to open up properly. So we never shut it off. Unfortunately, the storm did. This morning before I turned it on, I said a prayer asking for a blessing on it. After three tries, it opened successfully. Then I said a prayer of thanks. One of these days it will shut off and never start again. We need to have a reliable computer for our mission work, so we are in the process of finding a new one.

Speaking of our mission, our papers have been submitted and we are waiting for our call to come. If you remember, we have decided to serve at home doing what is called a VROC (Virtual Records Operations Center) mission, where we will help with the Church's family history research. We will serve for eighteen months, putting in at least twelve hours of work per week. We're excited to serve.

The weather today can't decide what it wants to do. It goes back and forth between sunny spells and rainy squalls. It rained hard as we were ending church. On the way home, we hit patches of rain. Right now the sun is shining. I'm sure that when it's time for me to go down to do the chores, it will be raining again.

The week ahead looks like more cool weather. The high temperatures are only expected to hit the low 70s. Here we are on the back end of August, and it feels like fall. But I'll be out in that cool weather every moment I can spare, working, enjoying the garden, thankful for the bounty and the beauty.

Slower and Faster

Last week things slowed down in some ways and sped up in others. We came to the end of our summer guests, which made things seem slower, but harvest time is upon us and that makes things seem to go faster. That's how August goes as we fly through the last full month of summer.

On Monday a group of us (not me) drove down to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. They took a short walk along Pine Creek and then played in a small stream that feeds into the creek. They didn't play long because a storm came through. This was a big storm. There was tremendous thunder that rolled on almost continuously. The rain poured down for more than an hour. Here at home, I was out in the garden when it arrived. I made a mad dash to the house, but got soaked anyway. The Grand Canyon group also had to run for their cars. Then they drove into Wellsboro and had lunch at a restaurant called The Frog Hut. And yes, they do serve frog. And yes, Hazel ate some. She said they were good. I'll take her word for it.

Playing in the creek.

Hazel eating frog legs.

The rain down at Sarah's house.

We had a happy but very brief visit at the beginning of the week. Our friends Kathy Birch and her daughter Anna arrived on Monday afternoon to spend the night here on their way to Boston. Anna is taking up residence there and they traveled from Utah with a U-Haul towing Anna's car behind. We had a brief and happy evening together and then they left to continue on their way on Tuesday morning. Their visit was too short, but Kathy said that now that her daughter lives on the East Coast, she'll be out this way more. We look forward to more visits in the future.

Kathy and Anna.

On Monday evening Kathy, who is a professional genealogist, showed me some work she did on one of my lines, the Schneider family. Kathy is an expert at German genealogy. I haven't done research on my German family lines in a long, long time. After what she showed me, I'm going to get back to it.

Tuesday was also departure day for the Thayns. After having the younger four children here with us for the last  three weeks, and Rachel and Hazel here then gone then back again, this departure seemed a bit jarring. We'd established a routine starting with Russell up first in the morning wanting a bowl of cereal and then on through the day with all the activity and energy that comes with children and summer and cousins next door.

Next door, our niece Missy and her family also left for home on Tuesday. It was so fun having them here. Their children and our grandchildren played so well together. So Tuesday felt a little too quiet. After everyone left, the compound seemed so empty and forlorn. There were no children on bikes, gators, and go-carts zooming around. No bustling clusters of children planning and playing. That left just the Atwaters over at Kurt and Julie's house and those three children didn't have any cousins to play with anymore.

A pumpkin blossom.

I kept myself distracted through the day with mowing, trimming, and weeding. Miriam and I spent time during the afternoon tidying the house. We're done with guests now, so things needed to be put away – the extra bedding, the toys, the books. It was nice to have the house back in order again, but it was a sad reason to have it so. After working hard in the garden most of the day, I went out at sunset just to sit and enjoy the moment. The sunset was beautiful.

Sunset on Tuesday.

I never plant enough zinnias.

Wednesday morning was incredibly quiet. It was the first morning with no grandchildren here and I missed Russell's breakfast request. It was a chilly, foggy morning, so I did some family history research while I waited for it to warm up and clear. Finally, at 9:30, I went out to work. I spent the day working on the stone path I'm putting through the center of the long border. The border is too wide for me to easily reach the center, so I'm making a stone path that will give me better access to all parts of the flowerbed. I have a pile of flat stones that I've collected. I'm slowly digging out the center and placing the stones. It's hard work. I'm half done with it, but won't finish until the early fall. I have to remove plants that are blooming now and I will wait until they're done before I proceed.

