In Which I Speak Of Literal Horseshit

Heading south on Main Street, Lloyd, FL

I decided to take a little walk this morning which is something I have not done in forever. But for some reason, it was easy to put my shoes on and head out. I walked west on Old Lloyd Road, first, my old route that takes me past Harvey's, up to the county line. Everything felt fine but I turned around at about the half mile mark because I wanted to walk down Main Street too, but I didn't want to push my milage because I'm so out of walking-shape. 
Before I turned around though, I took these pictures of what is a fairly common roadside flowering plant here. 

I'm not sure I'd ever done on ID on it before but I did one today and it is called Rattlebox and upon looking it up, I see that it is considered a toxic weed which is...very invasive. 
One of the few invasive plants around here that I haven't seen in my yard. 
Yet. 
The flowers are a bit strange and a bit lovely, aren't they? I see them in other places on my usual route and they stand out with their deep orange color. 

Nothing on Main Street seems to have changed much since I last walked down it. The fally-down house is still in the process of falling down. Abraham's yard is still as tidy as a clean quilt on a freshly made bed. The same ancient oaks are still there, the old store that was restored with funds from some sort of historical society something-something still lies empty, the yard around it overgrown. 

Lloyd. 

The My Gypsy Soul Boutique has changed though, in that I am thinking it may never open again. The banner that was stuck in front of it advertising lottery ticket sales is gone and I think that might have been the last hurrah. The "local" art didn't work, the vaguely bohemian jewelry and clothing didn't work, the tarot reading didn't work, the selling of CBD and other smoke-related things didn't work. 
I am mostly shocked that it stayed open for so as long as it did.

The rest of my day after the little walk was mostly spent outside. Glen planted a few rows of white acre peas and zipper peas and offered me the opportunity to plant one more row of white acres. I took him up on that offer. He'd already laid out the row so it was mostly a matter of just poking little holes in the ground with my finger, dropping a pea in each one, covering them up and giving them a nice little pat. 

I gave my gardenia bush another once over. Look who I found lurking in the branches. 

One of our pretty little green anoles. I adore their eye shadow. I love the way this one's tiny front leg looks like an arm, casually draped over the back of a chair or someone's shoulders. This isn't a great picture but the little one knew I was there and I didn't dare get any closer for fear of it taking off for a safer hiding place. 

My first zinnia bloom.

Of course this one is on a volunteer plant, growing up from a plant reseeded from last year. The ones I did plant a few weeks ago are coming up nicely but it'll be awhile and I stupidly planted them in rows which is simply ridiculous and an insult to the entire zinnia empire which wants to be a scattered thing. I have no idea what I was thinking. 
Perhaps I was channeling Mr. Moon and his desire to see only straight lines in the garden. 

Now. Speaking of Mr. Moon and the garden, he's been talking for awhile about driving the truck down to a local horse farm and getting some free composted horse shit and today he did it. 
He asked me if I wanted to come help him shovel it into the truck and I said, "No. I do not." 
I have become quite blunt here in my later years. 
And that's fine. I don't have to shovel horse shit but there's a little story behind a time when I did which was that when Glen first came into my life, he immediately wanted to be my knight in shining armor and provide whatever it was I needed. 
Like, the first thing he did was to build a fence around my backyard which I do not think we need to delve too deeply in as to the symbolic meaning there. 
It was a beautiful fence. 
But I had a little garden in that back yard and he found out where he could get some horse shit and both of us, along with Hank and May who were quite young then, drove out to Jefferson County and filled the truck bed. At that time, I was pretty darn young and spry and I honestly believe that one of the main things Glen Moon first loved about me was the fact that I would shovel horse shit into the truck bed and would shovel it out of the truck bed and onto the garden. 
We always joke that it was that and my biscuits which charmed him so.
I will add that there were other attributes I had which he also admired but we have no need to discuss those. 

And so today, after I told Glen quite plainly that no, I did not want to shovel horse shit into the truck bed nor was I going to do it, I added that I could possibly help shovel it out of the truck bed and onto the garden. 

And here's what he came home with.

Do you see how helpfully he's got it all so close to the tailgate so that it will be easier to get from the truck to the garden? 
He's so thoughtful like that. 
It's not enough that I make biscuits every Sunday morning? 

