Archives

Fire Safety

Nov29

I heard the school bus pull to a stop in front of our house as I put a kettle of potatoes on the stove. My five-year-old had been standing at the large living room window for the last half hour, watching for her big sister. She shouted, “Niki’s home!” A moment later I heard the back-door slam and my fourth-grader walked into the dining room.

“How was your day?” I asked.

My daughter shrugged and gave me the usual before supper non-committal answer, “It was okay.”

The events of Niki’s day would slowly unreel as the evening progressed. She was never able to pour it out all at one time, so it didn’t pay to push.

By the time I was doing the supper dishes, Niki had told me about a math test she’d taken in the morning, who she played with at recess and what was served at hot lunch. The way my daughter leaned against the cupboards watching me clean the kitchen made it clear she wanted to say more.

Looking troubled, Niki finally said, “We had a class on fire safety this afternoon.” I turned to face her. Every fall the school taught the children what to do if their homes were to catch fire. Along with the knowledge came worry. Continue reading →

Goldilocks’ Home

Nov22

Despite wearing cumbersome leg braces, Tammie independently hoisted herself onto the dining room chair next to her big sister, Niki. While putting bowls of food on the table, I noticed that as usual Tammie was clutching her favorite toy in her left hand. All summer long, everywhere she went, my daughter took this small gray seal with her.

I suspected Tammie liked the plush-covered, stuffed animal because it fit perfectly in her small four-year-old hands. It had beady black eyes and bristly plastic whiskers, which I frequently caught her biting.

When Daddy took his place at the table we blessed our meal. Then I asked, “Tammie, why are you biting the seal’s whiskers?”

My daughter answered with conviction, “Because he WANTS me to!” Continue reading →

Murder in the 32nd Degree

Nov8

In the pine tree on the north side of the greenhouse, a solitary chickadee wheezed out a sad and lonely, “Chee-dee-dee!” I stepped into the building and examined the rows of plants before me. Bright green parsley, healthy rosemary, thyme and oregano peeked out from behind billows of ruffle-leafed kale.

In another row, waves of pink and purple petunias tried to outdo the colorful yellow, orange and purple mounds of chrysanthemums. The canna, calla and amaryllis lilies were finished blooming for the year, but their healthy leaves were fattening up to store energy for next year’s blossoms.

One sixty-four-foot row was planted entirely in tomatoes. Most plants were huge and vibrantly green, covered with fruit of all sizes and stages of ripening. Six black krim tomato plants, an heirloom variety, were covered with yellow blossoms despite the heavy harvest they’d already given this summer.

Usually night-time frost kills my garden plants at the end of September. The killing frost almost always happens by the end of the first week of October, but not this year. Here it was October 25th, only two months before Christmas, and the plants were still bright and fresh.

Slowly pulling on a pair of black nitrile gloves, I walked purposefully toward the tomatoes. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do! For the sake of having a clean garden next spring, I was about to commit plant murder! Was it a breeze coming in the building’s open side flaps that made the tomato leaves quiver? Continue reading →

Listing Right

Oct11

I dropped into my desk chair and pulled a note pad toward me, remembering a comment that a friend had once made. She said, “If you have a job you want done, tell a busy person to do it.” What my friend said was true. When my life was busier, I was always able and usually willing to add extra jobs to my already full days.

After a moment of thought, and a few doodles on the corner of the pad, I began to scribble a list of things to do. I wrote, ‘write letter to Barb, call Rosie, wash-dry-fold laundry, rearrange living room, clean kitty litter pan, weed flower bed.’

I have always liked making lists. Being able to cross off the items as I do them makes me feel good. Non-work items show up on my lists, ‘sit and read the newspaper’ and ‘soak in bath tub’. Some people wouldn’t write those things down, but I do. Just because they’re not house maintenance, doesn’t make them unworthy to be listed! Continue reading →

Unscheduled Plans

Sep20

I studied the store’s colorful display, looking for the perfect birthday card for my friend. Other shoppers came, quickly selected and left, but I spent ten minutes intently browsing for a funny one that suited my friends sense of humor. Finally, locating the perfect combination of art, sentiment and price, I headed for check-out.

