rockybane's Blog

Bittersweet Memories and Exciting Futures
Jul 29, 2008 | 9:39 PM PST
Tags: peonies , surprise lilies

Well, tomorrow promises to be a bittersweet day. I am usually not a very sentimental person. I have always been more of a que sera, sera type of person. But.....

We are having an old house on our property bulldozed down so our daughter who is getting married can move a mobile home onto that spot. It's a beautiful site, with lots of trees around the old house. It holds some sentiment for me, as well, as it is the house my mom and dad lived in for 14 years until my mom passed away. My dad remarried and moved to his new wife's home. This is the last home they lived in together, and my oldest daughter lived there with her husband when they first got married, and then after that my husband and I and our other children lived there for five years until we moved into our new home we live in now.

It has sat there empty for twelve years now, and the house itself is falling down. The floor is falling in and separating from the walls, which makes me nervous about even being inside it. But as you might imagine, we had things, stuff, junk, piled inside that we thought we might use some day. So we moved some of it out, and the rest will go down with the house.

For the past few weeks, in our spare time, we have been doing things like taking out the windows, taking off some of the cabinets and doors, taking down the doors, stuff in the house that was still useable.

I was sitting here this evening making lists of what else needed to be done to the house when I remembered that there were flowers growing right up against the kitchen, all around two sides.

Daffodils around the front side, and grape hyacinths on the south side. Also a lot of a small gladiolous type of flower that I always meant to dig up and never did. There is also a wildflower that my mom had tamed and had growing on the south side I would like a start of. And then......by the front walk, which I think is going to be bulldozed off as well, is a bush of white peonies and some surprise lilies, and a little white flower that blooms in the spring and spreads like crazy, but I like them. There are even a few rogue tulips scattered around the front porch.

There is a lilac bush in the yard, forsythia, and a bush we always called "fire in the bush", I don't know it's proper name, red honeysuckle, flowering almond, and iris, and another whole bed of daffodils, but they are located where the dozing won't bother them.

Call me lazy, I am. I have always meant to go dig those flowers up, but never could remember to do it at the proper time, which is probably in the fall. Now, with the bulldozer coming tomorrow, I am going to go ahead and dig up as many of those flowers I can find. If I don't, I'm afraid the bulldozer will scrape them out with the old house. I have some of the same flowers already in my yard, but I don't have any peonies, and those little gladiolous type flowers are gorgeous, and I hate to see them pushed over the hill.

Anyway, it promises to be exciting, tiring, and there will probably be a few tears. Exciting  that my daughter, who was two months old when my mother died, will be living in the old home place, (and close to me, I can't deny I like the thought of that). Tiring for all the work of digging and  demolishing that will take place, and the tears, that my mom's old house will be forever gone, leaving us with bittersweet memories and exciting futures.

Storms
Jul 22, 2008 | 4:43 PM PST

Wow,  just read Bill's blog and saw all the damage they got from the storm. I'm thankful they and their house are OK.

We had a thunderstorm here today, it got so dark the neighbor's street light came on.  The lightning was awesome, one strike after another. It ran in on our telephone line and blew apart the telephone jack. The computer was unplugged, so it escaped, but the phone isn't working now, so dug out an old one, letting it charge and hope it will work. We have our cell phones, so we can call out, but most everybody that calls us uses our  land line. Actually, it's not an all bad thing, since I don't like to talk on the phone much. I sure hate to be out the price of a new phone, though.

It got my MIL's TV, my granddaughter was at her house visiting and said a red fireball came out of somewhere and went right over their heads. Said Grandma grabbed her hair and screamed.

I am glad it rained, it was so hot and humid the last few days, it made us feel a little bit sick to stay outside in it very long. The temperature dropped about 30 degrees and it was really pleasant for awhile. My hubby says the humidity is coming back up, and the weatherman says we might get more storms.

My plants liked it, they all look perked up, they love that natural watering.

Later

Everyday pleasures
Jul 15, 2008 | 8:12 AM PST

It's a beautiful cool morning here. It's starting to heat up, but it was chilly this morning, and yesterday morning. Very unusual for July hereabouts.

