by David Cecelski

       This is the first basket of sweet corn that I’ve got out of my garden this summer. I’m not going to have a whole lot of sweet corn this year, probably only 75 or 100 ears, but I’m grateful for what I have. So far I’ve had enough to feed everybody at my daughter’s birthday dinner. I’ve had enough to take a few ears to our minister and his wife, to my children’s old piano teacher, and to two nice ladies that sometimes work for us.  I also had enough to share with all our neighbors. That included a young couple that’s getting married over the Labor Day weekend. I told them that the bag of sweet corn was their wedding gift. I was kidding, but they were so happy with their sweet corn that now I wonder if I can do better.

       This is our cat Biscuit in my sweet corn patch. She’s the queen of the treetops, but she also likes to play around the corn stalks. We lost her sister, Sweet Tea, over the winter, unfortunately. I buried Sweet Tea in my little cornfield because she liked to play out there so much. (I decorated her grave with Christmas ornaments because they were a passion of hers at the time. We're still finding them under chairs and couches.) Biscuit is still with us, though. She still hunts fireflies out there at dusk, as well as field mice, snakes, cicadas and anything else that moves, including my fingers when I’m weeding. Sometimes she also plays hide-and-seek by herself in between the rows, or at least that’s what it looks like. At those times, I think she’s really playing with her sister.