Almost Overwhelmed

Because of the heat, many vegetables are coming in early.  We made and canned Italian tomato sauce on Thursday.  We’ve never had main-crop tomatoes in July, let alone so many of them on platters in the diningroom that we must use them or lose them.  We have had Oriental eggplants for weeks now.  Frying peppers are coming in regularly.  We are the zucchini capitol of Wellfleet, as well as having a bounty of yellow squash and especially patty pans.  We have been picking and freezing pole beans since mid July, red cabbages since the end of June.

We aren’t socializing this weekend as we have been getting behind.  Thursday, I had an interview on ZOOM with a woman from a Berlin Socialist newspaper.  Therefore, I didn’t get into the kitchen till after lunch.  After processing beans and dealing with tomato sauce  for two and a half hours, I was too tired to make supper, so I had steamers from Moby Dicks and a cup of their lobster bisque.  Moby’s makes excellent seafood. We have to do take out in summer, as they are always crowded with a line out the door.  It is so early I haven’t even done an inventory of what’s left from last year in order to know how many of everything we need. I know we ran out of spinach, strawberries and beans, but that’s all I know.

Willow gets more and more affectionate as time goes on.  But it’s puzzling. When she was a kitten, she would get into bed and suckle a blanket  right over my breasts.  As she matured, she stopped.  Three nights ago, she suddenly began again, purring madly while she suckles.  She does so now every night.  I don]t know why she suddenly began treating me as momma cat again.

I should harvest more catnip and dry it.  The cats say our catnip is better than the best we buy. I should also be drying some lavender and other herbs.

  am reading Neil Gaiman’s new book of short stories, TRIGGER WARNING and enjoying it.  I find his imagination and story telling keeps my interest. I don’t get nearly as much time to read in the summer as I do in the winter.  The garden or farm if you like takes so much time and energy, but the payoff is good exercise and healthy organic food all year.  I think that’s why in spite of my ankle injury, I am very healthy for my age, or so both my doctors tell me.  It doesn’t always feel that way.  I miss long walks.  I find I do at least a third less in a day than I did twenty years ago.   That isn’t subjective. I have records I found from old print outs of what I did in a day in various years. I am too tired sometimes in the evenings to do more than watch the Olympics.  I’ve always recorded programs on the DVR so that we can watch them when we have time. I find now I record programs and then erase them a few days later because we have no free time to watch them.

We are in a drought again, the only part of Massachusetts that isn’t waterlogged.  Melenie says Easthampton has had 13 inches of rain.  I’m jealous.  She and Jay have now moved into a house near where they had been living in a small condo. Melenie is ecstatic about finally having an office of her own again, instead of having to work in the kitchen.  I am hoping she can come visit in August. I miss her again already.