Garlic Time, Almost

I ordered four kinds of hard-neck garlic cloves from Territorial Seeds in Oregon. Of all the places I’ve tried, they have the best.  Woody needs to pull the spent crops, weeds, etc. and plow several areas before he can actually puts cloves in the ground, traditionally on Oyster Fest weekend when many locals take the opportunity to retreat from the massive crowds. So, I have a couple of weeks before we actually plant them. 

We’re still getting beans.  I’ve cooked them in broth, served with garlic and parmesan, with mushrooms, and various other ways including roasted them whole. Beans cook quickly and are easy. I will miss them fresh from the garden, but we have at least 20 frozen packages. 

Schwatrzie meows when he wants something.  Shaman stares into your face and stares into  our eyes. Willow uses body language. Each cat has a different method of communicating desires and/or what they don’ want, emphatically.

I did fall planting but the results have been iffy. The weather has been a roller coaster, and that hasn’t helped. No rain and then too much rain. Weather goes up, goes down, high winds, then none. Very much like, well, life itself. 

My assistant Nina is an extraordinary woman. She has our children, 13, 8 ,5 and 2.  As far as I can figure out, she is raising them without much help. She is a bright, energetic, a take charge sort of woman. She has initiative and courage.

I am reading the last of the archeologically-based novels on Vikings. They’ve been fascinating and the later ones are better. The first one was the weakest. The Viking part of the story was great, but the modern part was lame. The author has greatly improved those sections and by the last two books, that part was just as involving.

Several poetry zines have come recently and I’ve been reading them. Also, my favorite TV program, the Amazing Race is on now and I’m enjoying it. My life was full of traveling and never knowing what to expect when I got off the plane, so I identify with the participants.

There are so many appointments we put off during the summer when we deal with constant gridlock trying to get someplace. So we’re kind of clogged up with them now, doctors, dentists, cats to the vet, things we put off shopping for, etc.

This has, so far, been a more, what we call normal fall – not as hot as recent years. Buit who knows what October will be like? I enjoy cool sunny falls with, of course enough rain, but I can’t figure out where to put in my request.  I’m not nostalgic about the past except for the weather, before so much climate change and Wellfleet, when it wasn’t full of rich people’s summer mansions. What a friend calls single family hotels.