Saturday, September 5, 2015

Bugless

September 5, 2015

Tonight's gratitude will be short and hopefully sweet (although I don't know what "sweet" would look like). Most of the day was spent out in the sun, gnats buzzing all around as I helped Nate cut and load firewood. We loaded onto the trailer what he had cut before, then he took it home, leaving me to keep cutting what still needed to be blocked up.

I am not a sun worshipper. Give me shade any day, except today. The wood was out in a field where the only shade was the small shadow cast by the trailer. I sat there for lunch, but otherwise was sweating it out in full sun. One short foray into the woods convinced me to stay in the field. As bad as the bugs were in the field, they were worse in the woods. Which leads me to my gratitude for the day. Our homestead lies in the shadow of a shale cliff that rises up from the other side of the creek. We have huge spruce trees in front, with a maple and an ash rising between the garage and the deck and an old apple tree outside the windows of the Millstone room. We have a lot of shade. But we have hardly any bugs. I don't know why that is, but I can sit out on the deck as I'm doing now, only occasionally swatting at a mosquito or fly. No gnats or sweat bees at all. I'm tired from all the work, but I'm also content as I relax this evening. I am grateful for this place of quietness; few people have the privilege I have of sitting in the cooling evening, listening to the stream dancing over the shale, giving thanks for strength and health enabling me to help my son get ready for winter.

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