It feels good to have learned how to be a country mouse. It seems that little gifts and smiles amongst us suffice for a lot of the glitz and glamor of the city. Not that the city isn’t important but our country sanctuary seems to us to become more important as time goes on.
The raisin bread was a hand built loaf given to us by a pair of my archery students. They are a grandmother and granddaughter combo, nice. They just finished up ten lessons yesterday. But back to the raisin bread which I just had toasted for breakfast. Cream cheese and homemade peach jam on top. The jam was a nice gift left by one of our out of town pilgrims who visited recently. And fresh eggs come in from a neighbor whose daughter have been here shooting bow and arrow. And those are a great breakfast ingredient, obviously.
And Our Catherine and Dana just started archery lessons and are excited by that. They are great students. And they are here a lot for walks and tapas. They are involved with the local farmers here on The Island and are always treating us the local produce and cheeses or sometimes smoked fish.
And early in the mornings like this morning I clean up the dishes and pots and pans from the previous evening. This time of year lots of buttery plates the evidence of corn on the cob which we are picking from our patch trying to beat the deer and the raccoons to it. I enjoy the clean up from friendly dinners and friendly tapas. Just part of the process.
Many people have come and gone this summer. The season is starting to wind down now as we slip into back to school mode. But our visitors have been lovely leaving gifts and smiles. They email pics in so we all can remember the occasion. And they take something away, hard to say what that is exactly but none the less they are smiling.
So the riches of us country mice are simple but wholesome. We smile because that is a country monetary unit, a sort for hard earned gift to one another. It’s a “Buen Camino” on our trail here. Hope that you can stop by sometime.
Well, just a simple little blog post celebrating some of the subtleties of life. Thanks for being here, love, Felipe.
Hola PFFelipe!
If there’s anything better than raisin bread toast, I don’t even want to know what it is. I’m happy with that as the “perfect food”. Of course, My Cathy probably makes is better than anyone else in the world, so that may be a small part of it 🙂
Doing my small part of “helping out” a friend all of this week. Two years ago in July, our life-long closest neighbor died very unexpectedly. He was 76, tho people who didn’t know him well always pegged him 10 years younger than that. His work ethic set the standard for all farmers around here, and his permanent good humor was the envy of all who knew him. He and a mutual friend, Dwight, had started and been continuously running a consignment auction for nearly 20 years. It grew exponentially from its early days to the major affair it is now. There are always over 700 consignors at the twice a year event, and the sale day buyer numbers top out at over 2000. Harold’s death left Dwight with a load he couldn’t handle when it came time to receive, park, and record the thousands of items that are brought to the sale. It’s listed as a “machinery consignment” sale, but everything from chicken cages to $75,000 tractors and combines show up for sale. I committed to helping Dwight out with the receiving and parking chores and it’s a 10-12 hour day starting 10 days before the sale. You wouldn’t believe how complicated it can be keeping all the pieces permanently matched up with the seller and the buyer. Anyway, I’m glad I’ve been able to help out with the process. Dwight appreciates it, and I’m just sure neighbor Harold is pleased and smiling from his berth on High.
SF,
PFJ
PFJ ~ well, I guess I have one more item on my bucket list, trying Farmer Cathy’s raisin bread toast! And thanks for the update on your whereabouts, I was getting ready to send the Mounties out. Sort of sounds like a fascinating process the auction. Glad that you are able to help out a neighbor. It was a great visit with Ken, Tori and Julie recently. We have had a lot of visitors this summer. Some folks coming this afternoon that we met in CA on the last trip. When are you and Farmer Cathy going to come? Just askin. Oh, and enjoying sweet corn here! Love you man, PFF.