Gardening

With temperatures in the 70s F. and the sun shining, it was time to garden big time, especially since rain is forecast for the next three days.

I cleared two flower plots, one with a pink rose bush on the south side of the house.  I started it from a cutting from a rose bush belonging to my neighbors.  It was initially planted by a previous owner for his wife. When I first moved here thirty years ago, Anna was dying and Frank would follow her three years later. The pink rose was already an old bush so my guess is that it has been blooming for around seventy years.

I noticed today that the both bushes, the first one and mine, have put out "suckers" I intend to transplant to another plot.  At the same time, I will move a yellow rose nearby, one that should grow into a tree.  It's been in a shady area for a few years and hasn't done well there.

Gary brought out the rototiller and got to work on the vegetable garden.  It is cleared and ready to go, so I started some sugar snap peas.   If the rain holds off, we'll pick up onion sets at the hardware store tomorrow and get those going as well.  The rest of the vegetables will have to wait until May when we'll be sure there will be no more frost.

Gary also cleared a section of the terrace strip and laid down some patio blocks.  We'll likely buy some more of those blocks, and fill in the rest of the area with vinca.  I have plenty to dig up in other parts of the yard.  We can't have anything taller than six inches on the terrace strip, so vinca will be perfect.  Even better, it will require no mowing.

Then he cleared the area next to my peony bushes.  He wants to transplant some hostas there.

It was a day of hard work, but I calculate I still have some twenty flower beds to clear.  That will take us to the end of April.  At that point, we'll begin the final weeding and planting, which should be done by Memorial Day.  From then on, the plants will take over so there won't be much to do in the gardens except a little spot weeding, mowing the paths, and perhaps some watering.

Some my think this is a lot of work, but I consider gardening a hobby.  Mowing lawn is work.  That I avoid.

An Outing

Gary had been talking for some time about having an outing with me, but he was sick, then had to go to Illinois.Today he felt better, the day was sunny and we were off.

First was a drive to Appleton to do some errands.  Most important was a stop at Appleton Camping to get some parts for the camper. Lance, in the parts department, showed Gary a top for the camper's sink.  It was slightly damaged so we got it for $2.  We almost never use that sink since we camp in the national forests with no water to fill the tank and no dumping station to empty the sewage, so putting this top on it gives us more cupboard space.

We headed north to see what was going on at the Shiocton marsh at Van Patten Road.   The marsh is still busy with the traffic of migrating birds. We saw pie billed grebes, American widgeons, Canada geese, ring necked ducks, coots, norther shovelers, greater scaup and mallards.  There were dozens of sandhill cranes who don't know that there will soon be a crane hunting season, poor things.

Next we went to the McDonald Road in the Navarino Nature Wildlife Area.  There are huge ponds here and we found more geese, mallards, ring necked ducks, grebes and mallards.  Anemones were blooming in the woods.

The next stop was the Shawano dam. Up to three days ago, the DNR was pulling sturgeon out of the water to tag them.  To their surprise, they hauled out a 240 lb. female who they thought was 125 years old.  She would have been even heavier, but she had already laid her eggs, which they estimated would have been about thirty pounds of caviar.

But today, the sturgeon run is over and all volunteers have gone home.  Only the red horse suckers were there, still trying to gobble up as many sturgeon eggs as they could find.

We were originally scheduled to guard sturgeon on April 15, two days from now and instead we guarded on March 25.  What a strange spring.

As we traveled today, we passed farmhouses with placards that read either "Recall Walker" or "We Stand with Walker".  We have always said that the best time to look for a new house is during an election cycle, because you get a pretty good idea what your neighbors would be like.  I'm pretty sure a rabid Walker supporter would not welcome me as a neighbor.  

*****
Wade Peterson's story,"The Magic Ball" is now at our shared blog, Black Coffee Fiction, http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

The Seventies

This week, I'm working on a new short story for our blog.  Last week it was "Love and the Sixties."  The next story will be "Love and the Seventies".  Right now I'm in the research stage.

I'm not going to include the Watergate scandal or the Jimmy Carter administration.  Those have very little to do with love.  I think feminism will have a role in the story.  By the 1970's, the war in Vietnam was ending, and the civil rights issue was incorporated into the women's movement.We were singing Helen Reddy's "I am Woman". At the same time, women became more and more stupid on television, a trend that seems to be continuing today.

