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A Poem by Marge Piercy

Today was a gorgeous day just as yesterday was and I was happy to get into the garden. I was pulling done plants out of my pollinator bed when a small wasp stung me on the chin. It hurt like hell.

This week has been unbearably hot and humid. It feels as if the outdoors is sweating and miserable.

We are waiting for Hurricane Henri to hit on Sunday. We are doing what preparations we can but anxiety reigns.

We had a successful mouse hunt that is, Willow and Schartzie did – for four nights in a row.

Willow is probably our brightest cat. She solves puzzles quickly. She also has the most intact instincts and is our best and most efficient mouser.

We’ve never had main-crop tomatoes in July, let alone so many of them on platters in the dining room that we must use them or lose them.

I think of the first harvest as the spring cole crops –broccoli, bok choi-- and cool weather greens like the many kinds of lettuce, radishes, arugula, mustard. Now we are in the midst of the second harvest.

Offered the chance to spend the day off Cape with good friends, have a sumptuous lunch (INSIDE a restaurant!), and see dinosaurs, we took it.

For the first time in about 12 years, Woody climbed the ladder in the bed of the truck and managed to pick a few baskets of sour cherries, which I love. We froze a quart for a pie and made cherry preserves.

Woody set up the dehydrator for me. The first thing I’ll do is dry catnip. I buy commercial catnip fsometimes, but our homegrown stuff is stronger.

It’s wasn’t easy this year (given COVID, etc.) but it was great!

The spinach doesn’t like hot weather at all and wants to bolt. So, I’ve been freezing it; broccoli, too. And rhubarb. Everything comes at the same time.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain! Maybe it will get rid of all the tree pollen that has been making us sneeze, cough, our eyes itch, our throats raw.

I look out my office window at the main garden and can see the broccoli heading, the spinach larger every day, the Spanish bluebells in bloom all over. When I moved here, I planted three of them. Now they’re all over the land, spreading into the woods.

We got the final five main-crop tomatoes in last Sunday. the weather has turned sunny, dry and hot, making garden work more laborious. I had been wearing jeans but almost passed out on Thursday.