Out There

I use to say that I could measure the reach of my day’s accomplishments by the number of tools I had handled and used during the day.

Over winter, the tools are in hibernation along with every other object on the frozen earth.

As the temperatures climb–up to a point–there is a direct increase in the number of things in hand to cut, chop, trim, tamp, dig, pry, water, and carry.

I think for me the tool number reached its max this week–this final spring-ish week of the summer.  After this, the tool number goes down–or at least the time of tool use is constrained to the two cool tails of the daily temperature graph.

The garden is what it’s going to be. There’s not much room left for more plantings, except to stick chard seed into random spots between tomato plants.

So when a friend invites me up to his place on the ridge where the day goes on a few hours after the shadows have overtaken the valley, I’m happy to kick back, feel the callouses on my hands, the weariness in my bones, and toast the sunset from a high place.

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