Home Again Home Again Clippity Clop

Clippity clop, much driving and fast food--and we are home again. We had a lovely time at the beach, eating constantly, throwing ourselves in the waves, chasing after children. Oh yes, and there occurred, in the grand tradition, a little stomach flu, but gracefully brief it was and not as virulent as past holiday flus have been.

We finally pulled into our driveway around seven or so last last to the bright delicate heads of the cosmos, which had bloomed profusely orange all up and down our garden. Sunflowers nod at the cusp of bloom and the garden is completely and totally overgrown with weeds and volunteer squash. In fact the garden is so completely weedy that I have abstained from venturing forth so far into the heat--the task of cleaning up the garden is a bit daunting, and one that I find completely discouraging.

We were busy enough cleaning up the inside of the house--though I clean pretty immaculately before we leave on trips, in order to feel welcomed home on return--even a week empty in late summer offers numerous opportunities to ants. Yes, I forgot to bag our sugar bowl. If last night you had felt sugar granules underfoot and followed your suspicions to the counter, where a good sized sugar pile spilled across the surface, you would have guessed "MICE!" But of course mice are busy outside in the summer, so you would have, with heavy heart, pulled open the glass/mug cabinet to reveal a colony of very busy black ants, populating not only the sugar bowl but the crevices in your cabinet door. While we relaxed in the sea breezes, these industrious house ants spent the entire week moving sugar out of the bowl, onto the counter, and perhaps then to some unknown location. We were so amazed with the ants' efforts that I felt a bit bad wisking all their work into the sink and washing them down the drain along with the hard-earned sugar.

Did I mention the little worms/moth/???/maggot-like creatures that spent the week hard at work on a bag of cornmeal?

So yes, we're back, and we only displaced a few creatures by our return, with the greatest respect but with the knowledge that swarms of ants and people cannot happily coexist.

The girls are beside themselves to be home; indeed Elspeth was so excited about being home that she rose up at six this morning to play heartily. I have a few books to rave about but will do so later, especially since the beginning of school is near, I agreed to teach a class, and I have yet to read the text.

And do I detect, in the late evening sunlight, a hint of summer mellowing? Is fall really just around the corner?

PS. Check out Andy McKee's videos on YouTube. Simply marvelous. Sent me booking over to Amazon, where I found his CD. . . .