Kinda, Sorta Sick

The tomatoes are finally starting to get color. I'd say we'll be eating a ripe tomato this week. For a gardener, this is a peak experience. It would be so lovely if we got enough this year to make at least a few bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. Which must be eaten on white bread, of course. With mayonnaise. Or in Mr. Moon's case, Miracle Whip. 
I don't see the point in the lettuce part of the sandwich though and I skip it on mine. It is nothing but a distraction, a dilution, a taking-away of the very essence of what the sandwich is about which is the juicy burst of warm tomato with a crispy piece of fried salty bacon. The bread must be white because again, grains and nuts and seeds and all those fibrous, nutritious things are a distraction. 
It's all about the purity and simplicity of the tastes, combined so as to enhance and compliment each other. Don't be throwing a bunch of other flavors and textures in there. That's just wrong. 

So I figured out why I took such a long nap yesterday- by golly I was coming down with something. I started feeling pretty shitty about the time I was making supper and went to bed early. I slept forever and when I got up I still felt like crap. I haven't done a damn thing today and that's okay. I even took another nap. I don't have a lot of cold symptoms or any real aches or pains, just watery eyes that feel a little achy and my skin feels fever-sensitive and I do have a tiny bit of a fever. Just enough to barely register. But no energy at all. 
I planned to work on my leaf platter while taking it easy but I didn't even have the energy to take that on. My other choice of an activity would be to do needlework of some kind while watching television but just the thought of having to pick something out to watch made me exhausted. 
So, okay. I did pick beans but I HAD to. And it was still coolish and there weren't too many. 

Now of course they're starting to fill the refrigerator and I need to can them but again- oh god. Not now. Maybe tomorrow. It's not that challenging an activity. And boy does it make me feel productive. 

So I just finished reading (with my ears) a novel by Kiran Desai. The title is "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" and it's quite long. At first I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to hang in with it. There are so many characters and it can get confusing but Desai is a fine author and there were times I just let a thing or two go and caught it back up later like a skipped stitch in a piece of knitting that you can go back and pick up. The two main characters, unsurprisingly, are Sunny and Sonia, both from India, both who go to the United States for an education who meet each other back at home in India. Sonia's grandfather had actually approached Sunny's family for an arranged marriage between the two of them when they were still quite young, but that did not come close to happening when the idea was presented. 

I won't go into it all. I'll just say that there was some beautiful writing, there were twists and there were turns, there was an insane artist, there was time spent in Mexico as well as New York City and of course, in India. I loved the way Desai was able to weave so many things together and with a bit of this and a bit of that (including a tiny bit of magical realism), the story unfolded like a, well...magnolia blossom. 

One of my favorite things in the book is what a widowed woman says several times when she is addressing her deceased husband which was something like, "I am going get old and die before I ever have my happiness!" 
I feel like I can think about that statement in many ways and I've never, ever thought of life that way- that we have a period of time when life is just hard and a struggle but if all goes as it should, there will come a time of sweetness, of happiness.

And what I keep coming back to is that I have had my happiness and I do have my happiness and the best thing about it is that I am aware of it. That I recognize it, I acknowledge it, I cherish it. And of course that happiness, that sweetness, does not show up as winning the lottery or going on a dream vacation. It appears as one tiny thing after another, one little spark or spot of beauty, of goodness, of humor, of humbleness, of unexpected joy, of a song played at just the right time, as the perfect tomato and bacon sandwich, as a line in a book that hits you in the heart. 
But you have to slow down enough to take these things in. We have to pay attention. 
We have to look up. 
And you know- we have to look down, as well. Sometimes I despair at all I know I am missing in the immediate world around me. 
Oh, Ms. Moon, how you do go on.

Here's today's magnolia picture.

That's one of the two Glen brought home yesterday. The one I picked three days ago has turned a soft, velvety brown but I am leaving it where it is for now. It still makes me happy. It is part of my happiness.

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Sleepy Saturday With Children, Grandchildren And Tofu

This is what the magnolia blossom looked like this morning. The stamens were dropping, as they do. I swear, I am not sure where they all come from. 

They look like small matchsticks and they fall so fast you can see them as they exit the womblike interior. They spill all over whatever surface they are sitting on and then onto the floor below. And the flower still smells like heaven. 

