Category Archives: family

The smell of dust.

agriculture, family, other gardens, , , , , ,

About five this morning three things happened. I woke up in my sister’s house, which lies in the neighborhood of my childhood, along one of the thousand plain, unlined roads that make rectangular grid lines of themselves through the orange groves.

A mockingbird began to run through his upbeat repertoire outside my window. I was surprised at this, because I never heard them as a child. I wondered which local species he was imitating at the coolest moment of the day, 73 degrees. He didn’t sing for long.

About the same time that I saw on the forecast the prediction of 108 degrees today, I heard the whole house fan come on and start blowing all the previous day’s residual hot air out of the attic and all the rooms. In the summer my brother-in-law turns it on as soon as the outdoor temperature becomes cooler than that under the roof. It really lessens the need to use the air conditioner.

But tomorrow morning there will not be enough cooling off to work this system. While I was driving away in my air conditioned Subaru and toward a more coastal destination, the Central Valley was turning into a furnace. Most of the next ten days over 100 and four of them above 110. 

As I lingered with my brother’s family over dinner last night, we talked about various people we knew who were leaving California for one reason or another. Somebody’s mother had moved here years before from Missouri but had to go back, because she was always sickly in California. Was it the dust? Everyone around the table agreed that the dust can be oppressive.

After dinner we went outside where the children ran on the lawn, and I admired the way the succulents thrive at my brother’s place, in the heat, yes, but under the shade and frost protection of the patio roof. Certain plants love the climate, and of course that dust blows off the fields that are in between plantings such as I saw on my drive in: cantaloupes, tomatoes, corn, alfalfa, cotton…. That Valley dust feeds the nation!

It’s also a component of the air of which I breathe deeply when I visit in the warmer seasons, the scent of my childhood. That air is like a caress, and a tonic, an atmosphere to sink into. The late evenings are the loveliest time to sit out, after the sun has gone down and air has lost its oven-like personality. One wants to stay up for hours recovering from the day’s fierceness, and not go inside where the air may be cool, but it’s artificially so.

At the end of today’s drive, I arrived  in the southern reaches of the state in a place where the ocean influence is felt morning and evening. Windows and doors are open so that soft breezes can blow through my hosts’ house. I picked up granddaughter Annie at the airport, and this weekend we’ll go to her cousin Pat’s wedding in San Diego. 

Today’s photos are all from my brother’s place, which is the house I grew up in. He has made a lot of changes, but it’s all good, and more pleasing every time I visit. Tomorrow, more family to visit, more gardens! Stay tuned…

Vaporous lists form and drift…

family, travel, writing, ,

That idea I grabbed onto last month, to make lists when I’m incapable of the kind of prose that would be more satisfying to writer and reader, has not worked well for me.

Maybe it boils down to priorities… life is too short to dash off an easy type of list when one might instead use the precious moments to 1) Think on how to make just one list item more beautiful,  or 2) Forget trying to preserve in writing anything in particular from the experience or contemplation, and just BE. Play one more game with the children, sit on the deck in the dry and sunny air — or sleep!

But now, near the end of my stay in Colorado, out of desperation I’ve condensed a few thoughts into words, at the extreme boring level, the list of lists to write:

LIST of LISTS to MAKE

  • Big and little ways Soldier and Joy are kind and generous to me.
  • Additional friends and family I’ve been able to see while I’m here.
  • Books the children and I have read together.
  • Names of the children’s dolls and stuffies.
  • Plants that the Seek app hasn’t been able to identify.
  • Delicious meals that Joy has made.
  • Darling things the children have said.
  • Topics of helpful and informative conversations I’ve had with Soldier and Joy.
  • Internet links and articles to follow up on.
  • Walks we have taken.
  • Species of willow trees.

Maybe I won’t get around to writing even one of these lists — think of that!

Glory to God for all things!

I write what (little) I know.

family, humanity, writing,

One afternoon when I was sitting on the sunny deck (still in Colorado for another few days) to read my book club book, Laddie came out and stood close by, searching my eyes and smiling his shy smile. He commented on how I wasn’t making much progress in Frankenstein. I teased him, “That’s because every time I sit down to read you come and talk to me.”

