The Mountain Thymes

 This morning I woke around 6 but stayed cuddled up under my down comforter another twenty minutes or so listening to relaxing music on my iPhone.  Took a quick shower to loosen my shoulders then returned the two HB feeders and the seed feeder to the back porch. I can see the seasonal changes beginning as the raccoon waits patiently for me to turn out the lights each night so it sneak up the porch steps, jump up on the rail, and drink all the nectar from both feeders then empty the seed feeder.  During the summer only the seed feeder came in each evening but as animals change their diet getting their bodies ready and storing fats and sugars for the winter they are eating everything. Yesterday while weed whacking near the garage I found one of my white wine bottles on the ground. It had to have been removed from the recycle bin and carried down back and around the side of the garage.  I have an alcoholic raccoon.While my breakfast porridge is cooking, I put little piles of sunflower see

 Some days are full of doing tasks and chores that Cliff did for me.  The floor wasn't that dirty but he enjoyed saying. "Guess I need to pull out the vacuum.  I'm tripping over debris."  I thanked him.  Whenever I was in the kitchen trying out new recipes, making cookies or the double batch tapioca pudding for him, he was there beside (getting in my way sometimes) washing the utensils, pots/pans, cutting boards, drying them and putting everything back in their proper places only to have me take some things back out and  reuse again.  "I just washed that" he would state.  He learned to ask if I were through with things before he cleaned up after me.  I thanked him.  He emptied the dishwasher when it was finished in such an orderly manner (getting in my way sometimes because I was also in the kitchen working but he wanted to be there with me).  I thanked him.  Every morning he made my bed reminding me of the order that the pillows needed to be placed.  John&

 Saturday mornings are Farmers Market mornings.  It's my time to stroll through the three pavilions visiting with familiar vendors and adding new ones to my routine.  There is so much wonderfully fresh produce weekly and I have had to control what I buy now or I'm throwing food away.  Last week I bought a North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. They are sweet and make delicious pies.  The old farmer who sold it to me is one I try not to engage in  conversation with during the sale. His conversation never stops while I'm cradling the heavy squash. Once I broke away from him I hooked a golf cart ride with a volunteer back to my car, placed the heavy squash in the back, and returned to the pavilions.  I've frozen many of the veggies for fall and winter.  This morning I was compelled to stop at a pipe display, not that I was thinking about taking up pipe smoking like the old mountain women, but what caught my eye and brought up unexpected childhood memories was the craftsman us

 Six months on this date has passed since I kissed Cliff's face for the last time.  At first the time passes painfully slow yet now I look back and can't believe it's been six months.    Each summer he watched the blooms develop on his lilies waiting for them to open each morning.  The past couple of years though he didn't see the flowers because deer would eat the sweet blooms early in the morning. This year his lilies made it all the way to full open flowers.  I told him his lilies were open and beautiful.  About two hours later as I was making my bed in the little room I spotted one doe having his lilies for breakfast. Looks like another blossom trying to form. We've had so much rain this past week that the rivers are thick with clay runoff.  Yesterday stormed off and on all day with periods of heavy rain and close lightning.  The weather station was taken down when I had the shed moved and hasn't been put back up.  I miss see the barometric pressure changes,

 Green and yellow beans are almost ready for picking.    Cucumbers coming in slowly.  Red salvia (self-seeding) are growing everywhere between other vegetables and I allow them to.  Hummingbirds and other pollinators love them.    My first zucchini!  Didn't even know one was growing under those large leaves.  Also found a watermelon growing.  I've never planted melons.  The compost heap is full of seeds that grow voluntarily.  I shouldn't even plant seeds from a packet, just spread the compost and let nature go from there.   Fava beans.  I love fava beans.  They bring me back to when I walked from our home down the gravel road, past the bulls, which scared the daylights out of me because my older brother, Chip, used to tell me the bulls would charge at me so I had better run quickly past them, to the Portuguese Club where I bought their delicious fava beans during festivals.  This morning I enclosed these babies in a little fence to keep the bunnies from nibbling my leaves.

 I slept better last night, all night, but am still waking tired.  I added a 3 mg melatonin to my nighttime routine about three months ago, a suggestion from a retired nurse who thought it might help me drift into sleep and calm my mind.  So for the next week at least I'm dropping the melatonin to see how I feel when I wake.   Yesterday afternoon we had strong wild winds bring in thunderstorms.  Trees twisted and lost leaves and branches.  You understand their strength when wind looks like it's pulling them out of the ground yet they spring back straight up.  I thought Cliff was overboard with all the battery backups but after yesterday, I understand his madness.  There was a continuous flickering of power for about 15 minutes.  I turned off the A/C and the TV even though they are protected by battery backup. The generator does come on until it sense about ten seconds of power loss.  A friend just a few miles away was without power for twelve hours.  At nine I went into town to