Reflection on the First Week of Fall – Surpassing Worm Yuck 

   Red wrigglers usually behave well. Nestled in plastic trays of the worm factory in the shower stall of our basement bathroom, the placid creatures stay under the cover, eat kitchen scraps, and produce rich compost which helps pansies thrive.

   But this week? YUCK. Mucous encased globs of worms writhed in corners atop the worm factory lid Monday and Tuesday. Not wanting to touch the lid either day, I backed away and called Spence for help.

   He lifted the lid, shook the clinging masses into the feeding tray, and set the lid aside. “Maybe they need more food,” he said.

   Indeed. Worms eat their weight in food every day. How many worms were there?

   I climbed to the great room and settled the computer on my lap. The Internet said red wrigglers live two or three years and double in number every sixty days. Setting the computer on the table, I grabbed scratch paper and sketched a chart. Starting in January 2015 with 1000 worms, I doubled the amount every two months until September 2016. One million, twenty-four thousand worms. Sheesh. When would I have a billion? Tired of calculating, I wrote a story problem for the older students at the Learning Center where I volunteer and emailed it to Dan, one of their teachers.

   Knowing how many worms didn't solve my problem. I still needed to manage the expanding worm population. If I put them in the garden, they'd enrich the soil till the temperature dropped below forty degrees and killed them. I didn't want to be a mass murderer. Buy an air conditioner to cool the basement to forty degrees and slow the marathon reproduction? Give them away?

   Wednesday morning I called two bait shops. Neither wanted the worms. The man from the Wilhelm Marina said, “The worms would just sit in my refrigerator.” For him, fishing season ran May through August.

   Would I have to contend with the masses until May?

   After the bait shop calls, I headed downstairs with chopped worm food and cleared my throat to call Spence. No need. Though the worms still wriggled in thick globs, they had tucked themselves under the lid where they belonged. I didn't know why they behaved except for the nonsensical notion that they'd heard the phone call and didn't want to end up on a hook.

   Wednesday after dinner I took a break from worm manager and drove to Homespun Treasures for my quilt guild's fun night. A dozen happily-chatting women gathered to listen to our special guest Kim, who taught us how to make greeting cards with double diamond designs. Delighted with the project and enjoying the women, I still couldn't get worm globs off my mind. I asked the quilters, “Does anyone know fisher people and might want red wrigglers? My worm factory is exploding. I need to get rid of some.”

   A few women chuckled, but Kim said, “I'd like some. People who fish in my ponds are always asking me for worms. With a worm factory, I'd have worms on hand.”

   Before she could change her mind, I gave her directions and arranged to give her a pound, approximately one thousand worms, Saturday.

   Thursday morning, the worms rested on the lid again. I didn't want to deal with them so yelled up to Spence in the kitchen.

   He couldn't hear me because the fan whirred to keep hot pepper scent away from me.

   I took a yoga breath, reached for the knob in the middle of the lid, and tugged. The suction of worm slime kept the lid in place. I pulled harder and harder till the seal broke and the lid popped off. With a thin, two-by-four inch plastic rectangle, I coaxed the wiggling, slimy globs back into the tray, sprinkled food on top of them, and left for the Learning Center.

   I read with the lower elementary and kindergarten classes before heading to the fifth, sixth and seventh grade room. When I opener their door, students bounced on blue and green balls that they used as chairs for their low tables. “Janet!” They beamed at me. “We solved your problem!” I sifted through a stack of papers with impressive amounts of addition, multiplication, and charts. Answers for when I'd have a billion red wrigglers varied from May 2017 to July 2018. I smiled, thanked the youngsters, and decided whichever date was correct for hitting over a billion worms, I needed to find homes for the rapid reproducers.

   Shyly, Ellen, the other classroom teacher said, “We're thinking of starting a worm factory to compost lunch leftovers. Do you think we could have some of your worms?”

   Two thousand down, nine hundred ninety-eight thousand or so left. Maybe I could buy more trays for the factory from Amazon. I only had three, and Mike McGrath on You Bet Your Garden said I could stack seven.

   Friday the worms hid under the lid in thick ropes–easy to scoop for Kim.

   Saturday I felt more in control. After breakfast, I selected a clear plastic quart container, fetched the food scale, and descended the stairs in search of worm globs atop the lid or food layer. Sigh. The worms had buried themselves in the food. I dug through hunting for inch-diameter balls of worms. As if playing pickup sticks, I pulled shredded paper, bean tips, and aging zucchini slivers away from the agitated worms then dumped them into the plastic container. Repeating the process again and again, I collected over a pound of worms with some food and lots of slime. I put the container in a paper bag to keep the worms in their preferred dark.

