Um, About That View of the Water He Wanted....

Well, that's what he added to his list of what to look for when we were getting ready to move out of our urban apartment complex.  I found this lovely solar granny apartment on an organic farm, complete with woods and fields around us, chickens, goats, turkeys, dog, barn cats, small children, wildflowers and lots of songbirds.  Just lovely, but no lake or stream really.  Just woods standing in blackwater swamps.  Those don't count, he said, resigned to his fate.

It rained last night.  RAINED.   Honest, the weather forcast was for cloudy with chance of showers, heavy at times, flooding possible in low areas.  Not that different from most days, so we ignored it and went to bed.

This is what we found when we woke up this morning: back yard...

Poor little garden tractor trailer...

The southwest corner and the chard treading water as fast as they can...

Even the front yard plantings of onions & garlic flooded!

But so far the house and driveway have stayed out of the water...  Of course, the drainage ditch running along the county road frontage is actually uphill from the property, and seems to drain the 40 acres of swamp/woods behind us more than our spaces.  That swamp is presently feeding a clear stream diagonally across these 4 acres, mostly the back lawns, but also the west truck gardens, berries and a corner of the orchard.  (Note to self: orchard chickens do not swim well, and complain bitterly about soggy ground.)

The six year old neighbor is delighted because all that water returning means he can spend the day paddling the canoe across it.  Usually that is only for a couple weeks in spring when the ground has not unfrozen enough the absorb warm rains.  Then the canoe gets put away for lake use fishing in August.  Not this year! 

We've had way more rain than usual, and it has often been hard rains, instead of the farmers' delightful drizzle.  Last night it was 2" in about an hour and a half.  And the ground was already saturated from rains we have been having every couple of days since February.

Maybe they should have ducks instead of chickens?  And maybe grow rice instead of greens.....

She Said It...

Deb Rivel, board member of The Alex Foundation, quoted in Dr. Pepperberg's book, Alex & Me:

"Alex taught me the meaning of oneness. What I learned from him also supported what I always have known to be true: that there is just one Creation, one Nature, one good, full, complete Idea, made up of individuals of all shapes and designs, all expressing their oneness with one God. We are not different because we look different, but we all reflect the eternal beauty and intelligence of one Creation in our own peculiar way. It's what makes up the whole -- this textured fabric of thought and existence -- and knowing Alex has underscored to me how much the same we really are."

Right on.

Blast from the Past?

Yesterday I cleaned the oven. For the first time in ... decades.

No, really, apart from wiping down the shelves and door window, I have not cleaned an oven in over 30 years. We built our house in 1976, including a self-cleaning oven of the 'continuous' sort -- which meant you didn't have to use oven cleansers or the fume inducing self-clean cycle. Just keep the window clean. Then, we moved to Michigan, first to apartment with gas oven, then to apartment with brand new self-cleaning (which again, I never initiated, not being able to handle the fumes of super heated oven coating).

So having to get down on my knees and try to remember even how to go about reaching all the parts was a challenge. Found a nice, non-smelly oven cleaner (Easy Off low odor) that really does the job! And on a cold oven, so not even any hot oven fumes. Looks pretty good for a 40 year old piece of equipment, if I do say so myself...
Of course, I'm 'toast' today. This morning was so stiff I could barely move, and complaining and whiny with pain and sheer exhaustion. Couldn't figure it out. Then remembered all that time clambering into the innards, on my hands and knees, no less!

Well, no wonder I'm stiff and cranky, LOL. But maybe this will help loosen me up? Hope so, since we are continuing to live here, and I will probably need to clean it in the future..... Sigh.

Every day I'm finding new reasons to justify hiring housekeepers. Never could understand the need when I was younger....

Meanwhile, it is Spring! See? Enid's Jack-in-the-Pulpit spikes coming up:
And those little green leaves? Those are wild geranium, which I rescued from muddy tracter track and stuck in the basket with the Jacks. Next to bloom after the Spring Beauties and rue anemone, it will keep blooming for a couple months -- sometimes all the way into Fall in the garden. They last the longest of the spring wildflowers.

Are we happy Winter is behind us??*

*Obviously a rhetorical question.

Retirement Planning...

I'm coming to realize that probably the main reason I never actively engaged in financial planning was that I never really believed that I would need to retire. (Another strong reason is a total lack of trust in financial institutions -- no doubt inherited from my parents, who had lost their innocence about banks and insurance during the Great Depression.)

I've always believed that I could continue to sell my skills (which, admittedly, are mostly mental, not physical) for as long as I needed to. It never occurred to me that people retired because they had to, because they just couldn't do the work any longer.

This is a very shocking realization! But the truth pops up to remind me daily that I am no longer in my twenties, and I can't keep the pace that I'm sure I remember I once could. (Of course, the memory is going, too, so I could be wrong about that.)(My sentiments, exactly. I don't care if it's good for me; I didn't sign up for it!)

