Because It's Still Friday

"You can't accuse me of anything I haven't already confessed to."

"The idea of retiring is like killing yourself. It's almost like Harikari. I intend to live to 100 and go down in history."

Because It's Friday, It's My Blog

And I just fucking feel like it.

And speaking of the environment as we were yesterday....

Seriously, y'all. Let's do it for Keith.

The boys have gone home with their daddy for Super Dudes night, I'm checking out of Mer Mer mode, my old man's coming home and we are going to have martinis and PARTY ALL NIGHT LONG!

Just as soon as I drink this shot of espresso I made in my Mickey Mouse jelly glass and tidy up the house from boy and dog play, clean up the bathroom where Gibson took a shower after having a monumental poop, and fold up the second of three loads of laundry I'm doing, it's going to be a gas. A Jumping Jack Flash of a gas. 

Trust me. 

Or, alternately, we'll have a martini on the porch and maybe walk around the yard, eat some leftovers and get to bed early because Boppy has to coach Owen's T-Ball team tomorrow morning.

Whatever.
I'm ready.
Bring it on.

So to speak.

Love...Ms. Moon, The Once Wild And Terrible, Now The Tame And Way Too Good

Just To Walk Is Good

I remember when I used to walk in town in the pre-dawn darkness and I would choose my routes to go past houses that I loved especially. Some for the way they looked, some for the way they felt. I could imagine myself living in some of those houses had I lived but a slightly different life. I can remember knowing in which houses people got up in early, their lights coming on and once I saw through a window as I passed, a father waking up his son. One tiny brief second and I will, for some reason, always remember.

Now I walk past trees that I love especially. That one above being one of them. It is not as large a live oak as many of them are here in Lloyd, but you can see its age in its gnarled branches and I love it. The house which some of the branches stretch over is abandoned now although when we first moved here, an old man lived there.
He is dead now and the house is beginning go fall apart. The tree stands watch over and beside.

On my last stretch today, I was walking past that house and the Sheik came walking out of the woods beside it. I knew he was coming from a road which lies behind it. I walk there, too. That's where I saw the rattler last week. We greeted each other. He was on one side of the highway, me on the other.
"Do you live back there?" I asked him.
"Nah, my brother does."
I wondered if it was the brother with the golf club who lost his eye in a bar fight but I did not ask.
"Okay," I said.
"How are you today?" he asked me.
I hesitated. "Some days are just harder than others," I finally said. "You know."
He nodded gravely. "Yes. They are."
I think he was probably on his way to Miss Liola's to check in. I was on my way to the post office and then home.
We wished each other a good day and went on our ways.

It is harder today. I do not know why. I slept ten hours last night and could have slept longer. When I woke up, I hurt everywhere, especially my legs and hips. A long-time chronic thing and obviously, it is not going to be the death of me. I don't hurt very much when I am taking my walks. My body just does it and mostly my mind goes away somewhere, to the book I am listening to, to the sky above where I see soaring hawks, vultures, the swooping pileated woodpecker, to the ground below me where I see the prints of animals, sometimes human footprints, to the woods beside me where everything now is so green, ten thousand shades of it as the new growth comes in, begins to grow into its summer maturity, the white blossoms of the blackberry in fields which have been cut but not for a year or two, the yellows and purples of the wildflowers.

The spiderwort. If I were a queen, I would wear nothing but gowns of silk or velvet in that exact shade.

And so I walk and sometimes I have to go a little ways into the woods to stop and pee and often, because of that I notice the tiniest of blooming things on the floor of the forest and the softest mosses, the fungi growing on downed branches. I always wonder what I am missing as I walk. Which animals are above and beside me, observing me even as I have no idea of their presence? I also wonder what the names of the plants and bushes I see every day are. Some, of course, I know. Most I do not.
Wonders and mysteries.

Now I'm home and Greta, my grand dog is here. She and Maurice are fine friends and touch noses upon greeting. Maurice slept with us last night, curled up, touching me. When I got up once and then got back in bed, she put her head to my hand and I scratched her until we both fell back asleep. She is a comfort to me. She is lying on the table now where I am writing this, Greta snoozes underneath. The magnolia leaves sigh in the breeze, the birds sing, the boys will be here soon, I am glad I have had my walk and I have taken Ibuprofen and it's probably going to eventually kill me but once I stop moving, the pain comes back and I am a human and would rather avoid as much pain as possible.

For this moment there is peace.
One cardinal sits on the feeder, two hens are beneath it.
I hear Trixie singing her hen song.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Let's Be Honest

I am destroying the environment. Yep. Me. Right now.
I have the air conditioner on which is bad enough. But do you know why I am running the AC? Because the house is really warm due to the fact that I am baking a pie.
This makes no sense.
Does it help to know that in a little while I'll be baking sweet potatoes?
No. It does not.

