Tending to the gardens

At the end of the month I am going to get a new and very much more powerful computer! Look for changes to this blog.

Meanwhile I am still spending a couple of hours each day weeding and tweaking the gardens. The vegetables are coming along. No longer will we have to buy the pitiful lettuces picked days ago in California. Our ugli tomatoes are ripening and we have enough eggplant to supply all of Italy. The beans are in blossom and the greens are getting big enough to peel off some leaves. Broccoli is starting to make heads. I have to figure out how to harvest the sweet potatoes that have been growing all the hot summer.

I have heavily mulched everything with the cheapest hay I can buy from the feed store and the cuttings from mowing the grass. I enjoy the many butterflies zooming around as I weed and mulch and water. The colorful monarch caterpillars are busily eating the milkweed that I could not bear to pull up. Their chrysalises hang everywhere. The volunteer zinnias have inserted themselves in every corner of the garden, even in the paths. The butterflies so love them, I can't pull them up just yet. I apply the summer's worth of compost around the plants.

It is still beastly hot so all this activity must happen before mid morning when I could keel over from heat stroke. I vow every day that I will weed and feed the asparagus bed, but so far nothing has happened. I have weeded the rose bed and mulched it with grass cuttings. Tomorrow I will sort out the rampant growth around the lily pond, though I do love the sheer exuberance of all those flowers. The giant mutant cosmos are now eight feet tall and in full bloom.

We put out the bird feeders for the new migrants from the north and all winter we'll enjoy these noisy birds. The hummingbirds have returned to Mexico and we have taken down their feeders. Soon, the chimney swifts will vacate in time for the fall fires we hope to have in the fireplace.

The fall wild flowers are blooming like crazy. I can't identify most of them yet. The wildflower books are no help, so I just enjoy them as we do our two mile morning walk to get the newspaper.

Tending the garden is a lot like the tending I do for family and friends. It takes every day time, a lot of it. This week I reconnected with two wonderful young friends, Hey-soon, and her brother, Jeh-whan. Former students of mine, they are now launched and both engaged in horticulture and solar energy, some of my main interests. And, Laura, my old book editor, now graduated from college and about to launch into-what? And Nick, in high school now on the straight path to something brilliant. I love these young people who come to visit and keep in touch and require things and trade books with me and know I will always have room for them. At times it is exhausting.

Sometimes it feels weird to be so old and to have young people actually want to visit so often. I am not particularly wise or anything, and not of much use to society anymore. Probably I am still fun and I am a good listener and I challenge them. Whatever, I love having them visit and we feel blessed that this peaceable kingdom is a place where people want to come. We tend the gardens.

It's a lot of hard physical work, but also a kind of meditation to tend to your garden. In every way.

Being in the garden

Here is a photo of the first quilt I ever made and it hangs in our bedroom now. It represents the vegetable garden from the top to bottom. The actual quilting was so awful, I recently reprocessed it as a wall hanging for our newly painted green bedroom. I made the panels a few years ago, one by one, as I traveled, and it represents my garden from top to bottom.

I am still there. I am still planting those same veggies and a lot more. I have learned so much since then. I know what will grow in our climate and I know about watering and fertilizing. I know, for example, that one should not grow tomatoes in the fall because as late bloomers, they will die in the December or January freezes.

Today I went to my favorite store, Farmers' Feed, where they had a cornucopia of seedlings. I bought all sorts - kolrabi, spinach, red cabbage and many onion sets. Tomorrow I will plant everything, poking holes to place them in the heavy hay mulch. The broccoli, beans, carrots and collards are doing well and the left over eggplants and peppers are really producing. (With thirteen eggplants on the table, the cook (Andy) made an exquisite eggplant casserole for dinner.

I am still thinking about having chickens, especially after reading the Susan Orlean article in last week's New Yorker. My family continues to be negative on this issue.

Everyone in our neighborhood has been absolutely manic about the first cool days of fall. We want to go out and DO. And I will go out tomorrow and plant those seedling vegetables in the cool of the morning.

We live in a terrible summer climate, but when the change comes, we know it's paradise for the next six months.

Fall!

While we were away for nine days in Colombia, the rains happened and everything grew. The vegetable garden we rely on is covered with weeds threatening to overwhelm the seedlings I had left in pristine mulched rows and mounds. The lawn needed cutting.

After two days of recovering from Montezuma's revenge, doing all the trip laundry, tending to hundreds of e-mails and family needs and reassuring the dog, I am back! Everyone in Florida is excited that there is going to be a cold front coming through tonight (they say). After the extreme heat and humidity in Colombia, it already seems cool to me.

The giant cosmos have started to bloom and the hummingbirds have left and soon the chimney swifts will be on their way and we will not hear their twitter until next spring. I see a few love bugs beginning to mass for their fall invasion. We need to put up our bird feeders for the returning migrants.

I left the automatic watering on for the vegetable garden and I see that the sweet potatoes are lush and there is enough eggplant to feed an army. The broccoli and collards I planted before I left are doing well, and even the carrots and peas are pushing up through the weeds. The summer zinnias have repopulated themselves from dropped seed heads and I must transplant them to more suitable places in planters I have next to the front door. The lettuce in the raised beds are almost big enough to pick. Deer tongue and black seeded simpson have grown well, but it was obviously too hot for the rest of the mesclun to germinate. The beans have been attacked by the grasshoppers but they will recover. Wild red sage grows rampantly everywhere, even in the vegetable garden. I hate to take it out because it is such a butterfly attractor and I can love even weeding when I am surrounded by those huge tiger swallowtails and gulf fritillaries and monarchs and all the others. I love seeing the queen butterfly caterpillars eating away at the milkweed. So, I cannot remove these plants, not yet!

The compost pile is now perfect, sweet and crumbly brown, and I can dig out just what I need to spread around the vegetables. Just next to the compost pile is our old time friend, the giant gopher tortoise who comes out and hisses when I am out there sweating in the garden. And the cows come to the fence hoping for some collard leaves or a scratch on the head.

But the BEST was the orchids that live in the swimming pool enclosure and are all in glorious bloom.

Now that we have a sniff of cool weather, we have so much to do outside. The asparagus bed, and the roses, and the wild place outside the screen porch. They all need tending. All potential!

Colombia

Here is the best house in a village in the Sierra Nevada of Colombia. Look carefully and you can see the baby sleeping on a cot, dogs near by. I was so charmed by the amazing saturated colors of the houses in the cities and the villages. It was in this village that the women had a business of making wallets and bags out of recycled potato chip bags. (I hear they sell for big bucks in a boutique in Miami)

We went on a nine day trip to Colombia. People were surprised that we would go to this known dangerous place. We went to do the work of The Nature Conservancy, a huge non-profit organization that buys land, or the rights to it, all over the globe. The idea is to preserve natural spaces, and depending on the place, this means that the Conservancy protects land, forests, water, and indigenous peoples.

In Colombia, we were here to partner with this country on a program to protect water. The Colombians need to have clean water for fisheries and for drinking. We North Americans cannot imagine what it means not to have clean water because we think of it as a given. In the bay of Cartagena, the water is so polluted, it looks gray. One wonders about the fish they catch there. The lobster fisheries are all but dead, coral reefs are bleached, the forests are decimated for the most part. "Green" is not in vogue here in Colombia.

In the Sierra Nevada of Colombia, miles north of Cartagena, there are four indigenous peoples living on various levels of the mountains. Each of these tribes has a population of twenty thousand, give or take, and they speak different languages. We spoke to a leader from the Gogi community. This was a short brown man with long wavy hair who wore a compact straw hat and loose linen clothes. He seemed completely at ease with this bunch of gringo tourists. I immediately loved him.

His people live simply; they are self sustaining. They believe that people on earth must compensate for the damage they do to nature. So they, the Gogis make compensation in the way of ceremonial stones they place here and there. The Nature Conservancy employs anthropologists to help us understand these indigenous people, because, after all, it is these people who are so important to conserving nature (if we can only listen)

We are working together. It was an amazing time and I will be forever changed for it.

If you want to see more photos, let me know. You can comment.

My life in the Country

It has been a bad patch lately what with having to do the hour and a half commute into town for this and that. But, when we are home here it is our habit to walk out before breakfast the even mile to the mail box to get the papers. There is always a changing landscape, always something to see along the route.

Today, Andy discovered a small box turtle in the middle of the sandy track. I picked him up and placed him on route to going back into the swamp. We could hear the red shouldered hawks, hunting as a pair and cranes in the distance. The regular cardinals and warblers were in their usual places along the road, and today we saw the deer we know looking at us and then bounding off into the thicket showing us their friendly white behinds.

