Thursday, July 04, 2019

home for the 4th

It's always good to be home. I told Snowdrop this when she was mulling over the idea of returning home after the two week romp around Dublin and the UK: travel makes you understand what you love about your home.

In the time we were away, it rained quite a bit. Storms, rain, rain, storms. That means that when I get up at my usual post Europe ungodly hour of 5, I see a garden that's very lush...


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... and still very reluctant to send forth flowers. Too, I see a lot of weeds. I mean -- a lot.

My first chore always is to feed the barn cats. The little ones are still shy and spend most of their day hiding in the garage. Stop Sign (the ancient mom) has reconnected with her grown daughter Dance. I'm happy about that!


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After putting out food for the whole lot of them, I turn to the weed problem: is there an easy way to pull out all irrelevant stuff? No there is not.

After two hours, I have only the first five beds (more or less) cleared. So many weeds!


I wont recount in any detail the rest of the day's activities. Laundry, grocery shopping, weeding, tidying. It's all important work (well, most of it is important), but you don't need many words to describe it to a reader.

Of course, there are a few moments that stand out for me:

Breakfast, on a hot and humid but nonetheless beautiful porch. Happy fourth indeed!


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Finding a patch of true lilies in full bloom...


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Taking an evening motor bike ride with Ed, past fields and skies that remind me why I so love this neck of the woods. You just dont get skies like these in many places! (There are cranes in the field.... Can you find them?)


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And finally, a walk with Ed in the nearby county park. It'll likely be the last one this summer: the bugs are starting to act out. But still, tonight, it was all rather lovely. When people on the other side of the ocean ask me about the place I live in  -- "Wisconsin? Where is that?"  - I think, in my mind's eye of scenes like this one. From this image, I'll return to a verbal description... Cold in the winter, hot in the summer, lush, with golden flowers dominating the prairie landscape...


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Much later, as I tend to dinner stuff, I glance outside to see Stop Sign and Dance sprawled out on the picnic table. There is something so trusting and beautiful about their great moment of peace...


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Happy fourth to all of you who share with me a humble respect for the prouder moments of our country's history.

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