I haven't done a damn thing today except go to lunch with my darlings. Everyone was there except for Mr. Moon and May and Michael. Those two are in Georgia for a Michael's family gathering. We missed all three of those people but it was a good-sized table of us anyway. 
Lily and Lauren had gotten up early to take Maggie to her last softball game and Jessie and Vergil had taken their two to see a performance of Peter and the Wolf done by a local ballet school and company. I can remember going to see May dance with that same company when she was a little. At last my memory tells me she danced in it. 
She was the most beautiful dancer. 
Gibson had been on his eighth grade field trip to Universal Studios and had gotten home at 5 a.m. so he was exhausted. 
And Hank and Rachel had just been to see Melissa to get their hair cut so everyone had been up and out and busy all morning while I...had not been. 
We chose to go to Koyoto which used to be Japanica! but has been completely redone. I remember us taking the grands there when Owen was just a little guy and Gibson even younger. Even then they loved sushi and miso soup and they still do. 
Speaking of Owen...

He sat right across from me and I kept putting food on his plate from my Bento box because there was no way I could eat it all. It brought me right back to all those years ago when I'd feed him bits of food from my plate when he was just a baby bird. 
That's probably weird, isn't it? 
Oh well. It's okay. 
At one point today I looked at him and said, "Owen, you're just..." and Lily said, "Enormous?"
"Well, huge," I said. 
Let us just say that he's going to be a giant among men. 

We had a really nice time and the tofu I got was probably the best I've ever eaten in my life. I think it was silken tofu, lightly fried with a crispy coating of something white. I should know what but I don't. It also had the most amazing teriyaki sauce with it. 

After lunch there had to be pictures taken of course.

Look at those bebes! I told August that I really liked his shoes and socks. He said that since they'd been going to the ballet he'd dressed up. I also told Levon that I like his shirt. 
"I knew you would," he said with the calm assurance of a man of the world as of course he is. As you can see, he's wearing his gold chain and I gave him the pearls I got him right before they left. I wonder if he'll wear them. Probably, if I know that kid. But I did tell him that if he didn't really like them, he didn't have to. I asked August to please tell me something he might want that I could find in my thrifting. He said that he's thinking about getting his ears pierced for his eleventh birthday and would probably like some earrings. I'll get him good ones for that, though, if he does decide to do it. 

Maggie is getting so tall that I wanted a picture of the two of us together to show that.

You can see the reflection of Gibson in the window as he takes the picture. 
Shall we take bets on long it is before Maggie too towers over me? August is getting there and Levon? Well, that's about to happen. As I've said before, Jessie stayed little for a long time and then all of a sudden, she was like the tallest kid in class. 
Moon genes. They are inescapable. Not to mention that Vergil's side of the family are all tall people too. 
And I'm not saying that being tall is a prerequisite for a good and happy life. I never, ever in my wildest dreams imagined marrying and having children with a man who was as tall as Glen Moon and so seeing these children become so very tall is just sort of shocking to me. I was part of this? 
Yes. It would appear I was.

And then I came home and for some unknown reason I was just too tired to do anything except lay down and take a nap. I thought I'd sleep for about forty-five minutes and ended up sleeping for about an hour and a half. I have no idea why. Am I dying? 
I hope not. 

Glen got home a little while ago bearing two magnolia blossoms he'd stopped and picked for me and five pounds of fresh shrimp. 
Now that is a good man. 

I've put the magnolias in a vase but will put them in separate vases when the other one I want to use comes out of the dishwasher. Those flowers are too big to share one vase when they open. 

And one last thing- as I was doing my daily stroll through the garden, I found this.

Now how the heck I've missed it is a mystery to me. I check those volunteer squash plants daily. I think, however that we can now say I am growing acorn squash. 
Lots of acorn squash. 

Pretty cool. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Living In Lloyd Ain't So Bad

I slept in this morning and as you can see, Maurice slothed it up longer than I did. Eventually she managed to arise and of course she wanted her morning treat which is usually about ten Temptations but this morning I gave her a little bit of what Mark had bought for her when we were gone which is something called a "lickable treat" that comes in a pouch and is squeezed out. It's like really thick gravy or a paste or something. I have no idea how much Mark gave her but I only gave her about half a tablespoon and boy, did she love it. 
Yes. Yes she did. Mark probably put it ON her Temptations but I am not as sweet as he is. 

I really didn't get much of anything done today but I feel no shame. None whatsoever. Of course I hung the bed linens on the line after washing them because it's been a beautiful day and I do enjoy that. Both the doing of it and the results.