Just at dawn it isn't that hot, but we are longing for the change in the weather that each fall eventually makes us energetic about gardening and cutting wood for the winter. The fall garden is coming along. The lettuces, beans, broccoli and peas are up. I can just about see the carrots emerging. While working in the vegetable garden this morning I have never seen so many butterflies! They are attracted to the red sage and milkweed I left when I earlier did such an aggressive weeding. The weeds, particularly the wandering jew and pennywort keep on emerging and I keep on covering them with heavy hay. Our picnic table and the wooden boards on the garden fence are now festooned with butterfly chrysalises. I check them daily, hoping to see the instant those butterflies emerge.

Tomorrow we are going off for a week in Colombia to look at rain forests. It is supposed to rain here, but just to be safe I have my water timer on in the vegetable garden. The orchids will have to adapt, the dog is going to stay with her special friends.

Today is my daughter's birthday! I am glad that I am not now in the throes of labor, but I am so glad I once was on this very day. It was worth it! How amazing it has been to be the mother to this child, the daughter under my heart.

So, I am off to birding in Colombia for eight days.

Becoming Old

While driving from St. Pete to Dade City early this morning in a driving rain I realized that my shoulders were hurting from the strain of trying to see in the dark, navigating carefully on the slick interstate. I thought of the last decade of my life and how many life-changing events there have been in the last ten years.

On my sixtieth birthday our whole family gathered for a wonderful frolic in south England in a rented manor house. This was a few months before 9/11, and it was a wonderful and carefree two weeks. Since then, we have had national upheavals of a major kind, and family changes: a divorce, two marriages, three more grandchildren born, another split, many changes. My husband and I retired from many years of work and we saw our fortunes diminish in the recession. We rejoiced in the election of Obama and believed that change was coming.

I am gleeful with my life in retirement! I have the time to pursue my artistic bent. I work all the time making quilts, painting, making pottery and writing. My memoir about my thirty-five years of teaching was recently published. I volunteer. I am making a network here in my new community. I am a devoted gardener and have already put in the fall vegetable garden. My husband spends time on the property and makes furniture and volunteers as the chair of The Nature Conservancy in Florida. We work on our land, fixing fences, mowing, removing the soda apples- those invasive plants we have agreed to get rid of since our land is in a conservation trust for Florida.

When we go to the city, where we have a lovely town house, there is nothing to do except water the cacti. When we lived there full time, we were working at our intense jobs, keeping going from day to day. Now, when we infrequently go there it is to see friends, attend board meetings, volunteer at our grandson's school. Our daughter and her son and my sister who live there in St. Pete keep us going each week.

But it is here on the ranch where we live that our hearts are. Quincy, our grandson who visits often, calls it his 'other house', and indeed, he has his own room and toys here. He knows where everything is and he's comfortable with everything. And to me, this is heaven, where I go out each day to look at the birds and the wild flowers and check the level of water in the swamp. And, at night I look at the bats flying and the magnificent stars that keep me humble. Every day is a new adventure and I feel such wonder and thankfulness that I could be here in this peaceable kingdom. I love sharing it with Quincy.

But when we go to our town house in the city, it seems pretty thin soup, though we love to see our friends. Everyone needs to have a purpose. At home here on the ranch we have a purpose of doing the daily ranch chores, making our art, community work, work for Florida. And how long can this last? (I am thinking twenty years.)

So, getting old is not so easy! Your kids never think of you as anything but the energetic people they used to know.

What continues throughout life are the agonizing questions that can have no answer.

End of Summer

The huge poke weeds are in bloom with lovely white jiggly blossoms that will then turn into shiny black berries beloved by the backyard birds. The season is changing slowly into fall. Though it still hits ninety degrees in the middle of the day, evenings are cooler.

Truth be told, it's beastly hot to do any garden work, but we know we must get the vegetable garden in by around labor day in these parts of Central Florida or we'll be caught by the January freeze. I have learned to plant lots of things that can stand a light frost - broccoli, collards, peas, lettuce, kale, chard and carrots. The left over peppers, tomatoes and eggplant from summer die dramatically at the first hint of freeze.

Last week we sweated out there in the garden, weeding, restapling the deer fence that had been torn down by the heavy morning glories, (a mistake!) and mulching with hay and grass clippings. A few days later, I put the collard and broccoli seedlings into holes I poked in the thick mulch. For the row crops, I hoed a thin strip of mulch away to sow the seeds. Later, as the plants emerge, I will add compost and more mulch. After renewing them with a few bags of new potting soil the raised salad beds have been planted with lettuces, chard and celery. In this heat I have devised a cover for them made out of old black screening that had once been panels over the pool but had rips. Still good enough for the garden. (Don't waste anything!)

I used to want at the start of gardening season to have a freshly tilled new area. Straight rows, no weeds in sight. Tidy. Problem with this was that the weeds very rapidly took over! The soil wasn't getting any better and it was hard to keep the garden watered since the soil was open to the blistering sun and beating rain.

I happened to read a book called "Lasagna Gardening". Talk about an epiphany! Naturally, things fall from above: rain, leaves, pine needles, dust, sunshine, blessings. Earth wants to be covered like a Muslim woman. This works!

I started out with my weed patch, kind of daunting as a prospective place to grow food. I took the always voluminous piles of newspapers and covered the whole garden with thicknesses of them, hosed everything down, covered it with anything I could find in the way of mulch - sawdust from the furniture studio, hay from a neighbor, mulch from a tree we had cut down and shredded. After a few weeks I put in the vegetable garden, poking holes in the mulch and noticing that worms had arrived in force.

That's history! Now, I just have to put mulch on the weeds as they sprout. The armadillos and deer were a major problem for a few years. I tried all kinds of dried pee from various predatory animals (bought at some cost from garden products catalogs), and sprays, and tying soap on stakes. What ultimately worked was that my husband installed a proper fence that was buried more than a foot deep, and I found that his old neckties fluttering from a wire above the fence scared the deer away. (They now eat the roses!)

It's important to rotate the planting of your vegetables from place to place in the garden with each new season. I keep notes on what was planted where, so I know to get the tomatoes in a bed they have not seen in a couple of years. Another tip: beans and peas do very much better if you put bean inoculant in the rows as you plant the seeds. You can get this at any of the seed companies.

So, I am smug with those vegetables like new born kids. You never know! Last spring I bought twenty seeds of a special heirloom tomato cultivar. I planted them in little seed starting pots and watered them with my sweat. Later, I planted them in the garden. Immediately, the tomato hornworms attacked, eating all the vines down to sticks. The rest of the modern robust tomatoes did fine by Florida standards. Much later, I noticed that my husband's garden of shrubs had a volunteer tomato plant, more robust than any tomato of the season. Throughout the wiltingly hot summer, this tomato plant thrived on neglect and set many fruits. This brave tomato must have grown from a seed from the compost we put on the shrubs. Our kitchen bowl is still full of these funny looking heirloom tomatoes and they are a daily addition to the salad.

Being here, out in the boonies, is the greatest gift. Growing stuff, vegetables and flowers, admiring the wild flowers so prolific right now, watching the swamp fill and seeing otters and ibis and alligators and deer every day. Quincy, our four year old grandson, comes often. He's getting to know the territory, riding his bike way up the road, looking for the butterfly chrysalises and tree frogs.

Time to go look for the bats.

The Supreme Pragmatist

Still too hot and rainy to do anything much in the garden, but a lot of it is mulched with grass left over from mowing and there is most of a round bale of hay out there to mulch the paths. It is all still potential.

So I went to Lacoochee school today to attend one of the monthly community organization meetings. I know these meetings have a long string to play out (and I am not good at hanging out!). There is an agenda but everything is very free form, not the 'get it done, everyone out the door in an hour stuff I do at other board meetings. But I find it amazing to attend. Lacoochee is quite like a third world country - and in our midst!

There were about fifteen people there; retirees who are devoted to the community, the usual representatives from the sherrif's department and the parks, neighborhood crime watch, and the Girls and Boys Club, United Way, community health, concerned citizens (I am one of those), the wonderfully energetic media specialist at the school, some volunteers. We are all ages and colors and sizes. Notably lacking is representation from the Hispanic community which is what this title one school is all about.

We all grab cups of watery coffee and pastries encased in cellophane and chat a few minutes about livestock and other country matters. Then the school principal comes in, and as usual, I cannot help noticing the similarities to Dolly Parton - the speech cadence and the face. She is totally mesmerizing as she stands there in the horseshoe configuration of the tables where we sit. She says she is not a speaker, but a a talker. And what a talker! She includes every single person by name and eye contact as she talks. She leaves spaces for comments. This is better than going to church! She has stories, right on point.

