Tuesday, July 8th

DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY is what it feels like here … I discovered yesterday that Tamas had been bitten about the tail—a deep bite hidden by the thick fur. That means, I guess, that I shall have to stay with Judy every moment when she next conies. It must have happened while she was walking him, as he never leaves the place unless he is off on a walk with a human being. The Firths assure me that the fracas on Sunday (when Judy went down there again despite her promise not to) was not a dogfight, since Jud simply barked from the porch. There was blood on my sheet this morning where Tamas had lain. The vet said the wound was infected, so I had to leave him there and came home absolutely empty and exhausted. I had so counted on this morning to get back to my own center, do some work. But whatever juice there was in the motor has been used up.

Tamas never comes up here to my study on the third floor, but it’s amazing how aware I am that he is not here.

A hot muggy gray day.

One of the marvelous Japanese iris, a huge white one, has opened, and late yesterday afternoon, after taking Judy back to her nursing home and driving on to Cambridge to get some clothes, I made an all-white bunch with some spirea, two white foxgloves, a single late peony, and the noble iris. It is lovely against the smoky gray wall of the porch.

The catalpas are in flower. There is none on this place, but on a drive with Judy we saw several huge ones, glorious with their large clearly defined leaves and flat white flowers. I think it is one of my favorite trees … there was one in the playground at Shady Hill School when I was a child.

Also, yesterday afternoon I went out in a passion and fury of being alone at last and extricated rows of onions, beets, and lettuce from such a torture of huge thick weeds, crabgrass, and others that the vegetables had become invisible. If we can have a good rain, and one is expected today or tomorrow, they will revive. I have neglected the vegetables while I tried to get the annuals deweeded and mulched. Vegetables can be purchased, but not the flowers, and they are far more precious to me.