Iced Tea Chat

Take your choice of iced tea, or I'll make you a Dalgona coffee if you can bear the caffeine.  For me it's all one and the same.  Caffeine in tea or caffeine in coffee or Coca-Cola all may or may not keep me awake at night depending upon where I am in my personal unnatural sleep cycle.  The Dalgona is a nice treat drink if you'd like that.  Otherwise there's oranges, limes, and mint leaves you might put in your tea.  

Come settle with me here near the window and we'll watch the rabbits on the lawn.  They are prolific this year as are squirrels.  I put this down to Maddie's failing eyesight and the cat's age.  No one can be bothered these days.  Maddie made a show of running at what she felt might be a rabbit the other afternoon but didn't go more than ten jogs across the lawn and then turned back with her tail wagging and a sheepish grin.  In her favor, it was a rabbit but he remained so still I think she lost confidence and decided she was just foolin'.

I've been thinking...Well I have and about lots of different things.  Some blog related, some personal, some financial.  My mind has been ticking along.  Notice I'm not mentioning the latest crisis in our nation.   I can't.  I just can't talk about because my thoughts are a tangled jumble and I'm heartsick overall.  But my mind has been there, thinking on it all.  Rhonda shared last week that her blog was about homemaking and that was what she'd write about and honestly folks I think it's best to stick with what we really come to share.  It's not that what's ongoing isn't important or hasn't affected me.   The beauty of this blog is that I don't know what color anyone on the other side is except for maybe three or four of you.  I write from my heart and where I am and have been in my life and I daresay as with all things there are places I've been that some of you have been, too and others where you can't even imagine the journey through.  I hope my heart speaks to yours and through that you know me.

This past week or so marked five years since the pulmonary embolisms threw me off my game for a bit.  I look back and find I'm a good deal stronger physically than I was then.   I've kept the Diabetes under control for five years without need of medication other than Metformin twice a day and trying to be smart about my diet.   I survive.  

There have been lots of changes in those five years.  I look back and can't believe all we've gone through personally, emotionally, physically, mentally, financially and nationally.  But we survive.

 I tell you sincerely I am weary.  Which is something we all seem to keep saying.  And we are.

But my thinking this weekend has brought me to a few conclusions.   For one thing, I need daily contact with nature if I can manage it.  Two things happened which drove this home this week.  On Saturday evening, Bess called asking to borrow children's pain reliever for Millie who had been crying non-stop due to teething woes.    

I went out and stood on the back porch to wait on Bess to come over and discovered that we had the most beautiful sunset skies out there.  The air had gone soft and just barely cool and felt rather delicious to be honest.  The cicadas were singing loudly and the fireflies looked like flashbulbs popping.  I've never seen so many or such huge fireflies as we have this year.

Bess walked over instead of driving as I expected and I merely said "Fireflies" and she responded "Aren't they awesome?!  I've NEVER seen them like this!"   Even after Bess left, despite the mosquitoes nibbling away at my legs, I stood on the porch and just drank it all in.

The second thing was yesterday morning.  I was puttering about the house and thought I'd empty the compost bucket.  Then I thought of the chicken bucket that was full in the fridge and thought I'd just walk over and feed the chickens, too.  And then I remembered the children's clothes that were put in the laundry basket when they spent the night last week and so I picked those up intending to take them back to Bess since the house is just across the yard from the chicken pen.   

It was overcast and heavily humid but walking across the field is a joy to me.  I spied wild white clover that was two and a half feet tall and blackberries and some Queen's Lace in bud which pleases me no end.   And walking the land makes me think of Granny so that's no hardship as you can imagine.

So I walked over and fed the hens and rooster and then went in and held the children and chatted with Bess.  I had to cool off because the walk isn't long but it was sooo humid out.  I admired the work Bess had done on the house.  She's torn up the old multi level decking around the side of the house and ripped out the wonky railing across the front porch and boy did just that little bit of work (not a 'bit' in time or energy I'll tell you!) make a huge difference in their home's appearance.

But it was the walk back that really just set me straight in my own mind.  I picked blackberries.  I walked into the secret meadow area which is and isn't secret.  There's a delightful little arched passage  between a small copse of trees into a cleared area that opens into the main cleared area but it really does seem secretive somehow and the aspect of the open area from there is different and it's just special.    I walked past the old cemetery that we can't even bring ourselves to think of how we'll start reclaiming though we all long to do so and I walked down my own fence line on the opposite side and then back again.  I walked down the old track that over the years has turned into a beautiful sloping lawn towards my brother's former home and I swear Granny walked with me the whole while. 

