When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
–Mary Oliver

The weather has turned cooler—I’ve actually had to put socks on! The air is crystal clear, and the morning sun coming in the window feels wonderful on my back.

There is so much change in the air right now. This seems to be the time of year for women around here to have babies—I know of four all due here in about a two week period. K* had her baby boy yesterday, and B* had a baby girl about a week ago. M* is due in the next week and a half or so, and today I’m excitedly planning a very small and intimate blessingway for her. It’s been up in the air because of how much she’s had going on (she just adopted a seven month old adorable baby boy from Guatemala a month ago! One of those stories you hear about couples getting pregnant after adopting!); I’m just thrilled that we are going to have a chance to honor her new motherhood.

A friend—or actually, for me, more of an aquaintance—died a couple of days ago. A* spoke eloquently of him over at her place. Even though I didn’t know him well, I’m feeling very aware of the hole he left in the fabric of our community.

Yesterday a neighbor stopped by to introduce himself and invite us to church. His wife had died in March, and he ended up telling me, in detail, about her last night. As he was leaving, he said that when she was still alive, she’d get home around four or five in the afternoon, and that’s where he wanted to be. But now….he just doesn’t know where he wants to be. I ached for him—I could feel that huge, ragged hole in his life.

So—all these comings and goings—our time here seems so short sometimes. I’m feeling wide open and terribly tender towards my loved ones; I want to be more present with them, instead of so caught up in just getting done what needs to be done.

Life is so sweet….

It is so nice to be back in the cool and misty mountains.

We had a ball at the beach, though it was little different than we anticipated. But that’s how life works, I think, and it’s why it’s helpful to stay unattached and light on your feet…

Our first day and a half down there were sunny and hot, and the water was in a carribbean mood—clear and green and still. Standing in chest-deep water, you could see your feet on the bottom, like some kind of strange, pale, deep-sea creatures. The waves were tiny, flicking the shore like a cat’s tail. The kids snorkeled along the edge, and we all guarded against sunburn.

Then came Rita, prowling ominously to the south, and the mood of the gulf became decidedly more restless; soon it was too big for swimming, and at the same time a ferocious red tide bloomed. The waves kicked it up into an aeresol, and you couldn’t go outside—just opening the door provoked a fit of coughing. Wednesday was the peak of the red tide, and that was also the evening that a couple of transformers near our house blew up and we had no power. And couldn’t have the windows open. All night.

Fortunately we were with good friends, and a party atmosphere prevailed. We went through a lot of ice cream (ten or so half-gallons) and a fair bit of Tanquerey. P* did some fishing—with great success, I might add—and M* and I read a lot of magazines.

I would characterise this trip as strange, but fun.

On the way home we stopped and had lunch with my mom in her cute little new house. That was very nice, though short, as we were feeling rushed to get home. Which we did, around midnight Sunday night.

We woke the next morning to a sweet, cool mountain rain. It felt so nice to be home! We spent the day moving stuff around in the house, and working on the girls’ bedroom. They aren’t sleeping on the floor in our room any more—instead they have what looks like a gypsy tent. My stepmom and my sister T brought the girls the cutest comforter set—very brightly colored—and between that, and some quilts made by the lady who used to live here, and the girls’ sarong collection, their room is so bright and warm and cheerful.

So, anyway, it’s good to be home. Can’t wait to read what all y’all have been up to!

I think the annual beach trip may have overtaken Christmas as the most exciting and anticipated event of the year for our family! The girls are beside themselves with excitement—and are expressing it by picking on each other mercilessly—and even P* was acting a little goofy when I saw him yesterday.

The girls have a little ritual that we must re-enact over and over by this point: they sit me down every morning and have me tell them, step by tiny step, what is going to happen between that point and arriving at the beach house. This started when ED was two, and we were doing a lot of traveling and moving around, and it was to help alleviate her stress and anxiety—and worked wonders!—but now it’s just the best story ever. We can’t do it at bedtime, though—it has to be during the day—because it’s just too exciting. Are we the dorkiest family ever?

DH and I went up to the old house night before last (I met him there after work) and loaded up a bunch of metal fence posts that I had pulled. We also took out some stock panels, which was one of the most physically demanding things I’ve ever done! I’m a wimp, but even DH found it some pretty hard work. The grass and weeds have grown all up through them, and they are nearly impossible to pull out! After a couple of hours of hard work we had gotten six panels out. Today I’ll use those panels to give Fionn and the goats a pen off of their barn stall. The goats love their new stall—the are very content in there—but Fionn is miserable. We let him out a few times a day to run and do his business, and about half the time he disappears and we have to go find him. Poor guy. I think a nice big outside space will make a difference for him.

Our friend C* is going to feed and water the animals, and milk Aurora, while we’re gone. I am feeling quite comfortable leaving everyone in her capable hands. We’ve been quite lucky—last year and the year before J* has done this for us—and I just haven’t had to worry. E* and P*, our neighbors over at the other house, are keeping an eye on the horses and cows. Boy, is it going to be a project moving them over here. The horses and cows, I mean, though I wish I could bring E* and P*. We’re going to miss having them as neighbors!

