Into the Woods

We have been getting lots of wildlife in the yard this year. At the top is a bunny that was visiting last Spring, and now we have him or his big brother or mother, lounging around in the yard like he is our pet. The bunny was munching on a piece of grape vine that I had pruned, so it must have been in the Fall. Next, of course, is the ever popular brown slug. We have loads of these since the woods (or Forest as my husband refers to it) is only about 100 feet away in any direction. Whenever it rains, after flowers start to appear, I am out ruthlessly stabbing them with the sharp sticks I have placed at strategic points around the yard, and flinging them back into the woods from whence they slithered.

Next is a very ambitious racoon that was skulking around, stealing food from the bird feeders, even though husband had placed them high up in the attempt to foil the squirrels. Next a lovely butterfly, last summer. I assume we will see them again this summer, though I might have to buy another verbena plant to lure them to hang around for picture taking.

And then one of the many little red squirrels that scamper all over our yard, digging up bulbs, eating the bird seed, coming to the patio door to look in, presumably wondering when I'm going to come outside to put out more bird seed for them.

The last is a nice, fat lizard that was sunning himself next to the garage door earlier this Spring. Haven't seen him since, but we think he lives under the garage floor. I took his picture with the 70--300 mm lens I got for Christmas so he looks really big, though if you compare him to the mouse trap (oh yeah, we have lots of mice, too) you can judge his real size.

We also have at least one bat that resides high up under the eave of the house roof--we can only occasionally see part of him, but if we sit out at dusk we can watch him sailing around and around in circles above the house, cleaning the air of (hopefully) mosquitoes.

And we have a Barn Swallow Mr. and Mrs. who build their nest in a swallow box we put up several years ago. This is probably the 4th year they've used the nest. Last year I took very blurry photos of the babies, but this year, with my new zoom lens, I should get better ones and not scare the parents as badly. We have two more nests in the yard, that we know about, and many more out there, I'm sure. One is in the Liberty Apple tree--a robin's nest, used and redecorated every year. I've seen Mrs. Robin picking up long strands of dry grasses and pretending not to be going to the tree.

The other nest I found accidentally when I pulled down a hanging basket that I had planted a geranium in a couple of weeks before. I was going to put some Lobelia in it, but there was a cup-size nest, perfectly round, right next to the geranium, and in it were 4 blue, speckled eggs. I thought it must be another Robin's nest and my birder friend thought so, too. But a week later while I was watering another planter close by, I saw the little black head of a Junco. Mama Junco was sitting on her eggs. Since then the babies have hatched and I see Mama J. flying back and forth to the nest. She doesn't seem to be too worried about me. Maybe she can tell that I mean her no harm, as I avoid getting too close now. I haven't watered that geranium since I discovered the nest. Good think they don't require much water. I doubt I will ever be able to get a photo of this tiny family. There is no place to lurk nearby to get a good one.

This morning I took pictures of the Big Bunny Rabbit, lounging in the garden. I'll post a photo of him later. I guess I should give him a name, since he seems to think he owns the place. Maybe Harvey.....but he's know hallucination.

Garden Buddy

My Little Garden Buddy

Lately I have been thinking about aging bodies, specifically mine!  I have been having tired back lately.  Tired back is caused by bending over too much, and I have been bending over too much in my garden.  The sun is out--what else can I do?  I have to Make Hay While The Sun Shines.  There is a reason for that old cliche'.  But tired back is coming way too often now.  I used to be able to spend a couple of hours doing major gardening--hoeing, raking, digging, pruning.  I used to be able to squat down and weed for a long time and get up and still be able to walk.  

The reduction in the ability to do those things has been coming on gradually.  A few years ago I bought a little wagony thing called a Garden (or Lawn) Buddy.  It's a nifty little vehicle, 4 wheels, a lid that open and acts as the means to pull the wagon, a nice big compartment for tools, a tray, even a couple of "cup holder" spaces on the lid when it's closed.  I sit on the cup holder places so they aren't that useable.  The Garden Buddy is for sitting on so that I don't have to kneel, something that has always, even as a kid, given me fits.  I bend over from a sitting position to weed.  That worked great for several years, but now that bending over action is causing me problems, too.  The upshot is that I have had to weed for shorter and shorter periods of time--frequent breaks result.  Lots of getting up and "walking it out"--going for water--reading the paper while the kinks relax--watching the birds--going back, doing 15 more minutes, taking another break.

My Mom used to call me Powerful Katrinka because my arms and hands were so strong, or at least stronger than hers.  But now those same arms and hands belong to a woman who needs a jar opener to help her open the pickles and, thankfully, a husband to help lift heavy things. "Lift with the knees bent" has become my mantra.  A graduate buddy told me that he no longer can peel logs the way he used to.  He can still do it, but not as well.  I'm impressed that he can still do it!  

