It's Wednesday, Therefore Pottery

This morning Mr. Moon drove into town with me when I went in for pottery. The car he'd had repaired while we were gone was in Vergil and Jessie's yard because they had picked it up for us. So he sat for awhile and visited and Sophie loved on him. She is wearing that stylish hot pink garment because she's on her lady time. Jessie has not yet decided whether or not she wants Sophie to have pups. 
Well, that's a lie. 
I know she wants Sophie to have puppies because...BABIES!
But she has to find a stud and the timing needs to be right when it comes to things like being in North Carolina and so forth. 

So Jessie and I went to pottery and there were only a few of us there. Lizzie is in NYC with the gentleman caller (I have the cutest picture of them but do not have the permission of GC to post his image on my blog) but they were on the ferry headed to Ellis Island. 

My damn hibiscus still had not been fired. I think I know why, too. When I picked it up, one of the little ball feet fell off. I had not attached it properly but Gail, our teacher, showed me how to make something called "super slip" with which to affix it back on. 
Hopefully. 
Slip is a mixture of clay and water which is used something like glue. Super slip is regular slip with white vinegar and bits of toilet paper mixed in. There's some sort of chemical reaction with the fibers in the paper and the vinegar, I guess, and by the end of class, the little knob felt pretty secure. Now if it only survives firing. 

Another piece that I've been waiting to be fired for weeks was either in the kiln or is lost. I have no idea. So today I worked on the leaf platter I made weeks and weeks ago as a sort of throw-away project when we only had a little time left in class. I've been meaning to work on the glaze painting here at home but only did a small bit. And that's what I worked on today. 
I am not thrilled with it. I wanted to use colors like the ones I saw on leaves from Glenn's jungle garden in Roseland.

And there were others, some white and green only, some with shades of pale yellow. And the venous-looking designs are so beautiful but I am not that sort of artist. What I do is put some colors on a pallet and pick up a brush and see what happens. 
And this is what happened today.

That one leaf is still untouched except for two coats of white. There will be more work on it. Today was the last class of the spring session and we won't be going back for a few weeks so good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I'll have it ready to go into the kiln by the time that happens. 

As I said, there weren't many of us there today but we had some good conversations. A woman that isn't usually in our class was there and she's led a most interesting life, moving every few years from the time she was a child and her parents were both itchy-footed and had a sense of adventure. Her dad was a lawyer, her mom a dietician so they could get work almost anywhere. And now she's married to a pastor and they and their four children move quite frequently too and they like that. So our conversation ranged from what that's like to what it's like being a pastor's wife. Turns out she's not THAT religious and is more into a sort of Zen philosophy but she does love their church community. 
I totally respect that. 

Here's a picture of one of my pottery lady friends and our teacher. Teacher on the right. 

Such sweet people I've met through pottery. 

After class, lunch was had and then I went to the library to drop off books, although I had not read two of them. I'm reading that biography of the Rolling Stones and although it's a bit of a slog in that it's far more about the hows and wheres than I really care about and actually, already know most of, and less about, well...the soul of the band. But hell, the author, Bob Spitz, is a journalist and a historian and what did I expect? Perhaps we shall get to the juicier stuff later on but after having read Keith Richards' memoir which is filled with ALL the stuff, including the stories of him misbehaving which he tells without apology or excuses and is one of my truly favorite books and I say that with my whole heart and my whole book-loving soul, it's hard to compare one with the other. And of course, they are completely different sorts of books.

How the hell did I go down that path?

I'm so tired. I am always tired on Wednesdays when I don't get as much sleep the night before and after I did my Publix shopping and library book returning, I came home, unloaded the groceries, put everything away, made bread, watered the porch plants, and took some trash to the trash place. There was probably more but hell if I can remember it. But that's life. There's always more, isn't there? More to remember, more to do. More books to read, more things to create, more weeds to pull, more beans to can, more suppers to make, more conversations to have (and oh yes- I got to talk to Owen for at least a half hour when I dropped off green beans at Lily's house), more skies to look up at, more flowers to admire, more birds to observe, more sweetnesses to acknowledge, more pissy thoughts to also acknowledge, more things to learn, more floors to sweep, more dishes to wash, more kisses to give and more kisses to get. And hugs. Always more hugs. The more of those the better. 

