I cut my own damned hair. Just now. Storm do.

I look smirky and fuzzy here but that is who I am

Fata Morgana

I love the colors of autumn the photo here is terrible because I took it and well there is Jupiter completely at ease on my pristine table but she is a kitten and she has the manners of a kitten but she keeps Summer's End free of flies (sky raisins) and wee mice she earns her keep you can see a corner of my kitchen garden out that window the garden will not give up not even now in the smack doodle center of gooey September yesterday I made jam from eleven cups of crushed strawberries that I grew on my deck all summer then hulled and froze because strawberry season is short but lo! and behold! the little buggers are still growing! I cooked the first batch of jam with half a vanilla bean and I cooked the second batch with a healthy pinch of fresh cracked black pepper aren't they gorgeous jewels? and tasty

gardening and canning is not all that is happening I recently decided that I had grown numb to my beautiful brain the flat affect that comes with being over medicated for too long when the Johnny Cash Psychiatrist was still my doc I'd go off my Tegretol on a regular basis the caveat being that I had to see him once a month instead of every three months while I was on the lowered dose a good system for everyone DOGNURSE freaks out when I mess with my doses of anything she has intimated that I am too smart for my own good and should never NEVER mess with my meds without telling her but I can't tell her I can't tell her anything I don't trust her but I told my son so yes my person knows and I have already this past few months weaned myself off most of the benzos DN had me on and and my new family physician Doctor Jack [call me Jack] Jackson is now prescribing my Tegretol and my Trazodone so DOGNURSE won't be able to track what I'm taking by calling the pharmacy all of this is good I'm sleeping I'm dreaming I'm finally once again after almost a year orgasmic I'm writing and reading and I WENT HORSEBACK RIDING with the baker a couple days ago even my son told me to stop acting goofy and I reminded him that goofy is my default and we were both glad

it is supposed to rain today and thunderstorm tomorrow not a big deal for the PNW but we have gone 80 or 90 days with no measurable rainfall though there was one weird rainless thunderstorm a week or so ago but this morning it is cloudly and windy I have opened all the windows and I'm writing in the kitchen and the wind is whooshing and singing and swirling the air is sharp-edged and sugary and forest smells are pouring in I'm making an experimental sweet potato pie cobbled together from three recipes I melted brown sugar on the crust and used cream in place of condensed milk and I used Chinese five spice in place of allspice but I tasted the filling and it tastes delicious I baked the garnet yams last night and early this morning I squoze them through my magic Foley Food Mill the greatest piece of kitchen equipment I own it is seriously built to last I even made my son's baby food with it back in the olden days

i'm reading the novel When The English Fall by David Williams it's a great story (basically an Amish village does really well when an electromagnet pulse takes out the United States) but it is not well written and Williams' dialogue is off his ear is off because his attempted use of Deitsch sounds either like Yiddish or Yoda (for instance on page 61 Busy morning, it has been still it's a quick read I started it last night and I'm over halfway through

my son will be here in two weeks with apples and I'm going to make and can apple butter and applesauce and all the horses in the universe will gallop in my head and I will write when I can and when I can

Hello Darklings. I hope you are well. Love from Summer's End.

Bloggity

Darklings,

I am once again beset by spambot. If I am listed on your auto-updating blog roll erase remove my URL and my name etc as I believe this is how the fugly spambot is following me. I'll leave this up for a day or so. If I close shop for a bit please remember that it's not you it's me.

I know.

But seriously.

first fire

it was cold this morning at least cold for me 50 degrees and I'm alone here with kitties and last week I finally found an affordable fireplace screen ($44 at Ace Hardware) because damn do you know how expensive fireplace screens are? I was afraid Jupiter who is only 2 years old and up until last April has always been an outside cat would put her nose on the glass which gets blistering hot though Orlando being 17 years old and wise to the ways of fireplaces would do no such thing little Orlando's fur is so sad now slightly oily and it no longer smooths down but she is an elder and I know our fur changes I barely have any left on my legs these days which pleases me no end we had two days of rain a thunderstorm and the air cleared itself of ash which has been falling in my forest for days from fires I harvested the end of my garden Friday and my computer is about to go to sleep so I will leave you with this for now the last of the September harvest black tipped lettuces gorgeous tomatoes giant scallions baby cucumbers and a single serrano papper I'll see you as soon as I recharge

