A Mess of Emotions

What a messy affair emotions are. Yesterday, I almost wept over the taste of a perfectly ripe peach; the awe its perfection inspired took away my breath. Living in such close, quiet quarters with my man and my memories keeps me ever-extreme in my emotions.

I’ve never considered myself a greedy person, but I really am greedy for my people. I can’t get enough of the essence of them in my mind; even when my emotions are stretched to the breaking point, I want more time, more connection, more making memories. Every child I ever held, in some small way, became a part of me. Every friend or family member I ever hugged has a hold on my heart. Heaven for me would be to have all my people right next to me simultaneously. For now, I have to settle for enjoying them from afar.

I love being able to live vicariously with my grandchildren, family, and friends through Facebook and email. I’ve been able to enjoy my oldest grandchild’s summer activities through the pictures her friends have posted on Facebook. With families these days being so busy, if we didn’t have electronic ways to keep up, we may not be able to recognize our own grandkids by the time we do get to see them in person.

Our grandson’s joy at being able to witness and even participate in rescuing sea turtle babies also came through on Facebook. His dad has promised to post pictures of the monumentally memorable event. I almost feel like I’m there when I’m made privy to the pictures, and Nick’s passionate prose. It does sometimes make my heart hurt with the longing to hear their voices, see their faces, and smell their special smells, but that’s the price we pay for allowing ourselves to love.

Creating Cozy

Isn't it bizarre how we buy these big parcels of land and then spend so much time shrinking the spaces to cozy parcels that we can enjoy from our favorite windows?

Mountaintop Mary and Don own a whole top of a mountain, but they've figured a way to create a cozy place for their grandchildren's reading and dreaming. Just off their front porch, they've closed in a section of yard with ranch-style fencing. In the middle of this enclosure, they've built a tee-pee out of rebar and chicken wire; here they're growing lunar pumpkin vines to create tee-pee walls with brilliant orange blooms. The entrance path to the the tee-pee is a home-hewn stone walkway. All around this miniature mansion are bright red canna lilies in an English-style flower plot inviting the hummingbirds to hover. Their hammock swings gently in the breezes wafting across this child-size Granny Camp garden.

Our close-in trees not only provide shade for our house, they also provide places to observe birds and other beasts feeding and frolicking in the branches. Our niece, Nikki's, favorite reading spot is in the hammock strung between an Eastern hemlock and a black walnut tree only twenty steps from our front door. Would it be as inviting if she had to hike to get to it? I will admit that autumn would be a bit quieter without the avalanche of walnuts bombarding our roof as they fall, but where would we put Nikki's favorite spot? And, every time I speak to my children about moving our bonfire pit farther away from our porch to improve the "curb appeal" of our entry way (not that we have curbs in Coker Creek), I get wails of distress that I would even think about making it less accessible.

Richard and many of the people we know up here worry about the big trees so close to our house. I've had several workmen come up here and admonish me for having pine trees anywhere near our roof line, for fear that they'll fall on said roof. Mamie now says she should have listened to her husband when he wanted to take out all the close-in trees before building her home seventy-six years ago. But, until recently she, like me, celebrated her big trees.

We do have some serious wind storms, and ice can make the branches of pines brittle, but I'd as soon sell this house and live in the desert as worry about a tree falling on our heads. Lightening could strike us as we work in the garden or walk from our carport, but I think that we all have to pick our battles and the things we will worry about. I worry about things that go "bump" in the night, like black bears, not black walnuts.

At least one hummingbird and a wasp have located our front yard feeder. I find it funny that hummingbirds will chase each other from any one area rather than share their food, no matter how many feeders are in the vicinity; but a wasp sucking down the sweet sustenance doesn't worry our winged warrior one whit.

