anniversary, no butterflies or kites, and mockery

Yesterday was our 49th wedding anniversary. Wednesday night at dinner Marc asked me if I knew what tomorrow was. Thursday, I said kind of shrugging like yeah. He looked at me and said, August 14th. Oh, yeah, right. I never remember and he knows that. I can’t believe it’s been 49 years he said. Yeah, you lucky bastard I replied. He laughed. Just a counterpoint to all the times he’s told me how lucky I am to have snagged a fine fellow like him. I roll my eyes. So Thursday morning we got up, wished each other happy anniversary. I went off to SHARE, we had lunch, took naps, I went off the yoga, had dinner, watched a little TV and off to bed. Like every other holiday or cause for celebration that other people indulge in, we don’t do anything special. We used to go to a movie and dinner out for birthdays and anniversaries but that stopped with covid and we just haven’t picked it up again. For one thing out here, there is no place local we would want to go eat at and the closest movie theater is a half hour on the highway away and up until recently that stretch of highway has been under heavy construction and expansion. Wrecks with 18 wheelers were frequent.

As anniversaries go we’ve really been together for 50 years. That one came and went in July. July 4th to be exact. While we had been out a couple of times with our friend Tommy previously that would have been our first official ‘date’. I had already left to spend the holiday weekend with the family at the beach house and when I got back there was a message that Marc had called and if I got back this was the number he was at. Well, it was days before I returned and when I did I called that number and it turned out to be the phone number of a friend of his because he didn’t have a phone but the guy would let him know I had called back. What I missed was a trip to Dallas to see the Rolling Stones that Marc had two tickets to. So while we did eventually have our first date (we went go cart riding), July 4th is the day we mark as the beginning of our relationship.

It was so hot yesterday and has been especially the last week and while we’ve had lots of rumbly days we haven’t gotten any real rain. It’s dark, windy, and rumbly and we’re getting a light rain right now but it remains to be seen how long it will last…and 15 minutes later it has stopped and the sky is clearing. We really need a good rain, everything is suffering and it’s only going to get worse because the current administration is canceling and revoking funding for every climate mitigating related effort put in place by Biden, just as Trump did during his first time in office to the programs Obama put in place. Reopen those coal mines and fuck you if you get black lung, drill for more oil and fuck our remaining pristine wildernesses. Burn burn burn all because he doesn’t like the sight of wind turbines or solar farms and his acolytes are all yeah, that shit don’t work when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine because they are fucking idiots who cannot comprehend the concept of batteries.

I have seen almost no butterflies this summer, a few fritillaries and skippers, maybe one monarch, no sulfurs, no hairstreaks, no giant swallowtails. The pipe vine is still intact, no pipevine swallowtail caterpillars which should have decimated it by now. Mississippi kites used to summer over here. I’d start seeing them in June. Finally started hearing their distinctive call, an occasional wheet whee a couple of weeks ago but never saw one until the other day, a single kite soaring where there should have been many. I guess they are migrating further north. 

Haven’t made much progress on the drawing but I have finished three of the petals.

I went out in the back last Wednesday morning to see that the dish of the birdbath under the magnolia tree was laying on the ground. I have no idea what creature knocked it off the pedestal. I picked it up and put it back and while I was doing so I noticed the pedestal was cracked all around the narrowest part. This morning when I went out I was greeted by this. 

Something is jumping up there for water, something big enough to knock the dish off and now the top half of the pedestal. A raccoon maybe? I don’t know. I don’t think a hawk would be heavy enough. No dogs loose that I’m aware of. So it’s off to the feed store for some concrete adhesive.

