Hunters' Moon

 Lat night's Hunters' Moon called to mind a story I've posted here before. And here it is again:

                                            THE BARGAIN

I figured him for a preacher man, ‘long of that dark suit and the Bible tucked under his left arm. He come walking down our road, where from, I couldn’t say. Nothing up there but fields and woods and the old graveyard. I reckon he could of been visiting kin that’s buried up there – folks do come from away and make the climb, just to brush the gravestones clean or say a prayer for one that’s gone.  But it seemed right queer didn’t none of us see him pass by on his way up the road nor even hear a dog bark. Course, we was at church the most of the morning but Inez had stayed home, saying she felt puny. And puny-feeling or not, Inez pays mind to what goes by on the road.

I’d been taking my Sunday ease, setting on the bank aside the house, there where the dirt road runs through our land. That new black and tan hound I’d just traded for, the one the girls had named Drum, was out there too, laying next to me. After last night’s hunt, I reckon the warm sun felt good to both of us. Ol’ Drum was stretched out on his side, sleeping deep, but twitching his legs like he thought he was still a-hunting. Down in his throat he made little yipping sounds and I wondered what it was he was chasing through his dreams.

Leaning back against the old tree stump we use for busting stove wood, I sucked down big breaths of that dry fall air, so crisp and clean it put me in mind of biting into a good apple. Back in the house I could hear the rattle of knives and forks in the dishpan and Inez and Odessa singing close harmony on “Anchored in Love Divine” – them two get on right good when they’re singing. They was a sight of them old carpenter bees buzzing round the house eaves and I could feel my eyelids getting heavier by the minute.

I knowed that Mama’d be taking her rest – the only time in the week she’ll let them hands be still and consent to set and rock without picking up her mending. Time was, we took our Sunday rest together; time was . . . and my eyes begun to close and my mind to drift away to those far off Sunday afternoons. . .

“Howdy, there,”

The words was spoke ‘most in my ear and I jerked awake. The stranger had slipped right up on me, catching me gape-mouthed and nodding, his fancy shoes stepping soft in the dust of the road. I blinked up at him, bumfuzzled with sleep and memory and Sunday dinner.

He stood there in his dark old-fashioned suit, kindly rocking back and forth on them fancy shoes, still shiny ‘neath the coat of dust from the road. The sun hit on his little round glasses, dazzling my eyes. Hit kiindly put me in an ill temper, the way he’d come up on me unawares and the way he was looking down at me. Makes a man uneasy for a feller to have the advantage of him that way.

So I got to my feet, taking my time and not yet giving him back a howdy of my own. It riled me some to see Drum laying there, still a-sleeping and chasing dreams while this stranger had crept up on us like that, making us both look the fool. So I reached out my foot in its Sunday brogan and caught that dog a good un, right on his hindquarter.

Ol’ Drum yelped and jumped up, whirling around to see what had got after him and his eyes lit upon the stranger.  His back hair raised up and he lifted his lip in the beginning of a snarl.

This aggravated me even more. “Think you’re a watchdog, do you, you worthless pup?  Look at you, all stiff-legged and agitatin’ when it’s too late. Lay down, you hear? Lay down!”

The stranger didn’t appear overly worried about whether Drum might offer to bite but hunkered down right before him and held out his open hand for the dog to smell of.  Ol’ Drum sniffed at the long white fingers and his fur settled back smooth.  Then he lay down with his head on his paws, not taking his eyes from the stranger.

“Hunter’s the name,” said the stranger, straightening up and putting out his hand.to me. “Nim Hunter -- Hunter by nature and hunter by name – my folks put the name of Nimrod on me and don’t the Book tell us that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord?”

I took the outstretched hand – soft and white like it hadn’t never done no hard work and with fingernails longer than I’d ever seen on a man. “P. V. Henderson,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

I looked up the road, the way he’d come from, waiting for him to make mention of what his business was out our way, but he just rocked back on his heels again and looked down at Drum.

“This the hound I heard baying up one holler and down another last night?”