Meanwhile, I did some more weeding in the hydrangea bed and did a few other outside-related things and then...

I mopped that kitchen. 
Twice. 
Mission accomplished! 

Here are a few more orchid bloom pictures. For some bizarre reason (I am thinking demonic possession) that little neglected orchid plant is blooming like it's getting paid. 

Will wonders never cease? 
Probably not.

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Well, Hell And So It Goes

If you are especially observant (and no one needs to be that observant), you may notice that this hibiscus-to-be is not the one I had drying from last week to hopefully go into the kiln this week. 
Sigh.
That hibiscus looked like this.

And THAT hibiscus which was the single most thing I've made in pottery ever that I felt truly, truly satisfied with and excited about. 

So of course I broke it this morning. 

I picked it up incorrectly by one of the petals and that was that. It fell apart totally and completely. I understand now that when clay gets to what they call bone dry, a stage of hardness before it goes into the kiln, it shatters like that. 
So I sure as shit learned a lesson and I shouldn't have picked it up like that anyway. 
But. What can one do? 
I started another one. I am not nearly as happy with it as I was with the first one. When I was making that one, I felt as if my hands had a mind of their own somehow. This time I felt awkward and incompetent. Everyone kept saying, "This one will be easier because you already made one," but it wasn't. 
I have finishing to do on it, including making the filament and related sexy parts. And then it will have to go into the kiln and if I'm lucky it'll only take a week to get it fired and then I'll glaze paint it and it will be fired again...
And so forth. 

Sigh. 

But you know- it was not the end of the world. It didn't even register in the "bad things that can happen" category. It was just a thing made out of clay and no one will go hungry or be injured because it broke. 
And I still enjoyed class a lot. It was another class where everyone concentrated on their projects but we chatted a lot, too. We laughed and we hugged. Lizzie was back from her journey and her gentleman caller stepped in to say hello. We all get a little tittery when he comes in. He's so handsome. 
Jessie is working on some amazing things and why I didn't get a picture of them is beyond me. I just sort of forget. Another class member is working on a beautiful vase and Lizzie is making the most precious little whippet dogs. And today there was an airedale, too. She has whippets and adores them although I'm not sure about who has the airedale. Gentleman caller? I know their first real meet-up was at the dog park. 
Our Shelly in the class went to a festival this weekend and we were all excited to hear about that. She is making exquisite bowls. And there is another woman in our class who also makes beautiful bowls. She is starting to struggle with memory but she has no problem remembering how to sit at the wheel and throw a bowl. 

After class, Jessie and I went to the Mediterranean restaurant which is always good and Lily, Lauren, and Gibson came in to sit with us and visit. They'd just had a big brunch so were not hungry. Gibson was out of school because he needed to get an ID today. The official kind that you get at the driver's license place. 

And the reason? Now that he is fourteen, he has gotten a job at Publix. He will start out as a bagger, as everyone seems to do. He is so excited. In his Gibson way, which is quiet but very smiley. He is one of those people who KNOW stuff. Like, facts. Like facts about presidents and scientific things and, oh hell, I don't know. But he does. He was explaining the presidency of John Quincy Adams to us today and all of us were rather astounded. He was so much more educated on how our government works than any of us adults that we were sort of ashamed. And then he told us about a duel that Andrew Jackson was in wherein he cheated and killed the other guy. 
We were not surprised about that.
As I said to my grandson, "He was a son of a bitch." 
I felt fairly sure of my facts in that statement. 

And so it went. I stopped by Costco on my way home for avocados and cherry tomatoes and a few other necessities including some face cream which is absolutely going to erase years from my skin. 
It will be a miracle! 
Of course I don't believe that but what the heck? You gotta put something on your face before you go to bed. A girl needs something fun like new face moisturizer now and then. 
Am I right? 

Glen's been having a time of it and I haven't even discussed the tooth that caused him pain all weekend and probably a lot longer than that. He does not bitch about pain so if he even mentions it, I know it must be pretty bad. He hasn't had a regular dentist in quite awhile so I sent him to my dentist, the young and lovely Dr. Jones who took over my old, longtime dentist's practice when he retired, and he liked her fine and today she pulled the tooth that hurt and so that was a relief. He is now on a journey to take better care of his teeth and I am very proud of him. He spent so much time in a dentist's chair as a child and in college that he has avoided dentists as much as possible but it's time to man-up and get this done. 
He decided that what he needed after the extraction was a little water therapy and so he is out on the St. Marks river, fishing for bass and loving his life. 
Here are two videos he sent me which absolutely belong in the OMGitswicks category of Only in Florida.

