Where Did It Go?

There is a children's book called "Attic of the Wind" in which, as I recall, there is a place where all lost things are stored.  There must be a place like that for days which are simply gone; those times when one looks back and wonders where that day went.  Like socks that disappear in the laundry, yesterday is gone forever and I haven't the slightest idea what I did with it.  Plants got watered, goats were milked, animals and fowl got fed, some minor projects were finished.  On the whole, though, based on performance, I would not get a merit badge for yesterday's accomplishments.  I feel that I didn't earn my keep.

The days are getting shorter; sunup comes later and sundown comes earlier.  Twenty-Two's bottles have to be warmed before eight o'clock now or I'm walking back up from the barn in the dark.  Never again will I breed a doe so late.  Bottle feeding in the summer is akin to elective surgery:  you feel pretty good walking into the hospital (in this case, the barn), knowing you're going to hurt when you walk out.  Even the nighttime feeding at dusk leaves me drenched in sweat.  In the past, I've always tried to have the kids weaned by May; a much better plan.  Twenty-Two won't be finished with bottles until the end of September.

With just a quarter of the leafed branches gone, already the trunk of the fallen oak looks like the skeleton of a leviathan laying in the yard.  It's easier to think of it as firewood now.  I'm getting used to the change in the skyline, but do miss the shade that tree provided.  I think it was in junior high (I believe that's called "middle school" now) that I learned that everything is energy, and although it might be transformed, e.g., water into steam, that energy is never lost.  I'll keep that in mind when I stoke the stove one winter.  At least I'll know where that tree went.