Letters from Memphis

2011-10-24T12:43:00.002-05:00

This morning I woke up remembering the bag of oranges you brought in yesterday. Lying in bed staring up at the treetopsI could see the clouds had come back after departing so dramatically yesterdayin the afternoon, creating that beautiful space of clear air, blue sky and sunshine.

The clouds returned with their rarefriend the fog; thick, dense and moody.

There is the familiar stirring inmy belly. Why hate myself for this? Call it crazy if you want but I call itlove. Frankly if I had more of it maybe I could do what I really want, bring itall inside of me and let it fill my bones and blood like breathing, so that Icould truly grasp it, hold it, understand it.

A foggy damp morning in lateOctober, a harbinger. And then the announcement:

“Say, I heard they’re closing out.Shuting it down, goin south HA! Get it? South for the winter.
6!
5!
4!
3!
2!
1!
Shutin it down!!!

Here it comes. Get your inner bellyready.

We are creeping toward thecrystalline, the winter night, naked and dark, shiny and cold that puts us inour pajamas by 5 o’clock! But wakes us up deep in the darkness with the cry ofthe wolf, the moon itself howling in the black crystalline sky.

I went to the farmer’s market andbought pumpkins and those incredible orange squash and pulled up in thedriveway, jumping out of the car practically dancing I opened the trunk andlifted the box filled with orange squash and pumpkin–heaving I carried it tothe porch. You watching with one sleepy eye on me and the other on your ipad.

Standing over the box I couldhardly speak. Thinking to myself, “I am such a rich person. I can buy a box ofsquash and pumpkins just because they called me by my name.”

Do you know that you didn’t evenask how much they cost?

I took them out one at a time. Iplaced one here, one there arranging, decorating the ledge of the old porch. Idashed out to the street to get perspective on my placement while you read thelatest news and sipped your coffee.

There it was that day, too, thatlonging in my belly to take it all in, fill my veins, my heart, my bones andblood with the splendor of a whole box of orange–squash and pumpkin–he didn’tsay a word about money–

but what you did say was, “speak to me only with thine eyes” whatyou did say with your eyes was this: “Tomorrow she'll be in the hammock all day watching leaves fall one by one. My kinda' crazy. She has in her belly thefire.”

Belong

2011-09-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

I could have sworn I didn’t want to get up this morning when Blue came in and licked my face. How in the world he pushed both doors open I don’t know, and why he’d never thought to do it before, I don’t know. I only know that I was very tired from getting up early yesterday to go to the Farmer’s Market and tired from baking bread all day the day before.I’d hoped to sleep late or sleep in as they call it now. But I know me and when I’m waked at waking time there’s no going back. I’d seen daylight through the blinds and Big Blue the hunting dog and Little Gertie the terrier were ready to be fed and the world was waiting for me to come and see.

I fixed my coffee and just happened on my way to the porch to catch a glimpse of an old book Billy bought years ago, before we even married. It’s called The Hand of God.

The book is a collection of photographs from the Hubble Spacecraft with quotes from famous writers and philosophers beside each picture. Down in the corner of each page in tiny print is an actual description of the photograph. The descriptions of the photographs were much more profound to me than anything the philosophers had to say so I would have put their quotes in tiny print and description of the picture in the big print. Descriptions like this: “this photograph to your left is of two galaxies 1000 light years away and 150 light years across in size that will collide a billion years from now.” That’s a quote worth putting in bold letters in my opinion.

This morning on my porch is still and quiet. A squirrel just broke the silence by jumping onto the limb of my neighbor's dogwood tree, making what sounded like a splash onto the now dry late summer leaves. The doves are calling each other, the redbirds clicking and the truck in my neighbor's driveway just cranked, they’re no doubt taking their dogs to the park for a walk. And I wonder in this silence this Sunday morning what it must be like to fly out into this universe and float among the galaxies and nebula and supernova and watch and listen to all these explosions of universes larger than I can imagine colliding, beginning, ending, fading, birthing, living, dying. I wonder what’s going on out there, all this creation and expansion and energy.

I’m not one of those people who believe there has to be life out there simply because the universe is so vast, in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we humans are the apex, the consciousness the awareness that sees, and that we are the culmination of this project and whatever created all this is waiting on us to come into all we were meant to be. I mean why not? If you go in the other direction it seems just as vast, studying molecules and atoms and quarks and whatever other invisible particles there are. That too, seems infinite on a smallness scale.But I have to say, this morning, looking at those beautiful pictures of stars and galaxies and reading the quotes:

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Albert Einstien

I have to wonder about this book. It’s been in the house for years and I never even looked at it, but this morning the book called me. As for why I feel like crying when I behold the heavens, as for why I have such a bond, remembering the dark nights of my soul some years back, going out onto my front porch when I was living out in the country and staring for long periods of time at the sky, where no street lights or vapor lights could block or obliterate the view, when I was at my worst and the darkness of my soul was at its blackest staring into the sky at millions of twinkling stars and hearing God’s voice, always saying the same mysterious word to me, the word that even now I understand and I don’t understand, “belong,” God said to me, “belong.”

And I wondered what in the world that word could have meant a year later when the porch on which I’d been sitting at night staring at the stars was hooked by a chain to a fire truck and pulled away from the rest of the house simply to keep it from burning into the night, and the crash the thunderous crash as it came to the ground exposing the violent flames that were consuming my home of 25 years.I wondered in that moment what in the world God was talking about when he’d said “belong.”

I’d thought he’d meant belong to this home, this house, this place and now it was on fire. But I held on to it, the word, but wondered again three years later when the marriage, the 28 year marriage with four children dissolved, sadly, bitterly before our very eyes and I wondered about the night sky and the one word of comfort I could actually hear from it, “belong.” It’s seemed that everything I was trying to belong to was disappearing.

But now, nearly a decade later I have a different husband, a different porch, a different home, but the sky is the same and I’m learning little by little to belong to this, what is, what will never burn or dissolve or fail. To belong to the invisible, the mysterious, the being, the isness of life. And there is peace in that to know this. At last, finally, I belong.

2011-08-25T04:48:00.004-05:00

I planted parsley in the spring. I like to cook with it, but mainly I like to lure caterpillars to it.

They come every year. This year I've had two batches.

Batches?

Of Caterpillars?

Late yesterday afternoon I took my camera out to take a few pictures. They surely are fun to watch.

This little guy seemed to be stretching out looking for more parsley to grab onto. He's holding his entire body weight horizontally by the suction cups of his hind-hind legs!

A meeting of the minds.

2011-06-22T12:23:00.006-05:00

Sarah came up with the idea of adding local produce to our breads, our Wild Yeast breads.

This is a picture of yellow cherry tomatoes from Tim's Family Farm. Monica did the "prep" work, slicing them and roasting them. Before they went into the oven all three of us, Sarah, Monica and I, simultaneously stopped what we were doing and stared at the baking sheet amazed at the brilliant colors. I don't think I've ever seen more beautiful colors together.

We roasted the tomatoes to take the moisture out then worked them into each loaf individually by hand with caramelized onions from Flora Farms.

Here Monica is weighing the loaves. She's working on carrot sunflower, flax seed loaf. The carrots came from our friend Brandon of Delta Sol. We're also doing a Rosemary Olive Oil loaf with rosemary from Valerie Smith's mother's garden. Did you get all that?

My rosemary plant died during the winter, but I've started another two or three for later in the summer.

And we'll have baguettes, too. We're very proud of our Wild Yeast Breads. They're so much fun to make. We begin with our original in house German Rye Sourdough Starter and no commercial yeast is added.( I'll save the story of the starter for another day).

I'm energized and excited to have the subject of bread to write about. But I warn you, I'm going to throw in pictures of my garden and my front porch and Gertie and Blue whenever I get a chance. Maybe I'll just take a picture of Gertie and Blue eating a Rosemary Olive Oil boule out beside my butternut squash vine. That would cover all three bases.

Hope to see you at the market, soon!

2010-10-19T07:31:00.013-05:00

the beer in the coolie was left on the porch a couple of nights ago– even I don't drink before 8am

There's a black cat in our neighborhood who likes to get things going in the mornings. He slinks down the street from Midland and comes to the edge of my yard to see if Blue and Gertie are on the porch. Of course, they’re always on the porch at this time of day. They're waiting on the cat.

The cat comes to the edge of the driveway just close enough so that one of them can get a good look at her. She is fully aware of the fact that Blue and Gertie can’t jump the fence, that they are restrained, so to speak, so she waits and swishes her tail back and forth until she gets at least one of the dog's attention.
Blue has several different barks. I always know when the UPS or Mailwoman are at the gate because of the furiously urgent sound of the bark. It's different from The Cat's in the Driveway bark, which is more in the frantic category.

In this bark Blue becomes indignant. His entire body springs into action. He engages all four paws jumping vertically, just a fraction of an inch off the ground, whoof!whoof!whoo!whoof!whoof!whoof!whoof!

The hair stands up on a ridge all the way down his back. His bark is frantic. He shoots desperate glances at me as if pleading for help. He dashes back and forth from one end of the porch to the other. I almost hear him asking me questions: “Can you believe that black cat? She’s in our driveway again?"

Blue has three stations on the porch. One is by the St. Francis statue at the south end of the porch, one in the middle and one at the far north end, which is where the fence is.

Blue with his head peeking through his own personal hole in the fence.

The black cat ignores Blue's barking until it reaches a certain decible, a certain hysterical determination only the cat understands. It says, "This dog means business."

Whereby the cat rises to all fours, lowers her ears, shifts her shoulders into slink-mode and pitter-patters quietly across the street to my neighbor's house where she will prowl back and forth under her bird feeder.
They watch the cat for a while and bark at it even though it is in my neighbor’s yard across the street.Whoof!whoof!whoof!whoof!whoof!whoof!

When at last the cat-threat has passed, Blue will rest with his chin on my legs.

I love my dog.

2010-09-15T07:16:00.012-05:00

Yesterday my daughter Sarah and I were sitting on the porch. She said casually, "there's a praying mantis on the shutter."

I dashed into the house to get my camera and began snapping photos.

The mantis was patient. Maybe the mantis was suspicious. Whatever the case he remained motionless staring into my lens.

I believe it is a good omen to see a praying mantis on your porch. Not the kind of omen that predicts the future. I think of omens in my mind, that is I carry my own definition. Omen–a signpost, a reminder, a direction.

And the reminder is?

The direction is?

I wake up early in the mornings and come out onto the porch where I sit and enjoy the quiet. I hear crickets and blue jays.

Lately I watch for the occasional leaf drifting down from my neighbors oak tree across the street.

Cars come and go. People walk their dogs. I am the watcher, the listener.

This praying mantis, maybe I saw her in June, a tiny fragile little thing, jumping around on the hanging basket of fern. Airy, nearly invisible and almost totally without substance; I thought nothing, except "You're good for the garden."

It is a mystery of seasons, especially fall, and insects deliver the cryptic message, the cryptic question of time and meaning.

I said to my new friend, "Where have you been since June? Where and how did you survive? And how is it that this morning you show up on my porch a full adult, announce your presence and pose for pictures?"

"Where are you now?"

2010-06-24T08:43:00.027-05:00

This is Henry. I met him at the Memphis Farmer's Market. My daughter Sarah and I sell bread there on Saturday mornings.

Henry sat with me in the kitchen last night while I was cooking supper. My husband, Billy, was all wrapped up in the marathon tennis game going on at Wimbledon.

Can I tell you how much I LOVE Henry? He's so easy to talk to. We sat (he sat, I chopped vegetables) and talked.

He cracked up when I told him how

I bought my new fish Bobo the very afternoon I arrived home after spending 3 days in New York with my daughter Mamie and her husband, Sam.

Mamie and I had gone shopping at her favorite store– Rudy Volcano's–It's where she bought all of our Christmas presents this year. She gave me a hand carved gourd.

check it out

www.rudyvolcano.com

I showed the gourd to Henry last night, too. It's from Peru or maybe Ecuador.

Rudy Volcano and Mamie have gotten to be friends because of all her shopping expeditions, so I was looking forward to meeting him when I was in New York and looking forward to doing a little expeditioning myself. Oh phooey! He was on vacation.

We were standing in front of the cash register/display case area when I noticed a ceramic pot on the floor about the size of a spherical black diamond watermelon if there is such a thing–white on the inside and geometric patterns of blue, orange and maybe a little green on the outside and lo and behold there were goldfish swimming around in it–happy and healthy.

Oh my God! It's just like the one Mamie gave me for Christmas, the one that broke to bits during the plane ride down from New York, the one that she spent all one afternoon gluing back together! I'm putting two and two together, it came from Rudy's!

"Dangit," I said to myself, "I want a fish." I couldn't use my pot because of the cracks and leaks. but...

I got off the plane and made my way to Billy who was waiting for me at the gate with open arms.

"How was your trip?" he asked.

"It was wonderful. I'll tell you all about it on our way to PetCo."

"Petco???"

Here is Henry talking to Bobo my new fish.

Sometimes it's hard to tell about Henry. I worry about him.

He lives much of his life vicariously. He doesn't have many friends and he's terrified of traveling.

"I prefer the garden," he says.

I mean as hot as it was yesterday, he stayed out in that heat all day until I MADE him come in.

"Henry," I told him, " you're not going to meet other vegetables standing out here in the compost heap."

He looked down all sad, then promptly changed the subject.

* * *

I felt kinda' bad about fussing at Henry. I honestly don't care one way or the other whether he has a boyfriend or not. I just want him to be happy.

Well, you won't believe it. The next morning I woke up early. I was making my coffee when I heard voices quietly talking. I peeked around the refrigerator and there they were, Henry and the gourd, chatting.

I could just barely make out what Henry was saying but it sounded a bit like this:

"So, you were grown in Guatemala and hand carved in Peru. How long you been in the

States?"

At last. A romance seems to be–pardon the phrase–– blossoming.

2010-05-13T05:12:00.003-05:00

I don't know what this insect is, but it was certainly beautiful as it "worked" the miniature daisy.

Late yesterday afternoon I went out to look at my front yard. This is the year for it. This is the year my front yard is full and fluffy with plants running into each other the way I'd hoped they would.

I'm the kind of person who likes all my food touching. When I go to a cafe that serves vegetables and they bring the plate out and the vegetables are in tiny little bowls: cabbage in one, greens in another and corn in still another; I immediately turn the little bowls upside down so that all my vegetables can touch each other.

I never really thought about it before. That's the way I like my garden, too.

When I planted my front yard garden five years ago, all the plants were like the vegetables in the bowls. One plant here, another entirely different plant there. Nobody was touching. That's the way it is when you first put your landscaping in.

Now some people like for their gardens to be like that. It's a more formal approach and when you come right down to it I guess you can tell a lot about a person by how their garden grows.

If you want your life to be orderly and predictable that's bound to show in the way you weed eat your front yard. On the other hand, if there's a bottle tree and some kind of funky metal thing stuck in a corner you can be pretty sure that the person who tends that garden likes surprises and welcomes a day that's open for whatever may come.

2010-01-29T09:50:00.007-05:00

I put my amaryllis bulbs on a heating pad back in December. It was after Christmas, of course, late, delayed, like I missed the whole thing, Christmas, that is. I'd ordered them in November, of course, late delayed, when all the red and white ones in the catalogue were sold out.

I have three bulbs in my pantry I haven't even put in pots.

Not long after I put these dead looking bulbs in pots and put them on my little heating pad we had that cold snap and don't think they didn't know about it. Those stubborn little bulbs didn't budge. "Uh, uh, no way," they seemed to say, "we're not coming out until this stuff goes away." The stuff they were referring to was the cold.

I can't explain it. I don't know what it means, but when I catch a glimpse of these bulbs when I'm walking through the room, I hear something.

I don't hear it with my ears. I hear it through nerve endings in my chest. It's a place that is shaped like an upside down bow. The tips of the bow are at the shoulders and the rest of the bow is over my heart and lungs. And when the bulbs speak that part of me is a receptacle of pleasure and tranquility.

I don't know what they're saying, but it has to do with love, patience, hope, transience.

I can't believe the way these things are growing. The way the big sister is climbing out and heading toward the light and the little sister is nestled under her shadow, cuddled close. Somebody always has to go first, but I think it's easier to go first if there's someone behind us watching us, depending on us, believing we know what we're doing and that we'll make it.

Today we're in the ice storm. I woke up early because I get excited at the prospect of frozen precipitation and the thought of missing it is more than I can bear. I came into my office and turned on the light beside my computer and began typing, writing down my dream. I decided to light a candle and put some lavendar in my exxential oils bowl and soon my little office was filled with the aroma of creativity.
"Fooey on dreams," I said to myself. I'm going to check on my amaryllis bulb. I took my camera into the den where she sits on the window sill. I snapped a few photos and looking at them I noticed that big sister has pulled way out in front. And little sister is reaching, strengthened, thriving; moving toward the light. "That's good," I thought to myself, "now I think I'll go look at the snow."

2010-01-04T09:43:00.008-05:00

>

The week after Christmas Sarah and I went back into the kitchen to bake a few orders we'd gotten for New Year's. I can't believe we made it through Christmas. We got so many orders the week before that we were overwhelmed. We kept our cool and on the Wednesday before Christmas we baked and delivered about $1000.00 worth of bread, cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls.

I paid a price for all this work. I hardly did Christmas at all. For me this year there were no shopping malls, no traffic jams, no nightmares about forgetting one child's presents. My Christmas this year was about baking bread with Sarah.

Here's a Shoaf's Loaf getting ready to go into the oven. I scored it after prooofing. How bout that? I sound like a real baker. Scoring is slitting the tops of the loaves with a sharp knife or razor after proofing. Proofing is the letting the bread rise. Lingo. You gotta know the lingo.

On Christmas Day we went down to see Anne, Monte and Matthew. Anne is Billy's daughter, Monte is her husband. Matthew is our grandson. Matthew and I like to play together. He calls me Nonnie.

Here he is at the dinner table on Christmas Day. Can you tell that Santa came to see him? It was such fun being with them. Matthew and I sat on the floor and read books together. His favorite was the book "Corduroy." Christmas night when his mother was reading to him he told her he wanted to read, "Quarter Boy." Makes perfect sense to me.

On Wednesday before New Year's we drove down to New Orleans; Sarah, Billy, and me.

I got a new camera for Christmas. On New Year's Eve I walked around near our hotel, which was just outside the French Quarter. I couldn't believe how beautiful this church was. Look at that stairway in the middle.

I saw the church as I was walking down St. Charles. It was in a sketchy neighborhood surrounded by vacant lots and warehouses, so naturally I turned and walked toward it. As I got close I saw a bright blue house sitting under the wing of the church, and I thanked God for this city and its beauty that just seems to ooze up out of the ground.

There was a sacredness in this space, a sparse, distant beauty that called early in the morning and I was lucky enough to hear it.

2009-12-11T09:00:00.007-05:00

I woke up early this morning to bake bread. The clouds cast a gray pall over the dark earth. I had an appointment for PT at 9 o'clock but the minute I saw the clouds and the chair in front of the fire in the living room I new I had to call my physical therapists office and make the appointment for later in the day. This cold quiet winter morning was calling me to sit and stay.

Yesterday I had to get a shot. I hate shots. I used to run out of the health department in Covington and try to reach home. I escaped once and got caught making a mad dash down Main Street. My mother caught me and dragged me back to the awaiting nurses.

My husband Billy always gets his flu shots and his doctors recommend that I get them, too. I hate shots.

I was all excited because the swine flu shot wasn't a shot at all but something you can inhale. But Billy called our pharmacist and she told him that only people 49 and younger can get the inhaler. BOO! HOO!!

I could pass for 49 in some foreign country where all the people who are 30 look 60. But that didn't count.

Billy and I went together to Kroger to get my shot. I told him that I was definitely going to need a present for this. "Of course, of course you need a present when you have to get a shot. You, Melinda, shouldn't have to do anything you don't want to do,"
he said.

I think he's very well trained.

I bought a dozen yellow roses. They're in the picture there. They brighten my dining room and every time I come into the house they greet me. They're sensual and romantic. I'm enjoying every minute of them. They were almost worth getting a shot.

Here's another shot of the roses in the dining room. It's like they pull the room in toward them. I don't know. I needed them. Maybe it's the darkness and long nights.

There is something about blossoms, blooms, flowers that just captivates the soul. I took this Christmas Cactus outside for the summer. During a thunderstorm back in June, a limb fell on the pot and knocked off half the plant. Even so it's still luscious in its half self. Odd that the color of the flower almost matches Mamie's painting behind it.

And in about a month there will be amaryllis blooms. My son Sam will be coming home for Christmas in January. He's coming with his girlfriend Amanda. I'm hoping the amaryllis will be blooming then. Get to growing little fat bulbs!

2009-11-20T09:14:00.004-05:00

To every thing there is a season.

I don't have many house plants. I have a beefsteak begonia in my bedroom. A friend of mine gave me a cutting 7 or 8 years ago. Now it's all beefed up, crawling out of the pot, dangling luxuriously in front of the bedroom window. I have a maidenhair fern in the dining room. It's on a pedestal and is temperamental in it's growing. Spurts. That's how it grows.