He didn’t wait for me to answer, but went on. “He’s got a pretty voice on him. The sound woke me and I just lay there thinking as how I’d like to have me a dog like that again. Yessir, I used to be a fool for hunting dogs. Sweetest music there is, a good hound with that deep bay like a church bell. I tell you what, friend, after hearing this dog of yourn, I believe I’d like to buy him off of you.”

Well, it puzzled me some to know what to say. On the one hand, it didn’t set right somehow, this feller just walking down the road and wanting to buy my dog.  On the other, a man’d be a fool to turn down a good offer. I cleared my throat and spat, using the time to consider. I was about to ask where it was he’d stayed last night that he had heard  the sound of the dogs but it went right out of my head when he pulled a gold piece from his pocket and held it up to catch the sunlight,

“Twenty dollar gold piece,” says he. “But I’ll trade it for that dog there -- same one you just kicked and called a worthless pup.”

Well, buddy, I’ll not deny I was tempted. Sore tempted.  I’d turned in what few gold coins I had back in ’33 when the government said we must but I fairly ached to hold that double eagle, to feel the soft warm weight of it in my pocket, to rub it betwixt my fingers and thumb. Ever since I was a man, I’d carried a gold piece in my pocket for luck but I’d turned my double eagle in with the rest, wanting to stay on the right side of the law.  After that, I couldn’t stop myself reaching for it, over and over. Finally I took to carrying a buckeye in that pocket but it weren’t the same.

Still and all, something in that stranger’s looks and way of speaking put my back up. It ain’t right, just to try and buy a man’s dog offen him without even asking was that dog for sale.

The stranger flicked the gold piece with his thumb and sent it spinning into the sunlit air, curving in a slow, glittering path towards me. The light caught the coin, making it look like a whole waterfall of little suns coming right at me and before I knew what I was about, I held out my open hand.

The coin settled there like a bird in its nest, warm and heavy and bright as if it had been new-minted. I felt my fingers wanting to close on it and carry it to my pocket. A yearning was growing in me and it was all I could do to keep my hand steady and my fingers straight.

 The stranger watched me, reading the hunger in my eyes. “Feels right fine, don’t it?  We got us a bargain? You can find you another dog easy enough. I reckon I could buy several with that double eagle, was I to keep on down the road. But I’ve taken a notion to have this one for I like the sound of his voice. And I need to get on home.”

The stranger leaned over and took hold of Drum’s collar. I’d made it only the evening before – fresh-tanned leather with a stout brass buckle and my name, P.V. Henderson, burnt into the leather with the edge of the poker. Seeing that stranger grab hold of the collar and cover up my name with them long, pale fingers purely aggravated me and I spoke right up.

“Now, just you hold on a minute,” I said, feeling the gold piece burning my open hand.  “I ain’t agreed to nothing and there ain’t no bargain.” I stretched out my hand to him. “Go on, now, take back that double eagle. You ever stop to think maybe this dog ain’t for sale?”

The stranger cut his eyes at me and then over to the house where Odessa had come out to set on the porch with her little guitar. She looked just like a rose in her pretty pink Sunday dress. A slow smile spread acrost the stranger’s face. “Everything’s for sale, friend,” he said quiet-like. “We just ain’t reached the bargain yet.”

The way he looked at my little girl like to froze the blood in my body. I didn’t say nothing just turned my hand over and let the bright coin slide off my hand to fall in the dust of the road.

The stranger didn’t reach for it, just stood there watching Odessa pick that guitar. And when she begun to sing “I’ll Fly Away,” in that sweet high voice of hers, the smile on his face broadened till I could see clear to his back teeth.

I took a piece of twine from out my overhauls pocket and put it through ol’ Drum’s collar. It was in my mind to get him out of the stranger’s sight and I didn’t trust that fool dog to follow me.

“I got things to do,” says I. “You best pick up your double eagle and get on home, like you said you needed to.”

“Evenin’, P.V.,” says he, nodding his head.  “Be sure to give my regards to your pretty daughter.”

