September 25, 2008

Things in the world are so crazy I don’t think there’s any need for me to comment on any of it. So I’m going to just do the micro-life thing because it’s anything but crazy right now. In fact, other than the heavy workload, it’s completely uneventful. But the cable guys have come and as soon as we (Joe) dig the ditch, they’ll come hook us up! (woo-hoo!)

I found out that the electronic collar for 85 Pounds o’ Love has settings (didn’t know that until I bought another one and read the booklet!). So I’ve upped the beeping on the collar and added long prongs, so that if he gets zapped, he’ll feel it. He’s gotten a lot more respectful of the beeping since then.

Fall started this week. Sigh. I still have the hummingbird feeders up but I don’t think we’re getting any visitors at all. The nature column in the paper said to leave them up right now in case we get migratory visitors. The seed-feeders are popular with chickadees, goldfinches (losing their beautiful yellow!), and titmice. Woodpeckers and chickadees on the suet, too.

Did not yet get any of the miniature golf holes done yet, but I’ve vowed not to work weekends in October, so maybe I’ll get to some of it then. Right now it’s seven-days-a-week. I’d like to “quit my boring job and be a Google millionaire,” but I’m not sure how to do that and I’m not going to open that email no matter what!

Haven’t found a home for my ficus yet (was hoping to before winter) and just realized all the cactii are not under shelter and it’s going to rain. The two who bloomed like fools this summer are at least partly yellowish now—we wonder if they’re going to make it. So I’ve moved the ones I can lift and put a little trash-bag raincoat on the other one.

No bears lately. Just one black cat and the turkey flock coming through.

 

September 19, 2008

Got to get off the political thread here . . . waiting for the cable guy to call to tell me if he’s coming today. Of course since I’m on-line, he’ll have to leave a voice-mail message. (Can’t wait for that high-speed line!!) I may have to stop calling them the Stupid Cable Company. So far the service has been incredibly good.

An old friend of mine called this morning. Completely threw me off track work-wise (and I’m in another crunch) but it’s always nice to hear from her. Two years ago she was so seriously ill we thought she wouldn’t make it another few months, let alone for years. Now she’s doing very well physically and emotionally. We’re trying to set up a visit for her and an even older (as in long time, we met in kindergarten) friend to come up to Martini Rock. That should be pretty cool.

The ten blooms on my cactus aren’t doing so great. We don’t know if it’s the cooler weather or the lack of light, but the blooms are barely lasting past sunrise. Three opened Sunday night, two on Monday night. I think another two opened last night. We’re also concerned about what will happen when the blooms finish. The cactus my dad had bloomed prolifically just before it died. Hoping for the best here.

Joe went outside last night just as Jack the Beagle showed up. Last Friday he appeared at a neighbors’ door; last night it was our house. We called the owners, put him in the car, and drove him home. He’s got no electronic collar. But then the electronic collar for 85 Pounds o’ Love isn’t working right; he got outside his perimeter last night without a beep when he saw Mary the Photographer on her evening constitutional. So I think I’m going to buy him a new one instead of just sending this one back under the warranty. I don’t know if they rebuild them and that’s why it’s not working or what. It was so reliable at Foggy Hollow as long as the battery was good.

Cool day. Fall is definitely coming. Most of the hummingbirds are gone. We haven’t seen many migrating birds yet, but as Joe says, there’s plenty of seed around. No bears lately.

 

Two worlds

As I drove home last night from my writers’ group meeting, I noticed the moon was following me—it appeared pale red and nearly full, in my rear-view mirror, peeking out from the trees as I went around curves on the turnpike (not too smart of me to be looking in my rear-view mirror as I go around curves, eh?). When I got to the last major highway, I was headed east again and there was the moon, higher and brighter, smiling in front of me like it knew we’d meet again.

Sometimes we know we live in suburbia. We fell asleep to the sounds of the neighbors’ kids, playing late in their yard, probably trying to inhale the last bits of summer. They start school next week (before Labor Day! How awful for them!).

We woke up at 5:13 this morning to the sound of coyotes howling. Couldn’t get back to sleep despite the wonderfully cool air. Got up, walked the dog. He’s about to be 8 and seems less inclined to do three miles than he used to be, but when we get home he still wants to play (after he eats breakfast).

I put the birdfeeders out (and greased the pole they hang on to discourage the binging squirrel). Seems the hummingbirds have started to migrate—they’re not consuming as much nectar as they were even a few weeks ago. Haven’t seen the turkeys in a few weeks. And no sign of the bear(s) around the house. I watched a chipmunk try to climb some rye grass to get to the seeds, but every time the grass bent over the chippie gave up instead of figuring out that that was a good thing. 

Joe told me the night-blooming cereus (cactus) had bloomed last night so I took the camera out to get some pictures.

One more large bud should bloom in the next two days. We’ve got at least 10 potential buds as well, but it’s going to have to warm up first.

