This Is How We Do It

Well, here are the Weatherford/Hartmann kids which of course means the Moon grand-kids with their Easter booty and being part of this family, things were not exactly what we might call traditional.
What is Owen wearing?

And what is Gibson wearing?

Well, you see- Owen is Good Easter and Gibson is Bad Easter and as the younger kids raced about finding their eggs, Gibson would chase them and if he touched one, they had to freeze. Like Freeze Tag only for Easter and in costumes. 
Makes sense, right?
And the frozen person could not move until Good Easter Owen came and touched them and they could resume their racing about in search of eggs. 

I am not sure where this idea came from, nor do I know where the costumes came from but they're pretty hysterical. It did add interest to what can become a rather boring tradition over the years. The little kids loved it. Many eggs were found, most of them plastic with candy or money in them but there were some really truly dyed eggs too. 

Those were made into deviled eggs and since Lauren brought some she'd made, there were plenty for all.

Lauren has recently just become the deli manager at the same Publix where Lily works. She's been a deli manager for a long time but they move her around when things need shaking up and tightened up. This is a cool move for her because that Publix is very close to their house whereas the one she was working at was way over in Student Land by FSU. 
Cool, Lauren!

When May and Jessie got here, I gave them both lovely aprons to wear with their Easter finery. Here's May in hers, making her salad.

I did not get a full-on picture of Jessie in her fancy apron but here she makes an appearance in a picture I took of Lily and her eldest son.

Every time I see Owen I cry. How is this possible? 

We surely did miss Rachel and Hank. Rachel is doing quite well. Her incision is healing up nicely and the pain for which she got the surgery in the first place is better than before surgery and is supposed to improve as time goes on. Which is wonderful but I know she's bored out of her skull. Well, Hank told me that. "She's bored out of her skull," he said. 

Jessie and Vergil dropped off some of the dinner for them on their way home and here is what the meal looked like.

Do you like the serving dishes? 

It was a beautiful meal but not really overwhelming. By the time we'd eaten and people got their leftovers to take home, there wasn't much left. And I am proud that so much of it was homegrown. The lettuces in the salad, the peas, the collard and mustard greens. The deviled eggs were from a neighbor of Jessie's who has chickens. The bread and the biscuits were made with love as was everything else, really. 
But you may ask- what biscuits?

Y'all, I made a rather huge batch of biscuits, my biggest skillet full, and those things disappeared in a red hot second. 
Excuse me while I say, "They were fucking amazing."

Here we are at table. 

All except for these three who agreed to eat on a quilt picnic style. 

"Maggie," I said, "Do you really want to be remembered forever for having a biscuit in your mouth at Easter?"
"Yes," she said. "I do."

The kids had all been playing whiffle ball in the backyard before we got the meal on the table and afterwards too. They are going to sleep good tonight. 
Guess who else is going to sleep good tonight?

Xena, aka Large Marge. It looks like her eyes are open there but they aren't. She was already crashed out. She was a pretty good girl, considering she's still very much a puppy. She didn't jump on people, she sort of responds to commands, and she is absolutely filled with the joy of life. She was in ecstasy, playing ball with the kids, racing around the back yard.

Before everyone left, we had a Gibson birthday cake with candles ceremony, "Happy Birthday" being sung in our usual, uh, enthusiastic way. 

Our beautiful Gibson. Our sweet, sweet boy. 
He, too, towers over me now. 

Before everyone left, I told Lauren that I had something I needed to tell her. 
"You're mad because I didn't make the sweet potato casserole?"
"No. That was just a mild disappointment. What I wanted to tell you was," and here I lowered my voice, "My favorite part of the entire meal was your ambrosia salad."
I was not lying. 
I will go on about our healthy garden foods and I mean every word I say about them but I'd be a damn liar if I did not admit that Lauren's "salad" with baby marshmallows, pecans, coconut, maraschino cherries, pineapple and probably Cool Whip was the food on my plate that I saved until last because I wanted to keep that sweetness with me as long as I could. 

