Tag: gardening

Snake-handling

I’ve been working on my fish pond lately. I thought I had the waterfall fixed. It is not fixed. It’s still leaking. However, the pond seemed to be holding well, so now I have fish! My son Jade brought me six fish from his pond on Mother’s Day and the most beautiful bouquet that’s still going strong.

He said his wife Anjie bought him the special bucket for transport. They all arrived in good condition and still are. I bought some bullfrog tadpoles a couple of weeks ago to help clean up debris in the water and PondStart to condition it. These fish are about four to six inches long, and one of them is a Shebunkin, a pondie known for its koi-like tail.

There were eight koi gracefully swimming around when we moved here. About three months later, something tore through the netting and got them all. We’re blaming raccoons. I could not bear the expense of koi when raccoons and blue herons love them so much–and so often! I decided when I got new fish, they’d be just regular goldfish or pondfish or whatever anyone calls them now. Jade’s pond regulars had had too many babies, so he was happy to give me some.

I told him about my tadpoles and snails. He said that sure is a good way to clean up a dirty pond. I said I hoped nothing got my frogs.

“Well, now, Mom,” he said, “where there are frogs, there are going to be snakes.”

Uh-oh. I was too late. The bullfrogs–and others–were already hopping around and croaking. I knew what was coming.

Monday morning, I went down to the pond to find a snake caught in the netting over the water. She was about inches inches long. I touched her with the can of fish pellets, and she moved. Her middle was free, so I found a stick, pushed it under her loop, and pulled. Oh no, she had a fat place a couple inches from her head, probably half a frog in there, I thought, and an even fatter place where she’d caught the rest of her body, no doubt with the rest of the frog in that half. The stick broke.

Cybil. She almost twisted herself into a knot!

I sat on the side of the pond for a few minutes and studied her, trying to figure out how I’d get her out of the mess she’d created. I named her Cybil–and don’t even ask me how I knew she was a female. She wasn’t poisonous. I can’t imagine trying to free, say, a copperhead. I took her photo and enlarged it so that I could see her problem up close.

I finally decided that the only way this creature would be rescued was by my own hands. I carefully held her belly loop with my left hand and peeled the net away from the back half of her body with my right. The next trick would be to get her head free and back her out of the netting.

If a psychic had told me twenty years ago that I would become a snake handler, I wouldn’t have even laughed at such ridiculousness. But, hey, here I was, inching the net away from her head, freeing her body, and laying her down on the rocks to slither away.

Now, Cybil, I thought, just stay away from the frogs, and you and I will both be happier.

***

My neighbor, VB, maintains a pond just a bit smaller than mine. She’s been interested in sharing her fish with me. She asked if I could take some of the larger ones and some water plants with little rosemary-like spikes that reach for the sun while the fish feast on the roots.

“Oh, yes,” I said, “I’d love three or four fish.”

Yesterday, she pulled out some plants and put them in a big bucket. We peeled back my net to shove it in the water and tried to arrange it to hide the pump and pipes. We did the best we could, using a long pole to push it into place before she took my net to get me some big ‘uns out of her pond. VB and I love to admire each other’s gardens. She was saying how good the waterfall looked with the moss-covered rocks and its long flow into the pool of animals at the end. I was telling her that I thought the waterfall was leaking again.

Then she gasped. I ran to her side, just knowing she’d seen a snake, and said, “What is it? What is it?”

She said, “S-s-snake.”

Here was yet another of these hapless creatures who had poked his head through the net into the waterfall. “Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. “Here we go again.”

“Oh, Di, be careful; I think it’s a copperhead!”

“I don’t think so,” I answered, trying to get a closer view of this one I’d already named Cyrus. His head looked twisted and smushed by the net’s grasp, but he wiggled his body to let me know he was still with us.

“Get a stick,” VB said. “Or maybe a pole. It’s a copperhead. It has a triangular head.”

“No, come look. It’s not. His head is just all wampused (my word) from where the net is. He’s some kind of rat snake or water snake. He’s harmless.”

She gave him a side view. “I can see now, but you know,” she said,” if it has slanted eyes, it’s poisonous.”

“Hmmm,” I said, “I’m not sure I want to get to know him well enough to look him in the eyes.”

“Let me find you a stick. Or maybe we could get that pole we were using.”

“VB,” I said, “That won’t work. I tried it on Cybil, but it didn’t work.”

“How did you get her loose?” she asked. “Did you have to cut the net?”

“No,” I said, “I just pressed and pulled on the net until I could get her free.”

“With your hands.”

“Yes.”

“Di, you make me laugh.”

“Why?” I asked as I reached for the middle of Cyrus.

“Because I can’t think of another woman that would pick up a snake.”

“Well, that’s the only way old Cyrus is going to make it. He’s slowed way down already.”

Cyrus. His head was twisted in the net and he sort of looked dead.

VB said, “I’ll get the net and go get some fish. You work with the snake, but now, I’ll help if you need me to. I will.”

I’m not sure how she would have helped, but I told her to go fishing.

Cyrus had wrapped his tail under a rock, and I could not pull it loose. He was still. VB showed up with some fish. She came over to the waterfall and said, “You can’t get him loose.”

“No,” I said, “let’s just leave him alone. I think he’s just going to have to die that way. Let’s put the fish in.”

“Well, it’s just one. They’re so big I can’t get but one in the bucket at a time.”

We lifted the net again and dumped the orange and white fellow into his new habitat. He took off to join the small ones, and pretty soon, they were following him everywhere he swam.

VB said, “I think he likes his new digs! Okay, I’m going for another one.”

I stepped back up the gravel path to the snake in the net. He was moving his bottom half, and his tail was free.

VB appeared. I told her I was going to the garage for some scissors and maybe a grabber. “I’m going to have to cut him out of this net.”

I cut around his head and neck–if a snake has a neck. He was still moving when I laid him on the path.

When we had successfully re-homed eight of her fish, we checked on Cyrus. His head had improved, and jaws lined up together. He wriggled when I touched him. A half-hour later, he was gone.

I like to think he went home to Cybil.

