It's a hot and humid morning here at Honeysuckle Hill. 73 degrees already at 7 AM and gonna climb to the mid 90's before it's all over. This is a picture of one section of the honeysuckle that climbs the fences on the front and sides of the house and driveway. It is absolutely lush this year, and the smell knocks your senses for a loop every time you walk out the front door. I adore honeysuckle...it's one of my all-time favorite flowers and I don't care--no, I LOVE!!-- how invasive it is. I'm thinking seriously of transplanting some up onto my front porch rails. We already have bees all over anyway...and in a year or two, I would have a front porch rail covered in vines and flowers. They are pretty evergreen too, so it would be nice in winter.
The pickup truck is back in the shop this morning. And now my little car needs a new battery. The light keeps coming opn, randomly. I'm agonna take it down to Auto Zone and have them test it. It's at least 4 years old and I'm not sure what the life of a car battery is these days, but I'm guessing it's as short as everything else.
Am I just getting old?
It seems like nothing lasts anymore. Has the world of manufacturing forgotten how to make things that are not disposable?? Or am I just a naive idiot?? I am stuck in a warp of thinking that when I buy something, that should be it. It should live as long as I do. (Which is really scary, if you think about it). lol I have always been like this. I guess I need to get over that, huh?
I need to get out and finish mulching in the garden. Bales of straw are up to 5 bucks apiece this year...it's like mulching with gold. I cannot believe how fast this garden is growing ...is that my age again?? lol It all looks beautiful, I'll say that for sure. I already have a golf ball sized tomato on one plant...one that I missed, I guess, as I pull the flowers off them the first month or so, until the plants are bigger and well established. It's so cute, I can't bear the thought of pulling it off, so I'll leave it be.
The chickens are laying well and happy, although it stinks over there from all the rain mixed with chicken poop mixed with grains laying about out in the run. The inside coop smells sweet from the fresh straw...whoever thought I would like that smell so much? And the smell early this morning when I was out feeding the girls and the humidity and the dew and the drifting honeysuckle smells nearly made me delirious.
Reading Ms Moon this morning, I am reminded about how much my world has shifted these past few years. As I enter an older and wiser stage of this existence. As I leap from the uncertainty of youth to the resigned uncertainty of old age. As I find the joy and yes, Ms Moon, the kindness, of the life I have carved out for myself, I know deep down that truly, in the end, it will all be okay. And if it's not okay, it's not the end.
Now. Get back to your regular week...it's Tuesday for crying out loud....
Namaste.
Cold as a well diggers A*# out there!!
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It is now a balmy 5 degrees with a Weather Advisory warning out. Wind chill temps will be from 15 to 25 BELOW zero tonight and tomorrow morning. And I have to get up and take himself to work so I can go to the chiro. I've just let the dogs out for their last hurrah of the evening. They'll not be long...it's brutal out there. Although the young pup, Caylee is quite the outdoors dog and refuses to come in most of the daylight hours unless it's real bad...even she won't stay out for long at night.
I dream of the beaches of Waikiki...of snorkeling at Haunemea Bay, of climbing Diamond Head. Of palm trees waving in the breeze and the splash of waves against the accepting sands. I visited there in 1992 and have yet to make it back. I loved every single minute of the 8 days I got to stay there. I got a little island fever-ish at the end, but I would go again in a heartbeat. Especially in January, when the projected wind chill is bringing temps to 20 below....
I dream of living somewhere warm again, although I am fully aware that it will probably never happen. My youth is gone...the days when I could pull up stakes and go anywhere I damn well pleased. I am settling into middle age [finally] at nearly 57 years old. Attached to a place via the family and friends and things that have taken up residence in my heart. Moving proves entirely too much to consider when there are so many dogs and cats and birds and chickens involved. I do love the spring time and a good portion of the summer as well...before the heat gets so unbearable. But more than that, I am in love with this place I call home...my gardens and my lilies and my fruit trees. The modest little home and its flaws, the place at the pond where the turtles come up every year to lay their eggs. The way the honeysuckle and lilacs scent the air right up to my front door. The blackberry brambles that create a security fence around the sides and back of my yard. The way the tall tulip poplar blooms on branches so high that you cannot make out the flowers...only the splash of creamy yellow against the sky.
Even in the coldest part of winter, my trees and yard are brimming with wild birds. Cardinals, ruby red against the snow. Chickadees and Nuthatches and woodpeckers-Downey and Pileated and Hairy and Red Bellied and Red Heads. And don't forget the brilliant blues of the huge Jays as they swoop from tree to tree, flashes of cerulean startling all the other birds for a moment in their majesty.
Sigh...okay. Why would I ever want to leave here? Am I so fickle that a few weeks of this frostbitten insanity would be enough to make me up and leave all the rest? Of course not.
It's all just a dream on a cold winters night. If I pay attention, I can still smell the remnants of todays bread baking on the air.
And the smell of bread baking is always the smell of HOME. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Namaste.
