Home again! I’ve just dumped 5 pounds of pickling cukes into the pit (wait, I haven’t told you about the pit. I’ll get to that) We picked them up at Sauvie Island Thursday afternoon, fighting jet lag, and it said right on the bag: Take cucumbers from bag, refrigerate, and use within 2 days. But did we listen?

But a word about our trip. Fourteen days cruising the Baltic Sea. We do know better than to leave our garden in August, and the only reason we would do such a thing is friendship. We were celebrating Ursel’s birthday, and wouldn’t miss it for all the apples in our orchard. So it was a fascinating, magic, frustrating trip! See, it was a special “German language only” cruise. I’m about 1/4 literate in German, Larry not at all, so it was deep immersion. Very deep. But to see the German cities, Russia, and the beautiful Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia was powerful, even if we couldn’t understand a word the tour leaders were saying about them. Look at the difference between a Russian port and a Lithuanian: There’s such energy in the lands who were freed from foreign occupation, who retrieved their own languages.

Finally, though, my homesickness worsened and I was desperately happy to retrieve my passport and climb on the plane. Yes, me. “Don’t be such a house-cat,” my mom used to admonish me. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” I believe my sense of adventure is hiding out somewhere along with my naturally curly hair, blue eyes, and that 3 extra inches that would have let me reach the top shelves.

So here we are at the farm. Good news: Look at Larry’s flowers! Our prune tree! (Yes, I know, the proper name is “Italian prune plum”, just like “hazelnut” is the hoity toity “proper” name for filberts.) We have a modest collection of pears ripening in the garage, some excellent squashes, and massive cabbages. (I just learned that it’s possible to can sauerkraut without a pressure canner, so if I can succeed in making some, we’re golden.) Yes, we like sauerkraut.

Some bad news: Those trees were thirsty! A yellow-jacket disputed my rights to the pear tree, with an itchy, swollen arm as result. Don’t know how she’s doing. I’d show you a photo of my stung arm, but that would be weird.

Some really bad news: Here’s a photo of a huge tree I’d decided was the grandfather tree on the property. For perspective, look at the fence around it. I know it’s a bad photo, sorry . . .

We took a walk around the perimeter this morning, and here’s what we found:

We can hardly get over the size of the thing. At least it tip-toed around the fence instead of crushing it, but it seems unstable, and while we’ll ask Sam, our Tree Guy, I don’t imagine we can just let it lie. The tonnage of the it. We don’t know when it went down, if there was a heavy wind in the area, but it is just nature being Nature, so while it saddens me, I have to accept the loss. I guess we always have to accept loss, hey? Sometimes I say pretty dumb things!

But now it’s afternoon, we’re still tired, so nap time at the Viehls. Oh yeah, I said I’d tell you about the pit. Seems our earlier composting efforts were useless, but we had to provide for the garden debris that would be forthcoming. Like spent tomato vines, sunflower stalks, and so on. Yes, we have yard-debris collection, but that means hauling stuff down to the barn, then out to the road. I remembered how my parents disposed of garbage by digging a deep pit. Aha! We had Ian, working on the fence around the garden, use his excavator to dig a trench at the back of the garden, where we can toss things like, well, garbage, of the non-meat variety. Sounds disgusting, huh? But oh so correct for people posing as conservationists! Next year’s lovely compost!

And now, good night. Yawn.