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Dean has been eager to do some of his own gardening, and got under way by filling two large outdoor containers and claiming a section of the hill out back.


A photo a day over at Chicken Blog, too.

28

Our weather here in the Northeast of the US continues to be strange -- warmer than usual, vicious storms that bring rain and sleet rather than snow -- and the bulbs I planted last fall are confused. It's not a good thing, actually, seeing them come up now; these tender leaves will most certainly be frozen and killed before long, leaving the bulb unlikely to have the energy to do any more once spring really comes.

Sigh.

Today I met my friend Marilyn for lunch; we are college friends and have for years gotten together for a lunch during January. We catch up, and look ahead -- it occurs to me that we rare look back. She's planning to retire soon, and move with her husband to their house on Cape Cod before eventually moving to Florida for the winters. We'll have to come up with a new tradition, and I'm not sure why thinking about that makes me so sad. Maybe just the acknowledgement that we are getting older, and that the waves of shared experiences start to take on a last-half-of-life kind of tinge (you know -- you go through those stages in life where everyone's deciding where to go to college, then when everyone's deciding what to do after graduation, then suddenly everyone's getting married, having children, etc.).

A photo a day over at Chicken Blog, too.

Raw

Cold, damp, raw, grey; a bleak part of winter. Ready to curl up by the fire and go through some seed catalogs; I imagine two giant pots of basil, and maybe some currant tomatoes.

Texture

Appreciating that this winter, so far, has been mild; textures, green, still leaves and not the uniform blanket of white. Not appreciating how quickly the week between Christmas and New Year's melts away, though.

September twenty five

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September twenty

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Happy Friday, indeed.  For all the grousing we do about the weather at other times of year, New England remains patient with us, and focused -- she knows she's going to come through with a spectacular fall.  Every time.  And she'll have us on our knees begging forgiveness for every and any unkind thing we may have ever said about the weather, because THIS is heaven on Earth.  Thank you, New England; I do love you.

September nineteen

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September eighteen

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September fifteen

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Today is the half-way mark on the 30-day challenge. Time to start thinking about what the next 30-day project might be!

What comes

Hope where it may be found, joy where it may be allowed in.

Begin

Warm, moist breezes are pulling back the blanket of snow and releasing the sprouting bulbs I planted last fall (transplanted, actually, from our old house). I savor the rush of emotions; winter is letting go, spring is rushing on, and we are settling in more and more to a place we are making our own. The best kind of change is surrounding us.

Trusting

This lovely little family strolled through our yard this morning, helping themselves to seeds and to the breadcrumbs we scattered underneath the bird feeder.

There seem to be many more wild turkeys around here in the past couple of years; that always makes me wonder what conditions have shifted. Fewer foxes and coyotes?

And what was especially charming, in their own turkey-lurkey way, was that when I opened the front door to take these pictures they just froze and stared at me. I sometimes hesitate to make the run to get my camera when we have interesting wild life in the yard because I figure that by the time I get the camera and then open the door, the visitors will scatter. But these 4 were taking their time, and clearly their first instinct in reaction to some danger is to freeze and see if their camouflage will protect them. Makes sense since they don't have flight or speed on their side.

We did, for the record, attempt to get some raking done yesterday...
...but it was so windy that we gave up after having only done a small area and figured it made sense to let the wind do whatever rearranging it was going to do and then to put our own hands to it after things settled down (maybe today?).

So the boys did their own kind of quasi-American Gothic for me, and then Ken wanted to return the favor--

See how Dean doesn't look that tall when he stands next to Ken, but then he's my height when he stands next to me and thereby makes me look short? Sigh.

Glorious

I'm so moved by this gift from my garden. I did not plant morning glory seeds this year; I would have liked to but as happens with so many things, good intentions did not result in the thing's being done. But somehow, some miraculous how, this single vine came up. Did it re-seed from last year, or was it a seed that laid dormant until now?

I noticed it there, I coaxed it onto the post where it could climb, and every now and then I have a day that starts like this, with a morning glory singing to me. And if that were not enough, the hummingbirds are back.

Doesn't take much

I stopped planted tulips in my garden; they are not reliable for me at all. Not like daffodils, which bloom prolifically and spread each year. I don't know if tulip bulbs get eaten up by the chipmunks or squirrels, or if there's some condition in the soil or environment that doesn't give them what they need.

So it is truly astonishing when a tulip does suddenly appear. This bulb had to have been planted years and years and years ago. I don't get too excited when I sometimes see the leaves of a tulip emerge; often enough that's all I get when I get anything at all.

But this beauty held on and took our breath away. It started as a cream white then the blush of pink slowly spread, and it calls me to spend more time in the garden again.

Hurdy gurdy

I really should know what kind of plant this is; these were planted in our garden just last year. Whatever it is, it saves its flower show for fall, even though to me it has the look of a spring flower. I treasure it for its willingness to be brave and bold, yet tender, in the face of cold.