So it was a great day and I got to see all the grandchildren and get a little love from each and give back as much as they let me. I look around me and I see all these smiling beautiful faces and I hear our laughter as we discuss the profound and profane, the cosmic and the comic, recent events and long-ago memories. Oh, the memories. 
I feel like okay, maybe I didn't screw it all up. 
And when Owen hugs me, which he often does, he always says, "I love you Mer," and I think, "Yeah. I got a few things right." 

But I will say, as I always must- they were born this way. 
And how incredibly fortunate I am. 

Okay. So. Ms. Moon- what was your Easter outfit? Did you gussy up and be all fancy?
Well of course.
I wore my great-grandmother's pearls. What could be fancier than that? 

God I have a lot of shit hanging around my house. 

I wonder if it's time for a ham sandwich yet? I will ponder that. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Mermer Gets Ready For A Gathering

It is not at all unusual for someone who grows a garden to feel the need to check it daily, sometimes even more often. 
I have even done this reconnaissance with a flashlight when I've come  home from a little trip after dark. 
So yesterday evening, Mr. Moon and I took a stroll out to our garden so that he could check the progress of what we've planted and he could see what I've planted during his absence. All looks pretty good but then he noticed the little nymph grasshoppers you can see in that photo above. That's a potato plant they're having a jamboree on. I write about these nymphs every year because they always show up in numbers like that. I have seen what must be hundreds before. They will eventually grow into the Georgia Thumper grasshopper and I talk about those every year too. Some people call them Eastern Lubbers but I've always heard Georgia Thumper. 
Whatever you call them, they are huge. Like so big that if you'd never seen one before and then came across one, you might doubt your eyes.

(Picture from a Facebook page for the Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Program.)

They're common around here and they can tear up a garden when they get big enough to really get at it. Even my beloved rattlesnake beans fall prey to them. I haven't seen signs that any of the plants were completely destroyed but I see them chomping away on the tender green leaves. Most people smash the hell out of them when they can and that's what Glen did to a lot of the ones in the picture. 
I'm sorry. I know all life is sacred but so is my garden.

I figured I'd give myself a break today and stay in and do all the cooking for tomorrow that I could. And I did get most of it done. I cooked a huge pot of greens which cooked down considerably, as they do, but there are still a goodly plenty. 
I decided to also make a pot of last year's field peas that I had in the freezer. I have GOT to get the freezer and pantry cleared out before we start picking fresh stuff again. So that was going on too. 
I realized I hadn't kicked bamboo in two days so I did that while greens and peas were cooking. 

I had a little bit of a startle when I, too, had an oak snake encounter. I stepped over what I subconsciously identified as a little branch until mid-step when my brain caught up and whispered, "snake." I didn't scream or run away or anything like that. I just sort of said, "Oof!" and took its picture.

It was long but skinny. A spaghetti snake! 

I did two loads of laundry and cleared the back porch table where I mostly live and washed the tablecloth that covers it. We'll be using the table for sure tomorrow. 

Glen got me that lamp for Christmas after I had pointed it out at the Oak Tree Treasures resale store. I love it and it goes nicely with the tablecloth I think I may have also gotten at Oak Tree but who knows? Definitely at some thrift store or another. 
A strange lightbulb came in the lamp that works just like a regular one but if the power goes out, it stays on. I thought it had burned out a few weeks ago so I unscrewed it and put it in the trash and a few minutes later Glen said, "Come look at this!" and by golly the dang thing was just glowing away in the trash can. I re-screwed it in and it works fine. 

I made a huge batch of angel biscuit dough which is in the refrigerator, all ready to be rolled out, cut and baked tomorrow. I've also made a loaf of Challah. 

My Challah is not intricately braided. It's just a simple three strands braid and this loaf rose so nicely that you can barely tell it's braided at all but oh well. 

I have been making this same recipe for many, many years and it has never once failed me. The loaves just leap into height. Perhaps they are holy. 
Then again, what home baked loaf of bread isn't? 
I must ask though- how many dietary laws of the Jewish faith do we break eating Challah with our ham? 

Of course all of this required a great deal of clean-up and I went through the refrigerator and tossed things I knew we'd never eat to make room for the pots of peas and of greens and the ham, too, which I shall bake tomorrow. 

