The hot August nights are full of the sound of crickets.  I found one today on the porch, pretty big, but I have seen bigger.  We used to go to Wellfleet in August. I would get a small cottage "The Owl's Nest" and Maria would get an identical one right next to me.  They were really nice, on a quiet road, overlooking Black Creek.  Getting to town was easy.  A quick walk across Cannon Hill (really fun at low tide when the fiddler crabs were running around) and the walk across Uncle Tim's Bridge got you there is minutes.

But one thing, it was August and the crickets were amazing.  Rachael came over one morning, I think she was about ten.  She complained that a cricket had kept her up all night with his racket and now was behind the refrigerator, still at it.  I teased her and said, "well he is now your pet, you have to give him a name."  She looked at me disgusted and said, "I already did.  His name is ass hole".

So that it what I remember these nights when the sound of hundreds of crickets are at it.  I smile and think of a famous cricket that spent time with us on our vacation in Wellfleet.

I felt badly the way I skipped over a life that meant so much to me, so I will try to make it up to him.  Joel was a very complex person, his brother said his first love was Gloria L, because of her fur coat.  When I started going out with him in our Junior year, she told me that Joel was the only boy she knew that if a girl hit him, he hit her back.  That was Joel, but he gave me great kids and a home that I love dearly.

We moved here in the fall of '67.  We had looked at the house in spring, with four apple trees surrounding it in bloom.  But it wasn't until the fall that we decided to buy it.  Maria was in Kindergarten in South Avenue in a trailer, the school was so full.  Red Hook was the best school in the area, and that made the difference.  The first bank denied our loan, "structurally unsafe" and the price started to fall.  Uncle Phil came to Tivoli, put a line on the west wall and said the same thing.  The price dropped to $8500 and we found a bank that could loan us the money.  We had the whole family here for Christmas, and Joel went into the cellar and jacked up the floor with beams, so we wouldn't have a family falling through the floor.  That was his first house project.  He put a marble on the kitchen floor and we watched it roll across the room.  And so, with metal beams, new wood, he made the floor safe and even.  Then he took a little room that Paul was using and started on our bedroom.  He parked his truck outside the window, and with a chute in place, and a diaper over my face, I threw the old horse hair lathe down the chute.  With bare walls, he started, adding a new window, and making closets out of the little room.  Wait, I think he might have done the kitchen before that.  I was pregnant with Sabra and he put shelves on the open porch for the pots and pans.  The saw was kept in the kitchen and Paul would play with his cars in the saw dust.  He was speed racer and I was Trixie.  Joel found wainscoating in an old barn somehow, and that is what he used to make the cabinets.  He had me stand where the sink was to see how high to make the counters to match my size.  Then he enclosed the porch.  I think in 1970 or '71, because Sabra was in a playpen outside watching him while he hammered to Johnny Cash music.  Then with the porch done, the next May he tore the kids bedroom apart, and the three older ones had to sleep on the porch.  It only fit two beds, not Maria's so she had to beg every night to sleep with someone. CPS would be after us today if that was going on.

And then it was the kids room, followed by the addition when they no longer could all fit four to one room.  So you see, he worked hard and long for this house, for my home and I told him that in the last letter I wrote to him.  I had typed it out, thinking it would be easier for him to read than my handwriting, and then before putting it in the envelope, I wrote "thank you for all the work you did on this house.  I love my home." I hope he understood.

It's been a whole summer without doing a "post", so I will try to get updated in one swoop.  The big news happened at the end of June, my ex husband and father of our children died.  He had been doing better, was home and Sabra had even spoken with him on the phone, when the call came.  It was a difficult time, the communication between the two families had been tense and unfriendly (on their side) and his death came as much of a surprise.  Sabra researched the correct German words to send with the flowers and on the 4th of July he was buried.  We had a memorial get together at Sabra's, it was quite pleasant.  She made Mass cards, I made an album of a collection of family pictures, Helene brought the picture of Zach and her visit with him last year, but it was not like a real funeral.  An obituary in the Poughkeepsie paper brought some condolences, but on the whole it was like it never happened.  Then to top it off, the funeral director emailed pictures of the flowers and the funeral home and each of her kids had ribbons with their names, and the big ribbon in front, and in English, read "Good-bye my love" and his wife's name, who rarely spoke English.  We wanted ribbons but that's another story. 

Then on July 9th it was off the to Cape for two weeks, the first week with Sabra, Tony, Solomon and Henry and woowoo and Paul's boys Zach and Ian.  First day and a half were rainy, cold, then the heat kicked in.  This was the first house we ever rented with central air, and believe me, we needed it.  Days passed quickly and the second week brought Shane and Ava out, then Jer and Gabi.  We came home on the hottest day of the year (that's what they said then)  but since then it seems each day is hotter than the one before.

So now the garden is doing good, lots of beans in the beginning, now the tomatoes and zucchinis are coming on strong.  The zinnias attract lots of butterflies and hummingbirds, and just to prove Bucky right (after the fourth of July the summer is over) the farmer's almanac has August 24 - hummingbirds head south.  Most of the time the yard looks like Mrs. Murphy's Turkey farm, I counted 14, all sizes there today.  The turkeys are a big hit with the B&B guests, so I feel they earn the corn I throw to them everyday.  Timmy is looking to buy a car, he wants a yellow Fit, with manual steering, and apparently, manuals are almost impossible to find, and now they are not making any more for this year.  But the quest for a car gives us a lot of phone calls and emails, so far only a purple fit has been offered and Timmy said, "I can't drive a purple car".  So I guess that gets us caught up to the middle of August.  And boy is it hot and humid.  This too shall pass.