Time To Pull Up The Big Girl Panties Once Again

This is me, shopping for a pitchfork at the Tractor Supply today. My finger is there because there were three different pitchforks and I was sending their pictures to Glen and I was supposed to delineate which pitchfork was which by holding up 1, 2, or 3 fingers. I believe this one was actually pitchfork #2 but I only got one finger in the picture. I was holding a hoe at the time. They only had two hoes and one was obviously superior to the other so that choice was easy. 
The whole picture thing got ridiculous and I finally said, "I'm just going to pick one and that's that."
Mr. Moon agreed it was a good plan. 

After I had decided on the gardening implements, I walked back to where they keep the chicks and by golly, the sign was up that said, "The Chicks Are In!" 
I was so happy and also, so worried. What if I could not control myself and bought home a dozen biddies and possibly four ducklings? 
But upon examination, I saw that there were no babies in the enclosures where they keep them. The heat lamps were on but nobody was home. 
I asked an employee about the situation and she said they'd gotten a lot in but they all sold out. More would be arriving soon. 
I'm telling you- once you start keeping chickens, it's just so very hard not to want to keep doing it. Every time I look at the old coop, which is approximately twenty times a day, my heart breaks a little. 
But I'm sure it was best they didn't have any. My heart couldn't stand it and I've not been in the best mood already. 

The dentist went fine. I've been so lucky with my teeth. The dental hygienist thought perhaps a tooth the dentist had filled last year due to a chipping of the enamel had chipped again and might have to be dealt with. I have zero problems with that tooth and when the dentist did it, she told me it might not hold due to its position but it was worth a try. MUCH cheaper option than getting a crown. 
And when she came in and looked at my teeth today she said it was fine, everything was fine, it all looked good. 
Phew.

And then I ran a few errands including buying the hoe and the pitchfork and I came home and that was my day. Mr. Moon, on the other hand, worked his ass off outside, still trying to clean up the mess a vine-killed tree made when it fell and pulled about a vertical acre of vines with it. That's what he needed a pitchfork for. Ours had broken. When he decided he'd had enough of that, he moved his operations to the garden where he put up a climbing fence for the sugar snap peas and then planted them. He was exhausted when I got home at four and he worked at least another hour and a half after that. I have no idea how he does it. I fussed at him like (speaking of) an old mother hen, lecturing him on the fact that he does NOT have to do everything in a day and he really neither wanted to hear that or needed to hear that and told me that he's a goal-oriented person which I already knew and I shut my mouth and started a pot of field peas for our dinner. Which we grew. 

I feel like something's wrong with me. The weather here has been the sort of weather that always propels me to the plant nurseries for seeds and seedlings, eager to get things in the ground. It's a visceral thing and it happens when the air feels a certain way, the temperature reaches a certain point, the days become noticeably longer. I remember a little neighbor boy asking me a long time ago why I planted so much in my garden. I told him that I just have to.
But right now, I don't feel that way and it has me wondering what in hell is going on in my head. This is so unlike me. Perhaps the lack of success of the usually so prolific fall/winter garden has damped my enthusiasm. Or perhaps it's just that I know we are not getting enough sun in that garden which dooms things, especially the tomatoes and cucumbers and squash. We got more sun there twenty-three years ago when we moved in because the trees that are now blocking the sun were just young things, not yet tall enough to interfere too much with the garden. And we simply cannot cut down a live oak or a magnolia which are two of the trees preventing light from getting to that little plot of land. 
Bah. I don't know. 
I don't know, I don't know, I do not fucking know. Perhaps it's the fucked-uppedness of the world in general, our country in particular. I seem to be carrying a lot of what-the-hell-difference-does-it-make around in my brain. So much so that the idea of planting tomatoes which I KNOW will not give us much seems more ridiculous than ever. Meanwhile, I also know that every tomato we do get will be a joy and besides that, the rattlesnake beans, which have never failed me yet, will give me enough beans to can and to pickle and to eat fresh and that is not nothing. 

We put a few more plants back on the front porch today but I am going about this slowly. I do NOT want to lose any of them due to premature spring dreams. I am shocked at how much damage some of them show, especially the ones that have been in the Glen Den which gets so little light. But they'll come back. And some of the plants inside are showing new growth and seem to be fine and happy. All is not lost. 

I believe that crooked-legged plant stand was another dump find. It works perfectly well, holding up my giant begonia. I began rooting two of the begonia leaves at the tail end of fall and I think I'll put them each in their own pots. The firespike I've been rooting all winter will go directly into the ground. 
I guess I do still have some desire to plant. And I did plant those probably useless potatoes the other day. If those sprouts actually grow enough to break ground, I'll be surprised. Glen bought more seed potatoes so we'll have that shot too. We haven't had any luck with potatoes in years. 

And to make my heart even heavier today, Robert Duvall died. I spent some time just now looking at clips from some of his movies to find one to post here but I can't just pick out one so I'll just copy a thing I wrote five years ago when Larry McMurtry, the man who wrote the book that the mini-series Lonesome Dove was born from, died. The character Duvall played in that was his favorite role of all, or at least he's said that in interviews. 
This is what I wrote.

"I remember when Lonesome Dove was released. My friend Sue and I, both book lovers and readers of the highest order, read it at the same time and were immersed and we fell in love with Gus and Captain Call and all of the cowboys who busted all of the cowboy myths as they moved a herd of cattle stolen from just over the border in Mexico to Montana. We knew immediately that the book would become a movie or a series and it did and we spent hours talking about who would play Gus, who would play Call, who would play Clara, who would play Bolivar, the cook? Turned out to be brilliant casting and one of my favorite actors of all times ended up being Gus, one of my favorite fictional characters of all times. He and he alone could speak the words that McMurtry had given to his old Texas Ranger. 

Robert Duvall. 
It was a moment of perfection in history for me. And as far as I'm concerned, Lonesome Dove is the Great American Novel. 
It is MY Great American Novel, anyway." 

If you've never seen the series, you might give it a whirl. It is not just a cowboy thing. Not at all. And if you've never seen the movie "Tender Mercies" that Duvall was in, I'd recommend that one any day. I believe that was the movie where I fell in love with him as an actor. 

Well, now I'm not only feeling sad about the world in general and my lack of enthusiasm for getting things spring-planted and the knowledge that my husband will never, ever listen to me when I fuss at him, I'm also missing my Sue-Sue and I'm sad that Robert Duvall's light has gone missing from the planet but so it will be for all of us. 
May our memories be a blessing. I know Robert Duvall's is. 
So is Sue's. At least to me. 

Love...Ms. Moon