Sittin On A Porch

Sittin On A Porch
Our little back porch

Friday, June 28, 2013

Everyone is fine

Today has been gray and drizzly all day.  Too wet to rake or fertilize, or really spend much of any time outside.  I love to garden in the rain, but not when the weather radio keeps screaming it's "Attention!  Attention!!" signal.  The weather channel has shown us tornadoes ripping and snatching and throwing and twisting and exploding towns in real time.  There is nothing you can do as you sit your eyes locked on the TV as you watch vehicles tumble over and over off the road and out of sight.  Now when I hear thunder, I still thrill at the ozone in the air, the coolness and humidity change in the air, but I am smarter and go into a building.  Really, is there any reason that I should be working bent over or on knees in the rain?  No, that is silly these days, an occasional obviously weed, okay, but to stay out in the weather these days with severe thunder storms, no thanks.  I have plenty of things I can do inside.  But I still love walking in the misting rain and will don my raincoat and circle through the gardens before standing at the back door of the screened in porch and watch as the rain grows heavier and heavier.  The water heavy on the leaves already saturated fat and green.  The soil looks plump and dark.  The earth worms gorged and lolling through the over saturated soil looking for air.

I did put up some mum and azalea cuttings.  The storm was still south west of us moving east.  I had trimmed back one bed of azaleas and put  the branches in a bucket of water.  The tips looked okay, not great, but okay.  They may take.  I will try and make cuttings the same day I trim the bushes.  But I do what I can and just see what happens.  I did cut some fresh mums so made cuttings from those.  I hope to get them in the ground in time for fall blooming.  maybe.  My garden to the east of the trailer is a combination of previous plants.  Golden lantana here, mums there, a couple of celosia, coral bells, some I have planted, others from failed past attempts, but this year seem to be holding there own.  It is the garden closest to the greenhouses so it gets the experiments, overruns unknowns. This mishmash garden is also one of my latest gardens so I have only been composting it a few years.  The soil is still very sandy and dry, the irrigation needs hand supplements during dry seasons.  But with all this rain this garden is doing wonderful, and if I can ever get out to fertilize I think the yard would be so much happier. 

Yesterday we took the boat, named the Miss K. No, not after the famous, Miss Kay, no, it is named after me, but Kathleen is so long, plus a lot of people will wonder what Miss K we are talking about.  hee hee.  It was glorious.  We put in at the fort in St. Marks.  We spent hours drifting across the grass flats.  This is when the Carolina Skiff is really at its best because we can ride the tide in water about 18 inches deep and slip right over sand bars that other boats would have to go around.  I saw star fish and scallops, small, medium and larger fish.  It was looking into Dr. Seuss's one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.  As we rode the tide under clear sunny skies, the tide had just gone out, so the grass was straight up allowing us to look straight down into this fertile portion of the gulf.  The water temperature was 91, the air temperature not much warmer, it was gorgeous.  I sat on the edge of the boat and let my feet dangle in the lapping waves as we just drifted.  Bug did fish for a little while and used his trolling motor.  Everything worked perfectly.  Bug caught a shark.  A Hammerhead Shark!!!  It was so cool!  I have seen hammerheads in aquarium and open touch and feel tanks, but here he was fighting the fish and enjoying himself, then he pulled it into the boat to unhook it and release it.  It was gorgeous!!!  The hammerhead swam off into the grass and I laughed about an article in one of the fishing magazine talking about alien abductions.  It was so funny talking about how the fish are grabbed and pulled up out of the water into a boat.  They are poked and prodded, weighed and measured and then after bright flashing lights they were released back into the water.  Some fish actually have multiple abductions, these often have some kind of tag sticking out of their back, or fin or stomach.  I love that.  How very clever of that writer, and who knows, maybe there is more similarities then we had thought of before. 

On our way home from St. Marks we saw a couple of wild turkey hens with a half dozen or turkey peeps stumbling along with them.  I love that tonight as we took the dogleg back to the house their was a deer skipping along in front of us.  I love that even though things are changing, southern Jefferson County is still vast open space with swamps and wildlife and hardwood hammocks up land from the cypress.  That you can still see bear, deer, eagles, turkeys, manatee and alligators among the more common wildlife.  There are a lot more fences and hunting clubs, but it is still slow in houses and condos.  The closer you get to the water of course there are clusters of communities, but all in all it is still closer to wild Florida then a lot of places in the state.

As the sky filled with thick low gray clouds rumbling and sparking.  Bob and I moved out to the barn and I finished the back pillows and started pinning the back cushion.  Bob sat under my feet, he is afraid of thunderstorms.  Edna squeezes in behind the toilet in the guest bath where she cowers and shakes.  I check on her continuously but she wants to be there and is not willing to come with me, even if I am in the house.  As I sat there pinning the cushion I looked up at how far the barn has come.  It still has a long way to go, but each of us have work areas and enough organization to complete some projects.  here are flags and hats, garden tools, TI sat there on this rainy day, Bob under my feet, my hands busy with the pins and I realized how  much I love my life.  I am happy and content.  I have not been able to really understand what my life is these days.  I have felt retired, sick, unemployed, but never really just living my life.  A life with things to do, and the reward of just living my life.  A life no longer lived on time tables, have to do's, and stress.  Now, being aware of my choices and consequences of wishes and desires, and being in awe of a life not driven by responsibilities but by just living.  I love those moments of perception. Bug and I tested out how the couch is coming along.  It is pretty relaxed and comfortable.  The two of us sat on the couch and listened to the rain outside while a CD of classical guitar quietly played in the background.  We have been working hard lately.  Yesterday we took off and went out in the boat to test run the trolling motor, which worked perfectly.  He maneuvered us through the grass flats using the foot pedal like a master.  It was relaxing and wonderful to be in the sunshine instead of gray rainy skies.  But 4 hours on the water in with the sun reflecting back up on you, woo, it can wear you out.  And we are worn out.  We got things done and it  was a day well lived, but it was also nice to move a little slower.  A pace to match a slow gray drizzly day.

Bug's Dad just had to go back to have a test redone.  It is not that it is invasive as much as it means he spends 7 hours in the hospital as they give him this and wait, then something else and wait again.  It wear him out, but he seems to be fine.  Then my oldest brother had a simple routine out patient procedure that went wrong.  He got a severe infection from the procedure and is now back in the hospital as they give him IV antibiotics as they try to find something that he can take orally and go home.  Then yesterday we received word that one of our dear precious ones in our little group of friends might have had a heart attack and was in the hospital.  Well after lots of testing they have determined that it is not her heart.  That is great news.  They think it is intestinal, which isn't great, but she is coming home and feeling much better.

Here I sit another night, late for me, but I am not sleeping well.  I have worn my body down and it is sore and I need to stretch it out, and rest it.  With this kind of weather, that should not be a problem.  I finally finished Bug tie blanket.  It is USAF design fleece on one side and a plain medium blue fleece for the other.  It is not as much fun tying lots of knots with my hands and gnarled thumbs.  But finally the bed to lay it out on to cut was free and it was a rainy day and now another project done.  Hmmm, it seems funny finishing projects.  it is sort of a double edged sword.  I don't want everything to get to "trying to finish it before......".  No, it is the act of creating, the challenge to my brain to learn and grow from the process, the thought of making something for someone else.  That is worth the time and work.  But to do or go and try something just for the point of trying, no, I am not so sure of that.  My mind over thinks everything.  But now it is time to try and turn that processor down.  It is time to try to sleep and rest.

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