Crows and Not Enough Rain

purple milkweed, growing tomatoes, a dry shovelful of dirt

A reminder: For over five years I shared a blog for friends and family on all things homestead. These blogs moved to Substack in December as a test but have become the rambling writing home. These writings are a burst of the immediate, my reference notes from year to year. Within the blog I often admit stupidity, share errors and celebrate successes. There is growth, death, hand tools, dogs, chickens, ducks, and an excess of dirt. Mostly I talk about what we do in partnership with the land we are borrowing for a period of time.

These are one pass, little revision writing. Unlike my traditional essays when I spend hours and multiple drafts, these blogs are an hour of speed writing meant to be a reporting style of updating—sharing the generic and mundane with the unusual and remarkable.

Thank you for being with me, Stacy

» a living will is a legal document specifying treatments when unconsciousness, terminal illness, or an inability to communicate is looming. I used this “form” to write from the perspective of an elder maple in 043 - Living Will of Matriarch Maple.

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Blog – July 9, 2026

Mostly, I do not know what day of the week it is. This is quite irresponsible. Or maybe not depending on what obligations are on the calendar to which I have few right now. I think I set my calendar this way in the summer so I do not have to pretend niceness when my armpits drip. Still though, despite the warming trend we gathered for an evening of Sweet Dessert-ing – a table of delicious, sugary treats. This proved to be a fun way to gather neighbors and friends under a canopy beneath the shade of a beech tree. Of course, halfway through the gathering I began second guessing my decision wondering if an insulin station would be a good addition.

Despite of, or maybe because of, the heat, there are lots of visitors in the past few weeks. Sitting in the shade of the front porch. Leaning in the grass beneath the lilacs. Occasionally finding a way to chairs with chit chat continuing, unpaused. Chances to catch up, offer help, share support—whatever the emotional need is in the moment.

I may be getting a bit more adjusted to anything over 68-degrees -🌞- meaning I can work a short time midday under the direct sun. Each day my nails are crusted in dirt and my knee creases embedded with soil. My farmer’s tan is more pronounced (granted the tan sometimes weeps down the shower drain). Always with my eye on the thermometer, timing when to close the open windows and the front door offers a reward with needing a lightweight sweater in the house when outside feels too uncomfortable.

.2 (POINT 2) is the amount of rain fallen in the past 13 days. Even the rhubarb is depressed and the stalks are thin, edging towards droopy. What is happy are tomatoes. They are the one thing I’ll haul buckets around to water. A scoop every two days. There are gaps in the garden and sometimes I understand why going to the grocery store for vegetables and fruit is just easier. I feel temperamental, remembering last summer, and have begun researching and evaluating what to do differently with the shifting warmer seasonal weather. In desperation, I call Boone into the garden and stick the shovel to the step and turn a clod of dry dirt. I think I need validation of what I see in the soil—dryness the length of a shovel’s blade. The ground might be dry, but the weeds are relentless with their established roots, the vegetable seeds have not had enough time to stretch.

One evening this week Boone sat on the porch watching the hummingbirds and commenting on the many blooming flowers. I see him count on his fingers. “We really only have about four months of leaves,” he remarks. What bookends leaves are buds and falling leaves.

Home for a three-day holiday weekend, Boone fidgets like a hyperactive child flitting from one activity to the next. Trees felled and bucked and split and moved. Twiggy-Barka chipped the pile of lopped willow and gathered limbs. Multiple trips with a wheelbarrow moved the mulch to fill low spots on the trails. He mowed and gathered strawberries before staring into the trees looking for more to do. I pulled he and the mower from their stuck-ness in the marsh. He unstuck the tractor I buried to the undercarriage (he taught me another trick to try when I make the same mistake—because we know I will {I need a bigger tractor with redneck tires}). The mean hive waited to abscond until he went back to work. Sometimes a swarming hive will linger. This one didn’t. I could almost feel the queen bee give me the finger on her departure. “Good riddance,” he said., when I told him.

Lady’s Mantle, purple and white Milkweed, creeping buttercups fill between green gaps. On the back trail is a single Ghost Pipe. Last year these perennial wildflowers sprouted like a party and lingered for weeks. This solo plant spends roughly 51 weeks a year below the soil’s surface and I can’t help but think she stands alone in a stretch of borderland embarrassed that she misread the invitation of last year’s exhibit.

Grasshoppers leap in the high grasses and successional growth. More moths and butterflies lean into the protection of leaves and buds. A murder of crows roost in treetops, intent to blacken the skies at the slightest provocation and are nearly unrelenting in their displeasure. There is one injured crow, and the intense cawing leads me to believe they are protecting his whereabouts.

Sunflowers aim for the skyline. Lettuce unfurls hand-sized leaves. Choi is flowering (but who can eat that much choi). Peas offer white blossoms, and potatoes pink and purple blooms. I planted black beans simply hoping for the best. There is one pumpkin on the vine and lots of flowers on the zucchini plants. Herbs are trimmed. Apples are the size of half-dollars. Everywhere is possibility.

A bit of rain would help.

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