September

I love the beginnings of calendar months the change of seasons because sometimes if the air is right and there is food in the pantry and gas in the car just sometimes it can seem like a chance to turn everything around Wednesday afternoon I drove to the Black Dog Farm roadside stand for eggs and on the way home I saw a huge roll top desk in someone's yard so I stopped my car and had a look at it and the owner came out and told me I could have it and I asked how much and she said nothing so I told her I'd try to find my son and my son's truck to pick it up and she gave me a blessing when my son drove here and helped me move it she said I am blessing you and she made a mysterious hand move like a fierce priest and I'll take that blessing I will take it to heart and the roll top desk is now in my living room a perch for my television and I jettisoned the horrible ugly cabinet that the former inhabitants of this house left for me by unscrewing the doors and flinging them off the deck then dismantling the pieces of it and throwing them also off the deck and finally pushing the whole damned thing down the stairs where I left it for a while before stacking it near the wood pile or one of the wood piles also I amputated about half of my Japanese maple with one of the doors sorry little maple please I'm sorry

then I made soup from tomatoes and potatoes and carrots and basil from my garden and I added beans and beet greens and celery and cooked it for two days and last night I put it in jars and this morning I put the jars of soup in the freezer because it is the Nesting Time

Jupiter had a frenzy moment this morning she jumped on my bed and stretched out on my stomach purring and kneading my hair which is her signal to Get Up! Get Up! then she jumped down and galloped to the living room where she banged her head against the window so I would look there and Lo and Behold there were two giant black hens proper gorgeous 4-H hens walking calmly side by side down the middle of the street I'm sure Jupiter just wanted me to admire them not let her outside to eat them yeah I'm sure that's what she wanted and they were funny two huge round feathery ladies having their morning constitutional just chatting away

most days nothing really happens if you don't count soup or surprise visitors like chickens or waking up at 3:37 AM today I'm going to go to Home Depot or some such store and buy a fireplace screen because the front of the fireplace gets extremely hot and I'm afraid Jupiter will touch it with her nose

that's it for now a Friday dispatch from Summer's End where the leaves are already turning the sugar maples are lactating and two cats protect me from all manner of wilderness

Danger, Idaho

this morning I roasted the little potatoes from my garden and ate them with a cut tomato also from my garden and salt and pepper then I mopped the kitchen floor and swapped out the tablecloth humming humming humming in my sky blue dress and I put the used tablecloth in the laundry basket then I opened the door and was sweeping out the mudroom when a young man said hello said I'mfromthewatercompanyI'mheretotestyourwater backing up the damned hill as I stood there screaming I mean SCREAMING screaming so loud I could tell I scared the living shit out of the poor kid standing there with his bucket and meter thingy then I apologized a lot I apologized the crap out of the kid who after all is my neighbor (I know where the well is that serves the five houses in this part of the island) and after he left I crawled back into bed and literally trembled for fifteen minutes at least fifteen minutes actually I am still screaming

then I made a peach crumble with the last of summer's peaches and popped it in the oven I am actually glad I had my dress on as I am basically much alone here and tend to trot around in nothing but my naked and what the hell kind of watch cat are you Jupiter you didn't even tell me

this PTSD attack (for want of a better word) lasted the entire day (Wednesday or Tuesday I think is when I started this post) and I eventually took an Ativan because I could not stop shaking then I fell asleep upside-down on my bed not on my head you understand but with my head where my feet usually go and when I woke an hour later I put my palm down and heard a pop which was my glasses lens letting go of its frame so I had to fix that so now my glasses are even more wonky than usual

I keep thinking of the time the one time only I tried to discuss PTSD with DOGNURSE who summarily dismissed me with a wave of her claw hand saying well we all have PTSD these days I should have know then she was not the shrink for me but I have had PTSD since I was five years old (there I am on the right in that terrifying family photo) or maybe even earlier though there wasn't a name for it then there wasn't a name for the peculiar kind of hell my brother and I lived through not then maybe there still isn't a name but PTSD comes as an identifier

the photo was taken in Coeur d'Alene Idaho the circus folk with whom I spent a great deal of time Nella Fay Troy and her children Kim and Jay who were also circus folk but I've told this story before but it is in my body and spirit/soul/animal now and will stay

Boo