I know I'm lucky.  I don't have bad knees, I don't really have a bad back, my eyes are good, my hair is pretty thick.  My stomach doesn't digest the things it  used to but I don't have ulcers. I can't hear anything, and that's a problem for another day.   I merely wish that my muscles and ligaments were a little more forgiving.  Now that I have all this time I can spend in the garden, I wish I had the body to do it.  That's the irony, isn't it?  Retire at 63 and still have the energies and the abilities of a 50 year old?  Wouldn't that be the cat's meow?  Our generation wants to have it all and do it all and if we wait until we're in our 60s to have and do, then we have to face it,  the "it" being the fact that our bodies ain't what they used to be, ain't the efficient machines they once were.  My body may be more happy to be on a cruise ship, or at a resort, and it will be there, too, eventually.  

I'm sorry, I have to go now.  The sun is shining and I have to get out in the garden.  I'll see you later when I come in to put ligament on my sore muscles.

In Memorium

Gerry Potter and my Mom

Gerry Potter died on Mother's Day.  This is what I wrote and read at her Memorial Service on Saturday, May 23.  I doubt anyone reading this blog would know Gerry, but one of my blog lookers wanted to see what I wrote and I wanted to give Gerry this tribute.

The Potters, Gerry and Jay, were all mixed up with my childhood.  Jaydee and Pam and Randy were closer than cousins, Gerry and Jay were better than an Aunt and Uncle.  When I think of that Golden Time, when my brothers and I were small, I hear Gerry and my Mom (Chickie Eddy) talking and laughing, Gerry’s low chuckle, my Mom’s high trill and Jay and my Dad (Stan Eddy) counting: 15 two, 15 four, 15 six and a pair is eight, as they tried to skunk each other at Cribbage.   I think of the camping trips to the Hamma Hamma, the Skokomish, the Satsup Rivers and other Olympic Mountain destinations, the campfires we sat around, the pungent odor of wet socks drying, because 75 % of those camping trips were rained on.  I remember Mom and Gerry sitting at the picnic table gabbing, waiting for their fishing husbands to return to camp so we could all eat dinner.  

I remember the Madrona Point house, my brother, Dan, water skiing with the Potter’s and their neighbors, the Neshems.  I remember the smell of the tuna fish with onions that Gerry made, and the cookies always baking.  I remember my brother, Dan, and I sharing Gerry and Jay’s big bed  while our folks played cards in the kitchen.

Gerry and my Mom did something I’ve never known two other women to do, ever.  They got together every week to iron.  Those were the days of no Permanent Press;  everything had to be ironed.  They brought their boards, their irons and their laundry baskets full of clothes to Gerry’s house one week, Mom’s house the next, and they ironed and laughed and told stories and gossiped and before they knew it, the ironing was done.  It was genius.

I will always credit Gerry with influencing me in terms of color, stylishness and confidence.  My Mom is no slouch in those categories either, and maybe that’s one of the many reasons they were close for so many years.  I loved Gerry’s red hair and freckles, her colorful clothing and her laugh and her intelligence.  I have a picture of the two of them from the 50s, on a camping trip, Mom and Gerry, standing together, one arm around the other,  hands on hips, legs further apart than was traditionally lady-like, sunglasses, pedal-pushers, broad smiles; Gerry in sensible saddle shoes with socks, my Mom in shoes not quite suitable for the river beach they were standing on; two great friends, confident women, wonderful role-models for their daughters.  They did what the times expected of them:  they raised their children, they catered to their husbands and they kept their houses clean.  Gerry and my Mom, though, did it with such style and good humor they made it look like fun.

When I retired 2 years ago it was part of my plan to get Mom and Gerry together for some lunches with me and I succeeded twice.  The first time I took them to the Silverdale Hotel cafe and I got to listen to the two old friends reminiscing and laughing together again.   Gerry got Pam to come to the second lunch and we ate Mexican food  and admired pictures and told stories of kids and grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Gerry told us she was going to have surgery in April.  That was the last time I saw her--walking away with Pam, smiling, waving.  I am going to remember her the way she was that day--positive, excited by her family and their activities, joking with Pam, looking to the future.  She was dressed in lavender  and her red hair was still thick and curly, her laugh still low and vibrant, her mind sharp.  She was the Gerry I always remembered and the Gerry that will live in my heart for the rest of my life.