While I was snake-handling, VB brought at least eight big fish and a couple small ones.

My pond is full…and it’s leaking again.

New Life?

Last Tuesday, when I was having my morning coffee, a wave of relief washed over me like Gulf water easing white sand around a buried shell. I felt somehow cleansed.

I said to myself, “I am now really retired. What will I do?”

A line from Mary Oliver’s poem came to mind. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

When the awareness of retirement really hit, my mind recouped the last fourteen years. For twelve of those, we cared for my parents. The last one-and-a-half began with Mom’s death at the end of June 2022 and questions about our next move. Actually, the possibility of moving began much earlier. Mom was in favor of downsizing, too. We were no longer able to care for The Compound as we wanted and as needed, and hiring enough help was prohibitive and highly unlikely. It was not a difficult decision.

So we started getting ready. We thought we’d list the place in Spring 2023, in time for a new family to find our lovely spot and get moved in before school started. I admit I procrastinated, but my dear friend Cathy and I cleaned out garages large enough to house eight vehicles with room left over. We sold some and gave away more, passing down furniture and ancestral pieces to our children, my brother, and his family. Our estate sale left us in worse shape than before the sale! I can’t tell you who manages a good estate sale, but I can quickly let you know which company not to choose. Seriously, just ask me.

We browsed realty listings in anticipation, and one house kept catching my eye. It went off the market, and we thought, oh well, we missed that one. Mysteriously, it came back a month later at a much lower price. When two of our children saw the same listing for The Cottage (it seems they were looking, too), they each said, in so many words, “This is your house.” We fiddled, diddled, and bought a house before listing The Compound. Our dear realtor friend Karen was with us every step of the way. We closed on The Cottage on September 22, 2022, and began the relocation process, leaving a few pieces of furniture and decor for staging and passing down more antiques to our children and cousins.

I can confirm that two homes build a recipe for stress, and our two-properties situation lasted almost a year. For three seasons, I cleaned, mowed, and weeded. Dave knocked down weeds and cleaned up the edges of driveways, sidewalks, and flower beds. He watered, thanking the Universe when the rain came. The brutal winter meant ensuring we had no busted pipes at either place.

Karen listed the house in November 2022. There was plenty of activity at The Compound, but no takers. We knew it would take the right buyer for the place. There was that persistent possibility of eight bedrooms, three kitchens, six bathrooms, and three (maybe four) living areas. Not everybody could fit into that situation.

We dropped the price a few times, realizing that the market had slowed, and it still seemed that the people who needed it most could not afford it. Investors, of course, wanted to lowball.

We both watched finances. There was no scraping by, but the upkeep on The Compound was expensive. There were improvements we wanted to make at the new house that we had lovingly named The Cottage. They had to wait for the sale.

Dave, my steady partner, kept us on the right path. Unpacking the basement waited like a stalking bobcat, but necessity called for the consistent care of The Compound, all the while trying to be a good wife and feeling the weight of Mom’s death underneath all the hoo-roar.

We came near to closing with a family wishing for space for an au pair and frequent visits by family from Japan, only to have the deal fall through a couple weeks before signing. Our hearts fell for a while, but along came a woman who said she wanted to house parents, in-laws, and her best friend’s grandmother, providing caregivers 24/7 when needed. She planned significant renovations, she said, including adding gas-powered whole-house generators. She loved the grounds, especially the muscadine vines, blackberries, and strawberries. She told me to leave the wildflower garden to seed for next year’s spring. She bought the staging furniture and decor. It all felt right.

So, how do we fill our time now? Well, currently, we blow and pick up leaves every day. The cottage is in a woodland setting in the middle of a 1980s planned development. No one would imagine the number of leaves we manage. Looking at the front of the house, you wouldn’t suspect the designated wildlife area that is our backyard. There are trees at least one hundred years old, and they shed their leaves in fall and winter. It seems they never stop.

I spend more time with Dixie, my spoiled Shihtzu/Poodle mix. She is a Shi-poo. I cook dinner most days, enough for lunch leftovers, and breakfast a few times. I check and post on Facebook. I’m trying to get comfortable with Instagram.

It seems Dave and I see more physicians these days. It’s not abnormal. I mean, we are eighty-one (next week) and seventy-four. We have at least one or two appointments each week, and each one can shoot the whole day. Then, there are the maintenance people for the HVAC, irrigation, plumbing, and other household fixers.

My routine is not yet stable. I plan to plan.

Every once in a while, I drive by The Compound. It looks ragged and a bit abandoned. No one lives there. No improvements have begun. Nobody cuts the grass until it’s hard to mow.

I don’t feel sad. I’m surprised that I don’t. I just feel such deep love and respect for that glorious setting. The Compound not only housed more than a few bodies, but also fed the souls of those who passed through the doors. The memories will last forever.

There are a bunch of videos online of people fighting through tangled vines and groin-high weeds to find a lawn and, usually, a house. Sometimes, they work on public property, mowing around poles, signs, and speed bumps and humps. Sometimes, they’re even working for nothing! The videos are delightful and somewhat therapeutic.

I probably spend too much of my time watching YouTube.

Trying to love two women…

Is like a ball and chain. Sing it with me,

Trying to love two women is like a ball and chain. Sometimes the pleasure ain’t worth the strain….

Lord, ain’t that the truth. What we’ve got right now is two houses, and sometimes the reason doesn’t seem to justify the strain of two old people trying to take care of two places.

Dad died. Mom died. Dave and I are getting older by the day. We knew we could not maintain The Compound with its possibility of eight bedrooms, three kitchens, or maybe two distinct households. Or perhaps three, and at one time, four, but here we are….

We were so close to closing on The Compound on the ravine. A young family wanted the property to afford space for an au pair and extended family for visits that sometimes last months. They were enamored with the grounds: the wildflower gardens where butterflies, bees, and birds feasted; the twenty-five varieties of daylilies and iris; the shade gardens of violets, trillium, and ginger; the formal foundation plantings of small, round nandina, Happy Returns lilies, and varieties of buttercups and tulips; the shade mounds of ferns and hostas. They made sure I would not destroy the charm of all these flowers.