I feel so guilty. Jesus. But let me ask you this- if all we should eat in the summer are salads, why do all the lettuces and greens go to seed just as it gets warm? At least here in Florida, which, let's face it- may truly and really be Bizarro World and should you doubt that, just google "Florida man" as I have suggested before.

Did you see this?

That, my loves, is a picture of a bobcat which caught a shark in the surf at the Sebastian Inlet State Park which is my old childhood stomping grounds. We used to go there before it was a park, before there were people living there and I, an eight-year old, would walk on the beach by myself for long distances. Not that I think a bobcat would have come after me. But oh yeah, we did swim there a lot too.

Florida. 

Okay. How did I get from destroying the environment to this?

Don't know. And yet, I have. 

Anyway, I am making a pie because Jessie and Vergil are coming out. They are spending the night so that they can get up at the crack of dawn and drive Mr. Moon's truck down to Tampa to pick up their kitchen cabinets. I think. So it's their fault I am destroying the environment. 

That is so not true. It's because I'm a wuss and wanted the AC on and I'm selfish. 

And which is why my grandchildren will not have the world I live in when they are grown. 

Of course, I wouldn't have thought there would be bobcats coming out of the jungle to snag sharks from the Atlantic in 2015 so there you go.

Which is a form of stupid thinking and also denial and may I add- thank god for the parks system. 

So I had lunch today with Mr. Moon and Lily and Gibson and Owen. He is proud of/hates his boot. It is hot. The sock is hot. The boot is hot. Together they are really hot. But he is sort of proud of it. For what it cost even with insurance, Lily may make him wear it for the rest of his life. 

That's all I have to say except that today at the library a very dapper older man said to me, "I like your gray hair."

I was wearing it down because when I went to town it was so wet from sweat from my walk (not kidding you and gross, huh?) and I didn't quite know what to say so I said, "Thank you!"

And then he said, "That is very attractive to me."

I almost blushed and it was not one bit creepy or weird. 

As I told a friend, that was the nicest compliment I've gotten in forever. Then I added that it was probably the only compliment I've gotten in forever.

Okay, seriously. That really is all I have to say. 

I'm going to go make squash croquettes. In the air conditioning. 

Love..Ms. Moon, Destroyer of the Environment

Where I Walk

The flowers are wild. In light and in shadow, they reach up, all of them.

I Got ALL The Old Southern Lady Genes. I'm Glad.

I've done it again and cooked too much. The beans and the ham bone in one big pot and when I was in the garden pulling up the bolted arugula it occurred to me that I just had to cook more of the collards that are left, breathing their last greenybreath before their seed flowers take over and so I picked some, along with some lovely leaves of kale and washed them and put them in a pot with chopped tomatoes and onions and vinegars (balsamic, white and dark, rice vinegar too) and soy sauce and salt, thinking to add these greens to the ones left from Easter dinner and when I went to pull those out of the refrigerator, I realized that there would have been plenty of them alone for our supper and a couple more suppers, too.
But. There you go. So what? Soon they will be all gone until next winter. I should probably cook batches of them and freeze them.
Hell. Maybe I will.
And to add to the joy of them, I added some mango salsa to the pot.
I will make cornbread too.
Of course.
Because I am a southern woman.

The peas have put out two blooms although they are growing strong up the trellis. Two tiny blooms and they are both pink. My heart thrilled to see them. The potatoes are starting to bloom as well and soon I will begin to fish carefully around in the dirt and leaves beneath them to see if I can find some small potatoes to bring in and cook, red-skinned, Yukon Gold, riches all.

The older I get, the more thrilled I am to grow things in the dirt, to collect the eggs and the less worried I am about my black dirty feet.

As Jeff and his wife left today, they told me how much they loved my house, these amazing trees. Jeff said, "It's like you've got a little slice of paradise here, and I said to them, "This is my sanatorium," and of course I should have said "sanctuary" but sanatorium is more accurate. This is where I live and how I live in order to avoid insanity. My trees, my chickens, my dirt- even the heat (which is growing fierce) are probably what keep me this side of buttface crazy.