I said I picked blackberries and I did.  They were HUGE thanks no doubt to that last heavy rain shower we had on Friday when the yard flooded within a 40 minute shower.  I looked hard where I was putting my feet because I'd only worn flip flops out the door. I really did mean just to walk to the compost and here I had walked a good mile I reckon (and I'll probably discover it's something like half a mile, lol).

The blackberries are nearly done but there were some lovely black glistening berries hanging near the path.  As I reached into the prickly branches to retrieve the few I could get to within reach, I admired the fat and lovely beauties that were deeper in.  Oh for a pair of real shoes at that moment!  I said I looked before I put my feet down.  I looked for ant hills and snakes.  I could hear Granny's voice telling me that snakes like to stretch out under the briars.  I suppose because it's such a nice hiding spot for rabbits and some types of baby birds and frogs.  I gathered a few berries here and a few there and I listened.

I could hear the occasional gentle stirrings of rabbits and the blue jays raucous screeches of "Thief! Thief!"    I watched butterflies flutter on milkweed (also prolific this year) and admired seed pods and wild flowers and grasses.

I guess I spent a good hour outdoors.  I think it's one of the few times in recent memory I've been outdoors for that long a time and I wasn't working hard.  I realized that with a proper pair of shoes there's plenty of this land I can explore once again and places I might safely walk now that it's not deer season.  I've felt such an urge to get out there once again and walk the property as I did as a child, a young teen, a young mom.   

It was lovely.  It was good medicine.  I'd already recognized that this was something I've been needing more of in my life and it was as good as I knew it would be.

I need other things, too.  I need less news.  And less Facebook.  And less Instagram and Pinterest which lead to endless comparisons.  I need an education in how to do a gentler form of homesteading.   I need more sunsets and flashing fireflies and fluffy bunny tails disappearing in a thicket of briars.  I need blackberries in season and to make jelly from them once again instead of missing the season entirely.  

I'm on my fourth book in thirty days.  That's wonderful.  It is really.  I can't name the number of books I used to read in a year's time but lately it's a handful a year perhaps.  I miss reading.  I miss getting deeply lost in a book to the point that I don't hear the television or people speaking or recall that I'm sitting in the middle of a city with horns and sirens.  I want to become one with the characters and live in the villages or houses and taste the tea served and admire the scenery and smooth the new dress down or sob with a character who has faced a grief.  I don't want to be aware of anything but that book.  I miss being able to live and breathe in another era, in another country, while sitting in my living room in Georgia in 2020.  

I need music.  Not New Age music which I sought out for years and now find irritating as snot.  No I want real music.  "The Lark Ascending".  "The Flower Duet". "Clare de Lune".  I want cellos and french horns and violins and pianos.   Or sultry jazzy voices that are quiet and powerful and clear and evocative of heartbreak and love and hope.  Or powerful worship music that makes me think "Oh!  Yes, take me by the corners of my soul and shake me, Lord!"  

I need flowers.  And if not real ones then really really good imitations.   I don't care if they are pricey.  There's something to be said for peonies of silk that makes people ask "Oh how beautiful?  Where did you buy peonies?" and then are astonished when you reply "Walmart."  or "Hobby Lobby".  But real flowers too.   I have orange daylilies at present.  Deep pink Chrysanthemums.  Blue hydrangea.  Dianthus of pink and white and magenta.   Too few flowers but I'm trying.  There are a few zinnia and cosmos coming up.  I know if I cut  them regularly they'll keep blooming. 

I need beautiful things even if they are second hand.  I need to see lovely things and to feel my home is a source of beauty to others.

I need time to relearn things I've forgotten, like how to can vegetables and how to make jelly.   How to make a blouse or dressing gown.  And to learn new things: how to make a sourdough starter, how to make Pita bread, how to garden and grow foods seriously.  I want to learn about herbs and essential oils and foraging I might do about my own land.

But I don't do any of those things.  I sit in my chair after I've done housework and made a meal and I look through the same hundreds of Pins on Pinterest or watch the same YouTube channels which don't incorporate any of those things I've mentioned or look at posts on Facebook and Instagram from a handful of people I know and a lot more from people I don't.  