One Christmas, years ago, I went over to visit my Aunt Velma who lives in Covington. She is the quintessential plantswoman inside and out. On her coffee table in the living room was a tangerine colored Christmas cactus in full bloom. I don't know how old the plant was, but it was huge, robust and vibrant. It captivated all who entered the room. There was not a green stem on the plant that didn't have a long, lush ruffly flower on the end of it.

It is for this reason and this reason alone I keep my Christmas cacti on my window will all year long. I want a Christmas cactus that will captivate a room, my room.

I know it's too early for them to be blooming, but honestly it's ok with me.

I've been so busy these last few months I haven't had time to do a lot of the things I might have done last year. I probably would have see this coming last year and taken the pots to a dark room to delay the blooms.

Sarah is finishing painting her apartment today. She'll be moving in right down the street from me. She just called. She's on her way home and we'll have breakfast together and plan our day. We have a market tomorrow!

Here she is selling bread at the Farmer's Market.

We're coming in to our busiest season. For the story of Shoaf's Loaf Bakery just go to the website. www.shoafsloaf.com

2009-11-17T09:30:00.005-05:00

I think it was late in October. I'd been watching this vine for almost two years. In fact, I'd convinced Billy that we needed a tree professional to come and clean out some limbs of the birch tree that covers our front yard. To him I said, "that tree is messy and those limbs are dangerous. They could fall in our neighbors yard."

But in my heart I knew the real reason I wanted a tree pruner to come. I wanted more sunlight for this vine.

My neighbor across the street had done what I've done many times before. She'd gone to a plant sale at the Botanic Garden and brought home things she'd never get into the ground. "Melinda," she said one afternoon after she'd gotten home from work, "do you want these things. I'm just not goint to have time to plant them."

I was thrilled. But frankly I don't remember what the other plants were. It was two summers ago. The only thing I remember is the vine.

I planted it at the base of the lamp post out front to grow along with the clematis that was there.

I must confess I have listened to this vine's pleas for more sunlight. That being said, the vine was not exactly suffering. At least, not this year, this summer. It totally obliterated the sight of the lamp post and the old clematis vine too for that matter. But it was all foliage. All talk. No action.

I thought it was a thunbergia, the black-eyed susan vine. You know what that means. I've been waiting for little gold and black daisy like blooms.

You can imagine my surprise, or maybe you can't. Not everybody rolls along in life in silent communication with various and sundry botanic specimens. I've been in a relationship with this vine. We've been communicating now for over two years!

I was getting in the car one morning when it shouted at my eyes. "Hey, human, look at me!"

And I looked.

I was stunned. I gazed into the incredible beauty. I thought to myself, "The very idea blooming in October! Nobody blooms in October." Well, almost nobody.

The vine is still at it deep into November. I don't even know her name. I stop my neighbors on the street and make them look. I say, "Have you ever seen such a flower? Do you know what the name of it is?"
So far no one knows. But I guess the name's not all that important. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
I think I'll call her Princess or maybe I'll call her Lush. But I have to call her something. A bloom like this certainly deserves a name.

2009-09-08T09:04:00.008-05:00

I'm on the porch this morning. For this moment the world seems silent. No cars are zooming by on their way to Southern or Central Avenue, no Fed Ex planes overhead.

The cricket's sounds are soothing as is the echoing bark of the distant dog. The heat is in a hurry today, in a hurry to burn off what little dew is left on the grass and get this place hot. I can feel it as it comes toward us in the form of light, dappling through the shutters.

The days are getting shorter. The nights little by little are longer.

It changes me the way it changes my plants. The surge, the growth surge is over. We're winding down. This season is changing into another season and we're being told about it by the leggy caladiums who prefer their nights to be above 70 degrees. They begin to lean, topple over. They know their days are numbered.

Lately I've felt a need for stillness. I have the need to quiet my mind. It dawned on me in my stillness that my days are numbered, too, here in this form. This is nothing new. My days have always been numbered, but in my youth those days seemed to be infinite.

As I approach 60 I can no longer delude myself. So I'll stop. Be still. I'll enjoy. As my summer comes to an end I can reflect on a few gifts the summer gave me.

My experiment with a vegetable garden this summer was successful inasmuch as I planted everything on top of an old -- and I mean old -- driveway. I had to dig through gravel to get the little tomato plants into the ground. But they thrived with the help of fish emulsion and worm castings and lots of organic matter. Next year should be even better.

A couple of weeks ago Gus and Sollie stopped by to visit. They're both in school now. I don't see them as much as I used to. But when I do see them I

enjoy every second of it.

On this visit my sister Susan happened to be here. She was just leaving to go home when I saw my friends walking by and called them over to the porch.

Sollie, who is still a baby, a toddler, happened to get his hands on a pair of my old glasses. Nothing would do but for him to try them on. My sister Susan, who loves fun as much as anybody ever could, took her glasses off and gave them to Gus. We snapped this picture. We laughed and laughed. It was a simple but wonderful gift.

Now I'm going in to get Blue's leash. I have to walk him before it gets too hot.

The sun has come into the porch so I know it's time to get going.

This week my friend Charlie is coming to build a garden shed so I'll have a place to store my gardening things.

I promise to use it and to quit being messy. Maybe in my stillness a miracle will take place and I'll no longer be a slob! I don't know. That would take a lot of stillness. I'm not sure I have that much time left. But on the other hand I can just imagine how much time I'd save just knowing where my pruners were at any given moment!

We shall see.

2009-07-26T10:56:00.012-05:00

But on this Saturday morning I was feeling nothing other than peace and contentment to be where I was and to be doing what I was doing.

Well, here I am reinventing myself– again–. For anyone who hasn't heard, I've started my bread business. I'm getting a banner made for my little card table that I take to the Farmer's Market. I'm calling my business SHOAF'S LOAF ORGANIC.

I get a kick out of the people who come to my table at the Farmer's Market. Every now and then a quick witted soul will ask me about my name. "Now, are you Shoaf?"

I'll tell them that I am.

"Well, I guess you didn't have much choice in naming your bread business did you?"

How many people have a last name that rhymes with loaf?

I feel better about this business than any money making venture I've ever been involved in. In fact, I've been totally lousy at so many jobs I've had that I really don't want to think about it. I'm definitely not good at waiting tables. I really am not that good at landscaping and garden design. I'm ok, but I'm a one style kind of designer. If somebody wants something non-traditional I'm lost. Plus, most of my landscaping experience involves my own yard and I believe it was difficult for me to think big. I could have if I'd had the right mentor, but that didn't happen. I like to think I'm where I am and where I am is where I'm supposed to be.

I've put landscaping behind me.

Unlike certain aspects of landscaping, I'm very confident in my ability to bake bread. I've been doing it for over 30 years. I even underestimate the ability I have, I think. I have yet to teach anyone how to make a pan of rolls that suit me. They have to be uniform in size and folded just right. They need to be baked exactly the right length of time so that the tips are beginning to brown but not the whole roll.

It's very hard work. I saw a friend of mine down at the Market on Sat. He's a caterer. I was carrying on about how well he was doing in his business and he gave me this strange look. "What?" I asked him. "Aren't you doing well?"

"Yes, I guess, but man, it's such hard work. I mean, I work so hard."

And I could see it in his face. I could hear it in his voice. I knew exactly what he was saying. I could see him standing over a vast array of trays, intricate hand made appetizers, hundreds of them all needing to go out onto the floor at the same time and getting everybody organized not even to mention all the running around to grocery stores and markets before hand to get the ingredients all in the right proportions. Made me tired just to think about it.

I suppose everybody who owns their own business lives in parallel universes; one that cherishes independence, being her own boss, experiencing and nurturing the entrepenurial spirit, and the other, working long exhausting hours, aching bones, fear of failure and wanting to just draw a regular paycheck like everybody else.

Martha's such a hard worker. She'd finished an exhausting schedule at her job with television production. She got tot he kitchen a little after 4 am and had a job interview later on in the day.

I felt terrible about seeing my baby so tired, but she got through it with the help of Tamara who arrived at around 6:30am and helped clean the kitchen and slice the bread and bring the rest of the bread down to me at the Market.

I arrived at 7:30am. That's the earliest I've ever made it. When I pulled into the parking lot I looked up and saw the City of New Orleans was still in the station.

I opened the door to my car and stood staring at the silver train perched 20 or so feet above me. I could see heads at the windows but no faces. A strong, healthy breeze pushed against my skin, played with my skirt, reminded me through smells and speed that the Mississippi River was right over the bluff.

It isn't the same, the thought of getting onto a train and going down to New Orleans, but sameness is an illusion if you really stop to think about it. Everything is in flux, constantly changing, being born, dying, being built, decaying, and I tell my heart this when I think about New Orleans.

I'll be going down soon to see Sarah who's moved back and maybe I'll take the train.

I give a nod, a blessing of godspeed to the City of New Orleans and consider myself most fortunate to have glimpsed this quiet little reality the beats in our nation's heart and flows like blood from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico every single day.

2009-07-13T08:20:00.010-05:00

Squash borers:
Yesterday I checked on my tiny garden. I have 2 squash plants, three, if you count the one that doesn’t count. It's been stunted from its beginnings. I left it as a decoy, hoping the bugs would pick on it because it wasn't big enough to defend itself. Sounds cruel, doesn't it?

Long ago,waay back in the 70's, my mother gave me a book called Peacock Manure and Marigolds. It was a book about organic gardening. It was the beginning of the end for me. That book took me down the path where I now live. I'm a compulsive gardener. The book told of order, the system, the protective mechanisms of plants and animals, the cycle of the garden and its intelligence.
Somewhere I read about squash borers. I’ll never forget the thrill I experienced when I saved my first squash plant from the pernicious attacker. I inspired myself by becoming a plant rescuer and a squash borer murderer.

I haven’t grown my own squash in years. In fact, my little house in the city has a yard that’s mostly shade. But for a couple of years I’ve been longing for a few vegetable plants, especially tomatoes. I tried tomatoes in pots and I tried them in a small sunny spot next to my neighbor's clematis vines, but nothing happened. I guess I wasn’t serious enough about it. But last fall I had a revelation. I began watching the tilt and pattern of the sunlight in the narrow stretch of hedge that ran beside my house. It was almost full sun. The only problem was that there were 12-foot, 40-year-old overgrown hedges claiming that space, and I had to make my decision as to whether or not to go to war with them.
Go to war I did. I have a handsaw. One of these days I’m going to have my own chain saw, but for now my handsaw will have to do. Before it got too hot, sawing was my morning garden project. Let me tell you, a lumberjack has to be the strongest person in the world. Sawing is exhausting. But bit by bit I took down these overgrown hedges with trunks like trees that took hours to saw through. I hauled it all to the street and within a couple of weeks I could see the future garden site. In the early spring there was only full sun in one small strip, but as the sun’s elliptical path changed to its summer course, the patch became an ideal plot for tomatoes, eggplant, squash and peppers.
I check my vegetables every day for enemies. I found one tomato horned worm about a month ago. I took the big green worm off my plant and put it on a fence post hoping some bird might find him delectable. It worked. I checked back in a few minutes and the worm was nowhere to be seen and I thought I heard a bird saying "Yummy."
I hadn’t really checked on the squash plants until yesterday. I guess I was in denial.. I guess I was hoping there weren’t squash borers within Memphis city limits, but I'd noticed the leaves wilting even when I'd just watered. So I went out and got down on my knees and looked closely at the base of the plants. There it was. The trail of sawdust the books tell you to look for. The little varmints had bored into almost every single stem of both my plants. It was time to go to the kitchen and get my paring knife.
I don't know where I read about this type of plant surgery, but it's right up my alley. I don't want to use pesticides in my garden so I'm always looking for ways to keep plants healthy without them.
Step 1. I looked at the base of the squash plants and saw the gooey sawdust-like substance that is a dead giveaway. It's just like the sawdust a drill makes. It's the evidence that the worm has bored through the stem and is getting fat on the juices the squash plant is bringing up from its roots. These juices are supposed to be feeding the leaves and the blooms and ultimately the baby squash plants. I took my knife and cut open the stem right above the borer hole. Gotcha! There he was: fat, round, pale, slimy with a sinister black head. Boy, was that bug surprised. I had to kill it. I'll spare you the details.

After I checked each stem and killed about 4 more borers, I got a couple of buckets of dirt and reburied the stems and watered the plants.
I checked them again this morning and found two more borers. I think they're ok now.

As I'm getting older I find myself becoming more content with my eccentricity. I don't even call it that, but I'm pretty sure my neighbors do. I don't even think about it being odd that I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is get my coffee and go to the garden. I stay outside until the heat of the day. Late in the afternoons I'm back outside puttering, digging, planting, dreaming. In all the world it is where I'm most at home, most content, most carefree; here near my dirt, listening to my marigolds and wishing I had a peacock to go with it.

2009-06-04T07:57:00.007-05:00

On Sunday afternoon I rested. I'd done two Farmer's Markets in a week. The Downtown Market is exhausting simply because I'm not used to getting up at 4am. I did well. And on Sunday I felt entitled to a long restful day.

I took a nap, but for some reason I woke up before I was through napping. I felt disoriented and enervated (Billy's big word; it means without the energy to move).

I grabbed a book and went out to the front porch to lie on the very uncomfortable wicker couch. The fan whirred and moved the hot afternoon air around, making me comfortable enough to want to close my eyes, in spite of the cushion springs' occasional jab.

I put my glasses on the little bench beside me and soon I was in a world of my own -- until the front door opened. It was Billy. He came out to check on me. He'd been in a world of his own in front of the television set watching the French Open. He sat for a minute and we talked. He went back inside and I tried to drift back into dreamland. To no avail.

And then I thought orange sherbet! I hoisted myself off the couch and began looking for my glasses. There they are! On the rug! OH NO!! Someone had stepped on them!! Again!!!! Just the way they did last Sunday afternoon! What a coincidence!

Only this time instead of one arm of the glasses being broken the big foot got both of them.

Glasses are a recent development for me. I've been wearing readers for some time, but have had 20/20 vision otherwise. Then, the last time I had them checked the eye doctor asked what kind of glasses I was wearing.

"Reading glasses," I told him, "they're 175."

He said, "According to your exam you need 300's."

No wonder my eyes were hurting.

FYI: gardening and glasses do not a happy marriage make. Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful to be able to see. I love the soothing comfort of putting my glasses on and feeling my body relax from the strain of not being able to see. But composting, digging, mulching, building, weed-eating, grass cutting, none of those things lend themselves to wearing glasses. For two Monday mornings in a row I've been in my car on the way to LensCrafters to get my glasses replaced. Billy was thrilled, of course (not).

Echart Tolle says that in the West relationships are a "spiritual exercise." And Martin Luther said that marriage is a "school for character."

I tried valiantly to convince Billy that he'd been the one who stepped on my glasses. "You must have done it when you came out to check on me."

I was very convincing, but not convincing enough. He hadn't been anywhere near them. I honestly don't remember stepping on them and I didn't hear the awful crunch sound. Oh well, all done now.

I was just thinking about my Aunt Velma who's 90 years old. Her eyes are better than mine. Speaking of whom:

Here's the feverfew in bloom. She gave me a very small plant from her garden back in the early spring. I have a new sunny spot in my front yard. It was all very odd. I wrote a blog piece about "The Canopy." That's what I call the shade we have here on my street. I love the beautiful ancient trees, but I'm human. I must find things to complain about, so I wrote about the lack of sun in my front yard and my neighbor's growing young oak tree.
That very day I came home and saw tree trimmers. They'd removed a huge oak from her back yard and cut lots of branches from the young oak in her front yard, the young oak that was blocking all my sunlight.
Here's a delicate little daisy I got the same day I got the feverfew. The plant had a bud on it when I put it in the ground back in early April. It bloomed a few days later and has been blooming ever since.

This is the seed pod of a poppy. Aunt Velma has poppies in her garden and I think they are so beautiful. They're like upside down ballerinas dancing high above the other flowers, catching every breeze, showing off their lovely soft red skirts. After they bloom she harvests the seed pods and puts them in a ziplock bag. In the fall she sows them again in her garden and is always pleasantly surprised to see who germinates and flourishes.
Poppies hate to be transplanted, but I got this one very early and on a nice cool day. We'll just have to see how things work out. Maybe next year I'll have poppies in my garden.

2009-05-25T08:28:00.010-05:00

It's Memorial Day morning. I've gotten up early. Billy is enjoying sleeping late. He told me last night that he was going to treat this day like a holiday by just doing nothing except catching up on reading the paper, maybe working at his desk a little.

What a week I had! I've finally gotten my permit from the State and now I can officially sell bread at the Farmer's Markets at the Botanic Garden and Downtown.

This week was a learning experience. Here I am with my lifelong friend Molly Turner. Her grandmother and my grandmother played canasta together a million years ago. Her mother, Mary Anne, and my mother went to high school together. Molly's father, Pop Turner, was in the military and when he brought his family back home to Covington they stayed in the big old two story house where Mary Anne grew up. I always loved that house with the huge front porch on College Street.

When Molly visited during the summers she and I would play together.

We reconnected after years of not seeing each other. When she found out that I was starting this business she invited me to lunch and let me know that she would help me any way she could.

When my permit came through I sent her an email and collected on her promise. She was as good as her word and better. She showed up at my house on Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 to help load things into the car. The Market at the Botanic Gardens starts at 2 pm. Molly and I loaded tables, bread, money box, price list and ten tons of other stuff into the trunk of her mother's car and off she went to set up while I got myself dressed.

The first day of the season is always a test. We got off to a slow start, but quickly recovered. I went on to sell everything I had except the one box of sticky buns that the little black ants got in to. We gave them to a friend of hers who works at the Gardens after carefully shooing off the ants.

But the Saturday morning Farmer's Market Downtown is a very different experience from the Botanic Gardens. It's a much bigger operation. I had no idea what to expect. I had friends who'd told me I'd do very well, but that wasn't enough information about how much bread to bake. Not only that but it starts at 7 am which meant I needed to be Downtown, dressed and ready to sell by opening. Makes me tired just to think about it.
I failed.
I was 7:30 getting there. Tamara Jeanes is in the picture. Here she is learning the process of mixing the dough for the whole wheat loaf. I used this black and white picture because that's the way the world looked at 4:30 am. Tamara is a real trouper. She helped me on Saturday morning. She came by my house at 4 o'clock in the morning and we went over to St. Anne's on Highland to their little commercial kitchen. I'm renting that kitchen because I can't bake at my house because of the health code. They don't seem to want dog hair in the dinner rolls. Go figure.

Tamara and I went straight to the kitchen, but it's so easy to forget things when you move one kitchen to another. I had to haul my mixer, my wheat grinder, honey, oil, sugar, filling for the sticky buns, loaf pans, bread flour, rolling pin, bread pans, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I forgot a couple of essentials and Tamara had to drive back to my house to get them. Time is money when you're baking bread.

All of it should have been taken on Friday night, but, you know what Billy says. "You live. You learn." Except he says it with a heavy New York accent and learn is pronounced "lue' ween." As in: You live. You lue' ween. You have to shrug your shoulders when you say it. But it's a simple but true statement.

I really just tried to do the best I could and to stay present with what I was doing, and to

"lue' ween."

The guy next to us at the Farmer's Market Downtown sold essential oils. I'm so glad he's right next to us. I'm looking forward to learning more about oils and how to use them. In the picture above I'm taking a whiff of an essential oil blend that is designed for sleep. I haven't been sleeping well lately so I traded Craig a box of sticky buns for the little jar of sleep oil. I used it last night and it worked. I slept better than I have in a while.
I thought a picture sniffing the bottle was in order. Molly laughs at my jokes. Therefore I shall have to insist that she volunteer every week.

2009-04-22T17:03:00.002-05:00

2009-04-20T08:25:00.015-05:00

Saturday morning I slept until 11am. That told me my body was needing rest. I'm a morning person. By Saturday night I knew I was heading into a sinus infection. Last year I was in bed for 8 days! 8 DAYS IN THE SPRING!!! I couldn't work in the yard, I couldn't enjoy my flowers or the beautiful warm days of early May. All because of that sinus infection.

I've gone holistic. I was ready for this. I've studied essential oils and what to use when. I put my eucalyptus and my lemon scented tea tree oil in my humidifier and went to the guest room to sleep.

I stayed in bed all day Sunday. I used grapefruit seed spray for my nose and the Neti pot with salt and soda. I drank apple cider vinegar in water and felt terrible all day long. Until about 5 o'clock.

Something broke up inside of me. I took a sudden turn for the better. YEAH! I don't have to be sick!!!

I'm still congested a little, but I know what I'm doing is working.

Whenever I get sick the minute I start feeling better I immediately think of something strenuous to do so that I can over-do-it and maybe get sick all over again. All these things come into my mind that I didn't do while I was in bed and I think, well, here's an hour of daylight, why don't I go out in the yard and dig, plant, clean up, take the recycle to the curb, walk the dogs and deadhead the pansies and pull a few weeds.

So, that's what I did.

I go out almost every evening at about 6 o'clock to play in my flower bed. I listen to the robins and doves calling to each other from the giant oak tree that looms over my street.

