Saturday, September 19, 2015

I'm So Glad I Forgot To Serve The Corn Last Night


What a good and sweet and easy and simple day it has been here in Lloyd.
For me, at least. Mr. Moon seems to have been very, very busy and is still off in the woods somewhere with Vergil, both of them working together to try to ensure a deer for the freezer for both families. Dear Vergil. Raised strictly vegetarian on mostly what his mama grew and now he wants good clean meat for his wife and himself and he has taken the hunting courses and is ready to go out and try for that doe.
Sorry, you vegetarians. I really am. But this is the reality in my family and it took me years to make my peace with and I have and yes, I eat meat, and there is none better for us than what comes from the woods.

Anyway,  I did not leave the yard today- always a good day for me.
I washed clothes and hung sheets on the line and my bed is made up fresh and sweet and ready for us tonight. I watered my thirsty porch plants and cleaned out the chickens' water container. I got to talk to my oldest friend in the world and we laughed and we laughed and we talked about children and grandchildren and how our children's happiness is always going to be of utmost importance to us and that's just the way it is. While I was talking to her, Vergil and Mr. Moon showed up with the love seat and I told her, "Oh! My love couch is here!" and we laughed about that and Mr. Moon said, "Did you realize it has no legs?" and of course I said, "No," and he said, "It doesn't," and Mary Lane and I laughed about that and she said, "Where did you find this love couch?" and I told her the thrift store and we laughed some more.
Turns out it isn't supposed to have legs and there you go and la-di-dah. It is so comfortable and doesn't it look fine in my library?
Sigh...
Do you remember when Mr. Moon took me shopping for a chair or a love seat for that library in actual real furniture stores? If I had found one that day that I like half as much I would have bought it and paid at least four times what this one cost.
Can't you just see me lying across it and reading this winter with a little blanket over me? Can't you just see me snuggled up with grandchildren, reading books?
If I ever get a grandchild who likes books. Well, Gibson will let me read to him sometimes. I think I'm going to start paying Owen to let me read to him. The boy does appreciate cash.

I weeded a bit and contemplated what I need to plant for our winter garden. The lettuces, the arugula, the mustards, the collards, the carrots. I noticed that we must have left a few potatoes in the earth when we dug them earlier in the summer because I have several nice-looking potato vines. I wonder if they'll ripen before first frost?
The zinnias are making their last stand, we have at least one or two watermelons with the potential to actually grow to full size. That would be like a jewel in my crown. An emerald and ruby jewel. A sweet, delicious jewel.

I am about to go cut corn off the cob and saute onions and celery (lots of celery!) and make a corn and potato chowder/soup with some leftover broccoli thrown in for our supper. I made bread last night so we have that and it will be a perfect meal, I think. Soup and bread. Perfection and perfection. I might even make some poached pears with a little blue cheese and toasted pecans. Would that be too much?
We can call it dessert.

And I think we shall.

The kitchen is calling. So is Netflix. Hell, I can even hear the slightest murmur of beckoning from the bed with its clean, unwrinkled sheets, its puffed-up pillows.

Now if my husband will only come home from the woods, all will be as fine as it can be.
I feel certain he will.

Let us celebrate the small and finest things.

Love...Ms. Moon









16 comments:

  1. Oh, I love this post. It's like a Laura Ingalls Wilder moment.

    The love couch is perfection. Look at it, so sweet and cosy.

    I'm a vegetarian, and I think the hunting makes far more sense than the horrors of industrial farming and the sickness that meat brings with its antibiotics and doctored feed and all the rest. Not so sure how to frame the alligator hunting, though.

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  2. Jo- Thank you. Always. As to the alligator hunting- keep in mind that he's never actually killed one.

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  3. To me hunting where animals are killed swiftly and instantly is far kinder than the meat industry. Your post today is again like a sweet tonic , the joy in small things which are big things really . Family , food and gardening and a hearty dose of the joy that is you Mary.

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  4. hunting with a reverence for the animal is not objectionable in my opinion and I'm sure Vergil will be just such a hunter. Your love couch is beautiful and I can see you snuggled with a fuzzy blanket and a book (just like you said) with rain pattering at the window...... lovely and cozy and welcoming
    Susan M

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  5. I'm sitting on my deck enjoying the cooler temps here in Illinois. A/C is finally off, the windows are open, and reading your post makes me all the more content. I can almost smell that soup simmering!

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  6. I was a vegetarian for years. Now I am recovered. I have only one requirement to feel ok about meat eating - I need to know the animal was treated humanely and was killed quickly. Typically hunted animals have a better chance at that than many of the factory ones.

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  7. Forgot to say I am sorry to hear of your ducks demise, your chicken duck! it happens but it's never easy to process. So sorry to hear this news
    Susan M

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  8. I used to be so against hunting. Then I learned about the inhumane methods used in much of the food industry, and I began to drive enough that I saw deer struck by cars and left to suffer. Now I think that hunting by a good and decent hunter is far, far better for the animals. It is also population control, which is an issue where I live as well.

    That love couch is so fat and comfy looking! Love how the sides curve out - avoids the "squashed person syndrome" of other ones I've seen :)

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  9. And I am sorry about your duck, too. Some animal deaths strike us harder than others, some less so. But all leave some mark in our memories.

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  10. What a snuggler that couch is! You will love it so much during the coming long winter. And it fits perfectly in you library.
    You got lucky girl !

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  11. So surreal that you just talked about your chicken duck and now it's gone... It's sad. The love couch is sweet and such a bargain! And your dinner sounds yummy.

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  12. Mary, I have noticed that! Sometimes men just need to be out in the wild, shouting and pointing at things together, I suspect. And I don't mean that in a dismissive way, really!

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  13. i shared about vergil and his vegetarian past and tony made a joke about hunting wild lettuce.

    then he showed me a link for vegetarian wall mounts but they were all sticks or stuffed animals. no mounted lettuces or carrots or SOYBEANS...

    you made us both smile-

    have a wonderful day!


    xxalainaxx

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  14. my kind of day. I wish I didn't have to bother with making a living.

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  15. Leisha- I doubt there is any question about the fact that a well-shot deer has had a much better life than a cow or pig slaughtered after living in a factory farm. Thank you for your very sweet words.

    Susan M- And there's an entire process involved. It's certainly far more than just taking a gun out to the woods and shooting at animals. And I'm about to go read on my love couch now.
    It is a beautiful day but it's what I want to do.

    Angella- And so it does!

    Catrina- It was delicious soup!

    Jill- Amen, sister woman!

    Susan M- She was not my favorite animal but I miss her quacking conversation.

    Jenny_o- I have read that there are more deer on this continent now than there were when the first white people got here. Of course much of that is because we've killed all of their natural predators. But no, there is no shortage of them.

    jenny_o- Yep. By the time my life is over, I will have had many chickens but probably only two ducks.

    liv- I did get lucky, didn't I?

    Joanne- Well, if there is a duck heaven, my Lily duck and her sweet girlfriend Willie are together again, swimming and fooling around merrily on a beautiful blue pond.

    Jo- Men bonding in the woods is part of the reason we, as a species, are still alive. I believe this.

    Mrs. A- Glad I could make you laugh. Now how in hell would one make a wall mount of a soybean?

    Ellen Abbott- Yes. But I have a feeling you would still do your art. Maybe not quite the same art, but you would do your art.

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