Three Gifts

Portrait of my Mom taken in the Forties

Mother's Day is always fraught with anxious expectation for me.  My Mom and Dad used to go to Spectacle Lake in Eastern Washington during the week of Mother's Day.  This was after Mom's kids were grown and I think the idea was to not be home waiting for phone calls.  That's wise!  I found myself waiting at home for phone calls this past Sunday.  Not fun, I assure you.  I kept busy, gardening, helping to repair a little dent I put in my car, reading, watching 60 Minutes, cooking dinner.  But I was rewarded this year with three phone calls.  Here are the three gifts I got this Mother's Day:

1.  I took my Mom to lunch during the week and gave her a gift I've been working on, literally, for years.  Several years ago Mom gave me 35 chapters of a memoir she envisioned. She wrote the pages while she was working in a writer's group sponsored by her Tracyton Methodist Church.  Each was an assignment:  Write about Your Favorite Christmas Present, Your Mother, Your Father, etc.  Mom asked me to type up the pages on the computer and add pictures from her youth, her motherhood, her married life.  I had typed most of the pages before I retired and my first goal of retirement was to finish typing, choose and insert the pictures, copy in color at Kinkos, get the book bound and give it to Mom.  There was a certain urgency and anxiety in this as I had make a "picture book" by hand, honoring my Dad, to be given to him on his 80th birthday, but he got sick and didn't ever really "see" it.  I took it to him in the hospital but I don't think he realized what it was.  I ended up displaying it at his memorial service two weeks later.  I didn't want that kind of thing to happen to Mom's memoir.  The memoir finished nicely.  The cover is a watercolor that an artist neighbor painted of her when Mom was in her late 20s.  The book looks really nice.  So, okay.....I gave it to her at lunch.  She was flabbergasted, blown away, couldn't believe her eyes.  She had largely forgotten that she asked me to do this for her.  She is totally unaware of what can be done with a computer.  She could hardly wrap her mind around the finished product.  I had to keep telling her that she had written every word, that I had merely put it together.  Over and over she exclaimed what a wonderful gift it was.  It was the look on her face and the emotion in her voice that were my first Mother's Day gifts this year.

2.  The second gift was the three phone calls from my kids.

Carolyn, middle daughter who lives in San Diego, called first, mid-morning.  We talked about my grandson, Alex, 6 years old; Starbucks, where she works; dating, which she is doing again after breaking up with a boyfriend at Christmas.  I was looking for, as usual, evidence of happiness in her life, and I detected some.

Christopher, my son in Wisconsin, called next.  He was talking while driving his family and his Mom and Dad-in-law to Duluth for a week long vacation by Lake Superior.  I don't condone talking on a cell phone while driving, but I didn't quibble.  He was calling, that's what mattered. We talked about books I'd sent him for his 32nd birthday two weeks before; his basement remodeling; the cottage they would stay in at Duluth; my plans to visit again in December; his beloved, rare Acura car, which he vows never to sell.  ( I wish I knew what model it is so any guys who read this can know, but I'm afraid all I know is that it's yellow, it's small and he used to race it.)  I didn't have to look for signs of happiness, because he has always been pretty self-contained and I happen to know that right now things are good.

My eldest daughter called around 7:15, 10:15 her time, in Norfolk, VA.  We discussed so many things it's hard to remember them all.  We had talked recently so were pretty caught up but there are always lots of things to talk about with Erin.  She and I, who used to be not so easy with each other, are now Mom/Daughter friends and she is about to be a grandma for the first time, so we have even more in common now.  The conversation ranged from what we are currently reading, to my two grownup grandsons, to her charming-and-good-looking-husband, Kent's, birthday, to knitting (she does, I don't), to Star Trek. She gave me my third Mother's Day gift.

3.  Erin, the eldest, will be a grandma of triplets.  We've know this now for a couple of months. My grandson, Nick, and the young woman who will give birth to the triplets with him, Nicole, have already picked out names.  One of the names for one of the two girls was Madison something.  Nick or Nicole decided they didn't like that name and so they changed it to Gabrielle, but they were stuck for a middle name--Erin suggested my name--Gabrielle Christine.  So, unless they decide that's not what they want, I will be immortalized, at least for her lifetime, in this brand new little girl's name.

Those were my three gifts.  I don't think I've ever had this satisfying a Mother's Day.  I got caught up on all three of my delightful children, I made my own Mom really happy, and I get to be remembered in somebody's name.  I hope you had a satisfying Mother's Day.  I know some of you probably didn't, but there is still hope because we're still here.

While you're waiting let me leave you with this great quote:

"Our young haven't lost their history; it was taken from them...You've got a file on this century stored in your heads, that nobody else has.  There'll be nobody like you ever again.  Make the most of every molecule you've got, as long as you've got a second to go.  That is your assignment.  That is your charge."              David Bowers, Environmentalist