Last night was different. It had rained Saturday night and most of Sunday. Martha and I had baked bread on Friday until late afternoon and when I got home I was too exhausted to do anything except cook a little supper and watch a movie with Billy.

I'm figuring I lost about 48 hours of observing of light, leaves, shadows, the wind. I guess that explains why I was a little stunned last night when I went out in my front yard. The canopy had returned.

I've been working in the late afternoons in sunlight. All winter I've done a few things here and there in the yard. I put tulips out after Thanksgiving. I raked leaves, mulched. I planted pansies. And since March, since the first inklings of spring, I've gone out to the yard in the evenings and enjoyed the sunlight. What a gentle time, what a gentle light it is and how precious it was to me. The canopy of thick dense leaves that covers my yard had been pulled back, the trees have been naked, and I've allowed myself to enjoy it, to treasure it to bask in it even though I knew darn well what lay ahead.

And last night was the night. It was all over. No more sunlight for my little garden.

The trees are flapping at me now. There's a cool spring wind blowing this morning and from where I sit the show is spectacular and alive and full of movement and newness. The leaves are back. And they are dancing. The leaves are back and they are dictating to me what will grow in my front yard. The canopy has returned.

It was only yesterday when the shadows on my street were thin spindly pitiful specimens of shadows. But look! Now they are large and smooth, cool and dark and they will remain with us until November.

I have all these problems. My neighbor has planted an oak tree in her front yard. I can't believe how much the former sapling has grown since we moved in 3 years ago. By next year the tree will loom over the little strip of dirt where I grow basil, chives and marigolds.

Yesterday morning when the rain was coming down in buckets this same neighbor was out in my front yard, umbrella in hand, bending over to get my New York Times out of a mud puddle. She sloshed to my front porch and tossed it in out of the rain. What a kind gesture! And yet her graceful little oak tree plots evil against my stubby, desperate marigolds.

Things are out of control. The world is doing its thing. Grackles and sparrows are eating my bird seed. My neighbor's oak tree is stealing my sunlight. My face has wrinkles. And I myself am a mere form, and all this work that I do is just like me. It is being born so that it can die. The transmutation of forms, from one form to another; that is all I see.

I went to Covington a couple of weeks ago to do some work in my Aunt Velma's garden. If obsessions can be inherited then I guess that's where I got mine. Her perennial bed was born about 60 years ago.
When I first got interested in gardening, I was in my twenties and I was crazy about growing vegetables. She said, "Melinda, that's exactly how I got started. But watch out for flowers. Once you grow a flower you won't want to grow anything else."
I'll never forget those words. They were so true!
And her flower garden is her passion and has been low these 60 years. Now she's 90 years old and there so much she simply can't do any more.
As I was leaving she spoke. Her brow strained, she peered into the rich composted soil, into her garden, seeing but not seeing. She said– not to me, not to anybody–she just said, "When I die and Davie get's this place he'll probably just mow all of this down." She extended her arm out over the beautiful garden, her blood, her sweat, her vision, the journal of her life.
It was as if she spoke to test the waters, to brace herself for the inevitable.

I don't know why, but I guess I got scared. I laughed and said, "The good thing about that is that you won't be here to see it."

And we paused together in silence. A ninety year old gardener has learned the lessons of the garden. The grass withers. The flower fades.

I recently read Eckhart Tolle's book, THE POWER OF NOW. It was a tremendous spiritual experience for me. The now is liberation from the ghosts of the past and freedom from anxiety about the future. Now is all we have.
So now, really now, I am watching the dappling light and shadows dancing outside my window and listening to the deep hollow music of the windchime that hangs at the corner eave. And I accept. I accept. I accept.

It is what it is.

Grackles, sparrows, and all.

2009-04-06T14:03:00.006-05:00

(click here to watch my slide show. that's me singing in the background, my favorite melancholy melody Sao Gan.)

I took these pictures over a period of weeks beginning with that wonderful early March snow. I think they tell the tale of spring unfolding in my neighborhood and in Shelby Forest where Blue and I take our walks.

Last week I took Blue out to Shelby Forest. We took a walk down to Pioneer Spring which is about a mile and a half into the woods. I'm learning to be alone. I'm learning to be silent. I'm learning the wisdom of stillness finally. I love the woods in the early, early spring when only the early early plants are coming up. Nothing compares with the cold beauty of the deep red flower of the trillium. They're so plentiful in the unspoiled woods here in West Tennessee, but wild places are rarer an rarer.

Blue ran up and down the bluffs. Occasionally I'd lose sight of him, not for long. He watches me the way I watch him. He may be high up on the bluff almost hidden behind a tree, but he hears my steps and senses my direction. It's clear to me that his primary purpose is walking with me, following me, being my companion, and exploring the forest floor and the clear running creek beds are pure ecstasy for him, but they are also secondary.

It's been a long time since I've written here on my blog. I started to post that I was on a sabbatical of sorts and that I'd be back in a few months, but that didn't happen. So, I have no idea if people have just given up on me, lost interest, figured I'd just run out of things to say.

But this winter has been the longest winter of my life. That sounds negative, but for me at this stage in my life it's been anything but negative. I'll post the story later in the week, but for now, I feel like spring myself. I was asleep, dormant, but now it's time for another season.

2009-03-08T10:23:00.003-05:00

(click the picture to enlarge the image)

Billy and I had agreed we'd get up and go to church this morning, but when the alarm went off an apathy set in, a familiar fog. We'll be Downtown at our church twice in the coming week. Lord, make me holy, but just not right now, not this morning.
We've also been at church several times all ready this week attending functions with the PB. For anyone who might be reading this a PB is a Presiding Bishop. Our Presiding Bishop is Katherine Jeffers Schori who was elected in 2006. She is the first woman to hold the position. She has a Phd in oceanography and is a pilot herself. Her daughter is an Air Force Pilot! She's been here in Memphis this week. It's all been very exciting. She and Obama represent the new world order, an order that gives voice to all people and doesn't dismiss the voice of the poor, the powerless and the disenfranchised. They are the very beginning, I believe, of a new consciousness, a healthier consciousness that may heal the wounds of this earth, this broken planet.

I shook myself out of bed and tried to remember my dream. There was something about Sam as a baby. I held him in my arms and in my dream I experienced all the joy of the moment, the joy of holding my son in my arms. He was such an adorable baby, as most babies are, but Sam had a sweetness as an infant that was unusual; a tenderness that came with a power of observation, curiousity and fascination with the world.All of that came to me in my dream.

And in my dream there was a huge maple tree and the children were playing in it. One morning they went to play in it and it was broken off at the trunk. I knew it was irreplacable; that in their lifetimes I wouldn't be able to give them another tree to play in. I was sad. Later there was another scene that had to do with an abandoned town, an ocean, a mountain, Gertie falling into the water and having to be saved. My goodness! I was a busy bee last night.

I put the coffee water on and opened the back door to let the dogs out. It was so nice and warm that I walked out into the back yard with them.

My eyes are on the ground these days whenever I'm in my yard. I'm ever vigilant for signs of spring, little shoots peeking up through the ground. My tulips are visible and I've removed the little markers I put down last winter, markers to keep me from stepping on them. My wild phlox have buds on them, my clematis is climbing out of the dirt and up the light pole, my lenten roses are in full bloom and the gold mound spirea is full of tiny golden leaf buds waiting to unfurl.

I stood in the yard and listened to the chinking windchime in my neighbor's yard and the robin chattering above me. I was absorbed in the moment when my eye caught sight of something on the ground.

(click the picture to enlarge the image)

It is a gift. I don't know where it came from. The wind woke up early this morning and scoured the treetops looking for seeds that were ready to fly. This brave little volunteer surrendered to the call and swirled through the air on the invisible wing of the morning wind. I have no idea how far away the seed pod's mother tree is. I don't know what kind of tree it might become if I pressed it into the ground, put a few bricks around it and waited until summer to check the shape of the leaves.

The color! chartreuse? lime green? It is the color of alive; the color of life. I picked it up and held it in the palm of my hand. I thought about the biology of it all–how the tree is full of all of this information, how it doesn't think about reproduction, life, death or growing. The tree just is and somehow knows how to cooperate with the wind in the spring to spead her seeds abroad knowing that some will land on the street and get brushed aside by traffic, never to see a bit of soft earth. Most of the seeds will land in yards or parks. They'll land in places that will keep them just far enough away from what they need to germinate that they'll rot and go back to the dust from whence we all came. Ocassionally a little seed pod will find it's way to safety and sprout in a flower bed underneath some azaleas and the owner of the flower bed won't even know the little tree is there until the tree is 2 or 3 feet tall. Then a decision will have to be made. I don't even like to think about it.
Occasionally a seed pod is immortalized in photography as this one was. I wonder how her mother and the wind will feel about that–––

2009-02-27T10:48:00.005-05:00

Yesterday my daughter Martha came over to help me bake bread. There's a little wintertime farmer's market. I found out about it through my buying club group. The group is memphis.locallygrown.net and it's sole purpose is to give gardeners and farmers in the area a little market in the winter where they can sell winter crops: lettuce, mizuna, arugula, turnip greens, eggs, etc.

They agreed to sell my bread in their little market.

Martha and I spent the day together baking.

We delivered the bread to a little bungalow on the other side of town where the members meet to pick up their orders. As we were pulling out of the driveway to return home, Martha said, "What is that? We used to have one in the yard. What's it called?"

"It's a spirea," I said looking at the soft thin branches clumped together filled with tiny white flowers.

"No, it's called something else."

"Bridal veil," I replied.

"Yeah, we used to pull the flowers off and throw the pedals up in the air like confetti. I love that bush, so much confetti, it's so pretty," she said with what I recognized as just a bit of wistfulness in her voice.

When I was a child, growing up in Covington, I had the same kind of experience with flowers. There was a quince, a flowering quince, in our back yard. When that shrub bloomed I was captivated by the beauty of it. Not consciously, I don't think. But it was the beginning of a long relationship I was to have with flowers.

Such a simple thing, looking at a flower, gazing, getting lost in its beauty. I don't understand it, but I knew even as a child that I was being invited by flowers. Invited? That's an odd way to put it, but I think that is the only word I can think of to express what I felt, what I feel.

There are quince in my neighborhood here in Memphis. They've been blooming for nearly two weeks now. Unfortunately they have stickers on them. I don't know that I want one in my yard, but I'm glad I get to enjoy them in other yards.

Has this been a long winter for you?

Last Sunday I awoke to the sound of a bird singing outside my window. I heard a voice inside me say, "Stay. Be still. Listen."
Breathing, I listened to the pronouncements of the bird. The wise old tree outside the window sighed with relief that I'd decided to join them. I pulled the covers around me and sunlight filtered in softly and pulled up a chair. Together we heard the earth sing.

Spring. Spring is here. Spring.

Ask the quince what winter is.

2009-02-11T10:17:00.004-05:00

I took this picture of Blue last Fourth of July. I was working in the yard and Blue was at his post watching me. He's built for this porch. He can stand all day watching squirrels. It's truly his favorite place to be other than walking the sidewalks of our neighborhood.

Here he is in the daytime vigorously staring out at the birch tree in the front yard; the tree teeming with squirrels.

I haven't been writing much lately. Well,that's not entirely true. I've been working on the eternal book, that book destined to be forever in its infancy, swaddled tightly within the arms of my little laptop, never to see the light of publishing. It's there. It's written. I just have to take the months and months to lay it out like a quilt and piece it together.

But in the meantime, I do write little things from time to time. I wrote this one last summer. It's a dog story, a true dog story.

The Attack

I love to walk with Blue. I rescued him from the pound. Ole Blue’s about the most earnest and best dog friend I’ve ever had. We have a connection. We need each other. Blue and I live in a 1925 bungalow with Billy, my husband, and his dog Gertie. Gertie's a yip-yip dog. Blue's a manly dog.
Our house is a typical old fashioned porch enclosed by a low brick wall and three brick pillars. Blue will stand all day at the porch wall. Its just about his height. He puts his chin on the white concrete ledge that runs along the top of it and stares out into the street or up into the birch tree looking for squirrels.
When I wash my face in the mornings, it’s a sign to Blue that we’re going for a walk. He rushes from where I stand at the lavatory to the front door then back to me then back to the front door. When I grab the towel to dry my face it's a sign to him. His 60 pound body floats straight up into the air like genie being let out of a bottle. His body lifts in exultation as if to say, "At last we’re headed for our sidewalks!"
Yesterday when Blue and I went for our usual morning walk in the much cooler Memphis air we’d just turned onto a busy street when Blue was attacked by two large dogs that came from a partially fenced in yard.
I held on tightly to his leash, fearing that if he got out of his collar he’d be forced into the mindless speeding traffic, yet I feared what these dogs might do to him if he wasn’t able to fully defend himself or flee.
I screamed, “Please someone help me!” I kicked at the dogs and continued to scream. Miraculously they stopped and ran off behind the house where they had been before the attack. I shook with terror as we ran toward home, a terror that soon turned to anger. How could anyone be so irresponsible with their animals?
Billy and I discussed the incident when I got home. We decided I should drive over to the house where the dogs were and see if I could find their owner.
“I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,” I said as I stormed toward the car. My husband followed and offered this as I opened the door of the car, “Melinda, I know you’re upset, but trust me, don’t approach with anger you’ll only make the person defensive. Try starting off with a question, like –– “Excuse me, did you know your dogs were loose?’”
Good idea. scheesch.
As I pulled into the driveway I spotted the dogs. I drove slowly around to the back of the house where I noticed in the distance a woman, alone, pushing a lawnmower. I waved. She turned off the mower and walked toward me.
“Excuse me,” (a hem) “did you know your dogs have been out?”
“Really?”
“They attacked my dog, they ganged up on him and attacked him in front of your house.”
“Oh no,” she said as she pulled her hands to her flushed cheeks.
I carefully recounted the incident so that she could be properly horrified and hopefully repentant.
“I am so sorry. I am so very sorry.”
The dogs in question were by now lying in the driveway like wet rags wagging tired friendly tails. I got out my car. They came toward me wanting to be petted. I petted each head then turned to the young woman. We began to talk. I noticed toys in the yard but saw no children.
“Do you have children?” I asked. She nodded and tears came into her eyes.
“They’re with their father,” she explained, “they’re afraid to stay with me right now.”
And she began to recount her own tale of terror from only a few days before. She’d been standing in her kitchen she told me when she heard a huge crash. Two men had broken through a heavy side door and were standing in her living room. She screamed, grabbed her children and ran out the back door where two more buglars were waiting. Hysterical, she continued to scream while her two frightened dogs, chained and in the back yard, barked furiously and helplessly looking on as their owner tried to protect herself and her children.
Thankfully, the burglars fled. I guess they were frightened too, but the damage had been done. She and her children had been invaded, violated. They no longer felt safe in their own home.
She told me she’d just let her dogs out for a moment as she was preparing to cut the yard. She was afraid to be out in the yard without them. Apparently the dogs felt they were defending their home when they jumped on Blue.
I reached out and hugged her. We talked. I told her if she wanted I’d help her build a fence. I ached. I cried, too and later I even dreamed about her in the night.
You know I have to say, I was ready to let that woman have it with both barrels and the last thing I expected was this: to hurt for her, to understand her, to want to do something, anything to make her day, her life, better.
She’ll figure things out, I’m sure. She’ll build a security fence or sell the house. She’ll find a place of safety for her and for her children.
And as for me? I’m going to try to remember one thing.
What’s that you ask?
* * * *
You just never know. You just never, never know.

2009-01-18T08:32:00.032-05:00

I wanted to stay in a place where I could see water. If I close my eyes when I'm alone, I can imagine that I'm near a lake or a quiet river; that's on the rare occasion when I can quiet the din of noise, the memories, the responsibilities, the anxieties that bubble up like a spring inside of me. This noise, these things to do, these defense arguments I have with myself are hard to smother, but sometimes, sometimes when I'm quiet and alone I can imagine being by the water.

When we got to the little cabin late in the day I went straight down to the dock. The water was still and dark. I relished the silence. Occasionally a fish would flap in the water. Across the little river and up on a hill were houses, cabins. Some of them looked like they were permanent residences; some were deserted and appeared to be strictly summer cottages.

I love staring at water. This river is so different from THE river. There's no roar, no mud, no mythical great-grandaddy catfish trolling its innards.

I heard a strange noise. It was coming toward me. It sounded like someone swinging a giant slingshot whish whish whish. Suddenly ducks, maybe 20 of them were heading toward me, the whish of their wings against the air lifting them off the water grew louder until they were right over my head flying in a V. I remained still as they rose gradually off the water. They quickly disappeared around the bend hoovering above the river and heading home to roost.

In the distance, no telling how far away it was, I heard a weedeater or a tiller or some small motor buzzing away; just loud enough to prick the bubble of solitude. I waited until that motor stopped then listened again. I heard an owl and it was dark so I went inside where it was warm.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon, late. On Friday morning we drove into Heber Springs to get groceries at the local Walmart.

Oh, you who shop at Walmart, how do you hold onto your moneys?

Billy and I were entranced with the vast all-inclusive store. We had a list of things we wanted and quickly gathered those things in the grocery area, but the store seduced us.

"I'm going to electronics," Billy declared.

"I'm going to housewares," I said, "See you later."

I bought a fabulous ceramic dutch oven. It's a LeCrueset wannabe, enameled cast iron and perfect for soups which I make a lot.

We stopped at a little park beside the water on the way in. I could hear the voices of the men in the boat echoing as they spoke almost reverently to each other there on the water.

I understand why this country is in the trouble it's in. Everything in Walmart was so affordable and shiny I wanted one of each. Our basket was filling up.

We shopped for supper and I bought a bag of Great Northern beans to put in my new soup pot. I could have stayed in Walmart all day just piddling around looking at what's new; remembering all the things in my kitchen that I've been living without. So, that's sort of weird. We went on vacation to the mountains and spent our first morning shopping at Walmart.

Here's Billy at the little cabin by the river not long after we arrived. He's pushing the ottoman out of his way and getting our luggage into the room. After Walmart I dropped Billy back at the cabin and went exploring by myself. He doesn't like mountain roads or the way I drive.

"No, you go ahead," he said, "I have a movie I want to watch."

That suited me fine. I don't like the way he slams his feet into the floor board putting on his pretend brakes.

It was very very cold. The town is at the edge of the Ozarks and I experienced the cold as mountain chill, a penetrating cold that comes from wind combined with elevation.

My friend Regina had told me about the cabin as well as the migrating swans. The swans were the first thing on my to do list on Saturday.

In 1992 trumpet swans appeared on this lake. They were apparently blown off their migratory path. There are several families and 137 swans in all. 137 out of about 20,000 in existence. Trumpeter swans were hunted to near extinction back in the 30's. A few men and woman got together and decided they wanted to save them. They got legislation passed and began incubating eggs, and it worked.
What is it that would make someone kill a beautiful bird like this for no reason other than to watch it die? Who are we? Where are we in our evolution as human beings and when will we stop killing animals just to have something to kill? It's hard for me to understand why these birds were slaughtered. I don't even think they're edible are they?
Well, now that I have that out of my system I can go on with my story.

When I got to the lake there were maybe 20 or 30 people standing on the other side of a wire fence. It was a delight to see how proud these Arkansans were of their swans. There were parents and grandparents, children the whole community turned out to spend the afternoon at the lake watching the swans.

They arrive at the lake in late November and stay until February.

Some of the people brought containers of cracked corn. The swans were used to the people and came right up to the fence to peer with one suspicious eye at these strange creatures. I know it's corny, but I just think these graceful swans look like fat little old ladies when they turn on their heads and stick their behinds in the air with their little black feet dangling uselessly. It always gets a laugh out of me when I see it.

How's this for a suspicious expression? I got as close as I could, but the swan made certain I knew it was time to quit creeping closer. hmmpf! the big baby..
On second thought maybe it's programed into the collective memory of this group of swans that they were nearly hunted to extinction by people like me, people with guns instead of cameras who needed target practice. Oh, for a new day when spears are hammered into ploughshares. I know I'm preachy, but it does seem to me there is way too much violence in this world: people to people violence and people to animal violence, just plain violence.

OK that's our 3 day excursion to the little Red River in Arkansas.

2009-01-05T08:21:00.011-05:00

Sometimes I totally forget that I'm not still in my twenties. My body reminds me. The baking I did before Christmas was so exhausting, but it was exhausting in a good way. Nevertheless my body is finally telling me I need some rest. I went to bed at 8:30 last night.
And on Christmas Eve, whew! I fell apart. I had mistakenly agreed to bake cinnamon rolls for a neighbor. I thought to myself, "That won't take long. I'll just make one batch." It was too much. I found myself at 4 o'clock in the afternoon with a messy kitchen and tons of work still left to do before dinner. We'd made plans. We were going to go to a party at my friend Nancy's house then go the late Christmas Eve service downtown at Calvary. We'd planned to have dinner after the 10 o'clock service. But as the time grew closer this didn't seem like such a good idea and things went by the wayside.
Mamie and Sam came back to Memphis from visiting in Brighton with Jimmy, Mamie's father. They arrived around 4:30 and I'd just gotten off my feet. I heard Mamie knock. I went to the front door and I think she was a little alarmed. I looked bent over, slow, hobbling. I was stiff from having lain down.
She came right in and told me to lie down again and that she'd clean up the kitchen.
I was so mad at myself for not planning better. I had a fresh spinach casserole to fix and I hadn't stemmed the spinach. I rested a few minutes then got up to do that while Mamie helped by wrapping last minute presents. One of these days I'll learn how to be prepared for a Christmas Eve Dinner!
We had to cancel my friend Nancy's party.
It all worked out.
I think it was 8 o'clock by the time we sat down for dinner. My nephew, Will helped me in the kitchen and everybody else helped by being of good cheer. Here we are at the table. Martha's friend, Sean took this picture of us. He's a photographer can't you tell?

