MISQUAH — The zucchini situation, which this column reported two weeks ago in its raw and doorstep phase, has advanced, as it does every year around now, into its bread phase. The conversion began Tuesday, when the smoke closed the windows and the town found itself indoors with its ovens and its consciences, and by Thursday the loaves were moving. They move the way the squash moved — by porch, by pickup seat, by the tote bag of a friend who “was passing anyway” — except that a loaf, unlike a zucchini, is an unambiguous kindness, and may be left in daylight.

Vern has eaten four loaves this week from four sources and rated them all “the best one,” a diplomatic career this column has been married to for a long time. My own recipe is in its usual place on this page. I will say only that the walnuts are not optional, whatever your loved ones claim, and that the smoke week improved the baking by removing everyone’s alibi. You cannot claim to be busy outdoors when the outdoors is visibly canceled.

The Klatch itself relocated fully inside the Daybreak, windows shut for the first July in memory, and Pat Reinholt reports coffee consumption at levels that would constitute a record if anyone were keeping one. No one is keeping one. Pat has the number written on a napkin she will show you.

Sigrid’s stars are next door on this page, and I note only that Mercury came off its retrograde last week, which Sigrid says explains a great deal, and which I am content to let explain it. And this Saturday, August the first, is Walt and Carol Sorensen’s fortieth — the store closes early for the second time in its history, and half the town has bought a card and hidden it, badly, in a kitchen drawer, believing itself the only one. Bring the card, and your own pen. The corn is in, the bread is moving, and the air, they promise, is on its way back. It has been, as ever, quite a week at the tables.