Change of Plans

Battery Lamp May 8 2014

Yes, I knew today would be stormy. But I was startled when the alerts for a tornado went off. (Rough weather - May-Dallas News) Something about “take shelter immediately” when one has nowhere to shelter can get a girl’s heart racing – especially given the damage recently inflicted by storms barreling through Arkansas and Alabama last month. And then the power went out. Into the powder room we trudged, and waited for an all-clear, which came within 15 minutes.

Still no power.

The tidy porches were waterlogged, and things blown about. The yard took a beating – tree limbs and debris everywhere; the mercy is that two inches of rain fell. It didn’t end the drought, but it bought a bit of time.

Whatever it was that visited it us, it disrupted power, and our plans for a quiet evening -- Just as life always does when we are making other plans. (John Lennon)

So, we took ourselves out for dinner, splitting a steak and potato.  As we were finishing, a person ambled in, covered in a torn trash bag, wet, and searching.  They looked around and quietly left.  I bundled the untouched dinner rolls, and we quickly left – trying to share what would have just been tossed. When we found the person, we honestly couldn’t tell if the person was a he or she, so thin and disguised they were in baggy clothes – covered by a holey bag.    

Almost twenty years ago, we encountered another soul, wandering, hungry, homeless just down the street – then as now, both were reminders of what I could have been, but for God’s mercy.

The power came back as we readied ourselves for bed -- and I had to record this weather lesson. 

Somebody may have prayed – But, somebody said or did something that became a lifeline. And I found my way out of the scary places that the two street folk I have encountered still wander.

God, I pray now for that person whose sex and sanity have been swallowed up by the brutal force that life can be. And I ask your forgiveness for being part of the generation with unclean lips and hard hearts. Thank You for turning the lights on for me, back then and again tonight – literally and figuratively. Shine Your light in dark places, and bring us out . . . especially those I love.  

Cleaning Up the Outside

What I did today I sometimes put off until the first of June in Maryland—that is, cleaning up the outside seating area. But pollen and tree gunk seem to arrive earlier in Dallas. So, I swept and dusted and hosed down the back porch – and edited a few more pots, before planting a hosta and a drought resistant something or other.

Tomorrow, begins summer morning reading outside, albeit two months ahead of June 21. Sometimes it was June before I could sit outside comfortably in Maryland.

De-pollened, Dusted and Ready for Action!

Thursday Morning Bible Study ends this coming week – it has been another watershed year.  We studied the life of Moses recorded in Exodus, Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy and a few New Testament cross-references. He was an old man when he answered a call that changed Moses and the world – literally.

Because God said – This is the way I want you to live, behave and believe – Moses went from a murderer on the run to a man who spoke with God face to face.  

Yet, the voice that seems to dominate is the one that asks, did God say ____?

Looking all around – from neighbors and friends, to nightly news, etc. – the pain and problems, 

. . . the air quality in my spirit stumbles into a downward spiral. My prayers get smaller. My dreams get pared down and my visions get a reality check. The smog of intimidation begins to infect even the Most Holy Place. (The Smog of Intimidation)

That’s why just being able to move this morning and do something about brightening up a space was a tonic. And the above “Snap Out of It!” meditation jerked me out of the remorse, fear, depression that settle on my heart the way the pollen and gunk coated my comfy outdoor chairs and table.

Just taking a broom in hand was exhilarating – and seeing the spiffy spot all primed and ready for me tomorrow – reminds me that Christ said He is at work even today preparing a place from me – and thee – where rust and moth, pollen and dust, will not be a problem.   

Hope the mosquitoes sleep in.

Painting is Preferable to Pioneering, I Think

Marrying a Texan meant learning about Bluebonnets. The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the lily is to France, the tulip is Holland. (Jack Maguire, Historian ~  Texas Bluebonnet Sightings)

For many years, I never saw one, since our trips to Texas never coincided with their flowering. I gathered their fragility and beauty from paintings – especially by JulianOnderdonk and W.A. Slaughter. Over the past years, I have only seen sightings as we whizzed along some highway. Today, we went bluebonnet hunting in Ennis Texas. 

Small Texas towns are neat – reminding me of small towns in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Today, Ennis turned its Main Street into a promenade of booths where Texas artists, crafters, cooks and hobbyists sold their wares, whetting our appetite for First Monday in Canton, TX. 

