It looks like the heatwave has finally broken. It feels as if fall has arrived. After no moisture to speak of all summer, now just when the farmers are halfway through getting their crops off, it started to rain during the night and has been pouring all day. I don’t think I could stand to farm for a living.

Don is at school for the first day of the new academic year. Barney is going to homeschool, though when it came down to making a decision one way or the other he was unwilling to risk liking homeschooling less than he likes school. Which is a fearful way of thinking, one that he will probably suffer from for his whole life.

I couldn’t let that pass without trying to show him alternate possibilities. He could try it till Christmas and then go back to public school if he should hate home study. And he needed to be reassured that I thought he would like independent study and have help when required.

***

My aunt phoned.
“You’ve got a new cousin!”
This morning her daughter went to her doctor, who was going to induce her (? - I thought she wasn’t due for two more weeks), and when he checked her she was 9 cm dilated. He said “Go straight to the hospital, do not go to the bathroom.”

When she got to the hospital, the doctor told her to push. She did, and out came Gracie Rose, a five-pound girlie.

Wow.

“She can’t be one of our family if it was that easy for her,” Mom said, when I called with the announcement, “but good for her.”

She has Mom’s name. I like that.