Today is the first time this season that I've had to put a touch of heat on in the house during the day. Oh, the heat has been coming on from time to time at night, but during the daylight hours it's been warm enough until now.

I find myself with that leaning-over-the-precipice feeling -- that one more step and then the SWOOOP toward Thanksgiving and Christmas and all will begin. The downhill, can't stop running madly out of control dash that is the marathon ahead. I don't necessarily mean it in a bad way; there are certainly things about the holidays that I treasure and revel in. More in just that sense of time going faster and faster and faster each year; the sense that *catching up* just isn't in the cards. That's ok. I feel we're better prepared than in the past to put our own measures of sanity around it all.

Meanwhile, I finally tidied up, got the Halloween decorations up, and made it feel appropriately festive around here. Pumpkins await carving, a costume is ready for Dean, candy is purchased and ready to be handed out.


My childhood memories of Halloween are glorious. This is my brother Chris, on the left -- so typical for our family that he was the only one of his friends with a homemade costume. My mom did excel in the making of Halloween costumes, and we were broad-minded in our ideas of what to be. You may not recognize the form, but Chris (or Clipper, as he was known back then) is an organ grinder -- and his rendition is perfect. Do you see the monkey in his arm, and the wind-up organ he wears around his neck? When we were young, we could go to the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago and almost always see an organ grinder -- always a man, always with a swarthy, gypsy look to him (in the very best sense) with a handlebar moustache and a monkey. You could give your pennies to the monkey and he'd give them a bite to make sure they were real (and not food) and then hop up to deliver them to the organ grinder.


Although I will admit that we got in the habit of calling them monkey grinders as kids -- not for any morbid reason but just that once one of us got the name wrong and the new name stuck (took me years to figure out why my parents thought it was so funny and awful that we called them that).

Anyway, I don't ever remember a parent along for trick-or-treating with any kids. We were instead set loose upon the neighborhoods, and would travel in packs for hours and hours collecting candy. I was the ward of my older siblings my first year or two out, but then from then on went with my own group of friends to enjoy a child's nearly favorite night of the year (with only Christmas competing for the honors).

Recent discoveries

I've been shamefully lazy lately about my blog. That's not so much in the *recent discoveries* category, but then maybe again it is. I think a lot about writing, and posting, but then end up noodling away the time I have and not doing it.

So instead I'm trying to just actually post.

Here goes.

In the actual recent discoveries category:

As Dean progresses in his piano playing and works on pieces by your basic hall-of-fame composers, it finally occurred to me to seek out recordings -- piano only -- of those pieces so he can hear the timing, and can hear how professionals play a piece (and reflect on the kinds of emotions that are evoked when a piece is played with feeling). I've made a CD of the stuff he's currently working on and we're listening to it in the car. Why did I not do this sooner?


Also in the music department: when I was growing up, we always had a radio/tape player in the kitchen, and we had music on in the kitchen basically all the time. My mom enjoyed a very wide range of music, so I was exposed to all kinds of stuff and really enjoyed that soundtrack to our lives. As an adult, through nothing other than neglect, I've never had music in the kitchen. At our house now it is possible to put music on in the family room and hear it in the kitchen (although we really don't get much radio reception at all), but it's hard to manage and so I rarely do it. I've told Ken that what I'd truly like for Christmas is an inexpensive unit on which I could dock my iPod and hear music in the kitchen. Wish I'd done this waaaaay sooner.


I seem to have developed a touch of SAD as I've aged. I've always been sensitive to the light change with the seasons, and have railed against the whole daylight savings/time change scheme in the past here (ad nauseam?). But last night as I looked out of the dining room windows during dinner and saw deep darkness, I realized how utterly depressed it made me feel. I have never been a night person, and I'm not looking forward to winter's darkness.

Taking the time to take photographs makes me very happy. As long as I have a camera on me, there are pictures to take. I need to devote more time to this.

The cumulative dark events of this year in my life have worn me down. It has been a year of tragic losses, of set backs, of injuries and ill-health. I'm not sure if it's because winter is coming, or because I'm concerned that the new year won't be better, or because I'm tired, or because I'm having new realizations about what it is to live without my parents, but I'm finding myself more worn down by it all than I usually am. I know I'll shake this, but it's a heavy load just now.


Morning glories continue to thrive, even once the nights get cold and the days get short.

Falling

I don't get much time in here these days; I suppose the way to say it is that I don't manage to make the time to get here. I know well enough by now that blogging goes in cycles but I'm curious to see this time if I manage to ramp back up, or not.

But meanwhile.

The things left blooming in the garden are valiant, gorgeous, lonely, and ephemeral. I'd like to spend these days out there with my camera, but settle for a few moments stolen now and then (although I need to remember, again, to always have a camera with me). It hasn't managed for the past week or so to ever get as warm as the forecast predicts, so we're left under-dressed and shivery -- very fall-en indeed.

