Saturday, February 27, 2021

A Sweet And Drowsy Day


There's Liberace, a very fine rooster. Not as fine as Elvis but there will never be another Elvis. Still, Liberace watches over the ladies with unflagging devotion, is, for a rooster, a gentle lover, and tolerates Fancy Pants whereas some roosters with less self-confidence, would not. 

So all that stuff I was going to do today?
I didn't. I've been a lazy ass and I don't care. I've washed and hung the covers that I used for the plants this winter. Tablecloths with holes and mildew stains, old sheets, a few blankets. I was a bit worried that I would inadvertently wash a lizard or little frog but I shook them out before I washed them. One tree frog did jump on me when I brought them into the house yesterday and a tree frog landing on your bare arms feels exactly like you'd think it would. Rather damp and cold. That wasn't the only encounter I had yesterday with something I brought in accidentally. Last night, as we were blissfully stretched out in our clean and crisp sheets with Maurice on a pillow between us and as I turned to put the light out, something lit up my arm and before I realized what it was, I had grabbed the sheet and got another electric shock on my finger. It was a wasp that I suppose had come in from the line although it could have found its way from somewhere in the house. Bugs do get in and this time of year we frequently find wasps sluggishly making their way across a floor or up a wall. Where they come from is a mystery to us but I may bring them in with the plants. 
Who knows?
But once again- way too much nature. Just talking about those stings makes the little hairs on my arms stand up. Thankfully, I don't have an allergy to them but it's not a pleasant experience. 


Here are the mulberries forming leaves and berries. I hope it's a nice crop this year. If it is, I may make some jam or at least some pies. And the kids love to just stand under the branches and pick them and eat them. They are luscious and turn your mouth purple. When I was a child in Roseland, a neighbor had a tree in his yard and didn't seem to mind if we children ate our fill of the berries. They were a huge treat to us. Candy and sweets were not nearly as available to us as they seem to be now. A lot of the families couldn't afford even the pennies it cost to buy Tootsie Rolls or jawbreakers, much less the ingredients for cookies and cakes. But there were the mulberries, the turpentine mangoes that grew randomly about, the citrus trees and guava trees. Not so bad, really. 

It's beautiful here in North Florida right now. There's no denying it. Everything is swelling and budding. I can already feel the resulting pollen in the back of my throat, a sort of burning discomfort, and soon it will be covering our cars and waterways, the ground, everything. You can't live in a place as green as we do without the pollen. People will be complaining on Facebook as they do every year. The complaints are as predictable as the pollen itself and some people truly are allergic and suffer greatly. We hope for rain to wash it all away and it is a relief when that happens. Some folks claim that eating local honey will help with the allergies but that's not true. Finding the honey made out of the nectar and pollen of the specific plants that we react to is a shot in the dark. There are probably hundreds of species contributing to the situation. 
But I do approve of local honey and why we do not keep bees, I do not know. 

I have accomplished nothing today. I haven't spoken to a soul except for my husband and our conversations have been sweet. I was going to make a gumbo out of shrimp and some leftover crab I have and am even boiling their shells for stock but then I realized that what I really want to make is a shrimp and crab salad. I had picked a huge bunch of salad greens, some for a friend of ours, and that would be the most delicious and sensible thing to make. And so I will. 

I suppose I'm letting spring be the busy thing today and I've simply laid back and contentedly let it go about its busy-ness. 

How are you? Is spring making an appearance where you are? 

I've droned on long enough. I believe I'll go see if there are any carrots worth picking in the garden. I think there are. 

Love...Ms. Moon


30 comments:

  1. It was 39 degrees here today and felt downright balmy. The sun was out and I think there will be spring again in spite of COVID and institutional racism. Oh yes, and that is a handsome rooster.

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    1. I will never live in a place where 39 degrees is considered balmy. That ship has sailed for me. I salute your hardiness!

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  2. It may be spring, in two or three weeks. But it is coming on.

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    1. It's generally impossible to stop it, isn't it?

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  3. Another perfect day for you! We got up to 53* in far northern Michigan. Yes, indeed, a glorious day! I washed rugs, swept the porch and started making a junk journal. Too much time inside but we still have several feet of snow in the yard. Our day will come, though. We got a taste of it today. I also talked to a cousin for almost TWO hours on the phone. He’s the youngest of four and the only one left. He’s like a brother to me. Altogether, a beautiful day!
    Debbie

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    1. What is a junk journal?
      Sounds like your sap is rising too, Debbie. Getting things done!
      Glad you got to speak with your cousin.

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  4. I have such fond memories of mulberries. My four friends and I would ravish a mulberry bush and climb our favorite tree. All of us on different limbs, eating those sweet berries until our hands and mouths were deep purple. My Mama would also yell at the birds flying through for pooping their mulberries on her freshly washed white sheets.

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    1. Yes! Not everyone knows about purple bird poop on drying laundry. Sad.

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  5. A grey and windy 40F day kept me mostly indoors today, pottering about. Crocuses are blooming in our southern Idaho yard, despite an inch of snow on them yesterday. Kale seedlings just sprouted today on the light table in the mudroom, and there are greens aplenty in the cold frame. Red-winged blackbirds are singing in the marshes, and goldfinches are becoming more gold by the day. Hens are laying prolifically as the days lengthen. Spring will be bubbling up before we know it.