 

Ennis TX A While Back

No, bluebonnets don’t grow in town. So, after sampling grilled cactus tacos, we headed off to roads marked as good vantage points to perhaps catch a glimpse of  has inspired Texas painters for a century.  Even though Ennis is small, its outskirts unfold for miles. We drove past a few sprawling ranches, seeing Black Angus cattle, horses, and several acres of recently ploughed black land prairie. What would the first settlers have thought seeing what we saw, unencumbered by telephone poles, fences, houses and highways?

Vista Cropped

I am glad I wasn’t one of them, lovely as the imagine vista was – it was good to speed back to Big D in air-conditioned comfort, sipping ice water and listening to Prairie Home Companion.

 

I may not have much of a pioneering spirit – but I wish did have Mr. Onderdonk’s or Mr. Slaughter’s talent, though – however, recapturing this wonderful day’s scenery may be my next painting!

A Possibility?  

Me Trying to Snap Doug Snapping Bluebonnets! 

Storm Clouds

Yikes!

We headed out for our evening walk last night, enjoying way warmer temperatures, and immediately noticed a looming purplely-gray, towering thunder cloud. (Can summer really be so far off?) Ten minutes into our constitutional, another cloud caught our eyes – a massive wall of white, startling in proportions.  What I had never seen so clearly as I beheld its magnitude* was horizontal lightening, rapid and erratic. 

Whoa – about face! – and we headed home.  

In Dallas, because it’s so flat, we can see storms coming that might be obscured if we were in Maryland. We could tell its direction but not where it would hit.  Who could say if or when this phenomenon would blow over us? We passed another walker, also enjoying the warmer weather, but with earphones connected, she was blissfully unaware of what was so dramatically illuminated against the horizon.  We caught her attention and pointed out the potential danger. She, too, then quickened her pace home.

That monster cloud so reflected how I feel about these crazy times in which we live! The 24/7 news cycles capture terrifying images of danger, suffering and looming ruin: Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border, a downed jet-liner, now missing for weeks, Ebola outbreaks in Canada as well as Africa, murderous mudslides in Washington state, and interminable political gridlock in Washington DC.   (Matthew 24:5-8)

And yes, I know I’ve written a bunch about the how scary these days seem to me.

Fifty years ago – I thought firmly believed we could and would solve problems – and the more we have advanced, it seems the farther back we have fallen. In Bible study, we have been delving into Moses’ life and times – and the marvel of seeing mankind advancing and falling back is OH so old.  

 

¹⁵ But Israel^[a] soon became fat and unruly;
    the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed!
Then they abandoned the God who had made them;
    they made light of the Rock of their salvation. ¹⁶ They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods;
    they provoked his fury with detestable deeds. ¹⁷ They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God,
    to gods they had not known before,
to new gods only recently arrived,
    to gods their ancestors had never feared. ¹⁸ You neglected the Rock who had fathered you;
    you forgot the God who had given you birth.

~Deuteronomy 32:15-18 (NLT)

Doug walked back quickly  – but I wanted to record the moment for I had never seen anything like this! And I stand in awe of the God who was a cloud and pillar of light to His people – and still is. (Isaiah 65)

And this storm finally hit north and east of us.

  *cumulonimbus

Earlier similar thoughts: Tiny Troubles

More on the TEXAS Tornadoes

 

The blessing of the written word – and live cameras! Were it not for the chronicles of the storm captured by print and photojournalism I could not have pictured the extent and force of the damage – or the miracle that no one lost their lives!  And even this extraordinary weather event recedes in the rearview mirror of life as we raced through another day.  

Today, Mr. Steve Blow in the Dallas Morning News wants to give credit where credit is [really] due:  to man’s wisdom. People playing it safe – in Dallas, Plano, Lancaster and Forney Texas -- are the reason no one was injured in the thirteen tornadoes that touched down Tuesday. 

I am glad so many acted so wisely. In contrast, the  off-duty Dallas police officer who helped shelter many didn’t feel it was just what he had learned that made him useful:

"With any situation, as a police officer, we always think, 'What could I have done different?'" he said. "This was Mother Nature. I had no control over what was going to happen." (article)  

An interactive map shows the numbers of tornadoes and where they touched down approximately. One cell was an f-3 tornado with wind speeds exceeding 150 mph, two others were f-2, with winds over 100 mph.   (We live between University Park and Dallas – around the center of the map.)  

So, we can congratulate ourselves – hundreds of thousands of people remembered to take appropriate shelter.  That in itself is a miracle – in every sense of the definition of the word! 

