Winter's Blooms

Yesterday.

February 22,  2012.

We spotted the first crocus in our yard.

 In case that didn't sink in, I said flowers blooming in Iowa in February.

I'm sure this isn't the first time this has ever happened, but in the 20-plus years I've lived in Iowa I don't remember another winter that's been this warm and devoid of snow.

We haven't had a single below zero temperature reading all winter.  We've only had one somewhat significant snowfall and even it didn't hang around very long.

Believe me, I'm not complaining.

When the temperature hit 50-something earlier this week my daughter and I walked around the lake without our coats and were quite comfortable.

Today it's back down to the upper 30s, but it's raining, not snowing.

Spring is just around the corner.  I'm looking forward to it just as much as if we'd had a terribly cold and snowy winter.

Mother Nature sure knows how to make me smile!

Valentine

Gussie loves you!

Two days in October

 Are you okay, Mom?

Whew.
Today is one of those days.
My fibromyalgia and EDS have decided to let me know that walking every day of the week last week was pushing things just a little too far.
But despite the all-encompassing fatigue and body aches the exercise was worth it.
I haven't been able to exercise - and by exercise I mean walking either 30 minutes on the elliptical or walking outside for at least a mile (maybe two) - this much since early September.
I had been going great guns - yoga alternating with walking - and feeling great.
Until early one morning in September when taking the dogs out my ankle gave way on the deck steps and down I went, full-force onto the patio.  I still have the scar on my knee from the scraping. I injured the heels of both hands, and sprained my ankle.
And just like that, with one splat, my exercising came to a screeching halt.
Now, the sprain wasn't a bad one, but I don't heal quickly these days, especially when I injure a joint.  I figured I just needed a couple of weeks and I'd be back in the saddle, so to speak.
In those intervening weeks I suffered an infected root canal, requiring antibiotics and pain meds and a quite unpleasant re-root canal.  I remained grounded.  The pain meds made me so loopy that I was pretty much bed-bound for a whole week. 
The only good thing about hydrocodone was that I could lie in bed all day and my back didn't hurt.
Finally, the infection cleared, and while I couldn't yet return to yoga, I was up for a little exercise, so we took a little trip to the dog park.
All was going well as I gingerly tested out my ankle and unused muscles.
Then it happened.
I recognized a man on the other side of the fence in the small dog area.  Actually, I recognized his dog.  I raised my hand, gave an  exuberant waive, calling out a gregarious "Hi!."
In the midst of this, I somehow stepped on an errant tennis ball.  We were on our way out of the park and were going at a good clip, when my waive coincided with stepping on that ball.
What happened next took only seconds, but was all slow motion in my head.  I felt myself going down, but my body automatically tried to save me by leaning forward and increasing my momentum.  I knew it was a lost cause.  I was going down and going down hard.
I crashed into the dirt, landing full force on my left side - hip, leg, shoulder, wrist and hand.
Of course I began to laugh hysterically, my daughters punctuating their cries of concern with crazed laughter of their own.
They helped me up, brushed me off, and I managed to limp to the car.
I don't think the guy with the dog even noticed what happened.  Either that or our slightly demented response scared him off.
So, what did I decide to do?
I was determined to regain my lost stamina, so the next day - yes, the very next day - I limped to the dog park.  All was going well as I ever so carefully minced my way over the rough ground keeping an eagle-eye for deadly tennis balls.  As we walked the exercise loop, Gus frolicked with two other puppies, a retriever of some sort and a super-fast something-or-other hound.  Rounding the corner, I was feeling good, when bam!  All three dogs careened into my legs from behind, knocking me off my feet.  I landed with a splat on my right side.  Hips, knee, legs, shoulder, wrist.
I didn't laugh this time.
The only consolation I had as I was helped to my feet was that this time wasn't my fault and Gussie stopped running long enough to make sure I was still breathing.
Ow.
I hobbled out of the dog park and managed to drive home to a big dose of Aleve.
I had injured my wrists badly enough with all the falls that I had to have my daughter do all the driving for a week.
It took weeks to recuperate enough for an occasional stroll outside, never mind the elliptical.
Now it's been months and I can finally walk most days, though I'm afraid my wrists will never be the same.
Recounting these events brought to mind a limerick I wrote for my 7th grade English class:

There once was a man from France
who tried to teach me to dance
I leaped in the air
and tripped over a chair
My, he exclaimed, you can't prance

Even then I lacked a certain gracefulness of movement.
And I still can't dance.
I seem to walk a fine line when it comes to exercise - a little too much and I'm done in, sometimes for a couple of days.  But when I hit it just right, oh, how much better I feel!
So today I'm going to need to rest a lot and my husband might very well need to make supper.
But tomorrow?
I'm aiming for the dog park.

Lazy

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon.
For me, that is.
My darling husband is busy washing bottles for his home brew.  This is his first batch in years and years, so I hope it turns out.
Poor guy had to do up the dishes before he could even reach the sink (I know, that doesn't really make sense, but without a photo I'm trying to give you an idea of just how many dirty dishes there actually were).
Our dishwasher conked out last week and this time it wasn't because of a fur clog.  I know this because my husband removed two fur clogs in the past couple of weeks - that's how long the dishwasher has been acting up.
Repair guys came yesterday - some little doohickey part isn't working properly - total repair cost?  Nearly $300.  Yep, that's 2/3 the cost of the 2 year-old dishwasher itself.
I think it's time to hit the library for a dishwasher repair manual before the next breakdown happens.
Granted, I do use the dishwasher a lot - often running two full loads a day, but still.
Nobody felt like washing the dishes last night, so they were lying in ambush for the first person who really needed to use the sink.
Enter darling husband.  He even had to wash up after his own morning cooking adventure - delicious blueberry buckle.
Love that stuff. 
Love him, too.
As I write this, one dog is zonked in front of the fire, dog number two is racked out on the couch soaking up some rays, and a cat is curled on the back of the couch.  I know she's actually asleep and not just 'resting' as her tail has stopped flicking.
Son No. 1 is on his laptop, slurping the first cup o' java of the day.  He must have had a late night.  Both girls are upstairs in their respective rooms doing homework - such good girls they are.
And I'm practicing my hobby - procrastination.
I'm trying to work up the oomph to get started on a new afghan, with new yarn, and a new pattern.  It's the new pattern that has me dithering.  As usual, any new project must have the requisite activation energy.
I'm pretty sure I'll overcome inertia later this afternoon.
Sometimes I worry that I don't get out enough, don't make the effort to expand my social circle.  And I probably don't.
But right now, here at home, is where I want to be.
I think I'll just sit back and soak it in.
For a while, anyway.

Sentinel

"Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all."
-- John Greenleaf Whittier