Time to put the bread in the oven. 

I'm sleeping late tomorrow. And hopefully doing some weeding. Bean picking will be involved. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Back To Beans

I know. I KNOW- you just can't get enough of Maurice. 
She's such an easy cat to love, isn't she? So affectionate, so loving, so very gentle. 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
She came and found me last night at the time I am usually heading to bed. I get in bed before Glen because reading in bed before I go to sleep is one of my greatest pleasures. She followed me into the bedroom and after I'd taken my shower and was cozy under the covers, I heard her scratching the mattress foundation (I guess that's what it is) which is what she does before she jumps up to join me and she did. 
She didn't settle down immediately though. She seemed to want to do a full body scan and she slowly circled me several times as if to make sure it was me. I kept asking her, "You want a kiss?" and finally, she did indeed put her face up to mine and then her lips up to mine and don't tell me cats don't understand human language. We had a few little chaste pecks and then she lay down on the pillow beside my head. As seen above. 
That picture cracks me up. Somehow, by some miracle, I managed to take a pretty darn good close-up selfie. Well, actually it's mostly a picture of Maurice with me photobombing it. 
And she slept with me or on me all night. 
It took her an entire day to finally leap up into Mr. Moon Daddy's lap but she finally did and I think they're probably napping together in the new recliner as we speak. 

It's been drizzling all day long, sometimes coming down a little harder, sometimes a little softer. 
I've loved it. 
I got a lot done. I unpacked everything, put everything away, did laundry, tried to create some order on the kitchen island, did some sweeping and tidying, made up the guest room bed clean. Mark had washed the sheets so all I had to do was put 'em on the bed. 
But the main thing I did today was to pick green beans. 
Y'all remember how they had just started to make beans the day before we left? Probably not but that's okay. 
So we were gone for eight days and I spent at least an hour out there with my baskets, picking. 

Now that was only one side of the trellis. But I had to take a break and eat some lunch before I tackled the other side. I didn't get as many there but overall, I filled up one 2.5 gallon ziplock entirely and another one two thirds full. 

It seems to me that the beans are longer this year than I've ever seen them. And not just because they were left on the vines so long. A lot of them were not particularly over-girthy but were long indeed. 

Every year I swear I'm not going to plant as many of them the next year as I end up having pickled and canned and cooked so many that, as I wrote a friend, I am weeping over my canner and screaming, "I am not living in a little house on the fucking prairie!" Because not only are they incredibly prolific but they continue to put out beans for months. 
I will share with the kids. 

I also got two cucumbers and I dug some potatoes which made me realize that scabby-skinned potatoes are not something that just happens because I left them in the ground so long, but are suffering from "common scab," a soil borne bacterium. Streptomyces scabies, to be exact. 
That sounds good, right? 
You can still eat the potatoes if you peel them which I have been doing the last several years and we haven't died so I suppose that's true. But have you ever tried to peel a bunch of golf-ball sized potatoes? 
Is it even worth it? 
Sigh.

I got my Roseland side-of-the-road succulents in pots. I need more pots. Of all sizes. One of them is actually planted in with a sea grape for the time being and here's the other one. 

Just when I think the camera on my new phone just will not do, I get a picture like this. Anyway, my Picture This plant app says it's a Chandelier plant which is a type of Kalanchoe. It doesn't look great but it's spent about four days in a baggie with its roots wrapped in wet paper towels and anything that can grow on the side of the road in Roseland is a tough plant. 

The other one I dug up is supposedly a Life plant and wasn't that Kalancho I bought a month or so ago the same? Could be. And I do believe I already have a pot of this growing, also from Roseland. Here's the new baby one in its temporary nursery bed. 

Since I dug it up and put it in the baggy, its root shot this up.

As I said, tough plants. Plus, just about what you'd expect from a plant called "Life."

One more thing I did was to figure out where I wanted to put the darling little golden orange bowls and lids that were sent by Boud.

