June 8, 2010

Thinking

I think I am having a morning of epiphany.
I am reading (listening to on tape) a book by Alice Walker- Now Is The Time To Open Your Heart and you know how I am about all things religious, up to and including any of the New Agey ones but this book, which talks very much of spiritual matters in the form of fiction, is whispering in my heart.
I am not quite finished listening to it and will be sad when I am. I have had Alfre Woodard's voice narrate the story in my ear as I have worked in my yard and walked my miles for days now and it has been delightful. It has been one of those books which I needed to read or hear at this very moment in time and I am so grateful for having picked it up at the library and putting it in my bag.
So when I finish it and when I have thought more about it, I'll try and say what I have learned.

Owen is here.

More later.

Probably The Worst Hair Cut Of My Life

And you know what? I don't give a flying fuck. I do not give a rat's ass.
In case you are confused on this issue let me add- I don't give a shit.

I have less hair and that is all I care about.

For a woman of my age I have a LOT of hair. When I almost died of mono at the age of sixteen, I lost about 3/4's of my hair and only about a third of it grew back in and at this point in my life I have to say- that's just groovy with me.

I was on my way to town, whipped it into a strip mall, went in and had some woman with practically no hair cut mine. It took approximately four minutes. I did not care!
I got what I paid for (bad hair cut for fourteen dollars!) and I can still pull it back. When it's not pulled back it makes my giant round head look even more giant and round but guess what?
I do not care! Call me Pumpkin Head if it makes you happy. I will agree with you and laugh!

It just made me feel so good to have a lighter head. SO good.

I went to Ross and bought three black dresses. That's how good it made me feel. I honestly tried to buy something with color but I failed. Black is what I wear. I am under no illusions that it makes me look thinner. It's just fucking easy. So I bought three black dresses.
Black. Black. Black.
And cheap, cheap, cheap.

And now I am home and boiling peas to make a very bastardized version of Aloo Matar. Everything in it will come from the garden. Mr. Moon is out of town so I can gorge on peas. Yummy, yummy peas. I will eat them while wearing black.
With my bad hair cut.

And I will not care.

I Feel Bitchy

Oh so bitchy.
I feel bitchy and witchy and mean!

Seriously. I do.

Is that okay? Fuck it if it isn't.

And it's all just because of the heat and the fact that I worked in the garden yesterday when it was really too hot and too humid. Little rainstorms would come and I'd just keep working because the rain at least would cool things off but it never rained enough to help.
And it's because I'm a weird, crazy old woman who, every time she is reminded of her blessings, goes off the deep end with feeling like she doesn't deserve any of them.
And it's all adding up to one of those bitchy, witchy days.
I went to yoga. It was fine. I am not walking. As I said to Kathleen in an e-mail, if I walked today I would end up lying down on the path through the woods, just plain old dead and the vultures would get me and the snakes would crawl over me and I WOULD NOT CARE! So, no walk today although perhaps later this evening when it cools off some (haha!) I'll go see about some blackberries. Mr. Moon and I never did get around to that yesterday. After my gardening and his work on a car in the hot garage, we were DONE and drank beer and played cards and had dinner and went to bed.

So here are some things which are annoying me today just because I am already annoyed:

1. My neighbor's animals. On one side of me I have neighbors who keep a lot of animals. Goats, donkey's, horses, chickens, a turkey, two guinea hens, a myriad of dogs, etc. The smell from the yard has never bothered me. Sometimes it would get a bit...rich, but just nice old farmyard smell. But since they started adding to their chicken collection in a manner which I find to be frightening, the smell has grown to be just this side of intolerable. And what do you do? I'm afraid of that woman, frankly. She's tougher than nails and wrestles her beasts around like a yeoman. I'm not sure what a yeoman is, but she reminds me of one.
And as the heat and the chicken count over there mount, it is getting to the point where I can smell it all from my garden and it's not pleasant.

2. My hair. It is too long. I have to get some inches chopped off. I must! It gets soaking wet when I walk or work outside which I do every day of my life and since I keep it up it stays wet until I go to bed at night. Sweet, right? It's driving me crazy. If I don't do something I'm going to end up grabbing Mr. Moon's scissors and hair trimmer and cutting it all off and then setting the guard on the trimmer at zero.
I think Owen would be freaked out by the results and Mr. Moon would weep so I cannot let it get to that point.

3. My refrigerator. It is on its last legs, I am afraid. Even though it is set at the lowest setting, it is freezing everything in it. Including the eggs which break and are...frozen inside. You cannot put frozen almond milk on your morning twigs and berries. You can try but it doesn't work.
This is not really such a big deal. It would obviously be a much bigger deal if it wasn't getting anything cold and I know that. But still. It's annoying.

4. Hot flashes. I have nothing more to say about that except that honestly, one of these days I'm going to strip naked in a public place and jump into a freezer. They will find me naked wedged into the Kool Whip display. This will not be good.

