Anniversary Day

Though I don't have the time to write cleverly, I really must make a journal entry. Too much has happened.
Yesterday was the 9th Anniversary of our marriage (Heidi's and mine). She came back from the beach and we had a romantic dinner at Leonardo's in Battle Ground, with our two progeny by our sides. Last year we went to Mt. Adams. Neither of us could remember the year before. On our 6th I bought Heidi 6 pairs of shoes. This year she ordered my 9 articles of clothing; my wardrobe has become a little patchy, so this should be super.

My cousin Gaylen and his wife Karen welcomed Molly and Grace into the world.

And our chickens, Butter and Santa Claus, each produced an egg on the same day for the first time. They were only the 2nd and 3rd eggs in total. Strong omens of fertility in the chalk-dry height of summer.

My stalks of wheat are drooping over their own clutches of bulging grain.

Jamey has lost his second top front tooth and now has the prototypical gap-front look of kids in the tooth-losing stage.

The crickets have ratcheted up their chirruping, which comes so predictably clear in this parched time of year one is tempted to believe that their sound only carries on dry air. But this is their high time. They've grown from little motes to survive until they are old enough to play their staccato violins, which are paradoxically harder to locate as their volume increases.

So there's my post. It's scattered and strange and wonderful, like any good summer.