Jupiter and Wolf

Pig and farm report

last night I dreamed I was sitting in the middle of my garden reaching into thick loamy soil pulling out potato after potato after potato each potato more gorgeous than the next

this morning I went out and dug up potatoes each more gorgeous than the next

I'll dig the rest of the potatoes once the big rain starts but for now they can stay in bed and in November I'll plant tulip bulbs in that bed to give the soil a chance to regenerate its goodness

after that I paid my first of the month bills and cleaned out my little accordion file box keeping three months of each bill and discarding the old bills

this might not seem like a big deal to you but if you've ever been mentally or lived with a mentally ill person or had a manic episode that lasted for five years straight you might recognize this for the miracle it actually is

my life is larger and smaller than it's ever been

Amen to Henry finally releasing me enough to come back here

I have missed you all so much

Pig and farm report

I am rewarding myself a bit of time here to say hello after a hard morning of killing my darlings to misquote Faulkner I have cleaned up my mss and cut the first section from 38 to 33 pages and every one of those pages (I first typed plagues!) contained writing that I love but I am now asking does it move my thesis forward does it move the story in any direction and is it necessary

I have changed my deadline to get it to my editor the first of September instead of the middle to the end of September

all that's left now really are the front and back

I'm pretty much done

it is clean autumn here on the island now that the smoke has cleared literal smoke from Canada and Oregon and California the air quality has been so poor that I haven't hazarded outside and have been coughing and feeling stopped and ragged in the mornings I work then I go to the beach then I read I cleaned my garden of tomatoes last week and they're still coming yesterday I stopped to pick up some road eggs at my favorite road egg spot and met the man who owns those chickens his name is Jack and not only did I take all three cartons of eggs and a bucket of plums I got to meet his goat Fred and his five sheep one named Dorothy I fed them bits of torn up hot dog buns Jack said do you mind a little bit of goat spit on your hands I told him absolutely not my heart banged in my chest to meet these beige beauties I have admired his Animal Gods from afar and he was pleased to hear it I got a tour around his property right and good as he looked at my legs in my turquoise dress and talked and talked and talked Jack is an elder hippie as I am a collector of wagon wheels and old teapots out of which he makes art he also has an orchard and a huge garden before I left he ran in his house then ran out again and gave me his phone number on a piece of paper and told me to call him if I ever want eggs

which I just might do

here is what my garden gave me  this week

here is the blackberry star pie I baked a couple days ago

and here is Prince Hal after I returned from the pot store he was quite excited

that's it for now Darklings I have a frittata cooling on the counter and then I'm going to mop the kitchen

thank you for your patience while we are undergoing construction






Love,
Rebecca

Dear Darklings,

I miss writing here but it interferes with my work now my terrible breathless amazing race to the finish line I have hired an editor to do some fine tuning on my mss working almost every day (yesterday I dug potatoes out of the ground and picked some tomatoes then sat in the bath tub and cried for an hour then ate half a brick of cheddar cheese) when I am not working here at my desk or digging in the dirt or rolling around with the feral kittens I am embroidering I have gone back to the Black Milk project I started a few years ago I have one new piece and one half piece the embroidery keeps my hands going while my brain stays lodged in finishing Queer Wing-ed I will be back in September soon soon I'm posting parts of my mss that I have left out of the finished copy pieces I love but that don't fit for one reason or another it's all I can talk about now it's been all I have been talking about for almost ten years

Love

Black Milk 3

pink embroidery floss, yarn, cocktail napkin, blood 

Dear Darklings,

I will return soon I owe your delicious comments answers today I am taking advantage of cool temps and light rain to work work hard toward my September deadline but for now have a peek at this fantastic sock monkey lady that Mary Moon made with her own hands can you even believe it I have wanted one my entire life always wanted one what a gift