I awoke last night to the sounds of wind chimes and fairies laughing and
dancing in the spring evening. I got up, quietly, so as not to disturb
Squire and the regular cats who tuck themselves in at their favorite spots
on our large, warm waterbed, and immediately the newest feline, Polluxx, who
likes to sleep on a pillow near my head, got up and asked me where we were
going. I whispered to him to keep quiet and not wake Rose up and maneuvered
around the corner where it's tight. (there's a chest of drawers too close to
the corner of the bed).

I let my eyes adjust to the night, glad that we live on a dead end with no
street lights and only the aggrivating mercury light Miz Mary had installed
years before we moved here at the rear of what would have been her property
near the pasture and our driveway. If I could, I'd shoot out that light. I
like the natural darkness. I see enough encroaching light pollution from the
transplants now as it is......

Rose didn't stir from her deep slumber, and I padded quietly thru the
hallway and down the step into the music nook towards the back room, and
opened up the door off the balcony that Squire and son built that is now
crowded with large shade loving tropical plants that made it thru our dry
house winter and listened to the night. The air was scented with something
that was sweet, and I remembered seeing orange way up high yesterday over
our woods amidst the dead and brown pine needles, and realized that the
Tulip poplar is perfuming the night air with all the other flowers me and my
fairies have planted around the sloping ridge.

I have hung the glass windchimes at the corner on a plant hook that I
rigged over the railing, and I shivered in the cold mountain air and
listened to the tinkling of the glass as the wind fingered each colored
piece. Thru that, I could hear the sounds of the night shift. And as I
listened past the whooshing sounds of the interstate thru the trees and
hillside behind me, blocking out the big rig's jaking down as they took the
curve towards the east towards North CArolina as the interstate narrowed
down at I-81 and I-40, I could hear the male mockingbirds singing as loud as
they could, indifferent to those of us who would like to sleep at this late
hour.....proud that they have fledglings and can contain themselves no
longer. I can almost picture the females sitting there wanting to tape their
beaks shut so they can get some sleep while the chicks are
asleep.........little rolling pins in feathered hands as they knock them out
so they can snooze for a few hours with one eye open for snakes and other
harmful things intent on their children. My mind is an amazing thing
sometimes....

The air was colder than I'd figured, and I glanced down to see a dark cat
had discovered I was up and was visiting with me in his normal hours.
Pesters, and looking around at my feet, I saw that Polluxx hadn't followed
me onto the balcony, but had abandoned me to go do whatever he did at night
since joining our family months prior. It was me and Pest right now. He
was happy with it. He had me all to himself.

I got the obligatory "please love me" as Pest stood on his back feet and
stretched towards me, pawing me gently, and I picked him up without
thinking, under his armpits and laid him over my left shoulder as I always
do in a little routine that is usually done in the driveway while Rose is
going to pasture, and he started his whacky purr and allowed me to bestow
the affection he needed for the 65 seconds before needing to touch the
ground again. Almost five years and he does the same thing every time. He
just doesn't like to be up in your arms for too long.

I stepped back into the warmer room off the cold planks of the deck, glad to
feel the warmth of the house from a day's sunshine still held under the
roof, and made sure no one was out on the deck to be stranded when I closed
the door (they have discovered how to get UP onto the deck from below but
not how to get DOWN the same way). No one was on the small balcony, and I
shut the door again.

I then walked thru the room and opened up the nook door and stepped quietly
outside onto my little wooden sidewalk and just stood there against the
railing and looked towards the NSSG, or where I knew it to be. Little fairy
parties were everywhere. You could almost hear the laughter as they slipped
thru the leaves and under the branches ladened heavy with flowers. This was
going to be a quick maneuver, as my skin was protesting the warm and cold
with massive goosy flesh.

The varigated Japanese knotweed catches my eye in the darkness, and as cold
as it was, I walked over towards her and looked down at where I knew she was
at and smiled. I felt the tickle of someone brushing past me to assure me I
wasn't alone and it was my little buddy, Pesters. But this time, he was on a
mission. He'd located Polluxx and was going to hook a little bone with him
in the driveway and slid past me like soft velvet. He hasn't attained that
roughness of his fur from the dust baths he so dearly loves yet. He has skin
problems and adores to roll himself in the driveway dust until he's no
longer black but a strange shade of something else. It seems to help him in
his itching and he so enjoys it. I could already hear the muffled crys of
them as they tumbled and lunged at each other like brothers, scuffling and
rolling and cavorting with each other in cat games. I smiled knowing what I
couldn't see because they do it all the time.