She also made that beautiful butterfly too. 
Perfect. 
Lily painted the zinnia picture, my darling friend Lynn made the stained glass, and Linda Sue made the Mermaid Maggie in the seashell which catches the morning sun and creates an ethereal glow. 
It's my plant nursery/art museum/laundry room right there where I can see it every time I walk by it or fold my clothes. Mr. Moon made the table upon which much of this happens which you can't see in that picture but which is a work of art in and of itself. 

I better go make us some supper. We're still getting the nicest little patter of rain and everything looks so beautiful and on top of that, it's cool enough that I've been in jeans and a thin sweater all day. 
And yet still warm enough to be barefoot, i.e., the perfect weather. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Back To The Reality Of North Florida As Opposed To The Florida We Just Left

 I snapped that picture this morning just as we were leaving. We'd packed and honestly, Glen had loaded everything into the truck and I'd tidied up as much as I could without actually, you know- cleaning. 
I love that little kitchen so much with its view of the pool and the river too, it's pink vintage stove, its terrazzo floors, the so very cool Melamine dishes with their crazy pinks and greens, their space-age shapes. 
"Good-bye," I said, and before I got in the truck I patted and kissed one of the lions on the head and promised to be back soon. 
His only reaction was to stand as still as a statue and spit water out of his mouth. But that is his job. 
On our way down the sand road from Glenn and Scott's house, I spied Brad whom we had not seen (but heard) since that first night. Glen stopped the truck and we watched as he spread his fantastic feathers and did a 180, displaying them to us and I am convinced he was saying good-bye. 

And then we drove home and as always, by the time we were about two hours from Lloyd I thought I would lose my mind if I had to sit in that seat for ten more minutes but there's so little mind left to lose that I survived, relatively intact. I read "The Yearling" out loud for about six hours and that is the truth. I have no idea how many times I've read this book since the first time I read it when I was probably 12. Maybe 11. I know I've already read it once out loud on other trips but Glen loves it too. There is fishing and hunting in it. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings worked as hard as a man, drank as hard as a man, and hunted and fished with the men. Her descriptions of Florida back about the time this house was built are unparalleled in my opinion. Of course Marjorie wasn't alive at that time but she knew Florida and the scrub and river and vegetation and animals about as well as anyone, I think. And her love for it was profound. 
The older I get, the more I recognize and appreciate her knowledge, her love for the state she moved to as an adult and adopted as her very own. And I have to give her credit for her characters who are unforgettable, human, and more real than some people I've met. Her dialogue is fantastic, which makes the book such a joy to read out loud.

And here's our Lloyd garden, so very different than from where we just left.

We did a quick tour of the garden before we unloaded the truck. Everything seems to be fine. We've had enough rain here to keep things going. I'll get more involved in it tomorrow. 

I've unpacked nothing but the kitchen stuff which was a lot. We're both exhausted. I have started supper which so far is a pot of last year's canned green beans with some baby potatoes in it. 

And that's the report. 
Boud- your package came! I am charmed and so delighted. Thank you! 
Maurice has been extremely stand-offish but just a second ago she jumped up here on my table and asked for a head rub which I gave her. When I had the audacity to try and scratch her a little bit down by her tail, she got into attack position and I jerked my hand back. 
My reflexes are still sharp!

I will say that sleeping in our own bed tonight will be lovely. 
And I will be adjusting back to North Florida which is so very, very different from from the middle east coast of Florida. 
But I know that the sun is still setting over the Sebastian River and we can go back and walk out on the dock to watch it, hoping to see dolphins, and mullet jumping, maybe tarpon, fishing boats coming in and heading for home, osprey, pelicans, knowing that manatee may be there too. 
What a lucky woman I am to be able to have these different worlds to live in. 
I would say back to real life but that other life with the lions, the dock, the hibiscus, the dolphins, are every bit as real as this one. 
And I will always know that. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Mother's Day In Roseland

I took this picture this morning. It's in what I call the "secret garden" beside the cabana house, completely closed in with a fence, with great clumps of giant bamboo that clonk together in the breeze as they sway. There's a glass-topped iron table with four chairs and there's nothing within that fence except those and jungly plants and oh yes...

This little guy, he's only about a foot tall, if that, is new to me this visit. Google Lens tells me that it is a Swedish armillary Hercules and you can google that yourself. This particular Hercules has lost his armillary sphere but he is still a charming little guy. 

