The smell of death

Sometimes things in the country happen that are very sad.

Yesterday as I headed out, I noticed a small buck deer lying in the field. He seemed to be watching traffic.

I passed my husband in his truck a few thousand yards away and we stopped to chat before parting ways. He noted the deer in the field, too.

Later he called to tell me that he had driven his truck up in the field to check on the deer. When it didn't move, he investigated further.

The poor little deer had been hit by a car. His back legs or back was broken and he could not move.

In another decade, my husband might have come home and loaded his gun and put the poor creature out of his misery, but in the New America, the land of the police state and lack of common sense, where everyone is just waiting to pounce on you and put a picture of you on Youtube, you don't perform acts of compassion. You call Animal Control and let them do it because otherwise you could be charged with a misdemeanor and heavily fined if not jailed.

My husband called me to tell me the poor deer was not just watching traffic after all. He described the scene to me and I felt shivers up my spine.

When I drove home and I passed the spot where the deer had lain, I was sure I could smell death.

It definitely colored the day.

Thursday Thirteen

Here are 13 things you would see in my yard this morning:

1. Another partially eaten bar of Irish Spring bath soap, courtesy of some critter that is supposed to find it repulsive. Instead the creature now has lovely smelling breath. This is the third bar that has been gnawed upon.



This was the second bar, not the third, to have been eaten.


2. Six-inch high sunflowers. I planted these a few weeks ago because my zinnias and marigolds had short lives, courtesy of a rabbit. I put a fence around them. I am hoping for bright sunny flowers before frost.



These are zinnias that were coming up well before the rabbit decided it needed a salad.


3. A rabbit. There he goes, hopping through the front yard. The other day I bought a box of Trix, the first time I'd purchased that cereal in years, and found the rabbit sitting on the front porch by the door. Silly rabbit.




4. Four blue spruce trees. We planted these trees about 20 years ago. My mother took us and showed us some trees we could dig up. After we'd put three in the truck, she said, "Better hurry, this isn't part of the property we just bought." We thought it was, of course, and were surprised to find out otherwise. Our stolen trees have prospered.



Birds like the blue spruce.



5. A single blueberry. Last year we planted a small Concord grape vine and two blueberry bushes. One of the blueberry bushes died. The living one has produced a single blueberry.

6. Doves. I hear them cooing in the mornings. It is a comforting sound.

7. A ripening tomato. Like many local gardeners, I've been fighting blight/fungus on my tomato plants, but I do have some on the vine. One is starting to turn a little yellow. I can hardly wait for it to turn red.

8. Green beans. My beans, which are of varying variety, are doing very well. My husband planted the beans for me and didn't mark which ones were the pole beans; they should have been staked out better than they were. They nearly throttled a tomato plant with their fast-growing tendrils before I rescued it with some wire and retraining of the vines.

9. Queen Ann's Lace. This weed grows in the fields all around the yard. This is actually the tops of a wild carrot, which I did not know until I looked it up a while ago. Folk remedies use this for contraception. Learn something new every day.

10. Clover. Our yard is not exactly the greatest. We have a lot of weeds, clover and wire grass.

11. Bees. I have seen a few honey bees this year, for which I was grateful given that last year all the talk was about honey bees dying out.

12. Forsythia bushes. These are great in the spring, when they burst out in yellow. In summer they are a nice shade of green. Ours are overgrown along the driveway. My husband leaves them like that so that in winter they will serve as a snow break to keep blowing snow from the road. They do that job fairly well.



Forsythia in the spring is one of my favorite sites.

13. Me! You'd see me out there, waving at you as you pull up the drive! Then I'd bring you inside and we'd have a cup of tea.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is number101!

26 States

Put an X by the states you have been to. The average is 8; how do you match up?

Should you choose to play, here's what you do:

Copy this. Delete my Xs and add your own. Change the number at the top, and add your title. Send it on to others if you want. I'm not going to do that but if anyone does this please feel free to let me know in the comments.

Just for fun, put an O beside the states where you have lived.

Airports don't count!

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona x
Arkansas
California x
Colorado x
Connecticut
Delaware x
District of Columbia x
Florida x
Georgia x
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas x
Kentucky x
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland x
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska x
Nevada x
New Hampshire
New Jersey x
New Mexico x
New York x
North Carolina x
North Dakota
Ohio x
Oklahoma x
Oregon
Pennsylvania x
Rhode Island
South Carolina x
South Dakota
Tennessee x
Texas x
Utah x
Vermont
Virginia O
Washington
West Virginia x
Wisconsin
Wyoming x

Most of my traveling was done when I was much younger; I haven't been out of Virginia in several years, and I haven't been beyond South Carolina since 1993.

I need to get out more.

I am like a deer

Saturday as I headed to my compost pile, I thought I heard a noise in the woods.