Judy came by this afternoon and we, too, sat on the porch and talked for awhile. We talked about genes and how they show up where you least expect it and I wonder where this love of dirt and growing things and trees came to me. My mother never planted a thing except for stunning African violets and some Gerbera daisies, as I recall, although my granddaddy, her father, was always planting or pruning or turning his compost pile or tending something on his little plot of land in Roseland, Florida when I was growing up there. He was born and raised on a farm in Pennsylvania but knew at an early age that was not for him and he gave up his inheritance as the eldest son and became a wood buyer for the Cavalier Cabinet Corporation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. What he loved above all was making things from wood and he was very good at that, despite having lost four fingers on his left hand in a saw accident when he was young.
His wife, my Yankee granny, never grew one durn thing except a pot of geraniums even though she belonged to the Roseland Garden Club.
I have no idea about the other side of my family- my daddy's side. They liked to drink and some of them played music and they were lawyers and had maids and gardeners. But somewhere back there, there must have been some southern woman who took great comfort in her yard hens, her tomato patch, her gardenias and hydrangea, her roses and her camellias.
I am sure of it.

Either that or the spirits of all the women who have lived in this house have found home in my bones and direct me to plant and tend and gather. I do not discount that theory either although in truth, I have grown gardens in every house I've ever lived in since I was a grown-up. Or at least thought I was a grown-up.

Well, whatever. Here I am and my feet are black and I have dirt under my nails and greens on the stove and when I went out to gather eggs this evening I saw the oak snake again, as I did last night, too, when the boys and I went out to the hen house. I have decided to be at peace with it although one of the duck eggs I picked up was slimy as hell and I know that was because the snake had been trying to swallow it. Stupid snake. The duck eggs are the biggest eggs in the hen house. I also discovered three eggs in the nest in the pump house and I am thinking that the hens, knowing the snake is in the nests, have decided to lay elsewhere. A few of them, at least.

I know that there are mice in the hen house too, drawn by the chicken feed and scratch and I am sure the snake is eating those.

You know what's so strange? I never, as a child, thought that this would be the sort of life I wanted to live. I had no idea what that life might have been but living on a few acres in north Florida with chickens and a garden in a house built in 1859 never once entered in to the equation.

Blame genes. Blame spirits. Blame whatever. Being a hippie. That has to factor in too. I know I have told this story before but whenever I see my potatoes and my peas maturing, I think of the day that May was born. I was living in a 10 by 50 foot trailer about ten miles down the road from where I live now and she was born in that trailer and I was 23 years old and Hank was a few weeks shy of being two. After she was born at daybreak, we rested a while and then took May in to Tallahassee for a newborn exam which she passed in all detail and came home and for supper that night I cooked barbecued chicken in the oven (an oven which had no thermostat) and made a cream sauce to serve with fresh baby potatoes, onions, and peas from the garden.

I've had an interesting life. To my mind, at least. And it's still interesting enough for me now.
I just watched Lilly and Willy, the two lady ducks, have pretty convincing  sex in the back yard. I hope it was fulfilling for both of them.

Turns out that Owen, who stubbed his toe badly while running through the house a few weeks ago actually has a broken metatarsal. He now has a boot which is he pretty proud of.

See? It never ends.

Those greens are going to be good. Time to make the cornbread.

Love...Ms. Moon

Here We Are. Still.

I didn't wake up until nine this morning and in checking my e-mail, discovered that an old friend of mine had stayed the night with his wife right down the road and so I called him and they came over for a visit. This man was the brother of my best friend since the eighth grade, a woman whom I still am very much in touch with. Whom I will always love dearly. I sort of grew up in her house as a kid, spent a lot of time there, and knew her brother well. Of course he was a friend of Brian's, my friend who just died, and also a friend of my ex's. Musicians, all.
Jeff, this friend, was in the first band I ever saw. The Titans, they were called. I remember that well. It was a birthday of Mary Lane's, my friend, and her parents threw her a big ol' party and there was the band and there was dancing and I wore a pink dress that had a bow at the neck and I did dance with some boys including one named (I am not making this up) Gregory Peck. But it was the band that I fell in love with.
The beginning of a lifelong love affair with musicians.

Anyway, they came by and I showed them our house and the yard and the trees and the chickens and we sat on the porch and talked awhile. Jeff's had too many deaths in his family lately and now, Brian, and we were all a bit shellshocked, sixty-year old people sitting on a porch on a gorgeous spring morning talking about death, how it can come slow and excruciatingly or fast and sudden.
Talking about how you can't just always take it for granted that you can pick up the phone and call an old friend and say, "Let's get together," and know it'll happen.
One thing I've learned lately is that no matter how many deaths you go through, you have to grieve each one in a completely different way depending on who that person was in your life. There is no fucking check-list of stages. Each person held a different part of you in their hearts and the opposite is true too. The part that held you is gone and will never be replaced no matter how long the part you hold lives.

You can quote me on that one, baby.

No matter what sort of grieving comes, though, one true thing for me is that it makes my body hurt. I have no idea why. But it does.