And this one has manatees in it. 

So I guess he's had about the perfect day. 
Well, except for having to get a tooth pulled. 

He just got home so I guess I'll go heat him up some soft food. 

And by the way- I did not get the kitchen mopped AGAIN! 
Tomorrow. I swear. Tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

And yet another P.S. 

The link to the video of the Oprah episode Hank was on can be found HERE. 

Oh my heart. 

Thank you, Anonymous. So much.

A P.S. Lagniappe To The Last Post

Man. Memories can definitely be off. Here's the text exchange Hank and I just had. 

Okay. That's a bit messy but there you have Hank's memory of the event and I am sure that is the correct one. 

"Hugs From Random Queers" would be a great name for novel, a memoir, or even a poem, don't you think? 

Oprah Story

This is not the Oprah mug that I had and/or have. I thought I still had one but can't find it. I've had two of them. They're what Oprah used to give you when you appeared on her show as a guest.

Classy, eh? 

One of the mugs I had came courtesy of Hank after he'd been on the show and the other, its twin, came with this house. 

So. Why was Hank on Oprah?
Well. Because he's so damn cool, of course. 

Many years ago, back when Hank was but a high school senior, I think, he was the first openly queer kid in the history of his high school. This was Tallahassee, Florida back around 1993 or 1994. 
Again- I think. 
Hank has always been exactly who Hank is and oh, honey, some of the stories I could tell you...
Like the one about what happened with the sister of the groom at a family wedding in Connecticut...
We don't need to go into that now. We shall stick with Oprah.
So. There was Hank, in high school, and every day these specific boys who were also students, would harangue him. Insult him. Call him vile names and so forth. Even threaten him. In other words, they were not raised right and were flaming haters of all things homosexual. 
(More on that later but you can guess where this goes.)

So somehow, some way, someone who worked for Oprah knew someone who had Tallahassee connections and had heard about Hank. Oprah wanted to put together a show about how openly out queer kids got treated at their schools by other students. 
And so, Hank was invited to be one of the participants, as were the flaming homosexual haters. 
When he told me about this, it was like, "So Mom, they're going to fly me to Chicago and send a limo to pick me up and put me in a room at a great hotel and everything's taken care of. Can I go?" And all of this was going to happen tomorrow. As in, the next day. 

Now I probably would have insisted on going with him but it just so happened that this was the exact same time May had been hit by a car on her way to school and was in the hospital recovering from multiple surgeries and it was a miracle she was alive. 
I can't talk about this without crying so we'll just move on from here.
So of course I was spending every waking hour with her at the hospital and none of her other parents could go so...despite my better judgement, I gave my permission and off Hank went to Chicago. I feel sure that I talked to someone who convinced me of the legitimacy of the situation. 
God, I hope so. As one can imagine, I was not really in my right mind at the time. And how could I have been?
I can't remember the exact timing but somehow I think the show with Hank aired before he got home although he well have been there with us and a bunch of us gathered in May's hospital room to watch it. Family. His friends. Our friends. The nurses...
May's nurse that day was a gay man and he popped into the room as much as possible, letting himself be as camp as all get-out and there in that room we all felt so proud of Hank for all the reasons and as his mother, I was overcome with what an amazing person my child was. 
Tearing up again. 
Of course.
The thing about those mean, ignorant boys was that their threats to Hank really had been serious and they threatened May, too, who although she did not go to the same high school, walked past it on the way to her own school. They knew she was Hank's sister and made her another target of their hate.
I had no idea how far this taunting and name-calling had gotten and as a mother, I was ashamed of not knowing that. 
Well. What's done is done and this is not about me. 

And Hank became something of a celebrity in the overall gay community of this part of the south and I was even recognized as being his mother! You're Hank's mother? Oh my god! 
And I was proud as I could be to say, Yes. Yes I am. 
And as these things go, one or more of those boys eventually crawled out of the closet themselves. And in a way, I feel so sorry for them because they were so afraid of being recognized for who they were that they had to hate someone else to hide their true nature, not only to others but to themselves. 

