It's raining again today. The weather somehow reflects my impending mood.
Yesterday was hard to deal with with my Rose's loss still lingering around
me. I refuse to wallow in the grief that I felt, the words of the many
friends who wrote and called me when I posted and called about her passing.
Rainbow bridge encouragements, and then out of necessity, searching every
JPEG I had in my Paint Shop Pro files of EVERY picture I had of her and
transfering them to their own folder.

The words from my vet who assured me that she had died sadly, quite
horribly, but irreversably so. Something I never knew about. A sneaky
insidious killer called Bloat. Their comforting words came yesterday on
card......."Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me
as if I were beside you. I loved you so.....'twas Heaven here with you
while I was here."

After receiving the card, upon rising, without her shoving me into the
corner all twisted in my El Mondo Grosso California King waterbed, Sugar
greeted me all sad and somber eyed. No encouragements to get her big butt
out of bed and motivate. If not just to the couch or futon.

I padded thru the house, Sugar right behind me in silent need. So I bent and
stroked her and told her what a good girl she was and how much I loved her.
No wag of tail. She was deeper in mourning than I was. But she too will get
over it. I have at least pictures and memories to fill my heart with.

Outside, something I didn't expect. Blue skies and some hesitant sunshine.
All the flowers deeply soaked and dappled with raindrops. But cool. Not
hot. So much to do with the remaining time I have off, my mood was not
there to do what I know is necessary. I went outside to the deck, letting
Sugar come with me instead of shutting her inside.

I have Ichiban eggplants planted in the long plastic window box that I
filled so much with fall bulbs last year. Out of three long boxes, only one
has survived with bulbs intact. And youngest son who has begun his own tiny
balcony gardening with herbs to cook with had expressed his desire for me to
grow him eggplant. I already had Mr. Stripy tomato's in a large tub and
encircled in dogwire growing with some last minute shoved in seeds from a
broken package of Italian round zucchini. But where to put them?

So the logical solution once I got the plants from work (the last two, by
the way of the whole season) I noticed that sunshine hit the northern end of
my west kitchen deck rather nicely despite the Pawlonia tree's limbs and the
new maple tree reaching for the railings. So in a moment of inspiration and
spontaneity I carefully pawed thru the soil, and hit bulb about three inches
down. Healthy bulbs.

Then I said what the heck, and gently plunked the two eggplants into the end
of the long box on top of the bulbs, and top dressed them with compost from
my working pile next to the Oak Leaf hydrangea. They've rewarded me with
producing glorious huge purple flowers with yellow centers and now there are
three eggs.

I stood there and was amazed at this. And my soul stretched and the fairies
whispered healing words into my mind, and I started looking around the deck,
noticing things. All the humidity and heat and rains have teased the
frustrations of the many cacti and succulents and houseplants into their
sense of well being again. All the dust from the winter and early spring,
all the tight, poor soils are loose and refreshed and saturated. Even the
cactus are enjoying the moisture. Their clay pots drain and they derive
nourishments from the water, pumping out new growth on the ends of tired
bodies. Some even I considered dead and needing removal surprising me with
new growth amidst the dead spines and remains.

I look at the Chicken Peace rock garden. Chicken for the hens and Chickens
that Micki sent me from Kansas of many different hues and textures and
varieties and names. And Peace for the cool fake rock that sweet Gloria and
her hubby, Bobby brought me when they came to visit and see the
madgardener's constipated fairy beds as a gift.

I sent them home with pieces of Bog Sage, a hunk of Amsonia montanaii, she
brought me a baby cross of a hibiscus and it grows nicely in the middle of
the ocean of Lamium.

The Rock garden part is self explainatory as the semps need a fast draining
home. The garden itself is inspired by another gardener who has tried to get
me into bog gardening. Which by the way is hidden behind pots of daylilies
I got from Miz Virginia Davis the other day when taking Diane to lunch with
me and had to take her past her house to see the blooming lilies in her
awesome yard.

I came away with plants......again. Only this time, instead of plugging them
in everywhere, I carefully planted them into large nursery pots of Miracle
Gro soil I got half price when I stopped after lunch at work looking for a
torn bag. That was the last incident I had with both of my girlz. As I
closed the locked door, the temperatures were in the mid nineties, asphalt
was hot, I felt myself tanning as I stood there, reaching for the ring of
keys on my belt loop that ensured me that I had the extra key to open the
door......and realized that there was no truck key on the ring.......... I
went to the other side where Rose sat looking at me and I called to her to
encourage her to sit propped up against the armrest like she always does,
who is the REASON I carry extra keys because she's locked me out a few times
when her elbow pushes the button.

She smiled at me, as if to say "hey, I'm cool in the air conditioning, Sugar
is in the back, you just take your time, ok?" She wouldnt' do her trick. No
way. So out of desperation (yes, the back sliding window I had the put in
the truck just for her was locked too and the side windows on the back doors
were closed and latched, of course) I called my car dealer friend we'd
gotten the truck from in 1999. He came out with a friend and they jimmied
the door open, and taught me how to get in if locked out.

But there was that huge bag of torn Miracle Gro which was the reason I'd
stopped. Specifically for the daylilies I knew were waiting in buckets at
home. Standing there on the side porch, I saw the bag was half empty (yes,
not half full, I've used quite a bit of it, and I'm not THAT optimistic!
g) and remembered how I carefully mixed the soil with sand and peat moss
from the broken cube I'd gotten from work a few weeks back, just for that
purpose.