I had a whole post written about just some of the recent and continuing horrors and the continued degradation of the Constitution and our rights, the continued march to fascism and a totalitarian government but I just couldn’t publish it. Every day I delete 15 - 20 emails unread. I just can’t read essay after essay after essay telling us how fucked we are with no hope in sight of a return to a representative government. There is this though, Governor Gavin Newsom of California is trolling Trump big time, mocking him with all caps SM posts written in Trump’s style. A few examples to make you smile during these dark times:

We need more of this. Democrat leaders…get your heads out of your asses and fight fire with fire. These fascists want your fear, they revel in being called evil. What they can’t stand is mockery.

 

drawing in progress and cats

I finally stopped dicking around with the violet drawings and plunged ahead with a colored pencil version. I’ve been working on it for an hour or so at a time. Usually until I reach the point where I’m not happy with my progress, can’t seem to get it where I want it (this is a typical stage for me whether I’m drawing, painting or sculpting wax models) and I put it aside. When I return to work on it again it’s never as bad as I seemed to think it was. Except with the sculpting. I always hit that stage where I think I’ll never get it right usually about midway and then it all starts to come together. I think I miss the model making the most about not working in glass anymore, the working in 3 D. Anyway, I’m pretty happy with the way this first drawing is going. Since I haven’t been able to print the picture out that I’m using for reference, I’m working on the drawing in front of my computer.

Edit: as requested by Codex, I’ve added the photo of the violet I’m using for reference.

Not much to report, short forays out in the yard watering pots and moving the sprinkler around. Picked up the pile of tree debris by the driveway and tossed it in the truck on Saturday, then drove it over and picked up the tree debris from Gary’s work and the boys unloaded it onto the burn pile for me. Sunday I mulched two of the front flowerbeds with pine needles after watering them. We had a small brief shower that barely got the ground wet but was very noisy with thunder rumbling so I suppose somewhere was getting a good rain.

When I went across the street late afternoon yesterday to feed the cats Momcat followed me home and if I had given her even half an invitation she would have come in the house. 

She did that Saturday too. Friday morning when I went out Lovey was on the driveway 

and after I came in I looked out the window and there was Twin. Last night when I went out to close the garage not only was Momcat still there but Lovey was too. And this morning when I opened the garage door, Momcat and Lovey were right outside under the car. Cat is not pleased that Lovey is hanging around. 

Some of you may remember that these are the cats that live under my sister’s old house, the one we put on the shop yard for her. The summer before Pam died Momcat showed up and had three kittens over there and Pam started feeding them but she didn’t intend to keep them. She expected that the local animal rescue would help her find them homes. She did trap Momcat who we think was dumped when it became obvious she was about to drop a load of kittens, and got her fixed but couldn’t get any help getting rid of the kittens that were living under her back porch. And then my sister died when the kittens were about 5 months old so I started feeding them with the same intent but the local rescue is less interested in cats than it is in dogs, preferably puppies. I did, over the next few months get them to trust me enough that I managed to get the three boys fixed and by that time they were a bonded trio and I was sure that if I tried to split them up and find homes for them, most likely as barn cats, they would run off and become feral. Plus while they now let me pet them and cuddle them they are distrustful of any other humans other than me and Robin who feeds them on my yoga nights. The boys, Handsome Boy, Lovey, and Twin, are two years old this summer and live under Pam’s house. I lifted one of the skirt panels enough so that they can go in and out for shelter. Momcat, who is not attached to her sons at all, roams a little more but it’s also her home base. And the feral male Ghost who first started showing up last year and now makes himself at home though he still won’t let either of us touch him, so we feed him too.

Thunder was rumbling in the distance when I got up this morning and three hours later the sky was dark and the lightning was, if not right over us, very near with the flash and the bang happening almost simultaneously. Now, an hour later, it seems to have worn itself out. It’s quiet and the sun is shining. Did it bring us any rain? 

No. 

Oh, and I told Blondi Blathers that I would post a picture of the morning glory bush so here it is.

who is that person in the mirror?

I think all my wrinkles underwent mitosis the other day.