I have had an interesting relationship with trees.
Perhaps this is due to my father's influence.  As a horticulturist, it seems my dad was always either planting a tree, harvesting from a tree, pruning a tree, espalier-ing a tree, or even cutting down a tree 
My son jokes that whenever we move to a new house, something we've done quite a few times in the past decade or so, I set about murdering all the trees.
But I learned from my dad that a tree isn't just a tree and that trees need to be properly placed, both in relation to buildings and other plantings, as well as to usage and climate.
Sounds kind of snobby, but it really isn't.
I'm just particular about trees.
It bothers me to see a tree planted too close to a house or road, knowing that it's beauty will suffer as it grows squished up tightly to the building or its branches will end up being chopped off haphazardly when they grow to tangle in wires or interfere with traffic.  Some trees are "junk" trees, truly out of place in the city or suburbs.  If trees are too crowded none of them will do well, requiring a thinning of the stand.
I remember a trip to Wisconsin when I was about 7 when my dad dug a dozen or more pine trees, Blue Spruce, I think.  He probably had planted them on our property there as well, though I don't remember that.  We drove home, our VW Bus packed with trees and me perched on a box between the two front seats.  I don't remember who the trees were for initially, but I know some of them ended up planted around the perimeter of our backyard in Waseca, Minn.  That was more than 40 years ago, and sometimes I wonder if any of them are still there.
My son told me the other day that a pine tree we planted at our first house here in Iowa, three houses ago now, was recently cut down.  I remember my dad being here nearly 20 years ago when my boys, then 3 and 5, helped him and my husband plant that tree.  Every now and then I would drive through the old neighborhood just to take a look at that tree.  I suppose it had grown too large for the space or perhaps wasn't in good enough condition to remain. 
My parents used to drive up from Arkansas to visit us at Thanksgiving, a Christmas tree tied onto the back of their pickup.  My Dad had planted those pines on his retirement property and brought us one each December for years.  Every summer I canned applesauce from his apple orchard and for a time enjoyed cider he pressed himself.
I was never a tree climber, unlike my daughters, who loved to ascend into the branches and hang out together.  I climbed a tree once in my life and was then too afraid to climb down.  My cousin had to retrieve my uncle to give me a lift.  And while my dad didn't mind a kid climbing a tree, swinging from the branches was most definitely frowned upon.  It wasn't good for the tree, you see.  It still bugs me to see someone mistreating a tree in this way.
Our second house in Iowa had way too many trees for a suburban yard.  A tornado in 1997 took care of that problem, requiring us to pull down many a damaged tree.  A lovely huge pine tree in the front yard was nearly uprooted.  The day my husband cut it down, I held my then three-year-old daughter while she sobbed with a sorrow so big she couldn't contain it.
Our backyard neighbors there had a huge, old locust tree - a junk tree if ever there was one - that liked to drop its three-inch long thorns across the fence into our yard.  Many times one of my little ones came crying to the door for me to bandage a nasty poke.  My dad told us how we could secretly poison the tree from our side of the fence, but we were too chicken to follow through.
When we buried my dad's ashes, nearly seven years ago now, in the old family cemetery in southeastern Iowa, I was struck by another tree memory.  I looked up at the stately pines planted on the far side of the cemetery and remembered being there with my dad when he planted them.  It must have been sometime after my grandfather died in 1969.  The trees were quite small, maybe two feet high then, and I helped my dad carry buckets of water to water them in.  In 2004, the trees were huge.  I can't even begin to estimate how tall they were. 
I'm looking forward to moving to our next and final house, hopefully as soon as two years.  While we haven't settled on a location - city or country, we just aren't sure - I know I will plant trees.  Shade trees, fruit trees, and a couple of pines for Christmas lights and cones.
While my dad's knowledge of horticulture didn't really rub off on me, his love of trees surely did.  And for that, I am grateful.
Trees truly are sentinels of time.

Bouquet

I love flowers.

Inside, outside, in vases or beds, flowers simply make me happy.

One thing I especially like about perennials is the beauty that remains once the fancy dressing of summer is discarded.

 The structure of each flower is gorgeous in its own right.

And the colors!  Deep, dark browns and light camel tans... pale linens and intense auburn... less flashy than the summer purples and yellows, but beautiful nonetheless.

Melissa picked this bouquet last week before the snow fell.  Soon, I'll be yearning for tulips and daffodils, but until then, this bouquet sits in the kitchen.  A reminder of the garden's year-round beauty.

Unearthed

Found this gem while searching for a crochet hook of a certain size today:

12 Facts About Mommy

Mommy is kind,

Mommy is cool,

She sits on the steps

when we go to the pool.

Mommy is sweet,

Mommy's not sour,

She checks the email 

before her shower.

Mommy is smart,

Mommy is clever,

She'd like to take naps

forever and ever.

Mommy is nice,

Mommy is pretty,

Mommy's adored

Because she is witty.

Love, Sarah

And there you have my legacy in a nutshell.