For three hours we are all riveted. "If it's the best for kids, that's what we'll do". And she does. She gets grants, ekes out funds for a child to go to Shands Hospital in Gainesville every month for treatment for a cleft sinus. She is always looking, looking for ways to help these kids who live in this small piss poor comunity in rural Florida. She BELIEVES! She believes in children and in the education that will take them where they need to be. She will give them wings to fly.

Her politics are strictly pragmatic. I can sense that she is uncomfortable with the heavy load of testing our state mandates. But she'll work with the system, tweaking what she can. This woman never gives up, even through the dense red fog of bureaucracy.

When I first began volunteering at this community school, I was too judgmental, fresh as I was from being director of a private school where we had the freedom to invent without the tenacious fingers of the state and nation dictating our outcomes. (Also, the kids were those priveledged ones)

This community organizing meeting today was so affirming to me about the way we Americans can effect change. We are a generous and energetic people and we try hard. The bottom line, as this principal says, is the kids.

Anniversary Today

Here is our son, Chris, receiving a birthday gift from his three year old daughter, Caroline. She had collected some perfectly white stones from a driveway we were walking past earlier in the day, and she knew this would be the perfect birthday gift for her dad. Her brother, Joe, has his eye on the chocolate pendant he gave his dad, hoping he'll share it.

This day is also our 49th wedding anniversary. Forty-four years ago we were in a hospital giving birth to this man who is now a father. Tonight I thank god I am not in labor, but in a local restaurant eating salmon and reminiscing with my old spouse about the good times and the bad- and how we got over them. The best thing is our kids and our grandchildren. We are so fortunate to be still closely connected to all of them, funny and weird as they and all of us are.

We have been so blessed! What a wonderful trip it has been with Andy the grandpa, the spouse, the main provider, the maker of things and the most interesting person I know. He's the person who is comfortable in the White House and in our house as he vacuums and dusts and fixes the plumbing. We have been to all the world's continents in all kinds of situations. We have had audiences with heads of states and we have camped in primitive conditions. We have dealt with cancer and end of life issues with our parents, and the deaths of siblings. We have talked our heads off and worried beyond sanity about our children and the state of the world.

There were quite a few times when we didn't think we would make this marriage work. Somehow, it did. We have too much history now to abandon such an interesting relationship. Both of us had compellingly interesting work and a wonderful family of three children and many more kids who came to us from time to time.

I celebrate this day, my oldest son's birthday, and our anniversary of a most intensely interesting and loving marriage.

Philanthrophy

While I am waiting for the weather to break so I can start planting my seeds, the phone rings several times a day. These are people wanting MONEY. Sometimes, when the caller is identified, I don't pick up because I know they'll say," How are you tonight, ma'am?" (Why would a perfect stranger want to know how I am?? Should I really tell them?) Sometimes I am caught and that familiar hot toast feeling engulfs me. I know I am about to feel guilty about kids who are dying of various diseases, birds that are going extinct, people who are in jail for no good reason, police and fire departments that are going broke, universities that need funds, politicians that need help, polar bears who have lost their ice floes, and the local orchestra that needs major support. I believe in all these causes! This is hard. All these and many more smell blood (money).

Americans have traditionally been among the most generous globally. When there is a disaster- earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, volcano eruption, we pony up. Americans have given generously through their churches who funnel the funds to the needy. We give to United Way in our workplaces. But we are unwilling to be taxed.

I know very few people who donate to charities. I see the lists of donors in the back of the programs for the arts in our community. These are generally prosperous people (as are we) and they can be counted upon to support the arts or the hospital, or CASA, or whatever. I do know that it is a very tough sell to get board members to donate to the institution of the board on which they sit!

It is even a harder sell to get the younger generation to donate to a philanthropic cause. I do believe that to whom much is given, much is expected. Some people tithe to their churches. We, not church goers, have always done this, and more.

I am not aware that most of my friends and family give to charities. Some are pinching every penny, I know. This world needs some redistribution of wealth and if you can give five bucks to saving polar bears or sick kids or your local orchestra, go for it. It's only a super size burger away, and hey, your body will appreciate it.

Thanks from Pollyanna!

The Fall Garden Begins

Middle of August and the days are so hot you can barely breathe. But I have already received my seed order and I finger the crisp packets of many kinds of lettuce, celery, carrots, chard, beets, arugula, broccoli raab, kale, peas, and other vegetables. There are no tomato seeds, or eggplants or peppers. These are the hot weather things I know will not have the time to come to harvest before the frost in December. I will buy broccoli and collard seedlings at the farm store, and maybe I will go for cauliflower and brussels sprouts. In the last couple of years there seem to be more choices.

The compost pile has been cooking all summer, ready to be spread over the seed beds. Right now, the vegetable garden is a mess! I have been weeding the beds when it is cool in the mornings, but I haven't the heart to take out the morning glories adorning the fence or the zinnias or the milkweed that so attract the butterflies and hummingbirds. I will do it the last week of August when we return from a cool visit to Seattle.

Our vegetable garden is quite small, 200 square feet or so, enclosed by a six foot chicken wire fence that is buried a foot to deter the armadillos. A string flies above the fence from pole to pole and it has old neckties attached to it at intervals. I am convinced this fluttering fabric deters the deer. Some years ago, I became convinced that top down, no weed gardening was the way to go. So I pile on the mulch, never till. When it is time to plant I just pull back the mulch for the row I want to plant, apply some compost and stick in the seeds. It works!

Last year, almost all the vegetables we ate came from our own garden. (Yes, we certainly ate a LOT of broccoli and snow peas!) But there was so much else! We had wonderful salad greens every day, carrots, beets, peas, eggplant, tomatoes, herbs. The innovation of last year was the salad garden tables. We have two of these raised beds on legs that grow only salads. They are immune from the burrowing of armadillos and nibbling of rabbits, and they are so easy to weed and harvest!

But it is still the hottest part of summer and the next harvest is only a glimmer in my eye, some seed packets, and a fantasy for our table. We are devoted to growing organic. The fall garden is not so prone to the predations of hot weather bugs so it's easier than the spring garden. There are not so many tomato horn worms or stink bugs to contend with.

I want you to try vegetable gardening! Not only good eating, good exercise, fascinating scientific interests, it is good for the soul.

In subsequent posts I will let you know more about this garden. Ask questions!

One of the Best Things

Our nephew, Dan from California, visited us in Florida off and on from the time he was a very small boy. He got it in his head that he'd like to live here. After he graduated from Santa Cruz and batted around for a few years being a chef, he arrived here, a graduate student in Marine science. By this time we had despaired of having any of our children want to live here; they were all far away leading their lives (as we had taught them).
When Dan arrived, I was so happy. I never had any expectation that a member of the family would like to live here! Dan was always one we could count on (to take care of pets, house, emotional needs of his cousins.) Dan borrows money from us and pays it back, has the keys to our houses and hearts. He comes to visit us on the holidays and many other times as well. He is Family!
Sometimes we don't hear from him for days. But we always know he's there! A few years ago he began bringing Inia for family visits. Inia is a beautiful, smart, accomplished and lovely person ( and also a marine scientist on her way to the PhD) and all of us hoped this was becoming permanent.
They married last month, in her native Puerto Rico, and we all celebrated! Dan is finding that his niche is in teaching, and it seems he has much talent for the work. I hope they'll stay here in the neighborhood, at least for now. I do celebrate everyday. I hope their lives will be interesting, and I also hope they'll be here for a long time. Whatever happens, this time Dan has been here has been the best of the best for me.
As Grandma, I would love to see a grand niece or nephew or two.. But, in any case, I do appreciate the years with Dan, and now Inia.

One of the Best Things

The night time heebie jeebies

Usually I sleep like a rock in my high canopy bed, so quiet here miles away from anything. Sometimes I hear the calls of the owls and the hissing of the deer, and when the moon is full, as it has been these last few nights, I am awakened by the brilliant light of it, pure and white, beckoning me to wander out onto the porches and wonder at the beauty of such light falling on pastures and the sleeping cows.

But lately, I awake in the middle of the night, and I am afraid for this country I love. The media from the right and left is too shrill, too pandering to their own interests, too eager to tweak the worst in us.

I voted for Obama because I thought he was truly a good man and had the heart and strength to put forth his ideas of making this country great again. I believed Obama had a mission to make this country work. I still think this. I am disheartened with every pragmatic compromise he must make.

