July 14, 2009
It’s high summer in Sanctuary with 90° temperatures and 87% humidity. The whole place is lush, overgrown, and not yet looking weary and dry, though that will come soon since rains have eluded us in the past weeks and the ground beneath all the green is getting grey and cracked. There are literally thousands of residents on the forty, most of them living very quietly, keeping their lives secret from the humans and dogs that come past. There are fox, skunks, turtles, raccoons, chipmunks, field mice, voles, moles, snakes, frogs, toads, and many species of insects – the list goes on and on. Those that we do notice are the mosquitoes, ticks, squirrels, rabbits and birds. Alphie will occasionally trip over a snake as it lies curled in the grasses or under pasture brush, and this causes him to leap backward and go quickly on his way for reptiles are not his prey of choice.
The gardens are full of lilies now, and the great plate-sized elderberry blooms are everywhere, even in the hedgerows, looking like bouquets set in to give a bit of color. The days pass quickly with morning walks and gardening for me, music composition and practicing of the organ for Charles and general care and upkeep of this place for both of us. The mouth sores have diminished greatly; when my primary care doctor did the checkup he said, “The paste worked! What a bonus!” I thought, “Bonus??” Anything less than great improvement had never occurred to me. I have energy for living, and we are planning another road trip westward and into the mountains. Life goes on, and it is good.