After dumping my items in, I ventured down into the woods.

Something slunk before me and vanished into weeds.

A black cat, I thought.

To my left I saw movement, and then the noise like the rusty sound of a door opening. A turkey's head bobbed and weaved. The black animal had disturbed a hen.

She moved back and forth a while as I stood still, watching. Then she too vanished.

I moved forward a few more steps, now to investigate the wine berry bushes.

To my right I heard a rustling noise. I paused. Suddenly there was a snort, followed by a flash of brown and white. A deer dashed away.

Moving on, I discovered a rounded spot in the leaves up against a fallen log. Obviously, a deer had lain there and I had disturbed it.

This morning as I sat picking quarts of green beans, I listened to the songs of birds. They chattered, sang and serenaded me while I contemplated life's turmoils and thought about how best to spend the rest of my day, week and life. Heady thoughts for 8 a.m.

By 11 a.m. I had picked 6 quarts of beans, cleaned the oven, cleaned 8 sets of mini-blinds, washed and put away two loads of laundry, and spent time on the phone with important folks like a mentor, a lawyer and my accountant.

Here is it now, noon as I write this. The sun is burning hot and I'm already pleasantly tired. The day still beckons me toward other activities. My mind still churns and wanders.

I am curious about everything and scared of it all.

I feel great empathy for the deer.

A Writing Group?

I am seeking a few folks interested in writing in good ol' Botetourt County so we can start a little writing group.

Fellow bloggers might have some interest in the topic, so I'm tossing it out there.

The goal would be to work on our writing projects that aren't blogs, of course. Fiction. Nonfiction. Short stories, novels. Poetry. Whatever.

Critiquing would be on the project (not the person) and hopefully would be helpful on multiple levels.

To my knowledge there is no writing group in this county aside from the newly-formed Poet's Corner that is meeting at the Botetourt libraries quarterly. I attended their first meeting and it was fine, and I will go again, but I think quarterly is too far apart for the meetings. They should be monthly.

Personally, I would like to meet every other week or so.

There is a writing group that meets in Roanoke called Valley Writers. It is part of the Virginia Writers Club.

In the 1980s (or thereabouts) I tried to attend their meetings but found it so political and full of bickering that it was an insufferable experience. I understand this is different now. For one thing, I know Becky at Peevish Pen is the Vice President, and she is in the Roanoke Valley Pen Women with me, so it can't be all bad.

Sometimes I think about going. But, I find driving to Roanoke at night to be something I am not eager to do. I have trouble with my night vision sometimes and the older I get the less inclined I am to make the trip.

So I was thinking something a little closer to home might be a good idea.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Fincastle Fireworks

Every year, Willie Simmons, along with his wife Brenda and an assortment of helpers, give the Town of Fincastle a fireworks display for the Fourth of July.



The Town of Fincastle handles donations for the fireworks. At the event, they pass a hat and every year around May a call goes out for additional donations.



Donations pay the entire cost of the display.






This year's display was exceptional. For a small community, they do a bang-up job celebrating the founding of this great nation. This event definitely deserves applause.

HAPPY JULY 4!

Thursday Thirteen: No. 100

I can't believe this is my 100th Thursday Thirteen! That's a lot of weeks to come up with 13 things about many different topics. Whew!

To celebrate, I'm going to list 13 things about my favorite color.

1. The sky. Honestly, now, can there be anything more lovely than the atmosphere above our good Earth?



2. The Blue Ridge Mountains (they're not REALLY blue but they look like it, or used to, before pollution began distorting that wonderful tint of oxygen from the trees).




3. Jeans. It is really hard to beat denim.

4. My husband's eyes. Definitely one of my favorites.


(My husband at the beach beneath a blue umbrella, with his eyes hidden.)


5. The newest M&M, at least in the M&M dark chocolates that I eat occasionally. It tastes just like the other colors, by the way.

6. Cotton candy. I haven't had any good blue cotton candy in a very long time. I must get to the Buchanan Carnival and rectify that.

7. Blue iris. I love the blue iris, but unfortunately I don't have any in the yard blooming any more. I did but they either died out or were choked out by the yellow iris.



(This iris was at The Fincastle Library.)

8. My desktop. I keep a solid blue background on my desktop (old Windows default, I think it is), and that suits me fine. I find pictures and multiple colors to be a distraction.

9. Labels. Many of my favorite foods have blue labels (which says something about advertising, doesn't it). Miracle Whip and Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls and other Pillsbury products immediately come to mind, as does the Tony the Tiger Frosted Flakes cereal box.

10. Book covers are often blue. My Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus has a blue cover, as does my Oxford Essential Writer's Reference, my 2004 Writer's Market, my Freelance Writer's Guide, one of the Harry Potter books (The Half Blood Prince, I think it is, without getting up to look), and a book called Elvis in Oz, which is a bunch of short stories put together at least 15 years ago by writers at my alma mater, Hollins University.

