Monday, December 28, 2009

Happy New Year, happy New decade

ve a very wonderful new year!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Smells like Christmas

Here is my guy serving up one of our delicious company meals he has cooked. It is a cornucopia of wonderfully tasty food we have grown and cooked. In this week to come we will host another meal and our friends will burst in on cool breezes carrying additions to the meal and suddenly the air will be full of loud and loving talk and catching up and a lot of laughter. Peter will bring his signature chocolate cookies, others will come with armloads of fish and ham and we'll have greens from the garden. Our grandson, Quincy will run around, happy with the many Christmas presents he received.

I love this season, second only to Thanksgiving. Christmas is not very stressful to me because I do not decorate much or obsess about wrapping the few material gifts I give. I am so grateful for the wonderful family and gifts I have.

What I do obsess about is the expectations we all have. Today I went into our small town to volunteer as an art instigator for a group of twenty orphans, in age from nine to seventeen, from the Baptist Children's home in Lakeland. These kids were here in our town for a wonderful day. First, they went into a local bank lobby where there was a Christmas tree and gifts for every child, provided by local businesses and families. It was hard to tell who the guests were but I could certainly see that there were many photographers and P R people there. All proud to be the sponsors of Orphans at Christmas. The kids pretty much ignored them, but I could not help thinking that these kids were used to being poster kids for the needy at Christmas. (Other times of the year we conveniently do not think about them.)

After the gift distribution, the kids walked down to the art gallery where we had a hands on art activity. I had brought many skeins of yarn, craft sticks and all the rest so that these kids could make (and take) god's eyes. Many of the kids really took to this activity and made professional looking works of art. Those huge male teen agers really got into it, quickly learned the moves and helped the other younger kids. Time passed in a flash and when they needed to move on to their next activity they wanted more. So I filled their arms with many balls of yarn, the left over craft sticks and their brains full of how to do it. I think after this day they will most remember that they learned how to make something beautiful.

And I really do know that what these children want most is to have their very own loving family. It kills me.

I guess it's kid by kid that will save the world. And if you think you are doing it, be quiet about it. We don't need P R and plaques, hand shakes in front of audiences. It is enough to just do it. After Christmas, maybe into March, let's see what those orphans need. Maybe not a fake Christmas tree in a bank lobby surrounded by plastic gifts from China. Maybe they could use and love a few days in the country and learn to ride a horse or plant a garden or look at the night stars and be with a real family. And be treasured. It would be harder, uncomfortable, but worth it.

So much better than candy canes!

Christmas is a gift. Think carefully about this.

Happy Christmas to all.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Waiting for the holidays

It's a new tradition for us, but it seems just right. We all order the red snappers and fix them Chilean style, surrounded by green rice, tomatoes and collards. This year we'll have twenty people the day after Christmas, so we are augmenting all this with a ham.

Now, five years since we retired, we still flop around somewhat, but we are making a wonderful new network of friends here and connect with our old friends (some are young!)

Every day I get up and greet the wonderful possibilities of the day ahead. By the time I get down to my studio the sand hill cranes have noisily flown in to begin their day of elegant striding and pecking. They would love it if I would ever open the vegetable garden gate so they could nip off the new lettuces. But of course, I won't.

I have bought a few poinsettias to line the walk to the front door now decorated with a wreath. Everything looks very festive and ready for the several holiday events about to happen here.

I am generally not into holiday decorating, but this year, thanks to Quincy, we have a Christmas tree. I may replace the tired candles on the mantle with something more festive, and I will display the wonderful Christmas stockings (even one for Lola, the dog!) knitted by our dear friend, Lucy. I have installed the holiday towels in the bathroom. I'm ready.

Just before Christmas our middle son, Ben, is coming for a few days, and our daughter Elizabeth and her son, Quincy. I rejoice in this. We do not require all the family to gather at Christmas or at any other time. We have had many Christmases when we did this, and it was lovely, with the sheer expansiveness of it all. And, when our kids were young we had the set traditions of Christmas with the stockings and gifts. That was a fun time, but then we all fanned out and the children began their own traditions in their own places.

