i miss her.

my sister. i had nearly two months with her this summer. living and farming and talking and eating and cooking and planting and swimming and singing and running and reading and puzzling and talking and harvesting and hiking and exploring and arguing and music-ing and talking and sleeping and boating and driving and berry-picking and bathing and talking. all summer. with my sister. she is, without a doubt, the most loveliest person i know. in every single way she exudes beauty...even when she is grumpy with me she can't help but be the most beautiful. and today is my first day without her by my side. and tomorrow is her first day back west. and christmas is the next time i will see her. it is a magical thing to have a sister. even if you have to go stretches of months or weeks or days without seeing her. even if neither of you can keep a cell phone or write an email or send regular letters. those days that you get to be with her make it all worth the un-wholeness of when you are apart.

photo credit to mom

belly-scratches with rose

nick sent me this reassuring snapshot today. he is in the berkshires checking on our brood. rose, he determined, was feeling adequately at home on the new farm. i am in such desperate need of a good lie down in the grass with my ever-growing piglet.

farmers on holiday

i've been mulling over how farmer's can go on holiday. how they can leave their animals and crops and land and cares behind to put them on hold. to put them out of their ever stressing minds.

i'm on holiday, so i'll need to mull over these feelings of guilt and this need for rest and see if i can't reconcile it for a coherent post. for now, we are in town, getting wares. the winds are picking up a bit. and if we are to make it back to the little island without getting too wet i need to cut this short now.

i'll be back to a more regular source of internet gold next week when we land on cape cod. for now, have a lovely extended summer week-end. will see you on the other side.

too terribly busy and exhausted for words.

rudy and i explore the boundaries of our vanity

i called the farm today to get an animal report. they are being Model pigs and cow and chickens and duck and bees. this kind of report puts me very much at ease as i was worried we had coddled and cuddled and spoiled them all too rotten.

with the Good News it opens space up for other things to worry about. like what form of human housing we can create this winter? we will be at current farm just 2 months and then we have farm jobs outside of boston but with no place to live. renting doesn't fit our modest farmhand budget. but there are options. tee pee. larger tent. 1960s camper found on craigslist. such options while small, minimalist, and sexy present two seemingly insurmountable problems. how do we heat any of the above through the bitterness of a new england winter? and on whose land in such a proper setting as outer-boston can we set up such red-neckian accommodations?

such are the thoughts plaguing me on this thursday morning. the river is glass calm and the sun is beating gently down --mercifully much unlike it beats down in the south-- so off to the rocks to make like a lizard and soak in this day. worries about winter be damned for a rainier day.