The Mountain Thymes

 Not much left of the garden, just a few butterfly bushes and the red salvia.  Pineapple sage is ready to burst open just in time for the hummingbirds to migrate south.   butterfly bush was full all summer. With less daylight we not seeing as many blooms. kitchen garden full of sage, mints, and basil   Sunday I cut lots of basil stalk, made a water slush in the mini food processor, and froze them. bagged and labeled them and stored them in freezer bags. Collards will grow through the winter and the snow.                                                          Moon flowers Our neighbor's chickens.  We take care of them when they are away for a couple of days.  Cliff changes the wate...

 I had two good nights sleep in a row.  How wonderful!! It's amazing how a full sleep allows me to cope with life as it is now, to cope with Cliff's ups and downs.   Cliff met with his friend, Dutch, for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and I headed to the park for my walk.  Many mornings I see the same walkers.   One elder couple walk their rescue greyhounds, number six and seven.  With her walker and a smile she guides one on the leash and her husband walks the other.  I speak with them often.  Then there is the couple who hits me in the heart every time I see them......husband strolling-hand-in-hand with his wife.  When my mother spent winters in Florida with us, she and I attended a small quaint church in Lake Helen where she used to make up stories about people in the pews.  Not knowing the reality of the elderly hand-in-hand couple at the park, I find myself imaging their aging life.  She seems to be dependent on his hand holding as ...

 Another foggy sunless morning.  This has been the strangest summer that we can remember since purchasing our home in 2007.  Throughout the summer there have only been a handful of visible sunrises.  Fog and heavy clouds greet me most mornings.  While Cliff is sleeping I sit on the porch, as early as 6:15, and listen to the distant whippoorwill, the moisture so heavy some mornings that it sound like rain on the leaves, and the waking Carolina wrens.  During this quiet time is how I learned that our wrens snore. Now that summer is winding down and dusk comes earlier, two to three Carolina wrens cuddle up for the night before 8 o'clock in this hanging plant.  At dark I bring in the seed feeder and a hummingbird feeder because raccoons or possums raid the feeders at dark. Each morning I return feeders to their hooks.  One morning I heard rhythmic squeaking so tiptoed gingerly near the plant to listen and decided to stay until I heard other wrens sing...

 Lauria sends us jigsaw puzzles, usually 750 pieces, but this time this one arrived.  A few years ago a friend sent me one of multi-colored, various shapes and sizes, ocean seashells. I wanted so badly to solve it but after trying man strategies, got frustrated and put the dang 1000 pieces back where it belonged......in the box!  So when I saw this very busy puzzle I set it on a table where it rested for a few weeks before mustering up the courage to open and spread the 1000 pieces onto three pre-cut cardboard slabs.   I was presently surprised when I discovered letters on the flip-side of the puzzle pieces.  We've never seen this in previous puzzles. After flipping all pieces to show letters, the shapes then were separated into to  nine sections, a through i.                                 ...

 There have been good days and challenging days and the days run into each other.  Some mornings I look at the full pill square to see what day it is.  I find the better days as those when I get up with the sun and stay with  a routine.  Lucky for me this time of year is my outside time.  This morning I walked to the garden at 6:45 and dug up the poor beets.  My beets did not get the eight hours of sun that they needed so are puny and sad.  If they were sold at the farmers markets as "baby " beets they would be in a class of their own.  Every year is different.  If perfection is your goal, then gardening is more of a challenge.  Luckily, I'm not a perfectionist.  This morning the beans needed to be picked again.  We have enough for three more meals but not enough to preserve.  My bean patch is only large enough for our weekly meal supply. Rogue flowers are popping up all over the garden but we're not seeing the hummin...

 Sometimes these hot heavy humid days with afternoon thunderstorms are rough on our bodies.  Of course Cliff has intestinal inflammation from the chemo destruction so some days his body aches too.  Last night my right knee didn't like me so I tossed and turned and he had a rough night.  We moved slowly this morning until Cliff suggested we drive to the Ocoee River and see if it was open to rafting again since the fire destroyed the Ranger's building months ago.  It was nice to see the rafts ride the rapids again.  We didn't stay as long as we usually do because it was 91 degrees and quite uncomfortable. We were almost home when Cliff's pager toned out a brush fire up the side of a mountain not far from us.  Conveniently, we were close to the station so I jumped into the brush truck with him and went lights and sirens to the scene.  Its been over three years since I responded to anything with him.  This volunteer climbed up the side of the mou...

 Family photo.............. up front......Ben and Olivia 2nd layer.....Sofia and Jim  3rd layer....Lauria,  Hayden,  Grant, Me, and Cliff now some of the crazy antics from their visit After doing some yoga, Olivia showed me her "pretzel" pose.  I did that once when I was in 5th grade and almost couldn't get out of it so never tried again.                                         Playing a round of SkyJo.  I was so glad they already knew how to play.  Cliff and I first played when we visited Bill and Boni in the Florida panhandle.We played Jenga, too.  One afternoon we swam in the hotel pool.  Weather was in the nineties and humid during their stay so very limited on outdoor activities.  Saturday morning we all went to the Blairsville, GA farmers market...