Good Golly, Miss Molly

Good golly, Miss Molly.
How hard can things get?
I’ve been trying to publish
Nancy’s book for months,
And haven’t succeeded yet.
She and I really thought
Her work was finely tuned;
But no, it seems the printer wants
For us to circle the moon.
Finally, in frustration,
We started the process fresh.
A proof copy has been ordered
We hope we can give it a rest.

Woodland Wonders

How high does a hummingbird feeder have to be hung? We had a hummingbird attempting to get through the kitchen window, apparently attracted to the orchid on the sill. Or was it the tomatoes ripening above the orchid? This orchid was given to me by “my Atlanta girls,” Rachel, Rebecca, and Sarah, for my birthday, four years ago. It has bloomed beautifully for all four years, and is the first bloom of spring at our house in the holler. It serves to remind me of the ever-renewing love between “my girls” and me.

It just happened that Josie was the one who noticed the hummingbird’s seemingly suicidal attempt to come through the closed window. It had no way to know how badly this could have gone for him. Our cat, Buster, is a great grey hunter, who often lies in wait of prey on the picnic table just outside that window. With his faithful side-kick, Gypsy, he’s sometimes been successful at catching several squirrels, a bird or two, and many a mole. Josie’s comments and this daring feat of the hummingbird prompted me to fill our hummingbird feeder and relocate it to where we can observe these most aggressive avians from a frequented spot in front of a window.

Our wild bird feeder is in a dogwood tree about twenty feet outside the kitchen window, similar to the spacing between Jack’s bird buffet and his kitchen window. Our concern is that, as small as the hummers are, we won’t be able to see them as well as we’d like. For now, the hummingbird feeder is on a low branch in our black walnut tree outside the office window, where I can watch it as I type. The only feeding frenzy, thus far, is an army of ants attracted to its steady drip of sugar water.

Lately, we’ve been waking to the presence of a visiting bulldog, waiting for Gypsy to come out and play. I don’t know whether its Dozer or his little brother, but he puts me in mind of short, stocky Spanky from “Spanky and Our Gang,” waiting for long, lean Alfalfa with the interesting head of hair(Gypsy?) I don’t know who Buster plays in this scenario, but he certainly loves to torment Gypsy until Gypsy takes action chasing him.

Gypsy used to be so docile that she’d allow all animals visiting our front porch, including our cat, first dibs on her food bowl. Dozer, his brother and all the visiting dogs have cured her of that; she now lies down with her paws curved around her dish, daring anyone to getting near enough for a nibble.

Our usual letter carrier Garry says that the substitute mailman on duty yesterday saw a baby doe near our mailbox. We’ve never seen a doe or a deer of any age on our property -- a weasel, a bear, a red fox, and bunches of bunnies, but never a deer. We just never know what woodland wonders we’ll see.

Excess Largesse

Pastor Lynda called yesterday morning to take us up on our offer to supply support for her congregation’s food bank in the form of food. One of our primary reasons for gardening and beginning the First Friday suppers was to create an avenue into families of Coker Creek. I miss the easy relationships we had with so many children and their parents now that we live so far from family.

I was scheduled to go to the garden to harvest field peas, but was concerned that the recipients of the excess of the Almighty’s largesse may not be usable to non-cooks. My misgivings about the ability of Lynda’s clients to use fresh food were assuaged by her assurances that she could show them proper pea-shelling procedures and such.

Richard had gone downtown to the recycle center, unloading our “souvenirs” all our company in the form of the trash left after their departures. I wasn’t looking forward to working alone in the hot sun, but one of the things I’ve learned from Mamie is how to be like Tom Sawyer in getting some company in and assistance with my work. I invited Mountaintop Mary to make picking peas and gathering eggs at Mamie’s the day’s activities for her version of Granny Camp.

Mary and three of her four grandchildren, spending the summer with her, arrived with baskets in hand. We exchanged tokens of our appreciation of each other, Emma presenting me with a perfect Zinnia and the children choosing their favorite souvenirs from our collection of Coker Creek t-shirts and such. Chris, Aaron, and Emma, with Grandma Mary’s help, made short work of pea-picking and headed home for lunch.

