Jinx
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Lectio Divina, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Daylight And Other Things Saved
An almost-spring rain has been falling most of the day, and the birds have been very busy at the feeders and in the birdbath. The daffodils are up, along with the grape hyacinth. The Virginia bluebells are getting ready to bud out, the forsythia is daubed with yellow up and down its slender branches, and the peach trees are blossoming out as well. A near neighbor’s pear tree is a perfect pink lollypop in the distance, and all the colors are set off by the silvery mist in the hollers. And tonight we move the clocks forward into Daylight Savings Time, and the tone and tenor of the days will…
-
Christmas Eve, 2023
It’s been an interesting day. Very mild and sunny, very springlike. We enjoyed a very mellow time of it, right up until I started to microwave a biscuit and some sausage leftover from breakfast for a snack. When I pressed “start,” the display of numbers went blank, and then the entire bank of kitchen lights went out, along with the lights and the fridge out in the utility room. I went to the cellar to look at the breaker box, but no breakers were tripped. Still, I flipped the proper ones off, then on, then back off and let them sit for a while. Turned ’em back on and nothing.…
-
Wang Dang…
A short while ago, there was a ruckus on the back porch. The dogs and I went out to investigate, and when I shined my light around, I saw a hunched, gray figure hurrying up the ridge into the woods. All I can say is that if Joy Cartwright and I get awakened in the wee hours because of this interloper and our dogs’ determination to dialogue with him, someone is going to get a piece of firewood laid across the cranium with precision and dispatch. Like livin’ in Nashville up in here… ~ S.K. Orr
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Paths of Freeze
Upon our second awakening this morning, the sun showed the crushed glass rug of frost all over everything, and my bones felt as if someone had injected crushed glass into the joints. Second awakening? Oh, yes. Our first awakening of the day was at about, ohhhhhh, 0230, when the dogs began snorting around outside our bedroom and demanding some attention. We got up to let ’em out and and see what might be yanking their emotional chains. They ran straight to the maple tree in the back yard and started leaping up on it like trained coon dogs. I shined the flashlight up into the bare branches and expected to…
-
Home, Home
We were back home in Texas this past week, and we’re still decompressing, so it’ll be a few days before I post a new one. Suffice it to say the dogs are very happy to be back in their own home and have been spending approximately 2 hours per day romping and rassling, and 22 hours per day sleeping the deepest sleep. Deep sleep to the point where we are envious of them. Ah, to be able to fall down into that sort of restful slumber with nothing to disturb us. I hope all of you are well and having a stress-free season of Thanksgiving Day preparation. ~ S.K. Orr…
-
Two Years Gone
Today marks two years since Bluebelle came to live with us. We still marvel at how this came to be. Jinx’s own littermate was abandoned just as she was, several miles from our farm, and for some strange coincidental reason, I just happened to look at the local animal shelter’s website — something I had never done before nor had any reason for doing — and saw the photo of the little girl. We paid a visit to the shelter and within ten seconds knew this was Jinx’s sister. His former owner had told us about Bluebelle and her beautiful markings. We had no idea we would ever have the…
-
Final Sunday of October
Jinx, once the solitary rambler who ranged over the acres surrounding our little farm, now rarely goes outside by himself. When Bluebelle wants out, he’s always up to accompany her, or when Mrs. Orr and/or I open the back door, Jinx is quick to push past us and run out, tail slashing and head on a swivel, looking to challenge all comers. But open the door and beckon him to come out while Bluebelle is sleeping or otherwise occupied, and he will offer a quizzical glance and walk away. Perhaps he finds meaning in his life to be attached to companionship. And so this morning I was puzzled but pleased…
-
Working Conversations About Grams
If this ain’t October weather, it’ll do ’til October gits here, as Tommy Lee Jones might say. Crispy, gusty, leaf-splayed, paintbrush-daubed, frost-threatening, owl-hooting, cloud-scuttling October. We went down to a nearby town yesterday and ate at a seafood restaurant we’d both heard good things about for years. The reports were more than accurate. We had a great waitress who, when not serving customers, was in constant motion cleaning and sprucing up the place. The restaurant was immaculate as a result. We each got a lunch special, very reasonably priced, and we figured the meals would be the usual slightly-reduced-in-size lunch entrees. Nossir. Mrs. Orr got popcorn shrimp, and I got…
-
Halfway Done
October has swept in with its blazing flourish, its browning, crumbling, scything sweep, making the cheeks ruddy and the shoulders shiver, remembering the heavier garments that have hung ignored for months, the articles of garb we don’t want to use but for which we are grateful when we take them up again. And now, in the middle part of the tenth month, we are grateful. Our neighbor arrived Friday night with his loader and attacked the enormous pine tree that has reclined in his pasture since Palm Sunday since he hoisted it off our shared fence and dropped it on his side. Mrs. Orr and I reminisced about the day…
-
Creatures Under Heaven (updated)
“To deal the tortures of hell to the animal creation is a way which too many people have of showing their belief in it….” from A Dog of Flanders by Ouida, 1872 This afternoon we did some needful grocery shopping, and on the way home Mrs. Orr asked me to swing into the drive-thru of our favorite local burger joint. She wanted to pick up a gallon of their tea, the best in the region. Idling behind a couple of other cars in the lane, I looked across at the back yard of a home a couple hundred yards away from the burger place. In the yard is a small…