My life has changed so much that when I take out the albums and study the record of family life therein, I actually wonder, "Who was that woman!?"

Followed by the corollary, "Who am I now?"

It is a shock to look in the mirror and see a stranger -- moreover, a stranger I never expected to be. And learning how to be mortal at this late a date is proving a challenge, LOL.

So, how am I to go about planning for retirement, when that means I will probably not be doing much of anything I have done before. Since I am less physically and mentally fit than I had planned, and probably not going to stop that deterioration, what am I going to be doing?

In short, what am I going to be when I grow up?

Do I change careers yet again? Do I consider retraining? Do I upgrade the computer and move into the 21st Century? Do I move to Mexico, or some other retirement community, where the cost of living matches my Social Security check? (That's assuming I believe in SS, which I don't and never have had any trust would be there for me. Alas, current events are supporting my paranoia...)
Truthfully, the old eagerness for new places and new ideas and new learning just isn't there. I have no enthusiasm for reentering the love/hate relationship of learning new computer software (or I'd upgrade to Ubuntu and open source).

This reluctance may not be entirely my fault, or the result of aging. It used to be that change happened far more slowly, and there was time to get used to the idea. I could actually become proficient in a software application before it went to the next version!

The world actually may be moving too rapidly for me to follow any longer. And seems to be going directions I don't much like, for that matter. I'm just hanging on by my fingernails!

It does not help my ego that I grew up hearing these very complaints from my parents and all their siblings as they reached the age I am now.

The trick for me, daily, is to resist turning into a crochety old woman, complaining and whining about some decline from the Good Old Days... This is a challenge, too, seeing as that is exactly how I remember my aunts and uncles! I have role models to fight off.

I need to remember...
This is only the Fall of my life...

Not the Winter...

I can still rise up anew, and perhaps like the butterfly, I don't have to plan the details, but simply go with the flow.

And trust the process!

You are not broken...

(Bad hair day??)

In my frustration with mental and physical constraints on my activities of late, I may have overlooked a critical aspect of this life, which is learning how to define myself by who I am, instead of what I do.

When I'm busy doing a zillion things, I feel competent and useful -- and thus lovable. When I am sidelined (by comparison to past experience) I can start doubting my worthiness.

Religion teaches us that God created us imperfect, and loved us anyway. Believing that is a challenge, but my husband said something recently that has really helped me.

He reminded me of the piano that used to sit on a makeshift stage in the dining room at LouHelen Baha'i School in Michigan, USA. Family retreat sessions there often included a sort of amateur night performance on one of the evenings, and the kids were especially encouraged to share their talents.

In those days, the piano was not regularly tuned, and so could sound pretty bad for any child presenting his recital piece. On this particular evening, several small children had proved it was really out -- until an older music student headed for Juilliard in a few days sat down to play.

The difference in sound was stunning! You couldn't tell it was the same instrument.

The point being that a skilled musician can make beautiful music even with a poor instrument.

So when I was moping that I had become a mostly useless tool in my old age, or at very best, a considerably dulled or broken one -- my lovely husband said,

"You are not broken if God can still make music with you. If you can add a little more love to the world -- if you can increase the gladness in the hearts of those around you -- you can still move the world."


I hope that when you are feeling tired, frustrated, overwhelmed and inadequate for the task, you will remember that God can work miracles with any tool, if only that tool is at hand. Be there, align yourself with the Greater Good, and you will be useful, too.


It's a promise.

Thoughts on Second Life...

Well, of course, those of us who have passed the climacteric are already in our third life -- 1)childhood, 2) childrearing, 3) maturity (er, hopefully)...

I finally went to see what all the talk was about Second Life, which is a multiuser online game setting that has 30,000 folks and more playing at any one time.

[For those of you unfamiliar with multiuser, real time gaming: Second Life provides a venue driven and designed by the participants, for the purpose of living out their fantasies -- to one extent or another. That can seem to some of us like a chance to get a bit out of hand, perhaps, but it's probably a lot safer than acting out in Real Life, LOL. What is particularly exciting about this kind of game is that thousands of people can interact in many ways that would not be available to them in RL. To see a video presentation go to this page, and click on 'video'...]

Friends, relatives and online correspondents have been chatting up SL for a long time. (3 years in the computer world being practically an eon) I went and took a look at the beta release several years back, but opted out largely because it cost a monthly fee in the beginning. Now, of course, my MAC is too old to run it; but one of our younger PCs will play. And, it is now FREE for basic playing.

One of the attractions for people who have talked to me is the freedom to wander about and strike up conversations with anyone who looks interesting. (By moving the cursor over their avatar, personal profile info is available, such as screen name, age, interests, etc.)