So my friends have headed back on to New Orleans where they live. They're on their way back from South Florida where his mama was living when his brother died. They were helping her get her things together so that she could move up to Maryland to live near his sister, my dear friend. The mama is 93 and in pretty good health and I think of her, two of her children gone, her husband too. Most of her family, all of her old friends.

Yes. I feel a bit desolate today.

I tell you what though- I woke up to clean bathrooms! Owen decided yesterday to be the Best Boy in the world and to try and make me happier. He knew my friend had died and his mama had told him and his brother to be very sweet to Mer Mer and so he was. He wanted to clean so I gave him a spray bottle with water and vinegar and a few drops of Fabuloso in it and he went crazy. My sinks gleam and the outsides of the toilets too. He straightened up everything on the piano

and cleaned the keys and he polished mirrors too.

He tidied up the Glen Den and put toys away and then (and this melted my heart right in two) he set up his grandfather's Lazy Boy with the foot rest out and blankets and pillows on it and set the fan right in front of it and led me to it and said, "This is your relaxing place."
He even brought me a stick to hit against the wall for me to call him if I needed anything, because I don't have a bell to ring.

I kept saying, "Honey, you need to take a break. Are you hungry? Do you want something to drink? You don't have to do all of this."
And he'd say, "Nope! Gotta clean!" and he did and he did and he did.

And Gibson crawled up into the relaxing chair with me ("I need you") and we cuddled and I felt like the luckiest grandmother in the world.
I paid Owen three dollars when they left which is a fortune for him but to be honest- was a bargain for me. I mean, he really did do a good job.

The rest of today I am going to move slowly and with mindfulness. I might spend some time reading. I am going to cook my favorite food, beans with the rest of the ham bone. I might go outside and do some work or I might be content to sit on the porch and watch the outside as if were a movie.

Speaking of movies, I just saw a rough, short video of another dear friend from the olden days (and yes, another friend I knew because of Brian) jamming last night with Stevie Wonder onstage in Nashville. If I can get a youtube link I'll post it here.

Life is funny. Life is hard. Life is glorious. Life is sucking, fucking horrible sometimes.
But there is always music and our loves and the roses are blooming. And this.

Cha-Cha and Camellia in the oxalis.

Love...Ms. Moon

Either This Or Maybe That Or Maybe None Of That At All

Back from a walk and I could no more imagine doing it than I could yesterday but thankfully, it really does not require imagination to take a walk. You just put on your shoes and open the door and step through it. Take another step. Etc.
Bam.
Done.
Probably most things, or at least many, are much the same. Keep the imagination out of the way and just step out the door. Wearing the proper shoes, of course.

Maybe instead of anti-anxiety medications, we need anti-imagination medications. Maybe we need believe-in-magic medications. Maybe we need have-faith-in-a-higher-power medications. Maybe we need give-it-all-to-god medications. Maybe we need amnesia medications.
Or maybe all we need to do is go to church or meditate or do yoga or plant a garden or join a choir or do cross-fit or drink green tea.

I don't fucking know.

I just know that some times are harder than others and I am the first to agree that the person who makes my hard times harder than others is none other than me, myself.

Well, not to be all existential or anything but I have some thinking to do.

I'll try not to use my imagination. Or hell, maybe I'll try to use it in new and fabulous ways.

I'll let you know if I discover the secret of the universe or something.

Meanwhile, one foot in front  of the other.
Etc.
I'm not even going to worry about the shoes. Sometimes it's best just to go barefoot, the better for your toes to clutch the ground.

Love...Ms. Moon

Yeah. Like That.

And within this picture you will find the entire story of my day.
(Can you believe how long those legs are getting?)

And The Hens Say, "Here. Have An Egg."

I can't get moving today. The broom and dustpan are in the hallway as a reminder to me as if I needed one. I took the trash and recycle and went to the post office but the thought of a walk seems as absurd as the idea of flying to the moon and taking a walk there.

I feel as if I've been pummeled by life and by death.

Maurice says, "It's okay, mama. It's okay."

What Easter Looked Like Over Here

The flowers Glen picked me on his way back from the coast.

Jason and Lily. Later in the day, I asked them why they have such cute kids. 

"Because we're hot," said Lily. 

Too true.

May and Michael. No. May does not look like me at all. Not one bit. 

Hank and Jessie. And Mr. Moon in the background.

May, Mark, and Anna. Y'all hold a good thought for our Mark. He has to have surgery on Thursday. It's going to be complex and we love him bad. He brought Legos for the boys and they adore him. He asked today if we could actually legally adopt him. I said, "Mark, your parents would be so upset."

"They'll get over it," he said.

He doesn't really mean that. He just likes my biscuits. 

When Anna came in I said, "Happy Easter, my Christian friend!" She is a Christian and a good one. The kind that if you need, she gives and no bullshit. She is one of the kindest people I know.

