Oops! Somebody Goofed!

                                         UH, OH, Wrong Again

They said it was supposed to have been raining today.  They said it was supposed to be raining all last week and the week before, too. I think we only had a few light 15 minute showers out of the deal.  Where did all that rain go?  Those forecasts are just "guesswork". Instead of "Man plans and God laughs", I think the new saying should go, "Weather forecasters predict, and God laughs".

Don't get me wrong.  I am enjoying the nice weather.  It is just that I keep hauling all this rain gear with me every time I go anywhere because I am always preparing for the downpour that never comes and all I get is lots of sweat and sore arms. I'd have been better off to just leave the rain gear at home and taken my chances at getting wet.  I had to shower to wash off the sweat anyway so I could have just had a "free" shower.

Oh well, that was my gripe for the day and now that it's off my back, I'm going out to enjoy the sunshine and all that gorgeous weather.

However, I do think we should stop guessing and just admit we know nothing about what Nature is planning to do.  Perhaps God is telling us "Not thy will but Mine be done."

Tranquility

Here is another of my poems that I wrote in my poetry days.  Perhaps I could rename it "Reminisce" because that is what I do when I recall the day that I wrote it.  At that time I called it simply:

                                        Tranquility

The ultimate serenity

A quiet evening stroll

Where the heart finds it haven

On a quiet country knoll.

In my dreams I often wander

Where time and life stand still

Pausing neath the tree top

Where sings the whippoorwill.

Through the quiet of the evening

Into the stillness of the night

Fanning feathers softly utter

The sound of the owl in flight

A hovering pair of nighthawks

Their silent wings unfurled

Gliding slowly o’er this portrait

Of an enchanted wonder world.

The aura of the meadow

Of fresh daisies doth proclaim

A wild fragrance none can capture

A sweet perfume none can tame.

With the sigh of an evening zephyr

The angels softly speak

Touching softly as they linger

Like silk upon my cheek.

In the breeze, the trees are swaying

With their branches gently bent

Mother Nature rocking calmly

In her armchair, so content.

In peaceful quiet rapture

My soul perceives its haven

This Paradise, this Eden

God has so freely given!

Garden-fresh Veggies are Worth the Pain

                               UH, OH, Late Again
My, how the time flies!  I should add "when you're having fun."  But that would not be entirely true, though, to be perfectly honest, it would not be entirely false either.  I love gardening, and I am thrilled that my daughter now owns a place where I can indulge that passion.  Apartment living does not allow for such hobbies and most often I'm are relegated to store-bought produce that just missed the boat in the taste department. Oh it's not really bad-bad.  But anyone who has picked a sun-ripened tomato right off the plant in their own the garden will know what I'm talking about when I say that a sore back, aching muscles and dirty fingernails are a small price to pay for that special treat of your own garden-fresh vegetables.  There really is a difference in the taste!.

We spent a winter in southern Florida back in the eighties and we were dumbfounded to see how they grew tomatoes down there.  It was coral rock and fertilizer and water. Because the coral rock does not retain water, it was covered with plastic to keep the water from evaporating!  They grew lots of tomatoes and hauled them to market with big trucks where they were packaged for export to places like our grocery stores.  After witnessing that "mass production" of my favorite vegetable, I understand why I willingly put up with those sore muscles to grow my own tomatoes.  I just prefer my home grown beauties.  That chemical fertilizer and water and coral rock just cannot produce that same quality.  And that's only talking about tomatoes! Other vegetables endure the same fate.

So I can't say I'm having fun when I'm in pain.  (My body is used to sitting at a computer for the better part of the day, not bending, weeding, hoeing and digging in the soil.) But I'm still an old farmer at heart so I'm nuts enough to like working with the soil.  So it hurts sometimes. So what! It's worth it! Tomorrow I'm having fresh garden salad that I grew myself. And I've already long forgotten the sore muscles that I suffered with when I planted, weeded and hoed around it!    

I Miss My Deck!

I miss my deck!  I knew when I moved here that I wouldn't have one.  Still, I liked the apartment, the layout the building, and the location of it.  The place had everything!  Everything, except my own personal deck.  I knew that, but I still took it. There is a public deck up on the top floor. It's available to all of us.  It is seldom crowded so it is semi - well, almost semi-private most of the time.  I could deal with that.  No big deal.

 But as summer approaches, again, I'm finding that I DO miss having my own private deck!  Not enough to forego my lovely apartment, mind you, but Oh, how nice it would be, to  take my cup of coffee and my laptop, and step outside and work in the fresh outdoors without a major upheaval in my daily routine. I'm spoiled   I used to have a large deck before I moved here.  I  practically LIVED there during the summer!

I tried to take my laptop outside to work one day last week.  I took my cart that I use for grocery shopping and I loaded my folding chair, my folding tablemate, my laptop with cord, external mouse and mousepad (I hate using the fingertip mouse on the laptop), a sun hat for the hot sun, a jacket if it got too breezy, a can of juice if I got thirsty, then I got my keys, locked the apartment and pushed my overloaded cart to the elevator to take me up to the 12th floor public deck. There were a few people there but they were friendly so I chose the opposite corner of the deck and proceeded to unload my "work area".  There was plenty of room for all of us! Within ten minutes of setting up, I realized that the two solid walls of the deck trapped the sun's heat in, but kept the breeze out. I was sweltering and the computer was heating up.  This was not going to work.

I refolded everything, repacked my cart and took the elevator to the ground floor. Pushing the heavy cart through several heavy doors, I finally arrived in our beautiful courtyard. I unpacked everything and set up my work area again and started on my computer.  The beautiful flowering fruit trees offered shade from the sun's warm rays but the breeze had free range here. I think it had even picked up  in the last half hour. I donned my jacket but it failed to ward off the chill. Then my laptop ran out of power.  I moved closer to the gazebo and plugged it in, but the outlet there was shut off. By now, I was  too cold to be productive anyway.

 I refolded the chair and the table, repacked the computer and all its appendages, packed everything back into the cart and pushed it through those heavy doors to the elevator to go back up to my 4th floor apartment where I unpacked everything again. By the time I got everything into its proper place I was too played out to work anymore. The whole day yielded two paragraphs of writing plus my total exhaustion!

Now if I had my own private deck, I could have gone there in my PJ's and written a whole book by now and I wouldn't be feeling half as tired!  I MISS MY DECK!