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I’m sitting on the sunny end of a very chilly front porch, watching the silly pups in the yard that desperately needs to be mowed again and enjoying the volunteer sunflowers reach for the morning sun.
 Life is good!

Hold onto what is good, even if it a handful of earth.
Hold onto what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold onto what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.
Hold onto life, even when it is easier to let go.
Hold onto my hand, even when I have gone away from you.
-Pueblo verse

The bounty of Mother Earth is good.  The freezer, root cellar and canning shelves are filling for the season that doesn’t provide.

My hubby is going to be okay, even though he smashed the crud out of the end of his right thumb in a car door last night.  Bloodied, black and blue, and he will definitely lose the nail, but not the thumb.

The beautiful wonders of the mountain life as I spied a Red Tail hawk sitting on my compost structure this morning, just a couple dozen yards from the house.

The rains to help break the drought.

The talents that I have been given, that allow me to spin wool into yarn, knit yarn into garments, grow the bounty that will feed us.

Two pups that love us unconditionally and provide much entertainment.

Today, I feel very fortunate.

Yesterday evening was berry picking time while hubby took the pups to the doggie park.  I picked 10 pints of blackberries and 2 1/2 pints of blueberries, plus I had a few pints of berries lurking in the freezer from last summer.

 Today was jam making day.  I started fairly early and just finished.

 The finished days work produced 7 half pints of blueberry jam on the left of the front tray, 10 1/2 half pints of mixed berry, a blend of wineberries (a wild raspberry), wild blackberries, and blueberries.  The back tray, because my daughter loves it so, is 15 half pints and 6 quarter pint jars of blackberry.  Most years the wineberries and blackberries would all be wild, picked from the unmowed parts of our land, but the derecho storm that hit here in late June followed by a series of severe thunderstorms this summer, destroyed all the wild berries.  Fortunately, the two U-pick berry farms did not lose their whole crops.

When we lived on the east coast of Virginia, it would take us 4 to 5 hours to get to the mountains for a hike.  Today it was a 20 minute ride for a 2 1/2-3 mile hike through a beautiful woods on a ridge.  The half way point offers the most primitive view with not a road, pole, or structure in sight.

War Spur Overlook

Overlook with pups

Hubby and pups on overlook

A stroll in the woods

We have hiked this trail at various seasons, but never before with the pups.  It is a beautiful, not difficult walk very close to our house and never crowded.  Today we were the only hikers.

As a kid, living in Lynnhaven, Princess Anne County, now part of Virginia Beach, I used to dread the Sunday at the end of the first full week of August as it marked the end of our family’s week at Shrine Mont and signalled that the summer was drawing to a close and school was soon to resume.

Six years ago, we moved to the mountains and found out that the schools here begin much earlier, mid August as opposed to the Tuesday after Labor Day that I was accustomed to in Virginia Beach.  As a teacher and then a school counselor, we returned a couple of weeks prior to the kids and that was true here in the western part of the state as well, thus returning the adults to school during the first week of August, while my family was at Shrine Mont.  After my first summer here, as I was in a 12 month job, I took a few days vacation time and went with them to return to the back to school chaos that only an educator can understand.

Tomorrow the students will return to school locally, but since we have had several consecutive mild winters, they may be losing their early start waiver from the state and will have to start after Labor Day next year.  If I was still working, I would have been back for two weeks, trying to fix broken schedules, registering new students, listening to student and parent pleas for a different teacher or different order  of classes, helping with or planning Back to School Night activities.  I didn’t even think about these things this year until a friend told me that Back to School Night was last week and another that she was back at work without us getting together this summer.

Do I miss it?  I can honestly say that I do not.  I have retired, twice.  The first time was as soon as I had obtained the magic combination of age and years working that the retirement system for the state mandates.  I was burned out from SOLs, the State mandated testing, can you believe they name them with something that produced that acronym?  As hubby was self employed, I was covering the family’s insurance and that was a good portion of my retirement, so I went to work, part time for an educational non-profit to keep us insured. After we started our home in the mountains, I went back into education as the department chair of the School Counseling office of a local high school to pay back into the retirement system for a few more years.  When hubby finally retired, I followed a few months later and though I do miss some of the people, I don’t miss the headaches of school opening days, standardized testing, student registration for the next year and school closing days.  I am blissfully happy to still be at home, enjoying my hubby, the pups, and the garden.

images from the 77th Annual Newport Agricultural Fair, the oldest Ag fair in the state of Virginia. This is our community and where we spent a good part of yesterday.

 This morning was pups to the vet morning, one to be weighed for heartworm meds, the other for shots, exam and weighin for heartworm meds.  This event was traumatic for one and the highlight of the day for the other.
 .  As we arrived and I had to literally drag the little shepherd pup from the back of the SUV, the beast bounded to the back for his leash.  Since Shadow was cowed, I walked her on up the ramp to enter and check her in to be nearly bowled over by Ranger who had pulled away from hubby, sans leash and loped in to the vets and straight to the back to say “Hello” to the staff with hubby chasing after him, leash in hand.
     At 7 months old, the beast weighed in at 122 lbs.  Once inside, Shadow settled, took her exam and shots calmly, and weighed only 38 lbs.  She will be 5 months next week.  We survived this visit, physically unharmed, but with a considerably lighter wallet, and I thought raising kids was expensive.
    After the morning vet, the pups got a walk on the Huckleberry Trail and home to chill out on the front porch, in the shade and under the fan.  Don’t they look traumatized?

Wednesday evening is my weekly knitting night with the gals and tonight also with two husbands. I haven’t been going this summer and realized tonight that it is a good midweek social break.  I enjoyed socializing and knitting with friends.  I have spent most of my crafting time this summer spinning at home.
As I was leaving for home, I was treated to another beautiful sunset.

Our week of storms has produced nightly flood warnings near creeks and sometimes the river and has filled the woods with mushrooms. This one looked like a dumbbell and was about 10″ tall.

Two lengthy service calls and several hours later, hubby has Direct TV and a decent picture for his TV. Our local provider is a cooperative and as this is a poor county, the equipment is fairly low end, so the cable picture is not a good quality.  We have joined the satellite receiver in the yard crew that is the mainstay of country living, at least they aren’t still huge dishes mounted literally in the yard

Mowing was finally done around the house between weekend storms.  This weekend was Steppin’ Out, a huge street festival in Blacksburg with food, music, and crafts. We got a couple of gifts to stash for birthdays or Christmas on Friday when it was steamy hot before the first storm hit. Yesterday during one of the storms, I dashed between mostly hunkered down vendors to get to the farmer’s market for bread, cheese, and a few, produce items not growing in our garden.  The meat vendors weren’t there.

Last evening, between storms we took the pups to the Huckleberry trail for a walk.  Shadow has done well on these walks until last night and she was skittish, dragging, pulling, and dancing, especially when two skateboarders passed us from behind and again when they returned.  We were hoping she was getting over her fearfulness.  She starts puppy training classes today, mostly for the socialization in a strange location.  She won’t take training treats from us except in the house or car and training is easy here but I don’t expect much from the class except helping her to get over being fearful.

Kelly and Rich’s wedding 8/13/2010.  Today my cousins, brother, and Dad will begin their vacation at the site of many wonderful memories.  Have fun, maybe next year.