Now, we have even curtailed the amount of gifts given, and we let all the family know that we do not need or want for anything. I have taken to sending my young relatives notification that they are the recipient of a gift to Heifer International of a goat or a water buffalo or a llama. We don't know what they want!

I walk out into the field and see the red berries so thick on the holly. It is the holiday season and I am truly satisfied.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Lola, our dog, the perfect dog

O.K. this is an old subject for so many of us. I don't have a picture of Lola to head this because my new computer has prissily sent my picture files elsewhere because I didn't label them. You'll have to imagine a very small dachshund, still with a waist, a double silver dapple, ( a mix of black and white spots) and one blue eye and one brown eye. Unlike her owner, she still attracts attention.

She is totally devoted to her humans and is overly social so sometimes when we have guests she particularly loves I tell her to get in her kennel and cool down. "Get packed!"

At eleven years old she is still sparky and loves our daily walks. She looks between Andy and me to see that we are really going somewhere, and then she's off! Today we walked along the edges of the fields and then took a cow path through the palmettos. Lola is so small she avoids the spider webs and can scramble under the underbrush. Like all of her breed she's stubborn so when she ferrets out an armadillo she really wants to bark at it endlessly and she won't get with the program of just taking the walk, unless I speak to her severely.

When we come out into the pasture with the long grass Lola likes to scrunch down and hide and she's totally invisible. The game is that we call her and There she is! She lopes along, soft ears flying, nose to the wind, short legs pumping.

She came to us as a six weeks old puppy we immediately fell in love with. The first night we put her in the kennel in our bed room and there was much whining, so pitiful. "If I had wanted to sleep with a dog I would have married one," my husband said. Ten minutes later he relented and Lola quietly and comfortably settled down under his chin like a small loaf of warm bread. And she's been our bed every night since. In cold weather we appreciate how dogs run hot and in the summer we grumble.

I took Lola to work with me every day for the first years of her life and the kids in my school really socialized her. Now, she's mostly here on the ranch and has complete access to the outdoors. I spent many hours teaching her to be a good dog while I stood out there in rain and iffy weather. In town, I spent a lot of energy teaching her how to walk on a leash, well worth the effort. And, horrors! we spent lots of time in the dog parks where Lola learned that the part for small dogs was really O.K.

We had another dog before Lola but I had tons of kids in my face, no time and no energy to spare to carefully train an animal. That dog was lovely to us, but I regret my lack of caring.

So we now have this eleven year old dog who is still young and she is still funny and such a big part of our routine. In the mornings she nags us until we get up from the table and sink into the couch to read the papers. She hops up to warm my husband's hip. Then she wants to go out on the front porch to get the sun rays and she lies there, a small spotty burrito next to the door in the sunshine. After lunch she comes into the kitchen to tell me that It Is Now Time for Molly to lie down and read for an hour because I, Lola, will take a nap on whatever sofa Molly has chosen.

After dinner, Lola is again warming Andy's hip and thinking that soon, soon! she'll go out to pee and then we'll lift her onto our high bed and she can burrough down under the covers, warming up the bed until we come.

A dog's life, so simple and comical.

We Americans love our dogs, large and small. We stroke their wonderful fur and put up with their nonsense. These are the creatures who love us unconditionally and they make us happy.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Yard Birds

Here is Bob, the crane, just preparing to cross the cattle guard into our yard. Emily, his spouse has already crossed, elegantly stepping out like a careful queen. For the last week this pair has spent most of the day pecking in the sparse grass right outside the door to our house. I am quite sure this is the same couple I obsessed about last spring as they tragically tried to become parents. The male is slightly larger than the female and of course they look identical to every other sand hill crane. But I am convinced that these are indeed Bob and Emily. They have certain personalities I know. For the most part they are loving and amicable, even to doing a few dances in the front yard. And then there are the marital spats accompanied by such bugling it causes us to run out to see what the hullabaloo is all about. By mid afternoon they climb carefully to the top of the mulch pile, flap their huge wings and depart over the barbed wire fence and head for the pond.