5. Fatness. My own. I don't want to talk about that.

6. Dogs who shit and piss in the house. I want to KILL them with my bare hands. We no longer let Zeke sleep with us and this means I am getting NO pleasure from these dogs at all. Well, I do love old Pearl. Here is a picture which, if you look at closely, you can see Pearl in. Owen is feeding her from his high chair. I think he believes he is getting away with something. Pearl knows she's getting away with something.


7. Many other things which I cannot discuss here. Okay. Here's another one I can- Rush Gasbag Limbaugh got married for the fourth time and frankly, I can't understand how he ever managed to find ONE woman who would marry him, much less four. The first three obviously wised up and so will this one, eventually. But the thing which REALLY annoys me is that Elton John played at the reception. Really Elton? I know you got a million bucks for the gig (supposedly) but that rips it for you and me. Done. It was bad enough when you played a concert at Chichen Itza without doing the ceremony the Mayan holy men told you to do beforehand to appease the spirits of that sacred place and a part of the stage collapsed and three workers were injured. That was NOT RESPECTFUL but honestly- Rush Limbaugh?
Bite my ass.

Okay. That's enough. I need to go to town and that's annoying too. And I'm not seeing Owen today and that's REALLY annoying the hell out of me. That's probably my entire problem.
I miss my boy and I am certain he misses his grandmother.
Ah well. He'll probably survive.
And so will I.

Signing off in bitchiness....Ms. Moon

Ah Lah

What to make for supper?

And because it just charms the very living daylights out of me, I am linking a blog which I love. If you go here you'll see a small lad who loves overalls. And his incredibly beautiful sister. When I read the post I'm linking, I was wearing my own Goodwill overalls which I got so dirty wearing while weeding the garden today that they are now on their second wash.
How could I not be delighted?
Lora- I'm not even asking your permission. I can't help sharing.
Thank-you, though. Thank you for being the mother you are and for giving us a window into a quiet life where Bee and Goose live and you and your sweet man live too.

And now- off to make supper. I believe that cucumbers and onions may definitely be involved.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Dear God it is fucking hot. And so humid that I can't seem to keep my camera lens from fogging.
Mr. Moon and I were eating our pancakes on the back porch this morning and I had what might have been my fourth hot flash of the morning and I just sat there and started weeping.
Sometimes it's just too much.
Today, for instance.
And I think it's okay to cry during a hot flash. I mean, why not? The salt water is already pouring out of me and why not add tears to the mix? Mr. Moon just held my hand. What else can he do? The hot flash ended, we finished our breakfast, he washed the dishes.
Life.

I can hear the thunder starting to rumble. We're on our every-afternoon rain schedule which is a beautiful thing. The rain starts and the air settles down and somehow, seems less humid when the water is coming in the form of rain instead of fat, thick molecules of it just hanging there. I have a friend who described trying to work or exercise in this sort of humidity as being like trying to swim underwater without a snorkel. You know the damn oxygen is there, it's just hard to get to it through all the water.
A lot of people who were born and raised in this part of the south grow up and buy summer houses in the green hills and mountains of the Carolinas and I sure do understand that. No hurricanes, that sweet green coolness...yeah. We reach an age where we realize that if we have the means there's no reason to suffer through this sort of weather.
We're like the snowbirds, only in reverse.

Well, speaking of birds, while we were eating and before and after my hot flash, we noticed that the wren parents were acting differently. They were flying carefully from one spot on the porch to another. Not looking for bugs or anything like that, just scoping out the path from nest to outside. They perched on all the different screens, one of them landed on the mermaid hanging from the ceiling right above our heads, one came and sat on the table.
And now they've both disappeared and I have a funny feeling that today may be the leaving-of-the-nest day for their babies.
Are the parents off now arranging things wherever it is that they'll be directing their children? Are they letting them get hungry enough to be more easily coaxed outside with fat worms and crunchy flies? Are they at wren church?
I have no idea.
Wait. One just came in with food, went up to the nest and gave it to the babies who chirped loudly. How do they keep track of which baby's turn it is to eat?
I have noticed something this year that I've never noticed before which is that sometimes a parent carries a bit of the nest outside. I am certain this is the way they keep the nest clean. They carry the poopiest bits outside and discard them.
How cool is that?

Anyway, I have the porch doors flung open and the doors to the house shut and the ceiling fan off. I'd hate to see baby birds flung around the porch and if one got into the house by accident I don't know that we'd ever be able to get it out.
And today may not be the day at all. But if it is, we're ready.

Last night I got a nice picture of a little toad who was hopping on the porch. I took a bunch of pictures but this is the only one that came out. He was so fast that I got quite a few pictures of empty floor. Anyway, here he is. Or was.


I was walking around the yard this morning taking pictures like these


(and I have no idea the name of this plant and I am ashamed of that- anyone who can help me out?) when I went to the front yard to find our old friend, Mr. Snake.
I am certain it is the same one.

I am giving up and calling it a pet.

