| Geez, how did it get to be September 15 already? Where did the summer go? School has started in the neighborhood. Addy is going to start preschool at the "Y" at the end of September. She took swimming lessons in the spring and all summer and she is a true fish. It's great to see her go under water, float on her back, and swim across our little pool in the back yard, which by-the-by has already been taken down for this year. Sigh. Like I said in the previous post, we had quite a spell of over 90 degrees days this year and it heated that pool up nicely. We got used to bathing in 93 and 94 degree water so when the nights started getting cooler that last week of August the pool wouldn't get up past 88 and barely past 86 mostly. It felt too cold to be in, unbelievably. So, one week into September we knew the pool had to come down. The heat of summer finally left. It's been a cool 64 today. Yeh, 64 was the highest it got today. That made a beautiful and perfect day to be in downtown Oxford drumming in the park this morning. That was fun.
Tomorrow is another busy day for us. We have drumming to do at the end of Pete's driveway while the State-to-State Marathon is being run right down his road. It's been his traditional to sit out there and play for the runners as they run by. This will be interesting. The catch is that we have to be there ready to play at 7:30 a.m. Bill and I have to leave at 10:00 and won't be able to play as they all run back from the Indiana border because Bill is giving another talk at Hopedale UU tomorrow at 10:30. Hmm, to stay and play drums at Pete's or to go listen to Bill again? Going to see Bill will win every time. I plan to bring bagels and cream cheese, hard-bolied eggs, doughnuts, bananas and grapes to the morning drum session. I think they will be surprised and maybe grateful to have some breakfast. I've got a follow-up on the raccoon rage episode of which I wrote the last time. The most feasible way that Bill came up with to fix the roof of the Catbana was to wrap chicken wire around the rafters and over the space between the rafters and the main part of the structure. Now no raccoon can get in up there and wreak havoc. The view to the sky isn't as pretty but you gotta take what comes with the territory. We still have frequent visitors to the deck and we've seen them now. Evidently it was just this one frisky raccoon that did the damage. I caught him in the act of running around crazily on the deck one night after the incident. I heard him creep over the baby gate so I got up and went to the darkened dining room and peered out the windows. I saw him run over to the fountain and after a few minutes he ran to the corner deck railing by the gate, jumped up, and walked to the middle of the railing where I lost sight of him. I heard him rummaging around the tomato vines hanging from the buckets and I wondered how many little tomatoes he was dropping. Then he came back to the corner and jumped in the end tomato bucket. It looked like he was dancing in it. He jumped down after a minute and went somewhere else on the deck. There is no light to shine on the deck so I lost sight of him. I decided to open the Catbana door and let him know I was there. He quietly and slowly picked his way behind the bbq and tomato vines hanging down, stopped to look at me in which I told him he was a naughty raccoon, and he slunk over the gate again to retreat to the yard. So, it wasn't the gang of four youngun's I thought it had been. The new roofing is working. We haven't had any more intrusions into the Catbana. As we sat in the Catbana last night after dark, a raccoon crept up the stairs and through the gate that had been left open. We said hello to him as he looked about. He wasn't too concerned with our presence. But he didn't stay too long. Our talking to him made him wary. There was half a hamburger sitting on Addy's plate in the dining room. I got up and tossed the leftover down to the grass below. I saw the raccoon come out from under the deck and go over to investigate what I had thrown. At least, he got some food that night. And later, too, supposing it was him. I threw out more leftovers for them all to enjoy. As I sat at my computer with the window open, I heard a couple of them down there rustling around in the dry leaves. Speaking of which, to round this out with the reason for the subject. Rain has been very few and far between this summer. We are eleven inches below normal for rainfall. Everything is as dry as a chip out there. We haven't heard anyone's lawnmower in months. Our yard is covered with a layer of dry leaves already. The trees have that faded fall look. For all purposes, my sulky summer is over and I thank the universe for that. It was a weird one. |