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