by James Glaser
September 20, 2004

No body up here can remember a frost in August, but tonight the weatherman is thinking about it. We aren't buying the Global Warming Theory, as it seems like our growing season is getting shorter.

Last year at this time I was picking thirty tomatoes a day and this year I haven't picked thirty all summer. I know lots of people who haven't had one ripe tomato yet and get this, I have heard people asking for zucchini.

Swimming? No, not now as the water temperature is what it was in May and that would be maybe 64 degrees right at the surface. Some kids do swim in the lake right now, but their blood is moving a lot faster than mine.

All the birds are still here and they must be wondering what is going on. The humming birds are working the flowers and the bees are everywhere. If we don't get a frost, this will be that great fruit year I have been waiting for. One year I picked ten gallons of choke cherries in an afternoon and more than that in wild grapes along the Big Fork River.

Ever since I was a little kid, I liked making jelly. Just the smell of the cooking fruit in the house on a cold fall day makes you feel all warm inside and if you are making bread at the same time, it is heaven. Hot bread, with lots of butter and jelly, and I think it is healthy too.

Every day this week has been like an October day and I hate to see the summer end this soon, but it is hard to think that it will warm back up, although there has to be a lot of gardeners praying that it does. I want five more weeks of warmth.

I am now walking five miles a day with a cane and now I try and put less and less pressure on that cane and more on my bad hip. I can kind of walk on my own, but it sure looks funky, feels awkward too.

They tell me that by next week I will be walking fine on my own and that sure sounds good to me. My hand works pretty well except for my little finger, which kind of does what it wants. The ribs still hurt when I laugh, and the hip is still sore, but better than it was. My self imposed boot camp has seemed to work just fine and if I can keep it up for another month, I'll be good.

I bought a new truck (new to me) a 1997 Ford F-150, extended cab, long box, 4x4. I thought about something smaller and then thought how the last truck saved my life and I thought about comfort too. The seats are high and I don't have to bend my body too much to fit in. It looks great and runs out nice like. It has 81K on it, so it should be good for another 150 thousand miles. All you have to do is change oil on time.

With all this cold weather, people are talking about the coming heating season and rumors that heating fuel is going to cost way more than last year. Sure we might have gone to Iraq for the oil, but we haven't gotten it yet.