Weekends. Students. Weddings. Wet Squirrels.

Last Saturday morning at seven here is what was going on at Sulphur Creek: I was heading to the corner store to track down George West (I was pretty sure he'd be at breakfast at the Round Table) and confirm that he was going to talk to my busload of Vandy students at eleven. (He was there and was.) Brooke was cutting a few more flowers for the market. Eric was in the study running off copies of the "Bells Bender". Kevin and Evan and Lulu and Ollie were breakfasting at the shed. Tom was on the phone confirming the arrival of a couple of soccer players scheduled for yard work.

The bus of Vandy students arrived right on schedule, and toured the farm, talked with George about farm life, whooping cranes, Vietnam and the meaning of life, and also with Barry about the endless complexities of preserving a small patch of land from bizarre and destructive projects--from the several versions of a dump (on land that was steep, rocky, and wet), to 2000 houses (on land accessible only by a single narrow road), to a city to be created ex nihilo. We rescued a box turtle from the road, and pondered the reproductive possibilities of the osage orange. A productive morning, overall, I thought!

My favorite quote: George, describing yet another discouraging event for the Bells Bend Defenders--"I felt like I'd been slapped in the face with a wet squirrel". We've all had that feeling once in a while.

This weekend: Katie's wedding, so we have a tent, a stack of firewood, pig pit prep, Esme' running barefoot through the pasture grass, and various combinations of fathers, groom, friends, extension cords, cut flowers, tables, hay bales, and cleanup crews wandering around the front yard.

And I haven't even mentioned Joe and Amy, our mariner friends visiting from Woods Hole. Welcome!