So that's the story of how Hank was on Oprah.
It was an experience and I'm so glad he got to have it although it is sad and tragic beyond belief that that show had to be made at all. 
But hey! Thanks, Oprah. 

All right. I believe I will go make our supper. Today was fine and once again, I did not mop the kitchen. I went to town and got some groceries and also stopped in at Oak Tree Treasures where everything in the store was half off and I bought two overblouses, one of them yet another white linen button up, a boatneck long-sleeved pink shirt and a bowl I'd had my eye on for quite awhile. 

What the heck is that flat part for? 

So you can rest it on its side while whisking or scraping something out of it. I may never use that feature but I like the bowl on its own merits. I think it will be a good bread-rising bowl. 

And look at what Mr. Moon has spent the last three days doing.

He's replaced the back porch steps with brand new ones. I think he's going to paint them with some sort of gritted coating to prevent slipping. 
Or something. 

That man. 
I have the best men in my life. And I know it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

History Of A Bathroom. Also A Possible Reason To Possibly Believe In The Simulation Theory

There. That picture is for Ms. Debby at Life's Funny Like That  who asked to see it. She said I'd probably posted it before and I have but a good Talavera sink is always worth another look. We got that in Mexico a long time ago and Glen put it in the...what IS that thing I have in my bathroom that's neither a counter nor a cabinet nor a vanity? I don't know. Some old piece of furniture that was repurposed. You can clearly see it in yesterday's post. 

I know I've posted about this too, but I call my beautiful bathroom "the bathroom that Oprah built." 
There is a reason for this. The man we bought this house from had been married to a writer named Connie May Fowler and they lived here together for quite some time but according to my across-the-street neighbors, one day she showed up when he was gone with a moving van and hauled everything out that she wanted and took off, never to be seen in Lloyd again. They divorced and we bought the house. 
The funny thing is, I had read and truly enjoyed several of Ms. Fowler's books. The first one I read was "River of Hidden Dreams." I thought it was a beautiful book. To this day I think it is my favorite although she wrote a nonfiction book called, "When Katie Wakes" which literally kept me up and reading until about four o'clock in the morning. I'll never forget that. We were on Dog Island and not too long after that, she actually wrote a book which mostly took place on a barrier island with a different name but which was, in fact, Dog Island. "Remember Blue." 
There were lots of mentions of places in Tallahassee and down on the coast which was interesting but I had to say that the novel did not light my fire. 
She even wrote one about living in this house. "How Clarissa Burden Learned To Fly." It is...well, interesting. I was SO excited to read it but it was just a little too odd for me. She mentions the Hilltop which is cool and her philandering husband, which she really did have, (I found proof of that when we moved in), and okay, a dwarf circus. In Lloyd. 
But Ms. Moon- how does Oprah come into this story?
Well. Connie May Fowler wrote another book which was published in 1996 titled, "Before Women Had Wings." Oprah read this book and decided she not only wanted to make a movie of it, she wanted to be in it. And she did and she was. 
I have no idea how much Ms. Fowler made from this whole thing but I have a strong feeling that some of the money, at least, went to building that bathroom. 
Both the book and the movie were gritty and filled with domestic abuse, alcoholism, child abuse, poverty, and suicide. 
Not a beach read, y'all! 
But I can definitely see why Oprah wanted to be involved with the making of a movie from it. 

WHAT IN HELL WAS I TALKING ABOUT?

Oh yeah. My bathroom. 

Here's another photo from my annual series of what the shadows and the light look like in the morning through the east-facing window of my bathroom. Those shadows are mostly made by the sun shining through bamboo and although I curse and revile it constantly, I look forward every year to this particular time when that curtain becomes a screen behind which the bamboo creates shadows which dance and sway and bring animation and life to what is usually one of the most pragmatic and utilitarian rooms in a house. 

Not my house, though. 

I am grateful to Connie May Fowler and Oprah Winfrey too for this room which I consider to be the best room in this house. 

So what else? I didn't get the kitchen mopped. 
Oh well. 
I did get the garden more thoroughly weeded and the last of the lettuce picked, washed, bagged, and put in the refrigerator. I also mulched using not only bags of leaves that Mr. Moon's friend gave him but also leaves that I raked in my front yard and toted to the garden. It's really so easy. I just lay down an old sheet and rake the leaves onto it and dump them in the garden cart. 

