High Ground

Sitting next to my soap rack which is currently filled with almond bars makes me think I have some marzipan pastries in the house.  Wouldn't that be nice.  If I'm lucky I will find a couple of inches of stale French baguette to resurrect in the toaster.   Food always makes me feel better but will make me feel so much better that it will put me in an early grave - but I will die happy.  I cooked a big meal last night but it was not appreciated by spouse, who fell on the sofa after a rough day of proposal writing at the office, and only roused himself long enough to get into bed.   Hannah and Luke asked for more meatballs on baguette - they are so easy.  We still have a tub of treats and goodies, left here by Annie after she cleaned out the cabinets in the Dallas Palace.  As long as I have a fridge full of ice cold Coke and plenty of milk for corn flakes and eggs and bread for French toast,  we are good to go. Feeding the animals is much more tricky and I don't dare run out of chicken feed, dog and cat food, goat feed for Fancy and Matilda, cracked corn for the angora goats and, as always HAY.  Yes,even in the summer, hay is the stuff of life.  A barn without hay is very sad.  We are going in to another drought.  I remember what Lisa Merian told me when I was watching my hillside dry up the first summer I lived here.  She said, just wait, the hurricanes will start coming up the east coast in August and bring us plenty of rain.  She was right, as she always is, and we got rain in August.  Have to get that second cut to grow.  Last year we got way too much rain, with three days of no power and water coming in the barn all along the ridge pole.  I had musical pots going in the apartment, but was unscathed compared to so many others.  I'm up on concrete blocks and on high, rocky ground.  The sheep don't ever have to get their feet wet if they don't want to.  It's still all about the sheep.  Farmers will always worry.  That's what farmers do best.  So much responsibility and a stiff price to pay if things don't go right.  Some farmers are praying for rain for their corn right now.  Some, like me, are praying for no rain until the hay gets in.  My Georgia grandmother used to say farmers are the biggest gamblers in the world.  So true.  It's a crap shoot.