Work? On a day like today?

It's way too nice to spend my day indoors, painting, (Ah Juicy Rationalization, how my procrastinating heart doth love thee!) so gardening was the order of the day. I'm really just tickled that we even have anything other than chickweed in the beds this year, so a lovely Tropicana rose is pretty exciting.
We planted this bed on Jasper's final resting place. We thought the "Jappernese" maple was a nice touch, not only for it's name, but because it's short, scrappy, and red, just like Jasper was. She would have loved posing in among these flowers, no doubt. Alas, poor Chubby.

The stray who showed up last spring and decided to stay is doing well. I named him Simon, but his whole name, at this point, is Simon Snowshoe Ohyeah Fatboy. Also known as Mr. Fuzzy, he is a welcome addition to our declining numbers (ahahahaha! Sorry, I couldn't help it).
Jezebel and Mrs. Puff share a little girl talk on the back fence, because who doesn't love the smell of compost in the morning?
I think this beauty is a Mr. Lincoln. Contrary to the old 70s song, my honey DID promise me a rose garden. It's just a lot harder to deliver when full sun is at a premium in your yard.
I'm working on something right now - I don't know how well you'll like it. My head is already 600 miles away from my body, what with our annual pilgrimage to Pennsylvania coming up, and I thought it might be fun to take advantage of that fixation, combine it with my obsession for historical data and use it to write something fantastical.

Yeeeaahhh, I know - I'm having a hard time picturing that description on the back of a paperback too. But who knows - "could be lunch meat, could be peaches" - Look Who's Talking

A Picture Takes The Place of Words

I'm having a hard time lately, coming up with the happy or funny fodder I feel like my readers want to read. Obviously that is all in my grumpy, dissatisfied head, because what blog reader doesn't love a damn trainwreck, especially when it's someone else's?

There's just a lot of crap going on right now in the land of Tapdancing. I could list it off like Prince Humperdinck, ending with, "I'm swamped!" but that would be far too much levity for my all-pervasive Black Celt mood, and really, most of what's weighing on my mind is other people's problems and my inability to solve or handle them.

So, to blow the cobwebs out of my head and maybe jump start the old metabolism, we took a long walk through the woods on Sunday. The fall color is just about peaking here in the Piedmont area and I had a big time taking pictures of all the loveliness (it never fails to improve my mood, to go and immerse myself in seasonal beauty). I played around in Photoshop with a couple of them, looking for a more artistic rendering of the same old still life and these are my favorites.

I love this filter - it makes a ho-hum photo look both dramatic and ethereal - and it's a lot easier than trying to write words that don't want to be written right now!

And yes, Ms. Q - I will make copies for you to mat and frame!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edited to add: I submitted these pictures over at Written Inc.'s thematic photograph for this past week. If you haven't seen this site, go check Carmi out!

Brief Candle

She was smaller than I remembered, shrunken in upon herself. Her hair, which had always been neatly coiffed was cropped short and a little tousled. It had only been two years since I had seen her but it was as if she had aged twenty years in that time. It was that rapid aging, I think, that slapped me the hardest with the obvious truth. It's one thing to know intellectually of someones illness, it's quite another to witness it firsthand. My aunt is dying. She's dying and there's nothing to be done but watch. Nothing to do but wait and make small talk. Nothing and that's the hardest part to wrap my head around, because I'm a do-er, a fighter. It's excruciating, the passive waiting, the watching, but it's not my call how this ends. I am "but a poor player that struts and frets", and I only have a walk-on part in this particular tragedy.

She could only handle short visits, so the hubman and I left to let her take a nap before dinner. We headed to the woods near where I had lived, a park called Chestnut Ridge. My mother's parents had their ashes scattered there, so in a sense, I was visiting my grandparents, but also like them, I find solace and refuge more readily in nature than in a church. I went there to cry, to have it out with myself before I had to appear again at dinner time, with an outwardly happy appearance. I thought a lot about the past; of the years we did live closer, of the family rift that seems to only deepen with time, of our imminent mortality and what we leave behind, each of us, as a legacy to those we loved.

