In Which We Are Reunited With The Other Grands

"Oh!" I thought this morning as the children came running up to meet me in the yard, "They have missed me!"
Gibson got to me first and indeed, he hugged me around the waist and looked up at me with his perfect Gibson face and said, "Mer! Can I play with your tablet?"
Then Owen got to me and he hugged me and his head is just about up to mine these days and he looked at me and said, "Can we play Wii?"
And THEN, Maggie came running to me on her fine, sturdy, juicy legs and I picked her up and she said, "Boppa?"
Sigh...
And then they all ran to their grandfather and he showed them the baby chicks and before you know it, the iPad was on the charger and between Owen and I, we got the Wii games started.
It was so good to see them.
We had oat bran, banana, sweet potato, apple and strawberry pancakes this morning with our bacon. They were delicious.
Here's the Woman Baby playing peek-a-boo from the high chair.

She is a hoot, that Magnolia June. She can get up my stairs so fast we haven't realized that she's left the room and every time it happens my heart stops. You should see her big brother Owen running up after her and carrying her down, though. SUCH a good big brother. I watched him put her in her high chair and give her her plate, too. 

So. The boys have named the chicks. They are Pearl, Rose, and Amethyst which are the names of the Crystal Gems in a show that Hank and the boys are all in love with called Steven Universe and which I know nothing about. But I have to admit that those are perfect chick names. 

And the chicks are all doing well today. I even gave them and their mama some watermelon. Tomorrow I need to get out there and clean the hen house and the chick nursery and just try to create some fresh-hay order. Right now it's all sort of funky, to tell you the truth. 

But I have not been sitting on my ass today. Well, except for the hour or so that I talked to May on the phone. We just cannot talk less than an hour. Chat, chat, chat, chat, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, chat, chat, chat, chat, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh. 

Rinse, repeat. 

So we caught up and there was a beautiful rainstorm that whole time and after it was over I went out and picked green beans which are so overly mature that we'll mostly be eating the shelled bean-seeds of them, 

and Mr. Moon picked more peas and he's shelling them right now. I changed into my long overalls and went back out and pulled weeds. I got the edamame and the okra weeded and sweated like a Trojan, as my granny used to say. The edamame is just about ready to start picking. Look at these beautiful, prolific, fuzzy pods!

Aren't they stunning? 

Well. I think they are. But you know- I'm nuts. 

I guess it's obvious that I feel about ten thousand times better today. I've had good energy and good spirits and I don't hurt anywhere more than usual and in a way, I feel reborn. It wasn't much of an illness at all to tell you the truth, just a little ol' cold virus and I didn't even get all of the snot that Jessie and August got so that's good. 

And thus, it's been a very nice day in Lloyd and we're going to eat delicious leftovers from last night. I made a tomato and eggplant pie and Mr. Moon smoked a Boston butt and I also cooked field peas and rice and all of those things will taste even better tonight than they did last night. I sent Lily home today with shelled peas and pickles and watermelon that her daddy had cut up and a whole other Boston butt (Mr. Moon is of the opinion that you might as well cook two as one) and I feel all frontier woman and shit and as I have said so many times- richer than hell. 

It occurred to me today that we may have reached the apex, the pinnacle of civilization in our time and are now in the crumbling, deteriorating beginnings of a sort of dark ages. It seems to me that history has repeated itself so many times before in human history and enlightenment is always followed by darkness and superstition and fear and if my theory is true, I feel grateful to have some of the skills and knowledge of the peasant who, no matter what, will continue on with that which is seemingly eternal- the dirt, the chicken, the seed, the flame, the family. 

I am probably wrong and I hope I am. And I have certainly not adopted a life-style involving dirt and chickens with that in mind. It is just what has come naturally to me. 

I'm just an old hippie grandma who has her little piece of heaven and the support and help and strength of a good and strong partner to carry on with the things she loves. 

Works for me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Worlds In Which I Live

Woke up this morning feeling pretty rough, even though I slept fine except for waking up when the earth was shaking with thunder and then the electricity went out and electronic battery back-up things beeped and the fan quit running and then, sometime later it all came back on and it rained too.

