Gardening Bug

It hits me every spring when the grass begins to green, the trees begin to flower or bud out, and the daffodils bloom everywhere.

Like a silent disease, it creeps into my mind and my body. I crave filling flower pots or planting living things in the ground. 

When I lived in south Georgia, USA, the growing season was long and began early. Azaleas could be blooming in late February and by March my big yard was overflowing with flowers.

My azaleas make a nice background for Nicki

I had a shady backyard, but the trees were mostly pines and my Azaleas loved living under those trees. I planted gardenias near the patio so I could smell that wonderful aroma. Inside my house which was perfect for plants with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides of the living area and one side of my dining area, I grew large plants that were right at home there. And outside I could watch the wisteria hanging from a small oak tree where birds delighted in hanging out.

I get nostalgic thinking about that wonderful place where I had thought I would live out my days. But I had twenty-five years there and in those years of happiness, love and laughter, sadness and grief, I built a house of memories. 

Within the walls of that, my dream house, we lost our beloved Brandy who had been my shadow for nineteen years. We lost Nicki, our first Samoyed, at only two years of age from an unknown illness. Barry insisted we find another Samoyed puppy and we did. He became the love of my life and Kodi lived to move to North Carolina with us.

My friend, Sue, gave us a tiny black kitten with white paws. 

He was so scared of the new place that he hid out under the freezer and would not come out. I was afraid he would climb into the motor or get caught in there and be killed. But when Barry came home that night, he moved the freezer and the little kitten came to him like he was grateful to be rescued. From that moment on Diesel, the name Barry gave him because he had a loud purr, was definitely Barry's cat. He cuddled in Barry's lap and followed my husband around. It broke his heart and mine when he had to tell the vet to euthanize his friend. Diesel had a large tumor growing in his mouth. We had it removed once, but it came back and he could not eat with it. We were told it would continue to come back and we had to put him down.

In the book I wrote with my friend and fellow writer, Estelle Rice, I tell the stories of some of these dogs and of the relationship Barry and I had with them. Animals are so special and smart and fun. My life has been filled with them and their stories.    Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins 

Today is a beautiful day here in the city. I watered my azalea bush and my jasmine bush, both of which are in pots on my small deck at my sister's house. I garden in small ways now. Soon I will buy some red geraniums for my upper deck in Hayesville where I hope to spend my summer. I doubt my hydrangea is still alive since we had some really cold weather up there. But I will plant annuals or grow a pepper plant so I can satisfy my inner farmer. 

I hope you will click on the following link and see how I feel about gardening. Maybe you do, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3FkaN0HQgs

Writing classes, Writing Conferences, and Spring

Life is good in spite of all the BAD news we hear constantly on TV and the radio as well as on social media.

We are beginning the beautiful month of April. Spring is here. My azaleas are blooming and some of the blossoms on the trees survived the last freeze and snow. I have loved spring my whole life and I seem to love it more now. When things begin to pop up green and strong, when birds sing in my yard, the bluebirds come to scout out their house, I want to shop for flowers and shrubs. Geraniums thrive on my deck and I enjoy them all summer long.

I am an indoor gardener now, filling my deck with colorful flowers I can see from my chair in my living room. I also choose flowers that attract humming birds. With my feeders and my flowers they hover all day outside my windows.

Spring is a time for new beginnings and making plans for the future. Today I talked with someone at EAGLE one of the first places I taught writing. This is a church organization over in north Georgia. I have two good friends who attend classes and, one of them, Linda teaches dulcimer there. I began teaching writing to those folks back in 2006.

I agreed to teach a one day workshop this fall between September 21 and November 9. I won't be paid for these classes, but I will do this for my friends and for the good people who run this program.

I also accepted an invitation to teach this summer at ICL, the Institute for Continuing Learning, another program for adults, at Young Harris College. Those classes will be two hour sessions once a week for four weeks. I hope my former students will come and will tell their friends. 

In the fall, I am on the schedule at TCCC, our local community college to teach two hour sessions each Monday for four weeks. You can tell I enjoy teaching. I have met the finest and dearest people in the classes I've taught. I have heard the most touching, heart-felt stories about the lives of my students. The joy of it all for me is that the families of my students will have the interesting and well-written life stories to pass on to generations of the future. I know they will appreciate their ancestors telling about what life was like in the twentieth century, before cell phones, before computers and before the world became so very small.

