End of Summer

The most recent batch of children and grandchildren have come and gone; the house has been re-ordered, the laundry and ironing all done again, beds and bathrooms restocked with linens and towels, the larder replenished, and we are now ready for the next and final set of children/grandchildren visitors. All over the Point, that appears to be the case: there are lots of cars parked in front of individual houses, the grocery store is selling enormous quantities of food to tourists who may come down just to eat, and Dylan’s seems to overflow with people holding ice cream cones in their hands. Across the road from us, the big field behind the house is filled with tents that are in turn filled with that house’s children and grandchildren who are having barbeques and foot races and bicycle riding.

We are all exhausted from so much company, perhaps, so much festivity. Which is to say that Labor Day is fast approaching and everyone under the age of something much less than 70 is on his or her way back to school. Which is to say that the new year is about to begin.

And what will the new year bring us? More strange weather? More disturbed plants? We have begun to pick two kinds of apples from our apple trees (jonagolds and transparents) and both have hollow cores. Said to be caused by excessively hot weather, but it seems very unlikely that hot weather was afflicting these apples at the point at which their cores were forming. I cut these apples in half, and right in the center is a 1.5-2 inch hollow sphere wherein no seeds can be found, nor anything else either. The Japanese knot weed, which normally puts out its flowers in September is putting them out in August. The rest of the plants, which normally wither in September or October are pretty much done with their withering as a result of the long dry/hot spell we had in July and August.

It used to be that the garden was a refuge from the strangeness of the world. Now the garden seems to be echoing that strangeness with its own strangeness. It is comforting that the one zucchini plant I have grown has overcome everything else in my small vegetable garden area and is producing squash as if it was the last chance it would ever have to produce squash. Which is to say that it is acting like a normal zucchini.

And the neighbors, with their exquisitely organized and cared for garden, are bringing us exquisitely arranged platters of their excess vegetables. This is also normal for this time of year.

And, finally, the County is reported to be considering new zoning for rural areas like Pt. Roberts (well, there is really no rural area quite like Pt. Roberts, but rural areas more generally). The new and stunning proposal would permit, outside of the ‘downtown’ core, only one house per 10 acres. This is likely to be very unhappy news for all those with large landholdings (and there are quite a few such areas and landholders here) who were planning to get rich either more or again by building a lot of houses once there was somebody in the world interested in buying a house. But more cheerful news for those of us like, say, those who live on my street, where a sign just went up that an 8-acre plot of currently forested land is now being made available to the masses in the form of 8 lots.

So, if we can just get enough rest, we’ll be looking forward to the new year. I hope.