I did take the truck over on Sunday and gathered up all the pruned branches off the white orchid shrub and the tallow tree and the vines of the virginia creeper and Eric emptied it onto the burn pile for me. Eric works with my grandson Mikey at the same auto repair shop and he and his wife rent a room in my daughter’s house (long story about how that came to be but it’s working out well for all parties) and so Eric is often over at the shop too after hours and weekends. Works for me. The boys are quick to help me with whatever I need. And since Paisleigh was also there on Sunday she tagged along with me. We ‘played chalk’ and she’s getting better at drawing a hopscotch and writing the numbers with a little help and guidance and then we came in and played doctor with one of the stuffed toys. Then she wanted to look at some pictures on my computer and when we got to the picture of the carrots I pulled the other day we went out and she pulled a carrot for her Pop Pop (my son in law) for him to cook and eat.

Then we looked at more pictures and then she wanted to write with my keyboard on the computer and this is what she wrote:  l pxooxaos-0qs0iqi  q os oq  iiufhofofooioir4utlkkhdjjcjkjkkjksjkjglllhskslljfojf’lofjrfhfljj. Then we played taking a nap and after that I took her back to her dad over at the shop so that I could go back home and take a shower and an actual nap. Only I sat quietly and read for a while instead.

I caught my neighbor Gary on Monday coming back from his evening walk and while he doesn’t have a pole chain saw he has a pole saw and he said he’d come cut the branches for me the next day, which he did Tuesday morning cutting more of the high branches above the weatherhead and some that were close to the end of the house. 

So already I have another load of branches to pick up and haul to the burn pile including a pile at my house from Monday when a windstorm blew through bringing a little rain that dropped a bunch of small to medium branches and one fairly large limb. I love that my house is surrounded by trees but why do they have to all be ones that self prune and drop branches all the time! 

Small forays out in the yard Wednesday, watered the plants in pots in the morning then later dead headed the zinnias which are still blooming but waning. Flowers are smaller and some of the smaller plants have died back. Pulled a few weeds. This will be the modus operandi for the foreseeable future entering the dog days of summer. 

Last spring you might remember that I moved a bigger table into the barn to keep my gardening and potting stuff on and put up a small shelf which almost immediately wasn’t big enough. I cut a longer shelf board a while back and today I finally put it up where the short shelf was and then put the short shelf underneath it. 

The mexican bird of paradise, also called pride of barbados, is still blooming as is the rangoon creeper,

the morning glory bush, 

the aforementioned zinnias, and the yellow bells.

On a closer look this young lady was looking for her next meal. She’s only about 2” right now but will get much bigger.

what I've been reading

I’m surprised I have 10 books on my review list since I last published what I’ve been reading. I thought surely some of these I had already published but according to my archives, it’s been three months. Here’s the first five. 

Order Of Swans by Jude Deverauz - sci fi fantasy. Unknown to Kaley her mother was from another planet, Bellis where people have extraordinary abilities. When Kaley was three years old Jobi, family friend who had sensed that Kaley would be important to the survival of his people and planet, effected Graceen’s ‘death’ and put her on the ship back to Bellis leaving Kaley behind to be raised by her Earth father and grandparents. Jobi had a plan and returned when Kaley was 26 to train her and bring her back to Bellis although without telling her she would be traveling to another planet. When Kaley’s dissertation on fairy tales was rejected by her advisor Jobi used that to trick her into visiting his home for the summer, a trip that actually takes three years, putting her into a deep sleep for the journey. Once on Bellis she meets Tanek, a Swansman who is tasked with being her guide on a different island so Kaley can collect the tales from Bellis. Accompanying them is Sojee, her bodyguard since the island they are going to is men only (the women live on a different island). In actuality, the mission is to find the kings errant son and bring him back for an alliance marriage. From the beginning Kaley exhibits powers of her own and encounters real life fairy tales while her and Tanek’s relationship evolves from antagonism to love. There’s so much more to the story. It ends on a cliffhanger and dammit, nowhere on the cover or the inside flap did it say that this was part one of two. So now I have to wait and see how everything resolves.

