Life In Lloyd, Part Gozillion, And Blackdogitis

Oh, how I wish I could get a better picture of this wild azalea. There's a sort of bog around it though and although there is a dryer side, it's on someone's property right by their house and as you probably know by now, I am hyper-sensitive about encroaching on anyone's space. I think this is also a rural thing. Your home and property are yours and there's a certain feeling that if anyone wants to come onto that property by foot or by car, they should be invited. We look upon strangers pulling up into our yards with a certain amount of suspicion. If a politician or a Jehovah's Witness knocks at our door, we are already slightly annoyed. 

So that's why I didn't get a very good picture of the native azalea I passed on my walk. I felt so shit this morning that I knew I had to give walking at least a shot. It is so pretty here right now, even if it is getting hot enough to require the clinical strength deodorant. What does that mean? Clinical strength? I have no idea but it sounds serious, doesn't it? "Oh, regular deodorant isn't strong enough for me. I need clinical strength!"
And please do not tell me that deodorant is going to kill me. I'm too old to worry about that. 
So yes, I walked a couple of miles and it was okay, despite the heat. The humidity is rising as summer approaches and it really is much less enjoyable to walk when the air is saturated with water. We should develop gills around here. I'm surprised we haven't. 

On Main Street, which is hardly what you'd think of as a Main Street, there's an old house that I've been taking pictures of for a long time. I don't know if you'll remember but it was owned by an old couple whom I think were probably hoarders and eventually had to move out into a mobile home on the back of the property. When they died, someone, possibly a relative, cleared out the house and did a lot of work on it. It was sort of a creepy house and honestly, the man of the couple who owned it was also creepy. I do not wish to define that, but just trust me.

It does appear now that the refurbishing/restoration has been completed, up to and including a porch swing and flowers planted. 

It certainly looks better than it did before but I hate the black-shingled roof. The house had a metal roof, as all of the older houses around here do and that just looks absurd to me. 

I don't know if someone is moving in to it or if it's going up for sale, or what but it still feels a little creepy to me, even with the fresh new paint, the blue door, the pots of flowers on the porch. 

Here's another picture taken on Main Street.

I love that tree so much. It is huge and obviously very old. Hundreds of years old, I am sure. It's on property owned by the Methodist Church which the guy at the dump tried to recruit me to last week and if those people had any sense, they'd be worshipping the tree, not White Jesus in their red brick church. 

Well, no one asked me.

When I got home, I took a little look around my front yard and saw to my surprise that my own native azalea, which I planted years ago, is starting to bloom.

When I planted it, I'm not sure I knew it was one of the orange-flowered ones but it is. I rarely ever see those and have never seen one growing on its own in the woods around here. And I just noticed the little anole on the fence post behind and below the not-quite-opened bud in the second picture. Can you see it?

Speaking of critters. I was watering my nursery plants in the laundry room today when suddenly, a little tree frog jumped out of a plant and on to another planter. 

A frog planter! 

Sweet little thing. I suppose I should have tried to catch it and take it outside but it has water and bugs, too, in that little group of plants in there. 

After lunch I walked to the back yard to see what the bamboo shoot situation was like. 
It was like, "Oh shit."

Can you see all the bamboo trying to convert even more of my yard to a jungle? And of course that's just one small part of it. So I kicked a lot of bamboo and then, in my camellia bed, I found these blooming. 

Do I remember planting blue flag irises there? 
No. I do not. In fact, I really don't think I did but there you go and here we are and I am glad to see them. 

Hell, I've probably written about them before. 

And I think that's all the pictures I took today and it would seem that I am feeling better and I suppose I am but it has not been an easy day. I woke up and cried and then cried later on and and then later on again and this is not unusual for me but it does indicate a level of, well, whatever we want to call it that is not comfortable, not really. 
I know that I have things I am not dealing with properly and that's not good. I'm not comfortable confronting problems head on. Whether this is just part of how I'm wired or if it's yet another dysfunctional method of coping that I learned growing up, I do not know. 
Keep your head down and your mouth shut. 
This may sound strange coming from me but you'd be surprised...

And then of course, there's the Current Situation which is ongoing, ever more deeply horrifying and unbelievable, and, well... you don't need Elon's team of accountants to add it all up and figure out that it's just an incredibly depressing and anxious time to be alive. 

But, as we speak, that pink azalea beside the porch is still very pink and very full of blooms, the cardinals are doing their evening routine of lining up in the magnolia tree and the camellia bushes to wait their turns at the feeder, and, uh- that's all good stuff, right? 

Right! 

Carry on. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Bless Cory Booker. A patriot, a hero, a man of strength, intelligence, and great heart.