Here Kitty Kitty

We have two cats. Kitty and Smeagol. Smeagol is the black and white cat. I’m not sure what to call Kitty, except sweet. Smeagol, not so much. But they do love me. Follow me around where ever I go, like:

when I’m cooking,

 

 

 

doing laundry,

 

 

writing,

 

 

 

 

 

painting,

 

going to the bathroom,

 

 

after grocery shopping,

 

when outside walking,

 

 

getting ready to travel,

 

unwrapping a gift,

 

working outside

 

or whatever I’m doing, they are not far away, usually sleeping or trying...

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes Smeagol wants my attention and does so by tearing up paper. Do you want to know what that’s like for a writer/trying-to-be artist? Heaven help me if he ever figures out that books are made of paper. So far he only chewed a corner of one that had been sitting out in the open. If they are on the shelf, he’s not bothered.

 

 

Well, they are cute stinkers, aren’t they?

Flower of the Week – Blue Something Or Another

Dear Mom,

When I first started planting flowers and plants in the backyard, I tagged them all with these cute little metal tags similar to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, only mine weren’t quite as fancy as theirs. I also drew my own little maps of where each flower and plant resided, like a blueprint of the backyard only mine were pretty cheesy since I can’t draw. That worked well for the first few years and then I became overwhelmed. It still didn’t help me with remembering the names of the plants and flowers, although I can rattle off a few. Very few.

This Blue Something is one of those I can’t remember and my tags have long since faded or are totally gone. Now I just enjoy the flowers and forget who resides where, if they make it, what plant replaced it. I no longer dig out the drawings and add to or take away.

Here’s the Blue Something in the yard.

And another shot in the vase, but outside.

Oh, and the vase came from Jessica when she was over in Thailand for school some years ago. This vase may have come from Vietnam.

Where'd the Summer Go?

Dear Mom,

I love gardening, but I didn’t do too much this summer. It had been hot and humid or rainy. I had more desire to write than do anything else. I also decided that I would save all my gardening energy for the fall as I needed to split and transplant my hostas. Usually exhausted by this time of year from working in the yard I never get around to doing that task . But wait, it can’t be time yet. Can it?

The cooler weather makes it perfect and so I started digging up the hosta. The first day I dug up two and after splitting them, I ended up with 24 to replant. Digging the hole is the hardest part in my yard so the smaller the plant, smaller the hole. Beat after doing two, I meandered back inside. Along the way I counted how many I had left. I stopped counting after 50 so as not to overwhelm myself. Even at two a day, I’ll never finish before the ground turns hard.

Where’d my pen go?

Gardening

Dear Mom,

I suppose we were too little to be asked to help with the garden. We didn’t have planting beds like I have now, but I do remember Aunt Tish (neighbor) that had a bed that divided our two yards with beautiful red and yellow tulips that we knew not to pick.

I wanted your granddaughter Rita to experience gardening, digging in the dirt, becoming one with nature so I asked her to help me. Reluctantly she went along with it and I was sure she’d love it and be as excited as me. We worked in this little area and just started pulling weeds when she jumped back and screamed.

I spun around. “What? What?”

“Look!” Rita gagged and her body shivered.

Squirming around on the ground was a devilish looking insect—a rather plump grub like wormy thing with this clipper pincher type mouth. I had never seen anything like it and it even scared me. I took the shovel and scooped it up. It bounced around on the shovel blade having a major tizzy fit and I quickly tossed it. I calmed Rita down who begged to go inside, but I convinced her it was just a one in a million thing. She started digging again, screamed and ran inside. I looked at where she had dug and there were a bazillion maggots.

I cracked up laughing figuring perhaps it’s not in her blood to be a gardener—yet.