Many people do not feel safe, for whatever reasons, to just wander into a crowd in real life and just start talking. Particularly if the person they are considering talking to happens to be dressed as a giant purple-striped white tiger! Or a Goth queen. Or a tatoo-covered giant in black leather and chains. Or even a gauzy green fairy, complete with wand that shoots sparkles...

Or simpler, yet -- how many would be willing to stroll about in a strange neighborhood or landscape, just looking at the view? Or walk into someone else's house, garden or shop, just to see how it was designed. (In Second Life, if the owner/creator didn't want you to, it would be private and you wouldn't be able to, as I understand it.)

No, it appears to me that SL has indeed taken on a life of its own, growing hourly as business, politicians, religions and educational institutions begin to set up shop. (Linden Labs, the source, presently has 30,000 servers, and still experiences periods when too many users want to be there and it slows things down or crashes altogether.)

What is the point of all that computer power?

Say you had always wanted to be a pointy eared waif of a female, who could dress in veils and maybe even have wings? Design your avatar and think up a name and away you go.

Always wanted to open a coffee shop where poets could hang out, maybe have jazz concerts on a few nights a week? Design it and they will come: the customers, the poets, the musicians...

Real life musicians, poets, and speakers of all kinds (as well as wannabes who are practicing their skills) are visiting and/or setting up shop in SL. Real money is changing hands, here, in such large amounts that it boggles the mind (millions of US dollars a day). Politicians will no doubt frequent the place, as the election draws nearer, and there has already been one debate, at least.

However, while I can see the potential attractions, especially for trying out new behaviors, learning new things, interacting with lots of new people who might live across the planet -- and, of course, the potential for negative stuff, as well, is no different from any other medium --

For me, Second Life just doesn't click. Yet. I have been trying to figure out why for a couple days, and this is what I think so far:

Firstly, maybe I don't need a second life for socializing. I mean, I already wander about and talk to anyone who looks interesting, LOL. It never occurs to me that I shouldn't stop to admire someone's lovely garden, or interesting house. Or beautifully tricked out old Dream Machine (motorcycle) in the mall parking lot! Or even the puppy who is walking his person through my neighborhood.

Perhaps I'm not exactly in the norm...? I don't know, except that I do remember seriously embarrassing my teenage children (you know who you were) in several past episodes...

Like that time outside a restaurant where two great big gorgeous red motorcycles were parked in shining fingerprintless perfection. One of them had a yellow rubber ducky stuck in the chrome spokes of its front wheel. Well, you know I hung about and asked the middle-aged biker dude what that was about!

The other problem I have with the game is that its graphics, however superb and steadily improving they are, still aren't as detailed as real life. I end up feeling sensory deprived. Not only are the incredibly complex levels of natural substance missing, but the density of information is only about 1-2% what it would be standing on the beach in RL.

Here's a screen shot Uploaded to Flickr! on November 17, 2007, by Andromega:It is stunningly beautiful, one of the best I've seen, but not yet the norm.

And here's another outstanding one, Uploaded to Flickr! on November 20, 2007, by Wildstar Beaumont

But here is real life -- a gate to the Matthaei Botanic Garden on a sunny, summer day:

Or, how about this Christmas amaryllis, smiling on all comers?

Apparently, I use a lot of different senses to collect information about the world around me, especially when having a conversation. The SL avatars have improved tremendously, but they still can't show the level of emotion and non-verbal cues that make me feel comfortable.

So, I guess my heart isn't broken that my old (4 years) MAC doesn't handle the game. By the time I upgrade, I bet Second Life will be even more mind boggling in its growth, in its technology, and in its community.


Meanwhile, it is rainy day, 20 degrees warmer than yesterday, full of fresh scents and cool mists and the last of the leaves falling off the trees and painting the lawns and streets in yellows and reds and oranges and four kinds of rusty browns...

I'm gonna go for a walk around the neighborhood and talk to people who are out doing the same thing, or else raking leaves on their tree lawns!

Done. Well sort of, mostly. Maybe...

The display house at Matthaei Botanic Gardens has been closed for most of the summer, replacing the roof and temperature control systems and mechanicals. The promise was for September 1st reopening, then October 1st, and finally November 1st.
We survived the wait with many acres of spring wildflowers and summer annual and perennial plantings.

Only the tropical and temperate zones are open, but it is clear that even those areas are still in process of renewal and refurbishing. Doesn't look like this at the moment:
This 50 year old green house has both permanent and rotating displays (fed from several other succession areas). Some of the trees are -- were -- at the roof. It is the mainstay of our 'natural' exposure when the weather is inclement, or we aren't feeling up for the hike around the miles of gardens and paths.
(Like this meadow at the edge of a Michigan wildflower planting in an open woods, which is a quarter mile walk from the road.)

