The weather turned cool yesterday and has remained so today. I am wearing a sweater!

Attila brought home a pint of freshly picked blackberries on Monday night. I promised him a pie and a pie he got. I discovered one day, while eating an apple in the garden, that blackberries taste very good if eaten with a mouthful of sweet apple. Based on the discovery I baked an Appleberry pie, made from apples and the blackberries supplied by Attila. "The Teenager" did not like the combination but it got a thumbs-up from Attila and me.

Yesterday our friendly organic farmer dropped by with a dozen eggs and two small stewing chickens. One of the chickens went directly into the freezer, the other into the crockpot. Late this morning I removed the chicken from the broth and the meat from the bones. The broth now sits chilling in the refrigerator, so that the fat can be easily removed. I will use these ingredients to make a chicken stew with dumplings on Friday.

I have been busy today working on my travel trailer. The rounded steel sections of the exterior have rusted. I have been sanding and cleaning, then taping and painting. The process is slow but the results well worth the effort. I imagine it will take the rest of the summer to sand and paint the rest of the steel sections. I plan to work on it a bit each day that it does not rain.

The "No Soliciting" sign I placed on my door seems to be effective. I have only had two strangers knocking on the door since it was posted. One was the Water Meter Reader who I admitted cheerfully to carry out his task. The other was an enterprising young man who saw the sign and immediately walked back to the front of the house to knock on the front door. The front door has no sign. I came to the door and smiled, looked at his product, stated my lack of interest, ignored his heartbroken expression, and went back to the kitchen to continue baking my pie.

The book I am reading right now is 1349 pages long; the print is small. I am progressing slowly and contentedly. The story is about an extended family of the affluent class in India during the 1950s. It is easy to feel relaxed while reading about the ups-and-downs of the comfortable lives that the characters lead.

I was digging out the rubble from under our bed, where Attila likes to hide books that he has been reading. It seemed a coincidence that I came across the volume "Mother India" written by Katherine Mayo and published in 1927. I attained it years ago at a yard sale. The book is a description of observed day-to-day life of common individuals in India. It does not describe the privileged classes. Ms. Mayo writes:

"It would be a great pleasure to thank, by name, the many persons, both Indian and English, who have so courteously facilitated my access to information...
But the facts that it was impossible to forecast the conclusions I should reach, and that for these conclusions they are in no way responsible, make it improper to embarrass them now by connecting them personally therewith. For this reason the manuscript of this book has not been submitted to any member of the Government of India, nor to any Briton or Indian connected with official life. It has, however, been reviewed by certain public health authorities of international eminence who are familiar with the Indian field."

The periods of which the books were written are quite different. The first, "Mother India" describes the daily lives of common people under Colonial Rule. The second, "A Suitable Boy" tells the story of affluent people under Home Rule, approximately 25 years later. I find it interesting that "A Suitable Boy" does include graphic descriptions of the environment that indicate that the non-fictional descriptions in Ms. Mayo's book remained quite accurate.

I think that being a common person in Canada is something to be appreciated. And I do, I really do appreciate it. I think I will just go and have a piece of Appleberry pie right now, to remind myself how very lucky I am.