July 1st seems like a good time to end my “sabbatical” from this page. Thanks to those who wrote to me about my unannounced leave of absence! The weather dried up for much of those two weeks, so pretty much every moment I wasn’t in the office was spent out in the fields. Planting is done, except for successive plantings of beans and an attempted late planting of melons and okra. It’s been a very frustrating year thus far at the farm. We’re still doing better than we did last year, but not nearly as well as I’d hoped. The play I found myself directing made me miss an early planting window that was followed by two months of continuous rain that kept the spring harvest low and pushed the summer crops way back. One consolation is that most of the other farmers missed the early window too, or only got a few things in. No one has more than a handful of tomatoes, for example, when normally there would be plenty. I’ve not even got a handful yet – only a few plants have made it to the first support wire on the trellising system. We have very few items to take to market right now, but it is the height of blackberry season so we’ve still managed to do all right. Even with a downpour that began right when I got home to harvest Friday and ended right as market closed Saturday afternoon, we sold out of everything we had. The weather combined with the loss of several dear friendships over an egotistical fit really managed to damage my psyche. Normally, when I get to feeling low, I turn to two things to bring me around. Theater and gardening. [Don’t let the fact that I am prolific with both make you think I’m one depressed soul!] This time, both were denied me. Or at least robbed of their therapeutic qualities. Six weeks ago, I was in a deep dark funk – but I’m much better now. I’ve spent the last few weeks healing from the inside out. Part of that process included announcing that I wouldn’t accept a second term as theater president, and that surprised a few people. We are celebrating fifty years of operation this upcoming season, and many people had assumed I would continue to serve through next year. Of course dealing with events this spring took a lot out of me (I’ve now been on the board five consecutive years), but the real reason is timing. The main celebrations occur next April, and I’m not about to let the theater interfere with another year of gardening. April is when the farm keeps me the busiest, and that is what I’ll be doing. So anyway, here I am!

[Listening to: God’s Cop - Happy Mondays - Live]

I know you didn’t come here to hear me griping about the weather, but maybe you’d be interested to see how much things have changed from a week ago…

“All Bundled Up” This week’s Photo Friday topic is packaging.

I was hoping for a break in the rain this weekend so I could get caught up in the gardens. But here’s the current radar, and they say it will be pretty much like this through (well, what do you know!) Monday morning.

Here’s a couple movies worth watching, filched off other weblogs: Gollum “accepts” an MTV Movie Award The ending of pretty much every movie made in the 80’s And some music: I don’t know much about rap, but I know I like this

I had my long-anticipated visit with the dentist on Monday. It didn’t take him long to determine that my broken tooth was my upper right wisdom tooth (my tongue swore it was the tooth next to it), and since I’m a Man of Very Little Jaw, it was best to take the tooth out rather than repair it. He also determined that my filling in a lower tooth had come loose (or something to that effect), compounding my pain. He referred me to an oral surgeon for the pulling and asked me to come back to get the lower tooth capped. I asked if they could do it right then, and after consulting the schedule they penciled me in for 45 minutes later. I’d never gotten a cap before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Basically, they saw off the top half of the tooth and glue on an artificial one. Since it was really mostly filling material they were carving off, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’ve got a temporary one now and will return in a few weeks to get the permanent one attached. They say it’s being made in a laboratory somewhere to exactly match the part they cut away – I imagine by an under-employed sculptor. When that was over, I called the surgeon and asked to get scheduled as soon as possible. An hour and a half later, I was in his chair, and half an hour later, I was short one tooth. It turns out that that particular tooth (Tooth One in dentist nomenclature) is by far the easiest to pull. I hardly felt a thing as he reached in there with what I assume was a pair of needle-nose pliers. There’s some discomfort as the tooth and gums get over the shock of being manhandled, but it’s nothing compared to the keep-me-awake-at-night sensations I experienced prior. Now I only need to figure out where the $800 I had to pay will come from.

I’ve not finished with my “bee documentary”, but you can watch a 14MB unedited quicktime movie by clicking here.

The bees came today, via the US Mail. We’ll hive them this evening, and there will be plenty more pictures.

Just what do you suppose this mystery object is I collected on the farm yesterday?

“A Week’s Worth” This week’s Photo Friday topic is overlooked.