My toes were protesting and I knew that when I slipped back into bed, the
cold loving Squire would even be in protest with the depth of the icyness of
my toes and hands, but I wanted to see if I could locate just one flower in
the semi darkness. I moved a bit quicker across the planks, my feet
remembering the risen nails on the tired boards, the sagging one that
desperately needs replacing near the other den door, and up onto the cold
concrete of the dog run that runs along the back of the front raised beds.

I mumble about the Korean spirea that I can see in the glow of the light
down the driveway and make mental note that I HAVE to pull some of it out
soon. It has all but taken over way too much now and I know by freeing up
the soil, I can put other sun lovers in the places. If they transplant,
fine. If not, compost them I will, as much as I love the little pink fuzzy
catapillar like flowers this bush has become quite a strange problem now.
The rich, loose raised soil has encourage it to tromp thru a good 20 feet
area and I know if I don't stop it now with some pulling, I will have a
front bed invaded with this spirea. I keep moving, my mumbling amuses me as
I realize I've passed under the bedroom window, because I hear the sounds of
Squire sawing huge logs inside.

There is nothing like slipping quietly past familiar flowerbeds in the dark
of night. Shapes are incredible. And the familiarity of them takes on a
specialness that I can't quite explain. The whacky spikes of the lilies are
punctuating the beds everywhere once I get past the spirea. What looks like
grass I know is the montbretia crocosmia that Diane gave me that I poked a
circular flower support over in early spring for some stem support of the
flowers later on. And larger spikes are the healthy leaves of the old
irises.

The odd little ladders are the metal trellises that Squire pulled the
daylilies and lamium back from the edges of the sidewalk in his attempt at
reclaiming the sidewalk...I can almost hear him when he showed me what he'd
done...(this has occured since he started doing more things OUTSIDE) "honey,
look, I would LOVE to be able to WALK down MY OWN SIDEWALK to the driveway,
and I didn't hurt your plants, but they've TAKEN OVER..........so I pulled
them back and pinned them with those glass topped trellises you brought from
work, and it looks good, doesn't it? I mean, I WANT my SIDEWALK BACK!!!!"
Later when he wasn't watching me, I trimmed up the foliage of the lamium
(Herman's pride) from the bricks I'd lined the edges of the sidewalk with,
repinned the trellises better and closer, and pulled leaves from where
they'd gotten caught behind the metal, and swept and cleaned up the edges
better and made him happier. He never knew I repinned the plants a bit
better. g

The sweetness of the air had wrapped around me, and it had to be the tulip
poplar blossoms. I have now realized that I haven't the one tree, but three
possibly four of them blessing me with their height and leaf and flower on
the seven ninths of an acre we have. I will not walk around past the garden
fountain, swing and back across to the kitchen deck, it's trecherous with
the rocks and stuff that needs picking up, and my toes remind me of this as
I stop at the end of the concrete behind the wisteria/kerria japonica/sweet
Autumn clematis spot.

The walk is trecherous now, the cleaned up front has temporairly gotten a
bit way layed as Squire made a fatal mistake on the garden fountain. He
used 6 mil plastic for the liner and then the old waterbed mattress, but he
forgot to lay a thick layer of sand under the plastic first and will have to
put a real pond liner down now as it refuses to hold water in the main
trough that supplies the trickling fountain. It's still a neat thing, and
there is still a little pool of water holding true at the first pool before
it cascades off a small waterfall into the trough of water, and once he
fixes it with a real liner, it will gurgle and bubble and be neat again. But
when he lifted the old piece of waterbed mattress out, he thought he'd clean
it off and see where there was a leak and it lies there still just in front
of the cat window in the livingroom. And my toes remind me there are garden
tools and garden hose to feel for as well. I go slowly and stop.

I stood quietly, and gazed past the foliage that is all around me. There is
a madness to this garden that I see needs a hand at controling it. I know
the fairies will be disappointed when I cut a few things back, pull a few
things out, but unless I want a total jungle, I have to do this to at least
keep paths to walk thru. The evil little ticks adore this chaos, and I
can't have THEM...

The mercury light gives out too much light, but I finally see what I wanted
to see before slipping back into the warmth of the house......bats. Bats
doing a ballet in the cold night air as they honed in on the nocturnal
fliers drawn by the light of the street lamp. I listen and I HEAR them
somehow, even though I know their squeeks are higher and we aren't supposed
to hear them, I can. Somehow, even if it's in my own mind, and I watch them
soring so fast, snapping up unsuspecting moths and such as they're only
focased on the light and the bats are focased on them. I picture in my mind
fairies holding tight to them as they dip and sore thru the cold air just
bouncing off the glow of the light, and almost hear peals of laughter as
they swing close.