   Kim arrived around 11:00. We went to a lovely quilt show at New Vernon Grange, and I gave her a tour of the log house complete with discussions of the quilts on the beds. When she was ready to go home, I picked up the paper bag and pulled out the worm container. Red wrigglers clung to the sides in long stripes.

   Kim said, “Ew,” and covered her mouth.

   I quickly slipped the plastic container back into the bag. “Your husband can dump them out for you.”

   I had overcome the yuck–mostly, calculated numbers, and figured a couple ways to manage the sexual proclivity of the red wrigglers.

   Kim is still at the yuck stage. Given time, she'll learn to manage like me.

Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Summer – Finding the Story

    Sweeping cobwebs from the ceiling of the guest room Tuesday morning, a lump of white schmutz clinging to the log wall caught my eye. Assuming I'd found another wad of cat hair, I set the broom down and grabbed the white blob with my left hand.

    A cabbage white butterfly, wings folded, sat on my palm.

    I cupped my right hand over my left and hurried to the great room.

   “You'll never guess what I have,” I said holding my hands toward Spence.

    He stopped tapping computer keys and looked up. “What?”

    Butterfly feet tickled my palm.

    I crossed the room, slid open the sliding glass door, and stuck my hands outside. “A cabbage white butterfly.” I moved my right hand away to free the butterfly. It sat on my palm. I lowered and raised my let hand several times. The butterfly didn't move.

    “Blow on it,” Spence said.

    As if blowing a kiss, I puffed. The butterfly opened its wings, rose, and swirled away. I turned to Spence. “I can write a story about the butterfly for my blog!”

    He cocked his head. “Do you have enough material to make a story?”

    I mentally reviewed Timons Esaias' seven point story.

1) A person. Check.

2) A place. Check.

3) A problem. Oops. Forget about 4, 5, & 6, the protagonist striving and failing three times before 7, the resolution. I needed a problem, the “what's at stake” writing challenge.

    I settled in my Adirondack chair, gazed out the sliding glass doors at cabbage white butterflies fluttering among pansy planters, and commanded my brain to create a problem. Nothing.

    I grabbed my camera, attached the zoom lens, and told Spence, “I'm going to get a picture of a butterfly then I'll think of a way to make the story.”

    He waved one hand and hit keys with the other.

    A flock of cabbage white butterflies swirled over the north garden. I stepped closer to three. They flew away. Even with my zoom lens, cabbage white butterflies kept out of range. Why hadn't I asked Spence to snap a picture of the butterfly on my palm before I puffed it away? I stood still, let butterflies zip my way, and squinted through the view finder. By the time the camera focused, it snapped garden vegetation where butterflies had been. I switched to close up mode and moved the camera along the flight path of the butterflies. After forty-nine tries, I had two possible pictures. In the first, a butterfly opened its wings above an out-of-focus purple cabbage. The other showed a butterfly flying down the blurred driveway. At least the cabbage white butterflies didn't resemble lumps of cat hair.

    I wrote my saga, complete with striving for picture more than three times and failing, then read it to Spence.

    He bobbed his head slowly and grinned. “Your problem,” Spence said, “is you don't have a problem. You're looking out not in.”

    “I'm writing about butterflies.”

    “No, silly. You're the butterfly.” He walked to the deck and turned on his sander.

    Sitting in the Adirondack chair, I ignored the blue and green outside the glass door to focus my gaze inside the story. I typed ideas in a list.

    My body clenched as if I were a white cabbage pulling away from a bird's beak. I, the protagonist, had struggled in the Adirondack chair, behind the camera, and against the “what's at stake” question that every writing instructor I'd ever had threw at me. No zombie apocalypse. No puzzling murder. Just a weekly blog of life at Wells Wood with a husband and two fat cats.

    With that, I blow this story out with the puff of a kiss and head off to enjoy butterflies.

 

Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Summer - Watermelon Feast

    Gardening at Wells Wood can bring feast or famine. This year we had a feast of watermelons. I hadn't expected any. Spence had grown watermelons for years, but groundhogs devoured immature fruit or frost killed plants before melons ripened.

    What changed? Spence bought seeds for Blacktail Mountain Watermelons, the earliest maturing variety, from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. He also slit holes in black plastic ground cover to set out his hardened off seedlings.

