Dog Days

Mark says these are the dog days.  No more enthusiasm for the chores and responsibilities of summer.  No enthusiasm for preparations for the coming winter (and you know it's coming). No energy for keeping up the farm, the gardens, the interior, the exterior.  Just the lethargy that long hot days brings.  

I look today out at the farm and I see so much that didn't get done that is now too late.  Seeds that did not make it into the ground.  Earth that did not get worked.  Weeds that are taking over the fields.  Work that still needs to be done.  Harvest that is still burgeoning and preparing to ripen to fruition in the coming weeks.  This is the push now, the downhill days to the fall preparations for the cold.  Tomatoes that will be made into sauces, beets and cukes to pickle, beans and carrots to preserve.  Corn to pray for, eat, and save.  Fruit trees to buy and plant to prepare for next spring.  Always looking forward, looking to what went awry this year, and plans for fixing it for next year.  

Still need to put the gutters on the house.  Have to buy the pipes for the two new wood burning stoves.  Footings must be dug and poured for the chimney for the house, block laid, stones placed.  Stoves must be installed and wood procured (from our woods or purchased).   The goat house must be planned for early in the spring, the chicken house must be insulated and heated for this winter.  Plans, plans, and no energy.  

These are the days for planning, and waiting, and poising on the brink, alert for the first crisp breeze, the first cool rain, the changing of the leaves that signals the need for action, the moment when these plans must be implemented, the move made in order to be prepared.  The signal that says, now.  The dog days are over, and now is the time for action.  The hot, sultry summer is waning and the need to act is now.  

And so we wait.....