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins - Famous artist Vanessa Chapman died of cancer and left her estate to the Fairburn Foundation created by her estranged galleriest Douglas Lennox, naming her companion Grace as executor of her estate. While most of Vanessa’s paintings and ceramics and sculptures and diaries have been turned over, Grace has held back some resulting in years of acrimonious charges involving lawyers. When Douglas is killed in a hunting accident and one of Vanessa’s sculptures on display at a museum is found to contain a human bone his son Sebastian sends James Becker, their art expert and specifically an expert on Vanessa Chapman, an artist he has been enamored of since he was a child and his mother bought one of her small paintings, to Eris Island, Vanessa’s home and studio that is only accessible at low tide, and now the home of Grace, to deal with Grace, to determine more about the bone before the assemblage is dismantled and the bone tested, and to get the remaining bits of Vanessa’s estate. Becker’s approach is to make friends with Grace since the threats of the previous years did not resolve the standoff but the more Becker digs, questions arise concerning the disappearance of Vanessa’s husband and her cancellation of a show days before the opening, and Grace’s secrets start to emerge. Hawkins is an engaging storyteller, this is the third book of hers I’ve read, and I enjoyed this one even though it didn’t end the way I would have wanted.

Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi - set in 15th century West Africa. Ododo, a young woman, is a member of the blacksmith guild in Timbuktu where she has lived all her life, daughter of the head of the guild. Being a blacksmith, or a witch as the rest of the population calls them, is the last refuge of unwanted women, turned away by the men in their lives or their family. In Ododo’s mother’s case, raped and pregnant as a teen. Ododo makes flowers that she sells in the market and on this particular day, a new warrior king has conquered the city and incorporated it into his vast kingdom. Also on this particular day she is making a flower and singing in the back court when a raggedy man stops to talk to her and she gifts him the flower. The next day she is kidnapped and taken to the capitol city of Sangote where she learns that she is to be the bride of the Alaafin, the king of Yorubaland and that raggedy man was none other than him. She is smothered with luxuries and raised to high status but not everyone is happy with the king’s choice. Ododo has no intention of being sent back to her previous miserable existence and must learn to navigate the currents in the royal city, making allies, determined to be more than just a wife, which she considers another form of subjugation, and finds the power of influence and advisor to the king too much to resist. I’ll leave it at that. I really liked this book and the last few pages surprised me.

Pitch Dark by Paul Doiron - One of the wardens calls Mike Bowditch, a game warden investigator in Maine, about a possible missing person and whether or not to institute a search. The possible missing person, a man named Ammond who is asking around about a man and his 11 year old daughter who might be hiding out in the wilds of Maine has rented an ATV and hasn’t been heard from in two days during some really bad weather. Mike makes some calls and learns there is a man with a daughter, Mike and Cady Redmon, who is building a cabin in a remote part of the woods and makes plans to visit him and find out if he knows the man that is looking for him. When Mike and his father in law Charles are flown to the site by Josie, for whom the cabin is being built, all seems fine and well at first. But Mike feels something is wrong and as his questions get more pointed, the room gets fussier, and he wakes up to find the three of them bound to trees, stripped of their weapons, while the Redmons make their escape into the wilds of the Maine woods. When Josie dies from the drug, Mike takes off after the Redmons determined to catch them armed only with a flare gun and a pocket knife before they can cross into Canada. Mark and Cady both are deadly adversaries and are not who they claimed to be.