I picked some lettuce for tomorrow's salad which May will be making here. I finally picked this incredibly beautiful head. 

Google Lens says it's a variety which goes by several names including "Forellenschluss," "Trout Back," and "Mayan Jaguar."
And that is what I'll call it. The seed for it came from a package of mixed heirloom lettuces and that's the only one that came up. 

Now the ironic thing about all of this is that I am more weary and my back hurts more than after my past few days of yard work in the heat. Just standing can be hard. Ask any cashier. 

Speaking of backs, Rachel won't be making it tomorrow to our little gathering. Hank may come or he may just stay home and hang with his sweetie. If he does come, he might bring Mark whom I have already invited. Mark does love my ham and bread and greens. We sure would love to see him. 
Maurice probably would too. 

I'm looking forward to seeing all the grandchildren tomorrow. It's been too long since we've all been together. Long enough that I'm sure I won't believe how much they've grown. I mean, one week's time is enough to notice that and it's been maybe a month? As I said, too long. 

As with after the days of doing yard work, I feel good, despite my tiredness and a little backache. I have recently been made quite aware of how much lighter I feel in mind and body since I've lost weight. I have more stamina, I can deal with the heat better, I can move easier and get up off the ground easier. And- my joints do not hurt nearly as much when I'm working or when I get up the next day. I am no longer moaning every time I go from a sitting to a standing position.
And boy, do I love wearing my Target men's cargo shorts. 
It all feels rather like a miracle. 
I was talking to a very old friend of mine today via text about all of this and he said, "You have added years to your life."
I responded saying, "Well, I don't know about that but I do know that whatever time I do have left will be better." 

Okay! May the Easter Rabbit fill your basket with all of the good things in life you may desire. Chocolate, ham, kisses, shorts with many pockets, hugs, jelly beans, relief from pain, peace in your heart, the joy to be had with the arrival of spring in whatever form that takes for you.
And remember, as Ross always said, "Look up." 
I plan on it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Do You Ever Just Wonder If Maybe You're A Little Bit Insane?

Everyone's been showing off their orchids so here's mine. 
By all rights, that plant should be dead. I won't even go into how mistreated the poor thing is. However, Oh, life...it's bigger than you and you are not me, as Michael Stipe sings on one of my favorite songs ever and which REM made into what is definitely the best video ever. 
I do love that little bitty orchid but I can't claim to have a thing to do with its purple beauty because all I do is water the insignificant vessel it's in about once a week. It likes its window, I think. 

Good god, I did a lot today. Oh, speaking of gods, Happy Day They Crucified Our Lord. For those of you who have known me for a very long time, you may be either thrilled or disappointed that I have not written my annual Easter diatribe. I kind of want to because my animosity towards religion grows ever stronger, the longer I live. But not today, Satan. Perhaps tomorrow. 
I just do not have the energy tonight. 
I believe I may have become just the slightest bit obsessive about clearing areas of monkey grass and other unwanted plants. This reminds me of when I was probably about seven or eight years old and my friend Helen and I decided that we would rid Roseland of ALL the cactus because we hated it that much and were tired of getting stabbed by it, both the huge spike spines or the almost hairlike ones. The big ones were hell to pull out because...huge. 
The little ones were worse because it took hours for someone with a pair of tweezers (us if they were in a place we could get to) to pull all those damnable things.
We'd get off the bus from school every day and jump right to our task. We probably only worked at it for a few days before we realized that we might as well be trying to pluck all the stars from the sky. I wish I could remember the technique we used. 
So, I've always had this (I'll say it again) obsession with getting rid of plants I do not like. 
Today I decided I wanted to get rid of a plant in the kitchen garden area which is a fine plant as plants go but I do not like it and I did not want it but felt guilty about killing it if indeed, that's what I did. It's a leopard plant and they have pretty cool leaves and an insignificant bloom stalk (at least mine did) of small, daisy like flowers at the end of the summer but nothing about them really appeals to me so I finally decided that hell, it's my yard, my dirt, my garden, my plant and so I dug it up and, okay, I didn't just throw it out, I transplanted it into a pot although NOT VERY CAREFULLY! 
Die my darling. If you want to. 