Living here in rural America where everyone totes a gun and for the most part are suspicious of any new ideas (gays, blacks, taxes), I am so aware of class differences. I am aware that rigorous thinking is foreign to our neighbors - and to many of my countrymen. Is there anyone out there over sixty-five who does not appreciate Medicare or Social Security?? Come on! This is government run! We pay our taxes for this stuff! And we love it! Don't you know this?

And here is where the media, mostly the right, comes in. They whip up folks to say they won't have choice in health care, they'll be thrown out of the system. Have they investigated this? No! They just listen to the ads that are backed by the big pharmaceutical and medical companies who in the end just want a huge profit in their pockets.

What disgusts me is our Congress that has to pander to these large companies. A senator cannot vote for Sotomayor because of the gun lobby etc. With very few exceptions I think our legislators have been bought by special interests.

We have a bipartisan form of government, a wonder in the world. I respect the differences in philosophy and want this to continue. But I am cynical in my old age. We have lost our way in the homage to Big Money and Power. We have seen this as America caused the global recession.

I voted for Change. And now I see the cracks. My night time heebie jeebies are about racism.. The talk shows discuss whether Obama is truly an American. I have such distrust for these guys who are actually making a ton of money whipping up the emotions of people who do not think any where near rigorously. They talk about elitism. This, of course, hits a nerve. (Fear, envy?)

How could any rigorously thinking person believe that Sarah Palin could run this country?

Is our destiny to understand everything in 140 characters? I think we are better than that.

Shark Attack!

Last week, a young friend of mine, an old student and the daughter of a good friend was savagely attacked by a shark. She had just returned home from a summer job at her college and was relaxing and swimming with her sister from a raft just beyond her family's dock in Boca Ciega Bay. It seems that the two of them, Jenna and her big sister Laura, were dangling their legs off the raft, when suddenly what must have been a large bull shark attacked Jenna's leg. She screamed and Laura somehow managed to drag her onto the raft and then onto the dock and apply pressure to staunch the copiously bleeding wounds, called 911 and the neighbors, and calmed her little sister on the way to the hospital.

It looked quite grim when I heard about it a few hours later. Would she lose her leg? Did she need blood? What about Laura? How must she feel? I went to bed and dreamed about sharks. As the days passed I heard constant updates on Jenna's progress. More than six hundred stitches up her entire leg, and almost a week in the hospital, but we know now, she'll be fine, and can even go back to college in a month. For all her life she'll have that thin scar line from ankle to thigh. And what a tale she'll have to tell her children and grandchildren.

This affected me so much on many levels. First, this family has always seemed so golden to me; nothing bad could ever happen to them. I have taught all three siblings and they were among my favorite students. The connection to each other this family had and has is extraordinary. I love this family! They have always cared so much about each other, seeing each child as an individual, but they were never 'helicopter' parents and let their kids follow their stars. So all three kids went far away to college. These parents truly gave their kids wings to fly.

And next, how can we as parents ever protect our children from the unexpected? What horror it must be to have your college student gunned down by a maniac? Or the always dreaded automobile accident? Or.. a shark attack?

When my own kids, who have fledged now, come back to visit, I am incredibly thankful to have them here. Count them; one, two, three. You've let them go, but that incredible parental love is always anxious. We still love to have them HERE, under our roof. But we know we can't control a thing.

So, this picture is of quilt I made this week, commemorating the shark attack. I will give it to this family and I hope they will leave it around their house for the kids to wrap up in, and maybe remember this amazing experience in which everyone - the sisters, the brother, Mom and Dad, many friends-showed the love of an amazing family.

The Girl Posse

Every summer for many years now, these girls have come to visit me at my ranch. I think of them as "the posse" though the four of them are quite distinct. When they were twelve years old or so they wanted to revisit the ranch where they had had such a wonderful time on the annual school field trip their class made to the ranch each year. As they dispersed from elementary school to various middle schools and high schools they maintained their strong loyalty to each other- and to me!

The summer visit became a tradition. They slept upstairs with each other like litter mates, spewing their belongings all over the house, getting to know where everything was. They ate everything in sight, learned to cook with my husband, swam in the pool, and each night we played cards or scrabble games. We read and discussed books and made art and crafts and roamed the property by day and night.

Now they have just finished their first year of college. I see these beautiful young women who have emerged from being spotty and lumpy and unsure of themselves. They are fledgelings, young adults now, all glowing with that exquisite newness. This was the first year that I gave them the choice of staying in the guest house. Of course, they took it. I did not tell them how to manage that.

We had to do the traditional things. They ran around the property in the golf cart, they played cards with us, and they worked in my studio. We talked books and when several of our neighbors came for dinner one night they participated in our political talk and helped in the preparation of a dinner for ten. Over the three days they were here I felt comfortable letting them figure out what to do most of the time. They knew they could find me during work hours in my studio.

Teenagers have such a different time schedule! We've been up for three hours before an yone appears. It lets us have time to read the papers. And they have no interest in current events it seems. No one will rumple up the New York Times or scuffle through the Wall Street Journal.

Most of all, I listen to them. I observe them. These are children of the last generation before 9/11. They grew up being unafraid. They know this. I see these four beautiful and brilliant girls as beginning to be competent. They already know that they can be good students and they are open to figuring out what they can do, what they really want to do.

I wanted to ask them so many things! But I hold back. They'll tell me in good time. For now, I just think that it is enough that they want to come each year to reaffirm our friendship.

I am almost old enough to be the grandmother to these kids. I hope to see them with their own children ( if they want them) and with clear paths to an interesting and fulfilling life.

What I did not have the opening to tell them was that they should pay attention to their own parents, ask them what's on their minds, how they are. It's never too early to regard one's parents as people who have their good and bad issues. So often it takes such a long time for kids to be able to regard their parents as real people, not just people who are reliably there for them.

I am honored that the 'Posse' comes here. I love those girls!

Puerto Rico Wedding

Here is the groom looking under his wife's skirt (Is there anything there that is new??) It was a traditional wedding with the twist of Puerto Rico. Our family went down for five days to celebrate this union of my nephew Dan and his wife, Inia. We rented a lovely house in Rincon and twelve of us stayed there, lots of family, loving the beach and the pool and the coral reef out front. We hung out on the front balcony, ironed our wedding clothes, and were the hottest and sweatiest any of us could remember.

I love weddings! They are all the same, but with small differences. I want to tell all the brides and grooms that they should be loving and inviting to each other, not just for now, but over the long haul. Most of all, they need to be interesting to each other and for the whole marriage find topics to discuss.

There were funny things and lovely things happening. My four grandsons were stellar, so handsome and loving and fun! At the wedding we all danced. We all swam in the pool and explored tide pools and snorkeled on the reef. We discovered hundreds of terrestrial hermit crabs and huge green iguanas clinging to the trees.

All we ate were beans, pork, and rice, mostly. In Puerto Rico people don't eat many vegetables, but the fruits- bananas, mangoes etc- are wonderful.

Five days and we were ready to return. I am hungry for vegetables!

Obama doesn't walk on water

But he's trying to make good on his vision for a country with a decent economy, full employment, universal health care, and the strength to go forward with what is needed for global attention to climate change. A lot on his plate. He's got to be pragmatic but I'd love to see him in passing gear.

I watch on t.v. and read many papers each day. We have such a destructive legacy of partisanship. Mostly by the old white guys. I think that most of the people in our congress are TOO OLD! They have been 'carefully taught' in the words of the old song from "South Pacific". So much of what they say seems so knee jerk. They call it wisdom. (If Obama selected a nominee for the Supreme Court, she must be bad for the Republicans, or good for the Democrats.)

These days, as an "old" person, quite idiosyncratic and prone to pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes on, I am, first of all, thankful that I do not have to watch everything I say because of the partisan and media sharks out there. But I do wonder as I watch these senators and congressmen and pundits on t.v. - Could they ever be really honest?? Are they always covering their backsides for political reasons??

For example: Why didn't anyone clearly say the obvious long ago that Sarah Palin was really quite stupid, and certainly not up to the notion of being a heartbeat away from the presidency? Why is the Congress so intransigent about what needs to be done about Global Warming? Doesn't anyone really pay attention to how we can address our energy needs? We are pandering to Big Pharma and private health insurance, Big Energy. You can be assured that most members of congress and the senate are feathering their own political nests. (These guys are WAY too old to remember they might have dealt with a pregnant daughter with choices to make or a drop-out kid, or, or..)

Younger people, new people, of all colors and stripes might be able to look at each issue without the old white baggage of partisanship. You young people need to stop rolling on your backs in surrender. Get up there and bark for what's needed.

This is an amazing country! We have the chance to reset and I am hoping against hope that the young will latch on.

My Birthday

I would post a new photo but it takes a LOT of time to haul the photo from the archives these days; the flip side of living so far out in paradise is that the satellite is so slow.

