July 04, 2006

13 days later

13 days, 20 iced coffees, one white sand Florida beach, one heck of a sunburn, and two grueling days of Greyhound busing later...

My tomatoes have taken root and are starting to look promising. My sweetpeas have emerged in the boxes at the front step. The mulberries are winding down, but still there are a few berries worth picking. The cats are wary of me again. The heat of the day is getting more intense. The grass I 'excavated' before I left, attempting to save it from suffocating under the piles of dirt leftover from all the trenching and construction, has made a glorious recovery.



Gus was uncharacteristically subdued when I got back on Saturday. Then the next day she started coughing. I could tell she was feeling pretty rough, so I sent her in with my folks and they took her to the vet. She as a lung infection. She can't run or swim until she's better, so she has to stay in town for a few more days. I miss her.



With Gus away, there have been a few more visitors about the place. I have seen the wild turkeys every morning, making their way through the yard, with a pause under the mulberry tree. Also, this morning while I was still in bed and before I had my glasses on, I saw a big yellow cat and thought for sure that I was finally seeing the bobcat. But then I saw his long tail and realized it was just a barn cat - a GIANT yellow tom cat. He walked across the yard with hyper-alertness, the sound of my taking a deep breath stopped him dead in his tracks.



And there have been a few other visitors as well - our cousin, his family, and a friend of his. It has been reinvigorating to have six kids running about the place. I've been doing my best to get them covered in dirt and mulberry stains and a few scrapes and bruises, for good measure. We carried an old tank to the edge of the yard, for them to swim in. And put together the old swing-set that was my mothers and then mine.
This is a really good place for children.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

hey em! me and some SF ladies just started a new blog! come check it out!

http://livingthedig.blogspot.com/

question: how do you post photos? miss you!

--claire