Thirteen years of farm notes and every late July and August finds me making notes on the doldrums, winds slack in the sails, waiting for that first sign of a change in course or the weather. Hard to muster the energy for even basic tasks on the To Do list knowing that another six weeks of the same is ahead.
That the Dog Days of summer have arrived are perfectly captured in this quote: “Dog Days were an evil time, the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid” from John Brady’s Clavis Calendaria. Our dogs, while not mad, are more useless than me. Tip stretched out on the porch or behind the hydrangea sleeping away the days in her dotage. Becky, having given birth to ten puppies seven weeks back, spends her days slipping from tree to tree in a furtive attempt to elude the heat and the grasping mouths of her offspring.
Meanwhile in these long days after Robby’s death last fall, Tips old age and Becky’s maternity leave, the varmints and deer have decided that a banquet on ye olde farm was in order. We lost all of our spring chicks to skunks before I managed to relocate three of Pepe Le Pew’s kinsmen to the afterlife. Rabbits gambol in easy reach of the snoozing Tip. If awake she would feel the scorn shown of her diminished abilities. Fortunately, she sleeps through the evidence of her decline, legs twitching in sleep as she chases them down in her dreams. (Gibelotte de lapin, my dear rabbits; enjoy your salad days for I will have mine and soon)
Waking from my own mid-summers afternoon nap I stroll into the kitchen to find a large doe in the back yard. “BECKY! Do your #$%@ing Job”, I shout out the door! No reply. The doe grazes in the grape vines before languidly trotting back to the woods. Becky ventures out for a moment until the ten puppies see her and attach like leaches. Her gaze turns to me, reproach and accusation evident in her eyes.
Meanwhile I just hope the wine hasn’t soured.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Reading this weekend: a Dan Starkey mystery, Of Wee Sweetie Mice & Men: the title, the terrorist and the punch-drunk pugilist by Colin Bateman. Now if you don’t know who Dan Starkey is then more is the pity.
