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