And then summer ended

I remember May, remember sitting here typing out the last post on here. A few minutes ago, a few months ago. Where'd it go? Into the garden, swim lessons, a couple of camping trips, BBQs, twenty or so books read, time spent with family and friends. One couple I know had a baby, another friend had a baby, got married, bought a house. Another couple is trying to get pregnant and bought a dog. I feel almost like I hibernated over the summer. I grew some vegetables, some herbs. I cooked and cleaned, took my kids places, kissed my wife. I had things I needed to get done that I didn't, I did things I wanted, some I didn't, did some things just to do them. And now it's almost fall. I'm stockpiling firewood to keep warm this winter. Canning vegetables, putting things up. It's nice. Having a pantry full of food that I grew is nice. A woodshed stacked neatly. Smell of pine and pitch, a winter's worth of heat. It's 80 degrees and I'm thinking of snow. This is how years pass, Emma a kindergartner, Sam a new breed of child, naming things, claiming what is his, yelling when it isn't, Sam an old breed of child. Sam himself, I suppose. Why do we care so much about measurement and progress? The geese fly south. They'll fly north again when the time comes. I'll head out into the woods looking for deer, for elk. These old remembrances of things we used to have to do to survive. It doesn't seem frivolous, but maybe it is. I like the ritual as much as the act (having never shot an animal in my four or five years of hunting, I'd better like the ritual more), and I know it has a familial weight to it, something to pass on, "This is how things once were. They had value and still do."

So back to all kinds of work, it's time for that.