December 31 2012

As this year, which has been so difficult in so many ways, for so many people we love (and so many more that we don’t) finally draws to a close, I sit here at the computer with Sadie Bluefoot at my own feet, typing whatever seems relevant. And why Bluefoot?

For reasons neither the vet, Brian or I can fathom, she managed to rip not one, but two, nails, one on each front paw. After a week of trying to stop the incessant licking with bitter apple spray and continuous “No, Sadies” night and day, I finally realized that this was not going to improve on its own. Plus I was beginning to be a bit psychotic from lack of sleep (it really IS a torture!). So off to Dr. Kate’s we went last Friday, an hour before they closed for the New Year’s break. Sure enough, Dr. Kate took one look, said “That must REALLY hurt!”, and gave us stuff to soak both paws twice daily for five minutes, and instructions to bag both front feet when Sadie goes out to the dog run. The good news here is that in solidarity with Sadie, who can’t go on walks till she sees Dr. Kate this Friday, I am not surprisingly foregoing them myself. And as winter has finally arrived here with over a foot of snow, icy roads, and general winter stuff I forgot since last winter was so mild, I am quite content to stay in and have a plausible reason to do so.

I am sure all of you are still reeling from the horrific event at Sandy Hook; I can only hope that this will indeed be some kind of tipping point and result in something more sane than the NRA position (unchanged over decades) that the solution to gun violence is more guns. Even though my teaching experiences now date back to the Paleolithic era in internet terms, I still remember them clearly and from my personal experience of confiscating home-made guns and knives from children barely into their teens, more guns doesn’t strike me as helpful to anyone but the producers of weapons and ammunition. I could go on and on, but instead will provide you with several shots of the grandchildren: Hyla, Ayro and Calder (Caly) Dotson being cute in various ways all year.

I tried several times to get a half-way decent shot of the full moon on our way too much snow, and especially the way the little solar lights cast starbeam shadows on the snow, but alas, our really low end digital camera was just not up to it. Or maybe it’s the equally low end photographer??? So I leave it to you to picture it in your own mind. I will never be a fan of snow, but even I can see how beautiful a pristine country snowfall can be – until we have to leave the house and actually deal with it.

And here for your viewing pleasure, my favorite Christmas photo, our neighbor cat (one of the dozen or so that have such great lives thanks to our neighbors' perpetual open door policy) taken by our neighbor photographer George - very cute indeed!

I end this year as I began it, wishing that all my loved ones have only good things come their way, and that we all will have only happy surprises in the coming year. We send many hugs to all, and especially to the far too many of you who have had such difficulties with health problems, both human and furry. It is said at the end of finishing one of the five books of the Torah, one chants “Be strong, be strong, and strengthen each other” – so I wish for all of us that we will in fact be strong, and will be more present this year than last to strengthen each other. With love from the frozen foothills of the Catskills, LK, Brian and Sadie

Warning: the following paragraph contains political ranting; reader discretion advised! In light of Congress’ continual abysmal lack of action, culminating in refusing to vote for the UN resolution providing adequate safeguards for disabled people worldwide (not to mention their SHOCK, SHOCK of the looming “fiscal cliff’ which they set up two years ago and have, true to form, done nothing constructive about), I have written the President to suggest disbanding Congress without pay for the foreseeable future, until they can actually do something for their constituents. But of course it’s too late now, as in a few days a (partially) new Congress will be seated, and my last feeble hopes are pinned on incoming Senator Elizabeth Warren. We shall see.. I have also sent repeated emails to the White House and Congress, volunteering to do nothing right here at my home for 50% of whatever is the lowest current pay there. If enough folks could be recruited to do this, we could immediately slash our legislative budget by half! I also think the UN should be disbanded, or at least the US should pull funding, since we have plenty of folks who will demonize both the US and Israel for free. And whatever funds are saved should go directly to Hurricane Sandy survivors (though not us, luckily, as we were very anxious and a bit uncomfortable but never had to evacuate) as many of them, more than two months later, are still without food, shelter, or a timeline to get them. And I thought the response to Katrina was bad – this is more than twice as slow and involved many times the number of people.

