Home from Newfoundland

A week or so ago I said good-by to my parents,

farewell to Newfoundland,

and came home to find that both crops

and livestock

were thriving in the care of #1 son, who had graciously undertaken the task. This is the fellow who dashed outside in the midst of the hailstorm last July (when winds reached 80 miles per hour), wrestling tarps up against the house foundation to forestall flooding. So we felt comfortable leaving the house in his hands.

Some things, therefore, went as expected, but you can’t go away for two and a half weeks without finding some changes when you return.

There never was a frost, so the tomatoes have doubled in size, and the zcchini have quadrupled. The one squash plant to survive the hailstorm

had given us several small zucchini before we left,

but seemed disinclined to produce the monsters everyone else boasts. Well, apparently it just needed a bit more time, because this is what I found upon our return:

Zucchini bread, here we come.

As for the kids, when I asked #1 son if anything exciting had happened in our absence, he said,
“Well, Ingmar Bergman.” I had to laugh, in part at the incongruity of the answer, in part with delight that he’d find a Swedish film director exciting.

When #2 son took a break from dorm life to grace our lowly home with his beneficent presence, he was of course lugging around a book in the lower pocket of his cargo shorts.

“So, what are you reading?” I asked.
He pulled out the book to display the title. John Milton’s Paradise Lost. I gaped. I was pretty sure he wasn’t taking a literature course—maybe the philosophy course—?

He grinned. “Nope. I just thought I’d pick this up for a little light reading between assignments.”

I have never known anyone to read Milton for fun. And this is my less intellectual son.

“You thought,” remarked one friend.
Right. Time to readjust my categories. Or dump them altogether.