May 16 2007, 10:44 PM Elements

For dinner, I mixed toasted cumin and minced shallot into some ground beef with a bit of egg for binder, and shaped half of it to be fried each side and then a little bit more under a slice of a good pecorino. I ate that on the porch between two thick slices of good toast. Coming back inside was a treat; the entire first floor was in the blast radius of toasted cumin and fried shallots. It still lingers. Tomorrow holds the promise of eating the other half, fried in little sausages and mixed in with rice. For tonight, I will light the lamp and settle in the hammock.

One of the useful things about the hammock is the perspective it can lend, there at the edges of the gentle swings. For the past little while, most of my time in the yard has been (mostly) upright, looking over the bits and pieces of the place, and what to do next. The other common vista of the yard comes from the porch, elevated to better afford a longer view. In the repose of the hammock, all of this is sent on its side, and the yard takes on new aspect. If there is a place you know well, perhaps from childhood, I would recommend going there to lie down and look around. It may reveal things to you.

The hammock is good for other things. There is a ball field, down there in the little bowl of the valley. At nights, they sometimes turn the lights on for games, and the air shines with the insects in flight. Some of those nights, the wind is right, and the tap of a ball on an aluminum bat pings soft up the hill to reach the house and the hammock, a quiet sound that is another unmistakable marker of the coming summer.

Sometimes, there is cheering.