We’ve been putting almost all our efforts into the vegetable gardens. The Saturday before the workshop, Woody began working on the out-of-doors. He had a lot of mowing to do of weeds and high grasses and lopping back of the rampant wisteria so people could get around. I worked on the weeping beech so the path to the gazebo was clear. He continued with putting the outdoors back together all week. Then Sunday I did the week’s wash instead of dividing it between two days as I usually prefer. I went over the materials for my first day. This was a good group and a number of them seemed to form bonds that will last far beyond the workshop. Some years that happens much more than other years.Every day I gave my short lecture on some aspect of craft and passed out examples and gave an assignment that would develop more consciousness of that craft element and ways to use it. Every day we workshopped their poems. The last day I set aside some time to discuss submissions of individual poems to zines and manuscripts to publishers, readings, support groups and work habits. Every afternoon I held individual half hour conferences in the screened-in gazebo. Paul’s Himalayan musk rose is in full bloom all over the roof after crawling up the western side. It’s gorgeous and has a honey scent. Then I returned to the house, put together everything for the next day and tossed all the leftovers from the morning into the downstairs office and collapsed. Dale had worked for me Monday half day for the last time. He has two other jobs in ssummer, docent at the Highland Light and runnitng the information booth for the Chamber of Commerce – where to say and eat and what to do. Woody hosted the beach party at Newcomb Hollow on Wednesday evening and hauled the wood. This year was unusual in three ways:nobody came from other countries for the first time; all women for only the second time. The third unusual aspect was that almost everyone brought a significant other or two. Thursday evening we all read at the Wellfleet Public Library. The reading was well-attended. Melenie, who was my assistant for 4 years and is my close friend, came from Hadley and sold books at the reading. She was able to stay at a friend’s house that wasn’t rented for this week. Around 12:30 Friday when I got back from class, we started cooking for the party. I had previously hard boiled a dozen eggs and soaked the bulghur overnight and set it to drain. I had one lst conference in the gazebo and then back to cooking. I made a strawberry rhubarb pie – the rhubarb is excellent now and I must freeze more. I’ve made rhubarb compote twice since the rhubarb grew big enough to pull some stalks. Woody had cooked a turkey breast the previous day, so I made curried turkey salad. We made hummus, a cucumber-egg-fennel salad –our bulb fennel is quite big enough to use now and if we don’t start eating it immediately, it can get tough. The broccoli is rolling in, the spinach is done, six kinds of lettuce are still producing and we used the first baby zucchini and pattypan and yellow squash in the green salad and in the tabouli. We made guacamole and chickpea fetaparsley salad. At five the thirty people poured in. I think the party was a great success. Woody manned the bar. I dumped myself on a bench under the wisteria and chatted with people. Friends brought a key lime pie, sushi and a wonderful cake. We also had some cookies.At last I got to wear the fancy long dress Woody gave me for miy birthday. I had taken it along on our 2700 mile trek, planning to read it Sunday night, but the temperature was 85 and I wore a sundress instead. I am exhausted today. The clothes I wore all week are in a huge pile, the leftovers from the workshop are dropped helter-skelter in the downstairs office. My own office floor is snowed in with dropped papers. In short, the land looks terriric because of all the work Woody put in this week, but the house is a mess. I can’t believe I used to cook for 80 people every July when Woody was a selectman and we had those huge garden parties. Then my dear friend Elise helped me, just as Melenie did for the class party. It’s fun when you cook together, but drudgery if you have to do all that cooking by yourself. I enjoy the workshop but it’s a lot of work and I just want to take it easy – as easy as I ever can—for at least this weekend.