rivalry

A bit of competition may be good for you, but when the competing entities are animal rather than human, it can get nasty. When a visiting dog leapt forcefully at a door behind which lurked a suddenly timid Isis, Ed decided that keeping the two animals apart for the remainder of the visit was a good idea.

That meant that Isis had to sleep in the farmhouse. You could nod your head and say – yep, I knew it, he’ll have you holding a "welcome, Isis" sign up at the farmhouse in no time. But, the circumstances were unusual. And it was only for one night, because Isis was feeling threatened, the poor thing.


Later, when it was time to head for coffee and, in conjunction, to the public library for our usual swap of viewing matter, Isis was again content, without hound nor stranger to scare the daylights out of him.

Unfortunately, at the library, we ran into a friend of Ed’s. Said friend of Ed’s happens to be taking care of a stray cat. And the question arose – might we want to help by caring for this homeless beast? She is as cute as a button, which is a good thing, as they’ve been calling her "Button." So should we spring a surprise on Isis and add a Button to the farmette? And will that mean that the farmhouse will suddenly have not one, but two cats constantly begging to be let in for movie time in the evenings? I haven't an answer just yet, in the same way that I don't know whether one day, we'll have chickens here.

The nasturtium looked especially stunning today. Vibrant. Almost red in their profound orangeness.





In other news, I think there is mild competition of another sort. My bike does not like all the accolades I throw Rosie’s way. When I pedaled to the downtown market this morning, I could sense a pouting resistance. As in – why does the moped get to have a special name and so much attention? To which I would respond (if the bike could really converse) – I gave you a name too, didn’t I? Wasn’t it something like Mr. G? Which I would then have to admit -- isn’t very attractive. So let me hereby change it to Mister Red which sort of sounds like Mister Ed which confers a nod to the person who influenced me toward more serious biking in the first place.

In days that I forget, I can call it “the bike,” because that’s what it is. As in -- today I took "the bike" to the market.










Still another note for Ocean: the farmette harvest includes, this year, apples. Lots of apples from one prolific apple tree. They aren’t the type to die for and they have an exceptionally short shelf life, but they are tasty enough and though we’ve ignored them, being somewhat overwhelmed by tomatoes and peaches, this afternoon I agreed to take stock of the orchard's shower of apples.










Tomorrow I’ll crank up the oven. Apple pastries by dinnertime. That's the goal.


Finally, let me note that this was the last August farmers market day and so you could say that it was the last summer market day. Given that I have orientation sessions with my students this coming week, I have to say that for me, summer ends now.

Am I ready to end the longest vacation of my adult life? Well now, work time can rarely compete successfully with free time. But, we'll see how it all plays out in the  days ahead.