I stood there for how long I can't tell you. Well, my toes were well numb at
one point and I knew time had quite slipped away from me as I stood
transfixed by this night air dance. Slipping back into the living room door
onto the soft carpet, I stood for a moment and listened to the sounds
outside and knew sleep would come to me with dreams of fairies dancing under
the flowers and leaves.

As I got to the bedroom, I heard Rose lifting her head up from the chain and
tag she wears, as she pulled out of a dog dream and the thump thump thump of
her tail told me I had truely fooled her. She thought I was returning from a
bathroom run...good. I slipped under warm covers and snuggled up next to
the ol' furnace, Squire and carefully kept my icy hands from giving him
cardiac arrest with them, but he still woke up with quite a cry of "GOOD
GAWD HONEY, have you been in the FREEZER??????!!??" I had to stifle my
chuckles as I pretended sleep and spooned against him, and hoped my toes
didn't cramp up on me and eventually his wall wracking snores told me I
hadn't totally awakened him and I tucked those ice hands against him and
started slipping off to sleep to dream of flowers and fairies and yellow and
orange bowls up in high boughs of trees as his warmth drew the night cold
out of me. And somewhere, back in the corners of my wandering mind, I
envisioned fairies riding the backs of bats, dipping and soring with
lightening speeds past globes of night light playing air games, netting
moths.

The smells of sweetness drifted thru the open window on my side of the bed
and wrapped around my back and over to my face, just as Polluxx slipped back
in and settled himself on the pillow by my face and that's where I slipped
off............................

madgardener up on the sweetly scented ridge, back in Fairy HOller,
overlooking a tucked in and sleepy English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee,
zone 6b, Sunset zone 36

Hey, Girl! Don't know if you remember me or not. I was living in
Alabama back when I was on newsgroups. I used to talk to Paul Onstad
alot before he died. You and I used to chat a little in the groups.
Was looking for you the other day when I got back into news and didn't
see you until I did a scan of the groups. I have to log into Google
to get the news now because Outlook won't let me post.

Well, trying to find an answer on some weird koi pond stuff. Talk to
you later!

Carla Goodloe

"madgardener" wrote in message m...
I awoke last night to the sounds of wind chimes and fairies laughing and
dancing in the spring evening. I got up, quietly, so as not to disturb
Squire and the regular cats who tuck themselves in at their favorite spots
on our large, warm waterbed, and immediately the newest feline, Polluxx, who
likes to sleep on a pillow near my head, got up and asked me where we were
going. I whispered to him to keep quiet and not wake Rose up and maneuvered
around the corner where it's tight. (there's a chest of drawers too close to
the corner of the bed).

I let my eyes adjust to the night, glad that we live on a dead end with no
street lights and only the aggrivating mercury light Miz Mary had installed
years before we moved here at the rear of what would have been her property
near the pasture and our driveway. If I could, I'd shoot out that light. I
like the natural darkness. I see enough encroaching light pollution from the
transplants now as it is......

Rose didn't stir from her deep slumber, and I padded quietly thru the
hallway and down the step into the music nook towards the back room, and
opened up the door off the balcony that Squire and son built that is now
crowded with large shade loving tropical plants that made it thru our dry
house winter and listened to the night. The air was scented with something
that was sweet, and I remembered seeing orange way up high yesterday over
our woods amidst the dead and brown pine needles, and realized that the
Tulip poplar is perfuming the night air with all the other flowers me and my
fairies have planted around the sloping ridge.

I have hung the glass windchimes at the corner on a plant hook that I
rigged over the railing, and I shivered in the cold mountain air and
listened to the tinkling of the glass as the wind fingered each colored
piece. Thru that, I could hear the sounds of the night shift. And as I
listened past the whooshing sounds of the interstate thru the trees and
hillside behind me, blocking out the big rig's jaking down as they took the
curve towards the east towards North CArolina as the interstate narrowed
down at I-81 and I-40, I could hear the male mockingbirds singing as loud as
they could, indifferent to those of us who would like to sleep at this late
hour.....proud that they have fledglings and can contain themselves no
longer. I can almost picture the females sitting there wanting to tape their
beaks shut so they can get some sleep while the chicks are
asleep.........little rolling pins in feathered hands as they knock them out
so they can snooze for a few hours with one eye open for snakes and other
harmful things intent on their children. My mind is an amazing thing
sometimes....

The air was colder than I'd figured, and I glanced down to see a dark cat
had discovered I was up and was visiting with me in his normal hours.
Pesters, and looking around at my feet, I saw that Polluxx hadn't followed
me onto the balcony, but had abandoned me to go do whatever he did at night
since joining our family months prior. It was me and Pest right now. He
was happy with it. He had me all to himself.