And then I say how tired I am.   I am.  I'm tired of this life when there's a real one right here beyond the  screen, be it phone or computer.  When I realize that I have to ask myself, "Why am I trading my time for things that mean nothing when the meaningful things are right here?"   

I can say there's not enough time in life for all I want to do...Well there isn't.  I would need to make choices.  Do I really want to keep trading my time for a piece of glass and satellite waves?

I do enjoy the benefits of the internet and such.  I enjoy getting to see how to do things that I would have had to spend hours researching in libraries and bookstores or trial and errored my way through a hundred times.  I love the easy access to music and ballets and cultural things  that I'd otherwise not ever know about.  There's KNOWLEDGE here but I'm misusing it and that's a fact.  

Well loves, all that to say that I'm going to take a break from the screens for a bit.  And from the blog.   I need a vacation.  At least a couple of weeks to get my head around all the things I've been thinking and to figure out how to get these things in my life.  I'm not quitting writing.  I'm hoping more than anything to come back with fresh inspiration and a whole lot more things to share than I've had in months.

But I'm done chatting just yet...

Someone commented this past week and asked how I was adjusting to John's being home all the time.  On the one hand, it's rather nice.  I missed a lot more than the average amount of time with him in our marriage due to his crazy schedules.   It's awfully nice to have him along for a grandchild's birthday or to go to church with, etc.  

But I can't say there aren't adjustments to be made.  John hasn't any real hobbies.  For 26 years he spent his days working and his off days were devoted to mowing lawn which is about 9 months of the year here, plus running errands and doing some activity at church beyond service.   But personal hobbies just never came up.  He's missing having a sense of purpose.  I've suggested he spend a little time each day doing some of the bigger jobs he wants to do in the yard.  Now and then he has a small engine project or a small project and he really enjoys it and then it's done and he's at loose ends all over again.     Our budget demands we not travel overmuch or spend time eating out and since everyone we know works as well and in 24 years we've never really become part of this community, because we don't work here, shop here or go to church here...Well...there aren't others with whom to spend time.

So he watches television.  A LOT of television.  Which means the television is on for hours everyday and often with his favorite news and politic op eds.    And that makes it hard for me to shelter in my own safe little world and ignore the drama and idiocy and horrors.  So I get increasingly anxious and can't shut it all off in my head.  That part is hard.

What is nice is that we do still make time for dates even if we are mostly together 24/7 most weeks.   Today we had a lovely picnic at a lake, another state park within an hour's drive of home.   Our budget allows for once a month eating out and then we'll do picnics for dates otherwise.  Not a hardship and especially not when the weather is pleasant, though we have a knack for picnicking in the rain and finding the coldest spots.

Today was humid as everything and overcast and sunny in terms. I'd checked my weather app to determine if we ought to go ahead and we were clear until 2pm.  I packed us a meal and off we went.  We'd been there perhaps two minutes when the rain came in and the wind blew misty drops over us and I told John, "We really should have brought soup..."   Our dinner was a good one but it was cold.  And I hadn't brought coffee because the weather was so warm...

We were lucky to have an unused shelter with picnic tables.  My meal was best suited to a table, not a lap!   I considered us fortunate in that aspect.   

We also were near the lake and watched excitedly as a fisherman strained and strained to bring aboard the fish he'd caught.  And we laughed when the fish proved to be about as big as his hand.  Brim always fight harder than a big mouth bass!   Most thrilling of all was seeing Eagles.  Not bald eagles, but eagles.  It was my first time ever seeing one.

On our way home we topped a hill near the site of the old ferry that used to cross the river and I recalled how one sunny evening after a rain shower my friend who passed away at the start of this pandemic (not related) and I once saw the most beautiful suspension of heaven and earth separated by low lying clouds.  Below was green and misty and lovely and above were all the colors of the sunset.  I thought back to other moments I considered magical and then wondered how long it's been since I saw anything magical...It's been a long time.  Why?  Do I not look for those truly special things anymore?  Am I so reclusive these days that I miss the opportunities?  Is it that the atmosphere about us is so disturbed and off kilter anymore that those moments just don't occur?  I don't know.  I just know it's been a long time.

Well dears, it's evening and end of this day, so I shall close here.  Again I'll remind you that after I post "This Week In My Home" on Friday, I'm going to disappear for a couple of weeks.  It's time to take a rest, past time, really.   And I'm ready for it.  

Talk to you again soon!  We'll have tea, soon as I'm back once more.  Good night, dears.