He looked strange today, though. Lumpy as hell. And he was breathing hard. Did he just eat an entire generation of baby birds of some sort? Possibly, although I hope it was a nest of baby rats. Or maybe he's just molting. Or something. What I don't know about animals could fill libraries of books. I called Mr. Moon over and we looked at Mr. Sss for awhile.
"I suppose I could catch him and take him somewhere," Mr. Moon said.
We pondered this for awhile. I took some more pictures. We thought about the quick movements which would be required, the equipment, the container to transport him.
"I just don't like handling snakes," said Mr. Moon.
"Well, I don't handle snakes," I said.
And so I suppose the snake is off somewhere now digesting whatever it is he ate or molting or doing whatever it is he's doing, unmolested by either of us.

I keep trying to get a picture of one of the wrens and I just cannot do it. They're too damn fast for me. I'm sorry.

But here's a nice picture of a little lizard. The tiny dinosaurs which inhabit my world. This one had just come up from the pine chips, I'm sure because he was brown but turning green. Can you see his emerald eye?

Isn't he handsome?

Ah. The wind is picking up, the thunder is rolling. I'm not sure what my day holds now that the pancakes have been made and eaten. None of the children are coming out, as far as I know. There are no parties to which I've been invited. I think I could even get away without doing laundry but that might be pushing it.
I should go work in the garden and perhaps later Mr. Moon and I will go pick blackberries which I know are just waiting to be taken. Both of those activities will be hotter than you can imagine and buggier too. The yellow flies have found my feet again as I've been writing this. I've now sprayed them with the family-friendly type of bug spray which probably only attracts the little cocksuckers, makes their mouths water in preparation for blood-sucking but you do what you can.

Someone has a radio on very loudly which is broadcasting a church service. I can't hear the words but I can tell from the delivery and now a hymn is playing. Some lorn white man singing and it is a sad-sounding tune. Jesus may be involved. Most likely.

I finally got a bird picture. Here it is. It's not very good.

But it will have to do.

My foot itches. It's drizzling. The frogs are singing, but not quite drowning out the hymn. The thunder stills rumbles.

It's Sunday and it's hot and one of the wrens is outside now, calling in a voice far bigger than she is.

Time to put on the overalls. Time to get to work.

Thanks for dropping by the Church of the Batshit Crazy. I'm sorry I didn't have anything very enlightening or stimulating or inspiring to share. That's just the way it is some days, especially days like this one where it's too hot to think, too humid to move, too buggy to bear.
And yet, we do bear it although sometimes, we silently cry into our pancakes, holding hands and waiting for the worst part to be over.

And Then...

Kathleen is having a party tonight. It is ostensibly a "hole digging" party. She has fruit and nut trees she needed to plant and hasn't had the energy so instead of digging the holes herself, she planned a party, mowed a pasture and a yard, cleaned her house, had the carpets professionally cleaned, had some plumbing and electrical problems fixed and made an entire dinner so that people would come over to dig a few holes.

Uh-huh. Sure, Kathleen.
The girl loves to have parties. What can I say?

I promised her I would come.
But then, after two days of a whole lot of activity and a sunburn and all my blah, blah, blah stuff, I begged out of coming.

And then the phone rings. It's the party calling. They want me to BE THERE. All the Sex Please folks and the Wheel of Murder folks and they're offering me bribes and rides and I don't know what all to just come to the party.

And I say, Oh no. I can't put on a bra. I am sunburned. I am exhausted. I say, The health department is going to shut down my left arm pit any second now. I say, I've never felt more loved. I say, Just say FUCK a few times and then say something ugly about religion. Every one will think I'm there.

And I wish I were there but I am equally glad I'm here too. The rain is starting to come down again and I've walked my yard and collected eggs and some tomatoes. I've fed the chickens some left-over cornbread. I've put some hydrangea in a vase and a few marigolds in another. My man is watching a baseball game on TV. I think I'll make some gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches out of local, handmade cheese that Billy got me at the New Leaf Market where he works that I have been wanting to try but which costs the big $$$, and those sweet, ripe tomatoes from the garden.

No. I'm right where I belong and just knowing that people are missing me across the county, that they would call and say WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? makes me feel like...well, like I'm one of the popular kids in high school. Seriously.

Wow. Fifty-five years old and I finally feel like one of the popular kids.

Okay. I can die now. Happy.

But I hope I don't. I really want to taste that cheese.

A Dream Of A Day On The River

We had about the most lovely day on the river imaginable. It didn't storm and we saw turtles and maybe a snake. The water was as clear as water can be and spring-fed cold. We went swimming. Well, some of us. Owen didn't. We put his feet in the water and he screamed. But then he recovered and kept looking at us in the water like, "Where are your BODIES?" He was delighted at the magic trick of disappearing bodies and smiling faces.

When we were swimming, a boat pulled up with two people and a dog in it. The woman turned out to be someone I've known since, well, before May was born. A long, long time. And I've never really enjoyed her company. She's, well, she's sort of crazy and she's a hyper-critical person. I'm not really criticizing her here, that is just the way she is. Always has been. Always will be. Her form of communication is to share her disdain about something with you. Or some one.
In other words, not a pleasant person to be around and here we were having the times of our lives in the boat and in the river and suddenly, there's this woman.
We talked for a moment and she asked if Owen was my grandson and I told her that yes, he was. She said that her daughter has moved to Atlanta and so she never gets to see her grandchildren and in fact, is not allowed to see them.

