It's the Little Things

I was puttering in the kitchen a minute ago when a potted plant outside caught my eye.  The pesky squirrels have been busy gathering walnuts from the tree above and ground near by the plant.  In their frenzy they knocked the plant over.  Annoyed at the interruption I headed outside to set it right.  
As I turned back towards the house I was greeted by the darting and hovering of a tiny hummingbird visiting the patch of impatiens blooming at my feet. Had those squirrels, my arch nemisizes and declared enemies, not bumped into the plant and tipped it over I would not have stepped outside at the precise minute the hummingbird arrived.  I stood quietly for a matter of minutes while the hummingbird tasted the sweetness of each pink flower in the bed, flitted on to sample the plants filling the patio, and then headed out to the garden for a dessert of pumpkin blossom nectar before journeying on to brighten someone else's day.
I have to thank those dog-gone squirrels for helping me shift my focus from the annoyances I see in the distance to all the positive little things that surround me in abundance.

Ten Things of Thankful

Nature

Particularly the hummingbird

And the squirrels--though I recognize that they still believe they have squatters' rights to my garden, and we will tangle again

The anticipation of watching tomatoes grow riper on the vine (slowly) each day

The lesson of patience taught in a garden

Blessed rain that has fallen on our parched earth this week

The deep and restful sleep that can be had during a rainstorm

The tinges of orange beginning to show on the pumpkins

A break in the intense heat and humidity

And the delight found in a plant that unexpectedly blooms in hearts

Flights of Fancy: Ten Things of Thankful

I was working in the garden today when a fluttering nearby caught my eye.  A beautiful moth the size of my palm flapped and stumbled across the blades of grass. Curious, I moved closer.  The moth moved more frantically, but didn't fly away.  After watching for a bit I was convinced it was injured and unable to fly.  Worried for its safety, I moved it to the patio placing it in a potted plant.  I finished the task I had been working on and hurried back to the patio to see what could be done for the moth only to discover it was gone, apparently of its own free will. 

I thought about that moth long after it was gone.  It's been a while since something so simple has made me stop and take stock this way.  I let my imagination take flight with that moth, wondering, daydreaming, and remembering what it is like to be curious.

That lovely winged creature left me feeling gratitude to a degree I haven't experienced in a while.  Gratitude for the most simple of things.  In the end they are the things that matter the most.

Curiousity

Color

Nature

Surprise

Quiet

Gentleness

Creatures who ask nothing of me

Air

Relaxation

Beauty

Ten Things of Thankful

The Gate

Too many people spend their energy building walls.  So much effort is put into separating “us” from “them”.  Race, lifestyle, religion, politics…each a brick piled one on the other until the wall finally keeps us apart, isolating us from the richness we could experience, robbing us of a deeper understanding of life.  I am bone-tired of so many walls;  oh, for the gift of a gate.

Although these words could have been penned today,  I actually wrote down these thoughts in 2015.

Operation Apple Recovery

This summer I am engaged in war with the local squirrel population.  We are competing for the apples and tomatoes I am growing.  So,far I am not winning. Thinking of other gardens and epic battles with nature's creatures of the past, I went back in the archives to remind myself that occasionally I do win a battle.

Last Fall we enjoyed our first crop of apples.  We had planted the tree years ago and had grown several crops.  Every year we saw the branches fill with apples.  We watched as they got larger and closer to ripeness, our mouths watering at the thought of the yummy treats a tree full of apples could produce.  Every year just as we had begun counting down the days until harvest,  we would go to bed one night with the vision of  a luscious tree of fruit in our heads only to wake the next day to empty branches.  No sign that there had ever been apples remained.  Apple, core, stem,  all were gone along with our dreams of homemade apple sauce and the crunch of a sweet juicy apple.

This was an affront we could no longer tolerate.  So, we became detectives looking for clues.  Chief suspects?  A yard full of squirrels, the mama possum who brazenly scaled the back fence each and every night, and most likely the pair of raccoons that we fought to keep out of the chimney.

Each growing season saw a new plan of attack.  We researched natural repellents for each of the suspects.  We sprayed the tree with hot pepper spray which might as well have been pure water for all the repulsion it provided. We covered the tree from top to trunk in netting.  That became problematic when both a bird and squirrel found a way into the netting and we couldn't figure a way out for them without placing ourselves within striking distance.  We covered the trunk in an attempt to make it impossible to climb, but apparently our thief  used the fence to jump into the tree rather than climb.  Each growing season began with high hopes for our latest battle plan only to end with a stripped tree.

Last spring my husband had had enough.  He came home one night wild eyed a live trap in tow. When I asked what would happen if he actually caught anything, he grinned and said we would figure that out if and when we had success.  Up the trap went to the roof of the sleeping porch.  It was fortified with cat food which was reportedly irresistable to raccoons.  Every night my husband scaled a ladder to the rooftop and the trap was baited.  Every morning back up he went to find the trap sprung and the food missing.  This was our routine as the high school prom approached.