Did I have an epiphany and go back to shed the light of my enlightenment upon those less fortunate? God, no. What light does anyone really want shed upon their personal time of grief? I walked under the ancient and gnarled apple trees in the park, collecting their freshly fallen offering. I cried as the grief came to me in waves and leaned on the strong shoulder of my beloved. I took strength from nature's cyclical immortality, and knew the blessing it is just to be alive. I gathered myself enough to go back calm and serene, and to not cast the burden of my grief upon already weighted shoulders.

There was a moment when we parted that evening; I held her face in my hands. I smiled at her with all the love I could not articulate. We embraced for a long moment, and said goodbye.

Summertime

It's mid-August and summer is passing before my lazy eyes. The flower beds have been beaten down by heat and Japanese beetles, and all that remains to delight the eye are the rogue flowers of the climbing weeds, like cow itch or morning glories. They creep into the beds and up the trees, hide under the bee balm and Gerber daisies, waiting for their moment to emerge. It's almost like they know; I haven't the heart to destroy anything that blooms in late summer. I haven't the heart for many things right now. With the passing season comes the reality that I have to do something about Jasper. Right now, and for a few months more, it'll be warm enough for her to live comfortably outdoors, but come late October, maybe November if it stays warm, I have to say goodbye and ease this old cat out of life. She's the last of the cats from our college years, and the end of an era, and in spite of her random piddling ways, I love her and will miss her. With her goes that last tangible thread that led to my youth, my life before this one.

Ever onward and upward, still, it's hard not to look behind as you leave a chapter forever. The kids are gone this week, up to visit with my sister. The silence is wonderful, and soul refreshing, but I miss the nectar of their sweet laughter and warm hugs.
My garden, seemingly empty and bereft, in spite of being overgrown, but hidden green peppers burgeon and ripen in anticipation of the boys' return. And ripe tomatoes make BLTs sublime. On Friday, August 15, I will be guest posting over at A Work of Art for Bennie Waddell, who's on vacation. Come check it out!

The Blog Giveth And The Blog Taketh Its Sweet Time

What? You thought this was going to be Rattling a Few Bones~Part III?

You thought I had, all professional-like, written the entire piece and just split it up into serials, to drag it out and mess with you? Seriously? Do I look like I have my shit together enough to do that?

Pickle, its Monday here. Again. All damn day.Bea and I did our best on Sunday to weave a mist and make it Saturday again, but the spell just didn't take. Oh, wait a minute! We were supposed to POUR the libation on the ground, not DRINK it!! Ohhh! Well crap. So its Monday, but what a great Sunday afternoon it was, in spite of it NOT being Saturday again!

Are you with me so far?
It was a bit of a blustery day, on Saturday, but Bea and I, boat drinks in hand, braved the gale force winds to go out and sit in the sunshine. The warm weather this past week has brought out the wildlife, along with the first flowers.I found Mr. Rikki playing with our resident garter snake, who we like to call, rather unimaginatively, The Eighteen Incher. He was a little concerned about all the attention at first, but he did pose nicely for me. I have actually written about half of the third installment of Rattling a Few Bones, but the first part was the easiest. The climax is a bit stickier and I need to get the children out of my hair before I can think straight enough to finish writing it. That and Blogger needs to let me upload more than ONE FUCKING PICTURE AT A TIME - that would really speed things up!

So, would you say your weekend glass was half-full or half-empty? Or would you say you "half want" to take the rest of the week off? Yeah, me too, only no halfways for me - I'm 100% sick with the Spring Fever!

I Love Mondays in the Springtime

Hellow...

I'm a very bad excuse

for a siamese cat.

I'm not really cross-eyed,

but I'm silly, that's a fact.