The Witches Of El Paso by Luis Jaramillo - Nena, the youngest of three sisters, suffers from visions and premonitions. At 18, she spends her days in El Paso TX taking care of her sisters’ two children and wishes for more from life. One night Nena is drawn outside where she is somehow transported back in time to El Paso del Norte in colonial Mexico where Sister Benedicta has come to fetch her. Nena is taken to the convent where she learns that some of the nuns also experience La Vista, the force or magic that underlies the power of existence. She joins their aquelarre where she learns to control La Vista instead of it controlling her and the enchantos or songs that call La Vista to them. Mostly what Nena wants is to return home back to her time but when smallpox runs through the convent and El Paso del Norte, she is expelled from the convent, sent to heal Sister Benedicta’s brother with the brebaje, a sort of magical food, that Nena caused to be made at the meeting of the aquelarre because the other nuns feared Nena’s power would draw unwelcome attention to the convent. The story shifts back and forth in time, from Nena’s childhood to her days in El Paso del Norte to her return to her time, and the present when now an old woman, Nena enlists the aid of her great niece to open the door to El Paso del Norte one last time. 

 

now I'm ready for a nap

I finally got out in the yard Friday to do some maintenance which is constant around here. I have been needing to clear the spray nozzles from the septic system of grass and weeds. They sit inside a concrete donut and one of the spray heads needed to be replaced which was done last week. So I got my trowel and nippers and a bucket and a shovel for something else and headed over to the shop yard. Audra was over there with the great grands while she detailed a car and when Paisleigh saw me she came running with open arms…Gramma! She helped me pull grass and dig with the trowel. 

When that task was done we pulled all the roots and weeds from a pile of dirt from when Mikey dug a little trench in front of one of the bay doors to help with drainage so rain wouldn’t seep under and into the shop. Then we transferred the dirt to the bucket, me using the big shovel, Paisleigh using the trowel, and used it to fill one of the holes in the flower bed around the fringe flower tree that I had weeded and bordered with bricks previously at my house. After that it was time to come in and cool off and then a run to the Evil Empire.

I have another couple of chores to do over at Pam’s house this weekend. The tallow tree that grows on the fence line needs to be pruned back because the branches have completely swallowed the weatherhead on the power pole that brings electricity to the house and Virginia creeper has grown up under the house and is coming out at the top from under the siding. 

I’ve already been out this morning at my house cutting down all the water sprouts from the four crepe myrtles in the front yard.

Last night after getting hot and sweaty during the day I wanted something easy and light for dinner. I paged through my binder of accumulated recipes twice and the penne pasta with grape tomatoes, olives, and spinach was the only thing that appealed to me. No after picture but here’s all the ingredients waiting to be combined in the skillet. L to R front row: pasta water (only used about 1/4 cup), red pepper flakes, garlic thinly sliced, coarsely chopped kalamata olives, fresh basil leaves; middle row: vegetable broth (also only used 1/4 cup), black pepper, salt, grape tomatoes halved, parmesan; back row: olive oil, penne pasta cooked al dente, baby spinach.

I sat down after lunch on Friday and made another stab at the other violet drawing and I’m much happier with it now. I didn’t erase the whole thing just most of it to get it back to where it started from and then went from there. It’s better. I’m happy enough with it.

Later…I am too damn old to be crawling under that house on my elbows and knees. But first I pruned the white orchid tree, a volunteer from mine. I gave it to my sister who planted it in the ground next to the house and while it freezes down to the ground every winter it comes back bigger and bushier than the year before. It’s more like a shrub than a tree so about twice a year I have to prune it so the branches aren’t rubbing up against the house. Then I cut back all the Virginia creeper that was growing among the bulbs she planted along the front of the house. And then I raised two of the skirt panels on the end of the house so I could get under there and cut away all the Virginia creeper growing under there and up under the siding. I had to crawl under the struts and beams more than halfway down to get it all.

After that I got the 12' ladder and cut as much of the tallow branches as I could reach around and over the weatherhead. It's clear for now but I need to see if one of my neighbors has one of those pole chainsaws to get the branches hanging higher above it. All that debris can just stay because after an hour and a half my hair, sweat rag tied around my forehead, clothes, panties, all soaked, not to mention dirt encrusted knees and elbows. I'll drive the truck over tomorrow and haul it all to the burn pile.