November 8 2012 Hurricane Sandy

Now that we're back on line, here's our up close and personal account of Sandy (the second "storm of the century" in the past two years).

Our storm preparations: clear all objects off windowsills,

move garbage cans, outside plants and lower porch plants inside, get as much as possible off the floors of my studio and the rest of downstairs,

tie down the wood pile, cook a big batch of soup, take down all hanging plants, cover north facing windows with blankets (I had read about that, it was supposed to stop shattered glass from spraying everywhere, which sounded like a great idea; it wasn't until several days later that I realized that perhaps stapling a flimsy blanket to the window framing was not going to stop a tree branch hurled by hurricane force winds once it hit the glass), gas up the generator and fill both 5 gallon backup containers.

What to have on hand: water, food, flashlights, blankets, chocolate. What to do first when the power blows: eat all ice cream in any freezer. Then wait an hour or two and start the generator.

It was pretty scary here, especially that first night that Sandy was literally on top of us and whipping the trees around like grass blades. The wind was even worse that I had feared, but luckily for us the rain was less so. We had a few minutes here and there of heavy downpours but mostly nothing or light rain, so no water in the house. And oddly enough, Sadie, who quakes with fear at even the smallest thunderboomer, was completely unmoved by the hurricane. She did roll her eyes towards the windows a few times when the wind REALLY howled, but other than that didn’t much seem to notice. The last news item I saw on t.v. before shutting the generator down Monday night was, sadly, about someone in Queens who’d been killed by a tree coming right through his house. I thought, okay, that’s enough of that, I’ll just get out my library book and read by candlelight. Of course the book I started began with – a man just widowed because a tree came down on his house and killed his wife. So I spent Monday night lying awake in bed wondering how many seconds we had if I heard that unmistakable “craaack” that meant one of the big oaks was moving our way …

Our power blew out Monday about 3:30 p.m., and didn’t get back on until Sunday night about 6 p.m. Thankfully we had our loyal generator (my new best friend); I got quite adept at powering up and down, which used to be so intimidating to me. Now it’s just second nature.

Alas, poor Brian still is the only one able to wrestle the generator out of its house to refuel, and also the only one who can lift five gallons of fuel to pour. I hold the funnel (hey, it helps!). We’ve been talking about rigging something that would avoid the dragging since Hurricane Irene, but so far it’s just talk. Maybe this year…

The monastery folks were wonderful, as always, and invited us over for any lunches or dinners we wanted to join them, and also loaned us a propane unit about 5 days in as my microwave ideas had pretty much run out. I sent Brian over for meals and to cook up some pasta (they have gas for heat and cooking so could do this) and he brought home really delicious meals for me – so large that one lunch lasted for two. And as they are all Buddhist vegans, no problem for me with the meat issue. We never did use the propane but it was nice to know we could have…

When the storm passed we were able to see what had happened, and again were very lucky compared to so very many. Our chimney cap blew off, a piece of fascia on the north side of the house as well, and our fences were blown down or sideways; otherwise, except for my sanity, all else survived.

It was infuriating to know that six miles down the road power was restored in 24 hours; but again, given what we could see when we had the generator on and could watch t.v., we knew how lucky we were. Also infuriating were the robocalls stacked up for us at our off-site voice mail about the election; I kept swearing at them as I erased them, fuming that there was time and money to do that, but not one official, local or otherwise, had time to come out here in seven days. Seemed like the very definition of “adding insult to injury”. I was deeply insulted and certainly felt injured by the lack of information.

Yesterday some local workmen came out ahead of today’s storm (yes, another one is coming to us as I type) and thankfully got everything put back in place. I went on line to file a FEMA claim, and while I filled out everything I could, the site informed me that our county (Sullivan) has not yet been declared a disaster area. Tried to make some calls to state officials but not only were they absent for the election, most didn’t have phone machines on to take messages. Much like our electric provider, these folks really don’t want to deal with ranters like me. So they just make themselves inaccessible. Today I was able to reach a human (I assume) and was told the paperwork had been filed and to check on the web to see when the declaration finally is public.

