Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Yesterday was a big day. Kate did an “…awesome job on the food.” I heard this from the Bailey Patchworkers lead, a woman with a great and commanding presence. (the IW breed standard). To do this she got there around 8 am and didn’t leave until 3 pm. She was still in good shape, considering the amount of time she’d spent on her feet and in charge of the kitchen. They sang happy birthday to her, too. She did take a 45 minute nap in the very car I binged on Friday.
Gabe went with us, helping to carry stuff. On the way back from Baily we stopped for “cow watch.” We try to see the cows feeding on the grass in a mountain meadow about half way down Shadow Mountain Drive. They were out and close to the fence so Gabe and I got out for a look. He wanted to go pet them, but wouldn’t brave the tall grass to get close enough to the fence.
Meanwhile, back on Black Mountain Drive, Rigel the wonder dog, was busy. Ever since she dug for, caught and ate a vole last year she has resumed her predator ways. I’ve found shallow holes, often more like trenches, in many spots in the yard. She spends a lot of time with her head under the shed. But yesterday she out did herself.
Her are a few pictures of her exciting adventures ruining our back deck.
Jon picked up Gabe at noon, after a 30-45 minute delay for a pro-bicycle race that had a leg along Hwy. 73. Gabe came up last Sunday. He starts school this Monday, so he’s gone down the hill. Ruth didn’t come up yesterday with Jon because she was with a friend, Eva, watching softball. The pulling away begins.
There’s a sort of sneaky self-satisfaction that comes from holding a business meeting on the boardwalk in Evergreen. Alan Rubin and I met at the Muddy Buck in the morning, sitting outside on its veranda, really a wide spot on the couple of blocks long board walk that I mentioned a few posts ago. On a Monday morning discussing the religious school class we start teaching on September 5th, we saw the usual flow of cars on Hwy 74, the main street of this tourist destination portion of Evergreen. This is a place people come to visit for an afternoon or a weekend or a week. And we live here.
Forest service fire danger signs look like the tachometer on an engine revving too fast. And, they’re staying there. Just like the tach, the longer it redlines, the more possibility for something bad. The really big fires this season, the Spring Creek and 416 fires, are still burning though the Spring Creek Fire is at 91% containment after having burned 108,000 acres. The 416, now at 54,000 acres, is still only 50% contained, but the firefighters feel confident it’s under control*.
With these elements identified lesson planning will be easier because content can be plucked from any of the columns to enhance a particular class. There’s another move in the process, integrating the b’nai mitzvah curriculum developed by a national organization called Moving Traditions with those classes for which Alan and I have to develop our own lesson plans. Once how we do that is decided and dates for the b’nai mitzvah classes show up on the calendar, we should be able to move fairly quickly to a plan for the year.