I try not to let the weather influence my mood too much, but if you are familiar with my journals at all, you know I'm not very good at it. The week was supposed to be rainy. All three of the weather sites I check agreed. So I knew I wouldn't be able to do most of the things I needed to do in the garden. The potatoes needed to be dug up, and you can't do that when the ground is wet and muddy. Well, you can, but it's miserable work, and the potatoes are filthy and have a greater tendency to rot if you do. The grass was going to grow like mad and we wouldn't be able to mow. There were beans, corn, and raspberries that needed to be picked. It looked like it would all have to wait, and waiting meant they might be past their prime by the time we could harvest them. Part of my brain said, be the dedicated and diligent gardener and just get wet. The other, practical—or perhaps lazy—part said, you could get pneumonia working in the rain, or at least be uncomfortable. I brooded on all of that as I looked out Monday on a gray, rainy, dismal morning. I had a fit of pre-frustration, a whole week's worth of exasperation lodged in my brain. I needed to find a way to brighten the atmosphere, at least in the confined space of the rooms where I was hunkered on a dank and dismal Monday morning.
I needed music. But what music? That set off another fit of unsatisfied brooding. I scanned all my music files. Nothing appealed. I went to YouTube and looked through my usual categories. No. Then I remembered my old record collection on the shelf in the music room. A few months ago, after many years of neglect, I'd set up my stereo and brought down my records, but hadn't used them much since then. I went in and sat down and began to look at the albums. I've been working on editing my journals, and I suppose that put me in a nostalgic mood to begin with, but looking at those albums was like reading pages of my life. I didn't even listen to the music. The record jackets were enough. I could tell a story for almost every one of them—where I lived when I acquired it, what I was doing with my life at the time. I spent several hours looking through them. It was entertaining, nostalgic, and a bit melancholy at the same time. In the end, I chose the recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Major, Op. 64 and Bruch's Scottish Fantasia, Op. 46, performed by Campoli and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The album was a Christmas gift from my parents in 1971, when we lived on Campbellsport Road in Ravenna, Ohio. We only lived in that house a year and that was the only Christmas we had there. As I listened, all the associated memories of that time and place came rushing through me.
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| My stereo and record albums. |
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| My oldest album. |
The year we lived in that house has taken on an idyllic glow over the years. We lived there from August 1971 to August 1972. The house was in the country on an acre of land. We had only a few neighbors, most of them nice except for the hillbillies that lived next door. We were surrounded by farmland and forest. Just down the road was the West Branch Reservoir. We explored the woods and the reservoir and rode our bikes countless miles over country roads. There was trouble while we lived there. We had problems with the neighbors. I cut my foot and spent most of my second summer there on crutches. But my memories of that time are mostly good. I loved living out in the country. We moved from that house to Naperville, Illinois, at the beginning of my freshman year in high school, where a whole new world opened to me. All of that was stirred up in me from an old record.
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| The house on Campbellsport Road, 1971. |
It stopped raining for a while later on Monday afternoon. I hurried out and did the chores and then went out to the big garden to pick raspberries while I could. They are a delicate fruit and spoil very quickly, so I was glad to get a bowlful. Raspberries are one of the few fruits I'm allowed to indulge in. Luckily, they are also a favorite of mine. If I had to name a fruit flavor as my favorite, it would be raspberry, but I don't like the little seeds. As I was coming back to the house, I found one of those accidental bits of beauty that I love. Along the edge of the orchard there are a few blackberry plants. They never give much fruit and I don't pay much attention to them, but that afternoon they stopped me in my tracks. There was a perfect white blossom on a sprig with pink buds and small green berries. It made me think of the apple blossoms we didn't have this year because of the cold.
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| Raspberries in the big garden. |
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| My afternoon pickings. |
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| Blackberry flower. |
Sarah dropped in after dinner and we went out to harvest some things before the rain began again. We picked strawberries, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and corn. The highlight of the evening was picking and eating the first ripe cantaloupes and a watermelon. Melons are not easy to grow here. Most years they don't have time to ripen before cold weather comes. This year, we've been blessed. We brought the melons in from the garden, sliced them, and ate them straight away. They were perfect, juicy, and sweet. The rain returned just before sunset.
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| The evening's pickings. |
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| The first melons of summer. |
Tuesday was the first of September and, although it didn't feel very different from the August days that preceded it, mentally it was different. September always has a shifting feeling to it. My brain knows that summer will end during the month and I become attuned to anything that indicates even a slight change in that direction—an increase in the number of leaves on the lawn, the disappearance of the swallows, goldenrod starting to bloom more abundantly.