There's a lot more to the story which involves me planting it in the dirt in the area I've cleared by the hydrangeas first and then deciding that no, that's not what I wanted but before that decision, I cleared out more of that monkey grass and chenille plant and also, I figured I better get my silver palmetto in the ground and so I planted that in the same area and it is still there but I'm going to move it. I know I will. 
So all of that, plus watering the porch plants, took at least an hour and then I got back to work in my supposed herb garden. I dug, I stabbed, I pulled. I made some progress but at some point, I was done for the day and knew it so I went ahead and planted my poor pathetic little herb plants in there. I wonder if any of them will do any good. The bananas have come up and at some point will probably shade some of them and the rose in there grows like a wild house on fire so I had to take all of that into consideration. I didn't bother with any of the bricks because I really don't have that many and did not have a vision of what I wanted to do with them. I've seen pictures of spiral herb gardens built of bricks and those look cool but that will not be happening in that little garden any time soon. 

But it definitely is something to keep in mind. 

So this is what it actually looks like as I was watering it just a little while ago.

Not that impressive, is it? Well, let's give it a month or so and see what happens. 
Besides all that, I did laundry and there are clean sheets on the bed. I didn't hang them outside because the forecast was calling for rain which never materialized. Oh well. 

I undressed my new child, whom I still have not named and I found no markings on her indicating who she might be, when and where she might have been made. But I did find that her little knees, the backs of her hands, and her elbows had been painted the same rosy glow as her cheeks. 

Her clothes were filthy so I carefully washed them and while she is waiting for them to dry and be mended in a few places, I put her in a dress that I am sure Linda Sue sent me along with a bonnet whose origin is the same. I brought out Dorothy Anne and Emily from their bed under my vanity where they sleep in luxury under a homemade quilt and on a down pillow and made a new place for them to hang out together in my bathroom on the rocking chair I got a few weeks ago. 

I gave them my special pillows. I hope they are happy there for now. It is the most colorful and cheerful and light-filled room in the house so they should be. 

Mr. Moon took my car to get new tires before the sun was truly up and then he gave it another washing after the one he'd given it last week and vacuumed it and put new windshield wipers on it, and y'all- that is his love language and I believe he really does love me. As he said, I have a brand new car. 

I may have mentioned recently, perhaps in a response to a comment, that I haven't seen any snakes this year. Well, today Mr. Moon saw one in the back yard and it is a beauty. 

I do believe that is an oak snake or a gray rat snake, same-same, and they are very good at eating rodents as their name would suggest. Snakes, on first glance, will always give me a start but I very much appreciate them for their beauty and for their help in keeping down the rat population. 
Unless, that is, I find one in a nest in a hen house, with an egg halfway down its gullet. And that hasn't happened for quite awhile. Overall though, I am living on snake property, not the other way around. We have killed one rattlesnake that was right up by the house when August and Levon were little. I do not feel bad about that. 

Martini being sipped, clean sheets on the bed. 
Why, it must be Friday. 
Hope yours is a happy one. 

And here it is. The reason the music video was invented.

Love...Ms. Moon

Adoption Announcement. And, Other Things, Once Again

Mr. Moon brought my new child home with him just now and I am in love with her. She's a little rough. I mean, who wouldn't be after spending years in a dresser drawer? She shows signs of being loved and played with for sure. Her hair is a mess and she has several bald spots but she has a velvet hat so that is not a real problem. Her legs, arms, and neck are all very, very loosely attached to her body so one has to be gentle with her. I suppose I could send her to a doll hospital but isn't that sort of expensive? 

Her dress and hat are hand embroidered. And she truly has the sweetest face.

I cannot positively identify her. I haven't done the full undressing and searching for a name of any sort but I have looked on her back which appears to be unmarked. Linda Sue, who knows these things, thinks she's a Shirley Temple doll and that may be correct. Originally when Glen sent her picture, I thought she was a Toni doll but that is truly not the case. The same company made both of those dolls but the Shirley Temple one is more collectable and prettier too. 
I care not one whit if she's worth anything or not. I would never sell my child. Oh! And look at this.