It all seemed perfect until almost the last minute. There was a problem with financing that could not be overcome.

So now, in upper-90-degree highs, we are mowing, weeding, trimming, and cleaning all these beds and meadows. It’s so hot. We begin at 7:00 A.M. or so and work until it’s just too hot to do much more. This morning, we worked longer than we should have. Our friend who was helping us almost passed out. Dave was headed toward heat stroke. From now on, our friend will work inside. The house needs a good cleaning.

Trying to love two women, you can’t please yourself.

At best it’s only half good, you just can’t stock two shelves.

Yeah, well, one can try. We took inventory today of our cleaning products. Our cleaner prefers a special kind of mop. We got it. We also have every cleaning product known to man, much more than our cleaner can use. We’ll share them after the whole Compound is sparkling.

Trying to love two women Is tearing me apart. One has my money, the other has my heart.

My goal right now is to take pieces of my favorite plants to the new house. New, huh, we’ve been at the new place for almost ten months. The shade gardens here sometimes feel neglected. August is not the best time to plant, but it’s hard to kill iris or daylilies.

We knew selling the Compound would mean finding an extremely unique family to make that big old rambling place their own. We also knew we’d have to maintain it until those people came our way. Our realtor continues to work it daily.

Several people pray over it every day. God love them.

You know, I knew a man once who tried to love two women. It didn’t work for him. (Actually, my numbers could be wrong. There may have been more than two, but who’s counting?) I know I’m glad Dave and I only have two houses.

Trying to love two women Is like a ball and chain, Trying to love two women is like a ball and chain,

Sometimes the pleasure ain’t worth the pain. It’s a long, hard grind, and it tires your mind.

From the Compound On the Ravine to…

A Cottage…

On a (Smaller) Ravine.

We didn’t intend to move this soon after Mom’s passing, but then this house popped up and three other family members and our realtor saw it just about the time Dave and I saw it (they were searching) and everybody thought it was the perfect house for us!

It was quite the deal but we closed on September 19, and now we’re packing and moving. Packing and moving are now “quite the deal” since we are not taking everything and there is an estate sale in November. Staging the house for sale and preparing for an estate sale are two entirely different things that shouldn’t happen simultaneously.

But we’re known for some chaos.

We’ll tell you more later. There’s so much more to say.

Waiting for Wild Horses

I am healing in this most gracious Airbnb in Fernley, Nevada. My brother lives here, but we hadn’t seen each other in three years. I brought some of Mom’s ashes. Denny says they’ll be buried with him.

I’m not sure what kind of restoration I need, but I think I’m receiving it here. I haven’t wept yet, but I’ve wandered around in some sort of a brain fog for weeks, and sometimes I can see a black hole on the right side of my body. The hole travels with me when I’m walking.

Toni, my host, lives in this 1100-square-foot house on a tiny plot of land here in the desert, but she is a Master Gardener, so she has a front lawn and back and flowers everywhere. She offers her master bedroom as a rest for the weary, a quiet oasis where love abounds and healing is possible. She is a joyful provider of shortbread cookies, muffins, and so many goodies I can’t name them all. She runs a not-for-profit (a real one that makes no money) to feed about eighty seniors in this small town. She used to cast movies and videos with some big names, and I bet she was good at it, but she seems so happy with this life of hers that her grace is contagious.

The kitchen is a bright, cool place to be in the mornings. I open the back door for more light and (dry) air. The same little lizard suns on the privacy fence every day. There is a wide easement beyond that fence where wild horses and one donkey appear every morning. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ve been watching. One time a few years ago, I saw some wild horses on the drive from Reno to Fernley.

So many familiar reminders have appeared since I arrived. I saw a woman in the grocery store with a huge windcatcher tattoo wrapped around her arm, just like one of the seven Mom attached to her walker handles. At Toni’s house, little things keep popping up: a small, decorative screen door like one I bought (and don’t know if I even still have it), the flour sack towels, a hat that is so much like one that Dad wore in the garden (it took my breath away), a bird print outdoor pillow that is the same fabric I have folded up in a drawer, the identical taupe checked fabric of my bedroom curtains on the dining chairs. The sunflowers.

Oh, there’s more. The one that made me laugh is the bubble gum machine. Jade and John had one. It was just like Toni’s except theirs was red. The story that goes with that one has to do with a certain twelve-year-old son renting out his Dad’s Playboys and stashing the money in the bottom of the bubble gum machine. I only found out about that about thirty years later.

My rental Nissan Rogue sports Tennessee plates. When I arrived at Toni’s house, she was watching the last Hallmark movie I watched with Mom. I didn’t notice the Tennessee license plates until Bev mentioned it. Toni later told me she thought, “Surely that woman did not drive here from Tennessee!” And in Wal-Mart in Fernley, NV, a shirt with Nashville on the front!

We’re having a family gathering tomorrow. Denny, Bev, their children Jim, Angie, Jena, and their grandchildren. I’m not sure who else might be invited, but it’s going to be a large occasion with Olive Garden food, music from the great-grands, and lots of stories! Jim’s wife and the greats will choose which pieces of Mom’s jewelry they would like from a large cache I brought with me, except for Angie–she gets Mom’s wedding rings. Bev got to choose last night.

Mom died peacefully in her sleep on June 24 after a one-month illness. Tomorrow marks one month out. It’s too soon to expect too much restoration on my part, but I feel something working.

I thought Toni said I should look for the horses between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. (Huh. Duh. Brain fog.) This morning, when I told her I was still watching for them, she said no, it’s between 4:00 and 6:00.

We don’t have wild horses in Tennessee. I’ve set an alarm for tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. It’s almost 11:00 a.m., and my little lizard is still sunning and running from one rail to the other, and I need to shower and get to my brother’s house.

But tomorrow morning, I’ll be waiting for wild horses.

No wild horses yet.

The things that come to mind

Dad’s birthday was September 25. He would have been ninety-two this year had he not died at eighty-nine.

