small gardens & small government

  No music to lubricate the keyboard as I type this blog. Last night Deb and I listened late into the night (mighta been 10 - 10:30!) to a compilation called REBORN TO RUN the 35th anniversary of mustang (Which I could find no information on but here is a good snip from it. ) Along with some Eagles and Allman Brothers, we were a couple of giddy kids. It really doesn't matter how old you actually are when you hear music from your 'time', you return to that time. Harsh reality is back then I wouldn't have known how to talk to a hot girl like Deb. Heck - didn't know how to talk to any girl. So the music was great but it's good not to delude yourself. The Buddhist say there are two realities. Reality as you perceive it and reality as it is. Confusing the two and you're liable to pull a muscle or something. 'cides I'm liking living in this moment. I got the girl!   Couple of days ago was up before the heat weeding the local Bermuda grass out of a front pl...

   Being a grown up sucks! It's full of responsibilities. You have to do things and be concerned about family, friends, even yourself. Just came home from taking Cooper to the vet to have a large fatty tumor removed.  For those of us without children pets fill a good piece of that void. With both children and pets adults are faced with making decisions on their behalf. Some decisions are easy like "let's go for a walk" and need no deeper conversation. Other decisions, well, you wish you could have a deeper conversation if only to assuage your guilt over the pain and reassure them it will be OK.   I wrote the last blog about the, underlying and joined, libertarian principles of Rights and responsibilities. In a bit of kismet Deb and I visited Standing Bear Park in Ponca City. I knew nothing about Standing Bear we were simply following a suggestion of a good place to walk Cooper. The walk was nice but the interpretative pieces of the park were in a bit of disrepai...

   I'm looking out at a sea of green, muted with a fog. The fog likely spells rain and no outside chores today. For today the only music is the chirping of the birds and the buzz of hummers diving past me to the feeders. A man with a plan could accomplish much before any rain or heat slowed him down. Me, I'm pondering 'apathy', the last few sips of my coffee and remembering fondly my year bartending at Guthries on the  harbor in the Virgin Islands.  The ponder might be apathy - might be detoxing. Apathy gets a bad name but has apathy ever started a war? In my younger life Dewars was the fuel for problems. For the world I think it might just be doers. As I write that I have to immediately temper it with recognition that some doer created and made this laptop. The morning would still be as beautiful without technology but the the peace would be broken with the sound of me chiseling on a stone tablet. "Honey, I'm running out of stone could you get me some more!...

  Red Dirt Road is a song by Brooks and Dunn that tells the story of growing up down a ... Me, I grew up in the 'burbs no dirt roads of any color in sight. I'm listening to Garth looking out of a window at a good rain that portends to last a couple of days. The mobile home that Deb's sister, Eileen, has kindly put us up in is cold today and the tea kettle has already been whistling a couple of times today. The mobile home is on her acreage near the tiny town of Agra. The location is both literally and figuratively a description of the song. Although today that road is likely 'The Red Mud Road'. I wisely got my only chore, a trip to the Post Office, done early today and Deb has kindly set me up with a laptop so that I can happily tap out this blog and sip tea. The Bishop women are generous and kind.  Another example of the Bishop women's kindness is outside my window. Deb has set up her late father's bird-feeders.  This morning a spectacular Cardinal was si...

 You always hear about going from 0 to 60 as a measure of life suddenly requiring you to get busy. I've just realized I am about to enter a piece of life where I go from 60 to 0. It was disconcerting!  My life of late has been unusually busy with three basic threads twisting around each other to form a tow cable that is, well it feels like 60 mph on a skateboard. The three threads in order of importance are Deb's sister has cancer and Deb is understandable letting the likely death of her 'little' sister affect her own health. Into that has wound moving my 97 year old mother from an assisted living property. The property was best described by my father (before he died there) as "These people will never get their act together". The third thread is selling our house and moving. Moving is simple to write and certainly less important in the scheme of things but equally time consuming and mentally taxing.     Deb is right now down visiting with her sister and dealin...

 When you listen to enough Country music I guess it's natural that the songs begin to describe your life. Now in my mind I think of myself as in my 20's a 70's outlaw country fan. Ah the good old days Willie, Waylon, and the Boys will ride forever - but the modern stuff has more than a few artists worth a listen. Luke Combs is one with his song " Forever ". His song being something of a bookend thematically with Carly Pearce's "Didn't Do". My life is changing and confusing these days but damn the music's good. Well, my CDs are packed up at the moment so I'm relying on YouTube. Thus the music is good with lots of commercial interruptions!  When I owned apartments I was often faced with the decision of of 'how good of a repair' did I want to pay for. Quite often I erred on the side of fixing it like I'd 'own it forever'. That wasn't always the perfect choice but it does leave you feeling good about who you are. I ca...

  The walk with the dog this morning started with a smile. The neighbors 4 houses to the south, Brandy and Jared, are the type of folks who really overdo it with decorating for Halloween. Flying witches, front yard gravestones the whole nine yards and with a tip of the hat to the harvest season a couple of bales of straw with corn stalks and some jack o lanterns. After Halloween I noticed the corn stalks and a teeny tiny straw bale out with the trash. My notice was heightened as I had just watched a video extolling pumpkins as great compost material. The pumpkin idea was a mixed thought as I was thinking next year I would try a pumpkin out in my unloved area by the alley. Additionally my sister Donnell was about that time scouring her world for funky pumpkin seeds from Halloween leftovers to plant come spring. So it was kinda pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins on the brain. Pumpkins sure but here was a tiny bale and corn on the stalk announcing itself as trash.  I rang the doorbell...