1. 

act of God: an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God

2. 

amazing event: an event or action that is amazing, extraordinary, or unexpected -- "It'll be a miracle if we get there on time."

3. 

marvelous example: something admired as a marvelous creation or example of a particular type of science or skill -- "a miracle of modern engineering"

[ 12th century. Via French < Latin miraculum "object of wonder" < mirari "wonder at" < mirus "wonderful" ]

What do you think?

Praying for a Break in the Weather

We got a scare this morning. The house went dark  -- maybe a strain on the power grid, as we head into over forty days of 100 + temperatures. Headlines flashed in my mind: [Cute] Elderly Couple Prostrated by Heat.

Not since 1980 have we had so many consecutive hot days. What’s more, the evidence of the drought that is gripping the Southwest is growing is apparent on my walks. (TX drought) And it is tormenting our humble yard now.

Although the wonder of our automated sprinkling system mitigates some damage from the relentless heat and aridity, the leaves on the crepe myrtles we  planted this spring are curling up and slightly brown – not a good sign.  The Japanese maple, planted a few months ago, is in rough shape – having endured first a windy start of summer and now.  Small patches of brown are popping up.

The backyard also testifies to the heat and drought’s power.  I went a little nuts this spring with pots – none of which wholly match each other.  When they contained gaily-colored flowers it  -- their diversity was tolerable. Now, not so much.  Only two geraniums remain – barely; the black-eyed Susan’s are almost skeletons of the former glory – the stems and leaves are drained of color.  My once cheerful little square flower garden of perennials is oh so melancholic. All but the lavender, curry, potato vine and portcullis are dead. And it is too hot to do much else.  The plethora of pots whose dead plants overhang the rims suggest it is Morticia Adams who is the gardener in residence and not moi!    

However, I can’t imagine how it would be if the heavens over Texas were shut up as tightly as the heavens over the Horn of Africa.  Or how we would fare if our leaders did to us what has been done to so many Africans.

Hoping, gentle reader, you will join me in prayer and giving, if the Lord enables to rescue those who have no water or food, or shelter.

God’s promise to Solomon is one we should seek:

God appeared to Solomon that very night and said, "I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship.   If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I'll be there ready for you: I'll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.   From now on I'm alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. ( 2 Chron 7:12-16 from THE MESSAGE )

Back in Texas . . . through the Cherokee Nation

We arrived home this afternoon to join with others who are enduring the triple digit dry heat. Who knew Maryland in July would be so cool compared to Texas?

We drove down through Oklahoma, having traveled  through Virginia and  Tennessee and crossed  the state of Arkansas.  The parts of Oklahoma we saw were lovely – I have never been to this great state. 

Now, when we packed up and left in the morning, we skipped the free-breakfast in hopes of something a little more special on this the last day of our vacation.  Assuming we’d also find a gas station we decided to keep driving – quickly covering a hundred miles in the wide-open spaces that I am coming to love. 

Unlike Ritchie Highway, (in Maryland) gas stations in Oklahoma are few and far between. This dawned on us when we were enjoying the panoramic views that reminded us of all those Westerns we used to watch, and our cell phones were on “extended network.”  Checking the dashboard, we noted our cruising range was but fifty-eight miles, and in all that beautiful hilly country, we saw no billboards, for miles! 

Checking my handy-dandy new GPS gadget, I located the next gas station – only it isn’t where the technological wonder says it is, as we find ourselves on some desolate back roads. That rabbit trail cost us ten miles.  Oh great! I worried: We are on the home-stretch of a 2500+-mile car trip and we run out of gas on the last leg. 

But we find a station,  fill up, and spot where we will eat; we have that special breakfast in the local Denny’s. It’s as slow as the one in Maryland, and the waitresses are as nice. 

Driving through the Cherokee nation, we listen to The Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. We have learned many “facts” that none of our respective American history classes imparted.   

I know less and less about more and more. 

It has been, however, time well spent, especially in light of discussions on the place of faith in the public discourse.  In many ways the Pilgrims seemed wiser than we do in adjusting to the challenges of living amongst others who do not share the same convictions. In other ways, what were they thinking?   And the author has presented the Indians as evenhandedly; they were as wise and foolish – brave and manipulative as the Englishmen. 

