This week has been unbearably hot and humid.  It feels as if the outdoors is sweating and miserable.  It’s been too uncomfortable to stay outside more than the time it takes to pick herbs or harvest some vegetables.  It’s hard to sleep even with air conditioning.  The only cat that will even go out on the sunporch is very short-haired warmth loving Mingus. If Schwartzie or Willow venture out, they come back almost instantly.  I know how they feel. It’s the same with me.

We were spared Henri, although I don’t know how long our luck will last. It felt to the west of us.  Only half an inch of rain and the winds were strong enough to knock down a few branches, but that was all.  Tomorrow it’s supposed to be better. I hope so. the front porch is covered with seedlings I need to plant but they would just die in this weather.  Chinese cabbages, regular green cabbages, bok choi, cilantro.  All need get into the ground but not while it’s so hot.  They have been mostly in the shade. 

My poetry group met this Wednesday.  We are going to have to find more members.  Jeannette, who has been terrific, a powerful poet and also has served as a tech person while we were on ZOOM.  Another member only comes maybe 40% of the time.  There were only five of us this time.  We’re looking for another good poet willing to critique other poet’s work honestly but without trying to change what that poet is trying to do, not what the speaker tries to do in their own writing. 

The beans, the zucchini, the patty pans, the tomatoes are slowing down.  We canned another 9 pints of Italian tomato sauce last Saturday, expecting Henri to hit us. I froze a couple more pounds of beans.  If I could do two more, that would be sufficient for the winter.  I am dehydrating tomatoes. I like to have them to enrich sauces and stews.  I also give Dale a jar each year.  So I need three big jars of them.  So far I’ve done two.  Right now if you were downstairs [my office is upstairs], you would hear the low roar of the dehydrator with three shelves worth of tomatoes drying. I hope to make freeze more pesto this weekend.

September is going to be an extremely busy month.  Rosh haShanah begins the evening of Labor Day. We’ll have a very small gathering this year, out of caution about Covid’s comeback.  Then I have a series of dental appointments, starting with one that will run at least two hours.  We’re going to Maine overnight, our first such trip since Covid struck.  We want to visit the Noon Family Far, hit some outlets in Kittery and Freeport, get some real apples from an apple farm we go to.  We couldn’t go last year, so I have a list of accumulated needs and desires. For one thing, I need a new pillow.  Mine is old and I suspect probably full of mites. I haven’t bought a lipstick in three years.  You get the idea.

Then comes Yom Kippur.  Then presumably Melenie will visit.  I have two meetings.  The harvest will require attention and we’ll plant fall lettuces, escarole, endive and dill.  And the fall bulbs I ordered will come in large quantities.  September is busy and I’d like to get back to revisions on my novel that couldn’t find a publisher in NYC.  I have rewritten a lot of it since then, but have a few changes I’d like to get back to before I try independent publishers.  In the meantime, I write poetry – two or three poems every week there isn’t some kind of catastrophe or urgent problem.

Last night in the middle of the night, the wather finally broke.  It’s sunniy, fairly dry and breathable and a more pleasant temperature.  Tonight, 4 memers of our pod come to supper.  Last of the lamb from Noon Family Farm.  Zuke ambrosia, Clafouti with sour cherries, gravlax and Dale is making potato salad.