And just now the snow has begun, so I’ll end with just a shot of our newly upgraded furnace (this small local disaster, ours alone, hit a week before the storm; all’s fixed now but the thousands it cost made me feel like you should all admire our shiny new parts that we got instead of anything else in the foreseeable future. But we have heat! Yay!).

P.S. This morning (Thursday) we have power (no outage last night) and the snow is mostly melting. Again, yay!

October 9 2012

Yom Kippur 2012 with Mom: I had flown in the week before when Mom was admitted to the hospital, as she’d been complaining for a while about shortness of breath and tiredness. I felt for well over a week before that something was going wrong, but at distance of 700 miles it’s hard to be forceful with relatives on the ground, including Mom. After six very scary days in hospital, where she was diagnosed with pneumonia as well as congestive heart failure (leaky valves that apparently had been going bad for a while), she was moved to Whitehall rehab facility, oxygen tank and all. My emergency medical flight booking had me flying home at 6 a.m. the day of Yom Kippur, but I didn’t bother with that at first as I knew from previous sad experiences I could change that when I knew what was more likely. (And that’s another whole story itself; later).

Erev Yom Kippur, Mom had only had a day of therapies and was by now on antibiotics for the pneumonia, but was already feeling better enough to begin to worry about having to eat, and do the three times a day therapy, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Of course she knew she had to do what was necessary for her health, but it weighed heavily on her nonetheless. We knew there would be some attempt at something for the holiday at Whitehall (NOT a Jewish facility) and traditional services at Gidwitz, but what they were and what times were uncertain. So on Wednesday the 26th, Erev Yom Kippur, we planned to go to a 2 p.m. event at Whitehall, and scheduled her therapies around this. It turned out to be a lecture on Chicago, not at all what we hoped. Mom and I were not happy… Then I noticed that at 4 p.m. someone was doing something related to the holiday, and as her therapies finished earlier, we decided to try it out. I had already promised Mom that whatever wasn’t done at Whitehall that she felt important, we would do together, using the same books my parents had always used for the High Holidays, their names still on the books I remember from my childhood. As it happened, that 4 p.m. event was really meaningful. A woman whose husband was a patient brought in a tape of Cantor Mizrachi singing Kol Nidre, the beautiful prayer about oaths, with an equally wonderful choir. There were perhaps a dozen people gathered in the small sunroom, about 25% who clearly had no idea where they were, another 25% with visible serious physical problems as well as some dementia, and the remaining folks much like Mom, mentally intact but physically in rough shape. As I looked at these (all older) folks, once again I was struck by the poignancy of their thinning hair, swollen or missing limbs, involuntary movements and articulations that they could no longer control. And I was struck once again, as always when I am lucky enough to daven with the seniors (and by that I mean really senior, as I of course at 66 am a less senior senior myself) that each of these people were once vigorous and presumably full of hope, once loved by someone as much as I love Mom, once in control of their lives and probably other people’s as well. And now – here we sit, listening to our ancient prayers, some no longer capable of even holding a book, but nodding with eyes closed to the tunes passed down through the generations. It was truly beautiful and moving, especially at the end when the woman who brought the tape asked for a moment more, to read a modern but equally moving prayer that spoke about those not able to fast, not able to keep this holiday as they used to, not because of lack of faith but sadly because their bodies can no longer do as they wish. It was a comfort to me, and I hope to Mom too.

Soon after that, Mom’s dinner was brought to her room, and I drove back to Gidwitz to microwave something quickly, and was back in about half an hour to do as I had promised, pray the Kol Nidre service somehow with Mom. My main concern was to find a quiet place with decent light, so we could at least read in English what we weren’t up to chanting in the Hebrew (and that was LOTS of passages, though of course Mom remembered more than I!). I pushed Mom’s wheelchair, with the portable oxygen tank, both prayer books, and a box of tissues (we always cry) down to the end of a very long hallway, and parked her right under a bright light, dragging a chair from one of the lounges next to her. We opened our books, and began to take turns reading in English, and Hebrew as best we could. We had been at this for barely ten minutes when my choice of venue revealed itself to be a poor one. First, someone started shampooing the hall rug at the opposite end of the hall, coming ever neared and louder; the noise was very loud, but we persisted. Next, the intercom I hadn’t noticed began to go off at regular intervals, announcing pretty much everything any staff member was doing, should be doing, or was scheduled to do. We blew our noses and kept on. When we reached the “Al Cheit”, the prayer listing sins we may have committed, it’s traditional to lightly strike one’s heart at each sin, and so we did, to the accompanying roar of the shampoo machine and the counterpoint of announcements.

