Blogger goes auto-pilot!

That hugely uplifting post that appeared yesterday was posted all on its own. I had posted it probably a year ago, and would not have chosen it for my reappearance message. If Blogger's going to re-post my posts, I wish it would choose happier ones. So now I am forced to reveal to you that I live and breathe, still, and my brain continues to churn out thoughts the way a sausage grinder churns out chopped meat for packing into tubes whose origin I shall leave unmentioned. Let me add that I am delighted to know that a few of you have missed me and still remember me after my long abandonment of you all. Really, you can't know how nice it was for me to see notes from you!

A few bringer-up-to-daters:

1. Husband remains the answer to my long ago prayer
2. Molly and Peep are still our beloved furry babies
3. I'm still working for Small Pond, although . . . 
4. Morning Boss has left the building! She of the shrieking complaints about my breathing, my dewy hairline in the eighty-degree room, my inability to divine how to perform tasks previously unseen . . . is gone to work at a larger pond, replaced by a Sweet Young Thing who chatters out her every thought. And so I say to you all, as others have said again and again: Be careful for what you wish. I wanted conversation. Boy, have I got conversation now.
5. Afternoon job, downstairs from Morning Job, continues comfortable and happy.

Husband and his friend installed a vegetable garden hundreds of feet long and thirty feet wide. He planted kale, brussels sprouts, romaine, leaf and other lettuces, green and wax beans, cantaloupes, cucumbers, summer squash... But the stars of the show are the seventy-two tomato plants. Seventy-two. They all bow down under the weight of clusters of tomatoes like giant-sized green grape bunches. Some of the fruits have grown between the plants' stalks and the stakes that hold up the plants. Those must be pulled out two-handed, and often break in two at the division of the two halves, somewhat unpleasantly reminiscent of the division in a human's backside. Molly gets those broken ones. Molly likes to help garden.

There is a black chow chow wandering the hillside, chasing cows. The dog control warden is aware of him but as yet unable to lure him (her?) into a crate for carting off to the shelter. The dog has been in our field early in the morning, sleeping . . . has trotted down the country lane ahead of my car and then off into a field . . . sooner or later the poor thing will need to give in to the dog warden's temptation or, I fear, be shot for chasing those cows. A hoof to the head is as likely as the shot, and devoutly to be wished avoided.

We also have a black and white cat skulking around the fields. It yowls at some point nearly every night, and Peep and it have had words, although no combat. As yet. I have only seen the thing at some great distance and it appears to know what it's doing in the hunting department. 

For both of these wandering creatures, winter will be harder than they now imagine. If they imagine it at all. Doubtful.

So, please . . . be reassured, those of you who feared that I might be weaving the noose to end it all. Life here goes on, summer has been a pleasure, yet again, and I continue fatter than ever and as happy as I am wont to be.  The sadnesses of my young life always underlie everything in my brain and heart, but they don't consume me so much as it would appear from the 8/31 post.

Now that Blogger has yanked me back into circulation, perhaps I'll be more fruitful. I would hope, however, that I shall be less fruitful than our seventy-two tomato plants. Nobody's computer could download posts of that size.