And A Hawk Just Tried To Get A Squirrel Five Feet Away From Where I'm Sitting

At some point in the wee, wee hours, I woke up and had a complete and perfect blog post in my mind and of course I have no idea now what it was.
Damn. It was good. That, I remember.

Mr. Moon and I seem to be able to sleep again, which is a blessing. We're not up at all hours, wandering around and cursing insomnia. I am so grateful. We did wake up last night when the electricity briefly went off then back on, then off, then back on. It was disconcerting and then I heard someone crying in the house and I freaked out and called out, "Baby!" thinking it was Mr. Moon because who else could it have been? But he was right there in the bed next to me and said, "What? What?"
It was Dolly, the dog, crying in her crate about seventeen rooms away. But it scared me so bad.
This morning Mr. Moon texted me. "Who's Buddy?"
Buddy?
He called me and I said, "Buddy?"
"That's who you were calling out to last night," he said.
"No! I was saying BABY!"

We're like the Two Stooges, me and Mr. Moon.

Anyway, good morning and I've had my walk and it was a good one although I saw this on the dirt road I walk on and yes, that was a bit disconcerting too.

Oddly enough, I found another knife in that exact same area a few years ago. That was more of a big old pocket knife, though. As with that one, I left this one where it lay. 

Lloyd can be a strange place. I feel like no one but me uses those roads but I know this is not true. There's the asshole who keeps dumping trash in the woods for one. At least I take my phone with me these days although why I think that would offer any protection is beyond me.

I sure wish I could think of what I wanted to write last night because I'm sort of floating here. The news is all sort of weird and floaty too. God Particles, Tom Cruise, Mitt Romney, Prick Scott, Jessica Alba's tight leather pants. 

Who is Jessica Alba?

I think I heard my young rooster Maizie try to crow this morning. That's big, right?

Well, Jessie's already texted me asking why I haven't posted yet this morning so I better get on with it. I think I'm going to try and get those continuing education units done for my nursing license. To be more specific and truthful, I guess I should say that I need to START working on them. At least. I did buy a pencil sharpener the other day.

It's a beautiful day, albeit a hot one and I've already had my walk and there's leftover okra and tomatoes and brown rice for my lunch and my overalls are clean and I haven't had one bite of that German Chocolate cake and quite frankly, I haven't really wanted it and for all of those favors, I am grateful.

I wonder if I have any pencils. That could derail my entire day.

I live a big life, don't I?

Love...Ms. Moon

Awww.....

One of the new hens, the one, in fact, whom I saw Elvis doing some serious feather-ruffling with the other day, has laid me an egg.
It's brown, and compared to Miss Mabel's egg, quite small. I remember that- how when they first started laying, my older hens' eggs were tiny.

Oh, bless her little heart, this hen.

I have said it before, and I will say it again- chickens are the best pets I've ever had. I can't even imagine life without them now. I just feel so damn lucky that I get to have them. To be able to live out here in this relatively rural area where we can keep them. To have them greet me when I go outside. To watch them scratching through the flower beds, napping in the sand. To see the way Elvis watches over them and calls them to come when he finds something good to eat. To watch the two different flocks become one. To hear their lovely voices chatting away as they go about their daily rounds, almost as soothing as water in a creek, running over rocks.

Yesterday Owen and I took crackers out to feed them and Elvis walked right up to Owen who stuck his hand out and said, "Hey! Hey! Hey!" and kept repeating it as if expecting Elvis to say something back. Maybe like, "How ya' doin', dude? Got a cracker for me?"
Honestly, I wouldn't be that surprised if Elvis did. It just makes me laugh to see the boy and the rooster, almost at eye-level, observing each other. Roosters and boys are both curious creatures and I do prize curiosity as a virtue.

It is a beautiful day here in Lloyd and I can look up and see a cardinal fluttering in the distance like a piece of red cloth which has somehow caught flight. The heat is back but it is less humid, and therefore more tolerable. The air is clear and sunlight catches on the broad green backs of leaves in changing silver pools and although we need rain, most of what grows in this yard is heat-and-drought tolerant and may look a bit wilty, but remains vigorous.
The ashe magnolia has also given me a gift which I only found today.


That is its cone with beautiful hard, glossy, red berries in it. I expect the hurricane lilies to come popping up any day now and the firespike will begin to bloom soon. These are also red. Spring is more about the pastels- the pinks and lavenders, the creams and the yellows. Late summer brings the crimson, almost as if the heat of summer has erupted finally into flame.

A good day. A day in which I did truly try to constrain my thoughts to positive ones about myself. I am not ready to take the pledge yet, but I am THINKING about it. A day where a friend came by and we had a perfectly entertaining chat, talking about everything from geothermal energy to Tate's Hell to road maintenance. A day in which I cleaned a little bit, thought about my upcoming trip to the beach, and cooked beans which are slowly, by degrees, being turned into soup. A day in which I found the first-laid egg of a hen and the first cone of a magnolia tree I planted five years ago. A day in which I took a sane walk which served not to punish or make me suffer, which let's face it- is how I usually view my walk- but as a way to exercise, to be out in the woods and in the fields and to actually enjoy that.

The most simple of days doing the most simple things and that is the sort of day which bring me the most pleasure. Hell, it's too hot to eat soup but making soup is one of the joys of my life and so I have done it anyway. Although I do not by any means enjoy cleaning, if I set my goal at one or two rooms instead of trying to do the entire house, I find that it is a matter of an hour and so what? I can concentrate on this house which is such a fine house and which I have been given the very real honor of living in for however long I live here and I can find actual satisfaction in tending it.

No. I did not get to my office. But tomorrow I think I will. And that will be another sort of pleasure and I am far more apt to do it, to accept that pleasure, if I don't spend the first part of the day telling myself that there is no point in me trying to write, I will never get a book published, etc., etc., but just to do it for the joy. If it brings us joy, it must be something we should do.
That's what I think.

And so, that has been my day here in Lloyd. A day of very, very simple tasks done with no resentment and no hidden agendas, just a sense of purpose and contentment.

I would not ask for more than that. And why in the world would I?

I Gave A Gift, I Got A Gift

Some days you sort of need a reason to go take that walk and today mine was that I was going to stop off at Ms. Liola's house on Main Street and give her some cuttings of firespike to root. So I cut the beautiful blooming things and put them in a quart jar and took off down the road to her house and knocked on her door and handed them over. She was happy with them. I told her to let them root all winter in a not-very bright area and then to plant them in the spring.

We talked about our families and so forth and then I went on my way down the road on my usual path and at one point I needed to pee.

This is not unusual for me on a walk which lasts more than half an hour. I'm old. I've had four babies. Etc. So I stepped off the path and into the woods and found a secluded spot and squatted, got up, pulled myself together and was walking back to the path when I came upon this:


What the fucking fuck? It's about the size of a cigar box, has a screen bottom and is, yes, a box of some sort. It's so fragile that I barely made it home intact. The letters are made of bent metal. It was on a pile of wood, sitting right there on top, and it has to have been sitting there for quite some time because as soon as I picked it up, it started to fall apart. The wood is so rotten that the little brackets which hold the letters in place are falling out. In fact, I had to carry the C home in my pocket.

Anyway, I brought it home and took it's picture and now it's sitting on the old typewriter on my front porch. It's beautiful to me and I have no idea what its purpose was or what sort of place it adorned. A home? What was the screen in the bottom for? Was there a top? Who took the time to make those letters and put them there on the front?

Any ideas?

I feel like the woods gave me a present today and it's nice to be reminded that stepping off the path occasionally, whether to pee or for some other purpose, can lead to things you never could have imagined.