Summer at Four Sticks Farm started with the sudden death of The Greatest Dog in the Whole Wide World, a disruption to the activities of our daily living and the beginning of a season out of sync.
Heat and rain and high dewpoints, some of my least favorite things, saturated the summer.
Waterlogged trails of soggy grass pock-marked with mud puddles limited opportunities for roaming around our favorite summer spots, and without Rowdy, my steadfast hiking companion to lead our little pack, Ruffian turned out to be a fair-weather walker.
He opted out on the hot days, which was most of them, so for the first time in forever I found myself going solo, which enlightened me to the recognition that even with all those scratch-and-sniff stops to leave his mark, canine camaraderie refreshes my soul in a way that the most thought-provoking podcast cannot.
But with Ruff or without, too many steamy days pushed the once-priority woodland wanderings to the intermittent section of the daily itinerary.
My mom put her house on the market, which meant days of de-cluttering, deciding what to discard, what to donate, what to keep in the new place or in the family.
Showings had to be scheduled, as did inspectors, repairmen (there is a special spot in heaven for people like plumber Dan) junk haulers and movers.
Spreadsheets were created to track To-Do’s; closets and cupboards were emptied, Goodwill and garbage bins filled.
Eighty-six years of accumulation takes a couple minutes to disseminate.
It was a long hot summer, which left me a little tired and a lot sad. I lost my muse and my mojo.
I flipped the page to September on my old-school paper calendar, hanging on the inside of the cabinet door above the coffee maker, with a sigh of relief and a spark of positivity for the promise of a fresh start.
But the weather gods carried a little heat to the new month, and some personnel changes brought the same to the new school year.
Ruffian went on Therapy Dog hiatus while the in-coming Powers That Be draft the documentation they deem appropriate to allow a dog in school. I think he’ll be back eventually, but while we wait, he spends his mornings at home, a victim of politics, power struggles, and peeing on the fenceposts of policy and procedure that inevitably come with new administration.
So, we’re still searching for some rhythm to our routine, but in the meantime Ruff and I finished Obedience 3 and managed to keep our collective composure during a final class conducted while the high school homecoming parade marched past our unsound-proof building.
We finally returned to the local state park last weekend for the first time in 2 years. These are my favorite hiking trails, their only downside being the branches of burrs and stems of stickers that edge the path and latch on Ruffian. I let them hitch a ride as far as the truck, where they get the End of the Line brushoff, left to languish in the parking lot.
The horses’ skin conditions healed, and their summer hair grew back just in time to start shedding in exchange for the winter wardrobes.
The branches of our Honeycrisp tree bow with farm-record abundance, much of the bounty suitable for human consumption despite the farmers’ nearly nonexistent knowledge of apple tree husbandry. Or wifery.
George collected caterpillars from the ever-expanding milkweed crop around the farm and hatched them from a couple cages on the barn porch, setting more than 50 Monarch butterflies on the flight path to Mexico.
And last week I renewed my driver’s license, assisted by a twentysomething who, after entering the data from my completed form, smiled brightly and said she’d add a “Senior” indicator to the front corner of the card.
Having apparently missed that one on the questionnaire, I obviously blinked blankly a couple times too many because she happily added that “lots of places offer discounts” and this would confirm my status.
For those who can’t do the math.
Or identify the obvious.
But she was so delighted to impart this bit of financial insight that I couldn’t help but match her joy. I thanked her with more cheer than generally extended at the DMV and laughed much of the way home.
It is still a beautiful world.
With ten percent off.
ps to Barry:
The summer was long, it was wet, it was hot.
A favorite of mine it was definitely not.
Rowdy is gone and that still makes me sad.
But Ruffian is here and for that I am glad.
The mud has now dried and the sun has come out.
There is plenty for me to give thanks about.
Moe’s legs have returned to their usual size.
And the barn is surrounded by big butterflies.
Time’s moving on and I’m getting older.
But still I believe that the years do get golder.
I made these words rhyme just about to the letter
So I hope that you think that this poem is better.
From Four Sticks Farm 