And that blossom? It is the bloom of a bromeliad which I cannot identify exactly but it may be a Aechamea Chantinii, aka "Little Harv."
Excuse me?

Glenn has planted so many bromeliads here and unlike the ones growing even just a few hundred miles north of here, these can live outside year round and grow in great and grand clumps. 

So today is Mother's Day. 
Mine started out beautifully with a cuddle and a snuggle and then a cup of coffee. I found these gardenias and a love note when I got to the kitchen.

Glenn has a bush of them in the back yard which leads to the river and every night I have picked one on my walk back to the house after sunset but my Glen picked these. Those Roseland gardenias and his note are far more precious to me than any store bought bouquet of flowers and Hallmark card possibly could ever be. 

We knew that going out to breakfast would be ridiculous. Anyone who has worked in food service knows that Mother's Day is the busiest and most likely hardest day of the year to work. Everyone and their baby-daddies go out for breakfast/brunch on Mother's Day. And we were going to be two of them. 
We went to the restaurant where we've eaten every morning and yes, it was packed and there was a wait-time but I just got in a sort of Zen state and wasn't perturbed in the least and then I realized that there were babies, many, many babies there. So many babies. And my heart was so happy to see them and their mamas who were adoring them and their grandmothers too who held them and walked them so that the mamas could eat. 

It was all sweet. 

****************

And now it's hours later and we couldn't watch the sunset because it was raining and lightning was forking across the river. 

I'm tired. And tomorrow we get up and pack and tidy the cabana house and leave for home. 
I cried tonight when I said goodbye to the river. 

I cried when I told Glenn and his husband Scott how much I appreciate what they've done here, allowing me to come home again, in a way. 

We can come back. That is part of the miracle of Roseland. 

Story to be continued. I hope. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Riches And More Riches

For many years when Glen and I came down here to Roseland, he just could not catch a fish. He was so frustrated. I kept telling him that he needed to use shrimp as bait and I knew this only because that's what we'd use as children. Granddaddy would go to Johnny May's fish house and get shrimp and we'd put them on hooks on the lines of our bamboo poles and we'd always catch something, mainly catfish and that's neither here nor there but for whatever reason Glen just kept trying artificial bait and lures. 
And then one trip he started using shrimp. 
And here we are. 
He is figuring this out. The other night he caught a sheepshead and a mangrove snapper, both good eating fish. The same night he caught this.

And yes, that's a screen shot taken from a video. Can you tell what it is? 
It's a sting ray and I remember with absolute clarity the time either my brother or I caught one of those off of Granddaddy's dock and Granddaddy, who was wearing his rubber boots, stepped on the wildly flipping tail which is the stinging part of those rays, got the hook out of his mouth, and sent him on his way off the dock and back into the river. 
It was highly exciting. 
I don't think I was quite as excited the other night when Glen caught that one but I was pretty dang worried he was going to get stung because he was wearing some sandals, not thick rubber boots but he figured it out and unhooked the creature and like Grandaddy, sent him back to have a good life. 
And it was a little exciting. 

Yesterday, Glen went to the headwaters to fish, which is something he did last time we were here. Don't ask me what the headwaters are but they're nearby and you can catch a lot of bass in them. The bass seem to prefer artificial bait over shiners which are little fishes that must be kept alive and this requires a thing called a bubbler that goes into its special bucket to keep the water oxygenated. The shrimp get the bubbler too. 
So Mr. Moon had a great time yesterday, out on the headwaters and he fished from dawn 'til coming on dark. I had a day to myself and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I walked up to the Goodwill and spent at least two hours going through shirts and I didn't get through a third of the ones they had. This Goodwill is not quite like any other Goodwill I've ever seen in that shirts are arranged on the racks by whether they are sleeveless, short-sleeved, or long-sleeved. Sizes are mixed in willy-nilly. Some Goodwills sort by color. Not this one. BUT their clothes seem to be cleaner and they are all seemingly unstained and I saw very, very few T-shirts with pictures or messages on them. And they have a lot of very good brands. 
I got Lily a nice shirt, I got myself a nice shirt. Both are gauzy and rather hippified. I also found (be still my heart) a 100% cashmere sweater without a hole in it. Not one. This is rare.
When I find a garment like that which is next-to-new and special, I always wonder if the owner died. I also got a hat.