It was then I noticed a woman (apparently visiting someone in the last room of this hallway) staring at us, and thought that she must think we are crazy people. But I was wrong (though we may in fact be crazy people), as she came over with tears in her eyes and asked if we minded that she listen. Of course we invited her to join us, and though she didn’t sit down, she stayed until we had finished that prayer and thanked us. I can only assume that this was a Jewish soul with her own deep sorrow, alone on this special night except for whomever she was visiting; and that it was a real privilege for me to be with her, and Mom. After about an hour and a half, when we were doing one of the repetitions of “Al Cheit”, it seemed to me that Mom had had enough, and needed to get back to bed rest. She agreed, so I wheeled her back to her room, waited until she was put in bed by a staffer and had the portable oxygen swapped back to the standing unit, and then drove back to Gidwitz. And I was thinking that here I had just declared my sins, and before the holiday was half over, had already committed new ones: driving, turning on lights, riding in an elevator, drinking water – no wonder I sobbed over the “Al Cheit”! The apartment was dark, as I only had one light on, and in the silence of the night my father, and my grandparents, and all my beloved family and friends who have passed on seemed very close.

The next morning, I went to the Gidwitz service for Yizkor, as I promised Mom I would do, for my father, grandparents, and all of Mom’s six siblings. As usually happens, the service was running late, and packed, but my friend Lou, who eats breakfast with Mom, made the person sitting next to him get up and give me that seat. While Lou is nothing at all like my father in looks or personality, he wears the same large tallis, folded over his shoulders the same way, and it was very comforting to me. When I named out my beloved dead, and he, his, we held each other’s hands. Again I felt what a blessing, and honor, it was to be among these people, who knew my father (in fewer and fewer cases) and know my mother. As soon as these services ended, I drove to Whitehall to take Mom to the one, dedicated, specifically planned Yom Kippur service there. It will tell you all you need to know about the service that when the time came to blow the shofar, which the man leading the service did not bring, he just read out: tekia, terua.. Not what we hoped, not what we had expected. He just very quickly read, in English, parts of the service. But – the woman who brought the tape, and her husband, sat next to us. And when we came to a prayer that we all knew the Hebrew words to, and the tune, we just all four sang out right over whatever else was or wasn’t happening, until we were satisfied. I’m grateful and glad we had two more voices to join ours; Mom still sounds pretty good but at this stage of my life I have a three-note capacity, and everything else is just squeaks.

That service being finished, my sister joined us and we three went in search again for a private, quiet place to pray the Yizkor service with Mom. This time we had better luck, no shampooing, no noises, we sat in a corner of the large room where the other services had been held, and went through the books again. It was heartbreaking to hear Mom slowly name each of her siblings in Hebrew, both her parents, and of course Daddy, when all three of us just sobbed and sobbed. But even as I was crying, I was also conscious of the fact that my mother’s absolute determination to perform whatever she could for this holiday is such a positive teaching for me, my sister, and you with whom I share this. Though very worn down by her illness, and worried about the future as well as mourning the loved ones of the past, Mom never really faltered in her prayers, as her faith never falters in her heart. And I am sure, as there is a just Gd in Heaven, that Mom’s prayers must have been heard. I just hope my own tagged along on her merit.

August 31 2012

Today is Mom's 93rd birthday!!! And while Brian and I are sorry not to be able to join the celebration, we know she'll have a lovely party surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren at my sister and brother-in-law's house tonight. I am delighted to report she continues to do well, is very consistant with her rehab exercises, and all in all is still the role model I aspire to emulate. Happy happy, Mom, we all love you!