    By the end of July over forty watermelons grew in the patch. To protect the plants from groundhogs, Spence stood on the deck, blasted the air horn, and yelled, “Get out of my garden.”

    Riley, an eight year old visiting during the first weekend of August, wanted to open a watermelon. I doubted the fruit would be ready but cut one for him. No red. No pink. The watermelon was pure white from rind to rind. Riley shrugged his shoulders, flashed me a toothy smile, and carried the two halves to the compost pile.

    Riley didn't ask, but I wanted to know, when would the watermelons be ripe?

    On Mike McGrath's You Bet Your Garden radio show, Mike advised referring to the seed package for days to maturity. Spence checked when he planted the seedlings in the garden, referred to the seed catalog for maturation time, then added seventy days to get an estimated date of September 2.

    Groundhogs didn't wait. As if checking for ripeness, they gnawed grooves and holes into the rinds. During the last week of August, a groundhog took a half cup size bite out of one and exposed pink. I cut around the groundhog's teeth marks and tested the fruit. Red, juicy, and sweet with multiple times more flavor than grocery store watermelons.

    Without using a groundhog tester, I picked several immature watermelons to discover the round, eight-to-ten pound fruits with a yellow spot on the dark green rind were ripe.

    Though critter bites caused a dozen watermelons to rot, we harvested about thirty. I enjoyed them for dessert, served them to guests, and gave watermelons to friends and family. At the beginning of the week, I still had a bushel of watermelons.

    Saturday afternoon I tied an apron over my white slacks and cut open melons. I dug out seeds and cubed the flesh. Juice splashed. The blender whirred. I mixed ingredients for Popsicles with added lime and sorbet with added strawberries and minced mint.

    Hours later I tested the treats. Not sweet, the watermelon Popsicle charmed me with its zesty zing. The sorbet had a harmonious sweet blend of watermelon and strawberry with an accent of mint. I didn't mind that mint pieces stuck between my teeth but wasn't pleased that the watermelon juice decorated my pants with red splotches.

    I still have half a bushel basket of watermelons. At Wells Wood this year, it's watermelon feast.

Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Summer – Assaulting Peppers

    Spence wanted to prepare a special breakfast for our visiting son, Charlie.

    While Spence clattered pans and rattled utensils in the kitchen, I climbed to the loft and inserted a Rodney Yee DVD into the player tray for yoga practice. Below, in the great room, Charlie petted fat cat George with one hand and took notes for a story with the other.

    I breathed out for plank position and in for upward dog.

    Whiffs of bacon floated to the loft. The refrigerator door swished closed, a plastic bag rustled, and a knife thudded against the cutting board.

    In the middle of holding downward dog for five breaths, I coughed, the lining of my nostrils tingled, and my eyes watered. Spence wouldn't be cooking hot peppers, would he?

    “Are you cooking peppers?” I yelled.

    “Yes!”

    I sniffed and whipped my eyes. “Turn the fan on,” I said without adding “please.”

    “But the lid's on,” Spence shouted, “and I can't smell the peppers,”

    I coughed. “Turn the fan on now.” Cough. Cough.

    In the great room, Charlie chuckled. “This from the woman who hates the sound of fans.”

    The buzzing fan blended with droning flutes and my coughs for the rest of the yoga routine.

    When I went downstairs, the pepper essence saturated the kitchen more than it had in the loft. I couldn't eat breakfast at the kitchen table as usual. I walked to the front door, and said, “I'll eat on the porch.”

    Stepping outside, I took a gulp of fresh air then sat on the love seat.

    A mourning dove cooed. A robin sang “cheerily, cheer up.”

    The front door swung open. Spence came out with a breakfast burrito, pears, oatmeal, and peppermint tea for me. Charlie followed with his breakfast tray. Spence headed back for his own breakfast and met George in the doorway.

The fat cat stood on the threshold and contemplated the scene.

    To clear the way for Spence, Charlie scooped George up and set him on a folding aluminum chair. He thrashed his back legs displacing the fabric cushion and falling through the metal slats. With back paws on the cement floor and front paws on the seat's frame, George dangled with a dazed expression on his face.

    Charlie grabbed the cat's ample middle, pulled him straight up, and said, “You're okay.” He set George beside me on the love seat. The fat cat circled and circled and circled and circled. Finally he lay down, tucked his tail around his back legs, and closed his eyes.