My feet seem very tiny,

but Mom made them look like that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Bohemian has been home sick with the creeping crud ("and that's all I'm got to say about that." - Forrest Gump), so we've been hanging out together. He started his first painting yesterday and is very cheesed with his work in progress. I'm thinking I might need to find another damn easel soon, because he's hogging mine! We took a walk down to the pond today in search of the ever-elusive Great Blue Heron who lives there during the winter. He's very shy and hard to photograph without a buttload of zoom capability, so most of my attempts to catch him have come out pretty badly. Today we hunkered down by the edge of the pond and waited for him to get used to us, then we crept slowly closer until I was able to get this shot, which is still pretty damn blurry, but better than what I've done so far. He's watching me as well!It was also a very welcome sight to see the first daffodils coming up alongside of a little creek we passed over on the way home from the pond. When I was a kid, the first daffodils of spring would strike such lust into my heart. Regardless of where they were, or whose they were, I was compelled to pick them. As you might imagine, I also spent a lot of time having to apologize to little old lady neighbors. Good times...!
They are almost like a visual dose of vitamin C, aren't they? I swear, roses mean nothing to me, (unless they're picked illicitly by the light of the moon,from a certain rose garden, but that's another story!) compared to the vibrant joy of daffodils, blooming in the chill of late February. Is that a snowdrop in the foreground? It only had single bells, so I know it wasn't lily of the valley, though it did prompt me to start singing:
Whit coral bells

upon a slender stalk,

lilies of the valley

by my garden walk!

Oh don't you wish

that you could hear them ring?

That will happen only

when the fairies sing! It was a beautiful spring day - the air was crisp and chilly but the sun was so warm it was hard not to get down with Miss Jezebel and roll on the scratchy cement.
Got Spring?

This past weekend here was so sunny and warm that everyone got out and soaked up some rays. Sunday found us having breakfast on the patio, and dozing in the sun with that last cup of coffee. It felt so good I was hard pressed to go indoors and do housework - stupid stuff - housework - it's not like its going to STAY clean, and on a sunny day, it just seems so trivial, doesn't it?

The boys found this little lizard under the bushes. At first we thought he might have been a casualty of the cats' hunting, but when the Bohemian picked him up by his tail, he was still quite alive! We put him up in the bush and he hung out for awhile, soaking up the sun as well. He changed from this color to a paler gray, after hanging out in the bush. Isn't he cute?

The cats were very happy to be out in the sun as well. Jezebel did a bit of rolling and flipping, to get those hard to reach itchy spots before settling down for a sunny snooze. She's practically smiling in this picture, she's just that happy.
Scrawny Joe McAllister (Remember him? The one who jumped off the Talliscratchy Bridge?) was having his own itch-fest up in the fort, rubbing between the boards. The silly thing almost fell off twice, he got so carried away. He thinks he's very pretty, but we know that he's also extremely silly.
It's raining today, which made it very hard to get up and go this morning, but get up and go I did. I have things on the easel calling to me to come and play, and I've been devoting far too much time on blogging, which, as fun as it is to do, doesn't really leave me much to show for my time. So if I'm not around, you'll know where I am! I'd like to get further along on the two pictures I started; maybe even finish them. If I like how they turn out, I'll throw them up here later on.

This is also the week I'm back on the volunteering gig at school. I take January off, because, after Christmas, I need the break, but now that its February, and the groundhog has come and gone, its time for me to get back into the swing of things.

Now if I could just wake up!

Requiem

We have a little natural stream that runs through our yard, and ever since we have lived here, I have been the troll under the bridge, harassing the neighbor kids who come to fish in it. It's not that I don't want them to play in the stream; I would be fine with that, if that was all there was to it, but the nature of little boys and creeks I know firsthand from my own brothers. They start out playing and then discover the aquatic life, and rarely are they cut from the cloth of naturalists; they invariably want to catch and imprison the poor little crayfish and salamanders. I watched scores of turtles, crayfish, and salamanders die in buckets, thanks to my brothers.

So with this stream, or at least, my own little part of this stream, I have been vigilant in protecting the little creatures who make up its delicate little ecosystem. This past summer we had so many different kinds of snakes, and toads, crayfish, and salamanders living in it, and my boys, having been schooled in proper ettiquette of playing in Mommy's Creek, loved playing in it for hours at a time.