I got the obligatory "please love me" as Pest stood on his back feet and
stretched towards me, pawing me gently, and I picked him up without
thinking, under his armpits and laid him over my left shoulder as I always
do in a little routine that is usually done in the driveway while Rose is
going to pasture, and he started his whacky purr and allowed me to bestow
the affection he needed for the 65 seconds before needing to touch the
ground again. Almost five years and he does the same thing every time. He
just doesn't like to be up in your arms for too long.

I stepped back into the warmer room off the cold planks of the deck, glad to
feel the warmth of the house from a day's sunshine still held under the
roof, and made sure no one was out on the deck to be stranded when I closed
the door (they have discovered how to get UP onto the deck from below but
not how to get DOWN the same way). No one was on the small balcony, and I
shut the door again.

I then walked thru the room and opened up the nook door and stepped quietly
outside onto my little wooden sidewalk and just stood there against the
railing and looked towards the NSSG, or where I knew it to be. Little fairy
parties were everywhere. You could almost hear the laughter as they slipped
thru the leaves and under the branches ladened heavy with flowers. This was
going to be a quick maneuver, as my skin was protesting the warm and cold
with massive goosy flesh.

The varigated Japanese knotweed catches my eye in the darkness, and as cold
as it was, I walked over towards her and looked down at where I knew she was
at and smiled. I felt the tickle of someone brushing past me to assure me I
wasn't alone and it was my little buddy, Pesters. But this time, he was on a
mission. He'd located Polluxx and was going to hook a little bone with him
in the driveway and slid past me like soft velvet. He hasn't attained that
roughness of his fur from the dust baths he so dearly loves yet. He has skin
problems and adores to roll himself in the driveway dust until he's no
longer black but a strange shade of something else. It seems to help him in
his itching and he so enjoys it. I could already hear the muffled crys of
them as they tumbled and lunged at each other like brothers, scuffling and
rolling and cavorting with each other in cat games. I smiled knowing what I
couldn't see because they do it all the time.

My toes were protesting and I knew that when I slipped back into bed, the
cold loving Squire would even be in protest with the depth of the icyness of
my toes and hands, but I wanted to see if I could locate just one flower in
the semi darkness. I moved a bit quicker across the planks, my feet
remembering the risen nails on the tired boards, the sagging one that
desperately needs replacing near the other den door, and up onto the cold
concrete of the dog run that runs along the back of the front raised beds.

I mumble about the Korean spirea that I can see in the glow of the light
down the driveway and make mental note that I HAVE to pull some of it out
soon. It has all but taken over way too much now and I know by freeing up
the soil, I can put other sun lovers in the places. If they transplant,
fine. If not, compost them I will, as much as I love the little pink fuzzy
catapillar like flowers this bush has become quite a strange problem now.
The rich, loose raised soil has encourage it to tromp thru a good 20 feet
area and I know if I don't stop it now with some pulling, I will have a
front bed invaded with this spirea. I keep moving, my mumbling amuses me as
I realize I've passed under the bedroom window, because I hear the sounds of
Squire sawing huge logs inside.

There is nothing like slipping quietly past familiar flowerbeds in the dark
of night. Shapes are incredible. And the familiarity of them takes on a
specialness that I can't quite explain. The whacky spikes of the lilies are
punctuating the beds everywhere once I get past the spirea. What looks like
grass I know is the montbretia crocosmia that Diane gave me that I poked a
circular flower support over in early spring for some stem support of the
flowers later on. And larger spikes are the healthy leaves of the old
irises.

The odd little ladders are the metal trellises that Squire pulled the
daylilies and lamium back from the edges of the sidewalk in his attempt at
reclaiming the sidewalk...I can almost hear him when he showed me what he'd
done...(this has occured since he started doing more things OUTSIDE) "honey,
look, I would LOVE to be able to WALK down MY OWN SIDEWALK to the driveway,
and I didn't hurt your plants, but they've TAKEN OVER..........so I pulled
them back and pinned them with those glass topped trellises you brought from
work, and it looks good, doesn't it? I mean, I WANT my SIDEWALK BACK!!!!"
Later when he wasn't watching me, I trimmed up the foliage of the lamium
(Herman's pride) from the bricks I'd lined the edges of the sidewalk with,
repinned the trellises better and closer, and pulled leaves from where
they'd gotten caught behind the metal, and swept and cleaned up the edges
better and made him happier. He never knew I repinned the plants a bit
better. g

The sweetness of the air had wrapped around me, and it had to be the tulip
poplar blossoms. I have now realized that I haven't the one tree, but three
possibly four of them blessing me with their height and leaf and flower on
the seven ninths of an acre we have. I will not walk around past the garden
fountain, swing and back across to the kitchen deck, it's trecherous with
the rocks and stuff that needs picking up, and my toes remind me of this as
I stop at the end of the concrete behind the wisteria/kerria japonica/sweet
Autumn clematis spot.

