Sometimes the signs are too obvious to ignore. I have been monitoring the conchs at the base of this oak for many years. Next, a species of bracket fungi colonized in a crevasse at its base several years ago and have continually replaced several generations of fruiting bodies.
Old brackets are dark. Newer ones are rust.
The final sign is a huge hole under the base. Long sticks can be pushed deep down in the earth.
When I removed these today, they were actually cold on a warm day.
I will miss this tree, but it seems to lean toward the neighbors pier. That liability was its death blow.
I hope I am here to record the Watt Tree Service team’s removal of this huge oak. Sad but absolutely necessary.
This is one of my favorite gifts from my daughter, Rose. It has the most gorgeous illustrations of plants. It is also organized into plant types and explains how those plants are related.
It is a book I wonder through on cold, rainy days. I can pretend I am in the rainforest among the tall trees and hanging vines.
Or I can dream of being in a warm Orchid House among the breathtaking blooms.
This very large book also serves as a piece of art in my library. Illustrator Katie Scott and writer Kathy Willis have created a treasure for anyone who loves botany or unusual plants. Brava!
When I was an artist, I made garden art out of various recipes with portland cement as the main ingredient. Planters were made with mixtures of peat, ground organic matter, portland cement, mortar mix, stone and fibers.
Hypertufa trough covered in moss.
The troughs were hand-shaped and seasoned in plastic wrap to dry slowly. The surfaces had to be brushed to a roughly smooth, natural-looking texture that mimicked stone.
I discovered that there is a fine line between a recipe that will grow moss and a recipe that falls apart. The trick is to use fibers that are made to strengthen concrete. The fibers left sticking out can be burned off using a blow torch. I also used these fibers in bird baths and benches to reinforce them, along with hardware cloth and rebar.
This trough is about thirty years old and looks exactly like it was intended. Still sturdy enough to be moved and used as a planter.
I will share other pieces of Maiden Stone Garden Art in future posts and describe how each was made. I used to teach workshops on how to make pieces.
The three generations of women before me ended their lives with dementia. My great grandmother’s demise may have started when her husband was killed by a train when his truck stalled on the tracts which crossed through their farm.
Maternal greatgrand parents
She heard the crash. Then she spent her remaining years moving back and forth every six months between her daughter in Ohio and her daughter in North Carolina. I remember sitting on her bed at Gran’s house going through a photo album of old black and white photos as she talked about each photo. I was too young to understand how sad this was. I have those photos now.
Maternal greatgrandmother
My gran’s confusion started when she inherited a house full of thousands of lovely things from her aunt.
Great Aunt Ethel
There were enough treasures in Aunt Ethel’s house to fill all Gran’s daughters and granddaughter’s houses with unusual furniture, clothes, art, jewelry and dishes. This sorting overwhelmed her brain at her time of grief and years after.
My mama has dementia now. Maybe her trigger was worrying about my daddy’s health. She hovered over him like it was her hobby. It was hard to witness a brilliant woman turn into a shadow.
Daddy and Mama
I have been overwhelmed since clearing the family home this past summer. We sorted through sixty-three years of everything. The heirlooms went to the mountains. Many boxes came here.
When I am home, I feel their presence. I must sort them to be free. So here I am again, evaluating, burning, consolidating. Will I ever be done? Or will my brain balk at the task and slowly shut down to protect itself.
Sorting and consolidating
I cannot leave such a burden for my children, especially Rose. Her museum is already full.
It is time for me to isolate myself and write away past traumas. I cannot move forward with this load of pain. More is coming and I must adjust and adapt. Like the Junk Bug, I must maintain a balance.
I have done this before. In my first book, I told stories of Rose’s seizures and surgeries and how we navigated through the many trials. I wrote it for other mothers, but it served as a catharsis for me. It is not sad. It is our stories of strength, determination and resilience.
The stories are still coming. I hoped Rose would help write the sequel, but her stroke two years ago has left her in a serious funk. If you follow my other blog,
you know I am against enabling and spoiling. These are a way of making a parent feel better because they cannot fix the real problem. It backfires big time. Do not go down that rabbit hole.
Here I go again. Writing away my emotional load. It is how I cope. It is who I am.
I have a scrolling addiction of sorts. I have unfollowed 70 people. I am making a screen -time rubric. I ignore reels unless it has baby animals or octopi on them. I ignore adds except for plants and shoes.
I have a meta account with my real name and a yahoo email. A twitter account with my author name and a different email. I also share both blogs on tumblr and LinkedIn as well. Tumblr has author name. LinkedIn uses my real name.
I wanted to ditch all social media. I need messenger to contact certain friends and our mountain neighbors. I ditched X, but then writer’s groups said I needed it.
The rubric should help me stay on task, but all those ads, reels and recipes are the temptation that sucks me in.
I am in love with Poppy the baby pygmy hippo! Do not look her up. You will get addicted.
I know some of you are adding Bluesky. Will it solve anything or just add another task?
I am looking for free-lance writing jobs, which has added even more screen time.
I would appreciate input from any of you. I need to use my time more efficiently. My eyes and brain need a break from chaos.
I will also lock my phone in my safe while home. Blah. This started when I fell down and had hip surgery. Hi Ho
I do not believe that time is linear. I used to, but not anymore. Things are coming back around. There is something biblical and magical about forty years. I will not pretend to know why. All I know is it is the time in my life for things to circle back and complete what was started.
I noticed this happening on its own. I wrote things down and took pictures. We called these events the work of the Universe. Things appeared. Things moved. I just observed without involvement.
Now, I am helping the Universe reconnect to the people and places that are most important to me. Forty year circles are forming under my guidance.
I will keep documenting as this happens. At some point I will write about it. The book I am writing is about circles in the past generations of my family. The past circled back to cross the present. Maybe you have seen time circles, too.
I never imagined such things when I was young. Everything seemed to move fast and forward. Everything was new. Now, there are deja vu events and things seem oddly familiar.
It is amazing to witness these circles. Time seems to slowly swirl around as it goes by. What was truly important comes back to you, if you cared enough, if you loved it enough, if your heart has held onto it.
What was lost returns in some form. Circles are eternal. I do not know how or why…
floweralley 