This is the 2nd portion of the “Cold Dew” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.
At this time every year in Arizona, we pull out the “summer flowers,” the annuals that we plant in May. We replace them with “winter flowers.” Usually red geraniums are featured, as they are this year. In the last few years we have much fewer choices than we used to have. This year, we had even less choice–and the red geraniums don’t look very good. I hope they perk up once planted. Today is the day we plant!
The topic of my tanka is our winter flowers.
Our summer flowers
have drooped and browned by the house.
Today we release
them from the earth to make room
for winter’s colors.
I made up the kigo “winter flowers” because it is such a part of this season.
On another note, I heard yesterday that my poetry collection Rooted and Winged, which was a Book Excellence winner, is Runnerup in the PenCraft Book Awards 2023. Woot!!!!
On another note, I don’t know how about anybody else, but I am feeling very drained and saddened over world events. I am also horrified by the anti-Semitism rampant on Twitter/X. I’ve joined Bluesky and am only following writers and people I know. Friends, if you want to join, I have a couple of codes. First come, first served.
On Friday we planted new pentas, vincas, coleus, and marigolds. Daughter and her fiance helped MUCH. We left a lot of the old flowers, although they were a bit leggy, mainly because of the cost and also because we have been so busy that we didn’t have time to do more.
New flats.
I love the cheery little faces of the vincas.
New flats and looking toward our crooked tree and bronze rabbit.
The red dianthus are “leftovers,” and the pentas and vincas were just added to the back. Some of the marigolds are old and some are new. Once they grow it will look better.
When the pandemic began, I was eager to be a pioneer woman and even froze eggs and lemons in case we had a shortage. Now I am very ragged around the edges, having been overworked by all the dealings with the government and business-in-the-time-of-coronavirus. I am used to always being busy, usually thrive on it, and yet I will say that I am too exhausted at this point. And I don’t see a letup. Plus, when I get this tired, my legs and feet swell miserable (from my primary lymphedema). That aggravates my “hip-leg.” I have a painful condition with my left leg up near the groin that I refer to as my hip-leg. It feels like a twisting nerve and is particularly and suddenly painful when I put my foot down on the ground. The swelling makes it worse. And the exhaustion and work-work-work makes it worser yet.
But I don’t have the virus. And neither does my family. And my kitties are a lot of work, but so cute. And I have new flowers. So there you go.
We also have lizards galore this year. And the quail couple with their single file of bobbing babies. You see, I can keep finding cool stuff to distract myself!
My friend who wrote this very popular essay years ago (Lake Erie) teaches creative writing to seniors. Because of the pandemic, her classes now are on Zoom, and my mom is taking one! I am so happy she is doing so because it’s good for her to interact with others, although it’s on phone Zoom (no video) and not in person. Also, she is a reporter for the community newspaper (used to be an editor for it), but with the pandemic she can’t interview people in person. My mother’s community has a big apartment complex, a nursing home, an assisted living, a rehab facility, and garden homes (duplexes). She lives in a garden home, so she has more space and more freedom than if she lived in one of the other buildings.
I call my mother regularly, but it’s hard to find new things to talk about when you’re not out doing new stuff! And she’s not going to doctors or seeing friends, so she doesn’t have that to talk about. She does read my genealogy blog The Family Kalamazoo, so that makes her happy because I am almost always yapping about her family. Most recently I’ve been working on my 3x great-grandfather who was a “prosperous celery farmer” (according to his obit) in Kalamazoo. I had no idea when I was growing up there that my ancestor was one of the farmers who raised Kalamazoo’s “famous” crop. The thing that interested me most about him was discovering that as a widower he married and divorced a woman after he immigrated to the U.S. It almost looks like he married her so she would help raise his six children. I wonder what he discovered he didn’t like. How I would love to see the divorce papers! I have all kinds of fictional scenarios popping up in my head.
When I was growing up, my dad planted a plum tree in our backyard in Michigan. He used to take pix of us next to the tree, watching the tree and us kids growing, I guess. After my father passed away five years ago (last Thursday), my mom had a plum tree planted on the edge of the woods behind her house at the senior complex.