Yesterday the boys stayed home from school, mostly because of stuffed up heads, so they went out to play in the creek. A little while later, they came in and told me that they had found several dead salamanders and crayfish, and that the water was cloudy, and a bit bubbly. I went out to look for myself and was shocked. I found at least two dozen little red salamanders dead in our section of the creek, and almost as many little crayfish. The water wasn't particularly cloudy at this point, but it might have been when they were down in it earlier.

We got out and headed around the block, to another section of the same creek, to ascertain the extent of the damage. It was the same story the whole way down; more little salamanders, and more crayfish, dead, and not a fish to be seen. What was going on? I wondered. It had just rained the night before, so why all the little dead animals? I wondered if someone had drained something toxic into the water upstream.

It wouldn't be the first time. The last time I had found gasoline in the water, I called the local EPA people, who came out and basically told they could do nothing, without concrete evidence that pointed to a specific individual. Nice to see my tax dollars at work, promoting apathy.

When we got back home, we took one more look in our creek to see if there were any creatures who had survived. We found one huge old crayfish, about half the size of a lobster, who was still trying to hang on. We took him in the house and set him up in a big bowl of freshwater aquarium water and gravel, hoping the cleaner water might revive him. The Bohemian named him "Cray" and was quite upset about the mass carnage, but was holding it together for Cray's sake.

Today, after school we came home and checked on Cray, who, sadly, did not manage to revive from whatever it was that poisoned him. When my husband got home, we buried Cray in a little grave in the backyard (dug by my little Bohemian, replete with headstone), and said a few words. Then my youngest son and I hugged each other and cried; for Cray, and for all of the little salamanders and crayfish whose lives were swept away by stupid, thoughtless people. An entire little ecosystem, destroyed by people who never even considered they might be there, much less, might be crucial to the health of our little corner of this world.

There are no happy thoughts to end this with - people are THE scourge and plague of this beautiful planet. I read that the majority of amphibians,having lived on earth for 350 million years, are rapidly disappearing, thanks to people, and their insistence on developing every square inch of the planet, leaving nothing for any other species to inhabit.

If this upsets you, think about what you put on your lawn to make it nice and green; fertilizer is a number 1 source of pollution in streams. Where do you rinse your grease and oil from your driveway to? How many chemicals do you spray around your house, never considering the impact it makes on your tiny, but equally, if not more so, crucial neighbors?

A Monday in January

Yawn....! January really ought to be a month of hibernation. We had the fiery re-entry back into school last week, and still, this morning, I was unprepared for the alarm clock, and the having to get up in the early AM. The kids were already up - they get up at dawn, like their father, but me? I'm a vampire from so far back, even having kids hasn't made me much of an early riser. The hubster was telling me the other morning that one day last week was the latest sunrise of the year - no wonder I don't want to get up in January - neither does the sun, apparently!

I had a great birthday weekend - slept in, played all weekend, and still got the Christmas tree down and out of the house on Sunday, so that can be checked off the list.

Bea gave me a tube of the much-sought after burnt umber, along with a gift certificate to the grooviest art supply store in Raleigh (Askew-Taylor, FYI), and made me an awesome cake! She also took me out last night, as part of our continuing series of Sunday Denial - isn't she the best? Her birthday is coming up in about three months, so I better get busy planning...!

The Big Gorilla Man gave me a fabulous new camera for my birthday, but he had to give it to me early, as I was throwing a bit (!!) of a tantrum on Christmas Eve. So you could say, part of his gift to me is just putting up with my bullshit. He has been an awfully good husband lately - I don't know the where and why of it, but I am grateful - Christmas and my birthday, hard on it's heels, isn't my best time of year ever, really, so I'm just happy to be through with it for another year with minimal stress and/or freakouts.