I don't know who I felt more sorry for- her or her daughter or her grandchildren because obviously, there's a reason when a child decides not to allow her mother to see her children whether it's a control issue or due to resentment or, well, there could be a million reasons and whatever the reasons are in this case, it just makes me sad that things can get so out of whack in a family that a situation like that arises.

I looked at my family, all around me, laughing and teasing each other, Hank holding on to Owen, Taylor sitting on the dock, Lily, Jason, Jessie, May and Mr. Moon and me in the water, and it struck me once more how unbelievably lucky I am.

My kids love to hang out with each other. Their memories of childhood and growing up are mostly good memories. I don't think any one of them holds any huge grudges or resentments against another. And I don't even think they hold any against me or Mr. Moon, either.

And look- we're not the perfect family by any means. God KNOWS I've made my mistakes. And continue to do so. And the kids all went through teenaged stuff and there were worries and there were fears and there were hard, hard times.
But I think the bottom line was that there was never a time when the kids doubted that we loved them. Never a time when they didn't know in their hearts and souls that we had their backs. That I was there for whatever and their daddy was there for that and whatever else.

And frankly, we still are.

And now here we are with this new boy and it's like he belongs to all of us. Not in the sense that Lily and Jason aren't definitely and without a doubt his parents and always will, but in the sense that he is OF us and that he is here with us and that we are all here for him. And oh, how he delights us.

We saw some darling little cottages on the river and the children started teasing their daddy about how he should build each of the kids one of those on our property and we could all live together.

"Fine with me," I said, "As long as everyone doesn't come to my house when they run out of toilet paper."
"Oh, we wouldn't do that," said Jason. "But we could come over every night for family dinner."

Mmmmm.... I thought. Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

But in a way, wouldn't that be wonderful? I said that everyone could have a place for Owen to sleep and he could just pick a bed in whichever relative's house he wanted to stay in each night. We all agreed that would be sweet.
And of course I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
But isn't it precious that the kids would even talk about it? That they would think it was a good idea?

I've always said that when I was growing up if I had one dream, it was the dream of having a family like the one I'd always wanted and never had. A family where there were no big, poisonous secrets. A family where there really was love at the bottom and the top and in the middle. A family where arms are wrapped around each other and where you always know you have a place to be, to rest, to recover, to be nurtured, to have fun, to be goofy, to cry. Whatever you need. Someone will be there for you. Always.
Someone will cherish you and patch you up and cheer you up and share the joke and make you a sandwich and change a diaper and let you bitch and tell you you are beautiful, you are wise, you are light in and of itself.

I have that family.

I have that family.

And for those of you who did not grow up in a family like the one I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. And for those of you who did, perhaps you know the miracle of it too. I hope so. And I hope you don't take it for granted.
Because there is nothing on this earth which can make you as strong as having a group of people who know and love you to your innermost core, the very depths of your soul.

I am allowed to see my grandson. And I am allowed to take care of him. I am allowed to love him as purely and irrationally as I do.

Yeah.

So when I'm posting pictures of my family, of my husband and my children and my grandchild, I am not just posting pictures of the people I am related to.

I am posting pictures of the only real dream I ever had, come true and visible and tangible and real.

I am posting pictures of the miracle of my life.

Amen.

This. This I never even could have dreamed. I didn't have the means.


The man who asks for this trip down the river with his family to celebrate his birthday. My eldest, my one-of-a-kind, incredibly wise, gentle, loving son.

My May who walks in grace and in light. Who is more like me than is good for her.

My Lily and my Jessie. Strong and tall and funny and loving and smart and hard-working and beautiful.

Jason and Owen. Jason has turned out to be the best daddy Owen could ever have. I am in awe of the way he loves and takes care of that boy. He calls me "Mom." Nothing could make me happier.

Owen in his Aunt Jessie's arms and our Tay-Tay in the background. She is family too.

This is what love can make.

This is how love can be.

This is what love looks like to me, the luckiest woman in the world.

Fun With Vegetables!

Hoot'n'Holler

Lawd a mercy! As we say around here. This grandma is tired. But in a good way. I'm about to go make my daily shot of espresso to pour over ice and that will revive me.
Waylon just left with his mama, Mean Aunt Jessie just left with herself which leaves me and Owen all alone. We're happy.
The house looks like a hurricane hit it. Hurricane Hoot'n'Holler. Jessie and I decided that this is what we're going to start calling Waylon and Owen. Waylon is Hoot and Owen is Holler.
They're a good team and can clear out the cabinets in a jumpin' jack flash. That came to mind because Jess and I have been watching one of those Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts on and off all day. We've seen everyone from Simon and Garfunkle to Metallica. I don't know how to spell Metallica and I'm too lazy to google it. It's been fun. We also walked down Main Street with the boys, went to the post office, visited the chickens and sang to our little guys. They think that's funny.
Now Owen is playing on the porch with me. He's got a new push toy that my ex-husband and his wife brought over. They've got grandchildren now too and well, this is how our family is. When they're done with toys or books or equipment, they bring it over to us.
I am so grateful for that. They've saved us literally hundreds of dollars in walkers and pack'n-plays and toys and books and a stroller.