11. Glassware. I don't have much blue glassware but my mother used to have some. I loved looking at it. I am not sure what happened to it.

12. The ocean. I almost forgot about this big chunk of blueness on the face of the world! The lull of the water, the feel of it, the smell of the salty sea. Ah, that's a vacation calling, isn't it?




13. Last, but not least, I will mention a blue violet. Not because it is a favorite flower but because it comes with a memory. When I was in the 6th grade, our class took a trip to Williamsburg. On the way home, we stopped at a K-mart and were told to buy presents for our family members. I purchased a small blue violet for my mother, which I carefully and proudly took home to her. She nurtured it well, and it sat in the window sill for years.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 100th one!

In Velvet

Adventures in Gardening June 2009

Here it is, the last day of June. My flowers and gardening is ongoing. Some plants are in full bloom.

Alas, last night something, I presume a deer, stripped all the leaves and blossoms from one of my roses. It is but a bare stem now.

Marigolds and zinnias, sprouting in May from seeds I planted, disappeared.

This puzzled me until last week when I saw a rabbit nibbling at my newly sprouting sunflowers (planted to make up for the lack of zinnias and marigolds). Apparently my small seedlings made a good salad. I had hoped for a lovely bounty of beautiful colored flowers. I wanted to watch them sway in the breeze and feel their life and color breathe some liveliness back into my soul.

Alas, they are gone. Hopefully netting will keep the critters from the sunflowers.

But my pumpkins I planted about 10 days ago in the flower beds are flourishing (they have fence around them).



And my rescued mums bloomed in the whisky barrel:



My 40 cent geraniums, saved from the clearance bin at Walmart, are thriving.



And the garden is looking pretty good despite its small size.



That's zucchini, watermelon, corn and cucumber visible, with tomato plants and pole beans in the rear. You can't see the bush beans or the kale. Maneuvering in that small space is getting difficult as stuff grows. The best part is there are so many vegetable plants growing in there, the weeds can't find a toe-hold!

Green Beans

When I was a little girl, my mother worked a full time job in Salem, about a block from where my grandmother lived on East Riverside Drive.

Each summer, we stayed with Grandma. Mom would drop us off on her way to work, come to see us and eat lunch, and then pick us back up on her way back to Botetourt.

My grandmother did not drive, ever, so we walked everywhere we went.

Each Friday, we walked several blocks to Front Street, meaning my grandmother, her youngest son, Jerry, who is a year younger than I (and born on my first birthday, no less), and my brother, who is three years younger than I. Sometimes Junior, my grandmother's second-to-youngest son, went along. He is four years older than I.

The purpose of the weekly visit was to do hair. Grandma would set and roll Great Aunt Neva's hair. Sometimes she'd put in a permanent. Sometimes we were joined there by Great Aunt Susie, and she would have her hair done, too. Grandma, in turn, would have hair done by one of her sisters.

Always, Aunt Neva had a pot of green beans cooking on the stove. To this day when I smell green beans I also smell hair permanent.

For those who may not know, southern green beans simmer on the stove for HOURS. And I mean, all day.

There must be no crunch left in those suckers before they are considered edible. They are also cooked with fat back or ham, and are best if they are little greasy going down. They must have changed color from vibrant, bright, alive green to dull and dark green, too.

Today as I snapped green beans and prepared to cook them for HOURS (because that is the only way my husband will eat them), I thought of Aunt Neva and how the smell of green beans simmering in the kitchen always reminds me of her.

Aunt Neva never made it past the fourth grade, but she read every single word of The Roanoke Times, including the legals and want ads, every day. She did not miss a single advertisement or any word. I don't recall her ever reading books but she devoured the newspaper.

She was married to Sam Ellis and they had several kids. We called one Scootchie and I have never known his real name. The other was Lionel, who married Darlene, who was my mother's first cousin on her dad's side, so my mother's first cousins ended up marrying each other even though they were not related. Aunt Neva also had a daughter who teaches piano up in Radford, I think. I could be confused on that, though.

I really need to get this part of my family history.

Anyway, one of the children was Sidney. Sidney had epilepsy and he was thought to be mentally retarded. My mother said as a child he was fine but he either had a seizure that left him disabled or they gave him medication that messed him up badly. I never did not know the whole story.

Most of my Aunt Neva's life revolved around Sidney. He required a lot of attention and care and she did not hesitate to give it to him.

I don't know that I could be so selfless.

It's not Friday, but I am cooking green beans and thinking of my great aunt. My grandmother passed away two years ago, yesterday, so I am thinking of her, too.

Isn't it wonderful what food can do?