Someone, at some time, pinned a perfect diaper on this child. This is the sort of detail on an old doll that links me to the child who loved and played with her. It is part of the doll's history and I like to ponder that. 
Someone truly did take care of this little sweetie. 
And by the way- her beautiful long-lashed blue eyes open and close perfectly. 
I hope Dorothy Anne does not become jealous. Her beauty has faded tremendously over her long years but she is beautiful to me. We love our children just as they are. 
I need to think of a name for this new child. 

I pulled up all the collards and mustard greens today and I trimmed and washed them right at my sink. 

I LOVE my sink. 

Maurice is enjoying it too. 

I pulled the plants, picked through them and de-stemmed them and put the leavings in the compost. I soaked the greens in batches in that enamel pan and then rinsed them well. I brought them into the house, gave them one more spraying off and let them drain and bagged them. I filled a gallon and a half baggie. 

I'll cook them all on Saturday and heat them up for our lunch on Sunday. What we don't eat or what doesn't get taken home with others will be frozen. 
I get great satisfaction from using that sink and also, these things.

You know how I love things that hold things and these are not decorative items. They have utilitarian purposes in my garden and my kitchen. I do believe I am finally the old granny I was meant to be. 

I gave the hydrangea bed a break and went to work on this area which is the little patch of garden right beside the kitchen porch. As you can probably see, the monkey grass, chenille plant, and Virginia creeper are trying their best to decrease the size of this already small garden. So I worked at trying to remove some of that shit from the border in order to create a little more space for my herbs. I have a new technique for removing the monkey grass which is that I use a shovel to get under it from the inside edge and then with my trowel, I stab! stab! stab! like a psychotic woman in an Alfred Hitchcock movie who has had entirely enough of her no-good philandering husband, and that sort of breaks up the roots a little more. Then I just pull with all my might. 
I'm getting stronger, y'all.  

Oh. I kicked bamboo again today. 

It is desperately trying to take hold of the camellia bed which, as you can see, already has its share of weeds and unwanted plants. 

Mr. Moon is home and I think he is tired. I'm going to go make some of what I call "cheat chili" because I use canned chili-spiced beans and canned tomatoes and canned green chilis. And other things. It tastes good and it's not that bad for us. 

Another good day. At least here in Lloyd for me. 
I have absolutely no complaints and the birds are singing their "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!" songs before they settle into a quiet night and I am alive too. 

Look at the blueberries!

Love...Ms. Moon

Quite Honestly, A Very, Very Fine Day

Before we really get started here this evening, I thought I'd show you the photo Mr. Moon sent me of how his flooring work is progressing. It really is a beautiful floor. When we talked on the phone he said that it's going to scratch easily but then added that the downstairs floor, which if you'll recall is going to be cement, will stand up to anything. I told him that we could all roller skate on it. 

Yesterday I said that I was going to GET SHIT DONE today and I did, although I did not say that I was going to GET A LOT OF SHIT DONE today, and that turned out to be fairly prophetic. I got enough done in that I feel tired in a good way and I can see progress in the hydrangea bed and I got the firespike I rooted all winter planted out. 
Here's the hydrangea bed.

Now here's the thing- I'm now to the part of that project where the border grass (what a misnomer that is, at least in this yard) is thick. Border grass, aka monkey grass, is about ten times harder to pull than crocosmia. The roots are thick and netted together. I've had to use a shovel to get in there and really get under it in order to pull it and it's still not easy. And I'm not even to the thickest part of it yet but I am determined (famous last words) to clear out that area which is also filled with the wiry-runnered chenille plant. 
Again. Famous last words. 

But I have to say that being outside, doing work that is not exactly easy makes me feel good. I may not be able to do it for as long as I was able to in my twenties or thirties or, hell, even fifties or sixties but I CAN still do it. 

I hung a small load of clothes on the line, simply because it made me happy. A lot of people don't like towels that have been hung on the line because they aren't soft like towels dried in the dryer. I DO like them because they smell better and they seem to absorb better. 

I took the trash to the trash collection place in the beep, beep, beep car but it's only a few blocks away so no big deal. When I was backing up to leave the yard, I saw something in the back-up camera that I hadn't even noticed before I got in the car. 