But, here I am, still strong and now 69. Time to take stock. In so many ways I am still the person I was at 10. And in so many ways I have accrued the barnacles of age. I can now begin to understand how I am perceived by others- and it takes a lot of living to understand this. I am not an easy person, not an easy friend though I did not see this for most of my life. I am crabby, judgmental, high energy, extremely efficient and organized. Sometimes I scare people with my sharp questions.

I do see myself as a generous and curious person, mostly competent. I am always feeling that I could do better, do more, produce more.. Who doesn't?

On my birthday I bask in the arrivals of weird cards and calls and gifts. I loved the birthday night of my family and friends making crepes suzettes for me and singing the birthday song as the brandy burned off. I loved the gift my husband gave me of a lovely wood bench that allows me to get high enough to work on my wall of fabrics. I loved the gift my daughter gave me of her time to work on the technology of my phone. I loved the used and irreverent Sara Palin tee shirt from my son and the cards from my preliterate grandchildren. I loved the candle holder from my sister, who knew I coveted hers. I loved the call from my friend Jeff who offered to come here and work on my computer issues. I loved the visit from my brother and his wife. I loved the visit and hug from my neighbor, Warren. (Who said, "Are you sixty yet?") I loved the calls from young people who still want to connect with me.

I love and hate being this age. I hate the wrinkles above my knees and elsewhere. I am no longer at that invisible part of life that is middle age. Now! I am an old lady and I find it lovely to be respected for that. Idiosyncracy lives!







Another birthday and I am totally happy

Attention Must be Paid

Fifty years ago when I was in high school we all took the Kuder Preference Test. This was a survey of our interests and might predict what paths we should take to find fulfillment in our lives. The results of my test were evenly divided between Forest Ranger (What?) and Social Worker (Egads!). I had thought I wanted to be an artist, preferably a window dresser at Macy's in New York City. I was always adept arts and crafts things and had won local awards and prizes, nothing big. Mine was an artistic flair of the second tier, and in my heart of hearts I knew it.

I went on to a highly competitive liberal arts college in New England where I first majored in biology, quit that when the going got tough in Chem 2, segued into art history. As I walked each day from where I lived to the campus I noticed with delight the changes in the plants and trees and searched for the tracks in the snow of the many creatures who lived in that suburban ecosystem. To this day I could say where the fiddleheads would come up in the spring, where the crocuses were, the scylla in their glorious purple, and where to look for the earliest snowdrops. In late days of spring I loved to walk under the maple trees and pick up those winged seeds, split them open and stick them on my nose. In the fall I stopped to look at the fallen horse chestnuts all spiky and green. I knew how to gently squash them underfoot so that the nuts fell out in shiny mahogany perfection. As a kid I would do this and collect bags of them.

After college I went to art school on a scholarship where I had to put in a lot of time working in the education department of an art museum. My artworks were critiqued unmercifally and I loved it. But what I really learned was that my connection to kids in the museum's programs was what I wanted to do. (I was still walking slowly to class so I wouldn't miss the birds nesting in the vines and the flowering of the lilacs.)

I became a teacher (social work!). A great joy was being outdoors, camping, hiking. Teaching, as I have done, incorporated the things I love most.

As an older person (wrinkled and idiosyncratic), I look back and think that for many reasons I did not pay attention to some of what I really wanted to do. I should have been a biologist or a botanist, or a forest ranger. It could have been my focus as a teacher. I had my parents' voices in my head too much. ("Be anything you want. But it should be something really abstruse - a classicist, a writer of dry historic..")

Now, as a wizened old person, I regret that that I did not pay attention to what I really wanted to do. Fortunately it has turned out well: I roam the wild acres we live on and revel in it. I have introduced generations of children to the natural environment. I have time to make my art such as it is.

But I very much regret that I did not pay attention to the world or the U.S. for great stretches of time. I had been involved in the Civil Rights movement, I protested the Viet Nam war, I dragged my toddlers to the Nixon Counter Inagural and exposed them to tear gas. I was a community organizer for education. I was oblivious to the recessions of the eighties and I practically slept through the nineties.

As an addend to my powerful spouse I went to a White House dinner in the Clinton era and we hiked two summer weekends with Bob MacNamara and I was anxious a few times with Kay Graham in her salons. I traveled the world, marveling at everything, shaking the hands of presidents and scoundrels. But I did not pay attention!

After a ceremonial trip to many South American countries, my eyes were opened to this wonderful continent. In the years following, I visited as many equatorial countries as I could. I went with my friend, Marie for many trips- Peru, Equador, the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil. These were not ceremonial trips, they were bare bones, out houses with tarantulas, fer de lance snakes on night hikes, riding horses through caman infested waters, cities in the midst of coups, and wonderful birds and tropical plants. I paid attention!

Attention must be paid to our present American situation. We have a president who is among the best of American statesmen. It's early to tell, and Obama has the hardest row to hoe of any president so far. Yet, he's still energetic, idealistic, pragmatic, articulate as we have never seen before. We must pay attention to the health care issues all of us care so much about, and we must pay attention to honesty and ethics. We must pay attention to children and having rigorous standards of education. We must not let our loving attention to our country be deflected by the selfish, dewy cheeked, dumb likes of Sara Palin or the shrill and cranky agenda of Rush Limbaugh.

We must pay attention.

The new Health Plan and other things

The Obama administration has been so out there promoting the ever evolving health plan that no one could fail to be aware that we must think about all of this. It dings us every day because we know people who have such severe or not severe health issues and they cannot pay.

To begin, this spring I began to feel really crummy, as did my partner. We thought it was some kind of mild bronchitis and we soldiered on, and took some plane trips. Big mistake. We went to the doctor and he diagnosed pneumonia and said I should get tests involving x-rays. He knows that I DO NOT DO ANYTHING INVASIVE, so he prescribed a powerful antibiotic I took for ten days. I looked this up on the internet and it cost less than $50. My prescription provider said it cost almost $260, of which I paid $25. How crazy is this??

At this point we were still not feeling very well, though the pneumonia seemed to be gone and lungs were clear. Our ears were plugged up. Another doctor visit and more antibiotics (amoxicillin) for middle ear infection. Ears slowly clearing and we are no longer feeling like Mr. Mcgoo and his wife. Then we went on another plane trip, more ear problems- a dysfunctional eustacian tube? On to Cipro.

Actually, I am now feeling pretty much back to normal (though still fairly deaf in one ear). In all of this we have had Medicare pay, except for a low co pay. Our prescription insurance pays most of drug costs. But we know that Big Pharma costs WAY more than it should.

A dear friend of mine who is over 65 and presumably on medicare, went to the dermatologist for routine skin scanning, had a number of moles and issues, got them biopsied. Apparently, she did not get referred from her primary care doc ( who knew??) So her insurance will not pay the $2000 incurred from this visit. My friend has no choice: she will not get those squamous cell carcinomas removed, she will not get those precancerous moles removed. And she'll have sleepless nights wondering how she'll pay the dermatologist (who couldn't in the end help her.)

And how does one get dental help?? Our new neighbor up the road seems to have very few front teeth. Who would want that?

How could anyone in our country want less than easy access to medical and dental help? I don't know about any of you, but I find this a hard thing to do.

Another topic! Sara Palin! What do you think? Is it money, sex, or ethics?

Grandparents on Duty

Quincy is here for the week. Now that he is four and a half years old, life is golden. We went to Weeki Wachee State Park to see the mermaids today. Quincy tells me he has never seen any mermaids and he was eager to go. He was dressed and had his sandals on when he appeared for breakfast. He had his special catalog (many pages of Play Mobile stuff) laid out to go.

The last time Andy and I went to Weeki Wachee was at least thirty years ago when our sons were little, way before we had our home here in Dade City. The drive, about forty-five minutes from here is beautiful through the rolling green hills with very little development. The park, now a state park, is unchanged except for a modest water park addition where there are slides down to the sandy beach on the edge of the freezing cold spring. The water has no odor of chlorine, because the water comes from deep in the aquifer.

It is old Florida, funky but nice. There were people there, but nothing like the throngs at our usual theme parks. We took the boat ride down the river and back. Quincy was interested in all the birds and fish we saw in and along the crystal clear water. But the best part was the mermaid show you see from the underwater theater on the edge of the spring. The story line was a loose interpretation of the Hans Christian Anderson Little Mermaid.