    Sorry about the misunderstanding with the wasp. I expect both of you were unhappy about it.

    Chris from Boise

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    1. Wow! Sounds like things are happening there! When will you be able to put your sproutlings into the garden? Yours will be starting just as mine are bolting, probably.
      Our goldfinches are doing the same- getting yellower and yellower. And my hens are giving me so many eggs.
      The wasp was quite unhappy about it until Mr. Moon got out of bed and smashed him. He has zero wasp tolerance.

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    2. The kale can go in the ground late March - yep, about the time yours will be bolting. Potatoes and peas are planted on St. Patrick's Day. Tender crops (tomato, peppers, eggplant) the last two weeks of May (when the last of the snow has melted off Shafer Butte which looms above town), melons June 1. :-)

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  6. Lazy days are necessary sometimes. Your salad sounds divine.

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  7. It’s snowing again in my part of Quebec. The snowpack is still hip deep on me, and I am a shade under 6’. So we ski and we skate, and I hitch a horse up to my sleigh and yes, I go through the forest like a wild-ass woman. I pretend to be grouchy about that, but really I am not. I will be tapping the maple trees for syrup, and in the next week the sap will begin to run. I still use tin buckets to collect it, emptied every day, and I haul those around in a sled, too. And then...the boiling will begin, in the cabane à sucre, deep in the forest. There will be so much laughing, and my four teenagers helping, and taffy on the snow, and burned fingers, and BACON and creton, and at the end of a good season we will swear never to do this again! But the taste of your own maple syrup, maple butter, maple sugar, is worth every early morning, every burned finger.
    MrsF

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    1. Hello, Mrs F with 4! Are you new here? Your life sounds quite charming, although I am sure it's certainly not all a picture postcard. Hurray for you for tapping your maples and using that precious sap. Thank you for coming by.

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  8. Here in SE England the crocuses ( croci ?) are in full bloom everywhere and daffodils are just starting to flower. Snowdrops are beginning to go brown and the buds on my hydrangea are swelling nicely. There was a ground frost again this morning, but we have had a few sunny days with temps of about 6C yesterday.

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    1. So 6C is about 43F? That's not terrible, is it? My hydrangea are swelling too. Such a pretty green. Sounds like spring is knocking on your door.

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  9. I never wash the sheets and blankets for covering plants, just shake them out and make sure they are dry before folding them up and storing them in the tub til I need to haul out a sheet in the fall to move leaves around. the plants don't care if they're dirty. it's been mostly overcast here the last few days and today. I had to do the grocery store run yesterday and tried to take the recycling but I keep forgetting that they're closed on Saturdays.

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    1. Well, the plants absolutely do not care if their covers are clean or dirty. I don't know why I wash mine. I don't put them in a bin so it feels better somehow if they're clean when I stash them in a closet.
      We're supposed to get rain the next few days. I wonder if we will.

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  10. Not much sign of spring in my yard yet, but I hear some things are blossoming in nearby places. I did go out and clear out fall debris from my front gardens. Ordered eleven 7' Thuja Green Giant evergreens to go in front of a similar number of 50' Leyland Cypress that are nearing the end of their time. They should get planted within the month. Finally asked for estimates to replace the front and back doors, their storm doors and all attendant hardware. Gonna be an expensive month, but all necessary. My version of spring cleaning.

    As for the wasp, well, as one who has experienced anaphylactic shock from a wasp sting, it is enough to give me full body shivers just thinking about getting stung. Always make sure my Epipen hasn't expired. Glad you are okay.

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    1. I had never heard of Thujas. Are they cedars too? From the pictures I saw, they appear to be. How fun!
      Not fun to spend money on doors and hardware but it is the adult thing to do, isn't it?
      Sigh.
      Yes. Keep that epipen current. How scary!

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  11. You do have a lot of nature inside and out down there in Florida. I saw birds this morning for the first time in a while so that made me smile! Snow still melting - it takes so long for those big piles to disappear but we are getting there.
    Have another wonderful day!

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  12. How handsome Liberace is! I love his russet colors.

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  13. Ugh -- so sorry about the wasp stings! Those are no fun. I remember being stung by a wasp when I was a kid -- they had built a nest in my swingset, and I was forever traumatized! LOL

    I'm glad spring is happening where you are. I think it makes perfect sense to take a day off and just enjoy it.

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    1. Swing sets are designed for wasp nests, I believe. Perfect locations with those open ends.
      Poor, young Steve!

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  14. No spring here, it's snowing right now. I hate wasps. They're bad tempered and hurt like a bugger when they sting. That being said, they don't bother us too much. We have Swedish aspen in the yard and they get a lot of aphids which wasps love to eat. There is a huge wasp nest right by the deck which we'll pull down in the spring and give to the boys next door for their science project, they're home schooled.

    Take care and enjoy your spring.

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    1. Wasps generally keep to themselves unless we rub up against them in some way although there is a variety here called "ground wasps" that will absolutely attack anyone that comes near. They could, however, be bees and not wasps. I'm not sure. I should look that up.
      Wasp nests sure can be beautiful, can't they?

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  15. Two snowdrops on my patio today as the snow receded. Beautiful skies up till today's rain. Birds are tuning up.
    And it's nearly March. So yes, the season's turning.

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