Three Egg Day

Yesterday was a three egg day, with all the hens producing on full cylinders.

I remember way back when I was in junior high and I was a fan of the group Three Dog Night . . . now I'm into Three Egg Day.

As I picked nuts, the chickens came out to visit me, and didn't run off until a neighboring dog showed up. I didn't know that fowl are so "friendly."

Attila the dog follows me around the grove while I pick up nuts: blowing his feces-tinged breath in my face when I'm bending down, chewing up only the nice nuts, chasing the sheep to precipice of the river banki.

The sheep occassionally gather around me to keep me company. Yesterday, Blanche and Soixante-Douze ignored me but the four young ewes paid me a visit. I took a break, laid on my back in the tree dapppled sunshine and rubbed their bellies . . . now I'm their friend for life. We're still all waiting with baited breath for the bucks to arrive, but it looks like that will be a while longer, as the farmer is now in the middle of lambing. My husband is putting up a fence to keep them from toppling over the river bank.

Today, we dropped Preston off at the train station. He's going to Paris to check out the music scene there. Then he'll head to London soon after, and decide where he wants to pursue his musical career. Believe me, it's a lot scarier sending your kid off to a big foreign city without a job and only one contact, than it is sending him to the safety of a cloistered university.

I'm proud of him for deciding to pursue his dream and undertake this monumental challenge.

Our nut machine arrived yesterday. It had to be repaired because I ran it into a tree last year. We first initiated the repair work back in early July. It arrived on the third day into our nut harvest. We've been picking up the nuts by hand. However, as if on cue, the rain clouds are gathering ouside and so we won't be able to use the machine for a while.

My husband noted today that no one seems to have harvested their grapes. A late harvest here is the 15th of September. One year, it was as early as mid-August.

The walnuts always start falling in earnest on October 1st (this Saturday) . . .no matter what the season brings.

Trees are like the Germans who insist on maintaining a strict schedule. Grape vines are like the French and Italians, more along the lines of que sera, sera.