Oncet again, his words sent a chill over me. Yonder on the porch, Odessa had set her guitar down and was looking hard at the stranger and smiling. I didn’t give him a good evening nor nare word more, just hollered to Odessa to go inside and see didn’t her mama need her. Then I hauled ‘ol Drum round the house and put him on the chain at his dog box.

By the time I come back to the roadside, the stranger had gone and his gold piece with him. Good riddance, I thought and aimed a long stream of baccer juice at the spot where the stranger had stood.

***

“Who was that pretty feller you was talking to?” Odessa set the cornbread and buttermilk on the supper table in front of me. “I told Inez he looked like a preacher.”

Mama mashed up her cornbread in a bowl and covered it with buttermilk. “Hit would be nice,” she said, “to have someone new to bring the Word. Brother Quarles is bad to give the same message, over and over.”

Inez was scowling, likely jealous that she hadn’t seen the stranger, and then she come out with something hateful about folks with time to set on the porch whilst other is slaving in the kitchen.

Odessa, who always was as sweet-natured as they come, tapped Inez on her wrist and said in that wheedling way she has, “Now, Sissy, tell the truth and shame the devil. After we done up the dishes, you know you went and lay down – you said you had a sick headache.”

Then Odessa turned her eyes on me – eyes like her mama’s, blue as chicory flowers -- and commenced to quiz me – was the man a preacher, where was he from and where did he live and was he coming back? And what was the name of that pretty man?

All three women was watching close as I filled my bowl with applesauce. They just kept staring, like cats watching a mouse hole and at last I laid my spoon down.

“He didn’t act like no preacher,” I told them. “And all I know is he come down the road from the graveyard. I ain’t got no idea where he lives but I hope Mr. Nimrod Hunter ain’t coming back.”

***

It was deep in the night when I was wakened by the sound of a dog on the chase. I lay there under the quilts, thinking as how the baying sounded a lot like ol’ Drum. And the longer I lay there, the more I begun to believe that it was Drum and that either he had slipped his collar or that the stranger man had come back and stole my dog.

I got up quiet like – the moon was near full and its light just spilling in the window.  The springs creaked as Mama turned over but she just didn’t say nothing and directly she was snoring again.

Outside the moonlight lit up the yard, turning the logs of the pigpen and the roof of Drum’s dog box a sheeny silver, like a new dime. The silver lay on the links of Drum’s chain too and it was pulled out to its full length to under a big old balsam where Bone, my last dog, had dug him a kind of nest. In the dark I couldn’t see for sure but I thought I made out the shape of a dog curled up back in there. It was right airish out and I only had on a pair of drawers so I turned to head back to my warm bed.

As I set foot on the back steps, the baying up on the mountain commenced again, sounding so much like Drum that I knew I’d not sleep a lick till I made certain sure that Drum was on his chain. So, cussing myself for all kinds of a fool, I went back, picked up the dog chain, and give a tug.

And it rattled over the hard-packed dirt to me, snapping back like a whip. At the end, the shackle I used to hold to the dog collar was just a-dangling free. There weren’t no collar nor no dog neither.

All the long night, I lay awake, harking to the full throated sound of a hound on the mountain, chasing the trail of some critter through the moony night.

***

Come morning and I had a closer look at the chain. I couldn’t say for sure if maybe I hadn’t closed the shackle tight or if someone, that someone being Mr. Nim Hunter, had loosed it. Inez was busy at her sewing machine and Mama and Odessa was milking. Oncet I had fed the stock, I couldn’t rest till I had gone up the road to see could I find my dog.  Howsomever he had come to be loose, after a night running the mountain, it could be he was curled up asleep somewhere yonder.

I studied the road as I went but there had come a little shower just before first light and there weren’t no tracks to speak of. At the least there should have been the footprints of the stranger coming down and finally, at a spot where a big elm leaned over the road, I did make out his trace.

But only going down – and then near the edge of the road I thought I might have seen paw prints. I whistled and called, like I’d been doing all along, but it weren’t no good.