When my daughter and her date arrived home in the wee hours they startled a humongous raccoon who scurried away from them almost as quickly as they scurried from him.  The enormous creature attempted to shinny up the downspot but awkward and portly (apparently from eating trees full of fruit), he lost his balance somewhere near the roof.  He scraped along the uneven rocks of the second floor as he tumbled down the side of the stone house.  The kids hurried inside wide eyed as a thud sounded in the bushes.  The next morning there was no sign of the raccoon himself but the side of the house was covered in a trail of raccoon blood.  War is hell.

One villain down-literally-the trap and the battle moved to the back fence area.  To our surprise it captured not one but two opossums.   There is a trick to removing these unattractive creators from the trap as they really do "play possum" and convincingly so.  You can be completely convinced you are removing a corpse when you suddenly face a mouth filled with tiny spiky teeth and a spitty sounding hiss issuing forth.  The details on this stage of Operation Apple Recovery are too ugly to share.  Suffice it to say the opossum family no longer resides out back.

While Man vs. Wild played out on Westwood the tree silently produced its best crop yet.  Picking time approached.  We were optimistic but not overly confident.  The yard still teemed with dozens of squirrels who had not been eliminated as suspects themselves.  They seemed to taunt us with their chipper scampering around the tree, but each morning we awoke to branches still brimming with apples.  Although we still don't know who the real culprit was, when harvest came last fall the apples were ours for the picking.

We enjoyed apples in the fall until we could eat no more.  I made some simple syrup and added lemon juice to cover and freeze apple slices. Now from time to time I pull out a container of those apples and cook them on the stovetop with some cinnamon.  I run them through the blender and have yummy homemade applesauce for lunch and a house that smells absolutely wonderful.  Also, it is a healthy treat which is important.  We need to be in tip top shape because apple growing season is just around the corner.

April 2011

Sweet Corn

The father-in-law of one of the secretaries at my school has farmed his whole life.  Though he reached the age when many people retire years ago, there are parts of farming that he can’t let go.  Every year he grows sweet corn on a scale that must be considered more crop than garden.  Everyone at our school benefits from his efforts.

I decided to preserve the corn I received after finding food.com’s instructions for freezing fresh corn.  Step 1:Shucking the Corn is the kind of chore that can be done while your mind is  a million miles away.  My mind was on the back porch on a hot summer day in the early 1970s.  Sitting on the concrete stoop I happily worked through a stack of corn that someone had given to our family helping to stretch the food budget required to fill the bottomless bellies of so many growing children.

Corn on the cob was one of the best things about summer in my mind.  I could make a meal of buttery, sweet corn.  I loved pretending with my brothers that our corn eating was like fingers flying across the keys of a typewriter reaching the end of the page with a ding and returning to the other side for yet another line.

I took pride in my ability to remove more of the corn silks than my older brothers could.  No one would get a silk caught like floss in their teeth as long as I was performing quality control.  I often reworked ears of corn my brothers had deemed ready for the pot of boiling water shaking my head at their feeble attempts.

Step 2:  Cook the ears in boiling, salted water for four minutes.  The steam rising above my huge soup pot as I drop in each ear causes my glasses to fog over.  I think of my mother in her hot kitchen.  Our house was cooled–on those summers that it was cooled at all–by a single window air unit positioned in the living room at the farthest point from the kitchen possible.  Standing near the steaming pot in my own comfortable kitchen I suddenly remember that there was at some point during my childhood a unit in the window by the kitchen pantry.  I don’t recall it ever being there, but a memory of my dad removing it floats through my brain.  I am peeking at him from inside as he works outside the window.  Normally, he would grin at me but in this memory he is discouraged.  Why had I never made the connection between this memory and the many memories of my mother’s flushed face as she stood working at the hot stove?

Step 3:  Lay the ears on a clean dishtowel to drain and cool.
Step 4: Once cooled to the touch, stick the end of an ear into the opening of the center tube of an angel food or bundt cake pan.  Using a paring knife cut the kernels from the cob letting them fall into the cake pan.  Going through the motions I can’t help but notice how much my hands have come to resemble my mother’s. Her hands are the things I remember most vividly about her perhaps because they were always moving, always delving into some project that would directly benefit me.

Step 5: Melt butter (1/3 cup was perfect for a dozen ears) , drizzle over the corn and toss.  Place corn in an airtight container and freeze.

I tasted the corn before slipping it into my freezer and smiled at the same buttery goodness I remember from my childhood.  I started this project with the idea I was preserving corn, but came to understand I was really preserving memories.  Memories of childhood summers with simple pleasures in a family who surrounded me in love.

Make Lemonade TToT

Life has been crazy lately.  Too many things to get done in too little time.  Spring refused to spring for far too long. A couple weekends ago though we didn't really have the time or energy, we slipped away to view Tulips at Twilight at the local botanical gardens.  Many of the tulips had refused to bloom due to unseasonably cold weather, so the parks people sprinkled light displays throughout the garden instead--a visible example of the philosophy that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade.  The result soothed my soul.