So yes, I felt rough because of this cold thing but I managed to move slowly through the day, getting a few things done. I took the trash and went to the post office to get my mail and ran into a neighbor who told me about his son's emergency surgery last week for an abdominal thing. He said it was horribly scary but that the boy is fine and last night they went to the Mexican restaurant and he cleaned his plate so recovery is well underway. We talked about how a hundred years ago the child would have just died because surgery would not have been available. Mr. Moon's granddad died from a cut he got in the barn. One day he was fine, the next day, he was dead.
I am not the biggest proponent of western medicine in the world and how it and the pharmaceutical industry work but I sure am grateful for some of the strides that have been made. I know that Mr. Moon himself once got cellulitis so bad that they thought they were going to have to put him in the hospital for IV antibiotics and it was frightening as hell, watching the ugly redness move swiftly up his leg, despite the oral antibiotics he was on. I swear on the Bible and the Joy of Cooking that an antibiotic shot they gave him at Urgent Care caused the redness to start receding before we got out of there. Talk about your miracles!

Anyway, where the hell was I?
Oh yeah. Feeling rough. So I could not help myself but had to go out and pick some of those field peas and on the way I checked on the babies. They are so dang cute. And Dottie, despite not being the Bio-Mom of any of them, is being incredibly protective and taking such good care of them. Here they are.

I am fairly sure that this chick is Camellia's baby. Camellia is the hen I got from Kathleen's flock and she's a darling chicken. She's the one who comes onto the porch every day and stares me down for treats.

And these, I believe, are Violet's children. Violet is the little gray/lavender bantie hen.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is nothing in this world as cute as a baby chick and the cutest of the cute are baby chicks who are being raised by their mommy instead of say, in a bathtub.
Gosh, I hope they make it. I would just love that.

Anyway, after I visited the nursery, I went over to the side yard because I had a gut feeling about where Dearie might be and sure enough, he was hanging out in the neighbor's goat pen which is right next to their chickens.

I assume he is keeping away from Mick because he's Mr. Jagger-Rooster's main threat. Gosh, he's a pretty guy. I said, "Hey, Dearie! Whatchu doing over there?"

And he said, "Plotting World Wide Hen Domination. What else?"

Maybe I was just hallucinating that part. 

Then I picked a big bowlful of peas and Maurice helped me. I know I didn't get them all and the green beans need picking too and I didn't get one of them. 

But that's what I did pick and for two hours I sat on the couch and watched The Real Housewives of New York City and shelled peas. It was a sort of heaven and I'm not even kidding. Since they're so big, it was easy to shell them and now I have some cooking on the stove and some are in a ziplock in the refrigerator. Lily thinks it's hysterical that I love those stupid "real" housewives so much. I just can't help it. They are my complete opposites in almost every way. They wouldn't know how to pick or shell a field pea if their lives depended on it. Hell, they get their make-up done professionally to go out for drinks. And I never wear make-up these days. Maybe once every three months. They get plastic surgery and Botox and lasered and I doubt they have a body hair on their entire bodies below the waist. And they seem to spend their lives drinking and eating tiny foods on giant plates and discussing each other and going to stay in fabulous villas in distant countries and if they have children, we never see them. Some of their biggest problems seem to be what social media is saying about them. 

But hell- it's escapism sure and true, and some of them seem to have genuine hearts which have been tried by the fires of grief WHICH IS NO EXCUSE FOR MY ENJOYING WATCHING THIS BULLSHIT. 

Still. 

I love it. 

So I did that and some laundry and got my house back to where I feel as if I am the mistress of it again and I watered my porch plants and even took a little nap and I am feeling okay. 

I am home. 

Hopefully I'll see the Lily-Babies tomorrow and maybe even make pancakes if I feel up to it. I just need not to kiss them or slobber on them, I guess. I miss them and their mama so. 

Home and Little Richard is still walking around outside the hen house even though the rest of the chickens are in bed because he has to wait until Mick is on the roosting-doze like an opium addict on a silk divan because if Mick is still awake, he'll peck and chase him out again. 

We're about to eat a mostly home-grown supper and I'm glad to be in Lloyd although I wish I could be everywhere at once. 