Perfect.

After shopping I took myself to lunch and got the loveliest bowl of tomato basil soup you can imagine. And then I walked back to the little cabana house, traveling down a few white-sand side roads just because I could. I took a picture of some cactus flowers.

Close-up.

How exotic is that? There are lots of cacti in Roseland. At one point my friend Helen Ferger and I spent about four days, determined to rid Roseland of all its cactus after we'd both been the victims of their needles once too many times. 

Obviously, our mission was not accomplished. 

I still have a strong aversion to thorned succulents, both the kind whose needles are tiny and require someone with a lot of patience, a magnifying glass, a good light, and a willingness to pull the little hairlike things one at a time for hours on end, and the ones with big honking needles that make you weak in the knees just to see one sticking out of your own personal body part.

I dug up a few succulents of the non-needled varieties to take home and put in a pot. I did not steal them. I dug them with my very own fingers from the sandy soil in a vacant jungly yard right by the road. 

I loved that walk. I love seeing houses I recognize from sixty years ago. I love remembering names from the way-too-distant past. 
Who was the woman who lived there who made beautiful things out of seashells?
Rosa. Rosa Garrett. 
Is that Nelly Campbell's old house? If it is, has the log part of it been covered with stucco? How sad. Where was the old post office? On this little road? Has the building been converted into a house? 
How can I remember things like this when I can't remember the names of all the characters on Sex in the City?

I don't know but it does not bode well for my memory retention, does it? 

Today Mr. Moon and I went out for late breakfast at the place we always eat our breakfast where the service is fast and the food is good and it's not very expensive. We sit outside under oak trees and grackles come and perch on the backs of chairs beside us and give us the eye, no need for human language. We've been lucky with the weather. Hot in the day but cool and breezy enough in the mornings and at sunset. The clientele is generally made up of the elderly and I think that if we lived here, we would feel like some of the youngsters. 
We would be fooling ourselves but so what? Glen can fish all day, I can walk for an hour. 

After breakfast we drove to Melbourne, a small town about twenty miles north of here. It, too, spans from the Atlantic shore, across the Indian River, and then a little beyond. We took the coastal route to get there, Highway A1A, and again, we saw some of the best examples of the poor taste of many of the wealthy. And I do believe that this house sums up the old saying that money cannot buy taste.

Or common sense. That...house?... is so huge that when we passed it, I screamed, "OH MY GOD!" I scared my husband. I made him turn around so he could see it and I could take a picture. As Hank said in response to the picture when I sent it to the group, "Yes...let's live in a gorgeous location in a wavy dungeon without windows."
So welcoming. So cozy.

And this is the sort of ocean view they get. 

I took that when we were driving over the bridge that spans the inlet. 

We did go to a thrift store in Melbourne in the historic downtown district. 

Now how could I pass that up? A THRIFT bendy man? A combination of two of my favorite things. 
I have to say there was a very interesting and eclectic collection of things in that place. 

I bought two martini glasses and a ridiculous piece of "art."

Trust me- this will go quite well some place in my house. 

I also bought something entirely out of character for me. A very large book of the Beatles' Greatest Hits with arrangements for piano. I picked it up, I leafed through it very briefly. I put it back down. 
I picked it back up. 
I put it down.
And when I went to check out with my lovely senoritas and martini glasses, I returned to it and picked it up and I bought it. 
It wanted me to take it and I think I may, I might, perhaps, play some of the songs on the piano. They are simple arrangements and why not?

Tonight's sunset was quite different. We've had almost cloudless days which doesn't make for extremely interesting sunsets but this evening, the clouds began to gather. A formation of them, wet and dark with rain formed and I have never seen anything like it. 

We saw a dolphin roll right by the dock and Glen caught a snook, a black drum, multiple sheepshead, and mangrove snapper. All of the caught fish got sent home to their mama's. 

It has been raining for awhile and I am as happy for Glenn and for Roseland as I am for my own small community and yard when we get rain when it's been dry. 

A fisherman going up the river as the sun set. 
"What's for supper?" he yelled.
"Mangrove snapper!" Glen yelled back. 

But no. We had leftovers and that was fine. 

