(Natasha has brought the green thumb of Yalta in the fertile Crimea to the fields of Culpeper County. This basket she kindly game me includes corn, potatoes, cucumbers, tart pickles and dill from her garden. It is magnificent).
I am torn between the desire to crank out a story about our worthless government, terrorists, the economy, or Caitlyn Jenner, but am confronted by the requirement to actually live some life by gassing up the Turf Tiger and cutting the pastures on this sunny, low-humidity day, and then finishing the laundry once I get out of my sweat-soaked jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt (deer ticks) and then get back up north to wash off the clinging critters and pollen in the magnificent hi-pressure shower in my apartment at Big Pink.
My favorite things about Arlington revolve around the signs of Aquarius- that great shower and the cool pleasures of the deep blue old-school pool.
But this morning, I have to take a moment to show you the bounty of the soil down here in Culpeper County, and demonstrates the richness of the land and the energy of the Russians my building- but the image above demonstrates is how my neighbors are doing this year. All from their garden, and I had a bowl of chicken soup that featured as main ingredient one of the chickens I first met as a little yellow fuzz-ball in late spring: All from the good earth.
I don’t do ladders any more, the ruptured quadriceps ended that vertical mobility, and Mattski brought his ladder and replaced the bulb on my mercury vapor security light with the new one I got on the Internet. He scampered up the rungs and screwed it in. I was hoping it was just the bulb, and not something electrical between the main breaker in the house and the pole where it is mounted out by the circular drive. I was intensely gratified when the sensor clicked it on just after sunset.
There was all sorts of news to catch up on. The farm across the road is the subject of much construction and rehabilitation, and a ruptured relationship that will have it on the market again- a fabulous bargain for whoever is going to be the ultimate buyer. And word of two pregnancies- one nearing completion and one joyously announced- that I learned about over another local product- a glass of crisp white Old House Vineyards Chardonnay. There is something in the soil of water here.
But like I say, I will have to get back to the irrelevancies of what passes for national discourse some morning when I have more time and fewer chores.
The cool blue light bathed the place with light that resembled that of the fat harvest moon. All was ethereal and calm through a quiet night, punctuated only by the trains making their distant signal at the grade crossing in the village of Winston. Life in the country is rich and it is good.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303