As an official old fart (64
as of Sept. 26th) I am glad that I started writing a diary. Otherwise September would just be a blur in
the rearview mirror. In fact, Cheryl
gave me a birthday card with a long poem about old farts. That birthday was 3 days after our first
whirlwind trip to Spokane in months. We celebrated our 16th wedding
anniversary by watching the movie,The Help, eating out and doing some shopping.
While Bill Yake, as the
official poet in the family, uses a lot of verbs, looking at my checklist for
this report, it is all nouns. So I’ll
take it bit by bit.
(Written October 3rd) The first
bit is really sad. I led off the last
update with a picture of our new cat Gray-C.
The next day she disappeared. She
really was a sweet little cat. I wish I
could have gotten to know her better.
We’ve run through the usual suspects, the road, neighbors, the Great
Horned Owl, coyotes, looking for love in the wrong places… without finding a
clue. Now Cheryl burns 3 candles for our
past year’s lost pets on Monday nights.
(Written October 28th) Gray-C is back with us again! 
Actually it has been a couple of weeks now, but there has been no time to blog. We got back from town one day and there was a note on my office door and a message on the answering machine from our neighbor saying that a small grey cat had just shown up at their door. Cheryl retrieved her. She was thin and apparently pregnant. (That answers that question.) For the first week or so, she didn't have much energy, but she definitely knew where the food was. Now she is out and 
about a good part of the day looking for chipmunks and running up trees. She had been gone for 6 weeks. Speculation has it that she went up to the one neighbor we didn't talk to. They also had cats of their own. It looks like she is no longer pregnant.
We also
had a scare when I took our dog Gretchen to see our friends the Wingates. Their dogs attacked her and she ran
away. I was afraid that she was trying
to run home, but Cheryl was sure that she was just hiding nearby. Cheryl was right. After a few hours of
frantic searching without Cheryl – who was coming home from work -. Cheryl
arrived. Gretchen came out of the woods to the sound of Cheryl’s voice and was
not injured. It’s surprising how a
really nice day can turn into a nightmare and back to a nice day so suddenly.
Speaking of nice days, the weather has been
unusually warm for September and very dry.
In some ways that has been good for the grapes. In others, not so
good. Harvest time is near and I’m
charting the sugars in 19 kinds of grapes.
The weather is cooler and technically it rained at least once, but I’m
pushing for sweeter grapes until they get where I want them or they freeze
first. At least the birds have been
minor problems due to the early netting and the wasps non-existent. It’s almost like silent spring, but silent
fall instead.
The Indian
Summer has brought in a lot of tomatoes, peppers, corn etc. We had a Slow Food potluck at Quillisascut
Farm School that was a real Tomato-Palousa.
Tomato salads, salsa, soup and sauce, red, yellow, purple and zebra,
roasted and raw. And tomatoes are not
the only harvest. I’ve dried nectarines,
plums, pears and raisins. Cheryl canned
peaches and made pesto, roasted peppers and the kitchen is still overflowing
with all of the above. Our own corn, 10
feet tall and rising, is ripe – so the corn fritters keep on coming.
That is
about all the news that’s fit to print.
The financial section follows, but not on line. Lots of people called and wrote me for my
birthday. So I figure they will still
need me and feed me even though I’m 64.