for T and Fia

You reach up and I pull you to me
you wiggle to be set down
I oblige
and tuck myself to your height
look into your eyes
and smile.
You smile that true smile
a bit lopsided
as if you can't help yourself
and I turn from flesh to butter.

*                  *                   *



for Ez, Jen and Fia

You won't be really gone
'til the cedar plank salmon is eaten;
I'm hanging on
to lemonade for Pearl.
The studio cleaned
booster seat stored, yet
Fia toddles in my heart.

 
 

the assembled family!

Ma and Paw came down from Charlottesville to see the one year olds cavort with DD. My heart got so full up, I fret it's enlarged itself. Amazingly the little white doggies got along like old buddies; Mr. Lee getting to show his city cousin how to get down and dirty. Good food, I am still eating the cedar plank salmon. Good weather, which is a miracle after Wednesday's flash flood. Lots of love, babies on chest! And laughs.
 

So Much to Say

Wonderful, magical, endearing visit with Ez, Jen and Fia - the weather complied, have pictures of cousins playing together to post. However, I am pressed into road work, or rather the slow task of shoveling gravel out of the yard and pushing small wheel barrow loads back to the road. Yesterday we got a sudden deluge, 3 inches in a bit more than an hour. The road went river, the chicken house cut off, water up to my deck, leaving a canyon in the road! I fret that I should hoist the house up several feet! 

Baldwin saved the day, by mounting tractor, Muriel, and giving me back a road. He left this morning for New Orleans and the funeral of his grandmother. We did manage to hike down to the river through a wild creek which prompted me to carry Mr. Lee and Dew Drop to be ferried by her dad, T. packed safe to his mom's chest.

before I forget I wanted to put the link to Colleen Redman's
 blog post: looseleafnotes.com/2013/08/loose-threads-come-together/

Bird nest in a cage

The small bird is very well camoflagued; yet it seems an odd place to build a nest. I did manage to extricate one of the ripe tomatoes from beneath the nest yesterday. Look forward to baby bird peeps when I'm in the garden! 
Anticipating the arrival of my Houston grand-daughter with her people and small dog late this evening. A week filled with two one year old babies; one walking and one just about to (he's not quite one). Lucky me!

summer incidents mount

I'm going to hell

albeit, I have a heart

but a third incident this summer

marks a clear descent:

first, discovered by my dog, rotting groundhog

I vowed to check the trap more often.

But weeks later a second

groundhog's dead scent as I walked back

to the corn rows.

Now, the worst: young small opossum

climbing over corpse

of mother and sibling.

8/6/13

mhnorth