Given all the squabbles, fights, and disappointments I’ve seen in the church and the country these past thirty or so years our problems are not so different; nor are our needs. We need leaders who have courage, integrity, common sense and imagination – people who will not start off on a car trip assuming there is always a gas station around the bend!

The View from My Window, Part 2 – A Well-Watered Garden

 

A few weeks ago  I described the lawns across the street – one well watered, one not.  Since that time, the lawn that was languishing in the relentlessly dry Texas heat is showing a creeping greenness. Why? Our neighbor turned on the sprinkling system that now irrigates the lawn in the wee early hours of the day. The brown patches are receding, even as the temperatures climb. The blessing of water – consistently and gently available – is having an obvious effect before my eyes. 

However the same water that waters this lawn is creating problems elsewhere in the neighborhood. I described my encounter with the torrents of dirty water a broken water main released yesterday. Today on our early morning walk, we encountered the results of the city opening up a fire hydrant. At one point a city worker hopped from his truck and dropped what we think were large chlorine tablets into the rushing water.  Some curbs were so inundated with muddy water, crossing them was a challenge – taking wide strides across water and mud is tricky with balance issues and bifocals. 

Looking up one alley, we saw a large excavation – something was wrong. We don’t know whether this is scheduled repair work on an old system, or an unexpected problem. But the same water that is refreshing a dying lawn is creating obstacles for our walks.

Water is a hot topic of conversation any day. Whether we talk about its power revealed in tsunamis, floods and storms; lament its excess or absence, or, lament its pollution praise its life-giving properties we can’t live long without it, and we can’t live with too much of it! In my little world I see what too little and too much can do – and I can see how wise watering can revitalize a barren lawn.  

In Scripture water also is a powerful image of God’s Holy Spirit and His righteous wrath. 

(See Isa 12:3; 35:6-7; 55:1; John 7:37-38; Hos. 5:10.)  In my little world, I have seen how thirsty I become when I will not come and drink. And I see too many thirsty folks decline God’s offer of free refreshment. (Isaiah 55; 65:2-5)

But I have sadly seen myself spout out too many words – like that opened water hydrant. Thinking I was offering help I may only have created unnecessary puddles for others to ford.  However, I know the blessed refreshment of words used wisely.  “ . . . Reliable friends who do what they say are like cool drinks in sweltering heat — refreshing!”  (Prov. 25:11-13 from THE MESSAGE)

Thank you all!

Hoping that you dear reader, and I will be refreshed in the word, by God’s Holy Spirit to refresh a thirsty world:  . . . Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing." (Matt 10:41-42 from THE MESSAGE)

P.S. Yesterday we hit 105 degrees, but low humidity  . . . It did not feel cooler for all the dryness. 

Getting Sloppy Wet

I have maintained the walking regime.  Why I couldn’t rustle my stumps in cooler weather, I can’t say – but walking now is a priority.

This morning as I began, I met Doug, who had gotten out earlier. He reported a water main break in an alley close by that impeded his constitutional. I would not be so deterred, I believed, unable to imagine how much water flows from such a rupture – I would simply by pass it, and get in my thirty minutes. 

Then I caught sight of it. The force of the flow affected at least five streets, and water burbled along their curbs and corners. I successfully navigated the first challenges – but on the home stretch, I misjudged the depth. Cool water mixed with grit and mud inundated my shoes, soaking even the bottom of my pants. 

And I was three blocks from home.

Walking in wet shoes with wet hems slapping at my ankles, feeling the fine grit grind about my feet slowed me down – I seriously considered calling Doug and asking him to come fetch me. (I never claimed to be a pioneering woman!) But did not relish the prospect of explaining why I wound up where he’d warned me not to go.

Hmmmmm.  Could this have been an apt metaphor for how I got to be me?

Being warned of watery impediments, I strode on, convinced one little break would not inhibit me.  Or, maybe I thought the break would be repaired by the time I made it past the alley? 

This made me think of other times when I chose to disregard friendly warnings – the sum of which might be the back story of the great America novel I’m hatching. A working title might be Ah, But, You Were Warned, _______________.    