“You could go in your room and shut the door,” he said.

“But I like to talk to you, Laddie. It doesn’t matter if I finish this book. I can read it on the plane when I leave here.” Then we chatted for awhile, and more children came and went and climbed up on my lap and down again. Quickly and often the innocent and sweet conversation erupts into loud squabbling, but eventually equilibrium is restored and we go on.

The flowers and creatures that I typically focus on here are complex and fascinating, but they are nothing so glorious as the human soul. When that inner person is glimpsed in the clear eyes and honest, unselfconscious tenderness of a child, I so wish that my powers of attention and description were better, that I could convey to you something of this child, this unique personality.

If I put up a photo of a flower that I encounter, along with not much more than its name, it doesn’t grieve me that I have failed to “capture” and convey its complexity and deep beauty. But when it comes to people, everything I might say seems like an unworthy reduction and distortion.

When I was the parent bringing up my own children, my thoughts were naturally more on training and teaching, and forming the character of the children. Now that is not my job, and I am at more leisure to observe and enjoy each grandchild as he is, at whatever moment I am present with him. Since none of them lives near me, more and more the most important thing I can do to affect their future is to pray.

With my limited writing skills, I will continue to tell you about the birds and the flowers.

(Photos from previous years and younger grandchildren.)

My Colorado explorations.

family, wildflowers, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Royal Penstemon

I’m the opposite of bored here in Colorado with my son’s family, but I have had a terrible yawning problem since I arrived ten days ago. It must be the altitude (7300′), which I will blame for the sleepiness that comes over me at times, too.

Today was the least yawny and sleepy. Soldier drove us south a bit to a lower elevation, where we also enjoyed warmer weather while we played around at the Royal Gorge. Maybe everyone has heard about this canyon above which a suspension bridge was built in 1929, 955 feet above the bottom, where the Arkansas River flows along a single railroad track.

It was another happy chance to identify wildflowers and plants.  I’ve been doing that a lot.

Beardtongue Penstemon

This penstemon called Beardtongue is all over around the Gorge.
Also cholla cactus and prickly pear.

Starvation Prickly Pear

Cholla

There were a lot of fun things to do at the Royal Gorge park. We all rode the gondola across the gorge, and before walking back across the pedestrian bridge the children played on giant slides and tunnels, and rode the carousel. I took pictures of plants — and grandchildren, of course.

Clara

All week I’ve just been hanging around with the tribe doing much of what they do, or merely observing the more rambunctious activities of the boys, and listening to little Clara’s feminine conversation.

The cold and rainy weather has passed. The last of it was the evening we sat bundled up with coats and blankets to watch Liam’s Little League game out on the plains. Now the temps are moving into the high 70’s, and I can get sunburned sitting on the deck so close to the sun.

Mullein

Desert Madwort

Stemless Point-vetch

Many of the wildflowers I’ve identified are scrubby looking sorts with the most diminutive flowers. Also the beautiful blue Royal Penstemon at top, which we discovered just down the path from the karate studio while Liam was in class, along with purple Stemless Point-vetch. Magpies, robins, flickers and Mountain Chickadees flit and sing among the pines and firs and spruces that grow thick in the neighborhood.

Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine

Just at the edge of the back yard is a giant clump of White Willow trees where the boys play. Laddie told me about the Bible studies he likes to have with their rabbit stuffie in particular, on a rock in the middle, encircled by more than a dozen trunks arching up and away.

Yesterday everyone was digging and planting in hills and boxes, so I gave Brodie one of his birthday presents early: a pair of kids’ work gloves. He wore them all day, long after all the work was done, he loves them so.

Brodie

A wolf spider with an egg sac was disturbed by the digging and ran away from the squash hills. This evening while I was with Clara under the play structure in the back yard, I saw a Cutworm Wasp digging a hole in the sand that had escaped the sandbox. I decided not to show you the wasp’s unremarkable photo, but will close with the spider, because that sleepiness is coming over me again, and tomorrow is another big day. Happy June!