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“I am alive, and drunk on sunlight.”

June 15, 2017

Okay, I am distraught. My post was just about finished. It was being saved. All of a sudden Safari shut down, and with it went my post. The saving never happened. Trust me when I tell you the post was spectacular, Pulitzer worthy. Now it is floating in limbo, words without structure, a story without an ending.

It mentioned pizza and a peanut butter cupcake, a new record for the number of errands in a single day and the highlights of my trip to the hardware store. The weather too was mentioned. I used the word glorious twice. I know that may seem repetitious, but the weather the last two days deserved the accolade.

I described the new, sort of snake, I bought at the hardware store. It is yellow plastic, pretty in a way for a tool, especially a snake. My upstairs sink and tub take forever to drain so something is blocking the water. The man at the hardware store highly recommended my new tool. He even gave a quick demonstration as to how to use it. He told me the results could be gross. I am glad I am not a plumber.

This morning I was busy with cleaning some weird spots like the cat’s dish, the dust on the cable box, and the dog’s area. I watered the plants. I watched MSNBC for a while but decided enough was enough. I’m watching The Longest Day.

Later I have to plant a few flowers in the front garden. I did ask my landscaper, but I suspect he forgot. There are only five of them so they shouldn’t take long. Afterward, I can boast I planted my garden.

I was taking Gracie to the backyard yesterday when a car stopped almost in the front of my house. I didn’t recognize the vehicle or the woman who got out of it. She waved. I said hi the way you say it to strangers, with a bit of question in the saying. She asked if the little library was mine and then gave me a thumbs up when I said it was. She told me her daughter had come upon it on one of her walks so the two of them have been by a few times. I was thrilled to learn that my little library has had visitors. She took a few books. I replenished the supply so the library is full again for the next passerby.

Today is cool and sunny. The air is clear and the sunlight is sharp. The day is glorious. I know, I know: that’s three times, but I did say I was distraught.

Categories: Musings
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“Frogs have it easy, they can eat what bugs them”

May 19, 2012

I just came back from the Sampson Fund plant sale which benefits animals. Naturally I spend a bit of money mostly on tomato plants and herbs though I did buy a round clay pot filled with succulents and decorated around the plants with seashells. That was the one piece which set me back a bit. Later I’ll plant the tomatoes and herbs-maybe even tomorrow as carrying the plants to the car killed my back. I am now a question mark but the question remains elusive.

My car is green, well not really but it is covered in pine pollen. My world has turned green, a yellow-green, making me feel like an extra in Solyent Green and my turn is coming. This is the time of year I have to keep all the windows shut so I’m hoping for cool days or lots of rain. My deck is like a crime scene. After you sit down then get up, there is an imprint of your body left on the chair.

The day really is pretty. The new leaves shine brightly in the sun and there is a bit of a breeze. It is 63° which is about right for this time of year here. Gracie will be out most of the day, and I suspect she’ll nap in the sun in the grass at the back of the yard.

I remember being gone all day on a Saturday like today. We’d pack a lunch and take off and roam the town. Sometimes we’d go to the zoo while other times we’d Huck Finn it on the raft at the pond. The swamp was always filled with polliwogs and party grown frogs this time of year, and they were a big draw. That swamp was one of my favorite places. Being there always seemed to touch the magical just a bit. It had everything: a large front area for skating in the winter and for watching the changes in the polliwogs in the spring. It had small islands you could hop from one to another to go way back where the swamp ended. I remember watching the sewing needle bugs flitting across the top of the water. There seemed to be hundreds of them with their bright green wings. I didn’t know until we were all much older that my sisters were afraid their lips would get sewn shut by the bugs. I wish I’d back then. I’d have had a field day teasing the two of them.

Categories: Musings
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“The earth neither grows old or wears out if it is dunged.”

March 22, 2012

Yesterday was summer. It was a sandals and short-sleeve day. I had my bedroom window open and woke up to the sounds of leaf blowers. I could hear people talking and birds singing to the morning. The silence and sense of isolation which winter always brings is gone, at least for now. Today is supposed to be just like yesterday, but the weatherman says the temperature will plummet this weekend. The forecast in today’s local paper for the weekend predicts nights in the 30’s and days in the high 40’s, typical weather for spring on Cape Cod, but we have been spoiled.

I ordered flowers from a catalog yesterday. They’ll be here at planting time for my weather zone. They are flowers I would never have thought of buying except my friend Christer had given me a list, and that’s what I used. He knows flowers and plants, and the pictures on his blog of everything he finds on his walks and what he has planted in his garden always makes me a bit jealous. I was proud of my front garden last year though I knew only the names of a couple of the flowers. That won’t change. Flowers are defined by color for me.