Jerry and Lucia. Hank and May's other parents. And Mr. Moon, of course.

One of these days I'm going to have to explain who Jerry is to Owen. It's going to blow his mind. Or maybe he'll just relate it all to Elvis and Mick and the sister-wives and it'll just be in interesting factoid. 

Gibson, Jessie and Vergil. 

We do not make Gibson sit in the high chair. He loves it. And next Easter, there will be an actual baby sitting in it. Can you believe that? 

Owen had already finished his dinner by the time I sat down. So here's a picture I snagged off of Facebook from when they hunted eggs this morning with their cousin Lenore, the tiny dainty fairy princess.

What? J. Crew calling? 

Nicey kept coming onto the porch. Mr. Moon carried her into the kitchen and fed her a bean. She liked it. See that bare patch on her back? That's from being the victim of frequent fornication. She must be the most desirable hen in the flock. Poor thing. Gibson had a mouthful of ham. He likes ham. 

And so it went. There was ham and deviled eggs and bread and biscuits and greens and quinoa salad and black-eyed peas and boiled shrimp and pineapple casserole. Never had pineapple casserole? 

Lord, chile! 

Just google that shit. Lily made it. She is allowed to make it once a year. 

Or maybe twice. But that is ALL!

And the carrot cake was dense and it was good. 

Hey- guess what? We never got around to hiding eggs. Too much Lego-building and stuff going on. It just never happened. The boys had already hunted eggs so they didn't care. 

I've thought about Brian all day. One of the things he did that I loved was end everyone of his Facebook post with the words, "Ain't life grand!" 

Except for once when his post was, "Excuse me. I was not aware that a day could suck so badly."

He was a funny guy. He was a happy guy. He lived until he died. 

Let's try to do the same. If exhaustion is any indication that one has lived a day to the fullest, then I most certainly have. 

Feels good.

See you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

We Go On

Well, here we are.
Another Easter.
My eyes ache, I am cooking a pot of greens that wouldn't fit in a Volkswagen's bonnet.
I made the cake last night. The ham is in the oven. The bread is "rising." In theory.
I'd make some sort of joke about bread rising and Jesus rising but I'm not up to it.
Looking at the cake I made last night I will tell you that baking with a heavy heart makes a heavy cake.

Anyway, la-di-dah and may all be well with you and yours.
Let's hug and kiss and tell each other we love each other.

That and eat greens and eggs.

Love...Ms. Moon

And Then..

I found out this morning that one of my oldest friends, a man I've known for forty-five years, died this morning. Walked into work, had a heart attack, died.

I've written about him before. I have no idea when or where. But I'll tell you this- he was the link to most of who I've known and where I've been for my entire life.

I talked to my first husband today. My ex, I suppose we must call him. He knew Brian in the eighth grade. They were in Boy Scouts together. The Soul Patrol. Went on to be great friends, played music together right up until last New Years when Jerry went down to Central Florida to play a gig with him.

"Jerry," I said. "We would never have met if not for Brian. We wouldn't have our children."

We both broke down.

I'm not going to do a full on obit here tonight. I just can't. This has hit me hard as hell. I literally had to go to bed this afternoon. Slept for two hours. If I tried to start sorting through my memories of him, it would never end.

Musician, bad boy, best heart you ever met. Wicked smart. Always on the side of the disenfranchised. Fearless to an unhealthy degree. More talents than you could put in a canyon of the Grand proportions. More friends than can be imagined.

He was like Keith Richards. You couldn't believe he was still alive. You can't believe he'd ever die.

Brian Churchill Everhart.

My god. I can't imagine a world without him in it.

While Christ Is Napping In The Tomb, So To Speak

Saturday morning and soon I need to put on a bra and go to town and get the things we need for our dinner tomorrow. The chickens, the ducks, are up, they're out, they're scratching about. My husband is coming home today. I will have to take the stacks of books and magazines off of his side of the bed and that is a good trade-off. I hope he's had a very good time.

I can't believe all the beautiful comments I got yesterday. Thank you all so very much. Not one person said, "Honey, it was only a chicken."
For that I am grateful.
I called my next-door neighbor yesterday to tell her that Elvis had died. She gave me her sympathy, asked how old he'd been. I told her that he'd been around six and she said that that was pretty old for a rooster which made me feel a little better. She said she'd miss seeing him bring his hens over to her side of the yard. She said that if one of her hens raises babies and one looks like it might be the child of Elvis, Jr. who lives at her house, she would let me have it.

Looks like rain here today. Gray. Heavy sky. I need to get to town, come back, cook, tidy things up. I am thinking I might use the rest of my garden carrots for a carrot cake. It's not really my favorite but it seems to me that this would be a fitting thing to do. I just can't seem to get moving but I will.