Maybe in a parallel universe I am. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Finest Journey You Can Imagine

Cher! You may say. What the hell are you doing on Ms. Moon's blog?
Well, I will tell you. Last night Mr. Moon and I stayed in Macon, Georgia and instead of staying at a Day's Inn or a Travel Lodge, we went for the big adventure and stayed in an old inn downtown called the 1842 Inn which was, supposedly, the only building in Macon that Sherman didn't burn when he made his way down through Georgia, and on the wall of celebrities, there was a picture of Our Lady Of Perpetual Cherness.
Also this note.

She had stayed there when her former husband, Gregg Allman died recently. 

Oprah's picture was there too. 

Also, Ivanka Trump's. 

So, you know it was a fine and fancy place and I have to say that if you are a man and you want some lovin', take your sweetie to a fine and fancy place where the bed is huge

 and the amenities are luxurious and make her feel like she belongs there and chances are, you might get lucky. 

You might get real lucky. 

Lord, I feel like I've been time-traveling, universe-traveling, and all-American automobile traveling. 

And I have. 

Two nights ago we were on Black Mountain, visiting Vergil's family where we ate supper with his sister and her husband and their three beautiful children and his mama and stepdaddy at his mother's house where the view over her garden looks like this.

Can you believe that? 

And then that breakfast the next morning at the Five Points where you can take your biscuits and tomatoes and make a sandwich of them and where I cried and we said good-bye. 

We drove all day long, not having a plan or a clue and stopped at several places to look at antiques and junk and stuff and it was fun and then last night we stayed there at the 1842 and this morning we had our complimentary breakfast in the courtyard of eggs and bacon and stone-ground cheese grits and all sorts of amazing foods. 

Breakfast.

Courtyard. 

And then we finally dragged ourselves away from the room and headed south on every tiny road in Georgia and stopped in one tiny town to buy baby chick starter at a feed store and at another tiny town where we had a late lunch which I will remember longer and more fondly even than that breakfast. 

We passed a little place called Josie's.

We turned around and came back and parked and went in and damn. Just...damn. 

We got in line and were served cafeteria style. Our choices were almost too much to bear. Barbecued pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, cabbage, greens, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, chicken and dressing and cranberry sauce, green beans, peas and carrots, cole slaw. 

Here's what we both ended up with.

Good GOD, y'all. 

Montezuma, Georgia. Josie's restaurant. They close at three and have to lock the door because people still want to get in. 

Then we drove down every other two-lane road in Georgia and I read and read and read to Mr. Moon and fell in love with Duane's Depressed for about the tenth or maybe twentieth time and we bought lottery scratch-offs and I won fifteen dollars and we realized that the south is absolutely filled with gorgeous old houses and they are still standing and still proud and straight and life is still being lived in them and we saw fields of cotton and corn and we finally got...home.

And here we are and I'm exhausted and I think I've brought home Jessie and August's cold but I had so much fun with them and there were so many kisses and so much sharing of food and wah-wee (which is what August calls water) that it almost feels like an honor to have gotten this little virus. 

I'm not kidding. 

Do you think I miss this guy?

That's him getting his pirate tattoos that I bought him. 

I miss him so damn much I can't tell you. 

But I also miss my Owen and my Gibson and my Maggie and here we are, back in Lloyd and I'll get my hands on everyone soon enough. We seem to be missing a few chickens including Dearie which sort of breaks my heart but maybe he'll show up tomorrow. Dottie has only let me see one of the babies and it's darling. 

Maurice hasn't come around yet and I'm sure I'll have to pay for my abandonment. Jack, of course, has come in to eat. I think he eats in the kitchens of at least two other neighbors so he hasn't suffered too badly. 

And here we are. I have to say that I think that perhaps this was one of the very best vacation trips of my entire life. Maybe the absolute best one that didn't involve Mexico. 

There was just about every sort of love that you can imagine and there were laughs and there was grace and there was fun and there were rivers and mountains and romance and delicious foods and August at a restaurant saying to the waiter, "Waffa- please."

Until he got his waffa. 

And there were hipsters and country folks and ladies serving up food whom I know go to church every time the doors are open, wearing aprons and taking care of business. 