I don’t really believe in heavenly birthdays. I mean, if you’ve arrived at that perfect resting place to walk streets of gold and sing in that angel choir, I can imagine a more logical celebration might be of the day you got there. That would be that day you made the transition from earth, flying to the skies. For Dad, that would be November 19.

Still, I think of Dad every September 25, and small and large events always pop up to remind me of him.

This year, a Saturday, I was in my study editing a book for a friend when Neil (our semi-permanent houseguest) knocked on the door. He held out an old pocket knife with a faded tiger-painted pearl handle and said, “I just found this. I bet it was your dad’s.”

I took it from him and answered, “Looks like his. Now if one blade is broken…” It was. I didn’t know Dad still had the knife, but I remember asking him, “Why don’t you get a new one?” He told me, “Because I like this one so much. I’m used to that broken blade. In fact, it’s come in handy in some situations.”

I laid the knife on the base of my computer monitor and stared at it for a while. The last time I saw Dad use it, he was cutting bright red string to secure tomatoes to their cages. I tried to get him to use something less showy, maybe green, but he got a big roll of crimson twine, free, from a packing company and was proud to use it.

Since Dad died, I moved my office from The Cellar to The Study. The Study was Dad’s place on the ground level of their apartment. He had it framed and made into a room when they first moved in. It was where he hid from Mom and the TV. His old wooden desk, a sofa, and all his books (about 600) and sixty years of sermons lived there, too. I sold most of his books and moved his desk out, and brought over all my furnishings and books from The Cellar, the efficiency apartment in the basement of the main house and now Neil’s place. This year, I got artwork on the walls and started using this room every day.

I come down to The Study about 6:00 am every morning. Saturday, September 25, 2021, was the same. I don’t see anyone until Mom wakes up, and I go upstairs to help her get her day started. After Neil presented himself and the pocketknife, I thanked him and, since I’d been whisked away from my editing tasks so suddenly, took a few minutes to get back into a work mood.

I hadn’t slept well the night before, so an afternoon nap was in perfect order. When I woke after an hour-and-a-half, I grabbed my phone to see if I’d missed any messages. Somehow I wound up on Gmail instead of Messages, and a New York Times headline caught my eye. “Breaking News: An Amtrak train derailed in Montana, At Least 3 Dead.”

When it was time to give Mom supper (about 4:30), I sat down for a few minutes in her living room. “Mom,” I said, “Did you see that a train derailed in Montana?”

“Oh, no. You know, that’s what your dad was afraid of when we were on that train trip to California.” My brother Denny and his wife, Bev, had given Mom and Dad tickets on the train from Nashville to California. Mom loved every minute; Dad hated it. He swore everyone that was on that train (the one to California) would be killed. He told Mom that when he got to California, he was going to get back the money paid for the return home from Amtrak and find an airplane with a flight to Nashville.

“No, you are not,” she told him, probably a bit firmly. “The kids gave us this trip because they thought we’d enjoy it, and you’re going to behave yourself.”

He did, but he didn’t like it.

We picked Mom and Dad up in Kentucky, and Dad swore he’d never get on a train again. He didn’t.

Now, sitting with Mom, I pondered what this coincidence meant, if anything.

“And on his birthday,” she said. “Amtrak. We were on an Amtrak train.”

It was time to get home and start dinner for the rest of the family. I took some compost to the porch and happened to look to the lower garden. The red dahlias had burst into bloom. They were always in bloom for Dad’s birthday. He loved red, especially red roses. “Hey, Sis,” he would ask me every September, “Are those red roses blooming in your lower garden?”

“No,” I’d answer. “They’re not roses; they’re dahlias.”

“Well, they sure are pretty. You’re certain they’re not roses…”

“I’m certain.”

This past weekend was the date for the Southern Festival of Books. Dad loved any event featuring the written word. He preferred non-fiction: politics, theology, biography. I’ve been a volunteer host for sessions for years, and Dad always wanted to know about my authors.

Like last year, the event this year was staged virtually, for the most part. I received notice of the authors who would be in conversation for my session. I got three favorites: Bobbie Ann Mason (she wrote In Country), Wiley Cash (A Land More Kind than Home), and Ron Rash (my favorite book from him is Saints At the River.)

Volunteers receive the author’s current work in the mail to use for preparation. We usually make a short introduction for each author, and we prepare questions to stimulate discussion between the authors. Serenity, the woman in charge of the sessions told me, “You don’t have to do much for these three. They know each other, and I expect them to just take off between themselves without much help from you.”

I didn’t get to read all three books before the session. I received Wiley’s novel, When Ghosts Come Home, and Ron’s collection of short stories and a novella, In the Valley, about a week before the event. I finished Wiley’s and read three selections from Ron’s. I received Bobbie Ann’s Dear Ann this week, several days after the SFB. The day before the session, I was still preparing, and the day of the session, I was trying to wrap up bios for each author. I found good information on the publishing house’s author website for Bobbie Ann’s and Wiley’s. I had to go to Wikipedia for more information on Ron Rash.

While I’d talked to each of these authors at book events, I’d never really engaged them. I hoped they played off each other as I’d heard suggested by Serenity.

They didn’t. I had to lead a bit during the session. It felt somewhat awkward at times.

Bobbie Ann appeared a little wafty, but some say that’s normal. Wiley was cute, young, and animated. Ron…well, Ron was thoughtful and quietly funny, subtly spiritual, I guess, the type of guy you just want to pat softly on the shoulder. But I knew what he’d be like. I’d seen on Wiki that his birthday is September 25.

I almost told him the red dahlias are in bloom.

Sunflowers

CindyConnor
Cindy & Connor

Cindy Louise Santana Guinn died yesterday morning. Around the Compound, we are all numb with shock. She was one of the younger kids in her family, and her brothers and sisters, nieces are devastated as is her twelve-year-old son, Connor.

An ambulance took her to the hospital Wednesday morning and, two days later, she was gone. She left in just about the way she did everything–in a hurry.

On Monday, she mowed and trimmed the lawn, then worked on some soaker hoses and pulled some weeds, bee-bopping around the yard as usual.