I should pipe the yolks back into the whites for the deviled eggs, shouldn't I?
I don't have a pastry bag. 
Oh well.

That's the level of intellectual thought I am operating on today.

Be of good cheer and know I appreciate you.

Love...Ms. Moon

Let's Do Some Living

I'm glad it's been such a beautiful day today. That has helped. I've been crying on and off and not ashamed to do it. Every death, including that of a rooster, brings back every death. And so I have had a day to grieve and because it has been cloudless and lightshot and green, it has been like being in a beautiful cathedral with incredible stained glass windows for my worship but instead of static glass, no matter how magnificent, my cathedral, or my church, has been ever-changing, splendid in the perfection of its color, arrangement, and light.

The boys came over and weren't here for long but I was glad of their company. We played games and put together part of a puzzle and we listened to the Rolling Stones and we kicked bamboo and we cuddled. I told Owen one of his favorite stories, which is the story of how I became a grandmother and as I told the story, I gently rubbed Gibson's back and he closed his eyes and smiled and I expanded the story to Gibson's birth and to the coming of Jessie's baby and we talked about the Mr. Peep story and Elvis and how, when I bought this house, I must have known what a wonderful house it would be for grandchildren to visit me in.
Oh! How he loves to hear these stories and I think Gibson is learning to love them too.

I made them sherbet and juice drinks.

Owen wanted an Orange Cow which is orange sherbet and orange juice and Gibson wanted a Purple Cow which is orange sherbet and grape juice. Around here anyway. They had them out of the fancy glasses I bought just for them at the Goodwill which are sturdy and pretty and just the right size for a boy-treat. 

When I took them out to see Elvis's grave, we talked about Elvis. We talked about how he is dead now and I told them that I was very sad. I asked Owen if he was sad. He said, "Not too much. But it makes my eyes hurt to think about. He's in chicken heaven now."

I told him that I hope that chickens are in people heaven. Otherwise, I have no desire to go.

Lily, who was still here, rolled her eyes a bit but she knows her mama. 

They are so good for me, these boys. They are so loving. Gibson let me kiss him one million times and whenever I open my arms to Owen, he throws himself into them. I was putting Gibson's pants on after he peed on the potty and out of nowhere, he said, "I love you, Mer." 

I hugged and kissed him and pulled his Toy Story underpants up and said, "Oh, Gibson. I love you too."

After they went home with their daddy to possibly have Super Dudes Night, I finished up laundry and  cleaned the poopy hay out of the hen house and did this and that and when it became the magic hour, I opened a beer and went out to have a walk around the yard by myself but as it turned out, I had company. 

She came with me, every step of the way. Entirely by coincidence, I assure you. 

We checked out the garden. 

Can you believe the color of those mustard greens? 

The cucumbers are coming up. So are the beans but I did not get a good picture of them so you'll have to take my word. 

Lily and Willy, the very silly ducks who lay me an egg apiece every day and who talk amongst themselves all day long, a running dialogue which I swear, I can almost interpret. 

Mick, tilting his head to look at me. He is trying. It is not an easy job to be a good husband to the sister-wives but I have to say he's giving it his best. 

One of the pretty white roses, cupping the setting sun in its petals. 

The Japanese maple. I could not choose between these two pictures. Red stars against a blue sky.

The last wisteria blossoms of the year. 

Elvis's grave where I put a broken tile of St. Francis which I found in the yard here a few years ago.

He and Buddha are doing a good job of watching over things. 

The wild azalea's bloom. 

The Ashe Magnolia flower, ready to launch. 

My familiar, still hanging with me. 

So there. That is what Good Friday, April 3, 2015 looked like on 2.2 acres in Lloyd, Florida. 

Tomorrow I am going to go buy a ham, cook greens, boil eggs, make angel-biscuit dough. I just talked to Taylor who is the chef at Fanny's Garden Cafe in Tallahassee about her coming-up wedding in November which she will probably be having here and about how to boil and peel eggs. 

This is how she said to do it:

Put the eggs in cold water with a lot of salt. Not vinegar. Salt. 

Bring them to a rolling boil.

Cover and take them off the heat. 

Let them sit for ten minutes. Exactly. 

Put them in ice water. 

She says she's never had a problem. 

I believe her. She makes hundreds of deviled eggs a week. 

What a sad, sweet day. I think I am going to listen to some Rolling Stones and make my supper. This is the song that's been playing in my head for a few days. 

It's a song rich in sadness and sweetness. As the best ones always are. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Perhaps The Finest Rooster That Ever Did Live

I did not want to open the door to the hen house this morning.
I guess I knew.
And yes, there he was, head in the corner, stretched out in all of his feathery glory, still as could be.