And I haven't even talked about the karaoke. 

And I probably won't. Except to say that no, I did not sing. 

We're home. 

Love...Ms. Moon

My Heart

We are leaving Asheville after our breakfast with Jessie and Vergil and August. We ate at the wonderful real people restaurant called Five Points and I tried to keep my tears held back the whole time. August was his merry self, eating bits and pieces of everything and sharing generously as he does. He handed me a little butter package that he'd put a strawberry bite in and I ate the sweet fruit and returned the little cup with a few tiny bites of bacon in it in trade. 

He ate the bacon. 

It has been every kind of magic and I'm pretty sure my heart is three sizes bigger than it was. 

All precious and magnicent and perfect sweetness. 

We will see them again soon and now I'm on my way south with my love driving me through the mountains. We are going to take our time. 

Anna reports that Dottie hatched three eggs yesterday and that is another sweetness and another reason to go home and I have missed those other grand babies and my other children too and I will be glad to put my arms around all of them again. 

What a life. What an amazing good life. 

And I know it to my bones. 

We started out the day yesterday by going to Jessie's midwife appointment. I loved the North Carolina midwife. She looked exactly like you'd think a midwife should look and was sweet and funny and curious and patient. August knew what we were there for and sat so seriously in his daddy's lap. 

"Beep," he said. 

And after awhile it was time to hear the beep and the midwife let him help and we all heard the good strong heartbeat of his little brother. 

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. 

And then we heard August's heartbeeps and then Daddy's which was slow and so loud. 

It all made me cry, of course. 

Then back in the car and up another mountain to the river where we swam last year. 

Another dream, another picnic, another perfect sunny day in the mountains of North Carolina with this little family and I smiled and smiled. It was exactly what I wanted to do. 

The view from our picnic spot. 

August with the cheese doodles and his water. He has everything he needs. 

The boy on the river with his daddy. 

I just stood in the water for awhile, the water rushing past me, around me, almost through me in its current, my feet on the rocky bed, my eyes on peaceful glory. 

And I never want to forget the way August can trot up and down the mountain trails on  his sturdy little golden legs. He dances more than walks and he is beautiful in all regards. 

Love...Ms. Moon

We didn't raft down a river today because Jessie has a pretty bad cold and just didn't feel up to it but we had a beautiful day anyway. We drove through gorgeous mountains, up and up and around hairpin turns with drop offs that would surely lead to death if a second's inattention occurred. We stopped at a state park and got out and hiked up a nice little rocky trail which August managed like a mountain goat. We reached what they call a bald which is where we spread our sheet and ate our picnic and basked in the cool sunny air. 

I felt as if I were Julie Andrews and should spread wide my arms and skirts and bust into a chorus of The Hills Are Alive but I did not. 

We packed up and went back down the trail through the ferns and rhododendrons and then drove to another park where we got out and Mr. Moon and Vergil and I swam in the most heavenly river. 

The water was cold but not too cold and it was splendid in all regards. After I got in I thanked Vergil for sharing this with us. It could not have been a more perfect dip. Jessie stayed in the car and rested and August took his nap. I felt so bad for her. I came back to spell her and she did go down to the water but just didn't feel like getting in. 

See that guy beside the blue tube? He informed me that he was really, really stoned. I felt honored that he had shared that with me.

We drove back to Asheville and got our supper and then we dropped Jessie and Vergil and August back at their house and now we're at the AirBnB sitting outside watching the night come in. I am exhausted and bedtime will come early tonight. Tomorrow's plans are up in the air but we are going to Jessie's midwife appointment with her in the morning. 

So. Another day. Another day with our little shining boy who is happy almost every second of the day and his beautiful shining parents. 

The lightening bugs are coming out. 

And oh! Here are some of the blooming rhododendrons we saw today. 

North Carolina may have some pretty severe problems, politically but it will also catch your heart. It is gorgeous. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Pure Sweetness And Love

Here's what we did today:
We loved on August.

I think he is happy we're here. Every time we leave his sight and enter it again, he shouts, "Hey MerMer!" or "Hey Boppa!" as if he hasn't seen us for days.
He does the same with his mama and his daddy but it sure does make us feel special.