Nothing, to my mind, can top Florida springs for natural beauty, funked up or not. I was up for this! The mermaids appeared and swam so beautifully. The natural creatures of the spring appeared. A couple of turtles swam among the mermaids, and were quite bothersome, pecking at their heads and bellies. The mermaids swatted at them, but they always came back. The clear spring and the bubbles and the mermaids and the prince were lovely. I watched Quincy being enthralled with all this. He covered his ears when the wicked witch took away the little mermaid's voice. "Don't worry," I whisper in his ear.

Quincy liked the peacocks wandering around the premises, occasionally blaring out their happiness with being in this odd place. As Andy dodged a bird outside the men's room he and Quincy had just left, Quincy says, "These are my friends!" Andy cautions him about getting too close to these birds we know to be really dicey.

Quincy sees nothing to entice him in the souvenir stand. He's not an "Iwanna" kid. He reads his catalog all the way home. I tell him that I need some time to read the science section of the NYT so he should play quietly with his trains. And then we put out a huge puzzle on the table in the kitchen and we complete it. Quincy does most of it while scooting around on the the table.

We take time to swim and play by the pool, go on a golf cart ride around the property to see all our favorite places: the blackberry crop (all eaten by racoons), the spread of small pine trees planted by nature from the huge mama pine tree, the pond where the cranes had their nest and hatched their eggs. I had dreaded his questions about this but he was satisfied when I told him that the cranes had flown away and gone north for the summer. "I know where north is," he says. "Are they coming back?" I tell him that they will be back before Christmas. So we slowly move on and pay attention to the cow who will have a calf any day and we know this because the cow looks fat and her udder is huge.

I love having this interesting and beautiful child spend time here. He picks peppers in the garden, looks for tree frogs and gopher tortoises. He is never bored, unfailingly polite, eats anything and sleeps reliably for twelve hours. I have had this pleasure from other grandchildren and it is the spice of life.

Being here on the ranch pretty much full time this year has meant that I could see the tiny increments of the progress of the natural seasons, all tied to the availability of water, and most of all to the light we have in this part of the world. This photo is of one of the raised flower beds. Everything is self-seeded and volunteer. I did plant a few zinnia seeds and they are now in full flower. The humongous cosmos are self seeded and in a few weeks they will be as thick as trees and covered with enormous yellow blossoms. By that time the blanket flowers will have died down and the Mexican petunias will be three feet tall and blooming like crazy. This bed needs no extra water or attention.

The vegetable garden has been the best yet. Tonight we had eggplant, peppers, onions, beans, tomatoes, and the last of the lettuce. I keep thinking that we have gotten the last pickings and then I discover that there are enough beans to feed an army. (I am beginning to hate beans!) But as the last of the vegetables are harvested, there are still more! Throughout the summer we will still have onions, okra, collards, eggplants and peppers. The gourds have become a menace as they climb everywhere, under and over. The bugs have just about given up, having devoured or spoiled the tomato crop.

A few days ago when Andy was going to the grocery store I asked him to buy some asparagus. What?? You, locavore, you want asparagus from maybe Peru or Chile?? Give me a break, I want some different vegetable. We do grow asparagus, but in Florida it is thin pickings and I always speed them directly into my mouth, no extras for the table.

In June I must throw out the vegetable plants that are no longer productive. The compost pile is thick with old bean plants, tomato vines, squashes and weeds. I throw out the household compost and hoe everything under. I notice that next to the compost pile there are a number of volunteers: acorn squash, tomatoes, cucumbers. In that place I let them live if they can!

Here, there is no slack season. There is no time when everything is conveniently dead and dormant. Yes, in January, growth is down to a dull beat, but that is when one puts in the spring garden and then has anxiety fits if it freezes those tender plants! If there is a dormant season it is from late July to early September. But at this time you have to worry about hurricanes, and then all bets are off.

I love this rugged part of America for the fascinating natural world it is. I am appalled to think of how retrograde this state is, how ignorant the electorate, how lightweight is our current governor. I am devoted to reading all letters to the editor in three papers. So many folks think only of themselves and have no clue about the larger good.

If any of you out there are interested, please consider Alex Sink for governor. I have known Alex forever and think highly of her. She's smart (actually brilliant), honest, down-to-earth, modest, possessed with incredible energy, and she knows so much about the finances of the state. Here's something you may never know in the press: little factoid dept. Alex's grandfather was one of the famous Siamese conjoined twins. Eng and.. I forget. Pretty fascinating stuff. Look it up.

Long Haul

No photographs today; just imagine a black arm band. I said I wouldn't keep on and on about the crane family, but here's the last update.

Yesterday, after first light I went out to the pond to check on them. To my horror I found a huge alligator on the crane nest just finishing off the last chick. Bob and Emily, the parents, were striding around, bereft and twining their necks around each other. I knew there were so many dangers in this long process of creating new life. I worried about everything that could happen: cows stepping on the eggs, pond predators, vultures, coyotes, fire ants and of course, alligators.

At night I went to the pond to shine my flashlight across the water to check for gators. I never saw any of a size to be a problem. Sometimes I saw our neighbors watching too. We have all loved this spring of the cranes and we celebrated the hatching of the two chicks. One died for no reason we could discern, but I got to hold it and look closely at the amazing red down.
The alligator perpetrator died of lead poisoning within minutes of the crime I am glad to say, thanks to Warren. Bob and Emily have gone away, hopefully to a vacation spot somewhere. I hope they will return and try again next year to have the family they were meant to have.

This is the first day in two weeks when we have not had a lot of rain. Everything is green and growing. The vegetable garden is now past except for the tropicals such as peppers, eggplants and beans. Sweet potatoes and okra are yet to come. It was a big mistake to put in gourds. They have taken over everything and in the mornings I must disentangle their tendrils over the garden door to open it. What can one do with hundreds of luffa gourds?

We have both been sick with pneumonia, middle ear infections, and general crud, all of which keeps our energy down. But, slowly improving.

I am loving my newly renovated studio and have several painting projects underway. One is a beautiful cypress and oak bench Andy made as a wedding present for some young friends. I am painting the top of it with images of tomatoes and peppers. I am also working on a large painting of Quincy and Elizabeth. We have had visitors every weekend for months, but this upcoming one is all ours just to keep the momentum of recuperation going.

The Pond

After first light, in the dawn chorus of the birds, I head down to circle the pond. Always an adventure, I know that always there will be some of the familiars, and sometimes something I have never seen there before.

I check out the sand hill crane family who are elegantly strutting around the periphery with junior who scuttles behind and under them and frequently taps on their heads for food.

There are many wood ducks and Florida ducks and purple galinules paddling on the surface, oblivious to the alligators I know are there. The kingfisher flashes it's blue as it flies low over the water. Today I see a lone wood stork, a great blue heron, and the otter turning and splashing in the shallows. Five deer gallop across the field.

We have had major rain for the last two weeks so the pastures are verdant and we hope the Green Swamp is sucking it in. The vegetable garden is over watered from god and the tomatoes on the vine are splitting with so much moisture. The lettuces are bolting but the beans are so prolific that we give every guest a bag of them to take home. The tropicals- sweet potatoes, okra, peppers and eggplants will be our vegetables for the long hot days ahead.

I love this place, and as I look out the window at the moment I see an intense red sky to the west, promising more rain.

This weekend we had a visitor, our good friend Ann. Both Andy and I have loved this woman for decades. While Ann and I spent time in my studio, catching up as the torrential rains fell, Andy made a dinner that was the best ever!

First, we had squash soup from a volunter acorn squash that appeared next to the compost pile. He had put just the right amount of garlic and curry and cream into it. So creamy and delicious! Then we had his home made pasta pillows stuffed with collards from the garden and toasted pine nuts, topped with garden tomatoes and onions. To accompany, there was a side dish of green beans and carrots from the garden and a salad of light green lettuces and crispy cukes from the garden. Fresh baked bread Andy made, and we all indulged in butter. To guild the lily, we had dessert of an impressive lemon souffle! Hey, there is some good cooking going on in East Pasco! Michael Pollen would be proud.

Circle of Life

Quincy has just put six candles on his grandfather's birthday cake and he is ready for the huge salmon grilled by Jay in oversize collard leaves. The family has gathered for this seventieth birthday; everyone has been running around between the grill and the pool and the kitchen where my sister Maria is setting the table and vegetables from the garden are being prepared. On this evening, the regular cook, also the birthday boy, has been instructed to do nothing!

I am recovering my energy from a month of what turned out to be pneumonia and this weekend was perfect. The new floor in my studio is complete and very beautiful and for just this tiny instant the organization of the space is all inviting potential. It was a lot of work to move everything out, and then back in.