The weather being definitely Fall yesterday, complete with cold wind and rain/snow showers (meaning only in the air) MIL and I went to check out the greenhouse project. There was some anxiety over what state we would find the permanent plantings.

She hates to weed or prune living things -- which is largely why her urban acre plus in the middle of Cleveland suburb is all gone to woods:
This is the front yard. When they bought the property 50 some years ago, it had one little oak tree, a couple rose bushes and two spindly cherry trees...

And this Pennsylvania farm of nearly the same age is no longer farmable, LOL.

Much cheered to discover that the $5 entrance fee has been rolled back to 1968 price of $3 (even tho MIL doesn't have to pay because she has reciprocal access due to being member of several botanic garden associations) we soon found our worries were mostly for naught. Having the extra couple months has allowed for much regrowth from the extensive pruning away from the work areas. The new ceiling includes roll back shade cloth, which effectively lowers it several feet. There will need to be a lot more regular pruning to keep the trees from interfering with the mechanicals.

It looks like the loquat trees will recover, but not fruit for a while, which is probably okay, since Michiganders don't know what they are! The Zapotas and some of the larger palms are gone completely. Not to mention several enormous Euphorbs in the desert section. They will be missed! Guess the loss is more noticeable there than in the tropical and temperate zone plantings...

The orchid display is just starting, and the chrysanthemums were in full swing:
A cascading mum (more than 4 feet of cascade!). The sign explains that staff and volunteers work all summer to train these plants into this shape. The thick woody stems make it look years old!

Ditto the bonsai mum. Apparently, this is a great plant to start with if one is interested in learning the art. You can see your results in a single summer.

Do not lose heart! This is one of their 'instant' gardens. All these mums were grown in pots in the succession houses and carefully arranged together for the show.

There were so many varieties and colors! Here's a close up:

In the temperate house there is a dripping fern wall above a sunken pool inhabited by some koi who are seriously filling it! They have grown considerably since we saw them last. These are the two biggest ones, about 27 inches!
There are 4 others almost as big in this 10x4x3 foot puddle...none the worse for all the construction over their heads.

And there is more work to do and plants to grow and regrow. We will not be bored this winter, as there will be progress to observe every week.

It is so nice to have such a garden show to visit when one's own plantings are sleeping over the winter! And even with gas prices rising, it is way cheaper than going to a movie...probably healthier, too.

Spring is Coming!

...although it can be a little difficult to tell, especially since today the weather is barely at freezing and producing snow/sleet/rain mix for the morning commute.

However last Sunday a week ago was just a lovely promise of spring day, sunshine gentle breezes and about 50 degrees. MIL had the excellent notion of checking out the displays inside Matthaei Botanic Gardens greenhouse.

Since it was the first truly warm day around here, we had to brave irritated geese littering the landscape because their nesting pond (just in front of the parking lot for the buildings) hadn't defrosted yet. There were more couples than there are nesting spots, so 'discussions' of possession were heated, and sometimes the outraged pairs will actually stand in the parking lot and accost cars. Maybe they think they are calling upon higher powers to oust the intruding geese?

This pond is about an acre, mostly in cattail swamp, with some goose nests so old that they are built up like swan platforms (maybe that's what they originally were, but have been used by geese the 11 years I've been watching) and pretty inviolate, once the pond melts. Each nesting pair seems to have 3-5 'helpers' who stand guard, and takes sides disputing territory right now! Can be earsplitting.

That day, they did not run at the cars or us, and we made it indoors unscathed. The warm weather made us wish to wander the trails, but they were ankle deep in smushy mud from the thaw of about 6" of wet snow we'd had three days before. We relied on the green and blooms in the display house to add spring color to the day. Very nurturing!

Here are a few samples:


In the tropical room the orchid display was almost done, but these fairy orchids had VERY long fronds... Camera was supposed to focus on them, not the sausage tree fruit hanging in the background!


Some of the enthusiastic tulips (and a cabbage or two) at the entrance


Spring planting in the temperate climate room


Amaryllis in the temperate room, with sun shining through...


A velvet throat...


Part of an instant garden display in the temperate room.

In addition to many acres of woods, streams, meadows and bogs, the botanic gardens have about 2 acres of glass succession houses from which they can pull assorted potted flowering plants and set them close together so that it looks like all these plants were always growing together.

You can't see the pots, and until you figure out the deception, the heart just drops out of your gardening dreams, thinking there's no way you could ever achieve such a crush of beauty.

Now, I have to admit that both of us did momentarily wish for such a situation, where we had four green houses to feed lovelies into one display house....but we recovered quickly from that delusion. We figured up how many volunteers actually staff this place and decided we didn't want to work quite that hard, LOL.

Happy spring!