Normally, Neil, our permanent houseguest, would cook her breakfast downstairs in The Cellar and she’d chow down bacon or sausage, eggs, and biscuits a little before 9 o’clock, swigging down a huge glass of orange juice. She always wanted mustard on her sausage or bacon biscuit unless there was a tomato involved. Then she wanted mayonnaise. “You gotta have that mayo the minute you say tomato, she told me.

Monday, I was down with aching legs, and Neil was gone to a job in Lawrenceburg, so she didn’t get breakfast. About noon, I texted her.

We didn’t go through our standard ritual for finding each other outside. I’d usually yell “Cindy Lou” and she’d reply “Where are you?” until we saw each other somewhere on the grounds.

I texted, “Hey, I bet you’re hungry. You want a bowl of leftover chicken and dressing?”

“Oh yea,” she answered, “leav on sid porch.”

So I did. A few minutes later, I saw her skip up the ramp and go back down eating. She could put away some food.

Neil cooked her the last breakfast she had here. Neil and Cindy were a funny thing together. They loved each other. Every once in a while Cindy would slap Neil on the butt and then say, “But you’re just not my type.” He’d often help her fix a lawnmower or truck or something else at her sister Cathy’s, where Cindy also lived with Lee, Cathy’s wife, and Brenda, a friend. (It’s a big house.)

The last time Cindy called Neil for help, a big snakes had wound itself into a tree trunk. Lee was mowing the front yard, saw it, and drove on. All these women were scared of snakes. Lee had assembled a scraper on a pole. Neil and Oliver, Neil’s teenage son who was here at the time, used the snake pole to lift it out of the tree and then herd it across the street so it could climb somebody else’s tree. Neil says a large audience of neighbors gathered to witness the event.

Last July, Cindy and I were pulling weeds, as usual, in the lower garden close to the ravine. She was on the side closest to our big ditch where a birdbath has been sinking. She said she thought she’d move the birdbath and attempt to fill in the low place. I said okay and she started toward the spot, turned around, and crossed fifteen feet of yard with three steps, climbed a curly willow tree, and hung onto a branch. I wish I’d snapped a photo, but I was on the ground laughing too hard to get up. I knew she’d just seen a snake.

She was down the tree just about as quickly as she’d gone up, and described a “big black snake, I mean half a foot around and four feet long” stretched out along the base of the birdbath. She shivered a little and went back to her project. The snake had taken a high-speed exit to the ravine and Cindy was happy. I was still laughing.

 

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Dina with Cindy in Florida.

We didn’t hug or get close, hadn’t for months, but she had vacationed in Florida a couple weeks ago and was now extra-distancing. She was a big hugger, as were her brothers and sisters. She always visited Grandma until Covid took over the land. Sometimes she brought presents. We missed the hugs.

Cindy was a fixture around The Compound for at least seven years. She tended our lawn and gardens once a week. Sometimes she helped move stuff. She painted and wallpapered my studio. She’d jump on a ladder and change a lightbulb or clean a fan. She shampooed carpets and upholstery a couple times. One year, she volunteered to clean the windows because, you see, she’d mixed up the “most awesome” cleaner. I don’t know what the mixture was exactly, but the windows sparkled.

A graphics designer in the past, Cindy felt a special calling to run her own lawn and garden business. She might have weighed 100 pounds, but she was tough as nails. She said she owed that to her Puerto Rican DNA.

Family was everything to the Santana kids.

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Dad and Step-Mom visit with Dina, Cindy, Cathy, and David

They’d lost a sister, two brothers, and their mother. Maybe those losses made them cling even tighter. Then Cathy’s son died a year ago. That was really tough. Now this one.

 

I don’t know how we’ll memorialize Cindy, but right now the huge patch of wildflowers, zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, and sunflowers pay homage. Cindy and I decided on planting a “pollinator garden” a couple years ago, so we just let the grasses and whatever grow up in that patch, bloom, and feed birds, bees, and butterflies–and whoever else shows up to eat. She made me buy lots of sunflower seeds.2020-06-22 08.25.06 (1)

 

That patch will go to seed this fall. I’ll collect and sow them next spring. The volunteers and self-seeders will grow again. I’ve got some sunflower seeds and someone in my online gardening group said to go ahead and plant them.

Dave and I wanted to send food to the house last night. I finally settled on Publix fried chicken and all the sides, but when I got to the deli, the clerk said they’d have to fry some more. I didn’t want to wait, so I rounded up a boneless ham, potato salad, baked beans, green salad, rolls, and two pies.

The sun was going down when I pulled into the driveway. The sunflowers–the Alaska Mammoths, American Giants, wild ones, and all the rest–cast long shadows in the cloudy sunset, every head bowed in sorrow.

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Things I’ve Kept

It’s a daunting task, this cleaning out of Dad’s books and papers. The job would go faster if I could resist reading everything that looks interesting. A few months ago, I found, on a shelf, a small cardboard box labeled “Things I’ve Kept.”

I opened it to find a used-up air freshener jar, two empty after-shave bottles, a thousand business cards, four wallets, three key cases, assorted key rings, a used battery, a floppy disk, eyeglass lenses, two pair of sunglasses, a tiny New Testament, a silver Western belt buckle, a clothes brush, a hairbrush and more.

Yeah, I chuckle about that box then remember my own  “keeping” habit. My collections include bottles to be transformed into painted vases, corks, tissue and paper towel rolls, medicine bottle and rusted metal parts I might use in a collage or a mobile. Most of the time, some art teacher wants some of this stuff but I don’t part with the rusted pieces.  I’ve loved making the mobiles–just want to be sure to have materials in case my muse visits.

And then there are the bags of seeds in the freezer.

Dad was a gardener. The berries he planted long ago yielded a couple gallons of strawberries and another of blackberries. Dave begged me not to plant vegetables this year, but I couldn’t help myself. A friend and I planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, bush beans (Dad’s favorite Pickin’ and Grinnin’), basil, and butternut squash. The rest of the space where Dad had full rows of everything looked so bare that we threw native plant seeds all over where grass and flowers co-mingle into beautiful gardens looking a bit like the English style.

