May the blessings of Lughnasadh bring you joy

Another name used for Lughnasadh is “Lammas”, from the old-anglosaxon “hlaef-mass” (loaf mass, mass where the first loaf of bread is consecrated), which developed into the later medieval English and Scottish “Lammas”. As such it is first mentioned in old anglo-saxon chronicles as early as 921 CE as “Feast of the First Fruits”. In an agricultural society the begin of the harvest was a natural occasion to celebrate and to give thanks to the Divine for Its gifts.

artisan rustic sourdough bread

Photo by J. Harrington

We're looking forward this month to receiving our first order of kernza flour and including some in our rustic sourdough bread. If the weather cooperates at all, we'll honor today's feast by torching the current brush pile. That's likely to displace our recently arrived woodchuck and we'll hope s/he decides to move on rather than dig a burrow in the yard.

the new neighbor, a woodchuck

Photo by J. Harrington

This afternoon we discovered a newly dug tunnel along the foundation with its entrance/exit among the timbers serving as a retaining wall behind the garage. The Better Half reasons it must be fresh or the storms a week or two ago would have washed away all the excavated sand. There's now a live trap baited and set. We'll see who, if anyone, ends up in it. The mousetraps set around the tractor have been more successful than we expected. It seems as though this year we've been underrun by burrowing rodents, which fits with  all the other vermin and varmints making 2020 a year to bemoan.

But, in six weeks or so we look forward to a Celtic feast of "The Autumnal Equinox, on September 21st or thereabouts, is called Alban Elfed or Light of the Water in the Druid tradition."

Hay for the Horses

Gary Snyder - 1930-

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
        behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the 
        sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

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