While I continued my harvesting, Marshall and Donna came by to pick peaches. Donna and I began comparing notes on dealing with all this edible excess. I shared with her my desire to teach needy families in the area the same survival skills that we’ve been learning from Mamie and Jack. Lo and behold, she had been having the same conversation with someone connected to the Smoky Mountain Christian Camp, down the road from Jack’s house and his gardens. She also informed me that her grandchildren are coming to Coker Creek for Donna and Marshall’s version of Granny Camp, and that they, like some of our campers, had a visit to Ms. Mamie’s garden and hen house on the top of their wish list of vacation activities. Move over Mickey Mouse; the kids love the pleasures of the simple way of life.

When Richard and I had our first version of Granny Camp on Lake Pontchartrain, our Austrian nephews who had spent several weeks doing all the American tourist activities, including Disney World, declared that their time boating, floating, and fishing at our place was, “better than Disney World.” We’re striving to create the same sense of excitement for families who come to Coker Creek to visit. We’re hoping to have the opportunity to help do the same for families living here.

Is There Anything as Oppulent?

Is there anything as opulent as a big bouquet of blooms
Carefully arranged in vases, gifts from friends far away?
Hydrangeas which always remind me of the joy I had in Jane
Are viewed in vases from Terry Sue and Les and his wife Gayle.
Sunflowers set spectacularly under the copy of a collage
Mimic the flowers in the artwork that Sheila made.
I pine for the good times we shared in Louisiana
And for their friendship in times of greatest pain.
All of us are scattered like pollen on the winds
It’s soothing to see their faces as I gaze on my bouquets.

Hard Knocks and Hilarity

Pity the poor people who have nothing to teach the younger generation. And pity the younger generation that thinks they have nothing to learn from their elders. It does seem that humanity is on a hamster’s treadmill, running as fast as we can and always circling back around to where we started as a society. We can’t count on learning only from our own experiences to get us through or we circle back around to the ways of the past. But who ever writes the histories of the “stay-at-home” moms and dads?

If we don’t mine the wisdom of the old folks and learn from their successes and their failures, we’re doomed. The problem is that most people haven’t been taught to admit, much less teach, about the experiments that failed. We ridicule failure and only honor success, so that’s what we’re taught about. How many science experiments are needlessly funded and repeated because we don’t force people to publish their false starts and failures? How often do we share the truth about old and dead people rather than only sharing their goodness?

Mamie is so special because she has learned to laugh about what went wrong as well as celebrating what went right, and she’s willing to share her stories. I don’t even know how many times she’s admonished me not to put my corn in the freezer until it’s all cooled. She worked so hard as a young bride preparing her corn crop and processing the fruits of her family’s labors, only to have the corn spoil in the freezer because she took a short cut after reading the proper methods in the extension service instructions. She can laugh now, but she probably shed a tear or two when this was food that she had counted on to feed her family.

And as my friend Sherry Palmer wrote about in Monroe Life, stringing pole beans is a teachable skill which it behooves one to learn from the locals, unless you like flossing your teeth while you eat. We’ve learned the hard way that the hilling of our rows of crops serves more than one valuable purpose. Jack talks about how the old-timers used to till every other day in a dry spell to make a mulch of the dirt for preserving moisture. Mamie and Jack admit that potatoes won’t grow except in the loose soil of the hilled dirt. And we now know that you have to hill your corn or it may keel over.

Mamie often says, “I could have (or should have) told you that.” Richard’s response is, “Oh, yeah, now she tells us!” Mine is, “What a great opportunity to laugh at all of our need for further education.” Richard believes that everything we need to know, we can read, even though he’s the first to bemoan the fact that failed experiments are rarely publicized. I believe that there’s only so much we can learn from people who haven’t done a thing, and much to learn from those who went to the school of hard knocks.