On Sunday we headed out to Raven Rock Park again, for a nice little hike. The weather is so pretty, its a crime to be indoors! I took my trusty new camera and had a lot of fun taking pictures at the park. We took a different trail this time and the boys loved discovering new terrain. There was a lot of quartz on this trail; some of it quite large, though most of it wasn't of the crystalline quality. Here are the intrepid explorers: I lagged behind a lot on the hike, looking for oddities to photograph. I was struck by this log composition; the intricate branches in the background, the moss and the very graphic rings and cut-out of the log were wonderful. I can almost see some of my sister's little fairy dolls peeping out of this!
Down by the Cape Fear River, we followed the trail along to it's point of no return. Of course, I had to tell the guys that this was "The End Of The Trail", like it was time to go or something. Only the Big Fella got it, but then he's sharp like that.
I started playing with these in photoshop, mostly just cropping or punching up the color/contrast, but when I got to this one I had a bit of fun. They looked like a trio of women dancing, these trees, but when I was looking at the picture it didn't have the drama I had seen in the woods. So I was messing around and decided to try them as a colored pencil look - voila! Now they have drama! Winter is definitely the time of year to shoot tree branches.
My drive-by shootings were the usual hit-or-miss, but upon looking at them, I was struck by how barren and poor it looked alongside highway 401 - you would have thought I was scoping for a location to film a depression-era film. Because they're drive-bys, some of them are a bit blurry, but wow - you just don't realize how close abject poverty is to your own doorstep. Some of these are just old houses on farms, where the family has built another, newer house nearby, but some of them, like this last picture, is strongly reminiscent of 1930s era Dust Bowl pictures, only in color. The fate of the little farmer breaks my heart - I try and buy locally as much as I can, but the bleeding Walmarts and Superstores just roll over us all, destroying the little Mom and Pop businesses, and decimating the little farms, all in favor of a damn concrete warehouse that supports slave labor in third world countries, and reduces our little hard-working farmers to this. And this is an economically strong area; but only if you're from somewhere else and educated.

Sigh...don't let me get started....I'm trying to stay up this month.

Things to Do On Black Friday

We took a drive out to Raven Rock State Park on Friday to go for a hike; maybe walk a few turkey-pounds off. We've never been there before, and thought it might be fun to check it out.

We passed many old farms, and I was compelled to commit a few drive-by shots. Looks like the cotten is done in this field.
I loved the colors of the trees behind this old barn. My mother, who is from up north, would say this isn't a "proper" barn, but you see this kind a lot around here, and I love how they hug the ground.Wonderful old house with a tin roof, rusted...could this be the B-52s' "Love Shack"???
Beautiful old house in "downtown" Lillington. Its still such a small town - I'm kind of jealous.
Mom knocks a few heads...nah, not really. But you can't see my butt when its tucked up in this crevice!
A pensive moment for "Lord Monkey" by the riverside.

(Don't ask, I have NO idea why he calls himself that)
The Hamasaurus in his natural habitat. The cave wall was so enormous that I had to shoot from underneath to give it any scale. Who knew there were such humongous rock formations this close to the coastal plain?
Raven Rock was a great place for nature compostitions. This was a symphony of yellow.
We all loved the roots of these two trees, juxtaposed near the cliff wall. They squiggle down from the trees like a mass of serpents. Very creepy, but very cool.
The view from the overlook. It doesn't look as bad as I thought it might, given the state of our current drought, but you can still see the large expanse of exposed shore. This is far creepier than the snake roots - seeing our river dry up.

All in all, a great way to spend "Black Friday", in my opinion. We loved Raven Rock - it was so beautiful and woodsy, and far more rest-for-the-soul than fighting the crowds at the malls. Fuhget abowt it - I'm shopping on the internet and staying away from the dens of insanity. If you live nearby and would like to visit Raven Rock, here is a map:

Passing Season

I took a picture of this place, from a slightly different spot a few weeks ago. since then, I've been watching the color change and become more dramatic, almost daily. I think its finally at the peak of what its going to do, so here ya go:

Try comparing it to the earlier shot, you'll see just how much color change there has been. Pretty cool. The changing seasons caught in the act!

The boys were with me this morning when I took this picture. They hadn't gotten out of the car at that place before and were all impressed with the old bridge that sits below the newer one. The newer one was built after Hurricane Fran, because the older, and much littler bridge was done in by the torrential rains that not only came with Fran, but had preceeded it, for most of a week prior.