    Chef Spence created something special for all when he prepared that special breakfast for Charlie. Spence served me a porch breakfast on a lovely day. He inspired George to lounge on the love seat all morning which gave Emma, our other cat, quiet time without her face-licking brother interrupting her rest. Spence joined our alfresco meal to eat his meat and vegetable stir fry.

    His menu for Charlie?

    Bacon, potatoes, and a cheese omelet with onions, tomatoes, and the assaulting hot peppers.

Reflections on the Tenth Week of Summer – City Mouse Country Mouse

    On what she called a “respite,” our friend Darlene embraced country life with a child-like zeal. She dropped her bags on the porch, drew in a huge gulp of air, and squealed, “It smells so clean. Can I take it home with me?” Her more practical request proved almost as difficult to grant. “I want to see the stars. They're pitiful in the city.”

    Wednesday I drove her up a dirt road to our friends' farm. The stated purpose, to deliver the zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers Spence had picked for Tom and Kathy, didn't fool anyone. Avid animal-gawkers, Darlene and I headed straight for the barn with the three alpacas. Because moving shadows made Angie, the nearly blind female, skittish, Kathy hugged Angie to Kathy's side so I could get photos and stroke soft alpaca fleece. Darlene oohed and aahed but stood close to the door in deference to her hay and fur allergies.

    In the rabbit barn, the squirming, two week old white bunny Kathy handed me let loose a stream of pee which just missed my camera and shoes. Darlene ignored her allergies, reached over, and petted a smaller gray bunny.

    We stepped around ruts and manure in search of the mini donkeys. Kathy opened the gate to let me into the cow pasture for a better angle into the horse pasture. Darlene stared at the towering llama grazing with the cows and said, “I'll wait for you here.” Ears flicked, tails wagged, and eyes followed my camera. “Watch out, Janet.” Darlene chuckled. “The llama's creeping up on you.”

    By the time the donkeys finally stopped eating hay and wandered our direction, my camera battery died. Then the sun set behind clouds lining the hilltop horizon. No star gazing for Darlene on her first country night.

Thursday Darlene and I peeled apples, defrosted strawberries, and chopped chicken. We cooked strawberry applesauce, made two of my great aunt's strawberry pies, and baked a chicken pot pie for dinner. Darlene let the food linger on her tongue. “Mm. Mmmm. You took time to make all this from scratch and half of it's from your garden.”

    The clop clop of an Amish horse pulling a buggy past the house made Darlene giggle. “Wow!”

    Night fell with rumbling thunder. Darlene sat in the dark on the porch and absorbed the calm. Rain pattered, crickets chirped, and tree frogs croaked. No star gazing for Darlene on her second country night.

    Friday Spence drove us to Presque Isle for a walk along Misery Bay. Darlene said, “We're passing different smells.” Indeed–musky swamp, decaying fish, and sweet honeysuckle. She looked overhead and said, “The wind sounds different through different trees.” She was right again. Cotton wood leaves crackled, and white pines swished. Though the sun set behind clouds on the horizon during the ride home, Darlene and I fanny danced to Carlos Santa and hoped for clearing overhead.

    Back at Wells Wood, the cats yawned a welcome. Spence turned off house and garage lights. Darlene and I stepped onto the deck. Above the south garden, burning asteroid dust streaked under myriads of stars. “Awesome,” Darlene said. We crossed the porch to the driveway side of the house where the Big Dipper outshone all the others. “Amazing. I love it,” she said. We linked arms for the dark walk over the uneven gravel driveway to the road. The Milky Way ran like a river above the log house. “It's a bit of heaven. I feel like a kid again.” she said.

    Unlike Aesop's City Mouse visiting the Country Mouse, Darlene said, “I'll be back.”

 

Reflections on the Ninth Week of Summer – First Quilt

      “For show and tell, bring the first quilt you made,” Pat said. Conversations in the back room of the quilt shop bubbled over till Pat, the woman in charge of our Country Charms Quilt Guild summer party to celebrate our birthdays, called us back to order.

      Unlike the others, I didn't remember which quilt I'd sewn first. Rather than take a class or buy a kit, I eased into quilting through patchwork. With a ball point pen, I'd traced around cardboard templates then scissor cut squares from remnants or old clothes to sew curtains, place mats, a sewing machine cover, and a seldom-worn skirt. When friends had babies, I bought fabric and sewed crib coverlets and quilts.

      But which came first? Mentally I listed babies and calculated present ages. The oldest was Halle, now twenty-eight and a biotech scientist living in California. Did she still have the quilt? Would she let me borrow it? How could I get in touch with her?