Here are a few pictures from the garden today. 

Here are the rattlesnake beans, snaking their way up the fence and trellis. I see buds on them. Soon I will be picking them and the canning jars will be put back into use. 

Garden roses. 

Big Boy tomatoes coming along nicely. 

Black cherry tomatoes. I can't wait to taste these. 

Snow peas illuminated like stained glass, only you can eat them. 

And I guess that's all. 

Tomorrow I shall surely mop the kitchen. Right? 

Oh, and by the way- guess where Connie May Fowler moved some years ago?
Cozumel. Where Mr. Moon and I bought that sink. A place I love with all my heart. 
WTF? 
I have no idea if she's still there or not. 
And to add just one more little tiny detail- Hank was once on Oprah too. Unfortunately, she did not make a movie about his life. 

Life is funny sometimes. Life is odd. And weird. 

So what else is new? 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dust To Dust And Dust I Did

That's the back of the dresser in my bathroom. 
As they sometimes say around here, the Lord put it on my heart to clean that room today, having been motivated by the dust I'd seen. And now don't get me wrong- there was enough dust to make a decent housecleaner cringe but certainly not enough to panic. I had a few more years before reaching Miss Havisham levels of neglect. 
Yeah. I know. Low bar. Still. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. 
Here's what the wall behind the dresser looked like. 

Could have used some better lighting but staging a dusty wall seems rather ridiculous. 

Some of you were concerned that what I was dealing with was not dust but in fact, black mold. As you can see in the above photo, that is dust, for sure and for real. Let us compare it to the dust on an open shelf in the kitchen which again, I should be ashamed to show you. 

Obviously I have no shame. Well, that's a lie. I do have shame but it's certainly not about dust. 

Now am I saying that there is no mold or mildew in my bathroom?

I would be a stone cold liar if I did say that. 

This is Florida and we have mold and we have mildew. I believe that what I have on my bathroom walls is mildew, not mold but I am not sure. Either way, if one or both of those things could kill me I would be dead, dead, dead. 
Nor do I have respiratory problems. Or allergic reactions. So I think I'm good. I do need to get whatever it is off my bathroom wall but I am sort of at a stalemate with my beloved because I think it is definitely time to paint the rooms and it is simply not a priority to Mr. Moon. Of course in the prepping of the walls to paint, they would be cleaned. 
Now. Go ahead and tell me I'm a grown-ass woman and I can hire painters myself and I will tell you that yes, I am without a doubt a grown-ass woman but I will remind you that Mr. Moon was a painter when I met him and as I have so often stated, this man does not want to pay anyone to do what he could do himself which is fine if he DID these things himself. 
He does do a lot of things. For instance- right now he's working on replacing the back porch steps. He did this several years ago but it appears that pressure treated wood is not what it used to be. Now a broken step IS a priority because one or both of us could kill ourselves on it. This is not a joke. 

Most of all, I think I have just reached a point in my life where I do not enjoy roiling the waters. Glen and I are probably happier and sweeter with each other than we ever have been and we were always pretty sweet with each other and certainly happy enough to stay married all these years. 

Compromise, compromise, compromise. 

And kiss a lot. 

So. A small discussion about mold turned into a larger discussion about marriage which is pretty typical around here at blessourhearts because yes, bless our hearts! And I mean that in the real way, not the way you say it when someone keeps dating jerks who don't have jobs. 

Anyway, yes, I cleaned behind that dresser and I took all the rugs out of the bathroom and shook them and set them on the porch swing because the bathroom opens up to the porch swing porch and I dusted all the furniture (there is actual furniture in that bathroom) and threw out some stuff I knew I'd never use, hoping to reduce the clutter.

And yes, that is reduced clutter and don't you judge me. I love every bit of that stuff. 
Bless my heart. 

I took everything out of the bathroom I could manage to move and swept the floors and then...
Oh baby. I mopped. 
I surely did and the ethereal smell of Fabuloso and vinegar scent the air. 

You want to hear something funny? I keep my mop bucket outside by the old water pump shed, upside down on the fence and when I turned it over to use it, I discovered that a wasp had gone to the trouble to create a little nest. 

