Rainy Days and Mondays

The morning began dark and misty. I am not sure when, but at some point the raindrops began to fall.

I began my morning as per usual, coffee in the french press, plenty of Coco's cream and the green chair by the west window in the dining room with the Book of Common Prayer and my old tattered Bible.

This morning's Psalm was Psalm 25. Feeling overwhelmed and alone I read David's words with tears, lifting up my soul, trusting in my Creator, asking him to let me not be humiliated or be put to shame. As I thought of the list of unfinished things I asked God to show me the right way and to lead me and teach me.

In verse 15 David cries out to his creator, "Turn to me and have pity on me, for I am left alone and in misery. The sorrows of my heart have increased; bring me out of my troubles."

It felt right and good to read and cry and ask to be lifted up out of my own misery.

My aloneness.

I then remembered the lectionary from yesterday, taken from Deuteronomy 30, a blessing offered to the followers of God to have prosperity in their land, their fields, their flocks. Prayed for God to bring prosperity to our farm, and our neighbors' farms and friends' farms. None of us care much for money, but we do wish for fertile fields and good soil and bounteous gardens and rich milk and meat and eggs. Enough to live a decent and simple life.

The rainy grey day felt good for tears.

And then I got my room cleaned and a couple of floors swept then sat down to work on accounting and retail sales tax and doctor bills. It wasn't pleasant work, and believe you me, I would rather shovel manure or dig weeds all day long instead of making business phone calls and dealing with numbers. But the rain was good motivation for business, especially since our dear Rachel Banks drove little girls to Vacation Bible School and helped Thomas deal with the dead ewe. I took my scribbled priority list to my office/bedroom and hibernated with piano sonatas on Pandora radio.

This afternoon we said goodbye to dear Rachel and then I had to cry again because she is such a dear girl and we love her so much. But the girls remind me that we don't need to be too sad because Rachel always comes back. So we look forward to her next sweet visit and thank God for her being such a blessing to our family.

To celebrate finishing up a stack of paperwork I made what I wanted to eat for supper. Curried vegetables and venison.

Some friends gave us some eggplant, cauliflower and peppers. I cut up one of our onions and sauteed it in a bit of oil. Added the peppers and eggplant, two or three of the asian kind, halved and sliced. Sauteed the veggies for a few minutes then added some Pensey's Balti seasoning and some Sweet Curry powder. Threw in three or four minced cloves of garlic. Half of a chopped up cauliflower. Two or three tomatoes from the garden, chopped up into chunks. Once the tomatoes started to cook down into juice, I threw in some of Quigg's venison, precooked and chopped up. Added Redmond's Real salt and covered everything for a few minutes. As everything cooked it smelled so good, but seemed to be missing something. I dug around in the pantry and found just the right thing: a can of coconut milk. We opened it up and added it to the mixture and let everything cook down into a silky, spicy stew.

Perfect for eating on the deck in the cool evening air.

Nora took a pass, but everyone else loved our supper. I was especially glad that Rose didn't care for her eggplant as she gave all hers to me. Yum. Summertime vegetables make for very delicious curry. We didn't even make rice since I had no energy for one more pot.

Eating our dinners during the summertime is such a special thing for me. Every bite of food has a connection to our friends. Pastor Quigg, the mighty deer hunter, Paul with Thistle Dew, our farmer's market neighbor, Raymond, our master gardener friend, Jonathan, our other market pal, and especially Julie, our supplier of exotic spices!

Dinnertime seems like the perfect ending to a Psalm. David began many of his poems with lament and agony, but ended with gratitude and grace. Kind of like my Monday.

By the way, the pond is not full, but much of the cracked mud is covered right now and I am grateful. Songbirds in the woods seem grateful this evening as well. So do the sheep, who are cool and fresh and happy to graze.