Reruns

Sun, book, deck, dog.  Yesterday was a rerun of the day before, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  When my niece in New Hampshire called to tell me they'd come through their recent storm unscathed but for the three feet of snow on top of the two feet already on the ground, I couldn't help myself.  I know it wasn't a nice thing to do, but as she told of not being able to open the front door at all and having to climb over the drift when they got the garage door up, I simply had to throw in that I'd actually gotten a sunburn during the morning here.  She reacted as expected, but at least she didn't hang up.

I try not to watch the news for more than the weather forecasts.  It seems each day is a rerun.  The same sort of depressing stories are reported:  violence, domestic and abroad; tragedies, small and large; scandals involving people who should know better.  Forgetting that yesterday was a Sunday (no local morning news on Sunday), I turned on the television to catch the weather report before going down to the goats.  Instead, I found a rerun of "Out of Africa," made in 1985, long before we even thought of moving to the country.  I thought the opening line was one of the saddest I'd heard.  "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills."  It spoke to me of a longing for what had been and was no more, much what I would feel now if I should ever have to leave Farview.  I've seen that movie so many times, and read the book, I only needed a few minutes to run it again through my mind.  That was a good thing, because the girls were waiting.  I didn't need the weather report to tell me it was going to be a beautiful day.  It was.