This week we canned tomatoes [not sauce this time].  One of the damned jars exploded in the boiling water.  We fished out the tomatoes and I added them to the zucchini and eggplants, etc. I was cooking.  It’s hard to cook while the canning jars are full and going.  It doesn’t leave a lot of room on the stove for a skillet and a big pan full of boiling water for pasta, but I did it.  Still, we ended up with seven more jars of tomatoes and a lot of broken glass. The beans are coming in very slowly this year.  Usually by this time we have harvested two large baskets full.  We’ve only had beans for supper twice and only frozen 3 lbs.  Very unusual.  The beans haven’t liked the very hot weather, I guess.  It goes from too hot to too wet and back to too hot.  Many eggplants, hot, sweet and frying peppers, a reasonable amount of tomatoes, a few zucchini. Tuesday afternoon we got ready for our annual trip to Maine. We left at 7:15 Wednesday morning.  We hit Kittery around 11:15.  I never shop in department stores except on December 26^th.   The outlets in Kittery are useful for us.  I needed tops, underwear, a small sauce pan [my 40 year old one finally gave out].  Then we both had lobster rolls at Bob’s Clam Shack, a great place for lunch.  On the way to Freeport, we stop at Cold River Distillery for their great vodka, two bottles for the year. It’s especially for Woody.  I don’t drink much vodka but he loves vodka martinis. On to Freeport.  Our luxury is staying at the Harraskeeket overnight in a corner room with a Jacuzzi.  I can’t see lusting for one at home, but it’s fun on our mini-vacation.  We ate Chinese and strolled around Freeport, hitting an occasional outlet. Practical stuff.  We lounged in the room.  I was reading The Stockholm Octavo.  Don’t care for the politics but interesting novel.  You’d think Louis XVI was some kind of great king who was good to his ordinary subjects.  We love breakfast at the inn, a complete indulgence with always seven or eight delicious items on the buffet, all of local origin. The next day we stopped by Pigs That Fly for a couple of great breads, although they have installed weird sharp glass over the bread that almost put out my eye.  Scary. Then to the Noon Farm in Springvale where we visit every year and get a naturally raised lamb.  I didn’t see the llama this year.  For the last 15 years or so since their sheep dog was savaged by a coywolf, they use a llama to protect the sheep.  Llamas can fight off coywolves.  They bond with the sheep and fight for their herd. Came back to five angry cats.  Mingus expressed his anger by pissing on the front door and also by sulking.  I am trying to make it up to them.  Two trips in as many weeks was infuriating to them.  When I got in bed Thursday night, four out of five piled on me. Luckily it was a cool night. A four cat night is fine in the dead of winter but a little overwhelming in summer. Two of the poets in my juried intensive poetry class had given me a gift certificate for a local nursery, so Friday morning we finally went to redeem it.  My parsley had given up in the heat, so I got seven young ones and this morning I planted them.  Also three big lavenders for the herb garden and a rose campion to go in the corner of the cut flower garden where something died.  Woody will pick up a chrysanthemum in a pot when they come in this week, which will finish off the gift certificate. I haven’t been writing except for one poem this last week, but I want to settle down to my new poetry book and begin thinking about it seriously this coming week. I always keep a little notebook beside my bed so I don’t lose ideas. As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I had a great idea for a poem, but I was sure I’d remember it today and didn’t write it down.  I was exhausted. Well, I don’t remember anything about my great idea.  It has evaporated. That’s what I get for being too tired to turn on the light and make a note.  Notes nail down ideas.  Being sure I’ll remember them is folly.  They come when they come and if I don’t anchor they, they come and they go.