Ten Things of Thankful

Beauty

People willing to work to improve life for us all

Truth

Community

Gardens

Actual spring finally arriving

Respite

Light

Vision

Love

Patience

Prompt: Select a picture from a previous April

I have been so frustrated with the spring that just won't spring this year.  Winter clings for dear life when all I want is a lawn scattered with colorful tulips and blossoming trees.  I had nearly come to believe that we would never see spring this year when I came across this post which tells how I felt these same feelings in 2013.  The good news is that I wrote another post about a week to ten days later celebrating the flowers that filled my yard. Maybe spring 2018 really is just around the corner.

Wiping sleep from my eyes I grab my phone and pull up Accuweather.  The screen displays a temperature barely above freezing and the words, “It’s much colder than you’d like.”

I am so ready to feel the dirt in my fingers, to breathe in its rich smell of life. I’m ready to stroll the neighborhood and linger under the blooms of the crabapple on the corner.  I dream of the heady perfume from the row of lilac bushes on 19th Street.  I want to see the promise held in the blooms on the fruit trees out back.  Instead, I satisfy myself puttering amid the potted plants and seedlings which line the countertop of the mudroom.  I look through the windows and imagine the beauty waiting to emerge outside knowing spring would still my restlessness.

My mind drifts to other potential things waiting to blossom in my life.  My temporary job has been offered to me permanently.  I didn’t anticipate the offer and am not at all certain yet what my best response would be.  All three of my kids are sifting through options and potential plans to determine where they will be this fall.  Their decisions will affect the courses of their lives and might take some as far away as Paris.  So much potential lies waiting to make itself known in our lives.  Anxious to know the answers, I fidget through days that feel suspended in time.

Every season brings its own lesson if we are willing to learn.  The lesson of Spring 2013 would appear to be patience.

Spring Bouquet

I recently drove halfway across the country from Kansas to North Carolina.  I had looked forward to the drive anticipating budding trees, green fields, and wild flowers.  I was surprised to find that spring was not springing anywhere along my route.  Maybe my return trip will be more colorful.  Meanwhile, I have to be content with these photos of flowers from a springtime past.

Garden flowers circa Spring 2013

 I cut a fist full of flowers in the garden the other day, picking ones I liked without a thought about what might go well together.

One by one I dropped each stem into a glass of water surprised how well they harmonized, each color complimenting the next. None of them competed, drowning out the others in a bid for attention.  Instead, the presence of one made the next all the more beautiful.

There is a lot we could learn in the garden.

Surprise, because there was no Spring yet.

And So It Goes

I heard a rustling as I lay in bed reading late the other night.  A swishing, hushed sound reminded me of noises heard in the darkened backstage of a ballet as dancers hurriedly swept by one another their satin tutus brushing.

The light of day revealed the source of rustling as trembling leaves that slid past the branches of a neighboring tree and continued downward bringing with them our hopes of hanging onto our dying oak tree for one more October.

This tree has stood proud sentinel at our house since 1931.  It has shaded us and others from the heat of the day and served as base for games of hide and seek.  Like a resolute palace guard it managed not to flinch even when draped in ribbons of toilet paper following a teenage prank.

As much as I dread the thought of cutting it down, this mighty oak is much too dignified to continue losing great chunks of itself until it finally falls.  

There is a sting that accompanies the demise of the grand oak, an acknowledgement that time for each of us is fleeting and finite.

MamaKat

a story in eight lines

A Look Back at a Pretty Great June

June brought me some of the best that summer has to offer:

A road trip across America that took me to Missouri,

North Carolina,

Kentucky (and Tennessee too),

and Illinois.

After a week of home projects with my daughter in North Carolina, I returned to Kansas where along with my other daughter and my sister I helped tackle major wall paper removal.

As the home improvements slowed down, I visited the garden and noticed signs that the first round of potatoes were ready to be dug.  They are delicious! 

Oh, June, if only I could figure out a way for you to come more than once a year!

http://www.mamakatslosinit.com

Sharing photos that best represent my June.

Tulip Time & Thanks

The past couple weeks has been Tulip Time in Topeka.  The gardens in our old neighborhood at Ward-Meade Park have been filled with color.  Walking the paths puts a person in such a positive frame of mind it's the perfect place to make a list of things for which I am thankful.

The gift of sight and the riot of colors in the garden.  

The rain that has softened the dry, inhospitable ground of a month ago.

The final quarter of the school year and the push towards the summer break.

The joy of anticipation as I begin to fill the calendar with events coming up this summer.

Good news...a dental position for my daughter, and a separate thankful that the position is in Topeka and she will soon be home.  In other good news...acceptance to a summer study program at Oxford for my son.  

There is so much goodness in my life right now, it required an explosion of color to convey how thankful I feel.  

TToT