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| A patch of goldenrod at the edge of the orchard. |
Tuesday morning when I checked the forecast, it had changed—not much chance for rain during the day, it said. I was pleased. When I went down to the barn to do the morning chores, the garden was still wet from Monday's rain and a heavy dew. I fed the chickens, checked my rat traps (all empty), and came back inside to wait for things to dry out a little before going out to work. My garden plans were delayed by a trip to the gym. After we got home, I went to work right away.
I saw that the rain was expected to return that night, so I hurried and mowed the lawn. After mowing, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden.
After she got home from work later that afternoon, Stacey and I went out to run errands. We drove into Ulysses to the bank, then out to the Amish bulk food store on Fox Hill, and then to the dairy on the Pusher Siding Road. As we were coming home, the National Weather Service issued an Emergency Weather Bulletin stating we could expect high winds and possibly a tornado. The sky was darkening to the northeast and we could hear distant thunder. When we got home, I went out to the garden to batten down the hatches. I moved all the top-heavy potted plants to sheltered spots so they wouldn't get blown over. I closed up the greenhouse. Miriam was out mowing next door and I walked over and told her she should stop and put the mower away. And then we waited. I've seen tornadoes before when we lived in Illinois—but never too close. Once when I was out at my friends' house on the flat farmland out of town, I raced a tornado home. I could see it in my rearview mirror, a couple of miles behind me. We don't often get tornadoes here in Potter County. We've had two touch down in the 26 years we've lived here. There wasn't one on Tuesday afternoon. I'm thankful for that.
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| Tornado warning to the east of us. |
The storm missed us. It was like we were under a protective dome. There were dark clouds and lightning to the east, west, and south of us, but clear skies over Gold. After dinner we went next door to Fosters' and worked at chipping the huge pile of spruce branches. We worked until dark with lightning flashing in the gigantic clouds to the west of us.
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| Chipping branches. |
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| Dramatic clouds at the end of the day. |
I had a haircut appointment on Wednesday morning at 10:00. While I waited for it to be time to leave, I worked some more on editing my journal. By then, I was up to 1984, the first months of my marriage. My Grandad Rathfon had died just before Christmas. Stacey was pregnant with Geoffrey. We were living in a tiny apartment on Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar. I was working at a job in Hollywood that I did not like (what else is new), longing for better things for my new little family. As I was reading through these entries, there was a thunderstorm rumbling outside. And I was listening to music—Vaughan Williams'
Symphony No. 6 in E minor, one of my most beloved pieces of music. When it got to the third movement, "Romanze," I had to stop everything and just sit and listen. The combination of the journal memories, the thunder, and the music all swirling in my brain was perfect.
I had a pleasant visit with Dawn, the lady who cuts my hair. Her husband loves to fish and ties his own flies. I brought him all the tail feathers I'd collected from the peacock. Apparently they're good for making flies. Dawn and I always chat as she cuts my hair. I tell her what's going on in my family. She tells me what's going on in hers. We've been doing that for more than a decade.
The rest of the day was rainy. I went out into the garden during spells when it was just drizzling, thinking I could tolerate it, but I didn't get anything done except get wet. I finally gave up and came inside. The weather changed after dinner. There were enormous cloud formations to the east and west, but again, Gold was clear. We went out again to work at chipping spruce branches. Kurt got out his tractor and helped pull some of the larger branches from the pile. The branch pile shrunk slowly, while the chip pile grew quickly. As sunset arrived, the sky was lit with incandescent clouds filled with silent lightning. Around 8:00 the silence ended when the storm finally arrived in Gold. The wind blew hard and the rain came down in torrents. We had to get up and close windows. All night long there was almost continuous lightning, thunder, and pelting rain. A few times the thunder shook the house. It kept waking me up through the night.
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| Clouds to the east on Wednesday evening. |
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| Looking south down highway 49. |
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| Working until dark. |
Thursday morning was one of those mornings that only come after a summer thunderstorm. It was very warm, very humid, and very fragrant. The sun was shining, but more rain was on its way, and we were under a flood warning. I went out after my chores in the barn, thinking I would work in the garden, but I only lasted ten minutes. Stopping work because of heat and humidity is not something I usually do, but 85° and 80% humidity was too much. I retreated, first to the shade on the front porch, and then to the living room with a fan. At 2:00 I went out again to see if conditions were any better. They weren't. But I heard Kurt's music playing out in the big garden (he has a radio on the bike he rides around the property), which meant he was out there doing something in the heat, and I thought I'd better go see what. I found him on his hands and knees, picking green beans. He was just finishing that, and wanted to pick some sweet corn before heading back to this house. I helped him fill the wagon that he pulls behind his bike. By then we were both dripping sweat. He went home, and after picking an armload of cantaloupes, I went back inside to wait for the cool of the evening. Don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining about the heat and humidity. It's exactly what I want on a summer's day. Using it as an excuse to take it easy is a welcome rarity here.