The walk is trecherous now, the cleaned up front has temporairly gotten a
bit way layed as Squire made a fatal mistake on the garden fountain. He
used 6 mil plastic for the liner and then the old waterbed mattress, but he
forgot to lay a thick layer of sand under the plastic first and will have to
put a real pond liner down now as it refuses to hold water in the main
trough that supplies the trickling fountain. It's still a neat thing, and
there is still a little pool of water holding true at the first pool before
it cascades off a small waterfall into the trough of water, and once he
fixes it with a real liner, it will gurgle and bubble and be neat again. But
when he lifted the old piece of waterbed mattress out, he thought he'd clean
it off and see where there was a leak and it lies there still just in front
of the cat window in the livingroom. And my toes remind me there are garden
tools and garden hose to feel for as well. I go slowly and stop.

I stood quietly, and gazed past the foliage that is all around me. There is
a madness to this garden that I see needs a hand at controling it. I know
the fairies will be disappointed when I cut a few things back, pull a few
things out, but unless I want a total jungle, I have to do this to at least
keep paths to walk thru. The evil little ticks adore this chaos, and I
can't have THEM...

The mercury light gives out too much light, but I finally see what I wanted
to see before slipping back into the warmth of the house......bats. Bats
doing a ballet in the cold night air as they honed in on the nocturnal
fliers drawn by the light of the street lamp. I listen and I HEAR them
somehow, even though I know their squeeks are higher and we aren't supposed
to hear them, I can. Somehow, even if it's in my own mind, and I watch them
soring so fast, snapping up unsuspecting moths and such as they're only
focased on the light and the bats are focased on them. I picture in my mind
fairies holding tight to them as they dip and sore thru the cold air just
bouncing off the glow of the light, and almost hear peals of laughter as
they swing close.

I stood there for how long I can't tell you. Well, my toes were well numb at
one point and I knew time had quite slipped away from me as I stood
transfixed by this night air dance. Slipping back into the living room door
onto the soft carpet, I stood for a moment and listened to the sounds
outside and knew sleep would come to me with dreams of fairies dancing under
the flowers and leaves.

As I got to the bedroom, I heard Rose lifting her head up from the chain and
tag she wears, as she pulled out of a dog dream and the thump thump thump of
her tail told me I had truely fooled her. She thought I was returning from a
bathroom run...good. I slipped under warm covers and snuggled up next to
the ol' furnace, Squire and carefully kept my icy hands from giving him
cardiac arrest with them, but he still woke up with quite a cry of "GOOD
GAWD HONEY, have you been in the FREEZER??????!!??" I had to stifle my
chuckles as I pretended sleep and spooned against him, and hoped my toes
didn't cramp up on me and eventually his wall wracking snores told me I
hadn't totally awakened him and I tucked those ice hands against him and
started slipping off to sleep to dream of flowers and fairies and yellow and
orange bowls up in high boughs of trees as his warmth drew the night cold
out of me. And somewhere, back in the corners of my wandering mind, I
envisioned fairies riding the backs of bats, dipping and soring with
lightening speeds past globes of night light playing air games, netting
moths.

The smells of sweetness drifted thru the open window on my side of the bed
and wrapped around my back and over to my face, just as Polluxx slipped back
in and settled himself on the pillow by my face and that's where I slipped
off............................

madgardener up on the sweetly scented ridge, back in Fairy HOller,
overlooking a tucked in and sleepy English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee,
zone 6b, Sunset zone 36

what weird koi pond stuff? do tell. Ingrid

(Carla) wrote:
Well, trying to find an answer on some weird koi pond stuff. Talk to
you later!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

(Carla) expounded:

I used to talk to Paul Onstad
alot before he died.

Wait a minute....Paul died? When? I wondered why we weren't hearing
from him anymore. I wish I had known.....

--
Ann, Gardening in zone 6a
Just south of Boston, MA
********************************

(Carla) expounded:

Hey, Girl! Don't know if you remember me or not

Oh, and by the way, good to read you, Carla!

--
Ann, Gardening in zone 6a
Just south of Boston, MA
********************************

Wow, what happened to PAul????????
And that nice man from maine?
I forgot his name.

Love caryn (his email was edkra )
"Come into my garden, my flowers want to meet you!"