With the sun off to my right, and not directly on this area, it doesn't look nearly as vivid as the other pond shot, which was nicely lit up. Not that I really have time to do it, but it would be interesting to stay out there all day, shooting different variations of the same place, as the sun passes over. I know, its the kind of compulsive thing only an artist would find pleasure in - a hundred pictures of the same place, at different times of day, maybe even weather. Its sort of like trying on shoes, or dresses for a formal occasion - they aren't all going to fit right, or look right - you have to try on a bunch.

The heating guys are here today, putting in the new heater/ac system. Oh Happy Day! As picturesque as a fire can be, it doesn't heat the whole house, and its way too much smokiness and dryness for my seasonally outraged sinuses (they don't call me "Kaa" like the snake in the Jungle Book because I'm skinny - hahahhaa, skinny....my hair is skinny, does that qualify me?). I think we may have to give up our first-born to pay for the new heater, but what the hey!!!

Beauty and the Beast

I'm posting this late Tuesday night, because tomorrow, on Wednesday, I will be up to my behunkus (ma butt) in small children and do-gooding at school. (It also sort of goes with the Sprawling Rant, so there ya go!)

Ok, ha-hum. Hah-hum...(clearing my throat) (oh right, like you don't need to ever get into the mood- What. Ever.) (and yes, Bea, I'm making the finger gesture you have coined, right now!)

I love Fall! It is really my favorite season, in spite of being so close to the hectic (and depressing) mayhem of Christmas. Sometimes it seems we are in such a hurry to get on to Christmas, that we miss the whole Fall thing.

Before the kids were in school, we could go for morning walks and watch the seasons change a little bit every day. We still do some of that, but its on the drive to school instead (see my post about the pond shot).

This picture is the view from my backyard. I love the crimson of the maple tree as it peeks from behind the stubbornly still-green pecan tree. Its been too dry for the really dramatic colors this year, but the maples can always be counted on to make the best show.

I missed this old tobacco barn when I got out and shot some stuff nearby, was it last week? After talking about it with the Big Gorilla Man, who also liked this place, I decided to go back and get a shot of it. It's going to fall in anyday now, it would seem, and with the fabulous colors of the trees, it was just so beautiful. I'm sure it won't be long before this old barn is razed, and yet another cookie-cutter subdivision takes its place.

Deep Sigh...my cute little town is rapidly disappearing, and being replaced with some generic "Edge City" that has no soul, no history, no pride in itself. It is no longer the small town where everyone was friendly and knew each other. Its very sad to me - if I had the means, we would be long-gone.

Ok, I promise to "hang by the neck" all day on Wednesday, "until I CHEER UP!"

Sprawling Rant

Ah, Progress! Growth!
All I know is that it makes my town look like this:


Instead of leaving it well alone, so it looks like this:
(Note the blurriness of this - it is a true drive-by shooting)
This house had a fantastically huge yard and a grove of oaks nearby, until the road had to be widened to accomodate the multitudes who have swarmed here recently. Somehow, it doesn't seem like a good or fair trade, but then, Im not the Fat-Cat developer who made millions off raping the land, so what do I know?

It still hasn't occurred to the city and town managers that all this growth is a BIG part of why we have no drinking water left, after January. I'm sure Fortune Magazine, who periodically reports Raleigh as a super place to live and work, neglects to mention all the problems growth has caused - congested highways that are sub-par, overcrowded schools, and diminishing resources. It does make it hard to sell the many million dollar homes in the area, when the prospective buyers learn that they can't fill their pools or jacuzzis; or water their brand-new sod yards. Over half of all the homes bought in Wake County last year were foreclosed this year, and they are still building more.

Why does it make me crazy? Why doesn't it make other people crazy? I don't know - I guess they don't love trees and open spaces as much as I do. I guess a strip-mall on every corner is more important than woods, parks, clean air and fresh water to them. Me? I want to find a million dollar internet business so I can get the hell out of here, before they issue Still Suits, like in Dune.