The Smiling Boar

Twice, for a second or two, I smelled paradise, a gentle perfume with a tiny hint of lemon, as I ran up and then down Thunder Ridge.  Maybe some vegetation had anxiously awaited today's generous raindrops.

My eyesight took its turn yesterday.  I crossed a creekbed as a huge hog gently lowered himself into the cool water.  I'd almost swear the corners of his mouth turned upwards as he sank deeper and deeper.  Even if I were nearly blind I would have recognized him as a boar, not a sow or a barrow.  Later, I passed a dead snake on the road.  Not an ordinary copperhead or black snake, its rattle must have caught my eye, or maybe the width of its carriage.  I stopped and returned to examine the timber rattlesnake.

The skies warned me this morning, so I surrendered to my stomach.  It cannot afford a summer without enough of our own corn to freeze, even if I should have been writing.  I attacked the winter wheat garden over by the goat paddock, hoed eleven trenches and dropped in enough seeds for 25 dozen ears if we're lucky.

"It's late for corn, isn't it?" says Virginia.

Seventy-three days takes us to the end of September, which should be plenty of time.