And tonight Lily and Jason and Owen and Hank are spending the night and tomorrow we're all going out on the St. Mark's river to celebrate Hank's birthday. It'll be Owen's first boat ride and he has a brand new life preserver, just for him. I'm thinking he's going to like the river.
No. I'm thinking he's going to love it.

And tonight will be fun too. A mini-fest here at Grandmother and Grandfather's house. May and Jessie and Tay-Tay all have to work tonight but they'll be joining us in the morning.
It's going to be grand.
I suppose Owen and I should move to the kitchen so I can make the sauce for tonight's casserole.
After I change his diaper. The boy can pee. And smile. And crawl. And stand by himself although whenever he catches himself doing it he falls down. He'll figure it out. He'll learn to stand on his own two feet. He'll learn to trust his own balance, his own strength.
But for now, he doesn't have to. He has the arms of so many people to hold him.

Happy Friday, ya'll. Have a good weekend. I'll be checking in, I'm sure.

Love...Ms. Moon

Friday

Waylon and Billy.
What a nice way to start a Friday.

I Hear The Mermaids Singing, Each To Each

Every now and then, once in a blue moon, I get the urge to, as Anne-Helene used to say, wash the floors.
I told Jessie on Monday that I thought I would be doing that on Thursday and guess what? I did.

Cleanliness is next to godliness, so they say. And for me, that's the truth.

Think about all the loveliness of a newly bathed baby. Think of the way you feel, clean and freshly toweled off, slipping into clean sheets. Think of the glory of a completely cleaned-up kitchen after a holiday meal or even just a night's supper. Think of how you feel after you swim in the ocean on a hot day and come out and towel off, as if your skin had been reborn.

Clean is just damn good.

And as I sit here smelling my clean floors I am thinking of the Gulf of Mexico and the way its clear, clean water has become fouled and polluted with the dark gushing plumes of oil and how that oil is spreading everywhere and how I don't think that in my lifetime it will ever be the way it was.

Instead of the sweet scent of salt and sun, the beach will now offer us the fumes of petroleum. Instead of the clean water which my grandfather (who lived into his nineties) always claimed was healing and who never washed off while he was on vacation at the beach because of its beneficial effects, we will have nastiness and poison.
Instead of sitting on the shore and looking out at the timeless and endless water as it rolls in and washes out, we will, if we sit on the shore at all, think of the way we have somehow ruined what we had always considered to be the boundless sea, and the mindfuck of that alone is more than I can contemplate.
Instead of the estuaries being a source of life for all living things in the sea, it will be a trap of death.
And just thinking of the impossibly clear water of the Mexican Caribbean being fouled by the oil makes me shudder.

My floors are clean but the sea is filthy.

Look: all oceans are one. If hallucinogenics taught me anything at all, it is that all is one.
My floors are connected to the earth which is connected to the oceans.
My life is connected to all life and the ocean is the mother of that life.

So is your life.
And just as my ocean is in the process of dying, so is yours. Just as my mother is dying, so is yours.

The day is coming to an end. I can take comfort in my clean floors and I do. But behind everything I do and think right now is a giant plume of crude oil, boiling and spreading out into the salt water which is the same as the water a mother's body forms around her baby when she grows it inside her body. And with that thought always with me, there is no real comfort at all.

I am sorry to keep talking about this. I know that there are people who come here from so far away they may not ever really see the effects of this befouling of my own personal ocean. But I think that although they may not ever see it, they can still feel it.
Because all is one.
And we are all connected.
I breathe in, you breathe out. I breathe out, you breathe in.

Look at our planet from space and you realize we should be called Planet Water.
If there is a miracle, it is water. And what have we done? We have shit in it and said, "Oh. Excuse me."
There is no excuse.

But for now, right now, I can go cook supper in my clean kitchen, my feet loving the feel of the clean boards beneath me.

I will take that and some day I will look back on this time before the oil got to my shore, to my water, and I will think of this time, perhaps even this day, as one of the best of my life because it happened before.

T.S. Elliott in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock said

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

And we will drown in the polluted waters of our own endeavor, our own human foolishness.
I do not think the mermaids will be singing for us unless it is a song of curses, unless it is a song of grief.

My Life Is For The Birds (Please Click On Pictures)

I have three families of birds which I am keeping a close eye on.

One of course is the chicken family and this post is not about them although thank-you for asking, they are doing quite well this morning and I will mention that Feral Carol seems to be incorporating herself into the flock although she does not go in to roost with them at night. Yet.

One of my bird families is the wren family which made their crazy nest on top of the old mounted tarpon on my back porch right over a door which we go in and out of many times a day.




