The sheep escaped into the flower field this morning. I was on the phone with Martha. Earlier there were these sounds, mysterious sounds, but now in retrospect they were clearly the sounds of sheep chipping away at wood. Three sheep ran towards me through the goldenrod. They’d just been shorn so short that for a moment I mistook them for goats.

Yes at first I was in the dahlia field, tall grass around the inactive electric fence, yes and I told Martha as quickly as I could that the sheep had escaped. The neighbor’s sheep, three of them. Martha asked well what are you going to do? I hopped into the red truck and watched them. I really enjoyed the interruption. Almost never any company in this field. I didn’t want them to leave. Especially didn’t want them to be scolded or shepherded. You know what, I was wearing a wool sweater. So we were all alike. But then they did something fascinating which is that they found their passage home and returned. What’s even the point of all that escaping? I thought. I think I thought that aloud to Martha who was still on the phone.

Earlier, the celosia was as long as a snake. Earlier the truck in four-wheel-drive driving at a slant. Earlier bending down to kiss someone who was in a bad mood. Earlier glass of water one sip. Earlier bad sleep.

Later, Martha and I continued our discussion. Any kind of grief feels more manageable over the phone. And the relaxing sound of laughter which traveled some direction some distance. Specific to this day, raspberry season is over, raspberry leaves are still green. Which will I remember better? The phone call or this image? I’ll entwine them?

Earlier, Martha had sent me a photo of an entire fish, eyes and scales and all, laying beside an entire new born baby. I asked, what are you doing and they said they were “being a private chef for the Germans” which made me laugh because I don’t know who these Germans are, I can only assume they are somehow related to this baby. Then they said:

“I have been cooking from amazing recipes, I am loving life, inspired by ur love of cooking.”

When I received that text I just smiled and shook my head. It meant so much to hear that.

And how many times have I told Mary that she taught me to love my life because she taught me to cook. And did she ever have a week where she wasn’t in the mood to cook at all. And then did someone come along and remind her how good it can feel?

After Martha reminded me, after I was melancholy at a party, due in large part to a baby touching grass with his toes, a sense of personal loss, no, maybe something larger, I went home and wept in bed until I didn’t think I’d get up. I write this vulnerably just to tell you about the thought that resurrected me. Obsessively I tell you these thoughts in hopes they could serve you. I didn’t think I would get up. And then I just imagined a very finely diced onion cooked in butter, and I imagined cooking it so long that the butter separates and the onion glows. Then I thought, might as well. Then I put on a Bebel Gilberto record and began to cook. Then once I was cooking I was truly happy.

Martha had to get off the phone because they had to vacuum. At this point the neighbor had gotten word that her sheep were misbehaving or something, not my words. The problem was solved and I felt a myriad of things.

Is it misleading to say myriad instead of specifically one or two? It is only the truth.

When it was time to harvest kale, the former treasury secretary was on the radio talking about the interest rates of the United States’ national debt. At one point she responded to the interviewer by saying “… that would have many implications.” She did not elaborate. I felt a myriad of things, you wanna know one of them? Confusion at how confusing people can be when they speak.

The kale, I was really being thoughtful with it. All the yellowing leaves I peeled off and dropped away. The kale’s thick stem like a tree-trunk that’s grown from sometime until September. I could have counted down and backwards to see exactly how many leaves had already come and gone. As I bunched, I hid the curly green in piles amongst the smooth lacinato.

Suddenly I realized I didn’t have a thought in my mind. Finally!! Then a thought.

When I collected many heads of butterhead lettuce it was so simple. Each head of lettuce was great to look at and to touch.

Now, the end of the work day. I meet up with James and we are eating Concord grapes in the car. I spit each seed out the window. James asks about my day and I realize as I am speaking that it was the best day farming I’ve ever had. There’s no formula to make a day happen like that again. But I can enjoy remembering which is what I am doing now, now now while dinner takes too long to cook.

You know I grew up in this town. I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a writer. I was always writing a mixture of what I imagined and what I observed. One of the first stories I wrote was called “The Renegade Cows.” In the story, I came upon a herd of cows in the woods behind my house. In my mind’s eye I can picture them more clearly than reality. Vivid like fiction. Which makes me wonder and I can’t figure it out at all if any of that really happened or if I made it up. Maybe in another 25 years I’ll wonder if these sheep today really escaped. In any case, a good day is worth remembering.