I can hear some of my loved ones saying, "You take on too much. You don't have to do this."
But I enjoy every minute in class with my adult students. I feel euphoric when I hear former students telling new students some of the things they learned in my classes.

For now, I look forward to attending a writing conference in Blue Ridge Georgia April 8. I have not missed one of these since my friend, Carol Crawford, began the event almost twenty years ago. Gosh, how could it have been that long?

On May 6, I look forward to A Day for Writers, our conference in Sylva, NC at the beautiful Jackson County Public Library. The historic old courthouse of Jackson County, NC is now being used as part of the library. Most of our workshops and sessions will be held in the part that was once a courthouse.

Jackson County Public Library in Sylva, NC

This will be a busy spring for me, but I think it will also be interesting and fun. What will you be doing as spring comes to your area?

Spring in the mountains

In 1975 we built our dream house on the farm in Dougherty County Georgia. In 1995, we moved to North Carolina and left our beautiful home. We bought a small vacation house as an interim place to live until we sold our house in Georgia. We didn't expect to still be in the vacation house twenty years later. Although we did some remodeling, the little place here in the mountains is not nearly as comfortable and nice as the house we built down south. But we both loved the location and decided not to buy another bigger, nicer house. We decided the deck on this house was worth the price we paid for it.

Today I am sharing some photos of spring at my place. The first one is taken from my upper deck looking west.

From my upper deck looking west. This is side yard. Many dogwood trees reside in my yard.

Part of my container garden. See my front yard behind the banister.

 One corner of my deck is for my container garden. Pansies have done really well in this cool weather.

 I fill my spaces with geraniums each spring and summer. They are easy to grow and make me smile.

These red azaleas are the first thing you see when you enter my driveway. They have outdone themselves this year.

Looking down on my front yard from my upper deck. My driveway circles a heart shaped area. My heart is open to you when you come up to my house, to my studio, Writers Circle around the Table.  I hope to see you here one day.Red Azaleals; from the upper deck

Coming Home to Winter Storm - Looking for Spring

This snow storm that has hit north Georgia and my home in western NC has stopped us all in our tracts. The ice is what gets us. In Roswell, GA where I have spent a few days with my sister and brother in law, I have been happy to stay indoors and enjoy the white woods through the large windows.

It is unbelievably quiet here although we usually hear cars on the street beyond the lake. No cars today. Everyone stayed home as they should. Schools closed and businesses shut their doors as well.

Mother Nature throws us these curve balls occasionally, and we have to slow our pace, stop and breathe slowly. 

Maybe that is why we have these kinds of days. Perhaps we have to be forced to slow down and realize that we don't have to get out every single day and do something. When the roads are so bad we might have a terrible accident, we remind ourselves that nothing is worth getting out in this mess, unless it is a matter of life and death.

As for me, I used yesterday to write and revise some work. I don't know where I'll send it or if it will see the light of day, but I did enjoy writing for an hour or two. 

I enjoyed having my sweet sister give me a shoulder massage that helped the pain caused by the damaged rotator cuff. She has also done Reiki, an energy healing on me a couple of times. I don't claim to understand it, but I do know it helps. My body has taken a beating with all the travel I've done recently.

My sister, Gay Council Moring

The trip to Florida this winter was harder than last year's escape to the sunshine state. Someone said the Karma was not right for me this year. I had health issues, computer issues, automobile issues, condo issues including losing my keys and AC going out. In spite of that, I loved seeing good friends and family, reading my poetry for a senior group, and speaking to a group of folks who want to write.

Sandy Beall and Richard Sauers, her interesting and fun husband

Tammy Beall and Sandy 

I loved the ride from Tallahassee to St. Pete with Sandy Beall, one of the most generous and kind women I've ever known. She also drove me all the way back to Atlanta and then flew home on her dime. We have known each other for about thirty years and have so much history together we never run out of things to discuss. She says she enjoys the drive and we made an overnight stop to visit a family we both love. 

This cold weather is bound to end soon. Spring is waiting with baited breath 

to jump out and surprise us, I'm sure. 

When we least expect it, we will see 

a robin in the yard, a humming bird 

will hover on the deck searching 

for the feeder he frequented last year. 

The sun will come back and warm us. 

We will forget the cold of February, 2014.