Phase one of the stone path through the long border.

After dinner, we went next door to the Foster's to work. We began burning the large pile of branches from the trees they had cut down. The pile is too close to powerlines, so we have to drag the branches over to the burn pile at the edge of the orchard. It will take us a long time to burn all those branches. We also expanded the chicken yard around their barn. We had to move the existing fence and then add more fence.

Wade helping the branches burn with a leaf blower.

Working on the expanded chicken yard.

The finished expansion. The branch pile in the background.

On Thursday morning I went out to check my morning glories. There was a bud the day before that looked like it would bloom that morning. There it was, a single, huge, beautiful blue and white flower, the variety is called Flying Saucers. It was closed and shriveled up by noon, but there are hundreds of little buds yet to open.

My first morning glory.

I spent the day working in the orchard doing some summer pruning. The trees had water sprouts and suckers that needed to be removed. I could have waited and cut them when I do my late winter pruning, but it's easier to cut them when they are green. I also trimmed out some dead branches and took off a few low branches that hit me in the head when I mow. Working in the orchard on a warm summer day is happy work. The trees give light shade. When I prune them, I can smell the apple-ness of the wood. There is a little bit of fruit on a few of the trees. I found a ripe apple on the Sops in Wine tree and ate it. Its rarity made it especially delicious. When I finished pruning, I had quite a few piles to clean up, but I was tired and left them for later in the evening when it had cooled off a little.

Piles of pruning waiting to be cleared away.

In the early afternoon, I changed jobs and worked in the flowerbeds. I had a lot of flowers that needed deadheading. I did an afternoon Japanese beetle hunt. I dug up two peonies – they were old and weak and on their last legs. They had botrytis blight and I didn't want them to infect the other peonies. Now I get to select two new peonies to plant in their place.

After deadheading flowers.

Later, after dinner, Sarah was next door in the garden and we went out to help her with some harvesting. We picked a huge load of cucumbers, several big zucchinis, a big bag of green beans, two nice cauliflowers, and a bag of basil. We worked until it was dark. It was nice working in the cool of the evening. We've been blessed with a good harvest for some things. We're still waiting for the main tomato crop to ripen. They need some heat. We also have watermelons, cantaloupes, squash, and pumpkins that look good, but they also want some good hot days. And the sweet corn is in silk now, so we'll have corn on the cobb soon. The early potatoes are ready to be dug up. And tomorrow Miriam and I will harvest some cabbage and start a batch of sauerkraut.

Thursday's cucumber harvest.

Purple green beans and yellow wax beans.

A couple of nice cauliflowers.

We had a cricket take up residence in our bedroom on Thursday night. I like crickets. Stacey does not. I told her that in some cultures it is considered good luck to have a cricket in the house. The Chinese and Japanese regard them as harbingers of wealth, good fortune, and protection. They even make fancy little cages and keep them as pets. She said we should catch this cricket and send it to Japan. Even though I like crickets, having one in close proximity was too much. A Field Cricket's chirp can reach 100 decibels – that's the same noise level as a chainsaw. Male crickets make their chirp by rubbing their wings together, called stridulation. One wing has an edge called a scraper, other wing has a toothed ridge called a file. They chirp to establish territory and attract a mate. Through the night, this cricket moved around in the room stridulating at full volume, sometimes under the bed, sometimes across the room. I slept mostly oblivious to the noise, but I woke up at 1:00 A.M. and I could tell Stacey was awake. I could tell that cricket was across the room under the desk. I got up and put on a headlamp and went in search of it. I found it right away. It was tiny and black, crouched on the carpet against the wall under the desk. How could such a small insect make such a loud noise? I think the light from my headlamp stunned it. It didn't try to hop away. I caught it and took it out the front door and tossed it into a flowerbed. We went back to sleep in blissful silence.

Field Cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus).

An antique Japanese cricket cage.

Down at the Foster's house (the one they are renting, not their house next door) there is a young bear that comes regularly to raid their bird feeder. Their dog, Maverick, goes crazy barking at the windows when he sees it. but they never let the dog out unsupervised so there hasn't been an encounter. They called the game commission, but they said that unless the bear is behaving aggressively and poses a danger, they won't do anything about it. The little bear is never aggressive, just hungry. And it looks like it loves sunflower seeds.