Vergil keeps trying to think of fun things we can do but honestly, just hanging out with them is precious. We ate breakfast at their house today. August had requested waffles and that's what we had. They were delicious. And we played and read books and then August got sleepy because he gets up early and our breakfast ran late.

So we just took a little walk through the neighborhood with August in the stroller and he fell asleep and Jessie and I went and got pedicures and when we got back, August was up and happy as he could be with his daddy and his Boppa. 

I swear, that boy loves his Boppa to pieces. 

After he woke up, we went to a local park on the French Broad River and August ran and ran and Mr. Moon threw a line in the water and August and Jessie and I went to the dog park and visited with the doggies and then it began to blow and thunder and rain so we ran to the car and went to a brewery. 

Asheville has more breweries than Lloyd has churches. 

And that's a lot. 

Father and son. 

We had a beer and then went on to supper. If there's one thing that Asheville has more of than breweries, it's amazing restaurants. 

It's funny. I really don't feel like writing much. I feel quietly and sweetly full of simply being exactly where I am, doing exactly what I'm doing. 

It all seems like a beautiful dream. 

Okay, our AirBnB is a little bit...well, I'll write more about it later, but I will say that the backyard is heavenly. A huge park-like lawn where lightening bugs dance at night and there's a creek which runs down the back of it. 

And it's cozy and comfortable and has everything we need. 

Tomorrow we're supposed to float down a river. 

Which sounds perfect. 

But if something comes up and that doesn't happen, whatever does happen will be perfect too. 

I just have that feeling. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Here We Are

Love and love and love and love. 

After a fairy tale of a drive Mr. Moon and I are at the Graduate Hotel in Athens, Georgia. We took almost all back roads to get here, many of them two lanes and went through gorgeous farm land, tiny towns with jewel box houses and yards, story-book churches, and bustin' at the buttons proud little downtowns. 

That's where we ate our lunch. It was delicious. 

We saw no hate signs, no signs warning us that we would fry in hell if we didn't accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and not one Trump sign. 

We saw cows and horses and donkeys and flowers and pecan groves and our winding, meandering route took us right through Hard Labor Creek State Park which was beautiful with forests and cabins and horse trails. 

At one point we were merrily driving down a road when this happened. 

We laughed and found an alternate route. 

It was magical. 

I feel so lucky. We had no time frame and no worries about anything and we had so many laughs and I read a Larry McMurtry book out loud when I wasn't too busy looking around. 

Now we're going to find our supper and all is well and I hope it is with you too. 

It is good to travel, it is good to wander, it is good to be lost but not really. It is good to remember that no matter where you go, there you are. 

Love...Ms. Moon

After a fairy tale of a drive Mr. Moon and I are at the Graduate Hotel in Athens, Georgia. We took almost all back roads to get here, many of them two lanes and went through gorgeous farm land, tiny towns with jewel box houses and yards, story-book churches, and bustin' at the buttons proud little downtowns. 

That's where we ate our lunch. It was delicious. 

We saw no hate signs, no signs warning us that we would fry in hell if we didn't accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and not one Trump sign. 

We saw cows and horses and donkeys and flowers and pecan groves and our winding, meandering route took us right through Hard Labor Creek State Park which was beautiful with forests and cabins and horse trails. 

At one point we were merrily driving down a road when this happened. 

We laughed and found an alternate route. 

It was magical. 

I feel so lucky. We had no time frame and no worries about anything and we had so many laughs and I read a Larry McMurtry book out loud when I wasn't too busy looking around. 

Now we're going to find our supper and all is well and I hope it is with you too. 

It is good to travel, it is good to wander, it is good to be lost but not really. It is good to remember that no matter where you go, there you are. 

Love...Ms. Moon

News Of The Day

Goodness gracious! An hour ago I was thinking about turning the sprinklers on the garden and suddenly a storm has blown in and it smells of ozone and the rain is falling down in huge, fat drops and plenty of them and the thunder is rumbling all around.
In other words- HEAVEN!
There are two things that truly make me want to say, Thank you, JESUS! like a whacked out preacher on speed and spirit and those two things are babies being born healthy and squalling, and rain storms on a summer afternoon.
Y'all, it is coming down!