The babies have obviously hatched because the parents spend all day long going in and out of the dog door and flying up to the nest with juicy bugs in their beaks. I have not heard the babies but I know they are there. It seems impossible that I haven't gotten a good picture of Mr. or Mrs. Wren lately, seeing as how they fly right by me and even light on the table I am using all day long. But you know- by the time you pick up the camera, they're off about their business again.
I love having them here but I am gravely worried. We have been through this before and if I am not here the moment the babes leave the nest, there is a good chance the dogs will get them all as they make their first clumsy attempts to fly on the porch, hitting walls and then the ground. Buster, especially, is good at catching these babies.
If I am here when the parents coax them out of the nest, I can move the dogs into the house and open up the screen door so that the birds can make their way out safely. If I am not, well, a whole lot of nurturing and raising went on for naught and that makes me so very sad.
Two years ago it took the parents AND me all day long to finally get the last babies off the porch. Just as with human babies, some of the young seem to get it right away and zoom outdoors while others cling to the screen in terror, the parents on the other side with the biggest bugs they can find in their mouths, imploring them to come on!

We shall see what happens. As much as I would love to use the excuse of having to stay on my back porch until the baby birds leave the nest, it is not really feasible.

The other family I am watching is a bluebird couple. A few years ago Mr. Moon built bluebird boxes on the back fence and this year two of the birds used one of them. We could not have been more pleased if Brad and Angelina had knocked on the door, wanting to know if they could give birth in the Panther Room.


You can lift the lid off the top of the boxes to look inside and I want to desperately but I know that would be the wrong thing to do.

But this morning I took the camera out and waited quietly and patiently to see if I could get a few shots of mama and daddy. Telescopic lens required. Also the ability to stand still with four mosquitoes at once feeding hungrily off my arms. And a few on my legs.


They are so beautiful, these little patches of sky with wings.



I feel that their presence is a charm for goodness right here in my backyard. Of course, since they are already outside I will not be needed when the babies come out of their nest. I always wonder what the next step is in baby-bird raising. Do the parents gather them all on one branch at night until they are big enough to go off into the world on their own?
I do not know.
But I know that while this raising and feeding are going on, it is a cheerful and lovely thing to watch.

And even when the wild bird families take off to go wherever they go when this part of their year is over, I will have my chickens to observe and learn from.

And once again, I must admit that yes, people become obsessed with birds as they grow older and in my case, I am not fighting the process at all, but am embracing and learning as much as I can from these winged creatures with whom I share my tiny little little world.

Chickens And China

I had to go to Publix today because I was out of everything from milk to cornmeal. I made a supper last night out of the garden and the freezer and it was absolutely one of the best meals ever. I cooked some field peas I had in the freezer with onions and the good parts of tomatoes that the bugs had gotten to, chopped up, and corn bread with corn cut from the cob in it and the best- the very best- fried green tomatoes.
But I did not fry them.
Instead I soaked the slices in milk and then dredged them in a mixture of flour and panko with salt and pepper and laid them carefully on a cookie sheet sprayed heavily with Pam and sprayed the tops and put them in a hot oven with the cornbread and they came out wonderfully well. If you've never eaten a fried green tomato, I will tell you that they taste something like fruit, almost a plummy taste and feel in the mouth, but not as sweet. A savory fruit with a luscious crust on it so that the teeth break through to that sweet inner part and it all explodes in your mouth and well...it's something good. Trust me.
And not frying them meant that there was no grease involved. Don't get me wrong. I do love a fried green tomato but these may have been even better.

But back to the grocery list. I was out of buttermilk and bananas. One cannot get along without bananas. Well, one could, but I don't want to. And I can't make pancakes or biscuits or cornbread without buttermilk. So I had to go to the store and since I was going to town I thought I'd go to Goodwill to see if the dishes I saw there last week were still there.
They were of a pattern very much like a pattern of a few dishes I already have. You have to understand- none of my "china" matches. Well. A plate here, a cup there. But mostly, it's all just Goodwill and thrift store stuff which has struck my fancy over the years. And it serves us well.
And I did not buy these plates and dishes when I saw them last week. Goodwill has gone crazy with their prices and the plates were $5.99 apiece! But I kept thinking about them and I determined to go back yesterday when it was Senior Citizen day to get my 20% off if they were still there but of course I had the boys yesterday and didn't make it to town.

When I got there today, some of the plates and the lovely serving platter were gone and also the pretty little sugar bowl and creamer. But I bought what they had- a few dinner plates, a few salad plates, some soup bowls. I brought them home and washed them and looked them up on the internet and dammit, I should have bought them all when I had the chance. The serving platter alone costs $84.95 to replace on a site which sells Johnson Brothers. I discovered they are the pattern Apple Blossom and they are from around 1949. None of them are cracked or chipped, they look like new.
But I have a question- does anyone know what the little green marks on the bottom of Johnson Brothers china means? It looks like this and is on all of the vintage Johnson Brothers I own:

Please let me know if you have any information on this. I'm just curious.

When I drove into Publix, Lily and Jason were pulling out and I said, "Oh, please stop and let me see that boy!" Or, maybe it was more like, "Pull over! I need to see Owen!"

Whatever.