The plum tree with my brother, our dog Perky, and my dad
The tree Mom planted behind her home
This weekend I found out I got the Volunteer of the Month award for April at the shelter. Yes, well, so many of the other volunteers couldn’t do their jobs because the shelter has been closed to volunteers for the pandemic. However, my work increased because I make the adoption calls (more adoptions!) and do data entry for those. I also took on the shelter’s Twitter account, which is a challenge right now because just as soon as I get info on a new dog it gets adopted :)! The reason this is occurring is in part because people are stepping up to adopt during this period. But it is also for another reason. Our shelter is a no-kill that functions largely by rescuing e-list dogs from the county kill shelter. (The cats seem to magically appear at our shelter, by the way). Our shelter is only bringing in a limited number of animals because without volunteers, the staff can only take care of just so many hungry mouths.
Take care of yourselves, peeps. If you have Instagram, be sure to check out Bobthewritingcat! That big-hearted curmudgeon makes me happy and teary. As Bob always says, go wash your hands!!!
This week has been difficult for me because the gardener and I are self-employed and our businesses are shut down temporarily for the pandemic. I spent my week dealing with the resulting issues with nobody to call for advice.
So today I am reeling from a week of that. And frustrated by all the stuff I didn’t get to do that I wanted to do. But I did keep up with tweeting for the shelter (takes longer than it would seem to as I have to collect the info first) and other animal work.
I hope that I get to work on my Scraps scrapbook and write and go for walks this week.
On top of the government and bank crap, the gardener has been damn grumpy. Anybody else living with someone who is grumpy during the pandemic?
Today I will give you a couple of photos of the grump’s handiwork in the yard .
Both these photos are at the wall we share with the neighbor.
The flower wheel was made by my father, and I think I’ve posted a photo of it before. The metal flowers are fading, but I sort of enjoy seeing them become different shades over time.
I sure hope that I get to do some writing before National Poetry Month is over.
By the way, Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus is now available for purchase through Amazon. Why should you buy it other than reading a lot of poems about a Very Timely Subject? Because the purchase price goes toward both Doctors Without Borders and Partners In Health! The poets are from all over the world and from all age groups, even a 7 year old! Makes me tear up to think about it. POETRY IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS
Hope your week is good enough and, most importantly, that you and yours are well.
Ever since I finished National Poetry Month, I’ve been slammed with too much to do. It’s not all been work. A lot of it has been cat related. And even a genealogy rabbit hole (not even my family haha!) that I fell down.
But I’m devouring Natasha Trethewey’s poetry collection Thrall, and I’m so engaged. You won’t be sorry if you pick up a copy and start reading.
Here’s a little photo show of the prettier parts of the week.
This bobcat was stalking prey in the wash next to my house. He goes along nicely with a poem I think (#NaPoWriMo is a blur) I started last month.
Here is the coolest part of seeing him. He stopped totally still with his left hind leg (you can see the leg here just before) raised in the air. He had visually locked onto his prey. And then what do you think happened?
I’ll be darned if a little songbird didn’t land on a branch of a tree to the left of the photo and sing out a warning. IT GIVES ME CHILLS RIGHT NOW JUST TELLING YOU ABOUT IT.
I can’t even imagine how to put that into a poem without it sounding sappy!
There were some more saguaros in blossom at Mayo. Yup, I had another issue.
See the little hole up near the top? It looks like a mouse hole. It’s actually the entrance to a bird’s home. What I would love to show you are the older saguaros in vacant lots around here. They have lots of branches unlike these ones that were planted by somebody–in this case, Mayo. They also blossom at the ends of every branch. And some of them are absolutely riddled with holes from birds–completely battle-scarred. But there isn’t any place to safely park to take a pic.
(That reminds me, right outside my kitchen window was the most glorious male cardinal ever–smaller than Michigan ones and the red more orangey and vibrant–but my camera/phone was too far away to get a pic in time).
Some of the landscaping at Mayo is now mature enough to produce some shade. Since it’s turned hot again, that’s a good thing.
It’s flower time, so the gardener has been obsessed with planting flowers in the yard. He buys flats and flats of them and plants them all over–in beds and pots. Actually drives me nuts because the flowers come ahead of everything else. (He thinks I act that way about the cats, but of course, that is DIFFERENT).
Do you know how many times I’ve been to the nursery lately?