      I emailed her dad Cory with questions so that I could “tell” the story even if I couldn't show the quilt.

      Cory emailed back that he had no idea how to answer my questions, but he'd talked with Halle. The quilt was in Cleveland not California, and Halle said, “The quilt traveled everywhere with us. It might as well travel with Janet too.”

      A week and a half ago on Wednesday morning, Spence and I sat with Cory at his kitchen table. Smiling and sipping beverages, we discussed our daughters' weddings, family updates, jobs, retirement, and politics.

      Two hours later, Cory led us the few steps to the kitchen island. He spread the quilt on the counter, reached for a printed copy of my email, and read the first question on the page. “Is it quilted or tied?”

      I fingered the pink thread cut short so that Halle wouldn't choke on the embroidery floss. “Tied.”

      “Were the squares sewn in a pattern or at random?” he read.

      The quilt had faded almost to white. I stared at the squares and was about to conclude random when I squinted and discerned slightly different shades in the fabric. “Nine patch.” With a finger, I outlined a block. “See the three rows of three squares made in two alternating fabrics?”

      The fellas nodded.

      “It's faded but still in tact,” I whispered. “Not one rip.”

      “We washed it in Downy,” Cory said. “It's so soft and comforting.”

      This Wednesday, after the guild dinner at Old Mill Restaurant in Cochranton, quilters dragged heavy chairs to form a circle and, one by one, shared the first quilts we'd sewn. Several women had made king size samplers that would challenge me today. A couple sewed the Around the World pattern like I'd sewed in 2014 for my nephew's wedding. One even made a complicated LeMoyne star. Most quilts looked brand new as if they'd been stored in museum containers. Only three of us had started with easier nine patch blocks.

      My turn came near the end. “I made this baby quilt for Halle Rose Zucker so I chose rosebud fabrics.” One after another, I held up the pastel blue, pink, and yellow remnants that had been in my scrap box since 1988. “The back and binding are from the same fabric.” I waved a piece of white fabric with red rosebuds then opened the crib quilt for all to see. “Over time the fabrics faded.”

      The circle of women gasped.

      In unison.

      Pat broke the silence. “It's so soft and gently used with love.”

 

Reflections on the Eighth Week of Summer - A Time to Sweat 

    “You don't have air conditioning?” The woman pulling a bathing suit up her long thin legs in the YMCA locker room arched her eyebrows. “How do you manage?”

    I shrugged. “Spence is a temperature controller extraordinarie.”

    When the sun hits the house, Spence closes windows to keep out the heat. When the sun sinks behind the woods in the evening, he opens windows to get a breeze. Fans, the eight inch thick log walls, and the cool basement help maintain a comfortable balance. With an average high of 80º and low of 57º for the second week of August, Spence's system works fine.

    This week wasn't average.

    On Monday the temperature started two degrees above normal. By Saturday it had increased to twelve degrees more than the average high and fourteen degrees above the average low. Rather than pulling up the blanket for the morning cool, Spence peeled off his drenched T-shirt and sighed.

    Humidity made the heat worse. My glasses fogged when I stepped outside. Bare arms stuck to wood armrests. Juicy Fruit gum softened to the consistency of Silly Putty and stuck to its wrappers. Because tape lost its stick, refrigerator notes drifted to the floor.

    Friday, I had driven to Meadville to escape the humid heat in the YMCA swimming pool. At the beginning of lap swim, five regulars sorted out lanes. “Let Janet swim in the far lane. She doesn't mind the open door.”

    Mind? Each time I swam back to the shallow end, the fan in the doorway blew refreshing air over my wet body. I wanted to swim more than my usual two thirds mile, but my right knee swelled into cream puff dimples and throbbed as if it were in charge of pumping blood through my body. I climbed out of the pool, took a cool shower, and drove home under the hot August sun. Was the car air conditioner even working?

    Five quarts of bread and butter pickles cooled on the porch. I stepped into what definitely felt like air conditioning to greet Spence.

    Barefoot, he wiped his forehead and said, “It's hotter inside than out.”

    Though he'd heated water in the huge canning kettle to a boil for half an hour then processed the pickles in the hot water bath for another fifteen minutes, he was wrong. The kitchen was 82.4º. Outside was 86.4º with a heat index of 95º.

    In the afternoon, I climbed to the loft, turned on the steam iron and, while sweat oozed through my hair and rolled down my face, pressed half triangle squares for Mom's memorial quilt.

    As Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season . . .” a time to sweat and a time to pull up the blankets.