Computers were getting smaller.  Clothes were getting weirder.  Wife swapping was a new social issue.

Me, I went back to school and got my degree.  I taught high school.  I had a baby. We lived in a trailer house. By the end of the decade, my marriage was coming to an end.  

Through all this there were cats.  There was Kid, Jocasta, Eddy Puss, Big Red, and Mischa.

How all of that will work its way into my story I don't know.  Once the research is done, I start typing and let the characters go where they will, no matter how silly the situations.  The lovely thing about computers is the ease of editing a lot of nonsense and making sense of it.

This short story is bringing back so many memories. The process should be a joy.

Books

I've fallen in love with the Nook.  I take it with me wherever I go in case I can find a few minutes here or there to read yet another book.

I've bought a few e-books, but just as it was with paper books, I read the ones from the library system first because those have a due date.

I've just finished Catherine the Great,a Portrait of a Woman, by Robert K. Massie.  I'd read two of Massie's previous books Nicolas and Alexandria about the last of the Romanovs and Peter the Great, who was the first tsar to expand Russia to the Baltic Sea, giving the landlocked country its first access to the oceans of the world.  Catherine went farther and took the Crimea away from the Ottoman Turks, giving Mother Russia access to the Black Sea and beyond to the Mediterranean. Though I've known something about Catherine the Great all these years, this was the first time I read a biography.  I like strong women, and she was one of the strongest.  Great indeed.

Massie is a wonderful biographer so I couldn't put that book down. I've been waking up in the middle of the night to turn on the Nook and keep reading.

Next on my list is American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, and Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, about the Countess of Carnavon who turned her estate into a hospital during WWI.  Because so many of my friends are interested in vampires, I've decided to read the books that started it all, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.

As a matter of fact, I have fifteen books lined up, all in one little electronic book.

There's  tee shirt many librarians own that says, "So many books, so little time."  That describes me exactly.

Home Again

Yesterday, I was busy with my friend Norma.

Today, I cleaned, practiced at church, walked a bit, and took a three hour nap. Tomorrow, I thought, I will spend the entire day with writing projects.

Gary called me about 6:00 pm.

"I decided to come home tonight," he said.  It had been too cold and windy to do any work for his aunt in Dixon, Illinois so there was no point in staying.  I could hear him coughing, too.  He still had his cold.

I immediately wondered about staying up to welcome him. I could spend that time writing.

"When will you get here?"

"In ten minutes," he said.  "I'm just going past Krabbe's."  That's a supper club south of Seymour.

Surprise!

So here he is, coughing and sneezing, and getting ready for bed.

Here I am writing my blog.  So much for making plans.

I think I'll get up early tomorrow and work on my novel.

Sheldon Nature Area, Oshkosh

Every so often, my friend Norma comes up from Chicago to visit her mother.  I meet her and off we go for lunch, shopping, walking, and talking.  We had lunch at the Cinders restaurant, shopped at St. Vincent de Paul and Payless (I got another pair of shoes), had dessert at Culvers.

The best part for me is always walking at the Sheldon Nature Area, adjacent to the Oakwood Charter School. It was donated to the Oshkosh school district to use to teach the students about environmental issues.

The trails led us past ponds and brooks and along the way we found marsh marigolds and Virginia bluebells in bloom.

We heard the white-throated sparrow and watched mallards paddling around. As we walked, we talked about what is going on in our lives.  We see each other every few months, but it's always as if we were last together two or three minutes before and were just continuing the conversation.

After our day together, I took Norma to catch her bus to Chicago, knowing that come Memorial Day weekend she'll be back and we'll spend another day together.   

Alone

Other than Rascal, I'm alone in the house.

This morning, Gary and I were up at 5:00 a.m. so that he could leave for Dixon and I could make scalloped potatoes and ham for Easter dinner before going to church. I decided that the best thing to do was cook everything then microwave it after church.   For good measure, I started a loaf of cracked wheat bread in the bread maker.  I cleaned the house a bit and then it was out to the garden to pick tulips, daffodils and cut some sprays of cherry blossoms for the bouquet of the week that goes to a member of the congregation.  I quickly hid plastic eggs containing candy and prizes around the house for Evan and it was time to go.

