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Mission Accomplished

IMGP0725Well my mission has been accomplished. KRP mentioned a few weeks ago that she really wished that we  had some plants in the backyard, some flowers to look at and smell.

As I mentioned I have slowly been cleaning up the yard and planting flowers and other plants. I put some mint and peppermint in pots where the breeze (when we have one) blows through the fence and catches the minty smell. I planted a fern in the shady corner and set up a couple of our camp chairs for now.IMGP0678

The best surprise – it is her birthday on the 30th – I found a water fountain that I could afford and got it set up. There are not a lot of things I can manage to do for her now days. Money is tight too. I swear I need to sleep all next week but I got it done! I even got the mess of potting soil etc cleaned up everyday so if she looked out the sliding door she would not notice the small changes. This also meant that I had to scoop the poop and wash down the patio each day. I think she wondered what had gotten into me as I am not big on the poop detail with any regularity. Once a day and I figure it is someone else’s turn :mrgreen:

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It may not look like much and I am not fluent in gardenese but I think when the plants all grow out it will look pretty cool.  Last night I found her fast asleep with her book – she said the fountain sound was very relaxing.

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Power to the Flower

flower Boy oh boy! I actually finished something that involved physical labor.

First off to get the magnitude of my little project – emm magnitude and little? Oh well. Our little backyard if yo can really call it that has a small brick planter along the shed wall. I used to fill it full of flowers every spring until our dog Buddy Boxer arrived. He liked uprooting the flowers and bringing them into the house so he could sit there and stare at them. Then we tried vegetables. He liked to uproot radishes and eat them, carrots, tomato’s – you get the picture. So, we just sort of stopped planting anything in it and it soon became the junk pile.

Under the silver tarp there were boxes full of 12×12″ ceramic floor tiles and underneath them misc. wood, bricks, and general junk. The operative word in the last sentence  is “were”.   Last visit Billy moved most of the tiles into the shed for me. So that left some tile boxes and lots of junk!

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For the past week or so I have been slowly clearing out the junk.  Then I decided to plant something that would survive all year round and that Catfish and Annie would leave alone.  First went in three Lilies of the Nile. They well eventually (and hopefully) fill in the one side of the planter. Then I moved my Aloe Vera plant to the other side ad it was so root bound in its pot.  Next I put in sweet basil, thymine, sage, rosemary, and some flowers.  I now hope that I do not forget to water them 🙂 .

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Well, part of the little backyard is done. I have a hanging planter with flowers in to go up along the fence but it is dang hot out there now so I stopped for now.

My Reality Map and Eating Elephants

reflectionIt is difficult to see the world as it is sometimes. MS has been warping my reality, changing things, not especially in a way I particularly like.  I can put my mind to over coming, maybe better stated: stubbornly refusing to accept limitations, or I can try to go with the flow, better stated: listen to others view on the subject.

Each has its points. When I push, I end up exhausted and sometimes I even hurt my little self, yet I accomplish something. When I believe I cannot, or should not do something I end up pissed and/or frustrated but those around me worry less.

In the late 70’s I worked in a small appliance repair shop. The man who owned it had been in business over 30 years. It was an interesting place. The watermark line high up on the walls was from the 1955 flood. Scribbled on the bathroom wall in faded black there were two sayings – “purdy boy floyd was here” and below in red lettering “you can’t eat an elephant in one bite”.

The owner Ed had a theory that if you did not paint over something, never cleaned anything (yep dirt was good in Ed’s mind) than it was always there as a reminder a mark in time. He really was right, I did ask who Floyd was and found out he was a drunk that Ed sponsored and he scribbled on that wall when he got drunk again, stole the shops moneyand left town. Ed was right because he left the mark someone living still remembers about Floyd.

As for the elephant saying, that was Ed’s, he scribbled it there one day doing his thing. That it was best I not forget that saying because it was all he thought I needed to know to get along in the world. I have since heard different versions of the saying but Ed was right – I can eat an elephant in one bite.

My map of reality is warped, I tell yah, warped.

First Fishing Trip

janslide (68)I guess it is all the crazy things going on but I have been going through all the old slides that my father has taken through the years. Then I noticed many folks seem to be reminiscing also so I figured I join in.

Here I be on my first real fishing trip.  We were at a cabin at Echo Lake and the pole you see there sort of ended up with the tip in the lake. I remember my dad getting it back out somehow and all was well.  It was really a special deal because my dad rented a row boat  one day  so we could fish out in the middle of the lake instead of from the shore.

My mom cooked the trout up for us and my brother and I felt ever so special having caught the dinner. And, yes we had to clean them ourselves. Not particularly a nifty thing but we were allowed to use a knife under my dads supervision – so it was worth it.

Those are my dads waders (and hat) I have on, you figure he is 6’4″ and I am only 5’5″ now. My brother and I loved to get into my dads shoes and stomp about it somehow made us feel larger and important LOL.

Lost in the years of photo weeding out are all my pictures of chipmunks that I spent hours luring in so I could take a picture of them with my little brownie camera.  I remember my mom not particularly thinking that attracting rodents was a good thing and my little brother kept scaring them away to make me mad.

On this trip we also hiked up to the top of Echo Summit. We had a picnic up there and complained all the way back down because we were two tired kids.