So we are planning to leave at 3am Sunday We all love the early early morning traveling routine. We’ll try to hold out for breakfast until somewhere south of Atlanta—maybe Macon. If I don’t manage to post again before then, I’ll see you all when we get back!

…..I shall continue my extremely exciting tale about DH and his wound:

So anyway, here he is, home early because of a splinter. I ask to see his finger, non-squeamish midwife/farmer/all-round tough cookie type that I am, and he shows it to me. I recoil backwards, lightheaded, and have to sort of get myself together for a second before I look at it again.

He has managed to jam two splinters under his middle fingernail; one of them goes nearly the entire length of the nailbed—the other is about two thirds as long. You can see in his eyes the knowledge that those things are going to have to come out, and it’s not going to be a pleasant operation.

So after M* leaves, and while supper is cooking, we get out the splinter kit ( assorted pins, a serious pair of tweezers with the optimistic name of Sliver Grippers, and some nail clippers), and get situated under the light. The girls gather around in anticipation of some real entertainment (think ER) and we get to work.

DH only cried briefly when it was over—and that was out of relief—so I can say he handled the ordeal very bravely. We agreed that it might’ve been one of the worst operations I’ve had to perform on him, but then we started reminiscing, and had to admit that the time he sliced open his forearm with a very sharp chisel and we superglued it back together was pretty intense….

His finger was sore last night and kept him awake a bit, and his manicure’s a little rough, but he’s doing fine now. Poor baby.

I love our milk in the autumn. The character of the browse changes significantly this time of year, and the milk reflects that. It is like drinking half and half—it’s sweet and very, very rich. This is my favorite time of year to make cheese—the components of the milk are so high that there’s very little whey—my yield per volume of milk is pretty enormous. And the resultant cheese is so creamy and so delicious.

DH came home early from work today. I got home from washing clothes in town and he was waiting on the front porch, visiting with M* and the girls. I didn’t think much of it until he mentioned, kind of casually, that he’d had to come home early because he’d gotten a couple of splinters. My stomach kind of clenched up when he said that, because DH gets a lot of splin!ers, bu! he never comes home earli because of ‘em. (2 le!!ers on m’ keeboard have qui! working—can 7ou !ell which ones?) OK, forge! i!—I’ll finish me fable manana!

Goodnigh!

M* kindly invited us over for dinner tonight—a fabulous dinner of homegrown roast chicken, pesto noodles, mashed potatoes, salad, and blueberry-sour cherry pie—and it was so absolutely wonderful to sit around on the screen porch with good friends, smelling the nighttime summer smells. M* and P* had a friend staying with them tonight, someone we didn’t think we knew, but it turned out we had met several times through mutual friends 13 or 14 years ago in West Virginia when ED was a baby! I would never have remembered, and was amazed that he did!

When we got home (such an easy drive) ED and I decided to walk up to the barn to visit the goats, and see how they were liking all the work we did today on their stall (it doubled in size). On the way up there, under a yellow setting crescent moon, with the smell of hay like honey all around us, we realized that the ground was a pulsing universe of glow worms. We walked through constellations above and below—it was magic.

The goats like their stall ok, I guess—they were all sleeping in the new part that we opened up today. We got them all stirred up and left them yelling as we walked back over the hill, hand in hand.

The last two days we’ve moved most of the chickens, the ducks and the geese. I think there are two chickens left over at the old place, and we noticed that we lost a few in the time between us being gone and them coming here; there are a lot of feathers scattered around over there! Today we’ll try to catch those last two holdout rebels ( I keep trying to tell them it’s for their own good!), and then we’ll only have the horses and cows left to move. (Only!) I am going to leave them there until we get back from the beach, with our neighbor keeping an eye on them for me.

Speaking of the beach, we’ve had some heavy duty waffling going on, but now we’ve decided to go for sure. It was a combination of being unsettled (for us) and money and gas (for us and the D*’s). But since we can’t get a refund on the house, it would be pretty stupid not to go. And gas prices are coming down, right? Also as M* so aptly put it,” This is our carrot all year long!” It’ll be good. Especially if Ophelia will just mosey up the coast and out to sea. Speaking of which, what were they thinking using the name Ophelia?! Were the hurricane namer guys trying to make trouble?

OK, back to farm related news. Yesterday we went up the road a little ways to where there’s a sign saying Hay for Sale. Boy, was there! This guy has a huge operation! He was hard at baling when we got there (trying to beat the dew, he said); he already has 2500 bales in the barn! This was his fourth cutting, and it was an absolutely gorgeous blend of orchard grass and alfalfa, bright green and fragrant. We bought ten bales to see if the goats liked it (they do), and it was only $3.50/bale. This is pretty exciting for us, as we’ve struggled to find hay that we were happy with in the past. Also the guy had a ten year old daughter—she and Bernard sort of latched on to each other immediately.

There is hay being cut like crazy around here; there’s so much more farm land over here than on the other side of the county where we were living. There is freshly mown hay on three sides of us: there seems to be a lot of sweet grass, or vanilla grass here—the air in the evenings is redolent of the sweet smell—it’s intoxicating.%