Oh, happy days…

It’s May…it’s May…the lusty month of May…

I don’t know if I am feeling it more because this May has brought beautiful weather, daffodils and the smell of new mown lawns earlier than usual or if it is just the aftereffects of a long, snowy winter, but I’m feeling quite giddy…

My wonderful husband has been working on opening up a woodsy area into a fairy garden for me, a horseshoe pit for him and raised garden beds for us…buzzing down trees and shrubs, clearing brush and letting the sunshine in! My fairy garden gets little sun, so I get to look for shade plants.

After some minor tweaking and fiddling, our cool new/old Raleigh RetroGlides are on the road…and we are in love! Boo LOVES to run with us up and down the 1/2 miles driveway and we are really psyched to feel the warming breezes on our faces.

I have started moving some of my many geranium plants outside during daylight hours so that they might harden up a bit and be planted in barrels around the deck. I planted tomato seeds in a hanging pot arrangement; they haven’t sprouted, so I think I may need to replant, and it is still quite early for tomatoes, but at least my hands are in dirt!

We have a few buds bursting into flower on our new apricot tree…first blooms of the season in our new little orchard (apples, pears, an apricot and a nectarine)…oh, and the newest additions to the orchard are the blueberries, blackberries and grapes.

Birds are back to our feeder…nuthatches, finches and chickadees, with the occasional sparrow cleaning up spills…also back to our feeder is the occasional squirrel, helping provide amusement for Boo and the cats. We have been slow adding back feeders this year, as we don’t want to attract rats (as happened at the end of the season last year…UGH…not much difference in looks between rats and squirrels, but I’ll take squirrels any day!).

And, finally, the lobster pots are back out in full force, with many-colored buoys bobbing merrily…we have managed to identify a few of the boats which fish in our neighborhood…they don’t see me, but I see them!

Just because…

Just because I thrust a raspberry prickle into the tip of my f-y finger a couple of days ago and can’t get it out so have to wait until it gets a little infected so it will let me get it out…

Just because this week has been full of hunting and gathering and planning with not much time to sit and ponder…

Just because it is spring and time to start working on all the projects we dreamed up over the snowy winter…

Just because I have added reading back into my life and that requires time and that time has to come from somewhere and for me it is coming from my thinking time…

Just because…it took almost no effort to share these photos that show what greeted me when I got out of bed this morning…taken over the space of an hour…

Ain’t mama nature something wonderful?

An antidote to stress…

I have been struggling mightily the last couple of weeks, wanting to blog, but feeling as if I didn’t have anything important to say…a lot of people have blogged a lot of profound things. I was one of those who watched TV just about every minute…I didn’t go anywhere and I watched…and even though some time has now passed and things have quieted down, I still watch.

I’m lucky, though…I have this to help take my mind off things, even if only for a few minutes at a time…please feel free to breathe in some peace, soak up some serenity and pass it along…

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Yes, Victoria, there is a spring…

This is for all of you who have been laden down in snow and ice and cold weather forever and ever and ever (or so it seems this year)…yes, spring is alive and well…look at all the different shades of blue!

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Out my back door…

You know by now that I live in heaven. I started taking daily photos when we moved here. There are days when the camera never leaves my neck, when the beauty around me just overwhelms me.

This morning, I couldn’t help myself…apologies to those who prefer my narrative posts…your imagination needs to add steady winds that knock me off balance, coming from the sea towards land; the sound of the waves crashing on the rocky coast; the way the light constantly changes…these photos were taken over a one hour period and really don’t even begin to convey it all…

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Oh, what a glorious day…

Yesterday was one of those days that make living on the coast an emotional and uplifting experience. Saturday morning, it was 19 degrees when we awoke. Yesterday morning, it was 46 degrees. The wind was blowing, light showers came and went and the sea was alive with sound and fury…and yet we were out with only light jackets. What a day!

I raised my hand…

I have volunteered since I was young. Early on, I sang in church choirs and performed in community theater shows, which are, in their own way, acts of volunteerism. I spent two years or so as a Red Cross Volunteen, donning my pink-and-white-striped pinafore at least a day a week, spending time with folks in the skilled nursing home. For most of my adult life, I was a working mom and time to volunteer at anything non-child-related was nil. I did drive minivans full of kids to various soccer/baseball/softball/football games, but that was more mothering than pure volunteering. Then, as my kids got older and became more independent (sometimes fiercely so), I went back to my comfort zone and became very active (I’m sure some would say too active <G>) in my local community theater (I probably spent as much time at the theater or working on theater-related projects each week as I did on my paying jobs). Then we moved.

The first year and a half of our “new” life was very home-centric. We moved here to be close to my favorite father-in-law, Joe, as he spent his last years of life. So, we packed and unpacked and moved and moved again the belongings of two separate families…my in-laws never moved out of the house we live in, so we had to move their belongings out into the garage in order to move ours into the house, then disburse everything leftover to family, friends and Goodwill. We reshingled buildings and oversaw construction; my husband went wild with the loppers and the chain saw; we managed to stay on speaking terms rehabbing the decks which were rotting away…and we visited Joe at his apartment at least twice a week. Dinner on Wednesday nights and brunch on Sunday mornings were spent in the dining room surrounded by an ever-changing group of senior citizen residents. Everyone knew we were Joe’s son and daughter (they could never remember which of us was Joe’s kin) and it was always great fun to eavesdrop (which wasn’t hard, as almost everyone was hearing impaired and those who were not compensated for those who were). Then Joe died.

