I am the walrus...

This seemed like a fitting title for a post on John Lennon's 70th birthday. I can only hope that the next time I feel this way it's because I've been doing whatever he was doing when he wrote it.

My apologies for being a bad blogger. To be honest, life just didn't seem momentous enough to post about. Summer passed us by in hot and humid haze. Then the school year started, and we were still in that hot and humid haze. We think Fall may finally be here, but it's still going to be over 90 this weekend.

Farm update: the summer planting yielded a seemingly endless supply of purple hull peas, Mississippi silver peas, okra, basil, and lemon grass. The cucumber plants could almost keep up with my demand, but since I would like to eat 4-5 a day it's fair to say we had a lot cucumbers. We also had a few tomato plants that produced--enough to remind us how delicious fresh, heirloom tomatoes are, but nothing to the point where we felt buried under produce. Two of the melon varieties Phil planted produced melons, but we only had a few that were actually tasty. The weather was not good weather for tomatoes or melons--too many days of no rain and then deluges.

The weather was also not good for enjoying farm work. It was over 100 and very humid for most of the summer. Phil is still learning how to stay hydrated and avoid leg cramps. There were many days when he'd be writhing in pain on the kitchen floor as all of his leg muscles seized up. He's tried s-caps, Gatorade, and pickle juice, just to name a few--anyone have any other suggestions?

Even while working through the cramps, and the need for multiple wardrobe changes throughout the day, Phil managed to till several plots to get them ready for fall planting. We currently have radishes, lettuces, broccoli, kale, beets, collards, and cabbage growing. We had carrots and a bunch of other things, but lost them to a grasshopper invasion (we've now marked the front door with lamb's blood so hopefully the angel of death won't take Baby Otto if it's a boy--FYI, that's a Jewish joke).

Overall, things appear to be going to plan. Lots of hiccups and learning. The land still isn't productive enough to yield enough excess for us to sell, but hopefully after a few more seasons of soil improvement it'll get there.

Baby Otto update: There are lots of hiccups there too, but I read that's normal. Basically, everything is normal. It's growing. I'm growing. There don't appear to be any issues of damaging pests or poor soil quality. We've been pleasantly overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends and family and find ourselves fully equipped to have a baby in the house, whenever he/she decides to join us (which should be sometime around Thanksgiving). I should clarify that we feel fully equipped in terms of stuff, not in terms of our ability to actually parent. But, like farming and teaching, we figure we'll just learn on the job.

Assistant professor update: So far this semester is going well. A few hiccups (a plagiarizing student and more frustration with the level of preparation most of these students have had) and a few very bright moments (realizing that some of the students in my class are incredibly bright and having engaging, interesting, and stimulating discussions in class).

General life in Mississippi update: We realized it gets hot down here. Hot in way you can't possible imagine. We love our house and land and have thoroughly enjoyed time on the screened in porch, bug and animal watching, and the quiet calm of weekends in the country. From what we can tell, all of our visitors have also found things down here relaxing and enjoyable. The Provence room is still available--although it will probably be closed for a few weeks this winter while we try to figure out this whole baby thing.

I leave you with some photos of our summer, a promise to return to more regular blogging, and one "Mississippi moment:" a judge in north Mississippi put a lawyer in jail for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance in the courtroom. Apparently, the Supreme Court doesn't have jurisdiction down here? Somewhat related--one of my students wrote in a paper that "she enjoyed saying the pledge of legion."

One more thing: someone recently commented that they hadn't realized most of the pictures on this blog were also links to full albums. If you feel picture deprived you might want to go back and see if you missed a link or two.