They pulled over and I parked next to them and opened Owen's door and oh! the smile he gave me! I melted. I am still there in a puddle in the parking lot of Publix. I kissed him and got lipstick all over him and crooned and said, "Are you glad to see your grandmother?" and he said he was and then I said, "Oh no. The problem with saying hello is that I am going to have to say good-bye."
It took a while.
I thought that Lily and Jason were going to forcibly remove me so that they could leave, but they are sweet and tolerant of the insane passion I have for their son and didn't do anything but make throat-clearing noises as I love-talked to Owen.

I got all my groceries, for once remembering not only to make a list but to actually bring it with me which rarely happens. I came home and put everything away and got the laundry off the line which had been rained upon, dammit, and put it in the dryer.
And then, I happened to look outside my kitchen door to see Elvis on the little kitchen porch. Now, neither El nor any of the ladies have ever, as far as I know, been up on that porch but there was Elvis and little Miss Betty was right beside him. He was acting so strangely. He was hunkered down on the boards almost as if he were, ahem, having the sex, but there was nothing under him but the floor. And he was making this tick-tick-tick sound in his throat and so was Betty. I have never heard this particular sound coming from my chickens before.

I went to get the camera and when I opened the door, he got up and I took some shots of them:


Elvis by now was up in my gardenia plant, doing the same weird ticking thing and nestling down on it.


He was almost in a trance and I could pet him. Same with Betty who kept fussing around Elvis, almost as if she was worried about him.

I didn't want him tearing my flowers up so I shooed them off the porch but they kept coming back. He even came back with Miss Daffodil:

I could not figure it out until I went out a bit later to see Betty hunkered down in my begonia. She had it partly torn up and I threw a tiny bit of water on her so that she jumped out of the pot and onto the ground and then I watered all the porch plants vigorously to show them that no, this was NOT a nesting place.

Because I think that's what they were doing. Elvis was looking for a new nest for his hens, perhaps because of the snake.

I say this because a few days ago, Mr. Moon had put Carol's nest outside of the garage where it stays and he told me that Elvis had gotten in the box where the nest is and fluffed all down in it, describing what I think I saw today. Same sort of behavior. And since then, I have been finding eggs which Carol has not laid (she lays brown and these are green) in it, even though it's back in the garage.

I find this fascinating. My neighbor who has about one gozillion chickens has just started learning about them on an educated level. She told me that she had read that roosters make a different warning sound if a predator threat is on the ground or in the air. She was amazed by this fact but I was not because I have been watching these birds closely for a year now and I see how well they take care of each other, how the rooster plays a role in the care-taking of the hens. So to think that Elvis would seek out new places for his sister-wives to lay their eggs does not surprise me.

But I really don't want them laying in my begonia. Or my gardenia for that matter. Or up on the porch at all because they will poop and poop in the hen house is one thing, poop in the yard is another, and poop on the porch is just TOO MUCH!

Well. It's getting dark. The chickens are circling the hen house, going in one-by-one. I cleaned out their nests a few hours ago and there was no snake in there then. I need to go out and shut them up for the night.

Mr. Moon is in town playing cards and I picked a nice Ichiban eggplant from the garden and I think I'll saute it with some tomatoes and garlic and an onion and basil and cook a bit of a pasta for my supper and I'll eat it on one of my new plates.

Another day of life in Lloyd and it was a good one. Jessie went to yoga with me, I took a walk, I went to town and bought groceries and new china. I have food from the garden to eat. And I finally, FINALLY finished listening to Everything Is Illuminated on tape by Jonathon Safran Foer. Jesus. Have any of y'all read this book? Did you like it? I guarantee you that if I had been actually reading it with my eyes I never would have finished it. His style grew weary to me after about a thousand hours. But I did it. I finished it.
And I'm reading an Amy Bloom book which I have already laying on the bed waiting for me.

Life is good. On this, the most personal and selfish level, at least. And I am profoundly and thoroughly grateful for that.

I wish you all sweet dreams and let me tell you something- being back on the Lexapro has brought me those gorgeous, luscious dreams again and I can't help but wonder what a Shaman would say about that.

I have so many questions and so few answers.
And that's okay.

Not A Failure

I have no idea why, but the news of Al and Tipper Gore's marriage ending is making me so sad. I keep thinking about it. Not to the point of obsession, but still, a lot.
I suppose it's just sad when any long-time relationship breaks up. I felt similarly when Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon broke up. I felt it when John and Yoko broke up.
But they got back together.

"The separation was not a success," Lennon is said to have stated after his eighteen month "long weekend."
And they went on to make one of my favorite albums together, have a child together, make a life together, seem to be profoundly in love and grateful for every moment together.
Until.
Well.

But Al and Tipper. Jeez. I mean- forty years. And they'd been through so much. The dire accident of a son hit by a car, endless campaigns, the tragedy of the Supreme Court decision making Bush president. And throughout all of it they seemed to be so solid. So juicy. There was never any breath of a scandal, no whisper of an accusation of infidelity or problem. When Gore retired from public office, it seemed that they would go off together holding hands in their various interests and projects and have more time to spend with each other and with children and grandchildren.
It looked so good.
I hope it was. I hope it was good until it wasn't anymore and then I hope that things really did come to a logical and mutual ending. I hope no one is heartbroken although after forty years with a person, the end of the relationship has to be heartbreaking on some levels, at least.