The shadows of the still witchy-branched pecan trees. They are starting to leaf out but not enough really show up in shadow. They remind me of a vascular system. 

The flame azalea looks like this right now. 

Not really that impressive, I know, but look at this.

The new pink native azalea I planted is alive and living, as evidenced by the fact that it's putting out leaves. I did not take its picture. 

Maggie has been texting to inform me about the upcoming Grandparent's Day at her school which is when the grandparents get to come and have lunch with the kiddos. Glen and I have been doing this for years and of course we will do it until it no longer happens. I think this is Maggie's last year and since August and Levon's school does not have grandparents come for lunch, this could be it. 
I cherish these texts. 

This is so Maggie to correct the time from 11:50 to 11:48 and to plan out the menu down to the ranch on the side. And wheat bread. 
I shall do my best to please her. 

That's my life today. I just realized I need to go change the calendar to April. Time, like my life now, is speeding up to the point where I'm having problems even fathoming it. I had a little chat with Maurice today. I couldn't find the plastic container I keep her chicken chunks in gravy refrigerated in after I've opened it. 
"Maurice," I said, "Your old mama is getting very forgetful. I cannot remember where I've put things. Do you have this problem, because you're no spring chicken either."
She looked at me but didn't say a word.
"Oh well," I said, "As long as we're cute, it doesn't matter."
Again, she remained silent. 
I had to be honest with her and so I said, "That's a lie. It does matter but we're doing the best we can."
I like to think she agrees with me. 

She slept with me all night last night and has been my constant companion all day. She misses her father human. 
Even knowing this, I love her company. She may love me second-best but love me she does. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Did Not See This Day Coming

There's a story here. 
The story of my day, in fact. A day in which it took me over four hours to get gas, shop at Costco, and go to Publix. For some reason though, I never got upset or even too perturbed. 
What happened was that I was driving Glen's Camry because my Prius needs new tires and is not safe to drive and the Camry needed gas. 
Now. Glen had told me that the lever to open the fuel door on the car was a bit funky and he also pointed out that the fuel door needed a specific sort of heel-of-the-hand slam and he showed me how to do these things and I felt quite confident that I indeed could manage to do these things successfully.
Look. We're not going to do a minute by minute of this. What is the point? The point is, is that after failing to be able to open the fuel door and and then talking to Glen who is up in Georgia about it, I did get it open and managed to get gas. 
Whoo! 
Now. If you ever want to know what may be lurking beneath the little box (?) where your interior trunk lid opener and fuel door opener look like, it may be something like this.

Ignore all the leaves and detritus there. That area is generally covered by the little box (?) that those cables with the round heads fit in. 
Just thought you'd be interested in that. 

So I got my gas, I went into Costco. I had a lovely time as always and bought my ham and some smoked salmon and four pounds of organic extra firm tofu for $5.47 cents (yes, I am freezing all but two pounds of it) and some other stuff and took it all out to the car where I opened the trunk to put the food into the bags I had thoughtfully moved from my car to this car, even remembering to bring an insulated bag with those little freezer things in it and I loaded up the bags with my purchases and went to shut the trunk lid and, well- it would not shut. 
Oh fuckity fuck. And when you drive in that car and the trunk lid is open it beeps every second. 
Beep, beep, beep, beep...
And so forth.
I fiddled around with the cables, no luck, called poor Mr. Moon again and he sent me to a nearby place where they do truck modifications and all sorts of groovy things to trucks and it's in the building that Glen and his daddy built which was the home of Moon Tire and Repair many years ago. 
So Joe, and yes his name was Joe, seemed to be incredibly busy but he told me to just park out front and he'd get around to it and he did send a guy named Joey out to see what he could see and Joey got the trunk lid shut but the gas tank door, which he had inadvertently opened, I guess, would not shut and I said, "Got any duct tape?" and he did and he neatly applied the duct tape you see above. 
He warned me that the whole thing needed fixing because chances were good the trunk lid cable was going to fuck up and I wouldn't be able to open it and would have to lower the back seat and climb through to pull the emergency trunk lid opener. 
I asked him if that was for people who had been snatched by the Mafia and he said it was. 
You know what I'm talking about. 
So. Hurray! 
By this time it was 3:15 and I was understandably hungry so I got myself a burrito at a nearby joint and then drove to Publix with the luxury of no beeps and even stopped at the library to return books and all was well, all was lovely, until I went back to the trunk at Publix to get more bags out of the trunk and guess what? 
The damn thing would not close. 
I did not even consider bothering my husband about this. What in the world could he do? I could drive home with the car beeping and ultimately, that is what I did. I sort of got used to the beeping before I got to Lloyd so it wasn't horrible but I would not volunteer to repeat the situation unless absolutely necessary, like if I had to drive myself to the emergency room or something. 
Which means I won't be going to pottery tomorrow which is fine. Jessie has to work tonight and tomorrow so she won't be going anyway and I've still got that spoon rest to glaze paint and I can do that here so as not to waste class time next week. 