The road ended atop a hogback ridge at the old graveyard. There was still a wire fence around it but in several places, the postes had rotted and the fence was laying on the ground. Ever since the Worleys donated that piece of land down near the church, the old graveyard ain’t used. On Decoration Day there’s those of us makes the climb with swing blades and scythes to keep the woods from taking back the ridge top and sometimes the preacher comes and we have a word of prayer but for all that, it’s an awful sad and lonesome place. My mama’s mama, who died before I was born, lays up here but my other kin are down in the churchyard.

I called again for Drum and listened hard, thinking maybe to hear him stirring about in the fallen leaves but there was no sound save the sigh of the wind through the pines and the hammering of one of them great old woodpeckers. So I begun to walk the line, following the fence, and thinking that, long as I’s up here, I might as well see could I prop up the fallen places.

At the far side of the graveyard, where the oldest headstones are, I called again. A squirrel barked from a tree and in the distance I heard the clank of a cowbell. But no Drum. I begun to wonder if the worthless pup might have spent the night carousing through the woods and then taken off for his old home over t’other side of the Walnut Mountain.

I pulled the last section of hog wire out of the long brown grass that had grown through it and straightened the fallen post, putting it back in its hole with a few rocks to fix it there.  Needing one more rock to finish the job, I begun to search around.

Afore long, I spotted a nice chunk of orange-colored rock next to a mossy old headstone setting off to itself.  As I made my way toward it, I saw something winking at me from the top of the headstone – a piece of mica or pretty rock, I thought – some folks leave tokens like that when they visit their kin.

But as I got closer I saw that it weren’t no shiny rock but a twenty dollar gold piece twinkling in that green moss. And there was Drum’s collar, curled up at the footstone of that old grave.

***

There’s folks would say it’s wrong to take from a grave. And that had been my first thought, that maybe the stranger had left the coin as a token for whoever it was that lay there. But as I looked from the coin to the empty dog collar and back again, it seemed to me that if Nim Hunter had took my dog, I might as well have his money. The double eagle was in my hand and in my pocket before I could pause for another thought. I took back the collar too.

            I came home and told them either Drum had run off or that stranger had stole him and told them all to keep an eye out for either of them. Inez and Mama nodded but Odessa said she just knowed that a man as pretty as that stranger couldn’t be no dog thief. That girl is a fool for a good-looking man.

That evening I walked over to Cantrellses place and asked them to let me know did they see my dog and when I fell asleep that night, I was satisfied that I’d done all I could. It still rankled though and it was some time before I could fall asleep. When I did,  my dreams was uneasy and full of hounds baying and gold pieces spinning and sun glinting off  little round spectacles. I was way deep down when Mama jabbed me with her elbow and whispered, “Listen there, P. V. – don’t that sound awful like ol’ Drum?”

***

I set out in the moonlight, following the sound of the baying and hoping to find Drum afore he denned up somewhere. It always seemed that he was just ahead of me and I kept climbing. At first light the baying stopped. I was red-eyed and weary but once again I was at the graveyard and like the day before, I walked all around, calling for Drum.

            When he didn’t come, I gave it up. But I wanted to know whose grave it was Nim Hunter had left a twenty dollar gold piece on and I made my way to the mossy headstone that loomed over the sunken-in plot where I’d found Drum’s collar.

            Squatting down, I tried to make out the words but the moss was too thick so I pulled out my Barlow knife and begun to scrape away the thick green covering. I commenced at the bottom and there was the outline of some animal  -- might have been a running deer, might have been a dog.

 The dates showed next -- so worn that they was hard to see. I ran my fingers over them till I could feel their shape – 1837 – 1872.

            “Long gone, whoever you are,” I said aloud as I worked to uncover the place where the name should be. “I reckon I have more use for a double eagle then you do these days.”

            As the last sheet of moss fell away, I saw that the name was carved deep and big and there weren’t no mistaking how it read: NIMROD HUNTER.