I waited a little while to bury him. Had some coffee. Let the other birds out, threw them some scratch.

I had thought, you know, to bury him in the little yard of my office next to Pearl and Miss Sharon but I decided that no, I wanted him in the front yard where his spirit could watch over us the way he watched over his hens. It seemed important to me. So I did it.

I found a soft enough spot right by the blooming wild azalea and I dug a hole.

I carried his body respectfully from where it rested and laid it in the ground. I did not wrap him in anything. His feathers were glory and gravedress enough.

I covered him up. I planted a fern over him and a bit of firespike. I will think of his gorgeous red comb and wattle when it blooms in the fall. 

So. It is done.

Not to get all Biblical and shit but it is. 

I have no idea why I'm so goddamned upset. 

But I am.

I Stayed Home

I could have gone to St. George Island today with Lily and Jason and Gibson and Owen and Jessie, who took that picture.
I think it's sort of a stunning picture, especially for one taken with an iPhone.

I could have enjoyed things like this.

Or been a bathing beauty like this.

But no, I did not. I stayed home and I can't say I'm sorry at all. I did nothing of any real importance, didn't change the world or save the world or figure out how to cure the common cold or even plant a row of zinnias. But it was a very nice day anyway.

I had that walk and got to see that fine rattler without the threat of getting bit. I had a chat with Miss Liola and her brother who still, after eleven years of seeing me walk here, does not truly like the fact that I do it. He's concerned that someone is going to attack me, I think. Well, someone did shoot his beloved dog and there you go. 

This afternoon I took Miss Liola some more eggs. The Sheik was arriving just as I did and he said, "Hey. I like eggs too."

"Well, maybe Miss Liola will give you some," I told him. I also gave her a bag of mustard greens and kale. She's so sweet. 

I took a dozen eggs up to Shelly's too. I think she was surprised. We talked a long time and she told me more about growing up here. She said that they used to shell their peas and their peanuts and dry them on trays on the tin roof. It only took a day in the hot sun. And then they'd bag them up and hang them in the smokehouse until they needed them. 

Can you imagine eating peas and beans and peanuts that had been hanging in a smoke house for a couple of months? 

Okay. You talk about your damn trendy food- that's a trend waiting to happen right there, all you hipster foodies. 

Holy shit! Someone needs to jump on this. I'd never heard of that in my life. 

We talked about what we're going to do for Easter and about weeds we both abhor and also about aging. She told me that the medication she's on makes her skin darken in the sun. She showed me where her skin is much lighter and I showed her my ugly-ass age spots. We agreed that there's not a damn thing you can do about this shit after a certain age. Black or white. The sun will get you.  It was a good conversation. I told her that if she ever comes past my house to stop in. I wonder if she will. She said she was going to have some of those eggs with a cup of green tea for her supper and watch Steve Harvey. I like this woman. A lot.

I washed my bedsheets and made up the bed. I gathered nine eggs out of a possible ten. I got out in my office and did a little actual writing. I picked a tick off my leg. I watered my little azalea sproutlings that I stole from Bug. 

I looked for Elvis. I couldn't find him. 

And then, just a minute ago, I heard a sound from right near where I was sitting on the back porch and went outside to see what it was. 

He'd been up between the AC unit and the house. He looked dazed and really bad. His comb is turning black and it's bleeding into his feathers. 

Oh shit. 

I picked him up and stroked him, talked to him. Carried him to the hen house where I put him in the nesting box he's always slept in. 

I just feel horrible. 

I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do beyond what I just did. 

I've said and done all I know to say or do but I think that short of an Easter miracle of resurrection, my beloved Elvis is going on soon. 

At least I know that next door there is Elvis, Jr. I'll ask my neighbor, Ms. Carolyn, if one her hens sets and raises peeps and one of them looks like Elvis, if I can have one. 

That would be good. 

I could have gone to the beach. I would have enjoyed it. 

Instead I stayed home. 

And I am not sorry I did. 

Short

But fat. Obviously just ate and is sunning himself on the side of the road where I walk.
Snakes are out. Be careful, y'all.

Forgive Me. Spring Brings Out The Rhymes As Well As The Flowers

It's been a quiet day and I have been lazy. I went to the grocery store and bought some salmon to cook for myself and some grapes for Elvis. Grapes are the chicken's favorite food and I thought that if I cut them up, perhaps they would interest him a bit.

