Deep Appreciation

That's a sweet, tiny little wild violet. The white ones always bloom first. The purple ones will come soon and then the bamboo will start pushing itself up through the ground with alarming speed. And I have even begun to get any of the winter's dead cleared from the yard? 
Well, yes, actually. But not much. Not much at all. 

I went back to the garden this afternoon and pulled more weeds. Simply looking at my garden, especially in the late afternoon when the sun is getting lower in the sky and truly illuminating the plants from a side angle, satisfies something so deep in me. It's like making good food. It's like calming a baby. It's like writing a sentence that makes me happy. I am wired for these things. There are many, many other things that bring me great pleasure, but these are some of the best. 

I got just about all the weeds pulled but Maurice did not offer her help today. I have no idea why. Perhaps she had tired of the garden because of her work there yesterday. Let's face it- collard greens are not a big attraction for a cat, although that rye grass really seemed to interest her for a moment or two. 

She did come out and supervise when I was trimming back the dead firespike and oh, how I hope it's not truly dead, although I see no tender growth hiding under the oak leaves that cover my front yard. We do not even try to grow grass there. I can't think of anyone in this part of Lloyd that has grass. Maybe. I am not very observant. 
I will be heartsore if the firespike doesn't come back. I planted it there by the front fence a few years ago with stems I had rooted over the winter. I have to say that the leaves I cut today reminded me of batwings. That dark. 

That's some I hadn't gotten to by a different fence. I'll get there. 

Or I won't. 

I watered and trimmed my porch plants and hung the ferns back on their hooks but I'm not moving everything back in place yet. That's just begging for another freeze. I watered all the plants camping in the house. My front porch is a mess of oak leaves and plants in pots that are neither arranged properly or tidily, some of them missing parts of themselves that froze. The cabbage palms planted on both sides of the porch entrance need trimming badly, their fronds bending in to meet in such a way that one feels one might need a pith helmet and a machete to get through them to get to the porch steps which you can barely see for all the leaves on them. 

My husband complains about this regularly and bitterly. I have explained to him over and over that eventually, the palms will be so tall that their fronds will not be any sort of problem at all. 
"Not in our lifetime!" he says. 
"Well," I shrug. "In someone's." 

And oh, won't that be beautiful thing? 
But I will admit that I probably planted them too close together. This is a fault of mine whether I'm planting camellias or cabbage or cabbage palms. 

I just baked the sourdough I made yesterday. It has come out all right, but my loaves will never win any contests. 

Still, they taste good. 

It's so quiet here tonight and I am happy about that. 
I wonder what fresh hell the puppet in chief has been responsible for today. I really do not care to read about it at the moment. 

I just want to make our supper, go to bed and read, and fall into dreamless sleep. 

Peace, y'all. 

Moon rise.

Love...Ms. Moon