Later that afternoon, I sat at my desk to write a message in the card. Remembering all the fun we’d had together in the past, I ended with, “Let’s get together some time. We haven’t had a visit in ages!” I put a stamp on the envelope. As I licked the flap to seal it, I sadly thought, “Every year I suggest we get together, but we never seem to do it.”

The phone rang as I returned from the postbox. Another friend I see frequently was on the other end of the line. After a short conversion she ended by saying, “We should go shopping together sometime soon.”

I’m a social shopper, a person who merely runs into stores to pick up needed items when alone, but considers shopping the biggest event of the month when I have company. “That sounds like fun!” I responded.

My friend answered, “Then let’s schedule it. If we don’t, it won’t happen.” We picked a date and noted it on our social calendars. Continue reading →

Never Gets Old

Sep13

My mother sat like a queen on an upholstered rocking chair. Taking turns, my young adult daughters leaned over to greet Grammie with hugs and kisses. June sunshine gently peeked into the room through open living room windows. Outside, someone was mowing the lawn. We could hear the soothing hum of a distant lawn mower and smell freshly cut grass. The rose in a vase on the table next to Grammie’s chair scented the room as a soft, warm breeze fluttered its leaves.

My mother’s gray eyes sparkled. She perfectly fit the textbook picture of a grandmother. Her stylishly waved white hair framed a face with soft pink cheeks and smiling lips tinted to match her easy wash-and-wear, coral-colored polyester pantsuit. She peered intently up at her visiting grandchildren, striving to get a good look at them despite her macular degeneration.

“Happy birthday, Grandma,” my daughters chorused. Continue reading →

Big Banana Tree

Sep6

I frowned when I looked at the pole beans. They weren’t a lush, happy green. Some of the leaves were turning yellow. A few had turned brown and fallen to the ground. This had happened last year, too. Were pesky insects or a virus damaging my bean crop?

Shaking my head, I leaned into the shovel as I dug a hole between the garden rows. When it was deep enough I picked up a bowl filled with potato peals, apple cores, crushed egg shells and banana peels, that I had brought out from the house. Dumping the compost materials into the hole, I covered it with dirt.

Leaning on the shovel, I thought about how I tested the soil several years ago, shortly after my husband Arnie had died. My son-in-law, Mike, had taken over Arnie’s Farm Care business. When he read the results to me, he advised, “You need to add organic matter to the soil.”

Because of his advice, every summer I bury kitchen scraps and in the fall and gather dried maple leaves for the soil.  Glancing around at my walkway vegetable graveyard, I announced to my garden, “The soil needs to be tested again. I have a feeling that something more than organic matter is needed.” Continue reading →

Holba Dodgen

Aug2

Glancing out the window, I noticed shadows cast by trees and shrubs in the yard had grown long, finally appearing cool and friendly. Sunset was an hour away. Earlier in the day the sun had been hot and the air overly humid so I had stayed indoors. Now was my chance to comfortably enjoy my backyard.

One of the first things I wanted to do was visit my newly transplanted apple tree near the backside of my property. It made me happy to see how healthy his leaves were. I greeted him, “Hello Harold Haralson, have the deer been leaving you alone?” Several silver reflective ribbons that I’d tied to a few of his branches flapped in the breeze, glinting brightly in the late evening sunshine. As if answering a comment he’d made, I answered as I turned to continue my yard inspection, “Yes. It does look that way. Very good. Carry on.” Continue reading →

Half-Cats

Jun28

I turned off the highway and onto the road where my house is located. Not a trace of the setting sun remained in the sky. Stars twinkled from a dark-blue, velvety ceiling. A bright sliver of the moon smiled crookedly down upon us. Slowing down to drive the final mile to the house, I told my daughter Tammie, “It’s such a nice summer night. Let’s open the windows and enjoy the night-time smells and sounds.”

We immediately caught the faint scent of a skunk and heard tree frogs croaking friendly greetings to one another. Then the beam of my headlights picked up the reflective eyes of a small creature in the grass alongside the road. I said, “I see a half-cat.”

After taking a sniff of the air my daughter answered with a chuckle, “Half cat, as in half cat and half skunk?”

Glancing over at Tammie with a grin on my face, I said, “No, this creature looks like it is all cat. The skunk we smell is hiding somewhere. I’m calling it a half-cat because it isn’t home and there isn’t a house nearby.”

Sounding perplexed, Tammie questioned, “How does that make it a half-cat?” Continue reading →