I just wanted to point out the current absurdity of life at the farm. As I have mentioned before, we are renovating our small barn into a cute and compact home for Elizabeth and her two children. I use the pronoun we loosely as Jim has done the lion’s share of the work, putting in 70 straight “summer vacation” days doing carpentry work before returning to his day job as a school teacher). Lizzie and co. currently live in the farmhouse with us, but once the renovation is complete, they will live fifty feet from us ( and here is the key point to the town’s zoning board) AND USE A DIFFERENT TOILET.

There will be no increase in toilet use or toilet “material” so to speak, but this move from one toilet to another means we’ve had to have our front gardens dug up, our side yard down by the blueberries dug up and our hayfield dug up for a new septic system- because new regulations require new tanks, new drainage materials etc etc.

As I type, two excavators, a bulldozer, a dump truck and a jackhammer are in use here. How do you spell SERENITY?

Here is the excavator poised to begin its work.

Here is the scenic view from the Venus garden overlooking the smaller excavator at work.

Here is the lovely pastoral view of the septic construction five minutes ago.

Here is an impervious Monarch butterfly giving me today’s moment of Zen.