Not only a long drive but a long drive on top of no sleep—thanks to a runaway fridge. I had moved back to the bedroom in earshot of the beast, and, thinking of the coming long drive, went to bed early. But once in bed I can't help but listen, and mixed in with the surf, and the sound of rain on the roof, was the droning of the fridge. On and on it went, long past the time to shut off. On and on.

Sometime in the middle of the night I felt I'd had enough. I roused the other fridge keeper, and the two of us went at the machine hammer and tongs. Obviously the fridge had been abused the past few weeks—overstuffed and seldom closed. Which is expected. Now we shut it off. We pulled everything out. We disposed of multitudinous mostly air filled zippies that seemed to be clogging the vents, we dialed down the cold factor, and we cleaned an inch of dust off the intake grill.

Then we went back to bed. Of course I could not not listen, and after listening intently for a half an hour I heard the machine turn off. Peace at last. Except now I was too strung out to sleep, and reveille was only an hour or two away.

Back in Whitewater we found the garden prospering. At least in some ways. The tomatoes have gone bananas, and grilled tomato soup is already on the docket. The winter squash plants have expanded immodestly beyond their restraints, but the jungle is so think I can't count the fruits. I think there are not many, which proves one of two things: 1) tomatoes trump squash (sorry to use that word), or 2) squash need to be tended.