Perry continues to be the cutest most adorable softest squishiest handsome boy ever who really sets the household on end. Hah. See here. Kana was sleeping peacefully on top of the tree. Tiger was lying in the sun on the bottom. Perry had to take the middle part as he tried to “engage Tiger in play.” I put that in quotes because that is not how Tiger sees it.
When nobody will play with Perry or he gets yelled at by me, he sometimes retreats for a little pout.
I did a couple of submissions this week, so at least something happened in the writing sphere.
My new job at the shelter is contacting people who have adopted cats during the month. I LOVE hearing from them. Some of them send me photos of the kitties all comfy and happy in their new homes. Makes it all worthwhile!
Make it the best week for you and those around you!
OK, here is my catchall post. Last year at this time my father had just passed away and I had my second set of hummingbird babies to look after. Mac, my oldest cat, was dying.
Since the hummingbird had laid her eggs outside my window two years in a row, we were hopeful she would return this year. I suspect she too has now passed away. Her nest is empty and disintegrating.
Why is this woman putting a watermark on this ugly photo, you might ask. I would ask that, even if I didn’t articulate it. Answer: just cause. It’s part of my turning over a new leaf goal.
If you think this is the only abandoned nest around me, think again. There are at least two more.
If you haven’t seen this video about a hummingbird, it will start your weekend off right!
What else is happening (or not happening) in my life?
Flowers are happening, thank goodness.
The above flowers are a sample from a decorative pot. We have these in beds, too. After realizing that a lot of colors (pink, purple, pastel, YELLOW) don’t look well with our gold-toned stucco, we found that by putting a variety of strong colors together–reds, oranges, burgundies, rusts, blues, whites–that they look great!
Lots of cactus flowers this year, too!
The reason I leave a lot of the gardening to my live-in gardener is because Arizona gardening can be dangerous. This is just one reason why.
These agave thorns have messed up my gardener more than once. Very very painful.
Although I pick up my mail outside amidst the flowers and empty nests, I bring it inside to open it (usually). Yesterday I got a “catalog” from the symphony with next year’s options. Look at this.
Shostakovich and Cello right next to each other! I don’t think so. Not after my last experience with both. I wrote about it in Hypersensitive to a Sound?
But the good news is they are performing Vaughn Williams. Woot!
Another item that came in the mail was a lion costume for my cats. It looked so cute online, but when I got it I saw that it wasn’t for cats at all, but for kittens. To try it on Felix, I had to add a long piece of velcro under his chin. And it doesn’t look near as cute as in the advertisement because it needs a tiny kitten face so that the “mane” overwhelms it. But Felix is very good humored and let me fool around with it anyway.
So what else is new around here, you might ask? Well, you might not, but I will ask it for you. Just . . . so . . . I . . . can . . . show you the new resident at my house!
Yes, we are fostering Slupe!!! I couldn’t let her stay at the shelter any longer. TWO YEARS. She has her own room for now, with a view of bunnies, birds, and lizards. I will write more after she’s been here a little longer.
Everyone, have a lovely weekend. For my American peeps, Happy Memorial Day. Keeping those I’ve lost in my heart.
Lots of ideas for blog posts have crossed my mind lately. Then they have kind of walked in reverse back out of my mind. Everything seems “deeper” than I can handle currently. You should see how cute Kana is sleeping next to me, by the way. I figured out how to keep her from annoying Tiger who sleeps in the corner of the window seat: I put a big piece of two way tape across the opening where Kana would lie to intimidate comfort Tiger. Tiger can walk over the tape to get to her safety spot, but Kana can’t lie there without discomfort. So far, so good!
I just noticed that the two hibiscus bushes that flank my front door have gone in different directions this year. In the past, they looked very similar. But look at them now! Let’s call this one A.
And this one will be B.
Hibiscus B has a thick head of dark, glossy leaves, but few blossoms. Hibiscus A is rich in blossoms, but the foliage is lighter-colored, less shiny, and sparse.
Maybe something went awry in the gardening (see my live-in gardener about that).
Or maybe it’s a metaphor. If we’re busy making leaves, we don’t have enough energy left for blossoms. And if we’re sprouting blossoms like crazy we neglect our leaves?
What have I been up to lately besides work? Well, more work. And some writing. And doctor appointments–catch up time of the year, ya know.
Only question is: am I producing leaves or flowers right now?