 

From the garden

August—and our tomatoes are ripening like crazy. Nothing better than a tomato sandwich (butter or olive oil, your choice)! All we planted this year was tomatoes and peppers. Being our first garden year we weren’t sure what the critters wouldn’t touch (they tasted some of my flowers but left the vegetables alone). Next year I’m hoping we try a few green beans, too, but they’re very popular with groundhogs.

On the floral side, my first moonflower bloomed yesterday. I read that they only bloom at night. I thought that meant they would close up in daylight, but we had one in all its glory yesterday. Mary the Photographer came down and took a wonderful picture of it.

It’s also time for the night-blooming cereus to blossom. One of the three has three buds on it right now and the one that bloomed last year has one so far. They’ll probably start to flower in about a week, depending on how much rain we get.

Sadly, this is also the season when people dump kittens (Minneapolis and St. Paul, the twin kitties, came to me around now; Ink and Blink came later in the fall). And since we still live in the woods, we still get to deal with the results of someone else’s cold-hearted carelessness.

 

This is Miss B. Don’t know what her fate will be yet, but at least she won’t be torn apart by wild animals, hit by a car, or starve to death. Spay or neuter, people!

Update: Turns out all that prettiness is a boy kitty. But he—who should be called Miracle because he was only found when my 85 Pounds of Love accidentally stepped on him in the tall grass—has found a home. One happy ending.

 

September 28, 2007

After just saying the other day that I stick to one subject in my blog entries, this one is what a former student of mine would call “potpourri”—all those little things going on right now . . .

Our cactus has developed fruit (or at least we think it’s fruit)! This is a first. Every other time, when the flowers bloomed, they then turned black and fell off, leaving a little black stump, which also eventually fell off. This time one of those stumps grew pink and bulbous. So is it edible?

I haven’t heard anything about that job I interviewed for. Friends are saying two weeks is not that long. My fingers remain crossed. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty of freelancing, both editing and writing . . .

Wicked weather last night. Constant lightning, a few really big claps of thunder, an inch of rain. The TV signal held on for a while and then it cut out. I said Okay, my dream of uninterrupted TV is over and I’ll have to call the Stupid Satellite Company (not to mention miss the season premiere of The Office). Grr, grr, grr, I said. Within five minutes, it was back on and other than freezing a little once, it stayed on through the storm. Installer #7 is truly a genius.

At our open house last weekend, other than explanations about the design and construction of the house, the next most-repeated story was the bear (see August 2). Two little girls listened as I told their mother about Scarfoot, their eyes growing wider and wider. It was great. Haven’t seen him since, btw.

Had coffee and cake yesterday with my up-mountain neighbor while my dog played in her pond. I’m really enjoying these new friendships, which I’d never anticipated in the move.

And can anyone explain this? The entire time we lived at Foggy Hollow (21 years in the hollow, 17 years in that house), I only dreamed that house about five times and each time the dream was about encroachment (people building too close to the house or trespassing). If I dreamed “house,” it was the house I grew up in, even if Joe and I were married. And I loved that place. Yet I’ve lived here for five months and I’ve already dreamed this house. Joe says he never dreamed the house in Foggy Hollow and he dreamed this one immediately. What’s that about?

 

August 16, 2007

 Years ago, when we were first married, I went away for a weekend with friends. When I came back Sunday afternoon, I saw—strapped to a brace in the back of my husb’s pickup truck—an eight-foot cactus. Thoughts like “Are you inSANE?” flooded my brain but I just let him tell me the story. Left to his own devices, he had spent Saturday at an auction. In the basement of the house were two cactii, both very large. One was in very good shape; one wasn’t. He bided his time and got the lesser of the two for $10. He was very pleased and quickly jury-rigged a brace so that he could bring it home safely.

Our first home had vaulted ceilings, so the Big Guy (as we called him) did all right. At one point we moved him from the pot he’d been in for years to a washtub with better soil. He grew slowly but steadily.

In the summer we moved him outside. Sometimes a piece would break off in the move. Joe stuck each one into more soil and almost all of them rooted. Pieces moved to eastern PA, MD, VA, and NC.

One year we were very pleased to discover a bud on the side of one of the cactii. It grew into a blossom. One night it opened into a gorgeous flower. The next morning it closed up. That was how we figured out our Big Guy was a night-blooming cereus.

Tragedy struck one cold fall night. We had not yet moved him inside for the winter and the temperature outside dropped too far. The Big Guy froze. We had a number of pieces, so we hadn’t lost him forever, but it was still very sad. We moved the next biggest piece into his washtub. That piece is now about six feet tall.

When we moved three months ago, of course the New Big Guy and his brother moved with us. Another piece broke off and in the crush of moving, Joe did not get to replant it. That piece has been sitting on the wall by the basement door. It now has new growth and a flower bud. I’m calling that one the Miracle Cactus. Joe’s going to put it into soil this weekend.

And last week the New Big Guy’s brother presented us with seven flower buds. Six of them bloomed over the course of three nights; the seventh fell off (not uncommon). These cactii obviously think this was a really good move!