Tomorrow we make the trip into Boston to take Dean to Children's Hospital; another boy at school accidentally slid into Dean's ankle during a recess soccer game last week and Dean's been in a cast and on crutches since. I've seen more of the local emergency room this year than I'd like, certainly. Anyway, they weren't sure in the ER if he'd broken the growth plate in his foot and so tomorrow we see a specialist and find out for sure. All hopes are pinned on *not broken.*

I do find it odd that the parent of the child involved never called to see how Dean was doing. If my child had accidentally sent another child to the ER I'd certainly have made the call -- all the more so if I saw the child on crutches the next day. What do you think is wrong with people? We know it was an accident, but wouldn't the decent thing to do be to call? Or is it just me? I often enough find that I seem to live by some ancient code that no one else follows....

Oh, and I need to do something with all the basil before we get a hard frost and it's gone.

Even the garden is saying 'enough already.' We may have a bit of a break in the rain today -- just itching to get out there and pull some weeds and get things in shape again.
Pom-pom central. It looks like a winter-time scene, doesn't it? June. Crazy.
Ah. My clean closet. Just -- let's see -- five or six others I should also clean out.

Won't be getting to it this weekend, though. Catching up on other stuff today and then tomorrow's the Confederations Cup final. US v. Brazil. It's an odd feeling -- we went in to the US/Spain game believing that the US had no hope and looking forward to seeing Spain continue on to win the whole thing. Now that the US team has done the unthinkable and beaten Spain, we wonder about Brazil (even though we lost to them in the early rounds). Well, even to take 2nd place would be an amazing accomplishment so we'll enjoy the match no matter what. Aside from the bloody vuvuzelas.

You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out

Peony Pink Hawaiian Coral

It's just such a strange thing. I keep having dreams, very real, that are small moments when things in my life are apparently just how I want them to be. For example, I clearly had a dream that the old, brown grass clippings that are littering our front walk had been all swept up. I realized that I'd had the dream when I walked out the front door, down the walk, and saw that the grass clippings are all still there. I was so disappointed. I've had other similar experiences recently but I can't remember the details to be able to share them -- but that same feeling of realizing that I'd dreamt something was taken care of and being disappointed to find that it was not.


This toad was very much really living in our mulch pile. Hello, toad.

Why haven't I been here much lately? It's been hard. Just a lot of other stuff going on, taking my time, using up my energy, making me wonder what it is I'd really like to be doing instead. I'm trying to get a clear idea of what I'd like my time off this summer to be about, so that I can make sure that it comes off that way. I think I want it to include more time to be here.

But I've also been occupied by wonderful things, such as Dean's third piano recital.


When we were out walking the dog together last night in a light, misting rain, Dean stopped to investigate droplets of water on a small leaf. "Isn't it beautiful?" he asked breathlessly. Indeed; it always is.

Balance

Yesterday.

Today.

I love being able to walk around the garden to see the changes in a day -- sometimes even hour-to-hour. We put up a hummingbird feeder yesterday, at Dean's request (we do get hummers in our garden already; my understanding is that unlike other birds you won't attract hummingbirds by putting up a feeder so if you don't already have them coming to your yard then there's no point) and it's in a spot where we can keep an eye on it for action.

Last night, when I walked the dog around 8, I was overwhelmed by the perfectness of the evening. I'm not exactly sure what the temperature was -- low 70s? -- but it was absolutely perfect. No noticeable humidity. The sky was giving off a pink glow of light; it wasn't just the clouds that became increasingly tinged with pink, it was the air, the atmosphere itself. It was an "if only it could always be like this" kind of experience.
The first putt of the first game of the new mini-golf season yesterday afternoon.
We had one of our favorite courses all to ourselves. I had two -- two! -- holes in one and was winning for the entire game, until we got to the 18th. My worst hole of the game, and it allowed Ken and Dean both to tie for first and leave me behind by one stroke. Is there in fact an overriding force in the universe that's actively engaged in ensuring the predictable outcome? I'll be in a better position to answer that question come Labor Day.

Next week we all go on Dean's class camping trip down on Cape Cod. An overnighter, with time to explore the tide pools and beach. We've got to get all our camping stuff organized this weekend. I'm hoping that the trip gives us an introduction to a camp site we'll enjoy, since our old local favorite has become totally overrun by RVs.

There are unbelievably only three weeks of school left. Miles to go before we sleep. I've been regretting how little time I've been able to spend here in blogville and have been thinking about what I'd like to get out of the summer (I do work a bit, but I'll have 6 weeks off). I've been sorry to see so many friends going offline recently, and it reminds me that there just seems to be a cyclical aspect of blogging. I think I'm poised to spend more time back here, but I'm open to other possibilities too.