Here I am in the kitchen with my nephew Will. He's living in Memphis now. I'm so proud of him. He's doing so well. He's a real joy in my life. In fact, I call him my Christmas miracle at Christmas. ( I called him my Thanksgiving miracle on Thanksgiving). I'll probably call him my MLK miracle on MLK day.
After Christmas I was taking my dog Blue for a walk. I started thinking about the money I'd made over the holidays. It was a sizable sum for my little pocketbook. Like a bolt out of the blue I realized that this was the time for me to have my piano.
I grew up with a piano. I learned to play on the piano my mother had inherited from her grandmother. When I married my first husband and moved to Brighton out on the farm, I took that piano with me.
My children learned to play on it and I continued to play. That piano burned in the house fire in 1997.
I inherited a little money right before we moved into the new house and with that money I bought a baby grand. I LOVED my piano and played every day. I even started taking lessons and occasionally played for my church on Sundays when our organist was out of town.
When I left and moved to Memphis I had that piano moved into my little tiny duplex here in Midtown.
Then I met and married Billy and moved the piano to a condo we bought over on McClean. It looked beautiful in that upstairs space. It was a very neat place to live, but it was really too small for us.
We moved to Virginia for a year and a half for Billy to serve as interim rector for a large parish in Virgina Beach. While we were there we decided to sell the condo and look for a house when we got back. The condo sold on the day we put in on the market. The people who bought it wanted the piano.
I said, "Billy, I'll sell that piano, but you have to promise that you'll buy me another one when we get our house."
He promised.
But we moved into this house and things just came up. The floors had to be refinished. We took out a plaster wall in the kitchen that ended up costing $5000.00. We put a closet in the bedroom. We pulled up carpet that had been in the house since 1979. There were so many expenses that I just didn't want to insist on a piano. But I longed for it. I longed for a piano.
I bought a guitar, but that didn't fill my longings.

I came home from my walk with Blue that day after Christmas and I started thinking about where to put my new piano that I didn't yet have. When I found the right place the dream became not a dream but something tangible.
A few days later I mentioned my tangible to Billy. To my surprise he heartily agreed. He hates for me to want anything I can't have.
I just left it up to him after that. He's much better at those details than I am. He looked in the paper and found a classified ad for a baby grand.

He called the number and the voice on the answering machine said, "Hey this is Jim, leave your me a message and if I like you I'll call you back."

Billy had a set price in his head that he wanted us to pay. He's much better at bargaining than I am so I left the poor piano man at Billy's mercy.
I had an address and a phone number so I called and made an appointment to go and see what the piano looked like.
I talked with Margaret, Jim's wife. She gave me directions to the house which is over on Jackson near the Raleigh Springs Mall. It was a warm afternoon, cloudy and almost muggy. It reminded me of a New Orleans day. Everything was gray and brown, the streets, the yards, even the little houses seemed to blend into the winter afternoon landscape.
I pulled up into the driveway and went up to the porch to knock on the door. Margaret quickly answered. She opened the door and the first thing I saw was the piano. It was love at first sight. It was smaller than the piano I had before and the finish on it was in much better condition. I played a few songs on it to see how it sounded, told Margaret that I wanted it then drove home dreaming of the day when they'd deliver it.

2009-01-01T12:53:00.018-05:00

A couple of years ago I went to visit my Aunt Velma during the Christmas holidays and she had the most gorgeous Christmas cactus on her coffee table. I vowed that I too would have a Christmas cactus -- not just one I picked up in the grocery store on my way out, thrown in with the milk and eggs, wrapped in bright green foil -- but a Christmas cactus I'd nurtured all summer long from the year before, nurtured by ignoring it.

I had it on a table outside all summer and somewhere in September we had a fierce thunderstorm. A small branch fell from a tree and knocked half my Christmas cactus to the ground. That's why there's only one side to my beautiful flowering cactus, but one side is better by far than no side at all.
The Sunday before Christmas Billy was preaching at Emmanuel Church here in Memphis. He is there every other week and has grown so fond of the congregation. They're struggling financially so they use "supplies (Sunday substitutes)." Billy is their "Supply priest" on the first and third Sunday of each month. I stay home on Sunday mornings because I LOVE my solitude. I've said it before I'm sure, but with Billy retired he's under my feet a lot. Shooo!!! I say. Go play! Go away!

I know some Sunday mornings are for my solitude, but on the Sunday morning before Christmas I was lonely for my young friend Gus. We haven't been together much lately. He has so many activities and so do I. I called his house to see if he'd like to take a walk with Blue and me. His Daddy, Josh, talked it over with him and wrapped Gus up from head to toe. I think it must have been the coldest morning we've had all season.

We walked around the block and I asked Gus if he was ready to go home or if he'd like to walk some more. "Why don't we go to your house? I'd like that." "Me too," I said.

Gus never comes to my house that we don't read one of his favorite books, Eloise at Christmas
This is his favorite page. It's where Eloise is running through the Plaza Hotel. The page is a detailed map with dots, when E is skibbling, and dashes to show when she's running. Gus carefully studies it and always asks me what I think skibbling is. I skibble through my kitchen demonstrating the skibble.
"And Nanny do, oh do let's make cookies for Christmas! I simply ADORE making cookies with Nanny."And Gus and I have our own little version of Eloise right in my kitchen.

Ouch! Just looking at this picture makes me tired. It was taken on one of those exhausting baking days right before Christmas. The house is dark and I'm finishing up the cinnamon rolls and getting ready to deliver them. Martha helped me all week long. I couldn't have done it without her. We worked very hard and definitely got better at what we were doing with every order -- hitting a good working rhythm.

Tomorrow I'll tell the story of my Christmas present!

2008-12-20T13:34:00.019-05:00

My oh my. What was I thinking? I guess I was thinking I'd like to have my own business. Now I do have my own business and it's going so well. I'm a little embarrassed about Thanksgiving. I didn't do such a great job. I mean my bread was really good, but I worked so hard and was so unorganized and so stressed that I didn't enjoy anything. It was just stressful.
But, I guess work is stressful when you're under pressure of a holiday deadline.
Fortunately my daughter Martha was able to help be all week! We've had such a great time. She's gotten here early and left late in the afternoons. We've carefully planned our strategies each day according to the orders we've gotten. She knows how to do that stuff. I'm just really not designed for the organizational part. I do love baking bread and as the week has gone on I've gotten better and better. We've learned how to get the kitchen just the right temperature. We've learned how to get the bread to rise just right. We've learned to make the roll dough early and let it rise then start of the bread and get it finished while the roll dough is rising.
She's been taking care of the books and the orders, the labeling, the packaging. There's a lot of work from start to finish and baking the bread and taking it out of the oven is really just the first half of the process. I'm much more sympathetic toward anyone in business. I see people driving a truck with their company's name on it and I think, "Wow, they make enough profit on their business to actually make payments on a truck." I imagine how many rolls I'd have to bake to buy a truck.
Last night at about 6 o'clock I baked my last batch of cinnamon rolls. Whew! I immediatly turned to cleaning up the mess I'd made. This has been one downside of the whole process. For the last 4 days I've baked bread in my own kitchen which means I've had a messy kitchen and a messy dinning room filled with bakery boxes, ribbon, scissors, zip lock bags, wax paper and other junk needed to package bread. So as I quietly cleaned,
Billy went to the grocery store to get some fish for supper; fish and a baked potato and asparagus.
I turned on Garisson Keiller and Prairie Home Companion and got busy locating my counter tops beneath all the clutter that had mounted up on top of them over the last week. It didn't take long. By the time he got back everything was the way I like it. I immediately felt better.
I'm tired. Sometimes I don't realize that I'm older than I used to be. Although, I remember when I did this bakery thing when my children were little. I was tired then. Martha was a baby. There's a picture somewhere of me with Martha on my hip standing in front of the Christmas tree in the old house. It was the Christmas I'd baked bread to pay for my Bosch mixer. Martha is bright eyed and a happy, chubby little cherub. I was wan. Dull looking. Not enough strength to get a smile to come across my face. My sister and I have laughed about that picture. Isn't it somehow strange that now, 25 years later Martha and I are together again at Christmas with the same mixer, the same baking bread, the same frenzied me and the same happy bright eyed Martha, my baby. We had such a great week together.
I have a feeling if someone had taken a picture of me yesterday afternoon I'd have had to track them down, wrestle them to the ground, steal the camera and smash it. I was not a pretty sight.
But I'm ready now to get to the business at hand. I'm ready to get the house ready for my daughter Mamie and her husband Sam who'll be arriving on Monday.
Friday afternoon I realized that Christmas was less than a week away. I also realized that I hadn't mailed Sarah's Christmas present. I'm not used to having to get packages in the mail because the children are almost always at home for the holidays.
I was so tired Friday night. Billy and I went to Pete and Sam's for supper and had the best time. We got home and I headed straight to bed. Then WHAM! I thought about Sarah's Christmas present.
Now, I don't know about you, but my experiences at the Memphis Post Offices are less than stellar. Our nearest PO is on Prescott near the Laurelwood shopping center. As with all post offices it's a dumpy, plain building and I've never been in it when there weren't people waiting in line.
I set my alarm for 7:30am so I could jump up and run over to the PO and be the first in line. I got there at about 8 and saw there were no cars. They don't open until 10am on Saturday.
I came home and got on line and ordered Sam's present from Macy's and paid a ridiculous amount for shipping because I'd not ordered it sooner. I ran back to the PO and got there at 15 minutes before 10. I was about the 5th person in a line that gradually grew to 20 or 30 just in the short time I was there.
When the door was finally unlocked and we snaked along the dingy narrow passage way with a mailing desk on one side and mailing junk on the other side, it was clear to see that only two clerks were available. 2? 2?2? Don't you think they could have hired an extra person to come in on the busiest day of the year?
The first guy in line was a musician/guitar sales person who was mailing about 3 guitars and about 10 little boxes of something else and needed to insure each item for a different amount and everything had to be weighed. His order alone probably took 30 minutes. I bet some of those people are still there waiting! arrrgh.
It took an hour to get my package in the mail.
Then I came home and started baking again. We had to do 10 orders of cinnamon rolls.
My paper whites are beginning to push up toward the light. I bet they'll be ready to bloom by Christmas or at least I hope they will.

On the front porch we have a chimnea. I haven't even turned it on this winter. It's propane and puts out a lot of heat. I'd told Billy that I'd grill the fish but when I went out to put charcoal on my cheap little Walmart grill I saw that alas, it's little legs were broken. To the trash heap with you little Cheap Chinese piece of tin!
Ah, I'd heard people cooked on their chimneas. I lit it and let it get good and hot. I came inside and put the potatoes in the oven and did a few things in the kitchen then Blue and I went out to the porch to grill the fish.
The air was crisp and cold and my porch was cool and fresh and quite comfortable near the chimnea. I removed the chimney and set a small grill on top above the fire then lay the fish on it. I sat and watched the fire and listened to the fish sizzle and pop, fat dripping into the flames. Blue put his head in my lap until the fish was done and it was time to come in. And I must say that was just about the tastiest piece of Salmon I ever ate.

2008-12-09T09:07:00.010-05:00

I have never been across the ocean. One day I will go. I'm planning in my head where I will start. My sister went to Greece and brought back pictures of the little towns she visited, towns nestled in the rocks of a mountainside. The pictures were evocative, alluring and filled me with longings and restless feet and heart.

That was 10 years ago or more. What struck me most in the photo she brought back was the color of blue painted on the window and door frames. I found a picture on line similar to the one my sister took. This one has the color, the unforgettable color blue that I love, but the other thing was the yellow they used with it; a flower pot with a red geranium set upon a yellow table.

Selling one loaf at a time I will see the world or I will see some of the world. I know as just part of an education I should go to Europe. I will. I know I will. But my heart longs for the exoctic far away places, places I've never even heard of.

How can I find this lake?

How is it I long for thing I know nothing about? Languages, villages, people with faces lined with the creases of working the earth and sea in order to eat.

Yet, sometimes I think the deepest travel is done without moving. My herb garden, the one that's in my head, the one that's under leaves right now. I've all ready mulched the spot with my neighbor's leaves, raking his front yard for him, loading tarp after tarp of his maple leaves and dragging them to my side yard. I said, "Henry, do you mind if I rake your front yard? I want your leaves for compost for a little garden over here on my side yard."
I think Henry may have secretly thought I was just pushing him, trying to make him clean up his yard. Oh, Henry, ye of little faith.
So my herb garden is like a vacation, a journey, a fantasy, I'll start with Jean Anthony, an herbalist out in the country, out where I used to live. I'll ask her what kind of lavender grows well here. I'll find out about some of the different varieties of thyme. Maybe that day will be in February, a sunny winter day. I won't be rushed at all, I'll take my time and visit with my Aunt Velma, too. I'll spend the time and I'll spend the money I've set aside from my business just for this.

Billy and I have a trip planned. We're going over to Arkansas for 3 days after Christmas. I'm yearning to get away and I'm yearning for these paper white narcissus here on my window sill to grow. I'm yearning for the smell of lavender, for fresh cotton sheets, for a winter afternoon, sun filtering through the shudders and that novel I've been looking for,hoping for, the one I can't wait to get lost in; and yet, I'm not. Not yearning, because this day, this rainy, dark winter morning here in my little room with Blue at my feet and a cinnamon roll waiting for me in the oven, this is enough, it's a journey in and of itself.

2008-12-04T10:52:00.008-05:00

When Billy and I first moved into our house 4 years ago I realized that neither one of us had much stuff. He'd given away lots of his furniture and stuff when Sunny, his late wife died.

And, of course, when I left Jimmy I left with nothing except a really nice piece of furniture my mother had given me. My daddy bought it at an auction back in the 40's. It had 8 coats of paint on it, but my mother knew it had to be something special if my father had paid good money for it. I remember her working on it. Paint remover, steel wool, scraper, over and over she'd say, "I just know there's something under all this paint, C.L. wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't valuable."

She eventually uncovered a walnut burl(I gotta check the spelling). A burl is that pretty part of walnut that's black and brown intertwined and very rich looking. It is a fine piece and it's in my living room.

So in order to replenish our stock of stuff we started going to estate sales. That's where I got this Santa. I think it was probably made in the 40's or 50's when ceramic Santa's were all the rage. I paid $20.00 for it and it has been worth every single penny.

Well, I got the Santa out yesterday when I was doing a "photo shoot" for my new bread company. I did one for Thanksgiving with a cinnamon roll. But yesterday when I got the camera out and started taking pictures everything was wrong.

I couldn't get the lighting right. I couldn't find a way to capture the soft aromatic goodness of hot cinnamon rolls coming right from the oven.

I was trying to get a really good picture in order to make cards for my business. I want post card size business cards, something that will give people a visual idea of what my business is all about and hopefully lure them to the web site which, thank you for asking, is www.melindshoaf.com

I just couldn't pull things together. For one thing, a friend of mine, Karen Roberts, who owns Somanest over on Highland, invited a man named David Crow, to come to her store and give a seminar. She is very persuasive. When she gave me his information she said, "You have to come, he's amazing, you can't miss this. It's important."

Well, the two day seminar cost $125.00 and I didn't really know what the heck it was about, but something told me I needed to make the effort. Something is stirring in me that's been dormant for several years. I'm going to follow it.

Karen and I made an arrangement. I'd cater the lunches so I could make a little money and promote my business.

This meant that I was to be at her shop listening to lectures about plants and healing from 10 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock at night. Ughh. Nothing in me wanted to do this. I was busy with other things. I needed rest. I had other commitments. I had to miss my singing group that meets on Sunday afternoons.

Not only that, but I have an aversion to sitting still and listening to someone else lecture.

But I made myself go. I don't know exactly why, but I knew there was something for me there, something important.

I'm still processing it. I'm still trying to let it all soak in. I'm still trying to find out how this information relates to me and how it will affect my life.

I hardly know where to start, except to say that this was a crash coarse on the history of essential oils. I didn't really know what essential oils were until I went to this seminar. Briefly, about 10 percent of all plants create essential oils. Within these oils, it has long been known, are microbial anitbodies that fight diseases, pests and toxins from the atmosphere. In other words, a spruce tree that lives to be 100 years old, must develop adaptive ways to survive against diseases and pests, to bolster their immune system. When we take this tree and distill these oils, we inhale or ingest microbes that also help us to bolster our own immune system.

I don't know if this makes sense or not as I'm writing it, but it made me want to get back, to go back, to learn more of ancient ways of healing.

I've hit a brick wall. I don't ever want to hurt the way I hurt the week before Thanksgiving when I woke up one morning and couldn't move my neck without excruciating, excruciating pain. I don't want that ever again. I don't want to be on modern medicines and steroids for the rest of my life. I don't a debilitating disease that keeps me from doing the things I enjoy. So I'm rethinking. I'm hoping. I'm going to try to control my arthritis with natural medicines, with acupuncture and massages, with exercise and herbal medicines. I'm getting back to the garden and it's where I belong. The website for this vast amount of information is www.floracopeia.com

It's one of the most beautiful websites I've ever seen. The whole purpose of this entire concept and undertaking is to make farming sustainable throughout the world. These essential oils are very very valuable cash crops, second only to drug crops. The oils are extremely valuable and their byproducts are all natural and are used to improve the soil as compost etc. Sustainable agriculture, community gardens, natural healing, education, purpose, just check it out. I'm going outside to rake leaves so I can compose my herb garden that I'm putting in next spring!

2008-11-28T11:34:00.024-05:00

Last Thursday I went to the Dixon Gallery to hear a lecture by Thomas Hobbs, a famous plant person. He has an incredible eye. His latest book is Shocking Beauty. I don't even remember where I first saw the book, but I know I've seen it and studied the pictures in it. Amazing. He created something new in the world of plant design. His lecture was very funny and the slides were gorgeous, but the projectionist up in the far reaches of darkness seemed to go to sleep from time to time, nodding off at the wheel; creating blurry images in the vast black auditorium.
I was so glad I went. I offered the man some real Southern homemade Thanksgiving rolls to take back to Canada with him, but he refused, saying, "No, thank you. We have our Thanksgiving a week early in Canada. We've already had our Thanksgiving, so I really wouldn't have any use for them."

"Hmmmpf." I said, burning with shame at having offered such a gift to a stranger and at having been rejected in front of several well heeled Memphis ladies.

So I took a long cold walk through the gardens. They call them the most beautiful 17 acres in Memphis. It was cold that day and the garden reminded me of something, maybe visits to my friend Lucy's house, old house out in the country. The brick walks, ancient boxwoods, a cedar tree here and there. I can't say.
It was a good walk, a healthy walk. I shoved my hands into my pockets and pulled my shoulders in toward my chin and brooded about embarassing myself in front of the "President" of the garden club by asking the speaker if he'd like to have some of my dinner rolls as a gift. Why do I do such stupid things?
So I forgave myself on the walk and moved on. Left it. Acted all grown up. I decided I was too old to be embarassed about being myself.

And anyway, Friday was coming and I had baking to do.

That's another story-this little bread business I started. Somehow things got out of hand. I began to get stressed. I made it through the Saturday deliveries with the help of my daughter Sarah's best friend, Valerie, who not only volunteered to come and help, but insisted. She arrived at around 8:30am and stayed until it was time for her to go to the U of M game. She understands business. In fact, her mother and I were doing Christmas Bazaars in Covington way back in the 70's. I was selling my rolls then. Her mother Rosalyn went on to become extremely successful in her business and that's one reason Val understands holiday rush, packaging, deadlines and other things. Val came and understood much better than I did exactly what I was staring in the face. I finished around 5:30. I went to bed with a lot of pain in my shoulders and back. Sunday morning I woke up and tried to get out of bed. I wondered who could have put knife into my spine while I was sleeping. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything except cry. I didn't want to go to the emergency room for obvious reasons.I didn't want to stay for hours in a cold spare room with a hard table to lie on. Plus, what were they going to do for me? I don't think they'd have given me a nerve block then and there. At least, not like the expert, renown Dr. Schnapp. But then, I worried that my doctor wouldn't see me on Monday.He runs a very tight ship and his nurses close ranks around him. I didn't know how in the world I could finish all I had to do. Sunday was a very, very bad day.
A long day too.

Monday morning I called Dr. Schnapp's office. I talke to the nurse and fortunately she discerned the terror and hopelessness in my voice. She put me on hold for a moment then returned to the line and said, "All right, Mrs. Kolb, we'll work you in." I started crying again, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Billy helped me to the car and off we went.