Joe was closing in on 99 when he died. The last month of his life was spent with his body and mind actively preparing to die. It was quiet and comfortable and he was warm and cared for…we were so thankful to PALS, who took care of his daily needs, and to hospice, which pitched in at the very end to make things very easy for all of us to see that Joe’s wishes were done.

And then life went on. The only thing that changed in my life was that I got all the time I had been spending with Joe back…and nowhere to spend that time. People reading this will be stunned to learn (and will probably be laughing up their sleeves) that I am a very shy, reserved person. Even with my best, loved friends, it is a huge effort for me to leave my solitude and the familiar. I don’t really want to let people get to know me here, because they might want something from me. Sick, eh? However, on election day, after I had cast my vote, I drifted over to the table containing information on our local library, a tiny little two story house that has been part of my summer life since I first visited my not-yet-in-laws with my not-then-husband in 1974. The tiny library will soon be moving into a capacious donated building and will offer many new programs and lots of new nooks and crannies. I was initially interested in looking at the rooms that looked as if they might accommodate rehearsal space if a group ever wanted to use it. Then I was drawn in by the woman sitting behind the table and somehow, I was telling her that I had put myself through college working at the University of California, Riverside library and that I was an at-least-temporarily-retired person with time on her hands. I left my name, email address and phone number and left with nary a backwards thought.

A couple of days later, I received a call from the woman who schedules volunteers for the library (I think of her as the Head Volunteer) and, lickety-split, I was scheduled for a volunteer shift working the front desk (Circulation) for a couple of hours a week. I am off for my second shift later today and I can’t wait. It turns out that the local library is full of warm, welcoming people and a great source of local gossip and news. And I enjoy being surrounded by books…it gives me shivers.

And all because I raised my hand yet again.

Battle with things that scurry in the night…

I don’t know if we were just too new to country life or too overwhelmed by the move from Massachusetts to Maine, but I swear that last winter, our little house was occupied only by two humans, two cats and a puppy (as long as you don’t count the dust/fur elephants and hippos that lurk in every nook and cranny). This winter seems to be another matter.

Now, let me preface this with an admission…I am not particularly grossed out by rats and mice. Remember, I raised a son…we had a series of hamsters, anoles and rats that shared our homes. But they lived in cages and ate food that we provided. They were clean and trapped. I have willingly shared my home…in the past.

However, this winter has already brought its share of surprises. First, while I was in FL, awaiting the birth of Audrey Saison, my husband emailed me a photo of a mystery mammal on our deck…looked like a little opossum or a big rat. That big rat (as it turned out to be) “entertained us” for weeks, as it lived out in the woods and visited our deck for snacks. The cats were mightily entertained and Boo chased it to his heart’s content. Then, one day last week, we saw TWO rats, and that was that. We took to Google and discovered that we were at fault. Our constantly overflowing bird feeders were an open invitation to small animaldom…we were used to the squirrels, but this was too much. So, with great sadness and regret, we pulled in all our bird feeders and locked the seed and cobs up. Within days, the rats were gone…but so were the birds, the squirrels and the chipmunks…damn, those silly rats.

Spring forward a few days and suddenly, we notice that our cats are lying in front of the slop sink pipe down through the floor to the basement…they have this poised, intent look that can only mean that they have a living thing on their radar. They chased a mouse around the kitchen, into the office and under the furniture. I was able to safely herd it out the door, much to the disgust of the cat posse. Fine. However, the next day, I found the cat posse camped in my closet and it was game on! The posse moved inexorably from my closet to hus’ closet to under the bed to behind the dresser to under the dresser, where the whole thing paused…I quickly grabbed a golf club, set up a little cattle run from behind the dresser to the door and persuaded a tiny little mouse to scurry out the door…I then slammed the screen before the cats could give chase and that was that. Boo and I headed out to Lowe’s, where we purchased steel wool (to stuff in any holes or crevices linking the basement to MY space) and sonic mouse repellers (no one at Lowe’s had heard any feedback about whether or not they work, but what the heck), as well as advice from one worker that mice hate the smell of dryer sheets (who knew?). So far, some 12 hours later, no heightened interest from the cat posse. We’ll see.

Falling backwards…

I doubt that I will have much time to blog over the next couple of weeks. I’m going to be concentrating on my daughter, her husband, their two dogs and two cats…oh, and on that little bundle of BabyGirlBug who will be arriving soon. Whew, I just gave myself goosebumps! I will miss you all, but…hey…it is hopefully true that ol’ Mom is never more wanted and needed than around the birth of a baby.

So, because my brain is all atwitter and otherwise occupied, I thought I would go back in the way way back machine (anybody remember that?) and look at photos I took a year ago this month. Let’s see what difference, if any, a year makes.

There’s a full moon rising…

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