            I jumped right up, catching my foot where the ground sunk in and throwing out my left hand to get ahold of the gravestone to steady myself.

            And there beneath my palm, I could feel the smooth warmth of a second gold coin.

            Now, a man is bad to tell himself what he wants to hear and in that moment I told myself that this was likely the grave of Nim Hunter’s great great CHECK granddaddy and that this second coin had been there yesterday and I just hadn’t seen it for the moss. I almost believed myself too.

            Be that as it may, that second coin found its way to my other pocket and I left the graveyard feeling the two coins tapping ‘gainst my legs as I went and sure that, in the bargaining for ol’ Drum, I’d got the best of Nim Hunter.

***

Somehow I weren’t hungry when suppertime came, but I sat there with Mama and my girls, supping at a glass of buttermilk and listening to Odessa tell about who all she’d seen at the general store and what the news was in the county.

It seemed the cotton mill was closing and John Avery was talking of pulling up stakes and heading off to Texas. Me and Mamma shook our heads at this, knowing that John was just trying to get away from that young schoolteacher he’s been sparking. Odessa went on to say that Violet had invited her to come for a visit and Inez poked her lower lip out and slammed out to the kitchen to start washing dishes. We didn’t none of us pay no mind – that’s just Inez’s way.

“…and, old Miz Griffiths come in to buy lamp oil and we was talking of this and that and I mentioned about that stranger man and asked did she know any Hunters in these parts. She thought a minute and then said there’d been a family of that name lived up our road many a year ago. She said that her granny had used to talk of them, saying they’d been strange folk who kept to themselves and when the only son, who had broke his mama’s heart with his rambling ways, had died, they’d all moved away.”

Out in the kitchen, Inez was banging pots and pans about till it sounded like a war but Odessa poured herself another glass of milk and went on telling how Miz Griffths’s granny had gone to the Hunter boy’s funeral and had always talked about what a handsome corpse young Nimrod had made.

“And she said that the family thought so much of him that they had laid him to rest with gold coins on his eyes. Did you ever hear of such?” .

All at once them two gold coins in my pockets felt as cold as the grave and I made up my mind to take them up the road the very next day and put them back where I found them. I still couldn’t make out the whys and wherefores of the matter but I was sure of one thing and that was that those Double Eagles weren’t like to bring me nothing but bad luck.

***

I slept awful bad that night, between the moon shining in on my face and the gold coins weighing on my mind. In my dreams I still heard ol Drum and mixed in with the baying of the hound, I seemed to hear Odessa picking her little guitar and singing a high sweet lonesome song.

 It wasn’t till sunup when I wakened, wore out with riding the night mare through my sleep. The good smells of coffee and bacon and brewing coffee were filling the house and I could hear the womenfolk moving about in the kitchen.

I pulled on my shirt and overhauls and, feeling some shamefaced for having overslept myself, slipped into the kitchen and set down to the table.

Inez put my mug of coffee before me, slopping some onto the table the way she always does. He face was sourer than usual.

“Looks like it’s all on me and Mama today . . . here you are sleeping late and Miss Odessa went and lit out for who-knows where before I was even awake. She put on her good dress too, the pink one I ironed yesterday, and she took her guitar. I reckon she’s taken a mind to go visit Violet. Some people-”

I don’t wait to hear no more but head out the door and up the road, those gold pieces weighing heavier and heavier in my pockets. I climb so fast I can’t hardly get my breath. And all I can think is I got to give them double eagles back to Nim Hunter.

***

From the gate of the grave yard I can see Odessa’s guitar leaning against Nim Hunter’s gravestone, just a-shining in the morning sun. And her pink dress is spread like a coverlet over his sunken grave.

I pull the two gold coins from my pockets and slam them down atop the new-scraped headstone. “Nim Hunter!” I holler. “There ain’t no bargain! Give me back my girl, Hunter! Give me back my girl!”

The words come back at me from the mountains all around… my girl . . . my girl.”