Dr. Schnapp gave me several injections and told me to quit baking. "Melinda," he said in his Brazillian accent, "why do you do this? What does this baking bread do for you? You don't have to work so hard do you?" So I told him what it did for me, what joy it gives me, and why it was important. I explained to him how strongly I feel about this little business I've started. "OK,OK,OK," he said, "it's ok, you just try not to get so stressed, ok?"

He told me to go to bed for the day and I did. On Tuesday morning I started my baking feeling much better. Because I'd felt so bad on Saturday I called most of my bread delivery people and asked if I could deliver their bread on Tuesday. But when Tuesday came I was overwhelmed. I'd been in bed for two days. I was behind. My helper Tamara wasn't able to stay the whole day and I was left with a ridiculous amount of bread to bake and deliver. I put off as much of the work as I could to Wednesday, hoping Tamara would be able to help me then.

Tamara's organizational skills at work. Label packaging ahead of time, Melinda. That will make things much easier and quicker.

She wasn't able to come until 1 o'clock and by that time I'd been baking for hours. But it was too much. I'd gotten calls late in the week and accepted orders I never should have agreed to, which put the early customers, the people I really OWED, at risk.
Tamara saved me.
Here she is late Wednesday afternoon packaging the rolls. It was a grueling day. We got into the car at about 6:30 Wednesday night to do the deliveries. She'd done all the paper work and had each person's order stacked together with their name and what they owed. When we got toward the end I asked her about my friend Kyle's order. I'd put it under her neighbor's name Charlotte. They are both dear friends from Covington. Charlotte's husband Sam was supposed to pick up the order but I didn't have it ready early enough.
I made the mistake of having Charlotte and Kyle in my head and not on the paper! I totally panicked. Then I called my friend Karen and told her what had happened. I told her I needed her order. I'd made a mistake. She laughed, just as I expected her to. "Come and get it," she said, laughing, I hope you live through this week! I'll leave it on the porch." SO! I typed her address into my GPS and off we went to her house to pick up the "goods." With the rolls and the cinnamon rolls to make the order complete I took Charlotte and Kyle's order to my nephew Will who was going to Union City for Thanksgiving and passing right through Covington. WHEW! He agreed to drop it off on his way!
But I still got the order wrong. Charlotte didn't get her Shoaf's Loaf! Sorry Charlotte!

So, I'm up this morning rehashing all the bad things about last week, all the mistakes. I'm figuring out what I want this business to be. I'm realizing that I need help. Tamara was just amazing in her ability to keep the day from falling apart.
But as my husband, the wise, Father Kolb always says: You live, you learn. And it's true. If you're gonna' move in any new direction you're gonna make mistakes.
As far as I know everyone received what they were meant to receive. Karen and Charlotte being obvious exceptions.(and Dana, my dear Dana. I gave one of her pans to someone else because I knew she'd love me anyway and understand. I owe you my friend)!

Gertie jumped up on the guest bed this morning and surveyed the damage. Plastic cinnamon roll containers left over from the Great Bread Storm of '08 were on her sleeping spot. She turned her back on me when I got the camera out. The dogs don't like this business at all. But they should be patient. They may get extra special kibbles or a trip to the dog spa if I get rich and famous.

2008-11-19T15:55:00.016-05:00

THE CAR THAT GOT AWAY

Well, some of you may realize that my last post about the car was an old one. My husband Billy knows nothing about cars except that he tries not to drive old ones.
We drive a high end Honda Accord. He paid cash for it. It's a really reliable car and has lots of power. He's had it since we met so I'd say it's about 6 years old.

From what I understand the Hondas are really long lived cars and they hardly ever break down.

I feel really bad saying it, but I don't like our car very much. It's just not me. I would never have picked it out or even looked twice at it. And the truth of the matter is, I'm not that much a car person. Or at least I don't think of myself as a car person.

I haven't even thought about cars since we married–until–last Saturday. A lady from our church was leaving. She's moving to Washington DC to live in an assisted living facility and to be near her son. She held an open house to have all her friends stop in and to say good bye. I was late getting there. Only her son and daughter remained. I was getting ready to leave after a brief visit when the daughter began talking about selling her mom's car.

OMG can you hear me say it?

Can you hear me sayin' I WANT THAT CAR!!!

Ever since Billy and I moved into our house I've been watching Margie, who lives close by, drive by our house in her shiny black Audi wagon. Margie is a classy looking lady. She's artsy, wears huge round tortoise shell glasses and sheik clothes. Her house before she moved was full of beautiful art. The car suited her. It was a perfect fit. As we were talking she told me about buying the car 10 years ago. She was driving down the street and saw it on display in the car lot and made a u-turn and bought it!

"It was love at first sight," she told me.

"I understand," I said. I did understand. That's exactly the way I felt about it.

So I was surprised when they began talking about selling it for 5 or 6 thousand dollars. Five or six thousand dollars for that beautiful car!! Just because it's 10 years old doesn't mean it's not worth more than that! (a little anthropomorphic of me isn't it)?

What I was really thinking was that I was only 6 thousand dollars away from paradise. I began calculating in my head how many Shoaf's Loaf organic freshly ground wheat berries I'd have to grind to pay for it. I tried to use caution but it was useless. I couldn't fight the little photographic demons who pasted me in the driver's seat with the sun roof back and me on a good hair day, sunglasses, lipstick, maybe even nail polish. The image was burned into my head. Now what would my bread clients think when I pulled up in their driveway in that car. They'd think, "Well she doesn't really need to be selling bread, obviously. She must be doing this because she's bored playing bridge at the Country Club or traveling to Egypt and India all the time. Aren't we lucky to have such a refined, wealthy person baking our bread." That's what they'd be saying about me delivering loaves of bread in such a car.

And it wouldn't just be the people I deliver bread to who would think such things about me. I bet some of the people at the grocery store would think similar things. Especially if I wore makeup and my one pair of expensive shoes(It's the shoes that give you away, cheap shoes, no. no.no).

I don't know what took hold of me but I must say I probably shouldn't write about it because I seem to be conjuring the same spirits up again.

When I came home to tell Billy about the car and what a great deal it was and how much I wanted it he said, "What? We don't have 7 thousand dollars right now to buy a car we don't need. We're in the middle of a depression. Do you know the stock market closed down 300 points today? We don't need to be spending that kind of money now. Do you know what could happen if we had an emergency?" He said other things but I'll spare you. You can figure them out if you try. I have my own tape of them I keep with me all the time just in case I see something ridiculous I simply have to have. Slip the tape in, listen to it a few times then no more demonic possession! Well, I'm just kidding about taping Billy talk about money. Obviously I haven't done it, but I could save both of us a lot of hot air exchanges if I did.

In all honesty I have a confession to make.
That 1980 yellow Mercedes I bought 10 years ago? ouch. No, that's OUCH!

I can hardly bring myself to think about it. It still hurts. I should have known better. The guy I bought it from was the neighbor of a woman I was doing some landscaping for. As I look back on it I should have know he was "dumping" the car on me. He was the kind of guy who'd ask me to come over and look at his back yard and talk. He was constantly talking about how he could do things on the cheap, how he was going to make his back yard into all these rooms and how much money he made as an executive out in California and other things that should have made me pause. He was a DIY guy who was never going to hire anyone to work in his yard unless he was getting a "deal." I couldn't afford to be anybody's "good deal."

But I remember the day I was working there in his neighborhood and I saw that yellow mercedes station wagon pull into his driveway it was as if I'd been hit by a thunderbolt. "Oh, man, what a car!"

Even now, from time to time I see a vintage Mercedes station wagon and long for it. There was just something about it.

In fact, I was stuck in traffic yesterday, that long train that takes a nap a couple of times a day right at the Highland and Southern crossing and a yellow Mercedes wagon zoomed right by me. It was close to a 1980 model. There were a couple of faded peace stickers on the back window and a young hippie at the wheel. I STILL want that car. It rides close to the ground and the windows are big and there are lots of them.

Now that I look back on it, the guy talked a lot about the Mercedes station wagon and what a great car it was and they he hated to get rid of it but he just didn't have room for it any more. He told me his wife complained about it being in the garage that it was in perfect condition.

Well, I bought the car. I went to the bank and they loaned me the money because they knew who I was and knew I had a landscaping business and they knew I was buying a car that was worth what I was paying for it.

I was so happy.

If you read the article about it you know how happy I was with that car.

After I'd driven it for a few weeks I started noticing a little pull in the transmission. I ignored it, of course.

When the children were home for Christmas we had a great time driving it. They loved it too. Mamie was still in college in New York, Sarah had moved back to Tennessee. Martha was still in high school. In fact, on New Year's eve she used the car to go and visit some friends. I go a call at about 8 o'clock. She said she'd started the car, put it in drive but it wouldn't go into gear.

I almost threw up. I knew it was bad news.

After the holidays and everyone went back to school I put the car on my 16 ft. trailer and hauled it down to Memphis Motor Werks where they looked at it then looked at me and said, "Why in the world did you buy this car without having us look at it first? We would have told you the transmission was going out."

That was one of the hardest lessons I've ever learned. I had to pay for a car I couldn't drive. I finally sold the car for parts for $500.00 and bought a Volvo station wagon. Those were lean times, my friends. Lean times.

A lot of things went through my mind when I was yearning for the Audi station wagon. Naturally the disaster of the yellow Mercedes was one of them. I thought about the political capital I'd be spending in my marriage if I somehow wrangled Billy into saying, "yes." I wouldn't be able to say, "You know, we need a new front door. That door is so shabby and a storm door/security door would save in the long run." or "I haven't bought a really nice skirt in three years. I just happened to see this one at Banana Republic."

I would have strapped our budget. I would have put myself in debt and under pressure to sell how many loaves of bread? How many loaves of bread would it take to buy a new car?

I stuck my lip out. I slammed cabinet doors. I with drew my affection and became silent and sullen just like I used to do when I was 6. It drove my mother crazy. But it usually worked.

Finally Billy and I had to talk about it. I didn't like the way he said "we can't afford it right now." He didn't like the fact that I wanted something and he couldn't buy it for me. His feelings were hurt. So were mine.

I had to let it go.

I've been wandering in magic land for a couple of days. I love what baking bread and starting a small business has done for my soul. All ready I feel launched. Strange. I've been earth bound.

Earlier in the week my son Sam called me from Savannah where he and Sarah live. "Mom," he said, "Uh, I've been looking at your web site. It's looks really good."

His words meant so much to me. I'm always amazed when my children pat me on the back. Not amazed at them, they're people who know how to encourage others. I'm amazed because

I know they really mean it and if Sam says my web site looks really good then, hey, I just have to take that and believe it. Like the late Vince Lombardy said, "If it's true–it ain't braggin.' "

Then he said, "I'd like to place an order. I want a loaf of bread, cinnamon rolls and some of Aunt Velma's rolls."

He even wanted to pay me!

We worked it out. He paid for the shipping(he gets a discount because he's a fedex courier).

So last night I went into the attic and got a box that had come to us recently. It was full of those awful squiggly things that are perfect for shipping frozen bread. I carefully packed the bread into the box and taped it and took it right around the corner to the fedex store on Poplar and Greer. And right about now somewhere up in the skies over America a simple little box is packed onto a plane. It's roaring through the clouds.

And this afternoon when my two Savannah children get home from work they'll have a package to open and yummy memories will overtake them. Memories of me in the kitchen and hot bread coming out of the oven.

Makes me happy, even if I don't have a very cool car.

2008-11-17T09:12:00.002-05:00

I'm a person with a rather sordid past when it comes to cars. I come from a long line of people who know nothing about automobiles. I'm reminded of Scarlett O'hara's mule when I think of my cars. I just whip, refuse to give them oil or water until finally they keel over on the side of the road.

We had an old brown Mercury. When we bought it a few years back, it was still in good shape. It was an old luxury car that was actually made in the same decade we were driving it. The Mercury soon developed a wide array of problems. The windows wouldn't go down anymore when you pushed the little buttons. The oil leaked and dripped on the engine, and smoke came into the car through the air conditioning vents. When you're choking and coughing on the fumes, it would be a perfect time to roll the windows down, that is, if the little buttons worked.

I bought a new car. Well, it's not really new. It's –how shall we say it– previously owned? For 20 years? Yes. It's a 1980 Mercedes station wagon, a diesel. I just happened to run across it in the used car section of the paper. I was looking for another Mercury when MERCEDES caught my eye in the M's.

It was one of those "must see to believe" and "mint condition" things. The minute I sat behind the wheel and heard the engine purr, I knew I had to have it.

When I'm driving in my Mercedes wagon, I can't believe my good fortune. I have a car that runs. The windows go up and down. The radio works. When I park in someone's driveway, I don't have to put cardboard under the motor to keep oil from leaking onto their nice clean concrete. I can stop at red lights or eek along in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and I don't see smoke billowing out from under my hood. Plus, the interior doesn't smell like dirty socks.

I like to think people believe I bought this car new and have just taken good care of it. They might just think that too because when I'm driving it, I assume a certain posture. My chin is up just a bit.

I've begun to see myself in a different light. In fact, I've begun to think I'm just like other people. No, I'm serious, really, no kidding.

I can walk into a bank and borrow money, eek past a credit check at Macy's, access my email and drive a car that doesn't leak oil, I must be almost normal.

I'm changing my ways. I'm changing my oil. I have my very own used car that suits me to a tee and I'm hittin' the roads. Remember, it's a yellow Mercedes station wagon. Honk if you see me. You'll recognize me. I'm the little blonde driving with my nose just a bit in the air. I'm the one who's smiling and, for a change, not blowin' smoke.

2008-11-11T15:20:00.010-05:00

When Billy and I were looking for a house we saw this one on Prescott. It's just a few doors down from where we live now. I wanted this house, but it only had one bathroom. I'd pull up into the driveway and feel so at home. I know now why I love this house so much. I mean, it's adorable and charming, but it reminds me of my friend Kyle's house. I spent so much of my childhood at Kyle's house in Covington. So, I was drawn to more than just the house. I was drawn to my own memories and longings. I was ready to be home and I couldn't find it. But driving up is this driveway made me know that home existed, that home was possible, and that I was eventually going to find it.

Gertie sometimes manages to sneak off our porch. She's deceitful and she tells stories(she's a liar). We have a gate, but if I'm not extra careful Gertie will stick her fat little nose through the corner of it and wiggle:wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, until there's just enough room for her to squeeze through. Thankfully, she never goes far away. She's only out because she likes to forage. Food is her obsession. It's all she thinks about. During the summer Angie kept a little bowl of cat food on her porch for a black cat she was trying to tame. Gertie had this little bowl of cat food in her mind always. Day and night. One day she managed to get through the gate. I don't know how long it was before I noticed she wasn't with Billy in the house.
I was frantic, running up and down the street calling her name: Gertie! Gertie!!!
After 5 minutes of total freaking out here came Gertie, calm as a cucumber and fat as a pig out of Angie's yard where she at last had gotten to eat her fill of cat food. I couldn't spank her. I had to pick her up and love on her for coming to me. But I wanted to wring her little neck. She smiled at me and licked my nose. hmmmmpf!
You can see her here with her head low trying to get to the porch before I stop her. Sorry Gertie! Not this time!

When I get the camera out the dogs scatter. They think the camera is some kind of voodoo magic machine that will turn them into a cat. Every time I try to take a picture of them it's like,"Oooh Mama's getting out the voodoo machine out again we'd better go hide."
I can't understand how that little click of the camera makes them feel so uncomfortable, but really maybe that's one way they're like us. We all change in front of a camera, we all feel exposed. Gee, I didn't realize my dogs were so intelligent! Or maybe they're just dumb.

Here is Gertie on the couch. Tell me how you really feel, Gertie. Do you like having your picture taken?

I did manage to coax Blue into standing still for just a second. You can see by his face how happy he is about it.
Blue is my dog. Gertie is Billy's dog. Isn't that strange how a dog will bond with one person and not the other?

Maybe it's us, not them. Sometimes I wonder why it is that I feel so close to Blue. He's kind of a manly dog, a mutty kind of long time ago huntin' dog. He's always hunting. He stares out the window these days, watching squirrels jumping from limb to limb in the front yard. Last week when it was still warm, I let him out the front door and he ran to his place in the corner of the porch where he puts his chin on the ledge to begin his squirrel watching. He was moving so fast and he was so fixated on a squirrel he had spotted that he jumped over the ledge and out into the front yard.

I was terrified.!! I'm always afraid he's going to forget the hard lesson he learned when he ran out across Prescott Street dashing from huge old oak tree to huge old oak tree scratching up the sides of the great trunks treeing squirrels then dashing out into the street and smashing into an on-coming truck.

He didn't forget. He remembered. I screamed, "BLUE!"

He tucked his tail between his legs and ran around to the side of the porch and back to me. Finally, this wild man knows where home is.

Blue and I take walks every day. Usually twice a day. One reason we take walks is that he follows me around in the morning staring at me, watching every move I make then cocking his head toward the door as if to say, "Isn't it time for our walk?"

I was a good mother, I guess, but I always let my children guilt trip me. I always felt guilty if I was having fun and they weren't. That just doesn't make sense if you want to have strong children.

I do have strong children but I think that's because I got pushed into a corner and had no choice but to let them go through some suffering.

I can't figure out how to do the same thing with my dogs, though.

I'm not sure I want to.

2008-11-02T11:51:00.007-05:00

In these troubling times I've found it necessary.....no. That's not it at all. I want to make a little money. That's all. I want to have a part time job that I enjoy and I want the satisfaction of having my own income. I've tried several directions. I actuall got hired by a landscaping firm, but just when I was supposed to start doing the design work this recession hit full steam and things have really slowed down. I'll be doing some work for that company next spring, for sure.

I had this idea about baking bread. You can read all about it. I've been working on my web site for a whole week now.

Building the site was the easy part. It's a lot like a blog. The hard part has been getting the dang thing launched onto the world wide web. First of all I went out to Apple for a one hour tutoring session on how to build a web site with their iweb program. I love my Macbook computer. I love Apple! Things are so easy. I printed my own business cards last week and I've done all my bread labels.

Anyway, my tutoring session went great. I realized that I had to buy my domain name. I went to a place called godaddy.com and typed in melindashoaf.com. Fortunately for me no one had bought my name! Isn't that amazing? No one in all these billions and billions of people on this planet wanted a website named www.melindashoaf.com. I bought that name and I bought shoafsloaf.com but I haven't activated that domain yet. (ain't I somethin' talking about domain, internet provider, sites, CNAME, and all that stuff). I won't know what half of it means in two weeks from now, but I sure know what they mean now. whew! This has been a project!

I've decided to name my bakery Shoaf's Loaf. That's what you gotta do, right? If your name rhymes with loaf, right?

This is the way I figure it. I can sell bread at the Farmer's Market once a week. I can make as much money doing that as I could with a part time job working 20 hours a week. I don't have to buy new clothes or have a car and I'll be doing my baking at a commercial kitchen right down the street from me.

I dont' have to invest any money in it except for the 50 lbs of wheat and labels and bags and stuff. I all ready have my equipment.

I'm planning on sending out emails, emails to everybody I have an address for to let them know about the site. I'm planning on baking bread for the holidays and delivering it. You can order it on line and have it delivered just in time for the holidays! Even gift baskets!

It beats sitting at a desk. I'll keep you posted. In the mean time check it out. www.melindashoaf.com

And don't worry about my blog. It won't turn into an advertisement. I'll be back, writing about how depressed I am in no time.

2008-10-31T09:23:00.008-05:00

Billy and I went to Beale Street last Saturday afternoon. We ran into the Boll Weevils. They were driving a green converted school bus, in the background.

They're a Cotton Carnival Crewe. These guys had jumped off the bus to flirt with some young girls who were standing on the corner. I tricked them into getting this picture made, but as soon the button clicked, those wild Weevils were right back at it, trying to get phone numbers and determine who was engaged and who wasn't– as soon as the old people got out of the way–some things never change.

Angie is my neighbor. She lives about three doors down. When Billy and I were looking for a house hers was for sale. I'd drive by and look at her yard and her adorable little yellow cottage with the little white fence.

"This is the house I want," I'd say, pulling up in the driveway.

"But it only has one bathroom,"Billy repeated over and over, "I'm not living my golden years of retirement sharing a bathroom with you." It was a point well taken. I'm not the kind of girl anybody would want to share a bathroom with. You might get hurt. Especially if you got up in the night, tripping over clothes on the floor or magazines, baskets, shoes, not a pretty site.

Angie loves her yard the way I love mine. We have similar interests. We're even starting a book club together.

She invited me to go with her to a Race for the Cure. I'd never been to one before. Can you believe that? We got up early and went to Saddle Creek where all the walkers(and very few runners) were waiting.

I've been in big crowds before. Football games in Knoxville, concerts and stuff, but I'd never taken a walk with 15,000 people.

The walk was 3 miles and Angie and I were just about in the middle. As far as I could see behind us were throngs of people and as far as I could see ahead of us were throngs of people.
I walked in memory of my mother who died of breast cancer and in honor of my sister who survived it. Angie's sister-in-law died last month of breast cancer and she walked in memory of her.

I snapped this shot as these cute ladies were walking by. Almost everyone there wore pink(except me).