The church service went as expected, but long. Evan was there with Those People He Lives With. That's what Gary calls Chris and Tisha.  He was part of the flock of children that came up to the altar for the children's sermon and hunted for Easter eggs afterwards. There was a baptism and new members welcomed.

The choir did fine and I think there were eight hymns, which is our idea of a good service.

When we got home, the bread was done and it took only minutes to warm the dinner in the microwave. Evan found the eggs I hid then set the table.  He is getting to be a big helper.

But I'm afraid the lack of sleep finally caught up with me and I had to send my family home so I could crash.

When I woke up three hours later, I was alone, an odd feeling. Though Gary and I are often apart during the camping season, during the winter months, we are always in the house at night and most of the day.  We do so much together.  Now I am alone with an anxious cat who misses the master who spoils him with treats and petting. He is stuck with me and he is not not happy.

Fact is, we both enjoy having these times alone. I am looking forward to having quiet time to write. I am sure he is enjoying his time camping at his aunt's farm.

It works for both of us.  

Plans

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

Gary and I will get up at 5:00 am so that he can get an early start to Dixon, Illinois. He's going there to help his aunt with her yard work. He should be on the road by 6:00.  Then I have to hide some eggs for Evan's Easter egg hunt and clean the house.

At the same time, I have to start Easter dinner because Chris, Tisha and Evan will be here after church. I am a bit concerned about it because though I can get the scalloped potatoes and ham in the oven, I have no idea how long the church service will take.  While the rest of the meal is easy enough to prepare ahead of time, without Gary there to keep an eye on on the pan, the potatoes could wind up either burned or under-cooked.  Besides the Easter celebration, we are having communion, there is a baptism, and a reception of new members.  If there's a short sermon, no problem, but what are the odds of that?

I may slip away during the sermon, come home (only four blocks away), check on the meal, and go back in time to play the offertory with the organist and direct the choir in the benediction.  Or...I'll ask the choir to do a three Amen benediction and have the organist give them their cues and I'll leave early.

Whatever I decide, the first order of business is to get to bed early so I have plenty of sleep.

The Sixties

I've been working on a series of short love stories for Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

I began with "Love and Phenology" two weeks ago, loosely based on my relationship with Gary.  This week I wrote "Love and the Sixties" based on the time I lived in Chicago and met my ex-husband.  It is fiction but I certainly used some real events.  I was involved in the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and wound up in a movie theatre with my finance, for example. There was a bed overhung with apidistra,  but it was at a friend's apartment. That's where we ate limpa bread slathered in honey. There was a bag lady, but she barely was part of the true story. I showed my first draft to the critique group on Tuesday and they thought the bag lady needed a bigger role, so I enlarged it.

That is the way I write fiction, taking bits and pieces from my own life, moving them around and adding more bits and pieces from my imagination until I have a story.

My writing partner Wade says "Love and the Sixties" is the strongest story I've written so far.  I don't know, I never really have a sense of what I've accomplished until months later.

I've decided to continue in this vein, so my next story will be "Love and the Seventies," so I am asking myself, what was I doing in that decade.  What was going on in the United States?  Where was I living?
What kind of plot can I invent using the facts I've got?

I do enjoy writing.  So many stories to tell.  I wish I had started earlier.

Health

Gary and I have been on a health kick lately.  We go to the fitness center three times a week to lift weights to work on our upper body strength. I've been adding weight to my regimen all winter. I can tell it's helping now that I am gardening and lifting brush.

Gary is walking on a treadmill.  I walk around town and use a recumbent bike.

He's cutting down on cholesterol, I'm watching my calories. We try to eat the proper servings of fruits, vegetables, dairy and nuts. We eat whole grain bread. We eat fish twice a week and have cut down on red meat. We both take vitamins.

Gary seldom has a problem with sleep but getting enough sleep can be a problem for me.  I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, but I've learned that I can simply be awake for an hour or two then go back to sleep.  During those hours, I read, do sudoku puzzles, or make notes about whatever story I am writing.There's always a pad of paper with a pen next to my bed. There's always a nap in the afternoon if I need it.

So here we are, doing everything right.  Why does he have a cold?