It’s trouble keeping up with the gardens around this big old place. Dave still waters, but Dad always helped me with tilling, hoeing and harvesting. I look at my prolific plantings every day, but I still miss some cucumbers and they grow too large before I find them. That happened to Dad, too. He didn’t see well for several years, so I helped him find squash, beans, and cucumbers.

One day I found five foot-and-a-half zucchini, yellow squash so overgrown you could use it for a ping-pong paddle (if you could slice it up), and cucumbers I needed two hands to carry. I laid out all of them on the grass and hollered at Dad working in his shop.

“Hey, come look what I just found.”

He moseyed out, grinned when he saw the bounty.

“Well, those are inedible but I kind of hate that you pulled them off the vines.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was saving them for seeds,” he said.

There’s a jungle in the strawberries now. Dad always kept the grass out. I try to rehab them but I got a late start this spring. I fail miserably at weeding when the humidity rises, but I keep on keeping on. My fingers get stiff and I wear a brace on my left hand. My hands are broad like Dad’s. I remember how those hands grew too stiff to weed when scleroderma attacked, so he hoed rather than pull.

Scleroderma is an ugly disease. Dad progressed to severe stomach problems and legs so unreliable he fell about once a week. His esophagus hardened into a long tube with no muscle action. He lived on protein drinks. He fell several times outside. Somebody always seemed near to help him up–one of us, a neighbor, the garbage truck driver, or the mail lady.

A couple years ago, a rheumatologist diagnosed my sudden inability to walk as an attack of polymyalgia. Usually polymyalgia symptoms disappear with a few days of a low dose of prednisone. I was immobile for only four or five days, but it took the lingering symptoms several weeks to abate and then with increased dosages of the corticosteroid.

Dr. Lyons told me that I had some form of inflammatory arthritis but that I did not screen for the rheumatoid variety. I hadn’t heard of such a condition, but I followed her treatment protocols and I feel okay most of the time. She also told me it was not unusual that I would turn up with these symptoms given that Dad had scleroderma. Dave says I have LupusLight.

***

In my file cabinet, I have several files labeled “Keepsakes.” If I allowed someone to look into those files, they’d find letters, special greeting cards, kids’ report cards and immunization records, college admissions paperwork, my own transcripts, a few torn out magazine articles, and jokes I’ve loved. In my desk, you’d find a gazillion business cards if I hadn’t pulled them out a few weeks ago.

It seems I’ve kept a lot of Dad, some inherited, some channeling I suppose. There’s the gardening thing, small hoarding issues and stiff joints, business cards, things I can’t part with because I might need them sometime, and things I want to always remember.

I pulled everything out of Dad’s “Things I’ve Kept” box and sorted it into giveaways, throwaways, and “Keep.” I kept a card from 2001 labeling Dad Chairman of the Smith County Democratic Party for some meeting at Legislative Plaza and a couple of campaign pins. I also kept an index card printed by Dad’s hand on one side and cursive writing on the other.

Side 1: Living according to God’s law enables us to live as God made us to live, taking our place in the created order with eyes opened to God’s glory.
Side 2: 1-24-2010. Psalm 19 reminds us that we are a part of a big world. The author invites us to look beyond our small selves to discover how God is at work.

Dad always allowed the freedom to translate anything he said in order to apply it to our own lives. I know I’m going to read Psalm 19 to see how it speaks to me.

Most of The Things I’ve Kept won’t fit in a box.

IN the Ravine

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We always knew someone in The Compound would fall in the ravine. Lord knows Dad tried. He decided in 2010 he would cut brush and clean up the vines on the bank; you know, “clear the land.” He devised the perfect way to enter and exit the big ditch. He routinely lowered a tall ladder (a really, really tall one) over the edge of the bank and propped it against a tree on the steep side of the ravine. Before descending, he’d throw all the tools he might need somewhere near the ladder. When he finished with a tool, he reared back and threw the tool onto level ground.

You haven’t really lived–or maybe come so close to dying–as feeling a hatchet whiz by your head while peacefully attending the weeds in the lower garden.

I yelled as soon as I heard the whoosh of the ax. “Dad! You almost got me!”

He shinnied up the ladder, and when he finally saw me, said, “But I didn’t.”

Dad stopped his forays into the ravine a few years ago. I admit I was a bit relieved. He  warned me, “Don’t get too close to that ravine. That ground is soft. You don’t want to fall in.”

The vines returned; Virginia Creeper, Japanese honeysuckle, wintercreeper, and a few muscadines. Brush re-established; same old non-native privet, pokeweed, winterberry, and thistles. We keep them controlled for about two feet off the back yard, what we can easily reach. We’ve also seen a fair assortment of plants whose roots or bulbs Dad tossed over the edge including Rose-of-Sharon, iris, cannas, and a couple berry briars.

This past May, I noticed a bunch of  one- to two-foot Royal Pawlonia sprouts in the area where we’d taken down the tree several years ago. We’ve watched the grounds carefully since the removal of the offender, so I was surprised to see the scary little crop with the pretty purple flowers. Royal Pawlonia, or Princess Tree, is wildly invasive and spews out millions–no, really, I mean millions–of seeds every year. If you want to find out how bad it really is, just look it up in your Wikipedia.

“Dave,” I said, “you’re going to have to spray those little purple trees or we’re going to have hundreds of them full-grown before we know it.”

He chose to fertilize the roses and eradicate the Pawlonia shoots on a Sunday about 1:30. I knew he was tending to roses, but I did not know he’d loaded up a sprayer to kill the tiny trees.

I put on what I call my painting clothes, dug weeds, and had just gone upstairs to Mom and Dad’s apartment to tend to some needs of our old folks when I heard the special tune on the phone.

“Hello, I know it’s you,” I said to Dave.

He answered, “Help, I’ve fallen into the ravine and I can’t get out.”

“What do you want?” I asked my usual first question when he starts with some (lame) humor.

“I want you to come get me out of the ravine.”