And it's also two years this month that Sadie returned to us from her less than happy adoption attempt. She has become such a fixture in my life, I can't imagine this house without her. And while we're on the Sadie Subject, she took her first (and probably last) overnight road trip with us this month. Brian's old friend Harvey was kind enough to invite all three of us to stay with him at his beachfront home in Connecticut.


While I loved walking along the ocean, and became rather obsessed with collecting the "golden" shells Harvey distracts his grandchildren with,
















Sadie apparently had some concerns that she was going to be left behind. She would not let me out of her sight, and if I moved from one chair to another, she did too. And the night we stayed over, there was a terrific series of thunderstorms that shook the rafters and had me dressing and undressing Sadie in her thundershirt all night long.

The thundershirt does work, at least to the extent that while she still occasionally shakes, I no longer have to spend the entire storm time down on the floor with her wrapped in my arms, covered with drool and wondering how much longer my back can hold out! It's a huge improvement; any of you dog folks that want more information, just let me know. And to make the whole experiment even sweeter, the thundershirt was a gift from Sadie's doting uncles. It does take the entire ABR village to raise this girl!

And now, for the garden news. This has been a really strange year, for the first time EVER the deer have actually eaten the bergamot in the lower terraces, put there almost eight years ago and unmunched till now as something deer just wouldn't eat.
And even stranger, they haven't eaten the water lillies (yet!) which usually don't even get to show much bloom before they are gone.This year almost half the pond was taken over by some tall lillies, which I thought were completely eaten up last year, when I found what was left of them floating forlornly on the surface. I took a stick and poked back what I could into the pond muck - and voila!
























And to wrap it all up, the vegetable crop this year includes eighteen inch cucumbers (we had NONE last year), more tomatoes than we can eat, both fried green and bright red, and the best chili crop I've ever grown! The zucchini was a complete bust for the third year in a row, so I am really done with that. The basil crop was good, not quite as much as last year, and our two remaining eggplant plants are trying hard to carry on, their third sibling having already been eaten by unknown bugs right down to the ground. Neither beer in trays, nor pennies, seem to deter them much. And outside the garden cage, in our compost heap, we currently have three or four volunteer tomato plants (again, not eaten by deer, which really confuses me) and the beginnings of some tiny potatoes. As we careen into the Labor Day weekend, we send you all our love and hope everyone has a happy and peaceful time. We will be content here munching our vegetables, petting our dog, and eating up the latest of our dear friend Janet's delightful pound cake presents. Nice!!!

July 20 2012

Here we are, Sadie and I in our temporarily testosterone-free zone since I put Brian on the plane yesterday to L.A. Cara and Chris sent him a ticket to spend a week with them, getting reacquainted with his grandsons. Should be fun for him, and there will be a birthday party while he's there as well - Dashy, the middle boy, is turning six.

Other very happy news is that my mother is going home on Monday, doing very very well walking long distances with her walker, and best of all, is mostly pain-free. Of course everyone at the rehab facility was impressed, she is always their star patient, and always does way more than anyone expects. I am so lucky she's my mom!

Now for the garden news: from several days ago when the temperatures broke 100, here's a shot of our pond with water lilies and frog. It looks so peaceful, and the trickle of water that feeds it (yes, so far, even in the drought there's a trickle) is very soothing.

And here's my home-grown proof of global warming: the gladiolas are blooming again for the third year in a row, NOT having been dug up for the winter as I did for our first few years here. Glads are originally a South American plant, so it made sense to me to dig, especially since everyone we know who's lived here longer has always done so. But after a few years, there were less and less bulbs to dig up, as critters were always munching away; or it was too wet and they rotted; or something else happened. So I believed I had lost them all despite my care. And then, several summers ago, there they were, blooming from bits of bulbs that had survived. Now I just cover their bed with a thick layer of leaves in the fall, and uncover in the late spring (having rounded up all the volunteers and anally replanted them to my calligrapher's satisfaction).

Our vegetable garden is finally producing, we have an abundance of cucumbers where we had none at all last year. Lots of lettuce still, lots of basil, and both the tomato and pepper plants have very large vegetables on them, just not quite ready to pick yet. And as today, in the rain, the thermometer never got above 65, it may be a while yet...

