Greetings Dear Ones,

Thank you to those who have written expressing your condolences for the loss of my dear friend. You are very kind! I appreciate your thoughtfulness and compassion more than I could say.

In the Spirit of Liberty and Justice for All, I skipped writing this blog last week on the fourth of July so that I could devote a “free” day to the hot, sweaty, mosquito-laden labor of getting some cattle fencing put up. I’ve been fighting to give the boys their freedom for three years now—bit by bit enlarging their space as I am able. Freedom, of course, needs strong limits, lest we intrude on someone else’s life, liberty, or property. It’s never a good idea to let one’s cattle feast upon a neighbor’s begonias. It’s not good for the cattle and it certainly is not good for the begonias. I think there’s a “Thou Shalt Not…” about that somewhere as well as at least one Robert Frost poem on the importance of good fences. Now they (the cattle that is, not the neighbors) will have several acres of fresh salad bar to roam, within the perimeter of a .69 (?) joule voltage fence. I may have overdone it on the strength of the fencing but I might not be able to patrol it daily and it needs to be strong enough to not short out, should a daisy lean against it—somewhere between withstanding a daisy and being able to knock down a fully grown bear seems about right. So I spent our nation’s birthday defending and protecting the liberty of my beloved boys, thinking (not for the first time) how intertwined are liberty and discipline. (My inner fifth grader spent a few minutes reminiscing on my younger brothers daring each other to pee on the electric fence on our family farm when we were young and wondering if anyone of my son’s buddies would be dumb enough to try such a thing here. It put Prudence right off the idea of roasting wieners for supper.)

“Let’s talk more about Discipline and less about wieners,” interrupts Prudence groaning disapprovingly.

Every time I work with those two Jersey boys (a.k.a. The Steeroids), their first question out of the box is “Hi! Do the RULES still apply? Oh! They do? Fine. Thanks for clarifying. Yes, we DO know how to behave.” And they do. But with cattle as with all critters, especially the human ones, the rules need to be Fair, Understood, Consistently enforced, and there need to be genuine consequences universally applied to all who dare break them. They usually check to see if the rules apply by trying to break a rule. I call it “testing the fence.” Those who think they can piddle on someone else’s boundary deserve to get the shock of a lifetime! (The 5th grader is giggling again.)

One of the best things about living on this dear little homestead is all the lessons it is teaching me all the time. I take nothing for granted. Each season is unique. Last summer, I had sunflowers that towered overhead. This year, the chipmunks TWICE ate all my seedlings. TWICE I germinated the seeds on the kitchen counter, twice they sprouted and grew. I put the tray outside and the chipmunks acted like I had just rung the dinner bell.

So this is a year with no sunflowers.

But it is a year with PEACHES!!! Yum! It’s been three summers since we had a decent peach crop. Last year, due to an untimely frost, there were no peaches at all. In Nature’s way of Tragic Abundance, there are more peaches than the boughs can safely hold. They hang there like tiny baby sea turtles. Only a small percentage will make it. The truth is that each tree can only make about a hundred full-grown gorgeous peaches to full size. If I leave them all there, I will have hundreds of undersized fruits that won’t fully develop. I can’t bear to go through and pick the gorgeous babies and say to each one “no, not you…” It breaks my heart. (Have I mentioned I’m a terrible farmer?) The best I can do is shake the tree vigorously so the weaker ones drop in a small shower of padded rocks on my head. The more that fall, the bigger the others will grow.

The sheep come running for the fallen. Since their one ambition in life is to die, they don’t want to miss an opportunity to choke on prenatal peach pits. They crunch them happily and say “Can you blame us? It’s ninety degrees, we are covered in wool, and flies are trying to drink from our eyes! What’s there to live for?”

“Yep, I’m tapping out as soon as I can,” says a yearling lamb heading for some moldy hay that got rained on. “With any luck, I’ll get me some Listeria poisoning here…”

Life and Death are constantly arm wrestling here at the Land of Lost Plots. Life tries to get a little leverage by sheer numbers but more peaches will be lost than will make it. The tree needs to put its energy into making fewer fuller. Isn’t that the way with us, as Menders? We have thousands of projects on the go. Editing is good. Devoting our energy to the completion of what is manageable. We cannot do it all.

Boy, it’s been HOT here! So hot it caused “a health crisis” for me this week. I’ve been babysitting a neighbor’s dog while their family is on vacation. Each morning I take it for a walk as part of my morning chores. A few days ago, I wore my crocs—those rubbery plastic shoes you can slip on your feet—instead of the big heavy muck boots. When I got back to the house, they were wet and covered in grass clippings so I left them outside the door. A few hours later, I went to take the dog out again and I could not get my feet into the crocs! The air was close and muggy. It was a brutally hot day. I had been working hard on the fencing. I could tell my hands were puffy from slamming a posthole digger and iron bars into the ground. My feet were swollen too—apparently so swollen that I could not get crocs on! Crocs! Seriously? They are big, floppy, sloppy hunks of rubber. How could they be too small? How could shoes that were too big a few hours ago suddenly not fit? Next to the shoes, my feet looked enormous.

I panicked. I should not have eaten so much salty food at lunch! Or was it that Birthday Cake I made for America? I got some water and promptly guzzled twenty ounces to help flush my system then lay down on the floor and put both legs in the air. What if I have high blood pressure now? What if hypertension is causing me to swell? I put my feet down after a few minutes and checked them again. The swelling seemed to go right up the leg. In fact, it was noticeably worse in the thigh and buttocks area. It wasn’t just the feet! My WHOLE BODY was bigger. What was I to do???

I lay there and contemplated phoning the dear Hermit of Hermit Hollow and asking him to take me to Urgent Care. Would they be open on a holiday weekend? Should I go straight to the Emergency Room? My pulse seemed normal. I felt otherwise fine. What would I say to the doctors? ‘”Hi, sorry to bother you, but my shoes don’t fit—can you do a total work up on me?”’ I drank more water. I swore off corn chips and cake. I planned out my funeral. Mentally, I searched my desk for the deed to the house and the title to the car so that my poor orphaned children would not have to live out the nightmare we’ve been having trying to get my recently deceased friend’s affairs in order. As the soundtrack of Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye” crescendoed in my head, I wondered who would take my sheep. What would become of Gus and Otie? I looked Mortality in the eye and it told me I have too many stunted peaches in my life. I need to do some pruning and ripening. I need to set up strong boundaries so that my Happiness can find its Liberty.

I came to terms with a lot of things… I forgave those who need forgiving and sent Love to those I may have hurt. I went on Web MD and tried to ascertain my prognosis.

Then I “Googled” a new question that suddenly occurred to me: “Can crocs shrink?”

Yes.

Yes, they can. All you have to do it heat them. I lay there, legs up, sucking down switchel (water laced with apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and ginger), watching a fascinating series of YouTube videos showing how you can run crocs through the dishwasher on the hot cycle; you can put them in a washing machine on Hot; you can microwave them; heat them in an oven (NOT recommended!) or put them in a dryer on high with a wet towel. Apparently the polymers that make these things behave like shrinky-dinks when heated.

You can even leave them on a back deck of a blazing hot day in Vermont in July.

They definitely WILL shrink—at least two sizes or more. Who knew?

Isn’t life full of fun surprises and chances to laugh at Nancy? Sometimes I’m not the problem I think I am. Sometimes Science and Nature are just teaching me.

Stay Cool, Dear Ones! May you be fruitful and Free!

I love you Sew Much!

Yours aye,

Nancy