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| Cantaloupes in the big garden. |
After the heat of the day, working in the late afternoon and into the evening was delightful. I worked in my vegetable garden. I pulled up the rest of the carrots, picked the last of the wax beans and green beans, and pulled up the plants. Then I turned the soil in those beds and planted buckwheat. As I was finishing, the clouds were thickening and I heard distant thunder. Not long after I went in, the rain began.
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| The last of the beans. |
It rained hard all night and Friday morning was fresh. The air felt soft and the sky was blue and full of creamy clouds. I went out, as I do every morning these days, to look at the morning glories. I planted the morning glories at the base of an arch that spans two different raised beds. One of the beds contained older soil that I hadn't improved in a few years. The other bed contained newer soil enriched with mushroom compost. I planted two kinds of morning glories—Heavenly Blue went in the rich bed, Flying Saucers went in the poor bed. I didn't know it then, but I do now, that morning glories prefer poorer soil. When the soil is high in nitrogen, like it is in the mushroom compost bed, they produce massive vines and leaves, but no flowers. I also discovered that Heavenly Blue morning glories usually don't start blooming until the days start to shorten. So the Flying Saucer side of the arch is blooming and the Heavenly Blue side has yet to give me a single blossom. But there's still hope. The days are getting shorter. Unless frost interferes first, I might still get some Heavenly Blues.
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| Solid blue Flying Saucer morning glories. |
The weather was perfect for working, and work we did. Next door at the Fosters' they continued chipping branches and hauling away logs.
I worked in my vegetable bed weeding the asparagus rows, tying celery for blanching, and weeding. I finally got around to tying up the grapevines. They were sprawling across the ground and needed support. I stretched wire between their posts and fastened them to them. During the day, we picked raspberries and zucchini. We snapped and froze green beans. Later in the afternoon I mowed. While I mow, I usually sing or just meditate, but this time I decided to test my memory by trying to recite poems. I have quite a few committed to memory. I did a good job with the smaller poems. The big test was The Walrus and the Carpenter. I memorized that poem back when I was 15 and infatuated with Alice. It has 108 lines. I recited it almost perfectly. When I came in the house later and checked, I only messed up one word. I said the young oysters came skipping through the frothy waves, when they actually came hopping. Pretty good after 53 years.
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| Celery tied for blanching. |
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| Grapevines up on supports at last. |
So, at the end of the day we had the tree branch chipping project done, the lawn mowed, the garden in order, and various other pre-Sabbath tasks completed. I love a busy Saturday. I love the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. After such a day, I feel ready and eager for the Sabbath.
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| The pile of branches gone. |
Saturday night, after everything was quiet, I sat for a moment and thought back on my week-long journal editing project. I've gone as far as I can go for now. I only have my hand-written journals transcribed through 1985. Maybe over the winter I'll continue transcribing them and resume editing. I enjoyed revisiting 1975-1985, but in the end, the feeling that settled in my mind was the fragility of life, how quickly time passes, how short life is, and how much things change—people and places. I saw on the pages of my journals a world that has vanished, in many instances without a trace. Places that only exist now because I wrote them down. My intention in keeping a journal—written in the very first lines I penned back in 1975—was to preserve something I knew would inevitably be lost. I was a strange and moody teenager, and often an insecure and moody young adult, who, from an early age and even to today, has experienced what is called anticipatory nostalgia—a feeling of nostalgia for something while you're still living it. The pages of my old journals are full of people I miss—my grandparents, my father, my sister Mindy, other relatives, friends I lost touch with, and family scattered across the continent that I rarely see anymore. I don't mean to make this sound depressing. I enjoyed the journey back through time in a happy/sad way. I'm very good at feeling that way. I've been doing it for a long, long time.
So the Sabbath is here. It was chilly and foggy this morning when I went down to do the morning chores. The world was very quiet. The fog seemed to swallow all the sound. The only birds I heard were some crows far away talking to each other. Even the chickens seemed subdued. On my way back to the house, I took a quick walk through the meadow and around the garden and was soaked with dew to my knees. It felt like fall. Finally, around 8:30, the sun broke through. It looked so bright and lovely that I went out again to look at the garden.
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| Some of this morning's glories. I'm obsessed. Can you tell? |
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| Sunflowers after the sun came out. |
We are home from church. Our meetings were very good. Today is Fast Sunday and I'm looking forward to breaking my fast. We're having hamburgers, French fries, corn on the cob, and watermelon. Just writing that makes my stomach growl. I have plans for the week ahead. I have all the supplies I need to work on fortifying the barn against rats. That's my big project. They are delivering a stump grinder sometime during the week and we will grind down the two stumps in the front yard. And we'll continue harvesting. By this time next week, we should have a new grandchild. Rachel is scheduled to deliver her sixth child, our tenth grandchild, on Saturday. Lots to do, lots of changes. Time flies, life goes on.
