2019!

Well, it's here.  Another year.

Off to a bit of a rocky start.  I forgot to start cooking the beans (for the traditional beans & greens) early enough so we ended up having eggs & grits for our New Year's supper.  Not exactly traditional, but good, and besides I still have a cold so really can't taste much anyway.

I also have a tradition that what you do on New Year's day will indicate what you will be doing in the coming year.  I had wanted to take the kayaks out--it actually didn't rain today (although it was a bit warm--I mean--I'm wearing  tank top and shorts on New Year's day and that's just wrong).  But see reference above to having a cold.

I did do some small symbolic acts.  A wee bit of housekeeping.   Knit a few rows.

Did a little walking and spinning.  About 3/4 of a lap, instead of my usual 3 laps (which equal a mile) Of course. these days if I want to do a mile I have to do 4 laps, because one loop is still covered in storm trash.  We were hoping to have that cleared by now, but I have mentioned that it's been a record-breaking wet December?  Normally we get about 4 inches of rain in December.  This year we got almost 15.  Not conducive to working outside and burning.

And yes, I have spinning wheels, and use spinning wheels (the yarn in the cowl above was spun on a wheel) but I really love the meditative aspect of walking and spinning on a spindle.  Want to do more.

Bob harvested our lemon crop.  OK--only 3 lemons this year, but they're huge.

And a bit more harvesting--greens, garlic, and eggs.

That itty bitty egg likely doesn't have anything in it.  Chickens do this from time to time.  Poetically they're called a wind egg;  more rustically they're referred to as fart eggs.

The garden in general didn't do so well this year.  And the last couple of months we've been more involved with the storm damage.  But Bob felt better after listening to a radio program with Tom McCubbins, who wrote the book (literally--we have a copy) on gardening in the south.  And he said *his* garden was lousy this year.  I believe I may have mentioned it's been one of the wettest years on record . . .

We are curious to see how the garden does in 2019.  It hasn't yielded a lot in the past few years.  Possibly because the small oak tree near it got quite a bit bigger (I'm being facetious here--it became a monster) and shaded it.   But look at all that wood (and the Triffid) from the previous post.  It won't be shading anything any more.

But mostly what I did to mark the New Year was . . . sleep.  Normally napping isn't my thing, but I totally crashed this afternoon (reference above--I have a cold).  So there went my plans for a productive day.

But I'm OK with it.  I often have problems sleeping (compared with Bob, who is out before he's completely horizontal) so maybe bringing in the New Year with some good sound sleep, snuggling with a few cats, isn't such a bad way to go.

Starting for the Third Time

OK--19 days since I said I was re-starting the blog, and nothing so far.  Partly writer's block.  Partly because if you ever look at the old blog, you'll see that it's usually pretty darned positive.  It's where I post the good things in life, and I often fall down the rabbit hole of reading my old posts and smiling.

And partly because I've written two posts.  One I stalled out on, because I was trying the get The Storm (aka Hurricane Michael) out of my system and is really isn't going to leave.  And there are no words big enough or horrible enough to describe it.

And then I started another one, where I sort of whined about how I have various reasons for not liking December in general, and I have a cold, and then I wandered back to that big horrible Storm again . . . and then the whole post simply disappeared.

So getting back to why I write a blog.  It's about me--yeah, a selfish reason.  But I read it, and Bob reads it, and the occasional passing person, and that's about it.  So it's sort of like a personal diary left out on the table and unlocked but not too many people look at it.  But writing like someone else is going to read it makes me edit my life a bit, think about it from the outside.  Sort of like when I'm working on a project--sometimes I'll hold it up to a mirror, or take a picture and study it, because then I look at it from another perspective.

Our laundry room and kitchen for a week

So I'm going to come out and say that in a way, I feel cheated by that damned storm.  We have *not once* complained about the damage done to our yard, or the inconvenience of going a week without power.

 We have shaken our heads in relieved amazement and gratitude and said "we're fine."  We sat on our front porch during the hurricane (because if the enemy is coming at you, you might as well see it, and besides the porch was on the leeward side of the house).  Over the freight-train sound of the storm we could hear the tremendous crack and thud of trees hitting the ground (and expecting the huge crack and thud of a tree landing on the house--but that didn't happen).

The next day the sky was clear and blue and cool and all of the light looked weird.  Most of the tree canopy and a dozen or more trees were down or cracked in half.  Mirable dictu the only real damage was to the release pen into which we had herded the peacocks--but it took out the front part and didn't hurt them although we had to cut the side open to get them back out.

So we had--and still have, and will have for several months--a godawful mess to clean up.  And even more so because some trees were leaning precariously so we had to pay a few thousand dollars to have them dropped as well.   Any decent day (have I mentioned this is the wettest year Tallahassee has ever had?) sees us spending hours cutting, dragging, and burning.

We've made dozens of brush piles

I rather liked this one--named it the Triffid
.  About 15-20 feet high and I think it walked around at night.
  Unfortunately it was in front of the garden and unstable
 so we had to dismantle it.

So no, I'm not happy about what Hurricane Michael did to us.  But I can't beat my breast and say "O poor us" because it's frickin' NOTHING in comparison to the real storm damage.  And I've got serious survivor's guilt.

But y'know--it feels good to admit it.  So now maybe I can move on to other things.

The Return

Welcome back!  I've missed me.

In 2010 I started a blog (News From the Swamp: http://ann-newsfromtheswamp.blogspot.com/ ).  What with my computer dying and a problem with my email address--I lost access to it.  I can read it (and so can anyone else) but I can no longer add to it.

And what the heck--except for Bob and myself and the occasional random passer-by, no one read it (Facebook, Instagram and the like have replaced blogs).  But I've realized that I miss it.  I miss having a journal of the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of my life.  I miss trying to remember when thus-and-so happened and not being able to check the blog.  I miss just randomly reading it myself for the memories.  I've tried a few times to keep a journal but end up never writing in it.

Every time I think about restarting it--I bog down.  How does one catch up on 10 months?  Where does one start?  I was going to start with last February (where the last one ended) and sort of plod along.  But, on the other hand, I want to start off with Hurricane Michael which has been a rather major event, to put in mildly.  So the first several--or many--posts will be pretty random.

But at least I'm back--and it feels pretty good.