End of August Stuff

I don’t have any more caveats.  For now.  If your life has been anything like my silly series of misadventures in the last month and a half – or seriously, if it’s been more stupid or truly challenging, then bless your heart.  I hope a chicken hops into your lap and goes to sleep there.  (They really do this.)

And here’s more comfort.  If this doesn’t amaze and delight you, tell me and I’ll have you stuffed.

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I can tell that it’s coming on Autumn.  In fact, the cold spell we had a couple of weeks ago wreaked the change in me.  By the way, do you know that most foals are born in the spring?  Which means that they are mostly conceived within the same time period.  What brings the mares to readiness for this?  It has to do with light – the angle of the sun, the hours of sunlight a day – these things trigger a chemical change in the mare’s inner chemical environment.  They literally change her mind.

There must be a trigger like that in my brain, because when the nights begin to cool, I wake up.  And I am immediately restless—which means, I have to make stuff.  I have to carve wood or melt/cut glass or shape clay or join fabric or yarn.  I think this may be my version of harvest.  So my dining room table has been buried under paper, glass, foil, markers, fleece for weeks now.  Not that I’ve actually finished anything – but it’s coming.  It’s coming and I can’t help it.

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I was standing in the pasture the other day when Farmer John and his grandson, my erstwhile Sunday School student, went by down Center.  They had just delivered a gigantic load of hay to the horse farm up the way and were on their way home, John driving the ancient and deceptively aged tractor, pulling an ocean of just as aged a football field long, flat bed wagon.  I climbed up on the fence and waved, even though I was pretty sure they wouldn’t see me: me rising out of a sea of end-of-summer grass.  But no, John turned his head, checking his load, saw me and raised his hand high—not just an acknowledgement, but a real and hail-fellow greeting.  One of the defining moments of my life: he doesn’t just tolerate me, mama-cat like.  He’s actually fond of me!

A little.  Maybe.  The way you’re fond of an annoying colt – 

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Chaz and I were sitting on the couch the other late afternoon—she was still in mono-mode, so we were kicking back and watching some light stuff on TV.  When, “Wait,” she says, and mutes the thing.  Her ears perk up, and I realize that I’ve been hearing this odd sound outside—a background sound, maybe Richard across the street running his line trimmer.  I’d been hearing it for a while – ebbing and swelling, like Richard was moving around his yard.

But no.  It wasn’t quiet that.  “A black chinned hummingbird,” Chaz announced, putting aside her computer to get on her knees and look out over our little front deck.  I laughed.  It was definitely a mechanical whirring.  I was still betting line-trimmer.

“There he is!” she said.  Then I got the smug look: “Just like I told you.”  And now I want to know how such a lovely, tiny creature ends up sounding like a nascar? And why he’d spent five minutes buzzing around our deck?

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I’ve put 42 rides on my colt.  Which is good for both of us.  I just wish I knew what I was doing (yes, Geneva, I need to TAKE MORE LESSONS.)