We had two good rains this week, one following the other by about 24 hours.  Now it is hot, even on the Outer Cape --before 9 in the morning, hot already and humid.  I’ll try to stay in the house with air conditioning turned on for whatever room I’m spending time in.  It seems as if every summer is hotter than the one before.  Trump doesn’t care if the world burns up – he’ll be in a cool bunker watching his old rallies again and again.

Woody’s mother died Thursday morning.She was 89.   If it were done according to Jewish law, she would have been buried Friday, but it will not be until Monday.  Woody doesn’t want me to go down in the extreme heat, but mostly he’s worried how I could possibly hobble from the parking area to where the grave is.  He also doesn’t feel I could thrive getting up @ 3 am Monday morning to arrive inNew Jersey by 10am in time for the graveside funeral and then drive back after lunch with the family getting back here around 9 or 10 at night.  I keep volunteering to go to help him stay awake, but he refuses.  I am worried about him doing all that driving on almost no sleep. He has an interview for his WOMR radio program Tuesday that he was committed to doing and really wanted to do.

That has overshadowed all the time since we got the phone call.  I cancelled PT, assuming she would be buriedFriday, in which case I would have gone with him and we could have stayed in a motel, but that didn’t happen. Monday I work with Dale and there are things that have to be done that day, anyhow. I will be very nervous about Woody doing all that driving on little or no sleep.

I was not close to Woody’s mother and neither was he.  We did for her what we could. I spent six days total solving the problem of her cat Lady whom she could no longer keep in the facility as she was about to get a roommate. She loved the cat but wasn’t able to care for her really the last two years. Lady was overweight and her fur was a mess.  At CASAS, they put her on a diet and cleaned her up.  She has been very happy there, putting a lot, being a middle aged lap cat who turned out to be pretty after the necessary attention.

The rabbits are a plague this year.  They are not afraid of us and have eaten almost all our bean plants and at least half of my pepper plants.  Last fall they ate up all but one plant ofBrussels sprouts.  We had a fox for a few years who kept the population down. We were very fond of him and he was not afraid of us.  But he’s gone.  Some epidemic of foxes has reduced their population sharply. We’re not the only people I know who have lost their local fox.  We never had rodent problems when the cats could go out, but the coywolves who killed my cat Max put an end to that.  Everybody who gardens is complaining about rabbits this year.  We see them every day and they refuse to be chased out.

I am working on my new poetry book.  I want to get it to my editor at Knopf in early September.  I have way too many poems in the first rough go through. Dale and I sorted them by category. Some folders like my nature and garden poems are way too thick – I’ll have to cut a good many excellent poems. This is a job I mostly enjoy. I haven’t begin thinking about a title till get the book in order.  That’s going to take a few more weeks.

We have been inundated with pattypans and yellow squash but fewer zucchini than most years. Wednesday, I froze two quarts of yiellow squash/pattypan puree for winter.  Today I’ll make my best zucchini soup so we can have it cold tonight with some good bread. I don’t want to have anything hot in this weather—it feels most unattractive. I made cucumber soup with dill and yogurt on Thursday and we finished it up for lunch yesterday.  It felt refreshing.

Schwartzie has been suffering from the heat more than the other cats since he has such long black fur. I hope he’s okay.

Garden work can only be done in the mornings before breakfast, but today at 8 a.m. it’s already hot. humid and the air is oppressive.