So that is what I did today and as I said, I am not upset nor do I even feel very frustrated. These things happen, you know? I even sort of enjoyed my encounter with Joey who reminded me of a thing an old friend used to say which was that the best people, the real people are the tillers of the soil and the changers of the oil. 
Or something like that. 
I don't think Joey actually changes oil but I have no doubt he has before. 
I even ran into an old friend at Publix and part of me was like, "Oh dear god. I just want to get this over with and go home," but then I realized that she needed an ear and an understanding friend and there I was. 

I think I have taken Karen's words to heart and am just taking things as they come. 
This will probably last for about three more days and then I'll be right back to bitching about everything. 

Moving on, there were several comments on yesterday's post about how I should try the clumping bamboo rather than the spreading bamboo and I realize that I have not made the enormity of the situation clear. I am not ever going to plant any more bamboo of any kind in this yard. Ever. I do not need any more bamboo. It would take heavy machinery and a team of horses to eliminate the bamboo we have here. So all we are trying to do is to contain it within the boundaries of what it already is. 

I took some pictures. Some panoramics because there is no other way to get the entire bamboo jungle/forest in one picture. Even then, the scale is not quite possible to grasp. 

What we have here is the width of the growth nearest to the house. That photo gives a less than accurate picture of what it actually looks like and also, that is the thinnest part of the strip. 

For scale, here is a one stalk of bamboo which I am grasping. 

It is thick and it is tall. 
No dirty comments needed. I know. 

Here is how densely the bamboo grows within the jungle/forest. 

See what I'm saying here? A skinny child could not make their way through that mess. You would need an experienced jungle explorer with massive machete skills to make your way through it. 
Hell, Tarzan could be living in there somewhere for all I know. 
That would be so cool. 

This is my pano of the length of it. 

That is one of the two burn piles in this yard and it is huge. Far bigger than it looks.

In spring, the sprouts come up in that entire field and also in the camellia bed which is far to the left of what you are seeing and also in the space between the house and the next door neighbors' house and also in the front yard and sometimes it comes up in the old chicken run which is not close at all to the closest part of the jungle/forest. 
And let us not forget, there is another type of bamboo which comes up everywhere which is far skinnier and you can not kick it over because it just whips about when you try, and the roots from which it travels are as hard as iron. 
Okay. Maybe not quite that hard but when I try to use my clipper to cut through one, it just laughs and laughs and my clipper, poor thing, just cries. 

Life in Lloyd. 
And still, you know I love it. 

Mr. Moon found a cache of old Life magazines from the mid-fifties in one of the many dressers in the cabin today. 

How cool is that? 

And...he found this.

When we were on our trip, whenever I'd see a baby or a small child, I would say, "Perhaps that is a bad baby and they would give it to me."
Ultimately we decided that none of the bebes we saw were bad and so (sigh) I got no baby. 
But perhaps this one is a bad baby and I am going to adopt her. Yes, her hair's a bit of a mess but so is mine. Please do not say she is scary. I think she has a very engaging expression. I believe she is a Toni doll, also from the mid-fifties. 

As are Glen and I. Well, we're not Toni dolls but we are from the mid-fifties. 

Tomorrow I am going to get shit done! What that will look like remains to be seen but it's going to happen. 
You can read all about it right here. If you should so please. 

Love...Ms. Moon