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Across The Silent Night Sky
The weekend was a mellow, mild, and very welcome time to be at home and with my wife. We didn’t launch into any major projects, but did a lot of what I call “piddling around,” and enjoyed being outside in the warm weather. I’ve learned not to overestimate my stamina anymore, so I don’t plan day-long series of projects. I do one, take a break, assess how I feel, then move on to another one IF I still have gas in my tank. We have had problems with squirrels getting into Mrs. Orr’s flowers in pots on the porches, so I cut circles from hardware fabric, cut a circle in…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints
Memorials
I walked the road the other morning alone, leaving Jinx and Bluebelle to romp in the backyard while I strolled the mountain lane, and I noticed how the gravel at the edges of the road had been ground down by the tires and tires and tires until it resembled nothing so much as gray aquarium rock. If I had one of those glass boxes full of water and marine life and topped with a humming light — I’ve never in my life owned an aquarium, and usually only think of them when I read Loren Eisley, who spent a childhood making and stocking his own — I would scoop up…
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Leaves Change, Dogs Lie
As I write these words, Jinx is sleeping in the recliner on the back porch. I came out here to do a bit of writing and he came out with me. As is his custom, the spotted menace hopped up in my lap to snuggle, and so scribbling with my pencil in my notebook became nigh impossible. We rocked and watched the rain and the birds and the chipmunks, and we rested. I needed to go inside at one point so I could put clothes into the dryer, and when I stood up, Jinx got back into the chair and made himself comfortable. When I returned, he was asleep, but…
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Fright And Grief
When I arrived home tonight, Mrs. Orr was cooking up a feast of salmon patties, new potatoes, green beans and a cucumber & tomato salad. We ate, and then Jinx and I went out for our evening stroll. A couple of years ago, one of my readers helped me identify a type of milkweed I’d never seen before. That same strain of milkweed is everywhere this year. As Jinx and I walked, I counted more than eighty of the plants along a twenty yard stretch of our road. The butterflies will be well pleased. Back at the house, I decided to set all of my wife’s pot flowers (as in…
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Mothers Day
The rhythms of our life together are easy and harmonious. For more than a week, my wife and I have moved in a steady cadence of digging, planting, sowing, watering, trimming, taming. We are tired but pleased with the overall effect. This year, being outside together has become a series of luminous hours, hours in which we are as rooted to our little soil & rock tasks as surely as if we were branched and barked and leafed ourselves. Over the weekend, what time we didn’t spend gardening was spent on the back porch, where we took our meals, rested, and watched the cascade of different varieties of birds as…
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May’s First Week
I took advantage of the mild, warm weather on Saturday and tackled a project I’ve long been delaying…cleaning out the small barn. I figured I’d get it done during the morning, and then use the afternoon to clean out and organize the old goat shed so I could use it as a firewood shed. Ah, the best-laid plans. The small barn took all day, and I have been paying for it ever since. While I slept the last two nights, some imp from below snuck into our home and poured ground glass into the base of my spine, along my shoulders, into the soles of my feet, and behind my…