There are times when I feel so glued to the screen. When both of “my devices” are busy notifying, flashing messages and asking for my attention, it begins to feel like I can’t get enough. I get almost obsessed with staying in touch. Time to get outside and touch some real things.
Even though it’s Florida and we hardly ever get a freeze, I like to bring my orchids in for the winter. Every couple weeks I take them back out and spray them down, give them a good drink. That’s what I did today. I was surprised how many of them have bloom stalks that will soon be flowers, in addition to those already blooming. Taking care of my plants is part of the joy of having them – it is SO an antidote to computer paralysis. They are a dose of fresh beauty right from the hand of God.
Here are my beauties, and the marvel of the day is at the end. I think he lives there permanently.
just look at their cute faces…these deep purple ones are some of my favoritesTheir thick healthy roots really anchor them…and my little marvel.
I love to travel. I love to be home. Even though there is a lot here to be responsible for, and when I’m gone nature does it’s thing pretty much unchecked (the husband did mow the lawn) it is still a place that restores me. It begs me to take part, to pull a weed, pick up a few fallen branches, smell the mint and the rosemary, touch a mossy rock, marvel at a single strand of spider silk floating from somewhere to who knows where, hold my ears when the cicadas get all fired up. At some point there will come colder weather and it will change, but for now it is still the hot, humid, green glory of summer. Nature is more than amazing, it is God’s gift showing his thoughfulness, his love of beauty and drama, his attention to detail, his desire to nurture and uplift, his power to take down and start anew
If you need a spot of beauty in your day, come take a morning walk with me through the Oneacrewoods.
one of many paths
shapes, colors, texture, variety for our eyes to see
because they are green, my favorite colorbecause they are constantly being amazingand more amazingbecause they volunteer on their own (from whence come you tomato?)but most of all, because they are quiet.
Good morning, August. I can’t believe you’re here.
It’s Monday morning. I’m dressed and sitting at my desk thinking about the day ahead. Last week I repotted a houseplant and brought it to live on my desk in front of the glass doors where it would get a lot of southern exposure. I noticed a large drop of water at the tip of a leaf. And then I saw that every leaf that was turned in the same orientation had a large crystal clear drop of water – the whole plant was decorated at the tips of these leaves only. The rest of the plant was dry. Such a beautiful thing… just sayin’.
This would have to be ecology of the yard, not the university classroom or workplace. And although this subject would seem to have nothing to do with my evolving theme of “family”, it does. It’s really meant to be a torture diversion for my family up north as they savor their 10 inches of new snow. (he he he, you could have stayed down here longer.)
Ecology defined: the scientific study of interactions among organisms and their environment, such as the interactions organisms have with each other and with their abiotic environment. Topics of interest to ecologists include the diversity, distribution, amount (biomass), number (population) of organisms, as well as competition between them within and among ecosystems.
In other words, looking at the yard to see what grows well and what doesn’t, and taking care of it so it doesn’t completely bury you in vegetation. I’ve been working on this for years in the oneacrewoods. And this is the time of year where I stage for the growing season to come. Plants aren’t mean on purpose but they are. Mean.
This morning I spent four hours and got about 1/8 of the way around the house, cleaning gutters of leaves and flowers from the oaks, raking, pruning, and washing dirt and pollen off everything. Everywhere I look there is a plant needing attention and I could just keep at it for days but for the sake of a more balanced life, I’m breaking it down into sections.
As I’ve said before, we do have fall in Florida – we have it in the spring. My oak forest drops tons of leaves on the lawn, house, driveway, and garden beds. Some people like to rake, bag and send their leaves to the landfill. And then they buy mulch to keep their soil moist and protect their plantings. I’m just not going to do that 1) because I don’t have that kind of money for labor, bags and mulch and 2) ecology tells me that there has to be something good about leaves falling on the ground around trees or the trees would all be dead by now. I use the leaves as mulch and most of the time it works.
Another ecological move on my part is to quit fighting nature and grow only things that like living in my yard. Ferns love my yard. Flowers, most of them, do not. They are slug food and it’s pitiful to see them disappear one bite at a time. I also have bromeliads everywhere because they multiply like rabbits and like to grow around trees where it’s hard for me to mow anyway.
Okay, northern friends, come in and have a look at my green, growing, sunny, warm Florida yard.