Also very welcome was our garlic harvest. Did you know the swirly tops are called "scapes" and considered a delicacy? I didn't - but once I read about it, I went and salvaged what I'd tossed on top of the compost heap (it was just a few minutes, really!), sliced as directed and fried. They were very tasty! And the garlic themselves are really pungent. I'll save the last one to replant for next year.

That's the news from here. More when we harvest the rest of the treats!

June 19 2012

It's that time of year again - peony season is just about over, but as you can see, it was a great season. I was wondering if the very mild winter would affect the blooms, and while some plants seemed to indeed be affected, not these! Right now we're careening from 90's to 40's and back again regularly. Today I'm wearing a sweatshirt INSIDE but tomorrow it's predicted to be in the upper 90's. Our vegetables are not happy, though, they really need less change and more moderation (don't we all???).There are buds on most of the ecchinacea and day lilies and a few other nameless plants, but as the nights are cool they just haven't bloomed yet. So color in the gardnes is sparse right now. In the lower terracing, only the salvia is blooming now.






On the south side of the house, the hardy nasturtiums just started blooming. Last year they bloomed right through November, earning an eternal spot in my heart thank you, Jerry, for the seeds).







And on the upper driveway the primrose have really taken hold this year. Can you see how the piliated woodpecker has decimated the old tree stump? He spent most of last summer and fall jack-hammering daily... At least we didn't have to do anything about it, unlike our neighbors, whose window sashes were completely destroyed. I guess that's what you get for not leaving tasty large rotting logs around.









A week or so after Brian's birthday party, old friends who couldn't make it were coming through the area, so we had another smaller but equally happy gathering. I include this picture mostly as it's the only one I've been able to get of Sadie in her summer "do". As an extra attraction for me, Roger and Kay brought an ice cream cake instead of the requested fruit. Any time is a good time for ice cream!



And instead of doggie updates, as there are none, here are five of the dozen cats I "sat" for our neighbors for ten days while they went on vacation. The first couple of days were pretty hectic, not that the cats were anything but loving, but truly, herding cats is an exercise in frustration. As seven of the dozen are officially inside cats, my job mainly consisted of walking across the street several times after dinner yelling "kitty kitty kitty" and then trying to get whoever was cooperative enough to show up in the door without letting two others out. Plus one of the guys (Mr. Mushie, the HUGE black cat I always referred to as "Budda") is quite the projectile pee-er. There is a three foot perimeter of incontenance pads around the three very large cat boxes, and a good day was having to change them only twice. Several times just as I was going out the door, Budda graciously resquirted all the clean new pads; so back into the fray I went, with gloves, mask, and giant sized garbage bags. But I am absolutely not complaining; not only did I get to know them all very well, but it was my only paid gig in May. Unfortunately my dear calligraphy students are currently beset by fairly scary health concerns, so we're on hold till everybody is certified healthy again.

Next week I will go back to Mom's, as she is finally scheduled for her second hip replacement surgery (delayed far too long because of her fall earlier this year). She is such a trooper, even though the pain is severe enough now to have confined her to a wheelchair with aides in 24/7 until the surgical date (June 25). I can only hope that it will go as well as the first, couldn't ask for a better outcome. All prayers/thoughts/hopes welcome!

And this Friday will be the fifth (American) anniversary of my father's death. It's striking that for so many years when I was living at home, my dad, who came from Poland at age six on his father's passport, never had an official birth certificate (so I guess he really couldn't have been president). So we always celebrated twice, on December 27 for the American one, and the last night of Hanuka for the Hebrew. Eventually my mother realized that while great fun for Dad, pretty soon her daughters were going to request two birthdays, and put a stop to it. Now all these decades later, on the much sadder occasion of his yartzheit, we still have that duality going on. I'll light a candle this Thursday night, ahead of his June 22 anniversary, and again next Wednesday for the Hebrew calendar. And because the two calendars rarely coincide, I am struck that this year is the first time since he died in 2007 that June 22 is a Friday, just as it was when he left. And next Friday night I'll go to services at Gidwitz, the last congregation he participated in, where the Shabbos reading is Chukot, the very parsha read the weekend he left. Somehow this seems not only significant but very comforting to me. That's the very long of it from here. I hope all goes well there and that each of you is having the summer you want, with the folks you like best. More anon...