As the family and friends arrived I was excited to show off the floor. But I was more excited to introduce them all to the new born sandhill crane chicks, now three days old and tottering along with the parents who kept their little family close to the pond. Quincy was very interested to see these birds whose eggs he had watched for weeks. The fields were splendid after the recent rains and the birthday song was sung mostly on tune and certainly with lots of love.

The next day, the only people left were our friends Peter and Susie, both avid birders. Of course we all went down to the pond to watch for the otter and see the cranes and whatever else might be around. Deer were under the trees and a gopher tortoise was hightailing it across the field. After breakfast and a good read of the Sunday papers we went out on the front porch to watch the cranes on the brow of the hill. We could only see one of the babies but we thought it was lower and out of view. Through the scope we could see the parents picking at something. They seemed to be urging one of the chicks to move. Susie and I looked at each other, knowing instantly that something was the matter.

After a decent amount of time, maybe a few minutes, Susie went out to see what the problem was. Of course both of us were thinking about rescue, trip to a bird sanctuary, etc. The parent cranes finally left the area, followed by the other chick. Moving on. We found the troubled chick, now dead on the hill. We picked it up and looked to see what happened. This looked like a perfect baby, so incredibly soft with that thick down that seems like fur. What could have happened?

We left it under a nearby palm tree. Within minutes the buzzards came. The crane family of three was grazing near the pond.

I think I really knew that this perfect bird experience would be like anything else in the natural world here. Birth and death and nurturing, storms and drought and the beauty of life enough to 'stagger sextillions of infidels'

Birth Announcement

The first baby sandhill crane hatched late this afternoon! It has been punishingly hot and dry for days but those elegant birds stuck to their job, trading places twice each day. Sometimes it was so hot the bird on the nest would gracefully arise, step out into the moat surrounding the nest and sink neck deep in the cool water for a few moments. This is when I could see the two eggs I had started to think were duds.

Today there was red in the dawn sky and rain was forcast for the afternoon. I noticed that both birds were in close attendance. As the huge dark thunderheads rolled in I went down with my binoculars and there it was! The first chick. Her name is Roberta, after Bob, the dad. (I have no idea what gender this chick is, of course, and probably neither do the parents.) This is probably the cutest of all baby birds I have ever seen with the possible exception of penguins. This chick is very small, about ten inches tall and is covered with fluffy strawberry blonde down. Her fuzzy wings hang down like a baby's arms in a snowsuit with mittens. The mom, Emily, still has the other egg to hatch so she tries to keep the chick under her wings, but I see it peeking out from time to time.

I had to leave the scene when the thunderstorms swept over. When can I stop worrying about these birds? This evening with everything seeming new and green from the rain, I went back to see how the crane family had fared in the storm. Roberta was teetering on the edge of the nest, Emily was doing some housekeeping, flipping pieces of straw on the nest, rearranging things. Bob was poking at his chick to keep it from getting in the moat. Emily turned over the remaining egg, gathered in the chick and settled down. Bob was standing by for the approaching night. The birds don't seem to mind me watching them and let me get quite close.

In the distance of the pond an otter turned over and over in the shallows and the wood ducks with their wonderful colors glided among the water lilies. A kingfisher buzzed the water's surface. Only missing from this scene in the Peaceable Kingdom was my grandson Quincy who has been as interested as I in the crane family and who has spent so much time with me (and his plastic binoculars) looking at birds and the natural world.

The vegetable garden must appreciate the natural rain. This morning Andy brought great loads of hay to replenish the mulch. He took out all the huge collards, now with stems eight inches in diameter, and some of the broccoli gone to seed and threw them all over the fence for the cows. I tied up the gourds, tomatoes and cukes. Everything is like the Little Shop of Horrors, so large and fruitful. I found a zuchini bigger than a cricket bat and picked several pounds of beans and a bale of swiss chard. So far there are no major bugs on the tomatoes, always the biggest challenge. Discovering the screening trick over the lettuce beds was key to having lots of lettuce still for our salads.

Perhaps to morrow I will be able to have a photo of the baby crane. It was too dark when I last looked.

Saving Stuff

After stewing about it for many months I am getting a new floor in my studio. Three years of hard wear on the painted concrete has taken a toll. It will be covered with clean laminate and vinyl. The local flooring guy came by with samples and encouragement. This is the time in the bad economy to fix your personal infrastructure. People are eager to come and do the work and you don't have to wait months.

The clay room has to be cleared so I have spent some time moving out buckets of glaze, many tools, bats- all the stuff I need. The tables and shelves are now in the barn. That was the easy part. When I put it back I will try to have everything as dust free as I can make it. The vacuum has sucked up lots of brown recluse spider eggs, mice droppings, dead roaches, bits of cloth and thread, old peanut husks carried around by the mice.

The clean room (so called) where I sew, write and paint can have its population of furniture and computer components moved back and forth as the laminate is laid. The big problem is the filing cabinets! I have been procrastinating on this for years and I just kept moving them from house to house, place to place, vowing to clean them out when I got around to it.

What if I died in an avalanche? Or a tsunami? Would I hate to think of my progeny having to go through all this stuff? The time has come and so I am here blogging and procrastinating. I have put everything from six large file drawers out on my work table. I know that two drawers are still full of the journals I kept all my work life. I used this stuff fairly recently while writing a memoir. But the book is published. So can I decently throw the journals away? I have a large black plastic bag ready to dump them into. I think I can actually do this - tomorrow. But I get distracted by a journal entry, never used in my book. Shall I keep it? What about all the files of writing ideas?

There is just too much of the written word out there! I am not Mark Twain with unfinished gems some scholar will want to discover in fifty years. Yes, that stuff has to go. Think of how light it will be to have a sparse filing cabinet with practical folders of current tax and banking information, only the most pertinent paper from board meetings, current volunteer efforts, medical records, current information about the electronic stuff I use. (Get rid of the manual from a camera I owned five years ago! And get rid of old electronics no longer of any use.)

I think that the main thing about culling papers from your life is having a large dose of humility, and the practicality to go along with it. You have to ask yourself, "Would the world still go round without this?" or "Will I ever actually make the effort to figure out what to do with some one else's papers?" (Yes, I did go through my father's papers, maybe too quickly, but steady enough to realize he had some books ready for publication, and I made them happen.) But, I am ready to be through with saving the dust-catching load of stuff.

I will enjoy a morning of reading and keeping a few papers. I will happily discard old bank statements, and I will still keep a few files of letters and memorabilia from old students and family. I think I can throw out a huge amount of photos. I will not obsess about having an identity theft if someone at the dump paws through old records of teeth cleanings and vet visits for a dog dead for twelve years.

It hasn't happened yet, but tomorrow is a new day. I keep envisioning the new clean floor and I already have the canvass and paint to get started on a new project.

For those of you who are birders, the eggs have not hatched yet! The cranes,Bob and Emily are still on the nest. I saw the eggs this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow? I will be so sorry if those eggs are duds!

Waiting for rain

We are waiting for the rains. Every afternoon we are teased with the big dark clouds that don't deliver. Our fields and paths are dusty. The pastures are hoping to become green. We see the dawn with the sun trying to emerge into the morning through the mist.

When I drive to town, a few miles away, I pass the houses and trailers along the way that take the brunt of all the dust kicked up from the wheels of vehicles.

Living rurally, we pay attention to the rhythms of the weather. We worry about the dryness of the orange trees and we water what we can. I water the vegetable garden, our existence! Last night we had a celebration of vegetables for our friends. The garden is producing everything imaginable so we had platters of lettuce, beans, snow peas, beets, squash, eggplants, carrots and peppers. Our friends bring us fresh eggs and oranges.

The sand hill cranes are still incubating those eggs! I begin to wonder if they are duds? I went out with Lola, the dog, to check on them this evening. The mom, Emily, is still firmly on the nest, and her mate, Bob, is standing nearby. The ducks and the anhinga are nearby. Maybe soon?

The Cranes

Yes, yes, I know these images are not National Geographic quality. I have been so delighted and interested in the sand hill cranes' process of the courtship, nest building, and incubation on our pond this spring. So these are a few of my clumsy attempts to show what's happening. In the first photo the two large eggs can be clearly seen. In the next photo you can see Emily the female with her constant sidekick, the moorhen who keeps watch day and night. In the third picture, there is just Bob, who has just changed places with his mate. They look very much alike but Emily is a bit smaller and does most of the incubation. I have been able to get close enough to hear a strange low purring noise they make, a contrast to the wild loud trumpeting call when they greet each other or fly off to peck for food.

The bird books say that the eggs hatch after 28 to 35 days. Should happen at any moment as I calculate it. The buzzards are still hanging around and this makes me really nervous. Maybe by tomorrow there will be two more red heads around here. (Quincy is coming for the weekend.)