No day passes when I don't rescue the frogs and lizards and spiders and stick insects and snakes that mistakenly appear inside. "You don't want to be in the shower," I say to the frog as I scoop it up and release it outdoors.

I have had a happy accomplice this week- my grandson Quincy. He sees that these useful critters are not to be feared or tormented. He's not one of those kids who wants above all to catch frogs or lizards to hold them. He just regards them as a part of the natural place. He and I look with wonder at spider webs and mole trails. We wonder if bats will ever come to live in the bat house we put up during the summer.

The vegetable garden is looking a bit frayed. We still have lettuce, broccoli, carrots and collards with peas and cabbages to come. But I have given up on weeding the pathways and have given them over to the zinnias and weeds. I need a new round bale of hay so I can cover the weeds.

The orchids by the pool are still beautiful and the roses appreciated all the rain we had this week. Seems that these knock out roses will tolerate anything. Even the deer don't touch them. The perennial beds are dying back but the plants around the water garden look fine. Our orange grove got such a hit with the frosts last winter, there is not much fruit this year. Our neighbors have been generous so we are juicing every day.

Who would have thunk it? That a person with a background of urban digs in Beirut, New York, Paris and Washington would find such a perfect niche in rural Dade City. I love visiting big cities and I need the urban fix every so often, but here is what I truly love. I especially love to share my life with the many friends and family who come and appreciate this paradise. Those yard birds say it all.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Saving the world, kid by kid

Of course, in our lives we want to make a difference in our small bailiwick, and we have big dreams of making a huge global impact. Bill and Melinda Gates can do this as can others who have oceans of money. But there are legions of us small potatoes who are making change and doing good.

Volunteering is one of the greatest pleasures and hardest things of life after retirement. Americans are the most generous people (also the meanest and tightest!). There are so many of us who go out on a regular basis and deliver Meals on Wheels, cook and serve food to the needy, coach kids' teams, teach people to read, serve on community committees, clean up the coasts, volunteer in schools, rescue wildlife and do so many things that enrich our communities.

We do not do this to accrue plaques of appreciation. We do it because we believe we can make even a small difference in the quality of life for the people we serve. And also we do what we do because it is interesting to us and brings intrinsic rewards.

The photo shows kids immersed in a science project - not something in their regular curriculum, but something a volunteer (me!) could do to enrich the teaching. As a regular volunteer in two schools, one, private and middle class, the other maybe the poorest public school in Florida, I see that all kids are the same in their eagerness to learn. This photo is of the middle class and privileged, but if you colored the faces brown the photo would be the same.

This week in Lacoochee School we had the kick-off of the community gardens project, near and dear to my heart. I have this vision of a large community garden in this very low-income community. If people can grow and harvest their own food they will be physically healthier and it will be such a community bond. The principal of the school who is first and foremost a community organizer ("The bottom line is the kids"), is behind this and will gladly make part of the school yard available for the garden. But I am thinking that this garden should really be located between the rows of public housing units. I am going to talk to the person in charge of this. What nonsense it is to prohibit having a garden there! Why our own family vegetable garden works is that it's so near our kitchen!

So, after my gig in my adopted fourth grade classroom, I went out to the small beginnings of a container garden with my flats of cold-hardy broccoli and collards. I prepared the dirt and planted those seedlings and waited to see if anyone I had invited would appear.

And then the Mexican women trooped over to this small beginning next to the side of the school. The school care takers had generously and promptly supplied a hose for watering.

We stood there around the plastic kiddie pool and the other containers with the brave collard and broccoli seedlings. We spoke of this small beginning that could be the start of something big. They decided to have a rotation of people who would water the plants and keep an eye out. I volunteered my husband to build a compost container.

As I left, I told them that now, it was up to them. I walked down the hill to my car and I saw them still standing there, talking animatedly.

Volunteering to do an actual something is quite different from just writing a check (though that is important also). Doing hands-on stuff keeps you humble and polishes your heart.