“So what are you doing in the ravine?” I chuckled a little.

“I was spraying those purple things.” He blew out hard.

“You’re joking, right?”

His voice gained decibels. “No, I’m not joking. You have to come help me.”

“Well, I’m not…” I started to tell him no way was I going to go in with him. “No, wait, are you hurt?”

“Yes, I’m hurt,” he said.

“I’ll be right there.” I stuck my phone in my pocket and called to Mom in the kitchen, “He’s not kidding. He fell in the ravine.”

I hurried down the steps of the apartment and ran over to the edge of our beloved big ditch. He was lying on the bank in a mostly-vertical position, the spectre enhanced by a bush with little white flowers wreathed around his head. I saw blood.

“Where are you hurt?” I called.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think you’ve broken anything? A leg? Arm? Shoulder?” I asked.

“I don’t think so, but I can’t get up the bank.”

“Okay, let me just…” I tested three places on the ground above him. All were soft.

“I think we better call 911. I can’t get down there,” I said.

“No, don’t call them. Go get Don.”

I called our next-door neighbor, hoping he’d be home.

When he answered, I asked, “Don, are you at home?”

“Yeah.”

“Dave has fallen in the ravine. We need help.”

All the other times I call him, Dave is headed his way with soup or ham or pie. He could have been disappointed, but he was there in what seemed like two seconds.

“See that stump?” I asked. “He’s just to this side of the stump.”

Don called down to Dave to check his condition. I whispered, “I think he landed on his face. There’s a lot of blood on his face.”

“Have you got a long pole?” he asked.  I don’t know what I gave him, but he told Dave he was lowering the pole. “You grab on and I’ll pull you out.”

Dave struggled to hold to the pole, and when he finally got it in two hands, his feet gave way to the slippery slope.

Don turned to me. “I’m going down.”

“No, don’t do that,” I said. “Then I’d just have two of you down there. Dad used to go up and down on a tall ladder. Maybe we should try that.”

“That’s right. Where’s the ladder?” he asked.

“Propped against the side of the garage over there.” I pointed. “I’ll help you.”

“I don’t need any help. I can get it,” Don said, but I still followed a few steps behind him. He picked up the ladder. We stopped at the edge and looked down. “I don’t see anything to prop it against.”

“What’s wrong with that stump he just face-planted?” I asked.

“Dave, I’m lowering the ladder right next to you. Do you think you can get on it if I prop it on that stump?” Don asked.

“Maybe,” Dave answered.

After two unsuccessful attempts Don said, “He can’t get his feet on the ladder.”

“I’ll go down on the ladder and pull him onto it,” I said.

Don was quick to stop me. “No, then I’d just have the two of YOU down there. I’ll go down.”

“I’m on the ladder,” Dave yelled.

“Did you get on it? Can you climb it?” Don asked.

At the top of the ravine, Don grabbed Dave and pulled him up.

“Thanks, Don.  Dave, honey, come on, get in the van. We’re headed for the ER.”

He staggered after me in the garage. I threw a towel in the passenger seat for him to sit on.

Southern Hills Hospital is a mile and a half from us. We were there bloody, muddy, and generally nasty but triaged and in a bay in no time.

I looked at my watch. 4:30. My friend Peggy and I had a Lyft scheduled at 6:00 to take us to Schermerhorn Symphony Center to see PostModern Jukebox. This was the second time I’d bought tickets to PMJ. The first time I was ill and, even though I tried, no one used the tickets. The current set of tickets was a birthday gift to my friend and I had already reneged on another trip (another story) so I was determined. (I’m trying to pre-explain why I did what I did later.)

I messaged Peggy. Dave is in the ER. Fell in ravine.

Peggy:  Is he hurt?

Me: I don’t think it’s too bad. I mean, he’s bloody and all that, but the doctor ordered x-rays and CT. They just came and took him to x-ray. He’s got a big gash on his face.

She asked more questions about his condition and then finished with No way we can get to the Schermerhorn on time. 

I was quick. We’re going to see PostModern Jukebox.

Peggy:  I’m dressed. I’ll wait until you tell me to leave home. The drive from Readyville to our house is about forty-five minutes.

After the CT scan, I was relieved to know that all Dave needed was a few stitches across one side of his face–the side that hit the stump. (He’d already started planning a story about how he got the scar in a bar, his favorite tale, something about defending my honor.)

I messaged Peggy. We’re going to go to the concert.

Peggy: But you’re not dressed. Didn’t you say you had to get in the shower?

Me: I can make do. I’ll hurry. I’m going to call Darrin (Dave’s son–mine, too). I should have already called him. 

I messaged the whole story to Darrin and Dana, ending with, “So can you come and pick up Dave and take him home? They’re about to sew up his face and I’ve got tickets to PMJ.” I knew Darrin the Drummer would understand.

I turned to Dave.  “Honey, do you think it would be okay for me to go home, get dressed, and go to the concert?”

“Sure,” he said, “but you’ll need to bring me a vehicle so I can drive home. Maybe Peggy could bring me the van while you get dressed.” He really hadn’t thought that she’d need to get back to our house somehow.

Peggy answered my earlier text. I don’t see how.

Me: Come on, we’ll figure it out. 

I received a return message from Dana. Darrin is on a plane. (He travels for work.) Do you think it would be okay for me to bring Evan with me? Evan is their very active three-year-old.

I wouldn’t, I answered. What if you just came and picked him up? He can call you when he’s ready.

“Is that okay, honey?” I asked Dave.

“Sure,” he said.

She called. “I can pick him up. Tell him to call me and Evan and I will come and get him. I’ll stay with him for a while to make sure he’s okay.”

I told her I needed to leave like, right now, and to text me when she got Dave home. She told me to go on and have a good time.

At home, I threw off my filthy pants and shirt, washed my face and reapplied deodorant, sprayed some dry-cleaner on my hair followed by a some fluffing, and found some clothes decent enough to wear. At least I think they were decent enough.

Peggy yelled “I’m here” when she came in the door.

I was still in the bathroom. “You have to take Dave’s wallet to him.” I rushed to the bureau where he kept his wallet.