So. Believe it or not, I am almost packed for Asheville. For once I am not stressing out about this at all. I'm simply putting all the linen dresses and a few other things in a suitcase and all of my underwear in an old hippie bag and most of my toiletries are packed as well. I'm going to get to hug and kiss on my August! And my Jessie. That baby inside of her needs to hear my voice and feel my touch on that watery home of his.
And you know what? I am looking forward to hugging our beloved Vergil, too.
Lord, I love that family.

I love all my family so much that it almost hurts. I was a terrible grandmother today and let Owen burn himself. We went to a buffet and he wanted some wonton soup and I stood there and let him dip the ladle and serve himself, thinking the whole time, "I have to let him do it himself."
He was so careful and so focused but he spilled some of the hot broth on his hand and it burned him.
"Oh, honey!" I said. "Are you all right?"
He said he was but that he wanted to go to the restroom to wash it off and off he ran. In a little while, his mama went to check on him and he was in there by himself, crying.
Oh my god. My heart broke. I didn't realize it was that bad of a burn.
He came back to the table and kept his hand in some ice water and soon he was fine and eating his noodles and chicken-on-a-stick but I still felt horrible.

Here's a picture that Hank took of me and my Magnolia who was happy as could be, eating watermelon and noodles and sweet potatoes and green beans and...well, everything. She especially likes it when I offer her food from a chopstick. She opens her little bird mouth and in goes the morsel and she chews and swallows.
"More?" she says.

She is just at the most precious age. Every time she sees me it's like she had never expected to see me again. 

"MerMer!" she says, almost in a sigh, as if seeing me is her heart's delight. 

She has learned to pucker up her lips for a kiss and she will gladly kiss us all, one after the other, leaning forward with those rosebud lips, all set and ready for a smack. 

You can't imagine how good she feels. Everything about her is so plump and firm and juicy and squishy and perfect. I am afraid that if I had advanced dementia, I would mistake her for a peach and try to take a bite. 

Speaking of which, did you see this?

Honestly, I am not laughing. This is not funny. This is serious as it can possibly be. Look- I worry about my own mind these days. Every glitch or moment of forgetfulness is held up and examined for signs of possible dementia and I will admit that sometimes I can't find my car in the parking lot of Costco but I am pretty sure that I would not have missed the huge limousine that I ran into at the bottom of the stairway of the airplane. Also? I do not have to figure out what to do about North Korea.
Oh my god. This is some scary shit.

Well.

The rain is still falling, but gently. I am going to make our supper and then after one more sleep (said the grandmother) we shall be leaving for Asheville. We're going to spend tomorrow night in Athens because we can and because it'll make the drive so much easier and it will only take a few hours from there to get to see our August, and I will squish him up and hug him up and kiss him up and it will be as fine and joyful as it can be.

Mr. Moon and Ms. Moon are hitting the road.
I am so very much looking forward to that.

Love...Ms. Moon

Heart-Light

With banana spider in her web, shining like copper in silver.

Fireworks! Lloyd style.

Well, the party's over. The last nine and a half pints of pickles have been jarred and all of them sealed with a pretty pop of the lid and it will be time to wash out the canner and the crock and put them all away until next year. 

What in hell am I going to do with my spare time now? 

Perhaps I shall make Magnolia June a trousseau. 

But seriously, folks- when Mr. Moon's grandmother died, she left hope chests for her grandchildren. One for each. And they all had an entire set of china in them, quilts that she had made by hand, baby quilts that she had made by hand, tablecloths that she had made by hand, and I don't even know what all. 

The tales I have heard of this woman are hardly to believed. She was a single mother of three for a long time after her husband died and she ran a little broom-making business, made money by sewing for people, saved all the scraps and made quilts with them, was the de facto doctor for those who couldn't afford the real one, cut hair, grew and preserved food, wallpapered her entire house regularly, including the ceiling, collected fine china, and made so many cakes for Christmas presents that she carried batter in buckets up to her daughter-in-law's house for her to bake because her oven just couldn't handle it all. 

And there is so much more. 

