End of the Day

After supper, when the long shadows stretched dark fingers across the green pastures, we drove out in the golf cart with the dog to see if we could pick any blackberries in the patch in the Pine Island Field. The patch has millions of berries, but few were ripe. The trick is to get them before the birds do. Considering that we ate a good number, we picked enough for a cobbler tomorrow night when we will have guests.

It is the end of the academic year; teachers are packing up their classrooms,tears are shed, young people are graduating, and everyone is heaving sighs of relief at having made it so far. I remember those days, not so long ago, when I knew school was over, but I had all those lengthy evaluations to do. Immediately, I'd spread everything out and get started. Summer really never began until I had carefully written each family about their child. It always took at least an hour for each student. And, now, I don't have to do that!

I continue to believe we truly live in paradise. Despite the armadillo wars, I love to garden and spend hours each day tweaking the many flower beds,watching the butterflies and birds and picking beans and tomatoes and whatever else is ready. I have a plan for growing my vegetables despite the armadillos. Having time to paint, write, sew and make pottery in my studio pleases me immensely. It is interesting to begin having a new social life here in the hinterlands.

We continue to feel socially responsible so we are activists in several things. Andy works hard as chair of the Florida Nature Conservancy, and I am on the board of Pathfinder. And there are all the kids who are in our lives one way and another. No golf, no spa life, no bingo for us. We are slowly learning to identify much of the flora and fauna around us, much more fun than a cruise. We love the hard and constant work it takes to run a ranch.

Thousands of fireflies are twinkling at the edge of the woods, mirroring the stars above. Something is rustling in the palmettos and the barred owls have begun their nocturnal hooting and cackling. Soon I will hear the coyotes singing their evening song. We go to bed in a screened room open to the outdoors. The frogs and chuck-wills-widows sing us to sleep.