 Snatching up the pink dress, I fling it to one side, catching the smell of lye soap and of the flowery perfume Odessa wears of a Sunday.

 Then I fall to my knees, and begin to dig.

 

THE END

Golden Sunrise

 

Unexpected Bounty!

One of the large collection centers in Madison County received a truckload of tomatoes and apples and has been urging folks to come get them. I was tempted but figured there would be others who needed them.

But yesterday my friend Kathy came to lunch and brought me, yep, tomatoes and apples. A friend of hers had received some and he shared with her, and she brought me some beautiful apples and ten boxes (quart size?) of perfect little Campari tomatoes. They are roughly the size of a ping pong ball and these were at their peak of ripeness. 

I put aside enough for a few salads and decided to roast the rest. I will put the roasted tomatoes in freezer containers for future use in all kinds of dishes. Roasted tomatoes add a wonderful depth of flavor and are great in pastas and pizzas and lots of other dishes.

It's a quick and easy way to deal with small tomatoes. Cut them in half, arrange on a baking sheet covered with olive oil. Make sure both sides of the cut tomato are oiled then arrange cut side up and sprinkle with salt and seasoning of choice. In the past I've used Cajun seasoning but, not having any on hand, used garlic granules, Jane's Krazy salt, and some hot paprika.

Roast at 300 for about 3 hours or till they are as done as you want. The aroma in the house is wonderful!

 

Feeling the Stress

                                                                                                                                                                      

 It's a tough time right now. 

The impending election is always on my mind--a choice between a man and a party of lies and denial, hatred, xenophobia, fearmongering, and threatened violence, and a woman and party that, though admittedly imperfect, have a commonsense, humanitarian approach to many of the problems that beset us. 

Yet many of my fellow citizens will choose the former, even against their own best interest.

Living in the aftermath of disaster has brought out the best in many--and now we are beginning to see the worst in some-- a distrust of FEMA exacerbated by widespread disinformation. Again, against their own best interest.

May we come through this trying time.

Looking East

 

Just Beginning

 

School News

Happy to learn that Madison County schools will re-open next week on Wednesday, though on a two-hour delay for those first three days. I don't think any were damaged, but they are being used as collection sites. etc. I know having schools open will be a help for all and a nice return to normal.

Also it was nice to see pictures of Gov. Cooper on the street in Marshall, talking to folks working on recovery.

Madison Strong!
 

What's in a Name?

     I finished and put in the mail the second batch of a hundred postcards, urging registered moms to vote. These are aimed at women who, though registered, often don't vote. My first batch of cards went mainly to Arizona and the names were, predictably, often Latina.   

The second hundred went to New Jersey and the names were AMAZING! I kinda couldn't wait to turn over the next card on the stack and see who it was I was writing to. It has come to feel quite personal, and I really think about the woman I'm writing to, trying to imagine her life. 

Big love to all of them: Marias, Marys, Maries, and Elizabeths. Susans and Lisas and Jinel, Anubharatha, Jahaira, Yugene, Atusca, Hahnsiany, Judeeanne, Antanisha, Hanania, Saima, Yuderka, Vipreet, Tangela, Hiensook, Hemali, and Nelly--among many others!

Such a beautiful mixed bouquet of Americans! In diversity is our strength.

I just received an email from Moms Rising. There are more than 71,043 postcard volunteers facilitating about 5 million postcards to infrequent voters.

Hoping this helps bring a positive outcome in November!                                                                    

 

First Trip Out

I left the farm yesterday for the first time since the storm and took a few pictures. Not of the major destruction in Marshall--the town is closed except to workers and besides, pictures have been all over the internet. Just some things I saw . . .

Several folks have asked about our camel neighbors. They seem fine.

Aside from evidence of fallen trees, the drive down Anderson Branch was much as always. Until I got closer to the river.

                                                                            

This house had water up to its roof at the height of the flood. Its residents had the good sense to evacuate.

                                                                 

A multitude of smaller outbuilding are gone.