Things really thinned out here on Friday. Kurt left that morning to go on a fishing adventure out west. In the afternoon the Atwaters left to return home to California. Miriam and Hannah also left in the afternoon to go down to the Thayn's. So in just a few days we went from having two housefuls of guests, to practically no one.

I spent the day on Friday mowing. Usually by August the grass has slowed down. In fact, many years August is hot and dry and the lawn goes brown and dormant. Not this year. It hasn't been very hot and we've had enough rain to keep it green and vigorous. We're still mowing twice a week. Friday was a big mowing day – weed whacking, mowing the orchard, and the lawn. It took me four hours. But I like mowing. I find it is a sort of meditation for me. I ponder on profound things while I mow, like the role of fungi in keeping the world alive (the lawn was full of mushrooms). Sometimes I sing. That day I ran through my repertoire of songs from My Fair Lady (don't ask me why, it's just what popped up in my brain).

Friday evening Stacey and I went to the movies to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It was pretty good. A bit long, but I liked it. I always think the fight sequences are too long in these sorts of movies. They should trim them down to a maximum of five minutes per fight. I'm a Spider-Man fan from way back, beginning with the Saturday morning cartoon in the 60s (I can sing the theme song word perfect), which led to collecting comic books (all of them lost, alas, before we realized they would be worth more than the 12 cents I paid when I bought them). I've liked all the movies so far. Tom Holland is my favorite iteration of the Spider-Man.

With the bounty of cucumbers we've been blessed with, we made our first batch of relish on Saturday. We had all the ingredients fresh from the garden, twelve cukes, twelve bell peppers, twelve big onions – we used the sweet Walla Walla onions I just harvested. We ground it all up in the morning, salted it and let it sit all day and then cooked it and canned it in the evening.

Relish ingredients waiting to be ground.

Cooking the relish.

Twelve pints finished.

We also processed beans and peas. I spent part of the afternoon shelling peas and snapping green beans in the kitchen while watching My Fair Lady, a carryover from my mowing songfest on Friday. I have a long love for My Fair Lady. As a very young child, I listened to and learned the music from a lot of Broadway musicals and movies from my parents' record collection. At the age of four and five, I could sing songs from South Pacific, West Side Story, and The King and I. In 1964, my Grandma Rathfon, knowing how much I loved musicals, took my sister Hollie and me to see My Fair Lady at the West Shore Theater, down the street from our house on Bridge Street. I was only six, Hollie was ten, and it was a nighttime movie, not a matinee. I was enthralled. My parents bought the soundtrack album and I added those songs to my musicals repertoire and acquired the ability to sing with a Cockney accent. I also fell in love with Audrey Hepburn. All of those associations came flooding over me as I shelled  peas and snapped and blanched green beans on a perfect summer afternoon.

1964 movie poster.

Eliza Doolittle on her way to the Embassy Ball.

Later in the afternoon Stacey and I drove up to the cemetery in North Bingham. It was a beautiful afternoon and we drove via backroads to the cemetery on a hill at the border between Pennsylvania and New York where I have many relatives buried. 

Howe graves in the North Bingham cemetery.

The view from the cemetery looking north into New York state.

Today was our Stake Conference. Our Stake Center is in Jamestown, New York, famous as the birthplace of Lucille Ball and Roger Tory Peterson. Jamestown is two hours away. We left at 7:45 this morning and arrived home at 2:00 P.M. The drive there and back is pretty. We follow the Allegany River part of the way. We listened to a Come Follow Me podcast on the book of Psalms as we drove. Our meeting was good. On the way back, it started to rain – just a light drizzle. Now we're home. We need to have some lunch. I need to do the chores. Maybe I'll have time for a nap. Hannah and Miriam will be home later in the evening.

The week ahead looks sketchy as far as the weather goes. Not hot enough. Chances for rain on Monday and Wednesday. I'm making a list of the things I want to accomplish during the week. Harvest time is gearing up. I think I'll harvest carrots and beets and dig up some potatoes. There will be more cucumbers, green beans, and chard to deal with. Maybe a few tomatoes, but they are slow in ripening, lacking the heat they need. And I'll have to mow again. Maybe twice. I'll be busy and that's the way I like it.