Week 42

Beautiful morning with fog swirls playing with the hillsides.  I have my dog at my feet and a pen in hand.  Life is sweet.  Water drips from the large, star shaped, tulip tree leaves outside my window.  They make the leaves jump like a startled cat.  There is only a slight yellow tinge to their green announcing that autumn is here.  The recent, and thank God, continuing rains have turned the prairies green.  The grazing animals are happy to have fresh food.  While I missed the peak of our summer garden's bounty, friends and family made good use of it.  Now,  the almost bare tomato vines drop some red, split fruit onto the ground and the peppers, left hanging on the vines, are bright red and ready to be dried or frozen.  My hands itch to dig and pull and put the garden in order.  My nails have been clean far too long.  Perhaps I still have time to add a few chard and other winter hardy plants to our  little garden space.  Household jobs also beckon at me from this day of rest.  Our home got a bit neglected during my month away. Mark had more than enough to do with a day job and a ranch full of animals to tend to and  I'm excited to get back at it.  I love being a 'domestic engineer', and 'ranch hand'. 

I miss my little grandsons.  They are all doing well, by the way.  I miss too the conveniences of city life:  people to smile and chat with, shopping just a moment away and morning jogs on flat, sun lit roads and trails.   But all of that pales in comparison to the reality of this place, this time and the people and animals that live here.  Especially Mark.    I'm happy, happy, happy to be home.