Monday, September 13, 2021

We Keep On Keeping On


That's not a very impressive picture of the first hurricane lily I've seen in the yard this year. It's on a stalk that's at least a foot tall but it hasn't opened yet. I had been thinking that I would soon begin to see them and here they are. Where one is, more will follow.

I finally got up off my increasingly fat ass today and took a walk but only after I'd procrastinated all that I could by having to finish a crossword  and taking the trash and going by the post office. I feel fine when I'm walking but then for the rest of the day everything hurts. Legs, back, feet. Just...man, getting older sucks. In the early afternoon an old friend of mine stopped by. I hadn't seen her in ages and it was really good to catch up a bit. She's been having a hard time, health-wise, and recently had a shoulder replacement. She told me that the pain afterwards was unbelievable- exquisite- she said but that it's getting better. We joked/didn't joke about how aging is affecting us and how now we're those old people whom we swore we would never be, seemingly unable to talk about anything but our health problems. 
"Well," I said, "Pain changes our lenses."
And that's true and also fairly profound. 
But we ended up by laughing at our human frailties and foibles and wishing each other well, both of us knowing that neither one of us is anywhere ready to give up yet.  

On my walk this morning, I saw the blooming confederate rose that grows in my next door neighbor's yard. Talk about exquisite. 


The one I have growing at the corner of my front porch isn't blooming yet and I hope it's just a matter of not getting as much light as my neighbor's does and not because Mr. Moon trimmed it back to nubs this spring. It needed trimming badly because it was so spindly. 

The ditches that line the road where I walked are filled with Bidens Alba, or what we call beggerticks or Spanish needles. 


The pollinators love them and I saw bees galore along with butterflies. They are supposedly well-known for their medicinal properties but I've never dabbled in their particular form of healing. They're sort of a pain because if you brush against them, you will come away with tiny black needles that are almost impossible to remove from your clothes. Thus, their common names which are truly descriptive. 

I did not see No Man Lord today nor any of his compadres. In fact, I didn't see a soul except for people driving by. A little odd. When I got home, I noticed for the first time that the firespike I've rooted and planted by the front gate is blooming. 


This pleases me a great deal because over the years I have managed to root and plant quite a bit of it. The hummingbirds love it. It seems to me that it's a plant who throws its leaves and flowers out like arms as if to say "Welcome, fall! Come in, come in! We are ready for you."

I cleaned out the hen house this afternoon and that was a true pain in that red ants have invaded two of the nest boxes. I got stung repeatedly before I even realized they were there. This did not improve my disposition at all which has been a bit sour today anyway. 
And as always, for no apparent reason. Just the way it is. 
But sometimes, when things here overwhelm me, whether it's all of the work that needs to be done to the house and all of the work that needs to be done in the yard, or TOO MUCH NATURE or just the inevitable movement towards aging, I wonder if perhaps we should try to find a place in town that would be easier to maintain, closer to some of the children. 

And then I sit here on my back porch when the sun begins its dip into the west and the cardinals come in to feed and the chickens do their last rounds of the yard for the day and head slowly towards the coop to put themselves to bed, and the light shines through the magnolia leaves, the wisteria leaves, and I think about how much pleasure I get, gardening in the fall and winter and spring, pulling weeds in the cool air, picking greens to make the most amazing salads with, and I think about this old house that so gracefully and graciously shelters us and offers us its tree-spirited protection and I know I'm not ready to go anywhere yet. 

Well, that's about it from Lloyd this evening. 

Love...Ms. Moon

21 comments:

  1. That ode to the house in the evening is just wonderful. Yes, that up and down thing about moving, not moving, the lovely house and the unlovely work it requires. Wherever you go though, you need your bit of garden

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    1. You are so right about that. Any place we ever moved would have to have a bit of land to it at least.

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  2. Every verse you sing to that house is a hymn of praise. And to everything in it, the same. I do believe, as long as the electricity runs down the wire and the water through the pipes, its your keeper.

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    1. I remember when we moved in here I said, "I am going to die in this house." Not as a dark omen but as a hope to live out my years here. We shall see.

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  3. I hear this same question form all of my friends these days as we get older. Too much to take care of, unable to haul the wood and fetch the water over and over. My thought is to just downsize within the houses that we already live in. Lose a few sheep- buy wood already cut, get a sit down mower and send treasures too good for goodwill to a friend way across country. Slow down, make a smaller garden, block off a couple of rooms, easier than pulling up stakes and shifting to a damned condo, where the rules could kill you sooner than home maintenance. Your hose is amazing and all the love that pours from there is felt thousands of miles away.