Prune me, pleaseMe tooBromeliads move from here……to here.One of several mega fern bedsa huge plant finds its favorite spotRoses? not so much.
I have noticed that I feel so good after spending a day outside working in the yard, and I’ve decided it’s the dirt. Therapeutic dirt. I always make sure I have a lot of contact with it – wear my sandals and shorts, and somehow manage to get smudges from head to toe.
Today’s dirt was AMAZING stuff. Two years ago it was a huge leaf pile and now it is all broken down, dark brown with nice fat earthworms crawling through it. It grows healthy looking weeds, which I pulled out and put in next year’s compost pile.
In Florida it’s the time of year to plant the spring garden. At the vegetable stand where I get the weekly fresh things for our meals, they also had tomato plants so I decided to get some instead of growing my own. An interesting aside – the stand is at our church and is “donation only” for whatever you want to pay and goes to the orphan homes in Cambodia that I visit. I call that a win-win transaction when I can support my special kids and get something to eat at the same time. I know the farmer who supplies it and he farms very successfully. Bet his tomato plants are going to do wonderful things for me this season.
So I pulled my earthboxes to the only sunny spot I could find in the oneacrewoods. It happens to be right near the fence line. The neighbor has cut down a lot of his trees and has a much sunnier yard than I do and some of the light sneaks through to my side of the fence. I think that my somewhat “iffy” results from the gardening I do is because there is so much shade. Good for keeping cool, bad for growing plants.
The other outside chore for today was harvesting my carrots. They have been growing for a whole year and are pitiful. This is what happens when you don’t thin out the seedlings. I’ve never been able to get carrots to germinate in my Florida gardens so I was really excited about all the fluffy greenery and couldn’t bear to pull any of it out. This is probably why they are so small after a whole year! (could also be the shade, or the inconsistent watering, or the general inattention they received).
So, other than the fact that some bug is eating all the leaves off my strawberry plants, things are looking much better in the garden today. And I feel great.
I was debating whether to adopt the practice of having a certain type of post on the same day of every week, which seems to be common practice on many blogs, say like Silly Saturday. . But I decided no. This is my chance to not copy others. So I’m going to be silly whenever I feel like I need to be, which would be tonight.
I name things. Sometimes I name things because it is easier to remember a name than it is to remember what the thing is. For instance, Ted. Ted is a piece of furniture I’ve had for over 20 years. I’ve never been able to figure out what exactly Ted is but it sits in my dining room and holds dishes and tablecloths, batteries and flashlights. Not a china cabinet, not really a buffet, it became easier to just call it Ted. Especially when trying to tell someone like the husband where to find something in it. “Look in the drawer of the…. of the….. that thing in the dining room!” So much easier to say “Look in the top drawer of Ted.” And now, after nearly a quarter century he’s finally figured out who Ted is.
I also like to name my vehicles. They are with me for so long that they become disturbingly like family members – they may as well have names. My last vehicle, the Aztek, was named Sunny which was short for sunshine, being that it was bright, schoolbus yellow. I’ve had my new old car for almost three weeks now and have been unsure what to name it. I wanted something meaningful. Today I decided to call it LC (Elsie). LC stands for little car which is my first thought almost every time I interact with the thing. “My goodness, this is a little car!” I think, as I try to figure out where to put my coffee cup, my cereal bowl, my purse, my workbasket, my sunglasses, and my lunch. “My goodness this is a little car!” I think as the husband bangs his head climbing into the passenger seat. “This is a little car!” I say to myself as the pump only puts in 9 gallons on a fill-up and goes twice as far on that as the previous vehicle.
I have a daughter with the “naming gene” too. Her present truck is named Nemesis. We bought it for her rather hastily, without her input and she pretty much can’t stand the thing. The car she had before Nemesis was named Claire. I know she named her very first car too but I can’t remember it’s name, Patty or something like that. I didn’t really bond with that car.
I’ve named my houseplants (because I can never remember the word “hydrangea”), several notebooks, my kindle, and my property (the oneacrewoods). I have a cat I call Gray Kitty, which is a very practical name for a gray cat. So you see, naming things is kind of an adaptive mechanism as well as being a bit odd, and it serves me well. I’m just sayin’, I’m kind of proud of being silly when it comes to names.
Have you ever named an inanimate object? C’mon, fess up.
I Just Have to Say... 