Greetings, dear reader! For the record, this is the fourth attempt I have made to summarize our family’s doings in the last four months, so hopefully in this case, fourth time’s the charm!
At the end of May, we celebrated our 16th Wedding Anniversary.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Rosebud (back in June)! You keep things happily hopping!


We have not been idle at Misselthwaite! Well, there have been many days of poolside enjoyment once Haus Meister found out the botheration that plagued us with this pool last summer. I could definitely sum up our fine summer weekends as “Chlorine, Celtic Music, and Cookouts” as we enjoyed the two great things a previous owner left us: a poolside charcoal grill and speakers installed on the workshop adjacent the pool. Haus Meister could stream his favorite Celtic Music podcast (Thistle Radio on Soma FM, for the curious) while the kids swam and we supervised both the kids and the cookout. So many fun summer Sundays this year!

Meanwhile, our farm bustles with activity. The chicks we ordered in April arrived and were duly added to the Home Science/Economics course we joke that we run on the side. Sadly, one chick, very likely a Sicilian Buttercup rooster, passed within three days of arrival. However, his loss was accidentally supplemented by the hatchery, who seems to have inadvertently added a male to our “straight run female” order. Enter “Brewster: The Accidental Rooster” to our poultry flock.


Oh, and magpie ducks. They just seemed like a good idea.
We worked on fixing up our automobiles, since last summer was spent fixing up our house. Here and there, we tried to do improvements on the property. One thing I love is the Mary Garden we dug into the hillside in front of the house, which I do not have an adequate picture of at present but for which someone made a significant sacrifice:

My parents, my husband, myself, and the Rascal were the main movers behind this project. Haus Meister had parked our old pickup truck between the house and barn with the plants and everything else we would need to accomplish said task in the truck bed. However, he had to work on the day we were clearing the area and missed the action. Around the time we were discussing lining the grotto area around the yard statue of Our Lady with stone from our property, Rascal recalls a certain huge quartz rock in our woods that would be “just the thing.” After hauling it over via wheelbarrow, the barrow tipped and the rock began hurtling toward aforesaid pickup truck (that he and his dad spent the winter with initial restoration and repainting), and he tried to catch it with his arm. That’s when things went wrong for him, and a month out of the pool!

Not all bad for the Rascal, who turns 14 next week. He thought a puppy might round out the farm well enough, and exactly a month to the day before his birthday, he got to bring home Samwise Gamgee, a hound mix from a local shelter. Sam has been a fun and interesting addition to the farm. At heart, though, I am a dog person, so I’m automatically biased.
Rascal’s ambition to raise and breed rabbits for his own entrepreneurial purpose has resulted in the addition of “Giles” to the farm crew. Giles is much younger than either ‘Dottie” or “Mumsy” but he is a likable rabbit buck. The rabbits have been enjoying the summer in a rabbit tractor framed by Haus Meister and finished by Rascal.

Another interesting happening was that a wandering PEACOCK visited our house in May for a few days and gave us the air of a British Estate before moving on. I wonder where he is now. He was a beauty. Have you read Patricia Polacco’s “Just Plain Fancy”? It was one of our favorites before his arrival and has been immortalized since.

A highlight of the summer was our trip to the seaside. Back in the winter of 2018, when we first knew our relocation destination, I bought laminated field guides of the state’s wildlife and nature for the kids. They were amazed to see ocean life on those guides, after living their whole lives in a landlocked state. Everyone from Miss M up had seen the ocean in Maine in 2012, but Miss M didn’t remember, and there had been four girls since, so this past May we made a day trip to the seaside in our new home state.

But now it’s the middle of August. We have hosted many fun guests this summer. My parents have been in and out. Local friends dropped in for our cookouts. One of my college roommates visited with her family. The next weekend, Haus Meister’s college roommate visited with his family. Rounding it out, our parish priest, and old friend, from our old hometown came up for a few days to hike and canoe with our crew. Just before he left, he offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in our family room. It was less than 24 hours before our new school year began, and if any greater event could end our summer, well, there could not have been. Not ever.

We had a great summer. I hope you did as well.