Snow Keeps Me In, so I Write

March 25, 2013

I went to bed late last night and the snow had started to fall. When I woke up this morning we had big fat snow flakes falling and my woods were white.

Here late at night the snow is still falling. Long icicles hang from the eaves of the carport. 

Will Spring ever come this year? I love snow. It is beautiful to look at. We used to go outside every time it snowed, dressed in heavy clothes we would not have worn in south Georgia where I grew up and lived over half my life.

The first year we were in this house, it snowed five times and always on weekends. I said it snowed for Barry. He was always home with me and Kodi, our Samoyd, on weekends and the three of us could romp outside. Kodi loved the snow which he had never seen until he was eleven years old. 

But now, I don't play in the snow. I am careful when I walk on the steps, afraid I might fall and no one would be here to help me up if I broke something.

I am ready for sunshine on my shoulders, flowers nodding at me as I pass by, and a nice day for Tiger and me to take a walk. 

What are you looking forward to in Spring?

SPRING - NEW BEGINNINGS

What a day! Spring is everywhere here on the side of a mountain in western NC. I talked with Dr. Gene Hirsch, poet and generous man who lives and works in Pennsylvania most of the year, but comes to his cabin in Cherokee county as often as he can. He said he envied us the pretty weather. "Rain every day here," he said. He is coming south as soon as he can and will be teaching poetry at JCCFS.

I couldn't resist planting a few things this morning - some cucumbers and a few flower seeds. I hoped to get out and work all afternoon, but ran out of steam after lunch and took a long nap. After that BB, Rocky and I went down to the lake.

Peace and quiet supreme. Only the lapping of the waves broke the silence. Water soothes the mind and spirit like watching the flames of a fire dissipates anxiety.

After two extremely busy years, I'm ready to lead a life of quiet and stillness. As a writer, I miss solitude and silence. Sometimes I think I fill my life with busyness to keep my mind from burrowing into those dark holes where I've buried feelings I can't handle at the moment.

I walked alone by the water while Barry, who still limps and walks with a cane, sat with Rocky near the car. The solitude left me wide open to the grief I've tried not to face. Without warning, tears flooded my eyes and hurt slashed me like a dagger. Empathy for Nancy, my brother's wife, mushroomed inside me and almost choked me.

My guilt over avoiding the telephone so I can't hear the loneliness in her voice, didn't help any. As sad as I am, I know her sorrow is a hundred times deeper.
She still expects him to come in the door, she turns to tell him something and he isn't there. When the phone rings, for a split second she thinks it is her husband calling to tell her why he isn't home yet.
And while I know she suffers alone, I can't visit her in that grief, for I know it could be me suffering the same loss.

Tomorrow we will go out and enjoy Spring. We will drive the convertible with the top down and take photographs, eat at places we've not been to before. We'll play lively music and laugh. We will try to pretend for tomorrow that we will never leave each other. We won't think of endings, only beginnings.

First Day of Spring and I start with the flowers

Mother loved roses and red was her favorite color.

Forsythia is finally blooming at my house. I heard some local girls say that they never liked "yellow bells" because when their mom disciplined them, she cut a long limb off the forsythia bush, stripped off the leaves and gave the children "a good switchin.'

It is certainly nice to get up to a clear day after all the rain. My forsythia is finally in full bloom. We are up about 2300 ft above sea level, and our flowers come out a little later than those down in town.My tulips are not blooming but soon will be. I get the fever this time of year. I want color. I want flowers. I spent a long grey winter waiting and now I can't wait any longer.
At Home Depot down in Georgia, I came upon some beautiful red geraniums in hanging baskets. Barry and I love red geraniums. They are the only flowers we have on our deck that last all summer, bloom and bloom until the first freeze. But best of all, they do well if I forget to water them for a few days. We say they were meant for us.

We require plants that take care of themselves. Knockout roses are hardy and need little care. We have two Knockout Rose beds, one in front and one in back.

My desire this spring is to have more native plants. I accidently discovered I have wild blueberry bushes on the edge of the woods in back. And in Rocky's yard, I learned that the neat bush with the unusual blooms is called Heart's a Bustin. I also find we have some kind of native holly plants on our property.

With woods on three sides of the house, I'd like to see more plantings for the birds. We have a bluebird box for the pair that come each spring and they often come back later to raise a second family.

Our hummingbirds loved the salvia I grew in a pot under the feeders last year. I will do more for them this year.