I haven't been writing on my blog lately because I've been working on getting a website built. I can't believe I'm doing that. I went on line and bought my name so that now I own melindashoaf.com.

I have a 3 page website which will feature pictures of my bread and when I'll be selling it.

FYI my latest capitalistic venture is selling bread. I've been at the Farmer's Market at the Botanic Garden for the last 3 weeks. I've sold everything I baked. My most popular item is a pan of Aunt Velma's Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls. mmmmmmmmmmm whachutalkinabout.

They are soooo yummy.

Last week I baked rolls all day on Tuesday and froze them over night. On Wed. morning I got up very early and baked loaves of bread and cinnamon rolls. All of it had to be labeled and put in bags. My shoulders still hurt from all the bending and the stress. If it goes well I think it will be a nice cottage industry. Maybe someday I'll own a cafe and sell whole wheat cinnamon rolls and delicious rolls and coffee. It will be a green cafe, all organic and all like Seattle or something. But that's a long way away.

2008-10-19T10:14:00.006-05:00

I woke up this morning wondering who that masked woman was who had been writing on my blog without my permission. You know, the crazy one who feels old and useless.

Shceesch. Don't know. When I wake in the mornings now my eyes open to the most beautiful sweet gum tree in my neighbor's yard. It's been turning for almost 2 weeks now. Seeing it when my eyes pop open is such a treat. I'll lie in bed looking at the leaves for a while and memories of fall and cool crisp mornings inevitably come wafting.

In my dreams I wrestle with a past life that is so much longer and so much more part of my marrow than this one is. New marriage, new house, new city, new friends, new dogs, it's all so different and yet I'm still the same old me. So during the day I forget my dreams when people I haven't seen in years pop in and out saying strange things. That's what sunlight is for: to burn off the mist, the mist, the fog, the darkness.

When I sold my bread at the Farmer's Market I realized something. I love bread. I love the process of bread. Heaven knows I've made my share of it.

But Billy's diabetic and whole wheat bread, believe it or not, is not good for him. I just can't buy it that a good slice of fresh bread now and then isn't a good thing.
Well, when we married I just gave up making bread. I bought 50 pounds of wheat three years ago and it's taken all this time to use it.
I realized that my bread making is a skill I've perfected over the years. It's like knitting or making a dress(it's not that hard, but it still takes practice). I used to have a little business at Christmas. I'd bake rolls and loaves of bread. I bought a really good mixer when the children were little, and a wheat grinder. I was converted to baking my own bread and grinding my own wheat by some women at the Mid-South Fair. They were in the demonstration booth. It was like a thunderbolt. I just knew it was what I wanted for my family and I talked my husband(Jimmy) into buying it for me with the condition that I would pay for it by selling bread. And I did.
The idea of selling fresh bread, from freshly ground whole wheat is very appealing to me. I've been thinking about it a lot. In fact, yesterday I googled sour dough starter. I used to make the best whole wheat sour dough bread. Everybody had a sour dough starter back then. I started on yesterday. I'll let you know how it turns out. That's it in the jar. All that's in it is flour and water. I'll feed it every day or so and it should start bubbling.

Another thing that makes me feel better about life is my yard. I bought pansies yesterday and planted them. I dug up my caladium bulbs to put in the basement. I saved my amaryllis bulbs from Christmas last year.

I put them out in their pots behind my rain barrel and beside the boxwood shoots I'm propagating. That way I wouldn't forget to water them. I read that you're supposed to fertilize them so I did that during the summer. Here they are. Now I'll wait until they die back some. Then I'll put them in the basement for about 6 weeks and let them go dormant. Around Thanksgiving I'll get them out and start watering them and voila! I'll have amaryllis for Christmas.

And for a little extra cheer, there's always Gertie lying in the sun of a cool October morning. She doesn't like to have her picture taken.

2008-10-16T15:56:00.019-05:00

My favorite begonia on a cool, rainy fall morning:

It's dark and cold today. I always feel lucky when I can stay at home on a rainy day. I've always, always wanted to be able to do that. Since I can remember I've worried that I'd have to take a job not being able to look out the window, especially when a cold front came through. I knew there'd be a fight inside of me, an irrational anger toward life, the world, the boss who aborted my freedom of window gazing, of connecting to my real world.
I knew who'd win. Either I stay here and do this job or I go crazy, I'd say to myself. And quit.
I was just thrilled this morning when I woke up and heard the rain and remembered that the weather report had predicted low temperatures.

I was better this morning; better than I have been for the last few days. Windows or no windows; fronts or no fronts: I still go a little crazy now and then.

I went to Nashville over the weekend to be on a panel for This I Believe . I read my essay, answered a few questions and got to meet two other essayists and Dan Gediman, the, a-hem, executive producer of the radio broadcast. Most of all I got to have lunch with Dan, his wife, Mary Jo, and the twins, Ben and Maggie. The twins are 6 years old and just about the cutest two kids you ever saw. They're picky eaters, too. Ben announced to me that he'd dared to try a hard boiled egg for the first time.

The Southern Festival of the Book has been here in Memphis before, but it didn't work at all. Now it's in Nashville for good. There was a big crowd out on the War Memorial Plaza, but they had sooooo many authors. Most of the panels were poorly attended, including mine.

Here's me with Dan Gediman. I'm the short one on the right.

I've been trying to figure out where I fit into the writing world. A lot depends on luck, really. Hard work and talent are certainly part of the picture but not the whole package. I've been unlucky in my writing in some ways. John Grisham on the other hand has been lucky for the most part.
But when I saw what Dan Gediman was going through with a book that had been on the New York Times best seller's list, shew! and the attendance at our panel I really came face to face with how very hard an author has to work to keep their books alive. Most authors, that is. There are exceptions. I learned that it's really, really hard to sell a book. And it's enormously difficult to sell a million of them. It takes 100,000 to make it onto the best seller's list and people actually will buy thousands of their own book just to get on it.

Then I started thinking about getting old and how many authors are going to be publishing their first book when they're my age. I don't know. I had 3 whole hours in the car by myself on the way home to think about my writing, my dreams and what I want to do for the next few decades before I croak.

Maybe I should get a face lift or botox. Maybe I should get a nip and tuck. That would work for a while, I suppose, but sooner or later, I'm going to have to face the fact that I'm just getting older.

I don't have the money for face stuff anyway.

Ben and Maggie

They were very well behaved and generally just delightful. I like 6 year olds. I used to be one.

Ben and Maggie's mother, Mary Jo, is employed by THIS I BELIEVE as the outreach director. She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met. She really made the whole trip worth while.

As I was saying, all the way home I reassessed my writing and what I wanted to be working on. I grieved the loss of my Leader column and the people it connected me with. The column gave me an instant audience every single week. (Even though I have to say I don't think that was the best place for me. As long as I was writing that column I couldn't really write about what I wanted to write about).

I came home under a cloud. No, not a cloud, it was more a boulder. Monday morning Billy and I sat on the front porch and he listened as I told him what I was feeling. Depressed and hopeless and old. There were variations on that theme, but basically, that about wraps it up.
I cried.

This is author Diane Wilson, a real fireball from Louisiana. She's a shrimp fisherwoman and she's an aggressive environmentalist. She's written 2 books. I bought one, but I don't think anyone else did. Her book is Holy Roller Growing up in the Church of Knock Down, Drag Out: or, How I quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus. That's hammy old me in the middle. On the right is Melissa Delbridge who's just published a book called Family Bible.

I't hard to sell books if no one has ever heard of you.
I, however, bought both of their books. Sisters unite! Let's support each other.

I don't know what made me think about selling bread at the Farmer's Market. Like most of my thoughts, it came like lightening. Like, POW! ZAP! WHAMMY!! I need to sell bread at he Farmer's Market this Wednesday. So what if it's all ready Tuesday morning. I really don't know what came over me, but I just wanted to see if I could make a little money. I've been looking for a part time job. That'll get you down–lookin for a job and not finding one.

So, I called the co-ordinator of the Market and she told me what I needed to do. Since nobody else made my specific kind of bread she gave me the go ahead. The health department gave me a temporary certificate under the "bake sale"clause. My daughter Martha went to the grocery store for me and made the labels and I went to work.

Tuesday afternoon I made 13 pans of Aunt Velma's whole wheat rolls–mmmmmmm. I got up early on Wednesday morning and baked 12 loaves of bread. I was sooo stressed out and when I get stressed out Billy gets stressed out. His computer wouldn't print and it was 1 o'clock and we were supposed to be on our way. I borrowed a card table and hadn't picked it up yet. I had bread in the oven. The market started at 2. YIKES!

Martha kept telling me not to be stressed.

Whew! We made it.

I was very glad Martha was with me. She set the table up and while she was getting things ready I ran back to the house to get the three loaves of bread I'd left baking in the oven. By the time I got back to the Market she'd all ready sold 4 loaves and 2 packages of Aunt Velma's whole wheat rolls–mmmmmmm.

We stayed for 2 and a half hours and sold everything. Yeah!

2008-10-09T18:34:00.026-05:00

This is Baby Matthew, our grandson. Yesterday his mother and I went to the Botanic Gardens.

This morning I got up and worked on my Heber Green story for a couple of hours. I walked Blue. I have a totally rotten dog who has more energy than any dog I've ever seen. We take walks every day and I would say that if he doesn't walk for a full and I do mean full hour and a day–well, whenever we leave Blue in the house and we're gone for the day, he'll set the security alarm off if he hasn't had his walk. He gets antsy. He jumps up on the couch and looks out the window at people walking down the sidewalk, he shows his teeth at the mailwoman and barks like crazy and generally wreaks enough havoc
that eventually our alarm system believes someone must be breaking into our house.
So after I walked Blue it was time to get ready to go to lunch with Billy and his daughter Anne and our grandson Matthew. Here's Matthew. I know, how could a baby be so cute?
After lunch we went to the Botanic Gardens.

Here is Matthew at our first stop in the Botanic Garden. He's watching the rather large animal come toward him. He really chuckled when the geese sitting beside us decided to jump into the water in the first place. They did this because they saw we had a fish food bag and were getting ready to start throwing fish food out.

If you haven't fed the koi at the Botanic Gardens lately, well, treat yourself. How about this mouth? Is that creepy or what? It reminded me of, well, I won't go into what it reminded me of except we studied it in college biology class and they were in jars with formaldehyde. These fish were very aggressive and are much lovelier when they're swimming around under the water than they are face to face.

In fact, you can tell that Matthew finds the fish a little aggressive. We decided to back up just a little. Matthew if just a little over 2 and takes in everything. We have to be careful what we say in front of him because he loves to repeat what we say. He thinks I'm funny and I think he's funny. When we ride in his mother's car I ride in the back seat with him and make funny faces and sing songs. Yesterday i sang my favorite Mighty Mouse tune of here I come to save the day that means that Nonnie is on the way–on the sea or on the land she's got the situation well in hand!
He got a kick out of that one.

Here is Matthew with his mother, Anne. Those two are really a pair. He's her only child and she didn't have him until she was 45! She's a stay at home mom and Matthew is all the better for it. When they were walking in the park Matthew would say, "Hand, hand." That's his way of telling his mother that it's time for them to hold hands. We're so glad they live nearby in Olive Branch.
We took this picture in front of the bridge because Matthew would have nothing to do with walking over the bridge. NO.That's what he said when I said "Matthew, wanna walk with Nonnie over the bridge?"

It was a beautiful afternoon. The garden did exactly what gardens do. Everywhere I looked I saw beauty. The grass was neatly clipped so that we could walk through fields that reminded me of the pastures in my past, there was a woods with a creek where the buckeyes were turning yellow. There were flowers with pods left pods that expressed a different form of beauty, not the flashy color of summer, but a more mature beauty that one must pause to see, look carefully to see.

As you enter the Botanic Garden the plants seem to have a tropical theme. It's a shady, well protected area that lends itself to plants that wouldn't normally survive here. It has a New Orleans feel to it. There are palms and tree ferns, beautiful coleus that are as tall as I am. The colors and the textures are so beautifully coordinated and I wish I knew more about who does this design work. It was a fun day. This pot I snapped on my way out. Isn't it gorgeous!

He loved playing in the water and splashing.

This is a good place to say THE END!

2008-10-02T14:37:00.014-05:00

My sister's birthday was yesterday. I went up to visit her in Union City, not so much to commemorate the event of her birth as to just get away. One of the main reasons I wanted to get up there, the urgency, if you will, was the puppies. Her dog Betsy had 5 little Bischons. I love puppies, and the older I've gotten the more I realize how rare in life they are. When I was a kid, it seemed like someone always had a new puppy, or someone's dog was having new puppies, but now that I'm an old dog, I know that puppyhood if fleeting. My neighbor down the street adopted a puppy from the pound this past summer. Her name is Lola. She was the proverbial speckled pup that I used to be as cute as. I saw her walking her mom, Jennifer, on Central Avenue the other day. All ready her legs were spindly and her little round belly transformed into a sleek shiny body. It happens so fast.

I've been envious listening to Susan talk about Betsy cuddling up with them on a blanket as they nursed, about the rowdy boys rolling and tumbling constantly in the grass, the females with the soft curious eyes. I took 50 pictures, but it's like trying to do a still life of marbles being let out of a bag. But after we came home from going out to dinner I happened to get this shot. This is the one Susan and David are going to keep. She seemed to genuinely want to please me, or is that a "let me out of here," look?

This is the only shot I could get of all 4 of them. I have to say, my jaws hurt from all the laughing I did watching these guys. Susan and her husband David live on a small farm outside of Union City and these guys have the run of it.

Susan takes them all out in the mornings and they run and run and run and run and chase each other and roll in the grass and run and run.

What is it about a puppy face? What is that look? It's almost sad, confused, poor pitiful me or is it, I've got to look coy and cute for the camera.

I don't know, I just know I had to take it quick to the point of anticipating that this puppy was going to look my way and give me that million dollar

whatever-it-is.

This is taken standing on an overlook. Is this an October morning in its fullness? The river is there winding somewhere far away and we are viewing its lush, verdant backwaters.

I wish we'd stayed 2 nights. I slept until almost 9 o'clock and by the time we ate breakfast and played with the puppies and rode on the 4 wheeler out into the cornfield and played with the puppies some more it was pushing noon. We didn't have time to drive up to Paducah, which is what I wanted to do. Do you ever do that? You make your plans to go somewhere and you think awh one night's enough then you wake up the next morning and it feels right being where you are and you wish you could stay, relax, plan supper, take a day trip, sit around, do a little shopping.

We got in the car and drove over to Hickman KY. an old, once thriving, wealthy rivertown built on the bluffs of the Mississippi where steamboats, barges and tugs put in. It's about 15 miles from where Susan lives.

There was no losing on this day, the sky, the rolling hills, the crops of soy beans and cotton, the acres of corn, dried stalks cut to the ground, quaint little farm houses back off the road, a well kept turn of the century cemetery on a distant hill enclosed with ornate wrought iron harkened a past of river wealth.

We kept the windows down and steeped ourselves in the day, its air, its color, its smells.

Hickman is a town that was. It has a taste of the west to it even though it's on the east side of the river. Carved out of the bluff that from time to time over the years lets itself slide down in chunks toward the water, its houses are perched as if some child was placing them creating a "pretend" village. There was whimsey here according to the shape of this door, and you can almost imagine the crowded streets with drinkers and gambler, farmers and merchants on a Saturday night. From the stories Susan told me as we moseyed through the deserted streets, climbing hills that looked like they were going to disappear into thin air, Hickman was a wild rivertown; alive with riverrats, backwoods, lawlessness and criminals.

She told a story that took place in the 1930's. I'll use fictional names. Bobby Ray Wilson was a bully who owned about half the land in the county, plus barges and tugboats that went up and down the river. Over 6 feet tall and built like an ox, he threw his weight around as much as he threw around the influence and power of his money. There was in town a poor farmer, a humble man named Eugene. Eugene who worked hard. He'd never married. He was terribly shy. People thought he was stupid. He wasn't stupid, he just couldn't talk plain. He stuttered and sputtered whenever he opened his mouth, so mainly he just kept quiet, he watched and listened. Now Eugene wasn't about to miss anything that went on in Hickman County. He hung out around at the courthouse with all the other men, and the general store, and the riverbank when the tugs came in. But he didn't like Bobby Ray cause whenever Bobby Ray saw him coming he'd start making fun of him. "H–H–H–H–Heeeeeyyyy EU–EU-EU-EU-GENE! Come on over here and t-t-t-teeeeellllll us somethin'!" He'd carry on and on. If anybody ever said something dumb, Bobby Ray would say things like, "Well that was so stupid. Even Eugene over there knows better than that. And he ain't right in the head."

One afternoon, Bobby Ray saw Eugene sitting in his truck under a tree not far outside of town. He pulled up, rolled down his window and started talking when Eugene pulled a gun out of the glove compartment and shot ole Bobby Ray right then and there. Killed him.

They asked him at the trial why he did it.

"I got tired of him making fun of me," was all he said.

He went to jail for a few years then they let him out on parole. Nobody messed with Eugene after that. They just let him be.

And there in lies the tale, one of many from this rivertown of old.

2008-10-02T11:16:00.015-05:00

Luna Moth in the Making

I came out to the porch yesterday afternoon to water my plants. The air was cool. The season, this season of fall has slipped up on me, caught me off guard. I thought it was still summer until one night last week I was putting on my wubs, that's what I call my pants with an elastic waste band, flip flops, loose fitting turtle neck: the clothes I wear that aren't quite pajamas but they aren't quite ready for primetime at the grocery store either. I was putting on my wubs because it was dark and wubs mean winding down for bedtime.

I looked at the stove and it was only 7:30. When did it start getting dark so early?

I'm not complaining. I'm like everybody I talk to. I'm downright thankful for this weather: the cool nights, the bearable days. I'm just still in the mental mode that thinks it must be 9 0'clock if it's dark.

But as I was saying, I was out on my porch when I happened to see this big lethargic creature on the ledge. At first I thought it was dead. It wasn't moving at all. I just had to poke at it. I picked up a little soft stem and barely touched it. It wriggled. The color, this color looked like that paint you can buy that reflects light, glow in the dark paint. The reason it looked so bright is that it had just shed its skin. I could tell both by the color and by the lack of energy the catepillar had. I went inside to get my camera and started taking pictures.

That's when the little devil began to warm up, cool down and get moving. She moved to the edge of the porch and stuck her head out over the ledge.

Then she decided the best bet for her future was to fall head long the 3 feet to the ground. I was horrified! I thought the fall might hurt her. Instead, the fall seemed to energize her and put her in touch with her goal which was the large boxwood in my front yard. Itty bitty feet on a big fat body but the weight is well distributed and this girl moves so fast that it was almost impossible to get a picture that didn't blur. It was odd, I thought, that she really seemed to know without eyes, without a map, without ever being in my front yard before, without ever being in any body's front yard before, she knew exactly where she wanted to go.

Here she goes, up into the boxwood as fast as her round little body will take her– woman on a mission–I ran into the house to get Billy.

"You have to come see! It's a luna moth catepillar! I've never seen one this big and this close up!"

By the time Billy got outside–for some reason he wasn't as excited about the moth as I was–I couldn't find her. That's how fast she moved. Billy noted that it reminded him of the Aesop's fable about the turtle. I agreed that slow and steady is certainly an expeditious way to get where you're going. I'm sure the luna catepillar would agree.

2008-09-26T08:49:00.015-05:00

Blue and I took a walk yesterday morning. Frankly, there are things about Prescott Street that I could live without. In the mornings cars whiz up and down this street, this short street going up to 50 miles an hour only to have to slam on their brakes at the stop signs at Midland and Southern.

We can't have speed bumps because of the fire department on the corner. Somehow, my street's a cut through to Central.

The good part is that the traffic is only for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. The rest of the time it's quiet.

The rest of the time it's like this picture I took; lazy looking almost.

I noticed when I took this picture that the shadows are lengthening and the dappling seems softer. There are leaves all ready on the curbs.

The mornings are much cooler, but by 11 o'clock it's hot again. Blue's tongue begins to hang out after a mile or so around a couple of blocks. We have the best times on our walks. I have head phones and I download podcasts from itunes. I'll download This American Life, which is my favorite, I think, or Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet. That's a good one. She talks to people of all faiths about their spirituality and spiritual experiences. Last week her show was about Azuza Street in Los Angeles at the turn of the century when a group of people gathered and started speaking in tongues, which gave birth to today's charismatic and Pentecostal movements.
A few weeks ago she talked with Eckhard Tolle who wrote(and believes in) THE POWER OF NOW.

It didn't take long for me to fill my bag at the Farmer's Market.

On Wednesdays I usually try to go over to the farmer's market at the Botanic Gardens. We only have one car and Billy had an appointment so I decided to ride my bicycle. I have a medium sized LLBean canvas bag that Billy gave me for Christmas one year. I strapped it onto the back of my bicycle and headed out. I've started taking canvas bags with me to the grocery store. I haven't brought one nasty plastic grocery bag into my house in 3 weeks! Yeah!(I'm so green).

