Travelmap and Wayward are very cool apps. But I never figured out how to get them to talk to each other. For example, the second day we were in Vancouver, we took a car tour. The driver, Brant, drove us all over Vancouver and, with over twenty years of tour guide experience, he had a lot to share and teach.

Out the door we went. Twenty minutes into that 6-ish hour drive, with rain and trucks to keep us company, we got a text from Amtrak saying the train was disrupted. Wha-!

They aren’t called sh*tty first drafts for nothing. The writing process, it ain’t easy. At least for me, the daily quest to express myself frequently feels like a muddy slough through a morass of ideas that seem so stellar, only to note their fall into a pit of snakes and swampy doubts. For the past—has it been four years?—I have been attempting to write a play.

After nine months of anticipation, our Cal/Can trip is coming up. Have you heard about it? We leave Saturday, October 21st to go from the east coast to the west coast, and back again, by train. Why the train? Traveling is stressful enough for me. I don’t fly — think carbon footprint and lack of feathers. Carl, ever patient and obliging, would prefer to drive. Our compromise is the train. I am creating a map blog of our trip and will be uploading photos and notes as we go along. I hope you’ll check it out at this link.

We ended up rehoming Toey to a friend of a friend. I have been told that she settled into her new home seamlessly. Here at Darwin’s View, her absence was felt most by her former BFF Flopsie, the hen who kept Toey company through her pecking-order trials. With Toey’s departure, Flopsie plummeted to the bottom of that pecking order; in the chicken world, no good deed goes unpunished.

We got about 20 quarts from our blueberry bushes and they are done for the season. Then these disgusting worms arrived. Carl picked off, heroic fellow that he is. And this is our fourth hen to go broody this summer: Princess Bitchess. She used to be such a sweetheart. As you will see, not so much right now.

Hop aboard! Here is the daily morning Chicken Train. Very endearing and deceptive given how mean they are still being to Toey . . . though she has, with trepidation, dared to sleep on the roosts again.

Here are a few pictures of our garden. For all the rain we have gotten, it has been dry. For all the heat, it has been cool. Is anyone else wigged out by the weather these days?

This is our tent set up for this month’s Jaffrey Riverfest. The decorations draped on the tent are single-use plastic bags. Research has shown that the average family uses an average of 125 single-use bags each month. One of our fabulous JCI members tied together 125 single-use plastic bags and Voila! The tent has been decorated. And fascinating but true…

Here are some books that I have been reading instead of the News. Just to show where I dip and bow. Because no longer do I read about climate change because it’s here. I read about possibilities and how I might join with others to help to bring about the necessary changes. And then fiction to lighten and engage.

Toey is our best mother hen. She is consistently and obnoxiously broody. Unfortunately, when we later put Toey and her seven pullets together with the twelve other hens, they accepted the babies, but not Toey. Drama ensues.

Here are some photos and videos from the day the guys from the Harris Center came to band the baby kestrels. Stressful for both the birds and me, but everyone survived the experience. (Though Bird Conservation Director Phil Brown’s hands will carry scars. Apparently, even baby kestrel talons are talons.)

Photos and movies of the month include a microblast wind that flipped our outside couch and table top across the patio—but left the stalwart chickens admiring the activity with no apparent harm; kestrel babies (photo credit Phil Brown of the Harris Center); a turkey in the chicken area; voluptuous peonies; and a hotly contested race of our rubber duckies, with our rubber frog and tadpoles as referee and audience. And an unwelcome spider.

Lice anyone? Bumblefoot? Dirty bums? We had that perfect storm here at Darwin’s View. The result? Two plus full days devoted to cleaning out and cleaning up Cluckingham Palace. And chicken spas.

Nature has been fabulous lately . . . depending on where you live, but I live at Darwin’s View and here the weather has provided a little bit for everyone. I will note that nature is fabulous until ants invade the house and Carl finds a toe-biting beetle swimming in the pool. Then nature takes on a darker, less appealing tone. This day has been one of those days.

Here are some photos of the salt water batteries being loaded out of the house to their pick up destination. Carl found a company that will recycle and repurpose them. Apologies to anyone who had hoped for a very large paperweight!

Porcupines are cute but not welcome. They eat the sweet new growth on trees. All too often that kills the trees. All too often, people shoot porcupines. Here, we merely encourage them to move on.

A friend of ours midwifed ten baby goats into the world two weeks ago. This weekend filled up with another visit to baby goat land—waves of them leaping and cavorting on rocks while some of the visitors brushed Maybelle, the resident dairy cow.