I think I have never been so 'in the moment' as I have been here during this amazing springtime. After the long cold winter plants behaved differently. We still have some oak trees dripping pollen, there are no mosquitoes and a very short firefly season. The hummingbirds and chimney swifts and whipoorwills appeared on schedule. The 'cold weather' vegetables are still prolifically bearing. We still have lots of broccoli and pea pods, and the lettuce, now under shade cloth, continues on. We are starting to harvest beans, chard, cucumbers, zuchini. Tomatoes look promising and so far have not been found by the hornworms. Lots of peppers and eggplants. The onions are up.

We continue to trap the critters who dig up the yard and steal the bird feed. Andy swears he will get a 22 and dispatch them. So far, we just take the full traps up the road and let the raccoons, opossums and armadillos go.

There are wonderful wild flowers in bloom but you have to look for them, as most are not large. When the rains start, we'll have all kinds of fungi, but now everything is as dry as dust.

When I get up in the morning I am always eager to be outdoors, checking things out, seeing the deer leaping across the far pasture with their distinctive breathy call, listening for the dawn chorus of dozens of birds I can't identify, looking for footprints in the sand of the creatures who were here last night.

I sit on the porch and read the local paper, then head out for some gardening or hanging out the clothes.

Then I love being in my studio working on something or other, and going up for lunch with Andy and my 'nap' on the couch with Lola, the dog. That's when I read the New York Times. Afternoons are for working in the studio. We have our routines! Even when Quincy is here he falls into our life. Such a pleasure to add a little boy bath and story time, or have a little guy at meals, or playing outside my studio.

In the late afternoon I bring Andy the day's vegetables from the garden. Salad? Beets? Snowpeas? I wash and prepare them for cooking, confident that the cook will do his best.

Late afternoons, we take our swims. The pool is yet very cold for me.

We are still having trouble with all the things on our calendar, trips to 'the city' and trips elsewhere. I hate the process of shutting up and locking everything for our trips away from here. When we come back and open the gate and start down that mile long lane with the overhanging oaks dripping with Spanish moss, I breathe a sigh of contentment. Home!

We are slowly making our way in this community, a pleasure. We volunteer in community efforts and meet a lot of interesting folks. Having loved my work life so much, I could not have imagined that another phase of life would be so compelling and satisfying. Of course, we still flop around in retirement somewhat. Our good friends, some still working, others retired, want to know how we can be content with the rural life?

How can I answer this? Perhaps, being elderly, I can at last do what I like. The voice from my mother's head gets ever fainter. Our marriage, after nearly fifty years, gets stronger. We have never talked to each other so much- from politics to poetry, agriculture and family. Music is very important to us, though we no longer attend the Symphony. We need live theater and art museums and shows. We need to see an opera in NYC every year.

And then, there is this magical and compelling place where we live. So I go and visit the cranes' nest several times a day, full of the wonder and fragility of it all. I am smaller than an ant, larger than the gibbous moon, and happy as a clam at high tide.

Lacoochee kids

On Thursday evening I took to school the bisque fired clay pieces to be glazed. The kids were thrilled to see their works of art now strong and ready for the glazing. These kids and their parents (this evening there were five dads among the number of moms) were so glad to claim their clay pieces and begin the process of glazing them. They listened to me as I explained how they were to use the glazes. I never had to say anything twice. I was speaking in English, not their first language, and some of the terms were foreign to them. But with good will from us all we figured everything out and the pieces were glazed. The parents and kids finished up and everyone cleaned up and helped me transport the pieces to my car. They know that next week I will appear with their finished clay works. These are not entitled kids, nor are their parents helicopters.

I love this group of kids and parents, and the facilitators, Ben Aguilar and Rachel Kurtz, those wonderful young people who have made this after school program possible. We are already planning to have a celebratory end of the year happening at our farm. We'll have a pot luck of those great hispanic foods, swimming, and my signature exploding volcano cake.

Lots of trips recently for me. We went to NYC for a week of culture, then back to spend a few days with Quincy. A few days later I went for a weekend with my 'girl friends' at a friend's beach house on the Atlantic. This place was certainly a close second to our paradise here in central Florida. I do love the huge beach and the constantly changing colors of the sea. I walked miles, always searching for shells and anything interesting the surf threw up. I went on a long bike ride. (My thighs are huring!) But it's not my paradise!

When I returned this morning from Daytona, I immedately went out with my binoculars to see how the sand hill cranes were doing. Bob and Emily are still on their huge nest on the edge of the pond, but I was alarmed to see buzzards and crows on the trees overhead. Do they know that the hatching will happen at any time? It has been twenty-six days since Bob and Emily settled down on the nest they built. My bird book says that the babies will hatch in twenty eight days. It's been so hot in the middle of the days I really want to set up a shade umbrella over the nest! I think I won't be able to stand it if anything happens to this nest and the two eggs don't survive for one reason or another!

My daughter called to tell me that she is worried about her many monarch butterfly chrysalises now hanging in her butterfly bushes. I guess we are related!

Still Being Grandma

Here is Quincy, the red head on the right, helping me be a volunteer today at Lacoochee School. We are planting a garden and have put in zinnias, black eye peas, peppers, radishes and cucumbers. Everyone had such a good time! Quincy, my horticultural side kick knows all about making a garden. Just today he pulled up a bunch of carrots he planted weeks ago and we put them in the salad. He's eager to share his expertise, and the kids are so welcoming to him, though they are four years older than he is. He is thrilled to be a part of all this, such a social boy.

He has recently left his Montessori school; a bad fit all around, and he will start a new school tomorrow where all the family knows he'll be safe and happy. He was a bit confused today. He thought that this school he was visiting with Grandma was his new school. Eager to do right, he volunteered a lot of information, and when the planting and watering was over he quickly found an unoccupied desk in the classroom. He raised his hand properly to make a comment, and when he saw a boy go into the bathroom and come out, he asked if he could visit the bathroom. (He left the door open, much to the amusement of those third graders.) "Hey, he's little," I said. Then the kids told him to wash his hands, which he did - in the drinking fountain! The other kids told me in great detail about their little brothers and sisters. Much hilarity there.

So, it has been a wonderful and exhausting five days with a four year old. Quincy is never a problem. He eats anything, sleeps twelve hour nights, is never destructive. He talks all the time and asks so many questions! For long periods he is happy with his imaginative play in the doll house, or outside with his trucks and little plastic guys on the edge of the garden I am weeding. He spends lots of time in the barn where he has his post office and delivery system. I always think I can get in a bit of work on my quilts, but there is always a new mail delivery by a small postman in a wagon, or he needs some rubber bands or has a question about armadillos. So I find my nature books and we look it up, distracted along the way by a photo of a man and child looking at something with their head lamps on. We decide we'll buy some of those head lamps and discuss all the stuff we'll see. Another morning shot with nothing purposeful to show for it but the sweet necessity of a loving and curious child.

My pedometer averages 15,000 steps these days. I think most of them are from the trips up and down and up and down the road behind Quincy's little bike. At first Quincy did not want to ride this bike. But we adjusted it so it was friendly and his feet could reach the ground. I found an objective he wanted to reach, a pile of lime rock we use to fill in the potholes on our road. We ride the bike to the pile and Quincy plants some sticks in his "rock" garden. He is thrilled to be able to ride this uncertain bike that wobbles and throws him to the ground sometimes. I am right behind him but as the trips increase he is more and more confident and I am letting go and by the end of this last day he is flying!

His speech is sometimes so unclear we come to an impasse, even after many repetitions. He wants so show me stuff: the gecko on the wall, how he's set up a game board, a restaurant he's made out of little cardboard boxes and small stuffed animals. We make a book with cut out pictures and a stamp pad for the captions. We take several trips in the golf cart each day to check out the nesting sand hill cranes on the edge of the pond. A couple of times we have seen the two very large eggs in the nest as the bird takes a break. "What is the daddy doing now?" asks Quincy. The female we have named Emily seems to be doing most of the work! We scout around and spy Bob, the male, pecking in the dirt. "I think Bob is finding bugs for Emily", I say.

I wonder how his mom, a single parent, can do this? I think back of my own new work life and childbearing and I have amnesia about it. Somehow it gets done.

Loving the silence of the evening, I will go to bed soon. I will miss the last wonderful visit to the grandchild asleep in his bed upstairs when I check his covers and that everything is well for the night. I kiss his sweet cheek close to all those stuffed animals and a bunch of favorite books we've read so many times. I think of that dimple that will show when he sees the waffles Grandpa will make for breakfast.

There are so many new adventures for the next time he's here. But tonight he was very happy to go home to his mother, as were we.