I’ve been working on my new poetry book.  I’ve gone through my poems written since the last book MADE IN DETROIT and made a preliminary and then a secondary selection.  I’ve divided them into sections. Dale and I are still putting the poems into sections, removing my copyright slug and he’s proofing them – I’m terrible at proofreading my own work.  I see what I meant to write instead of what I actually typed. We have two more sections to go and then I need to start reformatting the poems to fit on a page, then counting the pages and making more cuts.  Then I must figure out the order of the sections. Then we have to produce an acknowledgements page. Then I have to find a title. Lastly we put it all together and number the pages, followed by making a table of contents.  A busy summer.  

I’m doing far more revising than writing.  Some poems are done but others can use a tweak or two. At this stage, I’m hypercritical.

Last year, I froze 25 pounds of beans.  This year, I’ll be lucky to freeze eight pounds.  The rabbits have eaten almost all our bean plants.  Next year, Woody has a scheme to protect the beans with chicken wire.  I hope it works. We will sorely miss beans this winter. They have also decimated the peppers.  We have no cayennes and very few frying or stuffing peppers. Last year, we had an excess. I was able to freeze more broccoli this year than ever before and lots of spinach.  At least we’ll have spinach, broccoli and pureed yellow squash for our winter dinners. Tuesday for supper I made zucchini soup with avocado. We have some left over for lunches.

I am trying to find a pair of shoes I can wear with my sprained ankle besides the one soft fabric sneaker I’ve been using for 8 months.  I tried a pair Monday I had mail ordered and wore them for three hours. At the end of that time, my foot was swollen and very painful. I’m sending them back.  The next day I could barely walk. It was a serious setback. I was especially upset because the weekend had been almost pain free. I harvested shallots and did a lot of weeding.  We cut the foliage off the garlic Woody dug. They’re in the gazebo drying before we can store them. I think my ankle is beginning to heal again – I sure hope so. This has dragged on and on and on.

My poetry group met Wednesday here – we meet the last Wednesday in every month unless too many of us are unavailable.  In the past, we’ve taken July and August off, but this year we all decided to keep meeting. Very useful criticism of new poems – or old ones that never quite worked.  I put out cookies and cherries. Then I watched the Democratic debate #4 – I’d recorded it while we met.  

We are losing much of our crops to rabbits.  It just goes on and on. It’s hot and hard to work outside, but we try and Woody is absolutely heroic.  He comes in soaked.  

Every day another mass shooting.  Angry young white men want to kill and kill and do so.  They don’t know or care who they kill, a six year old or a 71 year old.  Just so they feel momentarily powerful and able to show how strong they are with assault rifles.  I’m so sick of it and the unwillingness of the Republican controlled Senate to do anything about it.  After all, it’s not their children or grandchildren being shot. We now have a mass shooting every couple of days.  The pain and loss spread outward from the dead bodies. We think the ones only wounded are the lucky ones, but they will suffer PTSD and lingering effects from their wounds.  Some will suffer survivor’s guilt. Some will spend the rest of their lives in fear of public places. It doesn’t end when someone is released from the hospital. “Non life threatening” is the way the TV describes many survivors.  But their life was threatened and that’s not so easy to forget or deal with.