My neighbors, Randy and Angie, take long bike rides. They ride all the way downtown occasionally by taking little side roads and avoiding the heavy traffic. I've learned to take that approach when I ride in Memphis.
One thing I really appreciate are traffic signs that have a little white stick man walking on the side lights that are on poles. Whenever I cross a busy street I push the little button with the arrow above it then wait for the stick man to light up then off I go. BUT BEWARE people in Memphis and I think in the South in general, view pedestrians and bikers as invaders who have no right to be on their road.
I'm always on guard lest someone decide to squash me. I bought a nice helmet last year that was on sale at my little bicycle store on Highland. It makes me feel a little safer.
I took the backroads. I went through the University of Memphis, crossed the railroad track there on Zach Curlin, and I crossed the street at Goodwyn. It took me about 20 minutes to get there and I'm not nearly in as good a shape as I thought I was. There was a man running on the grass path beside the golf course. Naturally I thought, I'll pass him, after all I'm on wheels. I pulled around and got in front of him. But the grass was thick and it was uphill and I am not used to pedaling that hard. He caught up with me and smiled smugly as he trotted past me and waved. UHG

I like the Botanic Garden farmer's market better than I do the one Downtown. I'm totally alone in my thinking and feeling on that. The market Downtown is much cooler and has lots of entertainment, venders and activities, but I went last year, actually I went a couple of times and it scared me. Don't know why. Palms started sweating. Felt like very body was staring at me wondering what I was doing there. Had strong sense that I didn't belong. That happens to me every now and then.

Sometimes I move toward my fear. I purposely do things I'm afraid to because, well, because its my nature, there's a pleasant sort of rush and if you have my addictive personality you enjoy pleasant rushes.

At any rate, I can get tomatoes and peaches right here, close to my house, and thankfully, no one stares at me wondering what on earth I'm doing here. Go figure.

You can see the kids behind me. They are the Whittons of Whitton Farm. They are so cute. I don't know how they do what they do, but they grow flowers, fruits, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant and tons of other things. I asked my friend Uele to take this picture. I wish I'd gotten one of her, too. The Whittons started clowning around in the background. I told them I was taking this picture for my blog because no one would believe I'd ridden my bike without proof! They were very funny and we all had a good laugh when Keith acted all shy and everything.

These two young men worked this summer for Grow Memphis, a community project whereby empty lots in the city are converted into gardens. This is one of the most fascinating deals going down in the city. All over my neighborhood are patches of green where flowers bloom, butter beans and watermelons grow along side lush tomato vines and squash. I spent some time talking with the coordinator. I'm seriously thinking about finding a lot in Buntyn and getting involved.It works like this: if you work in the garden, you get to eat the stuff that grows. But it doesn't always turn out like you plan. These boys had a watermelon they'd been watching all summer waiting for it to ripen. The day before they were going to pick it someone stole it! The coordinator(I took a picture of her that didn't turn out) explained to me that, "Well, at least someone was eating it."
She told me someone had picked every single butter bean they'd grown.
I think I'd get angry or angrier than I should if somebody stole my watermelon. I asked these boys about the incident and they were just as mad as I was.

My mini-pumpkins in a blue box.

2008-09-25T14:42:00.006-05:00

The big push is over. Summer is gone and we are walking, living and breathing in the remnants of that feverish, desperate spurt of growing, growing, growing. Plants are funny, funny strange and funny haha. You may know this all ready, but a blossom is a plants surge toward immortality.

A plant blooms for the sole purpose of creating seeds. And seeds, of course, are the insurance that next year the species will have yet another shot for survival. You have to be careful if you have plants that you want to bloom. If they’re too happy, well watered, well fertilized and fed, they just hang around and produce foliage. But when they’re stressed, when they perceive a threat to their lives they create a flower so the flower can create seeds and the seeds, well you know what seeds do.

When I look out my windows or take a walk these days I feel it. I feel that lack of urgency that the plants of summer possess. There’s a non-anxious spirit in the air that seems to say, we’ve done all the growing and reproducing and blooming we can do, we’ll just have to trust that we’ll be back next year in one form or another. Now let’s just relax, enjoy the breeze and wait to either die or go dormant.

Watching it all makes me sad in some ways, but in some ways I’m relieved for all concerned. You can’t just stay in the madness of growing forever, you need a rest, or is it dormant, you need to be dormant?

I just pulled out of my driveway a few minutes ago. I noticed the 4 o'clock, this yellow flower was completely closed. Later today they'll pop out and bloom and send a rare, sweet fragrance out into the air. They bloom late in the summer and make up for lost or limited time.

I love these halcyon days; cool mornings, warm afternoons, blue skies and constant little hints of the glory of autumn that is ahead.

2008-09-19T10:09:00.041-05:00

Savannah

I rented this big truck. I picked it out. Sarah, of course, paid for it. I wanted a smaller one. Thank goodness they didn't have one, because we loaded this baby to the gills.The only problem we had was with the toilet paper. I stuffed a four roll package down beside the mattress and boxsprings. It flew out somewhere outside of Oxford.

Sarah was sick all the way to Savannah. I had to listen to her whine for nearly 11 hours straight about her various ailments. The trip was long, but I had the magic weapon. Billy let me take his GPS. WOW!! What an amazing machine! I have a few complaints about it, but I imagine if I knew how to work it better it would help. I just think the lady in the machine waits a little too long to tell me when to turn, especially when I'm on the interstate and I need to change lanes. We stopped in this little town in Mississippi to get Sarah some PeptoBismol.

It was dark when we arrived. Sam called us several times on his cell to see when we were to arrive. He'd cleaned his apartment all day. Sarah and I wandered through the romantic, dimly lit streets of this beautiful old town then eeked and creaked the truck into the little lane behind Sam's apartment house. Sam turned on the light, opened the back door and waved me "C'mon back," to the steps. The dry dirty sand clung to our shoes as we scuttled in the hot humid night. He and Sarah had the truck unloaded in a matter of minutes.

Sam coming down the hall to get more boxes.

When they finished unloading the truck, we all went out to the front porch where Sam has a little garden. He has a sweet potato vine that is not one of these new fangled yellow ones. His is literally a sweet potato growing out of the dirt in one of his pots. I took this picture and was lucky to get this guy walking by. Perfect Savannah pic.

Sam and Sarah are in the kitchen talking. Sam is really happy to have Sarah here. He's done very well, moving to a city and making his own way. Now Sarah will be paying half the rent and they'll be good for each other. Martha will be coming to Savannah next week for the television taping of the Paula Dean show on the food network. She'll be staying with guess who? Sam and Sarah. If you hear an explosion coming from the East Coast you'll know what it is.

Sarah's bed is the bed I slept in as a child. My father bought if for a dollar at an auction. It's the heaviest bed in existence! It was in much better shape when I slept in it a zillion years ago, but now. the brass is no longer shiny and it's come loose on one side.

As I was getting ready to go to sleep on my mattress on the floor after our long drive, I sensed the presence of an old childhood friend. Maybe it's the spooky Spanish moss hanging from the trees that makes this place eerie, but there always seemed to be a face on the bed. Here's the bed and below is my childhood friend the wrought iron fleur de lis once again smiling at me.

Does this look like a face to you? No wonder I had nightmares as a child.

begonias and dog

begonias

begonias, vines, sweet potato vines and dogs

tiny dog, tiny stressed dog who is mad at Mama for moving her all the way across the country to a sandy, hot city where she has to share her food bowl with Gus and she has to listen to her Uncle Sam make loud unexpected noises.

Curry lives next door to Sam. We had a good time that afternoon sitting outside. She'd been home for the weekend to Swainsboro and found her batons in a closet. I asked her to do just a bit of a routine for me and she did. Amazing. She looked exactly like a majorette; down to the little curl of the fingertips and tap of the toes.

The other pic is Sarah after she went in to Starbucks to talk to them about her schedule for the week. They're excited about having her here.

Sam sweeping the sidewalk in front of his house, Sarah standing and Curry sitting on the step.

I am leaving in the morning to take the long way home through Georgia.

Look at this beautiful collection of plants!

I was on the highway headed home when I got so sleepy I decided to pull over and take a nap. I shoved over the luggage in the back seat and stretched out for 30 minutes or so. When I awoke I went in search of something, maybe a place to turn around, I pulled into a gas station that happened to have recently gone out of business. Next door to it was Thompson's nursery.

Here are the Thompsons. No wonder their plants are so happy. You can tell they love what they do.

Toomsboro

I had to go to Milledgeville. I've been wanting to go for years ever since I read the works of Flannery O'Connor. She was born in Savannah but moved to Milledgeville when she was a child. She attended college in Georgia, then was accepted to the prestigious creative writing degree program at Iowa State. After she graduated she lived with Robert and Sally Fitzgerald in Connecticut for two years. He was a well-known poet and authority on the Illiad and The Oddessy. In 1951 she was diagnosed with Lupus, a hereditary disease her father had died of in 1937. She returned to Andalusia, her ancestral farm where she raised peacocks and nearly 100 different varieties of birds.

She was expected to lived 5 more years, but lived 15 more, and left behind an amazing body of work. She was as good as Faulkner, in my humble, feminist opinion, but didn't live long enough to create a body of work that would qualify her for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

I typed Milledgeville into my GPS and found myself on a deserted, two-lane highway for about 45 miles. I eventually came to a small town called Toomsboro. Eerie name don't you think? I passed a little gas station with a couple of pumps and a man was sitting in a chair outside. He waved knowingly to me as I drove by. What did he know? I guess he knew I was heading somewhere else or I was lost.

I came upon a ghost town that was still alive with its ghosts. I'm not easily spooked but I know I have a superstitious side from watching too many "Twilight Zones" with Rod Serling, shows where people drive into small deserted towns and start seeing people from their childhoods; people that they know are dead.

That's the way I felt in Toomsboro. Here's a picture of the deserted Depot.

Across the street was a huge old boarding house where people who were traveling through Georgia could stop, rest, have a hot bath maybe and a good meal. The boarding house had been retored with fresh white paint and clean shining windows, but it was unnaturally empty.

The downtown area of old grocery stores and department stores were boarded up, and two well fed dogs without collars lay in the grass in the median as if the town belonged to them. They're the languid white spots in the grass, their ears twitched from time to time.

The Farmer's Cotton Warehouse above was right on the edge of town beside across the little road from the Depot. It was an unusual trek back in time, and my aloneness in such a strange place made me remember Flannery O'Connor's most well know works, A Good Man is Hard to Find. It made me want to be extra careful NOT to have a flat tire or to slip off the road into a ditch.

As I drove through the rolling hills and countryside toward my destination now and then I'd catch a glimpse of the red clay of Georgia. Most of the redness was covered with leaves and pine needles, but now and then I'd see a big display of it. I passed it and passed it. Frankly, I had the strange sensation that if I stopped something or someone was going to magically appear and hit me in the head with a crow bar. How strange is that? I finally told myself how ridiculously I was behaving and pulled over to take this picture. It the red clay Georgia dirt that Flannery O'Connor so vividly describes in her works.

This is Rob Hattaway who was the only person in Milledgeville that I talked to who knew where Flannery O'Connor's home was. It took me much longer to get there than I thought it would. duh. Really, Melinda?

The town was much bigger than I thought. Much bigger than Covington. There's a state prison there and there must be industry because there are lots of hotels, stores, a Starbucks, huge Walmarts and a 6 lane highway running through it.

Andalusia was closed. Heart Break!!!!! It's seen by appointment only except on M,Tue. and Sat.

What an idiot I was not to check first!

I hope someday to get back. I don't know how much longer it will be able to keep progress from bulldozing it. It's right across the street from the Best Western.

Then I was off to Stone Mountain and then to Chattanooga for the night. It was waaaaaayyyyy tooooo much driving for one day considering the driving I'd done just a couple of days before.

Stone Mountain
But Stone Mountain was one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen! It was like seeing something out West. It's a granite mountain sticking up out of the ground. The park is beautiful, just beautiful, and there were many people out walking in it by the time I got there. I had lots of driving ahead of me by the time I left there. I should have just stayed at the Inn there at Stone Mountain.

I finally made it to Chattanooga where I stayed at the Stonefort Inn. It was lovely. And then, I drove home. Whew! I'm still recovering!

2008-09-11T12:50:00.011-05:00

"Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification. Your Mother." Aug. 18, 1920

The Mrs. Catt was a well known suffragist activist who came to Nashville to rally support for the ratification of the 19th amendment.

In 1978 I was at a political party in my hometown. The party was the Naifeh's Coon Supper. It's still going on today and is a huge gathering, but back in its heyday it was something else. I was very close friends with Brenda Naifeh who was Speaker Jimmy Naifeh's wife. They've since divorced. The official supper took place at the Covington Country Club where barbeque, beans, slaw, chicken, raccoon were served to the masses. But before the official supper there was a cocktail party held at Oney Naifeh's home. At this time Jimmy was new to the Tennessee legislature.
In 1978 the party was still a Men Only deal. It's great to look back on that time and realize how far we've come. It was men only mainly because there weren't women in political positions. Women weren't attorneys or judges or law enforcement agents. It was pretty much a man's world. Because I was Brenda's friend she invited me to come and help with the party at Oney's house. In other words, I brought food and helped in the kitchen.
You cannot possibly imagine how crowded it was. There were literally at least a thousand men packed, standing room only in the spacious house and yard. You could hear the crowd roaring the second you arrived and opened your car door. You could smell the testosterone.
I had more fun at these parties. They were on the last Thursday in April, and just in case you didn't know it, the last Thursday in April is the official "Oney Naifeh no rain day." I don't know if it is still that way now that he's dead, but for the 30 or so years of the Coon Supper that he oversaw, it never rained.
I always brought a huge meat tray and homemade rolls. It didn't really matter. I could have served cow manure and those guys would have never known the difference.
Can I tell you again how crowded this place was? Swarming, swarming with men. I loved it. Because I was one of the only females there I stood out. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to talk to men I might now have otherwise talked to. Why? Well, I was there in a hosting capacity. The men were there in political capacities without their wives or families.They were always appropriate and respectful, but accessible.
I had a great time meeting governors, senators, legislators, judges, attorneys, newspaper men, politicians of all stripes, bankers, lobbyists. But the beauty of the Coon Supper was that everyone was invited. Men showed up in wheelchairs, on crutches, they showed up if they had to get up off their deathbed. Poor people came. Mechanics with tatooed arms, grocery store clerks and sackers, factory workers, farmers, they all came to hobnob with the powerful politicians.

The best Coon Supper I ever went to was the year of Jake Butcher. He'd lost the 74' gubernatorial race to Ray Blanton. Ray Blanton. What a sleazy guy. He attended Coon Suppers until he fell from grace. He was probably there that year too. I met Jim Sasser. I think Howard Baker attended once or twice. The year Jake and C.H. Butcher were at the peak of their power they flew in to the Coon Supper. I was appointed to go to the airport and pick up C.H. at the airport and drive him in to the Naifeh's house. That was an experience. The Butcher brothers were flashy, people. They exuded a kind of gambler's glamour wherever they went
.

So, here I was in this crowd of people. The drinks were flowing and the roar of the crowd was full of fun and good spirited conversation. Deals were going down. Jokes were being told. It was a sight to see and behold.

Jimmy Naifeh and I knew each other well enough that he was familiar with the fact that I was a Feminist. I should have been knocked in the head when I was a baby. It would have saved many people a lot of pain. I was a pain. I was always getting into something and going headlong, head over heels with it. I never seemed to take any kind of passion half way. I'd been introduced to feminism by my good friend Debbie Swanner. We lived next door to each other when I was a junior in college. She's the one who held meetings, consciousness raising sessions etc. At any rate, by the time I left college I was a full fledged convert to the feminist cause. It came in handy when I was raising my three daughters, and especially handy with my son!

Jimmy Naifeh came over to me when I was standing in the kitchen at this huge party. He said, "Melinda, there's someone here I want you to meet. His name is Harry Burn."
Well, you know me, I reached out to shake his hand. He remained seated. He had a cane and didn't see well. He, like most of the men there, was in a suit and tie. He was in his 80's.
"Melinda, Harry is responsible for giving women the right to vote. It was his voted that ratified the 19th Amendment."
Well, dumb me. I was so ignorant of the history of the Women's Movement. But I sat down beside this man and we had a nice long talk. He told me the whole story.
The story is that he the youngest Tennessee Legislator when the 19th Amendment was being voted on. The legislature was tied. He wore a red rose which meant he was against. The senate quickly passed the Amendment, but the House was tied. Harry changed his vote when he received this telegram from his mother. Thus, he changed history! Yeah Harry!

I'll never forget meeting him.

2008-09-04T08:53:00.004-05:00

This is a shot of people lined up to go back home. Home for them was Alexandria, LA. I took this picture standing in the parking lot. I wasn't sure about using my camera at all. Some of the residents were still traumatized by the Katrina evacuation with memories of the Superdome. I heard several people talking the first day I was there expressing anger at the way they were being treated. There was no hot water in the showers at the time. There were other things. One man was angry because someone else had been given a ride somewhere. Rumors swirled. I had a young man blow up at me, he flew into a rage, really, because I had asked him if he was finished with the phone book.

On Sunday when we were fairly sure this hurricane was going to hit in our around New Orleans, I told Billy that I wanted to volunteer to do something. When Katrina hit I wanted to get in my car and go down there! I guess everybody felt that way. I just knew that this time I wanted to help and get involved in some capacity.
Billy happened to see in the paper an article about training sessions for would-be Red Cross volunteers to be held that afternoon at the Red Cross building on Central at 2 O'clock.
Usually, I'll read about stuff like that and end up paralyzed, too scared to go or too lazy, but this time I was motivated above my fears and complacency. I got up off my you know what and drove down there.
The process was very simple and didn't take quite an hour. I ended up helping some of the Red Cross workers make phone calls to notify other volunteers that one of our shelters had closed. I was home by 3 o'clock or a little after.
On Tuesday I served my first day as an official Red Cross volunteer and just to write that makes me swell with pride, the good kind of pride. And I say that in all humility. HA!
My first day to volunteer was scary because they really expect you to just jump in. There is no coddling. There is no one to take your hand and tell you what to do. In fact, I'd gone through my volunteer training with a woman I'd met in the parking lot. We found our way to the session together and sat by each other and talked. We even signed up to go to the same community center to volunteer at the same time. When we showed up for our shift that first day, there was really nothing to do. A Penecostal church group had shown up to take care of the lunches that had been delivered from Memphis City Schools. There were two volunteers at the table at the front door who were watching the door and welcoming and informing guests and residents. For a while, we just stood around. My friend ended up talking to an evacuee for a while, but I think she got discouraged. She left after only an hour or so.
I was NOT going to leave. I wanted to stick it out. I heard someone say something about paper towels being out in the women't bathroom so I went to check and see. They were nearly out. When I went in the women's restroom there were several residents there. When they saw my Red Cross badge they began asking questions.
"They were giving out lotion a little while ago. I need some. Can you tell me where to find it?"
"We're wondering if Fema has contacted this shelter. Can you tell us if they have been here?"
"Do you have any idea when we'll be going back home?"
There were other questions and they were coming toward me faster than I could respond to them. I had to tell them that this was my first day, but I would find answers for their questions. And I did.
I found Charlotte.
Charlotte is the Red Cross Director of our disaster shelter at the Gaisman Community Center. Charlotte knows everything! I bet she dreads seeing me coming now. I always have so many questions to ask.Here's Charlotte beside the bus as 42 residents are preparing, anxiously preparing to go back home.
I was there assisting her in the count. The red cross keeps careful records of who is in each center; when they arrive and when they depart. She used each person's initial assessment/arrival sheet to call out each individual name before they got on the bus. I stood beside her creating another list as the people got on the bus. That list was for the bus driver to take with him to give to his boss so that he could get paid. The bus drivers stayed in the facilities with the other evacuees.

But on my first day, after the women's restroom and the paper towels, I found a broom and a dust pan, an ice cream bucket and some bleach and I went into the cafeteria and wiped down all the tables and chairs and swept. It took over an hour to do that, but by staying busy with that and keeping my ears open I was able to learn a lot. I was also able to meet some of the residents and talk to them.
Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote yesterday.

At the Red Cross training session they’d told us that just chatting with the residents, sweeping the floor and emptying the trash were important. So I jumped in by: breaking down cardboard boxes to take to the dumpster, peeling an orange for a very old fragile gentleman with a lovely British accent, wiping down the tables and chairs as the residents finished their meals, then sweeping the floor. I distributed a sack of crossword puzzle books I’d bought at the dollar store and pencils to go with them, I took a 9 year old little girl through the donated clothes room and helped her find a pair of shoes and a zip up cotton jacket. She wore that jacket proudly for the rest of the afternoon. I helped a man get on the city bus in front of our shelter so he could get to the Greyhound bus station in Downtown Memphis. I helped a man find the phone number of Western Union. I held the door to the women’s restroom open while the custodian refilled the paper towels. I read a book to a 5 year old girl, and many other simple things.
Right before I left, I said good bye to my new friend, Mr. Kendall, the British gentleman. A box of bananas had just come in as a donation. I took one, peeled it open and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said with a warm smile, then added, “Oh, that banana is beautiful!”
I turned and tried to hurry off.
“No really,” he called to me, “look!”
I stopped. I looked. And he was right. It was a very beautiful banana.