Standing there, thinking of these things, my eyes wander and caress what I
come across. The Emerald sanseveria is telling me all this rain has
accumulated under the clay pot into the closed, decorative pot I sat it in
and needed emptying. I did so automatically, dumping the rain water into the
pots just under the overhang that only got wet if the rains blew sideways.

The tomato in the large pot is huge. And all leaf. No fruit. I must have
mixed the soil too rich and there was too much nitrogen. All the cacti are
bulking up even with all the rains. The dead ends of all the trees from the
17 year cicada's are even more evident in the grey tones of the day, and I
stand on the wet deck listening to the drops on the trees around me.

The silence comforts me. It's not a true silence, as it's never really quiet
except on snowy nights, but still, there is a stillness here that soothes my
soul and makes me ache and at the same time, start to heal. I wouldn't have
felt this in the city with noises of traffic around me. The occaisonal
sleepy notes of passing remarks from birds grumbling in the extreme dampness
cuts thru the revere, and I catch myself listening to everything around me
more.

Sugar has quietly toenailed it across the deck and gone out, rather
forlornly to do her business and she's in no mood to check things out. I
have the feeling she is out of sync without Rose. They'd go off to potty
together, and even if Rose left her and came back without her, they still
went out together. Before I realize she's gone, she'd back, gazing up at me
like she expects to somehow dissappear like Rose has. It's kinda spooky. I
know she'll get over this but it's still a ponder to me as to what the dog
is thinking in her little brain. I know she senses the loss. Last night I
came across an 18 second mini movie that my camera makes if I push the
button over, it just eats up battery and I don't do it often. But I have
this one that I kept that did right. I titled it Rowdy girls, and it's Rose
and Sugar garbling and playing and snarling and as soon as I clicked onto
it, Sugar jumped off the couch over in the den and came running and was
looking around. She knew that voice. I won't play it again. It's not right.

The rains started up again and I decided to go get my umbrella and take rain
pictures of the flowers. I ignored Sugar and she wandered off for a brief
time as I went thru the motions of recording some good rain drop on flower
pictures. The light was perfect for capturing the blossoms and the umbrella
protected the camera from the rains.

The lilies are almost done. Their heavy oily fragrances wrapped around my
sweet Rose as she slipped away and now the yellow ones are dropping their
petals, revealing the fertilized stamen on the ends of the stems rising
above my head to seven foot. I'll cut off the ends soon, as it weakens the
bulb to set seed, but for now I'm amazed to find the few remaining Lucifer
crocosmia tucked under the rampant Korean spirea that is eating the eastern
end of the front bed poking thru and blazing red bird like mini trumpets are
shouting up at me.

Another red grabs my eyes and it's Bruce. My tetraploid daylily. He's
finally forgiven me for dividing him a few years ago and is recouperating.
Two awesome pictures of heavy rain dropped Bruce go on the photo card.

Grape colored bee balm looking more like wet purple mop heads hang over the
edge of the front bed near the car. Some support is desperately needed, I
thought I lost them. The spirea shoves everything out of it's way. I'll
have to pull some out or lose what little there is left. What a strange bed
this has become. Fuzzy pink catapillar like flowers that are truely amazing
when photographed up close, but walking about the whole bed like some
drunken shrub. Intent on claiming the whole thing for itself. The towering
lilies above the twisted branches almost hilarious if they weren't so
beautiful, and dots of the few remaining perennials. The little Salome
daylily, the grape monarda, I lost the white lily with the turned back
petals that looked like flying birds and can't remember the name.

The swamp sunflower that seeds like coreopsis and towers like pampas grass
has seeded itself amongst everything. I neglected to pull the plant up
before it cast it's seeds, and the finches made quick buffet of them and
left me more than enough for the next crop this year. I need to pull some
out of face even triple or more of them next year. And tucked among those,
thick, fleshy stalks of magenta 4 o'clocks. I pull them out, hearing them
thunk like ripe watermelon, knowing I've not gotten the black tuber but just
set the thing back by a few weeks. It'll return.

Sugar has returned, damp and imploring for me to love her. It's not hard. I
know she needs it more than ever, and I notice I've been joined by the
felines. The hard core ones that don't mind a little rain. Well, a LOT of
rain. Pesters is impervious to rain. He's tough for a mini cat. And Polluxx
the hair bag doesn't seem to mind too much as does Piquito. So it's the
three stoogies outside bothering with me, or mocking me as I bend over,
holding an umbrella that won't close over me, taking pictures of my flowers
in the rain, and I realize the fairies have done it. They've distracted me
and taken my mind and heart away from my grief. Even when I come across the
spot where Rose died, I still look at it and know that she was just trying
to be with me and she was surrounded by my flowers and my love as she left.

It's time to go inside and download the pictures I've taken, and Sugar is
more than willing to go in now, and slips thru the front door and wait for
me to follow her.

and the rains come tumbling down harder.................

madgardener up on the soaked and drenched ridge, back in Fairy Holler, where
ordinarily there would be English Mountain but there are only clouds, in
Eastern Tennessee where I've gotten about 6 inches of rain in the last three
days now and it's still raining....zone 7, Sunset zone 36

OMG... this is so beautiful. wondering who wrote this.

My sympathies to you on your loss.

take care
Liz



On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 01:34:51 -0400, "madgardener" wrote:

Their comforting words came yesterday on card......
."Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me
as if I were beside you. I loved you so.....'twas Heaven here with you
while I was here."