Perfect drying on the line day. 

I spent a little bit of time in the garden. I knew I was going to Tallahassee at some point to pick up my hormones. Every time I write or say that word I think of Ninny (Jessica Tandy) in "Fried Green Tomatoes" telling Evelyn (Kathy Bates), "Honey, you just need you some hormones!" What a great book by Fannie Flag and what a great movie. If you're in a book club and y'all haven't read that one, I can't think of a better choice.
So knowing I was going to town I didn't start any projects but when I called to see if my prescription was ready the woman who answered said, "Yes, but it's not REALLY going to be ready until later in the afternoon."
Say what? 
"About how late in the afternoon?" I asked. 
"Oh, definitely by four."
Well, hell. 
I then planned to go do some more clearing out of crocosmia choked beds but before I got to that, I got a text from the pharmacy saying that my prescription was ready for pick-up. Could we get a little communication here? I needed to eat lunch first and oh, you know how these things go. 

I stopped by Publix on my way home from that little chore and got myself some salmon (Honey, you just need you some salmon!) and when I got home I shelled the overly mature snow peas I'd picked this morning. I really had no idea if the peas of the snow peas would be fit to eat but they are indeed quite sweet. It took me at least twenty minutes to shell them and this is the entire haul. 

Plenty for one serving. 
And by the way, that is one of my favorite little bowls. I have two. If the thrift store where I bought them had had ten of them, I would have bought every one. So I'm going to cook those peas and also some of our scabby potatoes and make a nice little white sauce to go on them and I'll cook my salmon with lemon juice and dill which is the way I like it. Simple and to the point. 

Mr. Moon decided to head to the coast to help his friend work on his trolling motor tonight instead of getting up early tomorrow to make the drive. I talked to him and he said that he needs to get back into floor-laying-shape condition because he is tired. He sounded rather merry though. 

I took a few pictures when I was in the garden this morning. 

I got all the way down on the ground to take this baby eggplant's picture. It's not as big as the end of my thumb. I think it's pretty though. 

The black cherry tomatoes are blowing me away. I just think they're beautiful. I have yet to eat a ripe one. How do I know when they're ripe? 

And of course, a stroll in the garden would not be complete without my orange familiar.

I think she really likes the pine straw mulch I put down yesterday. She dug around in it a little while and made a little wallowed-out nest. I wonder if she likes the smell of it?

My magnolia tree finally gave me a bloom close enough for me to pick and I did. It had already started its evening closing but was still open enough to show me its complex and fascinating reproductive parts. 

I put it in a vase on the hallway vanity altar. 

And this is what it looks like now, having closed its eyes and pulled its covers up for the night. 

It will open back up tomorrow and will be finished with this cold, cruel world in another day or so. While it's still here though, I will be able to catch its scent every time I walk past it. I just read online that the magnolia grandiflora flower is one of the oldest forms of flowers still alive and the article went on to describe a bunch of technical stuff about the botanical purposes of it all but I don't really want to know that. It's a magic flower and that's enough for me. 

Having made up the bed with the clean sheets and the freshly washed cotton muslin gauze blanket, the whole room now smells of that ineffable element of breezes which have traveled through green leaves after being heated by the sun. 

If I were a real photographer I would have taken that fan out of the frame and probably the Tums container too. I can't remember the last time I took a Tums in the middle of the night but it's there if I want it while the fan is used every night of the year, no matter the temperature. Dead of winter? 
Fan on, baby. 

Okay. So clean sheets checked off the list. Martini? 
You bet. 

I'm going to go cook some peas and potatoes and salmon. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

But First, Here's A Message From Our Sponsor. Haha! There Is No Sponsor

Today has been one darn distraction after another, or what we call around here, the but-firsts.
For example- the picture you see above is the one I got at the Thrift Bendy Man shop and I wanted to hang it. Finding the correct place to hang something around here can be a little complicated. First off, just finding space to hang something isn't easy. I tend to hang things on walls that many people wouldn't even consider hanging on their wall but many people hang things on their walls that I would never consider hanging on mine so there you go.
Also, and more importantly, I have to feel as if whatever I am hanging wants to be where I put it. I do not mean this literally but I think you get my drift. It must somehow fit in. At least according to my definition of fitting in. Glen just holds things up in a space and says, "What about here?" and I'm like, "Oh GOD no. I'll do it." 
Now to add to the problem of where to hang that rather silly picture I wanted to be able to tuck in the golden cotton burrs that Liz from Field and Fen sent me when she sent me the sweet golden orange boxes that I posted about two days ago. 
I really love those gold cotton burrs and I had to look up what they are called. I have probably seen hundreds of acres of cotton growing in fields that we've passed on the highway but I've never truly studied the plant and certainly did not know what the brown part of the boll in which the cotton is nestled is called. 