I am going to have a vegetable garden this year. I’ve had an herb garden for years, but I thought I’d branch out, so to speak. I’ve always thought just below the deck would be the perfect spot for a small garden. My landscaper is going to use railroad ties for the boundary and right now he is dumping loam which he’ll mix with cow manure. I’ll have tomatoes and one other vegetable. I thought about zucchini but planting it is akin to having a pair of  rabbits. Two rabbits quickly become many, and, like the rabbits,  zucchini seems to replicate itself. Anyone who grows it is always trying to give it away. Besides, the only way I like zucchini is in a sweet bread. The cooked vegetable always seems a bit boring to me.

Gracie has been out all morning, and I think it’s time to join her. It is amazing that this is the second deck day in a row!

Categories: Musings
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“The Earth Laughs in Flowers.”

March 19, 2012

It is just after 11, and the temperature is already 64°. Gracie is in the yard, and I’ve been outside standing on the deck taking in the morning and watching her enjoy the sun. She has a grassy spot where she lies asleep on her side spread out to the warmth. Fern is lying in the sun from the front door. I can almost hear Curly singing Oh What a Beautiful Morning.

My yard is filled with flowers from the bulbs I planted last fall. Usually the spawns of Satan dig them up but not last year. Every morning I can’t help but stand a while just to look at them. I long for color after the bareness of winter so the bright yellows and deep purples draw me to the garden. Even the white crocus are filled with a richness of color. Some flowers have yet to bloom, and I wait patiently wondering what other surprises the garden will give.

When I was a little kid, spring meant putting away the heavy coat, the mittens, the hat and the boots. I don’t think I ever noticed flowers growing. I noticed the mud and I heard the birds every morning on my way to school. Spring also meant taking my bike out of the cellar and finally getting to ride it again. Spring meant staying outside longer on a school day afternoon. The streetlights came on later and later.

I always felt a sense of freedom in the spring. Gone was the bulkiness of winter. The radiators stopped their hissing. The windows were free of frost and were opened for the first time in months. The house was filled with the sweet smell of the spring air. We went back to roaming on a Saturday.

Back then I loved summer, but I think spring was my favorite season. I know for certain it is now. Officially, spring is two days away, but today is a spring day.

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“The ‘Amen!’ of Nature is always a flower.”

May 14, 2011

I know it is very late for me, but I have all sorts of reasons. Last night I went to bed quite late, or early depending upon your perspective, and so I slept in until 10. At the CARE Center, an emergency 24-7 animal hospital, there was a plant sale, and I wanted to go. The money from the sale is for the Sampson Fund which helps people who can’t afford to pay vet bills and it also pays for the vet bills of abandoned, hurt animals. I filled my trunk with herbs and plants. My next stop was Dunkin’ Donuts as I had left the house before my coffee. I got my coffee and also a butternut donut which had been saved for me by a former student. When I got home, it was read the papers, have another cup of coffee and share my donut with Gracie time. That brings us to now.

The day is perfectly lovely with lots of sun and a blue sky dotted with clouds. It’s an outside day so Agway is definitely in my future. Those plants I bought this morning have caused a cascade effect. I want more.

My family was never really into gardens when I was a kid. My father planted mostly pansies in the front of the house in what was a very small garden. When we moved to the cape, he was still pretty much an indifferent gardener. I don’t even remember flowers. The house they moved to when I was in the Peace Corps was where flowers bloomed. My mother had her garden right outside the kitchen table windows. In it was a bird bath and a statue of St. Francis with his hands out holding seeds and several varieties of flowers of all different heights. My dog Maggie loved to visit that garden, and I was forever pulling her out and replacing the wire fence. The front by the house had all sorts of plants, and the window boxes were beautiful with flowers filling them and ivy hanging from them. Every Mother’s Day we bought my mother gift certificates to a nursery.

When I bought my own house, a sense of pride forced me to start a garden in the front. My parents came to visit and brought plants as a gift. My dad planted them, and those plants are still there. My brother and his then girl friend gave me a forsythia tree as a gift, and that too is still in the front garden, and an offshoot is down the street in my friends’ yard. The garden is in the same spot as when I bought the house, but I have moved the fence behind it so people can see my garden. I am that proud of it. The perennials have already appeared as have the lilacs in a side garden. This year I will add some vegetables to a raised bed in the backyard and plant herbs in the deck boxes which sit on the rail.

I have become a gardener.

Categories: Musings
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