All of this in (I am not kidding you) Bug Tussle, Tennessee. 

Lord. I think about how Glen's daddy met a woman through correspondence during the war via his sister who was working with her, came home, went out to Salt Lake City, Utah, met and married her, and then took her on a bus back to Bug Tussle. Glen's mama wasn't raised exactly rich but she did grow up with electricity and indoor plumbing and she was probably ready to head back out on the next bus going west as soon as she figured out what her living conditions were about to be with this tall, handsome man she barely knew. 

Gosh. I did not mean to talk about Mr. Moon's parents or grandparents but there you go- one thing will lead to another. And Darlene Moon did NOT get on a bus back to Utah and she somehow adjusted to life in Tennessee with a mother-in-law who probably should have been running the country, and she and Jesse Moon (yep- that's where Jessie's name came from and her granddaddy was named for his aunt, Jessie Moon) went on to have three kids and somehow scratch out a living through hard, hard work and were some of the most loving, precious people I ever met and who raised three kids who grew up to be loving and precious themselves. 

Well, I guess that was an American story although I think it's probably more just a human story.

It's the 4th of July and here's what some of my grandkids did today:

Ate delicious snacks after swimming in their other grandma's pool.

Mr. Moon asked me if I wanted to go watch fireworks with the kids and I was like, "What the hell? No. Y'all have fun with that."

But I think he's staying home. Eating pickles. Etc. 

And here's a video of August singing a Rolling Stones song.

I will be seeing him in three days. We will be singing lots of songs together.

I would be his Beast of Burden any day.

Yours too.

Love...Ms. Moon

A Day Of Mostly Rest

The river was all we had hoped it would be. There were a lot of kids there but nothing untoward was going on, perhaps because a sheriff was there in his big sheriff car enforcing the no alcohol, no dogs rules. Friends of Owen's from school showed up and there were plenty of people for him to play with and Maggie liked the water although it felt as cold as could be and delicious and it's so hot that we sat in it on our knees, up to the chest, and felt our core temperatures drop to a normal degree. Hank showed up with a friend of his and we visited and all said the same thing over and over which was, "Do you see Owen?" or "Do you see Gibson?"
So many little boys with brown hair and bathing suits alike, all moving like Bingo Balls at the church on Bingo night, running and chasing and jumping and swimming.
We never did lose a boy and Maggie stayed close to us, mostly clinging to her mama as she was in a mama-mood today. Again she pushed on my shoulder as I sat in my chair and said, "Up, up," to get me to let her take my place but I said, "Nah, you come sit in my lap," and she did and fed me bites of her rice cake and her peanut butter sandwich, her little tummy poking out of her pink bathing costume, her plump little legs and fanny in my lap feeling like the thing I most should have been holding at that moment in time in all of this whole world.

I felt so lazy and before we left to come home I felt as if maybe I had melted from the heat and then the cold and then the heat and then the cold, my muscles and mind all at ease for once.

I did manage to clean out the hen house nests when I got home. I was wearing a pink linen dress I got at the Goodwill and a pair of black nitrile gloves that say ACE on them and I was glad no one but the chickens and cats could see me. It's too damn hot to wear overalls, and I made quick work of it and dumped the poopy hay in the garden where it's composting and will become mulch and fertilizer. Dottie is still on her nest and Trixie was right beside her. Here's a picture I took this morning of Joe Cocker and Little Richard and Tronky.

That's Nora and Violet in the back. Little Richard is actually becoming a very handsome rooster himself and is beginning to crow. So far all the roosters are behaving themselves and I am glad of that. It may just be too damn hot for them to worry about anything beyond eating and drinking water and taking dirt baths in the shade of the yard. 

And this is summer in Florida. You go to the river and swim if you're lucky enough to have one nearby and you keep watch on the wild boys and you sit in the shade of the moss-draped cypress tree and you watch the birds and the sky and some days that's about all you can do. 

We saw a limpkin today feeding in the water lilies and were amazed because they have all but disappeared due to the fact that their main food source, the apple snails, have almost disappeared because of invasive species. It was a beautiful sight and we were there to see it.

Blessing of wondrous and watery kinds.

Love...Ms. Moon