Waiting on My Tomatoes

All together we had 1.8 inches of rain over the weekend. It came slow and easy, and soaked and soaked. This morning we woke to fog, a very rare phenomenon this year.

When I headed out for school this morning, the sun had just broken through, and every leaf glistened with moisture, and then it dripped off in showers below the trees. At the overpass west of Pleasantview I was surprised by fog again on the other side--just as if the fog had rolled itself up from east to west like a giant fluffy cloud of polyester quilt batting, and I had caught up with it before it rolled out of sight. I plunged down into the fog and marveled at how quickly the world turned gray and clingy. By the time I had turned the Stutzman corner and gotten to W. Mills Ave., I could see dim shadows on the ground, cast by strengthening sun behind the tall trees at the old "Eli Yutzy" corner. When I got to school, only a mile further along, it was sunny again. The rest of the day was glorious--sunny, with a high of 72.

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One of Shane's cows chose the muddiest day in many months to cruise through the west garden. She did an amazingly good job of dodging the vegetables and flowers, but the paths were well churned up with hoof prints. The mulch mercifully covered many of her tracks. Hiromi and I interrupted our Sunday dinner preparations to don boots and head out into the rain to get her steered back to the herd. She had apparently pushed aside a panel to gain entrance. I got a bit of perverse pleasure imagining the deadly effect those hooves might have had on the voles or moles that have been crisscrossing the area all summer.

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Dorcas' mother was much improved today--apparently back to where she had been before the low spell last week. Praise God. Life suddenly looks simpler again to Shane and Dorcas.

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After school this evening I baked bread, canned a half bushel of tomatoes, emptied and refilled the dehydrator with apples, and did laundry. Now if those last jars in the canner would just finish I could go to bed.

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Dwight and Karen have neck pumpkin at the potluck. I love these hunga hunga Butternut squash. The neck is about two feet long and slightly curved. The skin and flesh look just like Butternut squash, and the flavor is the same. I also bought kohlrabi there tonight, and while I was there, Karen came in with a five-gallon bucket of beautiful beans. I think she said they've filled 20 bushels worth of orders within the past few weeks. There's no frost in the forecast so far, so this fall may be the best gardening weather of the summer.

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