I brought my groceries in and cut up grapes and went all over the yard, looking for the old man, holding the blue dish of cut green grapes in my hand. I could not find him and so took a nap, sleeping for over an hour in the black depths of unconsciousness. I got up and had some coffee, drove down to Bug's who is out of town, visiting his children, to tend his animals: the dogs, the cats, the goldfish. It is so quiet there and I see Kathleen's...what? What is the word I want here? Not her presence. I don't feel her presence there so much. I think she was such an evolved spirit that she took off quickly into whatever realm comes next. But her influence, for sure. The plants, the beautiful spaces Bug carved out for her when they rebuilt the house on the land which she had such plans for.
Today I stole (yes, Bug! I stole! please forgive me) six tiny azalea sproutlings she'd brought over from her old house. When she trimmed her plants, she could not bear to just let the trimmings die but stuck them in dirt or water to see if they would root and because she had green magic, they did.

I brought them home and have stuck them in the dirt here and then watered them. I hope they grow. This would be a goodness, a gift from that woman.

I have the saddies tonight, as my friend Sue used to say. Sue died in 1995 and I miss her still so much. I am suffering from the sadness malady perhaps because I am thinking of Sue and of Kathleen and of my friend Lynn. Three such important women in my life who died way too early, leaving me to wonder why I am still here and they are not. And of course, because of Elvis.

I finally found him, hiding in the pump house. He is shy of me now, which he has never been and I know it's because of us grabbing him and trying to clear his craw, his crop. And yet- we had to do it. But. Still.

Thoughts of death in the fall and winter are normal and are natural and we all feel that, I think, as plants and animals go into a resting phase, sometimes seeming to disappear entirely.
I do not think it is unnatural to feel them in the spring, either, though. As life re-emerges in such colorful force, it is, for me at least, the hovering spirit of those who will not be coming back which I think of, even as I celebrate the life that does. I do not need reminders of these loved ones. But again, for me, it is perfectly fitting to have plants that stand in for them in our minds, at least.

After Sue died, I planted a Christmas cedar tree from a pot on our property in Apalachicola. It is now huge and every time I see it, I think of it as a small miracle. I literally did nothing but dig a hole, stick it in, and leave. I remember that day so well. I was drunk on death's aftermath, and I drove down to the coast that day with my husband and another friend and all of us had been with Sue when she died so incredibly gracefully a month before. We had all been holding her. All had been loving her. I remember riding in the backseat, looking at both of these men who had the biggest hands I'd ever seen and laughing a bit to myself that Sue had somehow chosen these men-with-big-hands to hold her unto death.
And there is that tree. And I remember.

While that little video of Elvis was downloading, I went out and picked roses from a bush that the people who lived here before us planted as a tribute to a friend of theirs who died. When we bought the place, the man told me that no matter what we did, it would continue to live, and so it has. The most fragile white roses bloom on it and I knew that man slightly. He was a strong and loving force in the community,  an early victim of AIDS. What I remember about him was his laugh which was without restraint, and joyful.

I picked the last camellia of the season, I think. I put it too, in a vase on the hallway altar table.

It represents no one's death. It is just beauty, it was my joy in winter, that camellia. The joy of it bleeding into spring. 

My eyes are seeping, weeping, and it's quite okay. In fact, I am so grateful to have this time by myself to think these thoughts, to have these feelings, to be able to cry these tears without anyone having to worry about me, even my husband. He and I worry overmuch about each other and sometimes, when he is gone, I can feel more fully what it is I need to feel without having to be concerned that he will think that something is wrong. 

Nothing is wrong. I am just thinking of those I have loved. Of those I do love. Of how much I appreciate this life I've lived. And as I have so often said, sometimes the heart overfills and needs to leak out the eyes. 

Spring is a good time to let that happen. 

It's okay to cry

It's okay to weep

It's okay to shed

It's okay to keep

It's okay to plant

It's okay to weed

The dying plant produces seed

The dirt receives

The rain does fall

The sun does shine

Upon it all

The leaves come forth

The flowers too

I think of them

I think of you

The ones I know

The ones I knew

My darling Lynn, Kathleen and Sue.

Love...Ms. Moon

April

Gorgeous morning. Got the sprinkler on the garden, hoping to see beans and cucumbers breaking dirt soon. Hens, ducks, birds all busy and chattery.
Elvis still alive. He's back in the little chick coop, resting.
For my breakfast I ate: one piece of bacon, one egg, one half of a piece of toast. Because that was the last piece of bread in the house.

I suppose I should go to the store.

I am floating in sunshine, birdsong, smell of sun on dirt.

It is April. I am no fool. Or perhaps I am. Even if I am a fool, I am not fool enough to ignore this springing forth of life, this color, this air, this sky, this pocket of time I occupy this very second where suddenly, the new leaves of the oaks, the pecans, have given this yard a shade of green which is magical and like the forest and the sea, all at once, a place of great and quiet beauty in which to dwell.

It is almost too much. But not quite.