Too often I read Aesop and others’ fables approving the wisdom for other folks but not applying it to me. And too often, I saw how Solomon’s wisdom could teach others, and did not learn for myself.  Taking long walks gives me time to think about how often I ignored wise counsel – and the merciful interventions God enabled. I wonder if the determination that gets me up, out of the house and walking means I am a little more teachable this season.  Mr. Thoreau, once said, “An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”  

Those who teach by their doctrine must teach by their life, or else they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other.  (Matthew Henry)

More Walks

No wind today – not a breath. No clouds in the sky, either – the clouds departed   as the sun enlightened the sky to soft robin egg’s blue.  I got out and back, walking while the humid heat was not fully awake.  However it was fully awake by the time I left for appointments and duties this morning  -- and kept trying to smother me all day. Popping out for a few groceries this afternoon late, I discovered I can stroll as slowly as Scarlett O’Hara on a hot day in Georgia – ain’t no point moving fast and fainting.  But walk I did, later tonight, through all that dead still air. I came back dripping more than if I had been in a sauna.

Why am I doing this? Walking makes me sleep better, and it dispels the stiffness that keeps reminding me how old I am. 

Expecting another blast of still hot air when I stepped out at 11 PM to water the flowers not in the sprinkler’s path, I was pleased to feel and smell fresh moving air, about 15 degrees cooler than at 9 PM. Doug’s mother used to say about the weather in Texas, “If you don’t like it, wait fifteen minutes; it can change.” I wish we had an upstairs sleeping porch – tonight would be perfect sleeping weather.  But the weather might change again. 

One thing about Dallas weather, no mountains change the weather patterns here, like they do in Maryland.  People here don’t really believe Maryland has mountains. (Texans, they are too close to Colorado to be properly impressed with the Appalachians.) They don’t know that we, Maryland, have it all – mountains and oceans – plus we have a bay.  But now I am part of the "they" -- at least for the time being.

One benefit of Texas in the summer is their peaches – they are quite tasty. Not as tasty as the ones that Rookies Market in Annapolis carried, though. Rookies had a connection to a farm in St. Margaret’s Maryland – and their peaches were worth the wait. 

I miss Annapolis – as it was in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.  I used to walk in the early mornings there, too.  Down Southgate, left onto Franklin, up past the hospital to Church Circle, and then down Main Street, through the Naval Academy, past the Chapel, out Gate 3, up Maryland Ave, back around the Circle, down Franklin and back to Southgate. The fact that everything in the downtown has changed – makes being apart from it easier.  While I like to revisit in my memories, I don’t want to get trapped there and miss tomorrow’s adventure.

I remember things that happened sixty years ago, but if you ask me where I left my car keys five minutes ago, that's sometimes a problem. -- Lou Thesz  (Christians Quoting)

Keep Moving!

 Summer officially arrived Tuesday, but had been warning of its arrival for days before. All the cool dry weather evaporated two weeks ago, replaced by humidity and heat. Most days, a steady breeze has kept things tolerable.  But like many of Dallas’ residents, “it is fixing to leave”  for a spell.  And yes, if the temps dropped to 85, it would feel like a cool snap.

The forecast for the foreseeable future is heat – the description of which Sydney Smith (no relation – he was an English clergyman, critic, philosopher and wit.) perfectly captured in Lady Holland's Memoir (1885): “Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.”  

But I have kept walking – both in the morning and at night. Though days are now supposed to be getting shorter, it’s possible to leave the house at 8:15 P.M. and get a thirty minutes walk in before it’s too dark.

Summer nights still remain my favorite walking time  especially on streets whose oak trees tower and spread out, whispering when a light breeze shakes their foliage.  On Friday evening we opted for a part of town whose houses are imposing, and trees, majestic – their branches form a canopy that blocks sight of the sky.  Plus its streets have a slight incline for better exercise.   Ah, surely the air is more rarefied in this neck of the woods?

The next morning we returned to this area and pursued some estate sales. Always arriving at the tail end, our picking through the remains reminds me of the scene from “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come see the charwomen disassembling his possessions.  I suppressed thoughts that imagined  what others might think of all the “gently used” treasures.

The weather, my walks, and our “yard sailing”  -- and all those thoughts whose companionship reveal my incomplete prayer life implore me to make the most of what God gives – holding oh so lightly to the reins of my life:

I looked long and hard at what goes on around here, and let me tell you, things are bad. And people feel it.  There are people, for instance, on whom God showers everything — money, property, and reputation — all they ever wanted or dreamed of. And then God doesn't let them enjoy it. Some stranger comes along and has all the fun. It's more of what I'm calling smoke . . . (Eccl 6:1-2from THE MESSAGE.)