Fallen trees and debris, often hanging from the trees that remain, have turned our once beautiful French Broad into a scene of ugly devastation.

The Barnard Bridge held, despite being hammered with tree trunks and all manner of things, swept along in the flood.

Barnard Park was a put-in for rafting companies and paddlers of all sorts. Now it's closed except for search and rescue (or recover) teams, many from our fine Walnut Volunteer Fire Department. HERE is a good article about the teams.

As I continued on to higher ground and the grocery store, all was pretty normal--except for the many trucks of all sorts hurrying along. Some had piles of supplies; some were official vehicles. Earlier there'd been a military convoy bringing troops and machinery to help in the cleanup effort. 

Our grocery store was well stocked--except for some frozen things and seafood-- and I was able to get everything on my list. Everyone seemed a little nicer than usual--and these are generally nice folks. "You doin' all right?" is a standard greeting, but now it carries extra weight, almost like a hug.

                                                                                 

I've photographed this meadow/pasture many times-- two weeks ago it was a great swathe of goldenrod.

                                                           

That was then . . .

This is now.

The trees bear strange fruit, high above the usual waterline.

                                        

 So frustrating not to be able to grab a shovel or even pick up trash. But as Bob Dylan once said "Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand . . ."

What I can do is another hundred postcards encouraging women to vote. 

I am sickened by the blatant lies from the Former Guy and his allies concerning the government's response to Helene (and even GOP governors applaud it, not to mention my friends and neighbors who are already being signed up by FEMA to receive aid.)  This election is so important for so many reasons. May truth prevail over fear and the Big Lie. May we all come safely through and build back even better

The Merry Maids

The week would have been Fall Break but it is Hurricane Break instead. I stayed with Meema all day and so did my friends. I was dusting and cleaning when they came (on her own initiative, as god is my witness-V) and they decided to help too.

The spray wax smells like lemons.

We dusted EVERYTHING!

Then we did some drawing and writing and Ilona who is 9 wrote this story. Meema said her writing was very good.

We ran around outside till Meema yelled at us to come back. She said she was worried because we were in the pasture with the cows and the bull who has horns. And she didn't want us to go in the barn. I go in the pasture with the cows down at my house and I told Meema my mama says I can go anywhere I want. Meema got cranky and said Well I'm your grandmother and up here, I say stay away from the bull and don't go in the old barn.

So we played cards. We played Go Fish and yelled a lot. Then we had to clean up our mess. I was very sad when their mom came to take my friends home.

 

A New Day

 

Dichotomy

On the peaceful porch

Flowers bloom--in the distance

Helicopters throb.

 

Josie's Boring Day

Things are embarrassingly normal here on the mountain. Our cell service was even restored as of Thursday night and John has been able to get gas and groceries.

While hazmat teams are assessing the mud in Marshall (there was a toxic spill at a plastics plant upstream) and relief centers are working overtime and goods are being distributed by 4WD and helicopters and even a mule train, Josie and I are back to the usual routine.  

                                                                                 

A family of four took refuge at Josie's house, and she has had continuous fun with the two girls for six days. When they moved out yesterday to a more spacious, though temporary, apartment, Josie was bereft. A day with Meema was a bit of a bore. But we did the usual things, including making pumpkin bread.

Of course there was reading and she chose this charming book The Little House. KC Larsen sent it to her some time back and this is the first time she's read it on her own. It's the story of a little house in a field of daisies with apple trees all around. And a pond. "It's like my house," Josie exclaimed. It's a lovely little story--thank you, KC!

School is closed. Next week was Fall break anyway and many of the schools are being used as relief centers. Also, there's the question of school busses or parents' vehicles on potentially unsafe roads. At this point, no one's saying when schools might reopen. 

She chose to do some work in a few workbooks we have. I'm not worried about her falling behind academically, but I know she misses the kids and her teachers.

An artist's kneaded eraser makes a good mustache.

It was a good day, all in all, and at its end, Claui and Justin came up to dinner--the first time since the Great Disruption.

 We ate and drank wine and were thankful.