Pig and farm report

Animal God visitation at Summer’s End yesterday a Solstice gift

I woke at 2:30 am and could not get back to sleep I woke before the owls and accidentally alerted all three cats to jump on my bed and Busby Berkeley dance their way across my legs then my face I turned on the fire and waited for the echoing owl calls through the forest canopy and listened to the rain which is poundy and biblical in nature nonstop thunderstorms windstorms flood level rivers

yesterday I went to the beach the sharp narrow hairpin road still slick with the last of the leaves and I was glad for good old fashioned rubber boots that held me steady as I walked to the end of the dock where white water crashed and a crab man with three pots and ten Dungeness crabs (over his limit sure but he was gathering food for his family) kept giggling and trying to say good fortune good fortune while the crabs upside down skittered their claws in the air clicking for help maybe release back into the tumble the crab man and I couldn't stop laughing this is the way wind pulls words out of your mouth this is the way wind makes speaking ridiculous a flock of black oystercatchers pecked flickers out of the shallows with their dangerous red beaks they rarely show up unless they've been invited to a feast and it was a feast as the sea dumped her welcome basket close to the shore I watched a raven hop around with an entire sodden baguette in his beak he couldn't fly and he couldn't put it down because of the voracious and rude glaucous winged gulls there are floods down the road bigger floods in all the parking lots

I need to go to the grocery store in town this morning and I am fearing it with deep and abiding stomach clutching dread Christmas shoppers tend to be pushy and aggressive I only need to get broccoli and avocados and fruit and cheese for my Christmas dinner which over the years has become mostly a day of grazing a quiche a pumpkin pie some guacamole and chips I figure one giant meal a year that I am expected to cook is enough for me now that my life is so much smaller and so much larger ( my son asked what’s for Christmas breakfast waffles? and I burned a hole into him with my blazing eyebulbs)

I want to run a hot bath but I hear the breathing of more than one adult child I don't know who is here I might have to tippy toe into the kitchen to make coffee and get my oatmeal going before we can all be our most beautiful selves one day into winter and I'm already longing for summer I will always be a summer girl