Today is not a dress rehearsal for tomorrow, wise people have said. What I do, when, why and how   is  still important! As one astute commentator  urged: “Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg.” (See Christians Quoting. ) 

Lawn Maintenance Lessons

 

I grew up watching my father cut the lawn, and then saw the duty transferred to my brother. When I spent a decade in apartments and I forgot about the chores that having a lawn will spawn.  That is, until  we bought our first home in Maryland and my husband assumed the mantle of head lawn-man. I timorously became the gardener until poison ivy sideline me for a few years. But that’s another story.   We had no outside help with our yards until after our children went to college.  Those who helped came one by one, spoke English and usually had only a mower.  We knew their last names, and their first. By the time we moved, a crew of yardmen who could swarm over our yard and whip it into shape in short order was not a familiar routine.  

But Dallas is different – at least in our part of Dallas. Lawn maintenance crews are a way of life – a blessing, to which I quickly became accustomed.  But I don’t know their names. They speak little English, and often arrive at a time when I am gone.  I don’t usually see them work their magic; I only see the bagged clippings, placed neatly at the curb for the refuse collectors.  They work for a company who schedules their arrival and pays them for their work.

And then I thought about all the other people I don’t know, upon whom I equally dependent. I live my life wholly reliant on the work and good will of others.  Were it not for them, I would not have potable water, fresh food, shelter, safety, transportation, or clothing.  

I live because unseen others do.

It’s realizations like this when the reality of my dependent insignificance almost undoes me . . . for a few minutes . . . before my aging ego kicks in, and I think I have written something worth reading!   

G. K. Chesterton when he wrote his autobiography near the end of a long and useful life, set himself the task of defining in a single sentence the most important lesson he had learned. He concluded that the critical thing was whether one took things for granted or took them with gratitude. --James Reston  Sketches in the Sand  (from thequotegarden.com)

God bless your day dear reader – with joy and wonder, and a deep sense of gratitude for the life you have before you today – but let’s both speak out!

William Arthur Ward, an American who wrote in the last century, wrote, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.“   Indeed, “Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. “(Gladys Browyn Stern)  

Let the Word of Christ — the Message — have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God!   Let every detail in your lives — words, actions, whatever — be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. (Col 3:16-17 from THE MESSAGE.)

The News from Texas:

 

I got out and walked this morning, before it got too hot; ten weeks from now what feels warm – 85+ degrees – will feel chilly, portending the coming of fall. Until then, every day I can get out and about, breathing in and out comfortably, I am glad.  

In our back yard, the battle with the squirrels over the domain rights to my growing collection of flower and plant pots continues. I tried applying concentrated pepper, and got talked into (dried) fox urine – sprinkling it around the edges of the pots. After a few days, the squirrels may have noticed, no fox was lurking – and perhaps, because this is Texas, the squirrels don’t mind extra pepper.  Today, when I noticed one persistent critter, digging in a freshly potted hibiscus I resolutely added both pepper and urine to all the pots!  Hope the plants survive.

Speaking of my garden: at least half a dozen black-eyed Susan’s are waving bravely in the sun and this mornings gentle breeze.  Started from seeds last year, they did not appear until this spring; I despaired that they would bloom. Chilly weather and strong winds have knocked them about; some rains and hail pummeled them – but they were upright and boldly at attention when I took action against the squirrels – cheery reminders of the Old Line State.

Also emerging unexpectedly – for I worried the squirrels had forged the bulbs – a stargazer lily. Other shoots are tentatively appearing. Another surprise, and reappearing this year with more blooms and brighter colors, is canna lilies, planted by the former owner. The flowers are a combination of brilliant red and pure yellow against deep green foliage – Viva Mexico! Alas, the freesias are languishing. Perhaps they resent the squirrels’ incessant foraging? Or maybe pepper and fox urine discouraged them?

On another hopeful gardening note, though, the pansies have not given up. The remains of what I planted in the fall, pansies and ornamental cabbage, seem inexhaustible.  Daily, as I cut them to file tiny arrangements in the house, more flowers appear. Indeed, my gardening friend told me pansies are also known as the grandmother’s flowers, for busy little hands can never wholly demolish their beds.

And speaking of grandchildren, my morning walks have become as if I have a small child in tow. This morning, just as I reached a heart-healthy pace, the magnolia trees distracted me. The blooms are lovely and profuse this year, tempting me to draw close, bend a branch down and inhale their unique fragrance.  Slowing down, I had to have a stern talk with myself about not touching other people’s property.  Mercifully, I didn’t have to explain why to myself.