Maine.  We are finally here

I open my eyes to the ocean.  Sunrise comes in through our window, lighting the yellow walls, and I look out to the white pines and the bay and the rocky shore.  Pebble, one of our dogs, is already bursting with energy, flopping her tail back and forth on the bed and telling us it is time to go outside.  So we go.

Barb, my mother-in-law, and I walk with the four dogs down to the beach where a lobster boat floats next to a buoy in calm water and long clouds stretch across the sky, slowly giving way to the blue above them.  The dogs run back and forth, their snouts skimming above the rocks, their ears on alert and their tails wagging.  I put my nose to the air and breathe in salt and seaweed.

The mosquitoes find us fast, and I’m surprised when I squash three at once on my arm, brush another out of my eyebrow, and feel the bites of a few more on my feet.  Still, I smile.  We head back inside as seagulls are taking their first flights of the day and calling out over the water.  I find Edge in our room, just waking up.

“Hello, vacation-man,” I say, and he laughs.

It’s hard for farmers to take time off during the summer.  It’s harder still for that time to be in mid-August, when the garden is bursting with vegetables and the list of to-dos only seem to grow, but here we are on vacation, and there are no lists waiting to be checked off.  There is only the ocean and family, and it feels so good.