And Liz (or Boud as she is generally known here in Bloglandia), because she is who she is which is a curious person who finds art to be made everywhere, took some of the burrs she grew and gilded them gold. And it seemed to me that they should get pride of place atop the Spanish dancers. 

I finally decided today that I would like to hang the picture and the burrs right next to where I sit on the porch to write but it wasn't as easy as just hammering a little nail in and hanging a picture on it because when I truly looked, I realized that wall was dusty as hell and had its share of spider webs. Also the other things I have hanging on it were filthy. FILTHY I tell you. Which led to me pulling the table out and taking down those other pieces and washing them. 

Much, much better. May gave me this. More Talavera and one of my favorite things in the world.  

And while the things were soaking in sudsy water, I broom-brushed the wall and yes, it desperately needs painting and so does everything else in and on this house but that's another topic altogether. 
And then this led to me sweeping the entire porch and getting at the spider webs and of course there had to be a little tidying going on so that's what a but-first is. 
I wanted to hang my picture but first...
Phew.

An interior decorator or most likely even a person with a lick of taste would cringe at all that but whatever. 

I am happy. 

And I did laundry and while I was doing that I was making the bed and then I hung something in my closet and while I was doing that I thought about how many things were in the closet that just don't fit me anymore and I needed to winnow which led to me taking things out of the closet and trying to decide whether I wanted to donate each item or get it altered. I have some dresses that I love so much I don't want to give them up and I have some dresses that I love even more that I want to go into regular rotation again. So that took awhile. I've posted on FaceBook, which is a rare thing, asking for suggestions for a good alterations person. I thought I had one but the last few things she did for me did not really make me happy. 
Plus I'm a little afraid of her.

And while I was moving about the house, but-firsting this and but-firsting that trying to get back to the original plan, I kept finding little things that needed doing like toilet cleaning and oh yes, the laundry room needed sweeping and so did the kitchen and I seemed to already have my broom in hand so...

Next I wanted to plant one of my Roseland succulents in a pot where I had, as I thought I did, some of the same plant I'd also dug there a few trips ago and I decided that pot needed to go on the back porch steps where it would get more light and I moved the succulent pot there and transplanted the little darling I intended to plant in it. This reminded me that I had a monstera in the library that needed moving to the front porch. I thought to do it last week but the pot seemed pretty heavy to me so I figured I'd get Glen to do it but I didn't and today I figured I could just do it myself and I did. 

And all of these things were but-firsts that I did before I did what I had planned to do today which was to weed in the garden. 
I was finally ready to do that BUT FIRST I needed to pick green beans and I did and then I finally got on my knees and did a little micro-weed pulling and then I did some mulching. This time with pine straw. 

I realized, when I had my fingers in the dirt that despite all the rain we got on Tuesday, the ground was dry. I'll water tomorrow. 

Here's a few pictures from the garden.

Zinnia. 

Different zinnia. 

A nice bunch of tomatoes and why are they taking so long to get ripe? 
Come on, babies. Ripen up before one of these fuckers grows up and starts destroying you. 

Tiny, tiny baby hornworm. To give you some scale, those brown "sticks" the leaf is on are pine needles. 
And yes, I did indeed squash that alien-looking creature after I took its picture. 
And I know if there's one, there's a bunch more. 

Sigh. 

It's been such a beautiful day and even though I didn't get anything major accomplished, I did accomplish a lot of little things. 
Unlike Mr. Moon who got up very early and drove to the cabin and just sent me this picture of what he's been doing. 

Laying more of that beautiful flooring upstairs. He'll be gone until Saturday evening. He's going to the coast on Saturday morning early to help his friend Alan fix a trolling motor.
I think. 
The man never stops. 
Unlike me. I stop frequently. 

I think I'll go heat up some leftovers. 

But first.

Not a one of you needs to watch this but it's another example of some old boys who never stop, never stop, never, never ever stop.

And this was about ten years ago which means they were the age I am now. 

Okay. That's all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

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