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    1. well,haha, your hose probably is amazing but I meant YOUR HOUSE. Hose works pretty well in that fugged up sentence . hahaha

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    2. My hose is not amazing except for that pair of leopard print tights I've had forever...
      I would never move to a condo unless it was my only choice. That I promise you. I could no more deal with any sort of HOA rules than I could deal with a religion. NO, no, no, no, NO!
      We've already virtually closed off some of the rooms here. The two bedrooms upstairs are never visited by me. Mr. Moon definitely has a riding lawn mower. The garden would easily be smaller. That is true.
      I think that if we got some help for inside and outside the house, it would be a lot easier. That's something we need to think about.

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  4. I was thinking along the same lines as Linda Sue. You could stay in your home but YOU don't have to do everything that needs to be done. You can do what you enjoy doing and the things you don't enjoy you can have someone else do them for you, maybe, if they really need to be done. As long as you are happy...

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    1. I tell you what- having a cleaner would change my life. Maybe one of these days I'll make that dream happen. I'm just such a stubborn soul.

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  5. I JUST WROTE YOU A LONG WINDED FAN LETTER ABOUT WHAT AN AMAZING,DELIGHTFUL,INTELLECTUALLY INTERESTING,CHICKEN AUTHORITY,PARENT AND GRANDPARENT EXTRODINARE,FABULOOS COOK,GROWER AND APPRECIATOR OF FLOWERS AND HOMEGROWN VEGETABLES AND I ACCIDENTALLY ERASED THE WHOLE DAMN THING!!!,I AM 20 YEARS OLDER THAN YOU AND YOU ARE STILL A YOUNG THING WITH HOPEFULLY MANY,MANY MORE YEARS OF LOVING AND BEING LOVED BY YOUR FAMILY AND ALL OF US OUT HERE…AND WAY TOO FULL OF LIFE TO LEAVE US!!! I THINK YOU ARE ALSO GREAT FUN!!!MARY IN COLORADO

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    1. Thank you, Mary in Colorado! That was an extremely sweet comment and I appreciate all of it. I'm sorry you erased the original one but that one made me smile a lot.
      And I won't leave you. I don't plan on giving up the blog until I just can't manage it. I promise.

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  6. Oh no, it's not the right time for you and your Glen to go to a gated community designed for senior citizens - even though Glen already has a golf cart for driving to the mailbox. Surely you can both make it to seventy before reconsidering your situation.

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    1. Haha! Can you imagine us in a gated community? Well, actually, there is one on St. George Island that I wouldn't mind owning a home in. Mighty pretty place. And you're right about the golf cart! Ha!

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  7. I have no plans to leave here until my daughter drags me out. my firespike is also blooming. I need to root more. and no surprise lilies here yet. most years I don't get any and when I do it's only a few. every year I tell myself to buy more bulbs but so far...nada.

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    1. Every early winter I cut the last stems of blooming firespike, stick them in water, and forget about them until spring at which point they have beautiful roots and are happy to be popped into the dirt. They are the easiest rooters I've ever known.

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  8. I love your last paragraph. As you know I've had thoughts about down-sizing since I saw how lovely my son's new place is, but then when I look out my bedroom window and see the mountains and know that the fields behind me can't be built on I just think I'll never leave this place!

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    1. The good news is, is that both of us can stay where we are as long as we want and feel able. We are very lucky, aren't we?

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  9. I come here Mary to your inspiring words and practices of everyday life. I come here after I've virtually visited Rebecca who was the dearest of poetry teachers for me.You are my happy place on line and I love you for it even though I'll probably never meet you and be able to give you a fine hug.

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    1. I can only imagine how amazing it must be to have Rebecca as a poetry teacher. Thank you for this very, very kind comment. I appreciate it more than you can know.

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  10. I can't imagine you ever leaving Lloyd. It seems so deeply ingrained in you. And yet you've lived plenty of other places before Lloyd, so why shouldn't you live somewhere else afterwards?! I guess anything is possible!

    Love the firespike and the confederate rose. Spanish needles, on the other hand -- as much as I love wildflowers, I do NOT miss those.

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  11. I like to think of you sitting on your porch as evening gentles its way in. Hugs.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.