The wasps who do this are obviously genius architects. They make the nests from wood fiber chewed up with saliva. 
That's like saying the Egyptians made the pyramids with stones. 
Can you see the little eggs in there?

I cruelly removed the nest from the bucket and put it in my compost and what happens to those eggs now is not my business. 

I was going to then mop the kitchen but things arose which prevented me from getting that done. 
Oh well. 
I can do it tomorrow. Lord knows another day isn't going to make much difference. 

It's going to get down into the low fifties here tonight and I am excited! Hurray! Another night in which I can burrow under covers. Although it was overcast all day, there is no rain in sight for at least another week. 

I said in a few comments that I would be discussing why I haven't taken out all the sago palms in this yard since I obviously hate them so but really- who cares? The simple answer is that they are beasts to remove and yes, we could just cut them to the ground but since the area where we have the most of them is right in front of the front porch, the remaining stumps would take up so much space that I don't quite know what we'd plant there. 

I shall survive their spears and arrows. Oh wait. Slings and arrows. All three. Whatever.

Love...Ms. Moon

How's It Going? Pretty Good.

 

The chair is HERE!
As you can see, Mr. Moon is quite pleased with it and look how long it is! His feet do not hang over the edge. Well, not much anyway. It is a very large chair. 
Of course I had to try it out which made me feel like Edith Ann. Remember Edith Ann? She was a character from a bit Lily Tomlin used to do. 
Here's what I look like in the new chair. 

Absurd. My feet don't come anywhere near the floor when it's in the upright position. 
Oh well. It's not my chair. He did offer to let me use it again if I ever break any more ribs. I thanked him but told him I don't plan on that happening. Then again, that is not the sort of thing one plans on, is it? 

Gawd. I feel so boring this evening. I worked outside again today, this time on the bed beside the kitchen porch where I've got herbs planted along with a lot of other things. I cleared more border grass and had planned to plant zinnias in part of the cleared area but discovered that I only had about eight zinnia seeds leftover from when I planted the rest in the garden. I could have gone to the GDDG to get more but was too lazy. 
And tired. 
So I planted the eight seeds and also some more Thai basil seeds. I watered it all in and now we shall see what happens. 
If anything. 
I cleared the border grass from around the damn stupid sago palm and found two more baby plants that had sprouted. To the burn pile they went! The sago got me back by slicing a nice two inches or so of my arm where the skin is so thin now as to be about as protective as Kleenex. But not quite. 
So I bled of course and I learned something today which is that I do not like the sight of my blood pooling up either on dirt or overalls. I do not like that at all. So I came in, washed it all up and slapped a big honkin' bandaid on it. 
Problem solved. 

See the murder plant there in the left foreground? I trimmed it within an inch of its life a few months ago but unfortunately, it has new growth coming out under all that mess at the top. 

I sort of feel as if all of my effort today was a big waste of time but I have discovered that the gardenia bush I planted in there years ago may bloom for the first time this year. It was a mere twig when I planted it and it has taken its own sweet time in producing buds.

See the tender little thing? 
Come on, baby! You can do this! 
There are several other baby buds lurking in their own green leaf hiding places. 
I do love the scent of a gardenia. Rather magical, I think. Different than the beautiful scents of the magnolia and tea olive, but perfect in its own gardenia way. 

So speaking of Mr. Moon (which I frequently am), I believe he is determined to kill me. 

He decided to do some yard work himself today and that involved him using his branch-trimming device on limbs that stretch over the garden in order to get more sun on it. Now this picture does not show the entire story. That ladder was set up in the bed of his truck in order to get more height. 
This man should not be climbing ladders anywhere, ever, at this point in his life. 
"Please don't do that," I told him. 
"Don't worry. It's not a power tool," he told me. 
And that would make a difference how? 
I just watched him for a moment, said, "This is not a good idea," and walked back to the house. 

He lived. 

He also started the burn pile (the really huge one of the two we have) which caused the fire department to stop by and tell him that we're on a burn ban due to the drought. I didn't even see them! 
"Did they yell at you?" I asked. 
"Nah. They just told me to keep an eye on it."

Jefferson County, Florida where they trust a man to know how to control his burn pile. 

Sigh.

Life in Lloyd. So I guess it's been an exciting day and a rather unexciting day at the same time. Depends on your definition of both of those words. 