“To the emergency room?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, handing it to her.

While she was gone, I had plenty of time to smear some makeup around and grab earrings. It wasn’t my regular routine, but I declared it finished.

In the Lyft vehicle, I looked down to see that my feet looked like they were still in the dirt. I had two wipes in my purse and used both of them. My feet weren’t perfect but they were “better than they were,” one of Dave’s favorite sayings.

***

We arrived at the Schermerhorn just in time.

I checked messages every few minutes. No word from Dana. Finally, I texted her to ask how things went. She thought she had already messaged me. She said things went fine except… Oh my god Diana he looked like an ax murderer.

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What a show, what a show! PMJ was all I thought they should be and more. At one point, I gave thanks for Dad’s ravine trips up and down the ladder, for Dave’s willingness  to allow me to abandon him in his hour of need (he really wasn’t that bad off, okay?), for Dana’s pickup and delivery, but especially for my man’s survival with less-than-could-have-been injuries.

So, maybe the thanksgiving was after the concert when I got home to see him sitting in his recliner watching one of his favorite shows.

“I got all but about two of those little purple things,” he said.

I love that man.

***

 

TomTom is gone.

I have grieved but not nearly as much as my dad. He made friends with the little grey and white kitten the first time TomTom crawled up the bank from the ravine. Dad was working outside and talked to his new friend every day until the cat was no longer afraid of him. Tom might have been six months old, or maybe just four. 2016-05-05-18-15-04

While Dad strolled around the Compound on his morning walk, Tom followed. Every chance he got, he rubbed Dad’s legs, sometimes winding between them to almost trip him. Dad learned to shake him loose. Tom didn’t mind.

One day I asked Dad if he had seen the tomcat that morning.

“Is he a tomcat?” he asked.

“Yes, he is.”

“You can tell?”

“Yes, I see some things that indicate to me that he is definitely a male.”

Dad named him TomTom, one of his favorite names for cats. He bought a little sherpa-lined bed and stuffed it into a protected spot on the apartment porch. Mom included Meow Mix on her grocery list.

TomTom chose Dave next. One morning, after he took the recycling cans to the street, Dave announced that Tom had let him pet him. I’ll admit I was a bit jealous.

“Well,” I said to Dad, “if that cat is going to stay around, I guess we better take him in for shots. And we need to have him neutered.”

I found a good community clinic with reasonable prices and told Dad I would give him Tom’s veterinary visit for his birthday. He was pleased. Tom wasn’t.

I borrowed a hard crate from a friend and set it outside–“so Tom can get used to seeing it.” Tom took off and didn’t appear until three days later when I returned the crate to the garage. We decided Tom had seen a cat-carrier, probably up close, at least once in his lifetime–and wasn’t fond of the experience.

My hairdresser told me she favored a soft-sided case, that it was easy to sort of “stuff the cat in and zip it up fast.” I started to purchase one, but my daughter-in-law said she’d loan me theirs. I figured I’d give Tom’s reluctance a couple weeks to subside.

He wouldn’t sleep in his little bed on Mom and Dad’s porch, so we moved it to the main house’s porch beside the den. He still wouldn’t use the bed, but he curled up almost every night on one of the wicker chair cushions. During the day, he’d walk or sit with Dad, stroll in the gardens, and nap in the sunlight on the bank or in the shade of one of the porches. He drank from a birdbath that I always filled with fresh water. He hunted up and down the ravine, the old home place he returned to at some point every day.

I started a morning-treat ritual with Tom, and he grew to like me. I gave him a small piece of meat or fish, and when I had no leftovers, I pulled out a small container of purchased cat food that I always kept on hand. After the appetizer, he climbed the steps to the apartment steps and finished off his bowl of Meow Mix.

Tom loved to aggravate our little Shih-tzu Murphy by meowing at her through the glass door of the den. She was always willing to growl, yap, and fuss at him. When Dave took her out for her bedtime walk, Tom either followed them down the street, Murphy barking and pulling at her leash until Dave had to pick her up and carry her away from the cat. Or if TomTom was already sleepy, he’d maybe open one eye from the middle of his warm, curled-up self and totally ignore that silly dog.

About the third week into our newly-cemented relationship, Tom began to walk into The Cellar when I’d open the door. He’d make one loop around the small kitchen area and then he was ready to get back outside. He also let me pick him up. He wouldn’t stay long, and he wiggled, but he didn’t really fight it, and he never scratched me.

I figured he was ready for the trip to the vet.  Easy-peasy this time.

I never got him there.

The last time we saw TomTom was right before the New Year, a couple of weeks after I’d sent out the Christmas newsletter where I included this photo of Tom sitting on a rock in the rose garden. It was also just about the same time that the neighborhood coyote sightings began. First, a woman posted that she’d seen a three-legged coyote. Next, another neighbor spotted one. One family came upon three in their back yard.

I put a Missing Cat notice on our neighborhood website. Several friends and neighbors told me, “He’s just tom-catting around. He’ll be back, and when you get him fixed, he’ll stop that.” In my heart, I knew he wouldn’t be found, wouldn’t be back. In my heart, I knew if TomTom could make it home, he would. He wouldn’t give up his morning ritual, he wouldn’t want to sleep anywhere else but the wicker chair, and he would never choose some other entertainment over tormenting Murphy.

It took me several days of missing Tom to put the pieces together, maybe because I didn’t want to. Actually, Dad said it first. “The coyotes got my TomTom.”

My post is still up on the NextDoor website. Last week, a sweet neighbor replied with a list of places to post notices for a lost animal. I wrote that I thought the coyotes got Tom. She replied she was sorry, and that she’d still look for him.

This morning, Dave spotted a coyote between two birch trees on the edge of our ravine. He said it wasn’t the three-legged one, so that meant there are at least two. I told him about the three seen together in the back yard a couple streets over. He hadn’t seen that post.

So here’s what I wrote on my Missing Cat thread this morning:  “I’m going to take this post down tomorrow morning. A coyote was in our back yard just now. Everybody, watch your animals.”