This is Rick talking with a Memphis policeman. They were very present with us. Rick runs the community center. He did a great job turning his little center into a first class Red Cross shelter!

2008-09-01T10:56:00.005-05:00

A few days ago I took a picture of the harmless little garden spider who had built a web in my yard. I wrote about my experiences with these spiders over the years. The one thing I really didn't like about them as a child was their sudden appearances, like whoa! that big spider came out of nowhere! And it's so BIG. I took this picture just a few days ago. Now, scroll down and look at the picture I took yesterday. ....

See what I mean! Somebody's been catching a lot of sweet little innocent unsuspecting flying bugs, butterflies and dragonflies on their way home from work, minding their own business when all of the sudden WHACK!!!! out of nowhere they're stuck in this lady's web. Man, she's a vamp, that's all I got to say.

2008-08-28T11:13:00.006-05:00

I

I went out in my front yard this morning just to look around and I noticed a few leaves missing on my ground cover Aegapodium; or what my mother used to call Bishop's weed.
When leaves are missing that means a critter is nearby.
This is a black swallowtail butterfly in the making.

I was delighted and surprised to find this catepillar; the forerunner to a butterfly. When I lived in the country, they showed up every year to eat the parsley, the dill and the fennel that I had planted in various places. They'll eat and eat and eat until they strip the plant bare, but for some reason I've never seen a plant die because of it. They always manage to sprout new leaves and continue growing.
I didn't know these catepillars would eat bishop's weed. They are quite particular about their diet.

These are the bare stems. Somebody cleaned her plate!

2008-08-27T08:56:00.002-05:00

After 2 no, 3 days of trying to navigate the world of videos and youtube and uploading and downloading I finally have this slideshow on my blog! I'm so excited!
I'll do more. They're so easy and fun to do. I really enjoyed going out and taking pictures of these mushrooms in the neighborhood. I don't think I've ever been so aware of how many different varieties there are. I mean, I know there are zillions of varieties of mushrooms, but this was in one small city block here in Memphis. I didn't have to walk through the woods for 5 years to find all of these, I just had to walk around the block!
The world is beautiful now that the heat of summer is winding down. I've been working in my yard and I'm removing limbs and a hedgerow from my side yard so that next year I can actually have a real vegetable garden.
I've planted nasturtium seeds in the front yard and am going to plant some spinach seeds later today.
In the meantime, enjoy these mushrooms and the Louis Armstrong music in the background.

2008-08-26T10:03:00.000-05:00

2008-08-25T10:06:00.003-05:00

Ariope Aurantia
A couple of weeks ago I was chopping away at an over grown hedgerow in my back yard when something caught my eye. A recoil button went off in my brain. I put down my shears took off my gloves and hat and studied my surroundings. There in the bowels of an ancient 12 ft. abelia were the gossamer strands of a web. In the web was my childhood nightmare, Argiope Aurantia, the garden spider.
I am not a sissy. I’m a gardener. I fancy myself as a realist, a naturalist, a rough and tumble female with dirt under her nails and boots on her feet. But that doesn’t mean I like spiders, especially garden spiders with long black legs and webs the size of Vermont.
I remember having these spiders in our yard. They were one of many sources of deep seeded fears of my childhood. I worried about tornadoes and couldn’t leave the house when the warnings were announced on television. I worried about how small the bomb shelter at the Baptist church was, especially considering we were Presbyterians.
Once, my mother came outside when my little brother and I were playing in the yard. She said, “Get in the car. We’re going to get your shots for school.”
“We’re what?” I moaned helplessly, beginning to shake and cry, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to watch you moan helplessly and shake and cry ahead of time. Now get in the car.”
From then on, whenever she walked out the door I worried about having to get shots. I hate shots.
That’s the way this spider was to me. It was unknown and unpredictable like an atom bomb or a trip to the health department for shots. These spiders seemed to mature over night. One day you’d walk out on the front porch and no spider. The next day you’d walk out on the porch and over in the corner, by the eaves in the back you’d see a sprawling spider web bouncing in the breeze with a big, black beady-eyed Argiope Aurantia in its center.
Now that I’m all grown up I’m doing cognitive therapy with my garden spider. I go out in the mornings and stare at web. I take pictures of her with my digital camera. I tell myself there’s nothing to worry about, she’s not going to hurt me.
This morning I’m out checking the web telling myself how ahem, beautiful this spider is and how she’s not going to hurt me when I notice a dragonfly, a gorgeous irredescent blue flits and flutters in front of me, I can almost touch it when
No! Watch it!
It’s wing has clipped the web! It’s stuck! Oh no! It can’t get free and it’s just getting more and more tangled.
Oh no! Here comes the spider. She’s mounting the dragonfly stinging it. Gross. Now she's wrapping the dragonfly in her string so it can’t move. This is disgusting! The dragonfly has given up and is lying in the web motionless. The spider has gone back to the center of the web smugly waiting for her prey to kick the bucket.
This is horrible. I can’t take this anymore! Is there no mercy in nature? Atoms and tornadoes were easier than this.
I’m going inside for a valium. I just know I’ll have nightmares again tonight.
You know, come to think of it; I may stay inside. In fact, I may not go outside again until November when there a good– killing– frost.

2008-08-25T08:45:00.003-05:00

My sister let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed to post a new blog. For anyone out there who checks regularly, please forgive me and please keep checking!
I worked all day Friday on the cutest video/slide show for the blog. I tried all day yesterday to upload it but failed. I'm working today on several posts I'm behind on so please check back later on this morning, and thank you for reading!

These are my little neighbors Allysa and Madison. I've watched them for over a year now.
Madison moved in a couple of summers ago. I met them in their front yard when she and her mother were out getting ready to walk their dog Mika. It wasn't long before Madison and Alyssa met. After that I'd hear the wonderful screams and yells of children playing in an outdoor pool. Alyssa's mom set on up in their front yard about once a week and the girls would get out in it with Alyssa's little sister London(who was about 2 at the time). There were the inevitable fights when London went in crying because one of the older girls had hurt her feelings.

I really enjoyed watching these two girls becoming best friends and taking walks, playing in each other's yards, spending the nights with each other. Alyssa moved recently, but fortunately not far away. She's just around the corner.

I invited the girls to come over one afternoon. We made tiedyed T shirts. Here they are in the front yard together in front of their shirts. They are very cute, these kids, and something about watching them play reminds me that some things in life don't change. It reminds me of the fun I had growing up in Covington, riding bicycles, taking walks, spending the nights with friends; simple things that were so much fun. It made all the difference in the world to have a friend, so I'm glad these two girls have found each other.
We also made a terrarium that day.

2008-08-24T12:17:00.002-05:00

2008-08-24T09:57:00.002-05:00

2008-08-14T13:06:00.014-05:00

This cooler weather has me thinking of gardening. I had some baby's breath seeds I'd bought back in the spring and never got around to planting. I cleared a little sunny spot in the back yard and raked the ground and carefully emptied the package. That was last week. I check every day. The package says 14 days before sprouting, but it doesn't hurt to check. Last month when the Baptisia(false indigo) had finished blooming in my neighbor's front yard and the large fat seed pods had blackened I decided to pluck a couple of the pods on one of my daily walks. I brought the seeds home;let them dry; then planted them in a large clay pot near the hose spicket.

Here's a picture of Baptisia or false indigo when it's blooming. I used to work in a greenhouse for a garden designer who loved exotic perennial. This was one we grew and planted in lots of gardens that she designed. The flowers are beautiful, but the foliage is equally beautiful to be. It's strong and grass-like in it's growth but the foliage reminds me of weightless green clover floating in the breeze.

Here are the little plants that have come up! I think I'm getting addicted to something here. The pods sat around on the porch for weeks and finally I told myself just to do something with them so I wouldn't feel bad about myself. It totally worked. Now I'm strutting around with my gardening hat on feeling so proud and maybe even smug.

I don't have a lot of experience growing things from seed. Plants are delicate and you need to know when it's time to transplant the seedlings into little pots. I'm going to experiment on this false indigo. I'll get some little peat pots in the fall and transplant these plants.

I went to the farmer's market over at the Botanic Gardens where I saw some American Boxwoods for sale. There were the real deal; an excellent variety with dark green foliage and pointed leaves; the kind you might see at an old plantation homeplace that's about 12 feet tall and 12 feet wide. The boxwoods were in 3 gallon containers and they were about 2 feet tall. I decided to come home and do cuttings of my own boxwoods. It was still July so the chances were good that the cuttings would work.

I also took some cuttings of some lacecap hydrangeas and a variety of coleus I really like. Here they are in a big pot strategically placed in a shady little nook beside my garden hose. I water them once or twice a day. They've been here for about a month now so I think I'm getting some pretty good little baby boxwoods. I'll leave them here in the pot until next spring and then they'll be ready to put in some safe well watered and well drained spot in the yard.

But lest you get the wrong idea about me, let me show you my tomato plants. I've watered, fertilized, coddled and coerced these little plants and what in the world do you think I have to show for all my labor? Well, I've harvested 4 tomatoes all from one plant and the other 2 plants didn't even bloom. I don't know what is wrong, but I'm hoping it's that they don't have quite enough sun.

Well, here are the 4 tomatoes! They're small, but they're enough for Billy and me to make a sandwich a piece. They way I figure it, these tomatoes set us back about $10.00 a piece if you really count the cost. I bought the plants, I bought organic bat quano to put in the dirt, I bought a soaker hose, I mulched them, I watered them once a week. It all adds up. I haven't tasted one yet, but I'm not expecting to experience much of a taste extravaganza with my little tomatoes, but they should be ok with a little bacon and some mayo.

Tomatoes are important, but I believe tomatoes are not the true mark of a gardener's spirit. I believe attracting toads are what separates them that's got it and them that ain't.(maybe that's because I can't grown tomatoes).
I wasn't sure when I moved to Memphis whether I'd be able to have a toad in my yard. I've been watching for one to arrive. I made a little house in the front yard garden over by the birdbath and azaleas, hoping one might stop by. One night, late, it might have been close to 10 o'clock, I'd gone outside in the front yard for some reason. Maybe I was eyeballing things the way I do; just to make sure the design was pleasing to me or to passers by in the evening hours. While I was out my eye happened on a weed. I stepped over my little brick squares to get to the weed when something hopped in front of me. I knew just what it was. It was my toad! I had lured it with the help and aid of the garden spirit.
I didn't see that toad again and I can't exactly say what happened to it. However, last month, I planted a big boxwood that I'd gotten from the front of Calvary Church downtown. We'd planted it back in the spring and half of it was dead and dying. I decided to bring it home and put it in the back yard and nurse it back to health. About a week after I planted it I took the hose and started watering it again. I heard a squeaking noise. I looked around and saw nothing that looked like an animal that squeaked. I put the hose back on boxwood and heard the squeak again. There at the edge of the rootball was a toad who was quite irritated that his home was being flooded. I ran to turn the hose off. The toad apparently forgave me for disturbing him or her.
I go out every day to check on my toad. If I want to see him, I just squirt a little water around the base of the boxwood and up he comes. He lets me get very close and seems to be used to people. I took this picture this morning. When the water soaks into the ground my little toad will go back into hiding.

2008-08-07T10:56:00.013-05:00

Yesterday I went out into the back yard. I was standing on the porch when the sight of a praying mantis caught my eye. Ah, August, the insects that I love the most begin to mature and become visible. The sounds of the crickets and cicadas signal the changing of the seasons and the appearance of big spiders building webs in the crevices of the house, of walking sticks and the occasional appearance of praying mantis.

It was late in the afternoon and the heat was intense, there he was, perched on top of some clothes I'd hung out to dry on the railing. I immediately went to get my camera and this little fellow posed like a model. Why did he have to light on the purple dishrag?

I don't know much about my camera, so I had to fiddle around with the right setting. I went to the flower setting when I realized that this bug was going to let me get close. I was a bit surprised at the way he cocked his head and watched me as I hovered around him, snapping shot after shot. I continued to get closer and closer. What a magnificent mystery these animals are.

I looked up praying mantis on the National Geographic website and here's what they had to say: "By any name, these fascinating insects are formidable predators. They have triangular heads poised on a long "neck," or elongated thorax. Mantids can turn their heads 180 degrees to scan their surroundings with two large compound eyes and three other simple eyes located between them.

Typically green or brown and well camouflaged on the plants among which they live, mantis lie in ambush or patiently stalk their quarry. They use their front legs to snare their prey with reflexes so quick that they are difficult to see with the naked eye. Their legs are further equipped with spikes for snaring prey and pinning it in place.

Moths, crickets, grasshoppers, flies, and other insects are usually the unfortunate recipients of unwanted mantid attention. However, the insects will also eat others of their own kind. The most famous example of this is the notorious mating behavior of the adult female, who sometimes eats her mate just after—or even during—mating. Yet this behavior seems not to deter males from reproduction.

Females regularly lay hundreds of eggs in a small case, and nymphs hatch looking much like tiny versions of their parents."

Whenever I see a praying mantis I take some good luck for myself. I feel lucky that I walked out the door the minute I did. Lucky that the mantis didn't jump away off into the thick green plants below. I was lucky that he posed for me in a languid, unhurried manner and lucky that the mantis resonates with me. all his and her kin. This insect is a part of my life, my chidhood and my adult life.
I've always been taught by those around me that these are good insects because they eat lots of other insects. Otherwise I'm sure I would have been terrified of them.

The praying mantis is a harbinger of autumn. Here in the South, we don't see a mantis until August because they're so small, they hop around unnoticed in our gardens until one day there they are waiting to have their pictures taken.

Years ago, in my former life, I lived in a charming little home out in the country. The house had a nice front porch with wooden columns and steps. That porch was where I stayed in the morning and the afternoon. I had a vine growing over it and a brick path from the porch to the driveway. I had grasses, boxwoods and flowers of all kinds surrounding it.
The children were my life. I taught them at home for years, all four of them. Our summers were endless, really, or seemed to be so. The other children started back to school in the middle of August, but I didn't have any notion of holding classes when the days were so hot and summer was still in full swing.
I waited and we, the children and I ignored the rest of the world. We lived our languid lives in the hammock with books, swimming at the neighbors pool, playing in the sand pile, sleeping late, baking bread and reading, reading, reading and playing without goals or objectives.
We had a couple of window units for air conditioning which I hated. I felt closed off from the world then they were roaring, spewing out welcomed frigid air. I lived for the day when I could turn them off and open the doors and windows and turn on the attic fan.
I could tolerate heat in those days. We all could.
So around the middle of August and almost always by the first of September the air conditioners went off for good and the wonderful noises and smells of late summer were ours.
The nights were so black out in the country, the sky was jeweled, and the relief from the heat was like being let out of joil.
On the front porch was a light. It hung down from it's fixture right in the center of the porch. It was a pretty fixture ad did the nicest thing for the light inside it. It caused the light to emanate so that you could be driving along
On a dark moonless night and there back off the road a bit if you turned your head just right you saw in the distance a beacon of warmth gracefully splintered through the beveled glass.
My exhusband farmed and was a banker for the first 12 years of our marriage. He was rarely home, so I enjoyed a great deal of independence. I missed him, I longed for a companion in my marriage, but I managed to find comfort in my home and in my children.
One night, and why I remember this night I really don’t know. My memory lies to me, my memory works in milestones. It is the only way I can make sense of my past is to lay out the steps or the stones I hopped to over the years.
One night in September, late, late summer, I’d put the children to bed, or sent them to their rooms to read and play quietly before going to sleep. I was alone downstairs. The house was open, that is, the doors and windows were open and the attic fan was on, drawing in warm evening air.
I walked through the front room of the house, stepping lightly on the cool hardwood floor, past the tall weary windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. There were dim lamps on in the house and the front porch light was gleaming.
I often sat alone of the steps of my front porch where I counted my lush pots of geraniums as among my closest friends. I groomed them at night, gently snapping off yellowed leaves and spent blossoms. They awaited my coming.
If I ever saw God face to face it was on these nights. I sat, staring at the stars and the black sky and told God I was lonely.
“Belong,” a voice replied.
“To what?” I asked.
“Belong.”
I was beginning to understand what September meant. September means that children grow up, go to school, live their lives. The smell of number 2 pencils and rubber erasers brought on a melancholy that no geranium could speak to. The September I loved because the September I dreaded as the children grew.
That night after I’d heard all I cared to hear from talking stars and demanding flowers, I stood and placed my fingers into the handle on the white warn wooden screen door then stopped. Silenced.
A walking stick.
It behaved much like the mantis I saw last week. It was unafraid. Not just unafraid. It was bold, showing off, proud; as if he knew he was stunning, rare and beautiful; as if he’d been sent there as a harbinger, announcing the truth about September and children leaving and lonliness.
That’s all. That’s all I remember about that night. It’s not much in the telling, but then, in the light, surrounded by darkness and the noises of late summer, it was a milestone, a step, a memory of something I don’t fully understand.

2008-08-06T17:05:00.001-05:00

Odd thing. Someone's been out in my back yard having a beer!!! It was a Bud Select, apparently, and they left it on a white plastic bucket. You can see it in this picture. There in the back. It's been there for weeks. Honestly, these people who not only come drink beer in my back yard, but they don't even pick up after themselves. I never! The beer on the bucket was tightly placed inside a "coolie" and after looking at it for over a week, Blue finally decided to see what a beer coolie would be like if he put it in his mouth.

The other day when Blue took the beer coolie off the bucket he ran around the yard with it in his mouth. Later he decided to bring it to me

Dogs. Dogs do the strangest things.

I've just come out the back door and I'm standing on the porch. Blue is excited and he's playing with his new beer can toy. He spends some time bending the aluminum with his mouth listening to the crunching aluminum can sound that all males seem to love to make and to listen to. It's one of the great mysteries of the animal kingdom.

This game goes on for a while. Blue takes the can and drops it a few times and picks it up then stops. He looks my way and seems to realize that might be able to parlay this new toy into some kind of fetch game. "Maybe she'll throw it," he thinks to himself and heads toward me, can in hand. Make that can in mouth.

I am standing on the porch watching and waiting. The coolie is one Billy brought home from a recent trip. I'm trying to decide whether to take it away from Blue or not. I know how the coolie will eventually end up in shreds. Oh fooey. He's having entirely too much fun with it to take it away. There will be other blue coolies.

Up the steps he runs. See Blue run. His ears flap in the breeze that he creates with his running. He's always excited to see me, but this is special excitement because I sense that he wants me to explain his new toy. He wants me to hear him crunch the aluminum. He stands on the porch crunching the can trying to decide if he really wants to drop it at my feet. Blue is strange that way. As much as he like to fetch, he never likes the dropping part. I used to have to wrestle toy and balls from his mouth clutches, all gooey and slobbery just so I could throw them. Now if I say "Drop it. Drop it. Drop it Blue!" and say it sternly, he'll part with his precious toy.

Here at last he drops the can at my feet and turns his head nonchalantly away as if to say, "Well, here's the can, here, right here at your feet. Now do what you're supposed to do. Throw it, then I'll go get it, crunch it in my jaws for a few minutes then I'll bring it back to you.

And that's just what I do. He's out there now crunching it trying to decide whether or not it's something he wants to play fetch with or not. It might just be an oral audio toy for now.

2008-07-28T12:51:00.005-05:00

This is my son Sam's apartment building in Savannah GA.
Look at all his pots placed along the steps. He tends each one carefully. Many of them he's wintered; some of them are new this summer.
About once a week Sam calls me about some problem he's having with one or more of his fledglings. He has a heart for plants, for geraniums, begonias, ferns and even the sweet potato vine. When he was in high school he was fortunate to have a job on weekends and in the summer at a local nursery. I couldn't possibly have wished for a better place for him to work. He ran the bobcat loading mulch and promix for customers. Sometimes he even got tips, which made him really proud.
Growing up the way he did it's no wonder he cares about geraniums and such. He is his mother's own child where that's concerned. He was an outdoor baby, a child who's first sentence was"Did you see the tractor?" A sentence spoken standing at the window looking outside as a tractor pulled up in our driveway of our farm; back when his father was farming. It sounded like this, "Did do dee duh dactour?" His little arms were flapping and he was so excited. Outside, gardening, flowers, from the earliest age my son followed me out to the garden, asked questions about what each plant was and what grew well where. When he worked at the nursery, he always bought me the most wonderful mother's day presents, things he knew I'd use and appreciate. One of those presents was a Dram watering can. You would think that watering cans are watering cans. Not so. The Dram is aerodynamic in its design and easy to maneuver without spilling. I loved my Dram. He'd buy hanging baskets or beautiful enameled flower pots. He had an eye for beauty and gift giving.
During the long warm months in Savannah, Sam decorates his porch. The vine that grows along the railing and on the string across the entrance is a sweet potato that he put in a jar of water some months ago. When the weather was warm enough he brought it outside and put it in the pot on his steps.

Last week I got this email. It came from his phone and I didn't recognize it at first. I just saw this beautiful picture of geranium blossoms with the words, "I love how well these colors go together."
How bout that? That's my son. He's sensitive and kind. He's intelligent and thoughtful. He's done a lot of growing in his short life.