I did actually start doing a little glaze painting on the leaf platter I made in pottery some weeks ago but it looks like shit. So that wasn't very thrilling. 

There is plenty more yard work to be done around here of course, and I am not opposed to doing more of it tomorrow. In fact, I would like that very much. I did discover a few days ago, however, that there is an entire forest of the special Lloyd black, rather oily dust (I blame the train that goes by every day in our back yard and which has been going by for about 170 years) behind the dresser in my bathroom. It is coating the dresser and the wall. I should be ashamed to admit this but I am not. I have never once pretended to be much of a housecleaner. I am a housekeeper in my own way but cleaning? Not so much. The amount of dust is almost thrilling and I am sort of excited at the prospect of tackling it. Do you know that feeling? Like, I'll be doing something that truly makes a difference. It's disgusting and quite interesting at the same time. While I'm at it, I probably should take out all the rugs and give the floor a good sweeping which I do not mind doing at all but really, I should also mop and for whatever reason, mopping is not on my list of even vaguely enjoyable activities. The kitchen floor reached the point of desperately needing mopping about a month ago so there's that too. 
I need and would hire a cleaner but after my last experience with that situation, I have just not been motivated. It's easier to (not) do it myself. 

Here's today's attempt to learn more about how to use the camera on my new phone. 

I should probably start trying out different functions but I'm a little obsessed now. Eventually, I will watch some videos on how to use the camera so as to utilize more of its abilities. 

Hey! Did you hear that the Strait of Hormuz will never, ever, EVER again be shut down? It's true! Trump said it! 
Oh. 
Wait. 
It's shut down again. 
Get this asshole the fuck out of here along with the all of the horses on whose backs he rode in on. 

I'm going to go use some leftovers to make what I am certain will become more leftovers. It is, as I have said, my superpower.

We all need one, you know.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. 

This is one of my very most favorite songs in the entire world, especially sung by Ibrahim Ferrer. I was introduced to it on the album "Buena Vista Social Club" which Ry Cooder produced and which, in my opinion, is a masterpiece of almost-lost music made by Cuban musicians who deserve to be known to the entire world, many of whom have now gone on to that great group of musicians in the sky from throughout history who greeted them with open arms and open hearts and the music began again but now even sweeter with their presence. 
Close your eyes and just take it in.

Or not.

Explanation

After reading comments on yesterday's post, I realize I was not clear about the floor situation. 

The pictures I've been posting of the beautiful wood flooring were taken of the work Glen himself has done on the floors upstairs in the cabin. There are two bedrooms up there in which he has replaced the flooring and he has done a great job on them. 
As you have seen. 
The flooring with the issues is he downstairs floor which is concrete. When we bought the cabin, that floor was covered in very old, very nasty carpet and we have gone back and forth about what to replace that with. Ripping the carpet out was one of the first things Glen did to the house. 
We finally decided to go with a process to smooth and even out the concrete and finish it in a color (in our case, green) with a bit of grit in it to hopefully help prevent falls. Compared to other over-concrete flooring solutions it can be done quickly and relatively inexpensively. And one would hope, be fine as a floor. Rugs can be used, and so forth.

Something like tile but far easier to get done and far less expensive too. 

This is the floor that vastly disappointed Glen after its completion. 
And now we shall see if the business owner can come through with what he promised as to how the results should look because as of now, they do not.

Is that clearer? 

The upstairs floors are still beautiful. 
The downstairs floors are not. Never were, still aren't. 
Sigh.

Ms. Moon

A GOOD Friday, According To My Definition

Today was an excellent Friday. For me, at least. Mr. Moon had some bumps in his road though, specifically the fact that the floor he just had done completely disappointed him.
As in- he will not be able to live with it. He'll end up laying vinyl fake wood flooring over it if the floor guys can't get it far more to his satisfaction. And I understand that. There's a feeling we get in our guts when certain things happen that are not what we thought would happen and it causes not only deep frustration but also anger. Now as you probably know by now, Glen Moon does not vent his anger. I don't think I've ever heard him raise so much as his voice in anger. This does not mean he doesn't get angry. We all do. 
But he chooses to deal with it in a calm and non-threatening way. 
So he left the cabin and drove up to Cairo, Georgia where he wanted to look at a chair he thought might be the one to replace his recliner and he called me from the parking lot and asked me to just let him vent and of course I did. 
He was absolutely not wrong to be unhappy with the way the floor turned out. It was nothing like what had been promised. And I could tell he was really upset. And he needed to be able to talk about it. 
He ended up making notes about the problems he was seeing in order of importance and then texted the owner of the business and had him call so that they could discuss it. 
From a distance. 
And they did. 
So that was Glen's morning. He did, however, buy the chair and they will deliver it tomorrow. I think he is very happy about that. 

