July 2005

The endlessness of mid-summer arrives. This year, if it's not 'good neighbor' Whole Foods eating up my sales like the barking dogs just beyond the fence line who would eat my lambs, it's the drought that worries me. The red shale hillsides are burning up; there is little to eat for the sheep up there. Margaret and I moved the portable electric net fence from the hill to enclose the paddock in front of the house to let the sheep have fresh grass in a field that holds its moisture better. But how long will this grass last with no rain.

Having the sheep in the front paddock means that to leave the property, I must drive down the dusty road to the closed gate, get out of the truck, open the gate, get back in the truck, drive through the gateway, get out of the truck, close the gate, get back in the truck and drive to Liberty to drop off library books, then return to the closed gate. These moments of ennui beg distraction. Yesterday, while opening the gate, the clouds overhead were unusual to be so low. As they evolve in their pewter hues, they form figures and faces that layer themselves in narratives, one atop another. The stories have no resolution, no ending except in the beginning of a new tale, never to be completed, as they move across the sky like thought.

My two young interns, who had promised themselves for the Summer and who arrived 2 days ago, tell me that they are leaving at the end of the week. But when Margaret and I got back from market Saturday, the house was dark; they had gone days earlier than their second promise. They left a note, that almost absolved them of their broken words, ending with, "...we had to go and we left." In the 60's it was said, don't trust anyone over thirty. I wonder if thirty continues to be a marker of trust for the young—it still is with me—for anyone under.

Last night my neighbors were lighting the sky with rockets and bombs. Since Vietnam, fireworks seem inappropriate; they signify napalm and cluster bombs. Despite the Patriot Act, I'm proud that the Constitution still permits me to speak out against this mendacious Administration and its gullible supporters who "vote their pocket book." Over 1700 soldiers have died in Iraq, how many more corpses will it take to fill those yawning purses.

Then it rains and with the relief it brings I feel foolish for thinking it never would.

Eugene Wyatt

Weather Worries by Eugene Wyatt