And it ain't my business and I'm not going to conjecture anything here because I don't know one iota of a fact about their marriage or their lives. And none of us really knows anything about any one's marriage. Hell, it's hard to know the true and real facts of one's own marriage. People can come home one day, one perfectly normal day in a perfectly normal life and say, "I'm done," pack his or her bags and leave.

I do have to say that I hope neither Al nor Tipper see the marriage as a failure in any way.
They had a terrific partnership for many years and they raised their children and they did a lot of amazing things and it sure did look, at least from here, as if they enjoyed a lot of it.

I hope they did.

And I hope they can find peace in their hearts as they separate and go their own ways.

They deserve that, I think.

Before Yoga

Adventures In Babysitting

Damn. It's been an exciting day in Lloyd. I mean- TWO BABIES!

And then there was the snake in the hen house. That damn snake. It's the same one. He keeps coming back and he's eating my eggs! I only collected two eggs the other day and I wondered what in hell was going on. Well, it's an egg-eatin' oak snake and that son-of-a-bitch is pissing me off.
Lily and the boys and I were outside feeding the chickens and before we went in we went to get eggs and there he was, draped over the laying boxes like he owned the joint.

He's a handsome fellow but come on! Eat rats, ya damn bastard and leave my eggs alone!

Lily, for some reason, transformed before my eyes into Zena, Warrior Princess, handed me Owen and grabbed the pitchfork. She opened the little door at the back of the box and pushed him out with the handle of the pitchfork; meanwhile, I stood there not believing she was doing it. She WAS going to grab him with a gloved hand ("I see this all the time on the Discovery Channel- I can do it!") but when glove came to snake, she opted not to.

I was stunned that she did what she did but I shouldn't have been. Lily is a force of nature.

After the snake dropped out of the box Lily coaxed him into heading back into the woods. He'll be back, dammit. I know he will. Either Mr. Moon is going to have to get him in some sort of container and carry him to a distant place or else he's going to have to kill him and I don't really want him to do that. Snakes like that one are not a threat to humans and are lovely in their snake way.
But he cannot keep stealing my eggs. No way.
As Lily once said here when a bat was flying around the bathroom as she was trying to get ready to go to work at 5 a.m., "Too much nature!"
Sometimes it feels that way, anyway.

The yellow flies are driving me insane.

I did not take that picture and I won't be posting a picture I personally took because I'm not letting one of those motherfuckers stay on me long enough to focus. They bite and take blood like a mosquito but their stings swell and itch enough to drive me insane (short drive, Mr. Moon would say) and one is torturing me this very instant. She already bit me twice. Again, like mosquitoes, only the females bite.
Frankly, I'd rather have a snake near me than a yellow fly. I'm not even kidding you.

Anyway, we had a great time with the boys. Owen and Waylon seem to be amused by each other and try to grab at each other's faces. They go straight for the eyes. I have no idea why. Waylon is a happy boy, like Owen and fairly easily amused. He went down for a nap around three and when his mama got here at four, she found us asleep together in the guest room.

We were both tired, even though I hadn't done a damn thing all day long.
Like I said, we did go out and feed the chickens. Here's a picture of Miss Penny who was getting real close and personal with me. She WANTS those grapes and she is not kidding!

She was IN MY FACE! So I took her picture.

And here's a picture of Jessie with both boys.


You can see that Owen is keeping an eye on Waylon. "That's MY Mean Aunt Jessie," he is probably thinking. He's almost all well now except for a bit of huskiness to his voice which is actually quite charming. He's sort of the Demi Moore of babies now. He's back to being the boss of every one, especially his grandmother. He took a dive backwards off the bed today but I miraculously stuck out a foot and gently broke his fall. He was pissed off but not hurt.

And now I suppose I better do a chore or two. Like- wash the breakfast dishes. I mean, it's time to start thinking about dinner.

It's been a good day. I tell you. When Jessie came in she found Lily and me, sitting in the Glen Den eating meatloaf sandwiches and watching Wife Swap and playing with the babies. I mean really- it doesn't get much better than that. And then- a nap with a baby?! Well. Nothing better.

A hot summer day with babies and snakes and meat loaf sandwiches and some of my kids and now it even looks like it might rain.

Yeah. I'm a lucky woman.

I better go wash those dishes.

Love...Ms. Moon

We Love Babies

Waylon is Coming

Baby Waylon is coming today. He's the son of my dear friends Billy and Shayla. I've never taken care of this little man on my own and he doesn't know me so well but I think we'll do fine. And Jessie may come out too to help amuse him which is vastly comforting. All babies and children love Jessie. That's just the truth.

When Shayla talked to me a few weeks ago about how they were going to need help with the boy this week (their usual babysitters are out of town) she said that she and Billy had decided they were going to have to ask the Moon Women for help.

I love that she said that.
I love that they trust me with their sweet little boy.

There will be pictures.