I spent way too much time this morning just reading blogs and commenting and doing stuff like that but when I got going, I got going. I did the laundry, including the sheets and hung everything on the line. Of course Maurice came to lay in the shade and keep me company. 

I watered the porch plants and some outside plants and I set the little funky sprinkler on the kitchen garden. It is so very dry and crunchy here right now. The forecast doesn't call for so much as a drop of rain in the coming week and the plants get so thirsty. So do the birds who seem to love to dance in the sprinkler, stretching their wings to catch the water which is a pretty thing to see. 

And then I finally got some work done in the garden. I did a little weeding and I did some mulching. At last! Things are coming along.
 

Here we have a very young bell pepper. The problem with my peppers and eggplants is that as always, the plants themselves do not seem to want to grow very large. I always call them my bonsai peppers and bonsai eggplants. What am I doing wrong? And yes, we do fertilize.
But the tomatoes are coming along and several are making tomatoes. The cucumbers and squash which are also in grow bags this year look pretty good although of course the bugs and mildews and so forth have not had time to take hold. The potatoes look great. See above. And the rattlesnake beans are climbing the fence. Can you see them?

It made me so happy to be back in the garden. Almost each and every plant becomes familiar to me and I silently cheer them on as they grow, flower and fruit. It's like it almost has nothing to do with the hopefully eventual harvests. Now if we depended on our food garden to actually feed us, it would be a different matter and I would not have the luxury of simply being invested in the growing of what we plant and would be far more concerned with what those plants produced. 
I know this. It can be a hobby rather than a live-or-die situation. 

We've got plenty of space to put in our field peas and need to go to the Waukeenah Fertilizer and Farm store to get the peas to plant. 
And yes, Waukeenah is a real place here in Jefferson County although like Lloyd, is not really a town but rather a community. And it is located not far from the Wacissa. 
After I did my weeding and mulching, I turned the garden sprinklers on and just a little while ago, Glen and I went out to turn them off and do a slow tour. We put tomato cages on a few of the tomatoes which have grown enough to need them and we noted the way the Thai basil from last year reseeded and is coming up nicely. We saw a bee, hovering about the little sprouts and I am sure she was on a reconnaissance mission to see how last year's favorite bee attractor was coming along. 

A day in which I spend a lot of time outside is the best sort of day for me and I feel all the better for having one of those. I brought the laundry in and made up the bed with the clean sheets, dried in the sun and the breeze and tonight's sleep will benefit from that. 

I did kick bamboo and there was not so much. I probably missed some but that's the way it goes. 
The smell of the star jasmine, aka Confederate Jasmine, is strong in the air. I discovered that somehow the climbing vine has made its way all the way up into the old oak in the front yard. Another invasive situation.

That is actually way, way up in the tree, taken with the pretty darn good telephoto capability of my new phone camera. Although the blossoms smell sweet, they can, like so many of the invasives, choke a plant to death. I'm not sure how this one made its way to the oak tree from the fence where I stupidly planted it, but it has. And honestly, the scent can be completely overpowering. 
I tried to take a picture of one of the very small blossoms. I'm not completely satisfied, but here it is.

The flower is barely the size of a dime. 

I am truly trying to learn how to use this new camera and I am learning but I realize I'm not nearly there. Still, I think I'm on the road to getting it. 

That is a chive blossom. Did you know that chives have blossoms? 

Here we have some roses.

I should probably do some reading on how all of this works. What I have found is that instead of bring the camera lenses close to an object and then tapping it to bring it all into focus, I have to bring the lens (just one) as close to the object as I can and have it focus there, then widen the image with the telephoto function. The image appears to stay in focus, even as I widen it, and that's what seems to work. 
It is so interesting. 

Good Lord. I better go make us some supper. 

Happy Friday, ya'll. 

Love...Ms. Moon