Today's hibiscus.

Simple and to the point. 

Tomorrow is our last full day. 

Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Up The River, Back At Home

Today's hibiscus. 

Up close and very personal. 

Yesterday I checked "go up river" off my list. Glen got the boat in the water which required some logistics because the boat ramp is two miles away and the 4-Runner and trailer couldn't be left at the boat ramp and the boat couldn't be left there either but it was all figured out with the help of Glenn. I will go ahead and tell you right now that I finally womaned up yesterday and drove the 4-Runner with the trailer attached to it to the boat ramp myself so that Glen could load the boat back up to take it fishing in a different place today and this story could go on forever. 

The point is, Glen and I took off after breakfast yesterday to cruise slowly, slowly up the Sebastian River to see the sights. 
And some sights were seen. Mostly jungle and flat water and a few houses in the most gorgeous settings I could imagine. Unfortunately, most of the houses are butt ugly. A rich person's dream of what a river house in paradise should look like, which is to say- hideous. Huge and hideous. 
But here's some pictures of our little trip. 

One hideous house. 

Jungle.

I didn't take a picture of the house that went with this dock but they had everything anyone with a family could want in a house on a river.

Here's the landscaping for one of the more gigantic houses. 
And please remember that all of these houses have pools. The Sebastian River is rarely swum in and I'm not sure why. We didn't swim in it as kids. The river's bottom is thick with oyster shells which will slice you like a razor. When it's not filled with oysters, the bottom is so silty that every step raises a cloud of whatever that stuff is. Probably algae and the broken down detritus of every tree, flower, fish, and human which have died in it since the dinosaurs were munching on those palms. The river water is brackish due to the fact that the beginning of the river (or is it the end?) is in confluence with the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean via an inlet. This is why when sitting on the dock at sunset, we almost always see dolphin and since we've been here, what looks to be a very small shark who swims by, fin up. Also, fresh and salt water fish can be caught. The current of the river flows from west to east and east to west, depending on the tides. For a very short article about the river and its history, go HERE.
So, maybe between sharks, oysters, and alligators which are also plentiful, it's not that crazy that people don't really swim here. 

Back to the landscaping of The Very, Very Wealthy. 

Some people, not many, seem to try and incorporate the native plants and trees into the settings for their houses. Most seem determined to eradicate, control, and make things look like they're living in Connecticut or somewhere. I saw one yard as big as a football field, completely bare of anything but that green, lush grass and all I can think of is the chemicals they need to create that lawn and how they must all just wash right down to the river which is literally yards away. Meanwhile, the land they've bought and paid for was a fucking Eden until they decided, as white men are so apt to do, that nature is unnatural and must be tamed. 
Of course you'd have to clear out some of the jungle to set your house in but it can be done with wisdom, integrity, and respect. 
And for god's sake! Plant a fucking hibiscus and a citrus tree, okay? 
I'll stop now. 
I am very judgmental when it comes to these things and I admit it. I am sure that jealousy has some part in it. If I had a little bit of that jungle land on the river, I'd be happy as a queen in a little old cracker shack that some fishing family lived in fifty years ago. 
You know I would. I'd probably never leave except to go to Publix and there are plenty of those around here.

That's all I have in me to post tonight. 
More tomorrow? 
Probably. 
Maybe.

A picture from tonight's sunset over the river as the tides and wind have their way with it. 

And this is what the sky looked like. 

I love this place so much. 

Love...Ms. Moon

More Pictures From Florida

Hibiscus from Glenn's potted plants. Glenn is the man from whom we rent. 
And as I have said many times, I love him dearly. 

I've made a list, an actual list of things I want to do while I'm here. One of the items was to visit McKee Botanical Gardens which used to be McKee Jungle Gardens when I was a child. I have written about this place before. Do a search up there on the top left corner if you feel the need. 

And today, we checked that off my list. 

Pictures.

And then, on to what we had hoped would be lunch at the Ocean Grill. This did not turn out to be. The kitchen closed seventeen minutes before we arrived. 
Sigh. 
I do not want to even discuss the restaurant we ate at instead.

But. 

The Atlantic Ocean.

Back home. 

Florida. I fucking love you. 

Ms. Moon