Late August Summer Days

Tall corn stands thick and proud these hot muggy  August days. The neighbors’ soy bean fields delighted my eyes as I drove home from our village library and after visiting with a friend today.   The lovely bushy greenness spread out to the horizon like a warm wavy blanket.  After last year’s drought, this summer in our region has allowed farmers to produce bumper crops.  We are grateful.

We have eaten very good zucchini casseroles of various kinds to our hearts’ content and maybe a bit more than that. And corn on the cob from our next-door neighbor’s bounty. And now huge red juicy vine-ripened tomatoes with every meal but breakfast.  The okra has just started producing, so I will be putting more and more of that in the freezer for meals when the grandkids are here.  I have made zucchini cookies once and bread several times for us and for others. One is in the freezer for fall. (Gerald thinks a plant blight of some sort will end the zucchini season soon.)

I have used sweetener for most of the baked goods except what I gave away.  I made a second batch of zucchini bars yesterday that turned out vey good.  It was a recipe in my files that I’d never tried before. Maybe it is not accurate to say I made a second batch because the first time I was also pleased with the result until Gerald asked where’s the zucchini.  At that point after an extremely busy morning, it dawned on me that in my rush of doing two or three things at once I had never grated the zucchini I had laid out to add to the mixture.

I have not yet picked any garden produce.  Gerald continued to complete the task  even when he had to use just one hand being careful to not violate any of  directions given him at the hospital when he had the pacemaker put in.  But I have put corn and some zucchini in the freezer along with some tomatoes and even one batch of juice I made for wintertime chili. Despite my efforts to preserve some of the garden goodness, Gerald has had to take many full buckets and boxes to our homeless shelter in town.

The garden produce is not the reason I have been so busy. There have been days when Katherine’s aides could not show up, and I have gone into town to help her. She does not want me to, but she has to have help even though I have no training for nursing.

Good things are also going on. Before her new teaching and coaching job started in Texas, Erin was up for a weekend after all most a year away. It was so good to see her.  Brianna has started her freshman year at Murray, and we enjoyed a girls’ going-away lunch date with her mom despite their own work-crammed schedule this summer. Now Leslie is stopping by tomorrow on her way from her Nashville home up to a wedding in northern Illinois.  Gerry is coming in this weekend, and he and his dad will hunt dove in those beautiful sunflower fields Gerald planted.  Next week Gerald will get a final check up with the surgeon and two days later with the pacemaker people.  So  in the midst of concern about Egypt and Syria and our daughter’s health and a friend newly diagnosed with leukemia, life at Woodsong continues with peaceful mornings filled with fog and beauty and days with worthwhile work for our hands to accomplish.  And now I am going to bed for one of my favorite  blessings—a good night’s sleep.

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