the barn leaps up

I can't keep up with it - the barn keeps leaping up and out, now even the roof is on, and the windows are going in. So I've had to spend the last few days ordering parts for the weathervane that my cousin Joanne rescued from my father's house when my wicked stepmother sold it years ago. The colors of everything have to be tinkered with, also, and I never finshed a lighting plan so that needed doing. And now a finish grading plan needs concocting.

So I haven't been painting, but I have been having a great deal of fun finishing off the barn. I even have ordered a slate sink from Monson, Maine, having coveted one since my grandmother's in the house in Wilton.

The big anticipation of the moment is the arrival on Labor Day weekend of my friends, Raili and Markku, Simo and Raili's twin sister, from Helsinki, Finland. They will be here in Boothbay for the weekend, and we already have reservations for the men to go fishing with Capt. Dan Wolotsky, and we will also go sailing on my Priscilla. Nash and Marion Flores will also do a cocktail party for them on Southport. And then we will all traipse up to Castle Island Camps in Belgrade for two more days of fresh water fishing, and a ride on the Belgrade Lakes Mail Boat.

The two men are big hunters and fishermen. The fishing I can deal with, but the only hunting allowed in Maine at Labor Day is hunting bear with dogs, and I just could not arrange that. Nor actually have I really tried. It's just not my thing. But I do wish there was a bird season around now, and the turkeys and geese - the two-footed kind - seem to be invading.

The leaves of the red maples are beginning to show signs of changing color. Nothing serious now, but I do have 5 ripe pumpkins and I canned the first tomatoes today. So fall is coming; lobster is getting cheaper; the winds are coming out of the north and west now as much as the south and east. Rides on Priscilla will get to be fewer and farther between now, but it's been a great summer all in all. There will be plenty of time to recoup after Labor Day. I actually can't wait.