Dear Heather (First in a Series)

Dear Heather,

Rather hot here. I closed off the house this morning and kept it fairly cool all day. It's up in the 90s or so again tomorrow. Whew.

I hear you're terribly busy there. I surely do wish you lived next door; I could shout out my kitchen window at your children, and you could watch my children for two minutes or so while I run out to close the deer fence at the end of the day. Those rascals have been nibbling our fruit trees.

We finally broke down and did the decent thing and mowed today. The grass was actually about Martin's hip height. Have you all read Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest? It's our gardening bible--Martin's always bringing him up (Eliot Coleman says THIS is a good alternative to potting soil, Eliot Coleman says NOT to work the soil too deeply, etc., etc.). Anyway I think you'd get a kick out of his ideal vision of harvesting fresh greens all winter. Well, Eliot Coleman recommends, among other things, a certain kind of European scythe--and we, being fed up with gas prices around here, and with noise, and with our grass--almost ordered one. We watched a video on YouTube with the soundtrack of Bob Dillon singing "How Many Roads"--with a girl with braids and a long skirt scything a field around a tractor (at the beginning the scythe is on fire and she's swooping it through the air). She ends the video by planting her feet firmly on the tractor roof and pivoting the scythe on her palm and then across the screen you see: HUMAN ENERGY. So we were actually pretty excited, by the field going down so cleanly, and her movement (like poetry, swinging back and forth), and her amazing scythe tricks.

But before we ordered it we had to bite the bullet and actually mow with what we had. And after mowing with these loud, gas guzzling machines, we both thought, we're insane to sell our riding mower at this point in our lives. Maybe we'll take up scything when the kids are teenagers. We thought about boarding goats but that went the way of the duck idea (if we can't take care of our laundry and our children and our garden, we're not ready for livestock). I told Mommy I wish we could just put the girls out to pasture. Think of what a money saver that would be.

I think we'll take the scythe money and buy a food dehydrator, which I'm so excited about. I tried drying apples on window screens last fall but it was such a nuisance and not terribly clean, either. The dehydrator has stackable shelves that you can load up with tomato slices and apples and strawberries and what-not. Get ready for your dried tomato Christmas now. It's coming.

So I don't know what's wrong with all my family, that they live so far away. Wish you were "popping over" distance. I actually felt like buying a ticket to Flagstaff and arriving there with Beatrix to keep you company, but then I decided since I can't do that I'd try to write you daily letters. I hope I can keep up with them--we're off to see Grandpa tomorrow.

We've harvested two good sized portions of strawberries from our garden and my beans are actually coming up. I'm always amazed when planting seeds actually results in plants. Your garden is beautiful! I love the bright poppies.

PS. Ask Josiah if he recognizes the binocs below--Elspeth took them with her hiking. Very intrepid.
Wish you were here,
xoxoxo
Kimby