The grandkids stayed the night, and they're already clamoring to go to the creek and go swimming. Our little creek is spring fed, and it takes warm nights to warm the water any, and it's still cold where the springs run in, so I have a feeling granny will be sitting out this swimming session on the bank. I say that, but it's a known fact in my family that when I get anywhere close to the water when it's summer, I have to get in.

The hostas my calves ate are actually sprouting forth a few new small leaves. They look kinda pitiful, but they answered the question of whether they would come back or not. I knew hostas were tough, but I thought they might just wait until next spring to re-sprout. Probably thanks in part to the overabundance of rain we've had this year.

Of course the impatiens that I had planted in between are coming back, they are something else that keeps on keeping on, until the frost takes 'em out.

My zinnias are just now starting to bloom, I noticed in another blog their zinnias are just now blooming. I think mine is because I have them planted right in front of the house, the west side, and they don't get any sun until noon, but I love them there, so whenever they bloom it'll be OK. Next year I think I'll plant a large bed of them on the other side of the house and see how they do.

I have a huge backyard that doesn't have much in it besides grass, a basketball goal, and a trampoline. It's always been where the kids play, so I've not planted much back there. The kids are grown, the grandkids that are here every weekday are getting older and don't play so much anymore, just the b-ball goal, so I think plants would have a much better chance at surviving there.

Gotta go, the creek is calling........

Little Boy Blue..........
Jul 11, 2008 | 8:51 PM PST

come blow your horn,

the sheep's in the meadow,

and the cow's in the corn.......


Our cattle regularly find a hole or loose place in the fence, and come into the yard. We run them back through and we find the place and fix it.

I've never minded much, since they usually eat the yard down while they're in it. You know the old saying, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Well, it is greener and more tender in the yard, I can see why they want it. They also leave piles of fertilizer behind. I'd rather not have it quite so fresh, but it works anyway....LOL.

If they would eat the grass and be satisfied, I wouldn't get so upset, even with the manure dotting the yard, I can put up with that, it's fairly easy to move after a few days, but no, they like a little variety, and that's where they get on my last nerve.


Through the years they have eaten my tubs of impatiens now and again. And almost every summer they stick their heads over the fence and eat the tops out of my Rose of Sharon bushes. And last fall they broke my young southern magnolia tree in half, and I thought it was done for, although this year we've had so much rain, it has bushed out with new leaves, and may be even prettier than it was.

They're better than the hogs we used to raise, I don't think there was a fence made that would keep the young pigs in, and they absolutely loved my daylilies. They rooted up and ate every one they could find, until I was down to 2-3 little plants. Now the daylilies are back thicker than ever.

But, back to this week. Sunday morning we had to take the son back to Kansas City to catch a plane and we were gone all day. When we got home, the calves were in the yard, again. I didn't think much about it. We ran them out of the yard, and couldn't find where they came through, so didn't worry about it right then as we were both tired. The next morning the calves were back in the yard again, and standing around my hosta bed. Hubby ran them out of the yard again, and I went to look at my hosta bed, or what used to be the hosta bed. They had eaten every hosta, and every impatien I had planted in between. I'm gonna try to post a picture of what my hosta bed looked like the last of May, it was really starting to look lush...They had also been in a few other flower beds and stomped or eaten where and what they pleased.

I could have bawled.

I said "I give up"

I said "I don't care"

It was our fault, for just running them out of the yard and not finding out where they were coming through, but I was so mad at the little boogers that I felt like steak for every meal.

Anyway, I spent the first few days in a blue funk, and fixing fence, and wondering why on earth we have cattle......I  was never going to garden again, I said my time was worth more than that.........and of course, I went back outside today, and looked over what was left, and started planning what to do to the bed, my fence, and decided to start concentrating on making my yard "cattle proof" , not worrying about what has happened this year, cause wish as I might, I can't change it one little bit.

And try as I might, I can't quit gardening and wanting to grow things, wanting to make my yard a little bit of something pleasant to look at and live in.

It's an addiction.