May 27 2012

It's Brian's birthday! Today is the actual date, and here's Brian at 70 with a table full of lovely plants sent by family and flowers from our garden to cheer his day. The big birthday party was last week, to get a head start on the holiday weekend, and as you can see from these photos (and I won't put ALL of them up!!) we had a wonderful time. The weather cooperated after five or six days of rain, then the sun came out for the weekend and the sky was as bright blue as Brian's eyes.

Lots of lively conversation,
















lots of delicious food,




















lots of shared laughter. And the shot showing Brian with several men include men who were boys at Brian's 7th birthday party. Pretty amazing to have kept in touch all these decades later.
































Hyla and Ayro had the most fun down at the frog pond, where the hunt is always on. Lisa actually did catch a frog in the net, but of course it leapt right back out to continue it's froggy life in the murky depths. But it's fun for the girls, and a real pleasure to watch them watching the frogs.

















































My favorite shot, though, was the two of them running along the upper terracing "grandchildren's path", looking just like little wood sprites.














At the party's end, happy but rather tired, I took this last shot of the table after everyone left and most of the stuff was stowed (please note the cake with colorful sprinkles, Hyla and Ayro made it for grandpa with I suspect a little help from their parents). Everyone including Sadie had such a nice time, we are so appreciative of all the folks who made the effort to help us celebrate, from Rochester, New York City, Connecticut, and elsewhere. Thanks to all!!! Now I just have to get used to the idea that I'm married to someone who's 70!!!

May 2 2012

Just to let you know what's going on, ahead of Brian's big 70th birthday party later this month:

First, Mom is home again and doing better than we feared. She is going to have PT and OT at the apartment for a while, and is always very good at keeping up with the exercises she's been given, so I'm hopeful the improvments she's made will persist. And, of course, thanks to all who were so supportive and concerned during this latest crisis. Your prayers were very welcome!


In garden news, after a very warm (VERY WARM) March, April was much cooler (except for our single 100 degree day) and now that May's begun, we've had lots of much-needed rain. The plants continue to confound.
My carefully planted bleeding hearts in the lower terraces either didn't survive at all, or are just a few inches high as you can see.

While the self-seeded ones, in cracks of the stone walls, jammed in to other planting beds, and everywhere else they don't have a visible toe-hold (root-hold?) are thriving. Go figure...



The lily of the valley plants are tumbling open everywhere. I wish I could send the scent along, it's one of my favorites and I love being able to make tiny arrangements with them that scent the rooms as I walk by. Too bad there's no "smellovision"!



















The very first of the bearded iris opened up too, little dwarves with lovely edging.













Also for your viewing pleasure, a shot of our hostas BEFORE the deer come and munch them down to the ground. Some years are better than others, but we're always grateful for whatever plantings the critters leave behind for us.








I put out a half dozen tomato plants weeks ago, and then had to cover them up with cartons three nights running to protect them from the frost. Finally we are predicted to have nights above freezing, so yesterday my chilies (for rellenos) got put in the ground, joining the arugula, lettuce, and garlic that wintered over. Still to get: basil, chard, eggplant, zucchini (remember when a single zucchini plant produced more than could be given away? it's now a delicacy costing about as much per pound as mushrooms!)

We've cleared away all of last winter's dead weeds on the lower terracing, just in time for this year's to make their appearance. Wish I could teach the deer to eat weeds. And Brian's built some new bridges to get the wheelbarrow over, as the old ones were rotting. The new ones are much prettier, too.

In the dog news, I was part of the team that found little Taylor her "forever" home. Her new family decided to change her name to Honey, and are transitioning by calling her "Taylor Honey", which, as these are Texans all, sounds about right to me.

















That's the wrap-up for now. Hope all goes well with all of you - send us your news!