In The Garden – THE SPECTACLED BEAN

What The Sheriff Saw: A Story About Yours Truly Doing Her Gardening Chores

I want to tell you what happened. I didn’t quite understand what really happened as it happened and it was only after Zen-Den gently walked me to an epiphany that I got what happened.

• • •

THE OTHER MORNING AROUND 9:00 a.m. I decided to water the planters that are on the stoop in front of the house by the front door. I do this using an old Rubbermaid aqua-colored 2 1/4 quarts plastic pitcher whose white lid I lost decades ago.

As I was watering these planters I looked over in the bushes to where we have a medium-sized concrete urn that holds a spike plant. Because it’s been more dry around here than usual the poor spike looked droopy, so I got more water in my repurposed pitcher, now watering can, and stepped into our bushes in front of the windows in front of the house to water the thirsty plant.

I probably should add at this point that I was wearing Stewart plaid flannel jammies, a bright pink fleece jacket, dark teal suede house slippers, and had my curly mess of graying blonde hair pulled up, with a neon orange elastic band, into an off-kilter pineapple-style ponytail on top of my head.

Oh, and I was wearing dark glasses because it was sunny outside.

• • •

THERE’S BEEN A CHIPMUNK hanging around the front of the house all summer and as I was watering the spike I saw it scurry by me on its way to the other side of the front of the house. I do not like the damage that chipmunks can cause so I stopped watering and glared at the little rodent to see where it was going.

And, of course, I yelled a few random death threats at it.

As one does.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling and realized I was not alone. That out on the street in a large black SUV someone was watching me as I stood there.

And who was this person watching me? A sheriff who had happened to notice me as he was driving by. He’d rolled down his passenger side window to get a closer look at me and when I saw him, he waved.

I smiled and waved back while holding up my repurposed pitcher, then started pouring water into the concrete urn to show him I belonged where I was. I wasn’t a burglar hiding in the bushes, I was just the lady of the house doing a chore.

He smiled back, nodded his head, rolled up the window, and went on his way.

• • •

LATER THAT NIGHT I told Z-D what had happened and how funny I thought it was that a sheriff thought I was a miscreant attempting to break into our house.

As if.

Zen-Den listened to my story and conclusion, then quietly suggested that what the sheriff thought he saw probably didn’t register with him as a burglary in progress.

Instead from the sheriff’s perspective what he saw was an addlepated gray-haired senior citizen, perhaps suffering from dementia and jibber-jabbering to herself, wandering around in the bushes in her nightclothes, seemingly confused, while carrying a random kitchen item with her.

And darn it to heck, Zen-Den is right. That’s exactly what the sheriff saw.

As Autumn Begins: Saying Hello And Goodbye Up In The Sky

As the seasons change so does the early morning light, meaning that when I’m up early drinking my coffee out on the deck, I see things differently.

[Or is it that I see different things?]

Above is a photo in which you can see a jet plane, headed one direction, and the waning crescent moon headed the other direction.

[Look closely, they’re both there.]

To me this seems like they’re saying hello and goodbye as they pass each other, rather like the way in which summer and fall pass by each other on the calendar.

[Or something like that.]

I’m not a poet, nor do I profess to be profound. Instead I notice things, photograph them, describe them, then allow my thoughts to meander. Perhaps with no purpose. Perhaps with a keen insight that I have yet to understand.

[Regardless, I think the above photo is cool.]

Happy Autumn, everyone. I’m looking forward to it. Whatcha got planned? Spill the beans in the comments below.

As Summer Unofficially Ends, It’s A Party In The Parsley

• • •

This hasn’t been a good summer for our flower beds and shrubs and the flowers in the outside pots of floral prettiness that I insist on scattering around the grounds… until I feel at home.

[Gold star to anyone who gets that reference.]

But on the other hand in the end it’s been a great summer for parsley. After a slow start the darned stuff has thrived in this hot humid weather.

Each spring I start parsley from seed inside the house, then either add it to my outside pots of floral prettiness as a filler or just put some parsley by itself in a pot to grow.

[It doesn’t spill, it doesn’t thrill, but oh my goodness it does fill. My parsley-centric adaptation of the classic how-to create an outside pot of floral prettiness.]

I do this because black swallowtail caterpillars, who turn into beautiful butterflies, like to munch on parsley. Oh yes they do.

They have a voracious appetite for it and I’m more than happy to feed them what they need. ‘Cuz I like to see butterflies flitting around our yard.

Happy Labor Day to everyone who will be celebrating it this weekend. Catch y’all on the flip side, kids.

• • •

#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A Rose Garden, Finding Some Pithinicity

Today I’m joining Thursday Doors, hosted by Norm Frampton, so that I can share with you photos of the following doors plus a little more.

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A few weeks ago Zen-Den and I had the chance to stop by the Columbus Ohio Park of Roses again. [Click HERE for post about previous visit and information about this park.]

It was a beautiful summer day but the garden was not at its rosy best like the last time we were there. I snapped a few pics anyhow, ostensibly to be part of this project.

While the doors we saw were more utilitarian than awe-inspiring, the carved stones in the walking path that connect the Shelter House [event venue] to the park itself were eclectic.

I hadn’t noticed the messages on the stones during our previous visit. So below, for the heck of it, are two photos of the doors we saw and the pithinicity on which we walked.

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DOORS on side of Shelter House looking into the park.

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*“HAD I ALL LANGUAGE AT COMMAND AND SPOKE THE* [1 of 4]

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*TONGUE OF EVERY LAND, I COULD NOT FIND THREE WORDS* [2 of 4]

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*MORE SWEET OR FORM A SENTENCE MORE COMPLETE: THAN* [3 of 4]

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*THESE THREE WORDS I LOVE YOU.” ~ YOUR FAMILY* [4 of 4]

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DOOR on side of Shelter House leading into Bridal Room. [*Doesn’t this door look ominous to you?* It does to me.]

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Purple Dahlias: Musings While Looking At Said On A Tuesday Morning

April showers. May flowers.

Hello green grass. Howdy to this purple dahlia [that looks pink to me].

Regardless of its color I like it because it’s growing and budding and flowering.

Doing that which I like to see.

Both when it comes to gardening and when it comes to people. No one wants to be around someone who isn’t learning new things.

Or at least, among the people who I know and respect, that’s the way it is.

You live, you learn, you grow.

And then you remind yourself to encourage other people to bloom where they’re planted, too.

A simple saying, perhaps trite, but based on a truth.

An approach to life that lends itself to contentment and invites balance. Inspires joy, I have found.

Clear mind, happy heart.

My thoughts for this pleasant spring day. What’s up with you?

Yes, Deer Eat Pansies, Thanks For Asking

Would you like to know what the all-time most viewed post is on this blog? Bet you won’t guess…

Is it about the sadness I felt after talking with a former neighbor for the last time? Read about it HERE.

Is it about the giddy feeling I felt when I realized we’d accidentally stolen something with no way of returning it? Read about it HERE.

Is it about the pride I take in my positive approach to social media that does not include following people who I dislike? Read about it HERE.

No. No. Nope.

~ 🌺 ~

The most viewed post on this blog is: The Deer Ate My Pansies

~ 🌺 ~

It’s viewed almost year round because deer and pansies live in both hemispheres, thus this post is popular in both the spring and the autumn wherever you might live.

Who’d of thunk it?

And while I’m asking rhetorical questions, would you like to know why I was thinking about my most viewed post?

Of course you would.

Last week I listened to a webinar called Work Smarter Not Harder: How To Dominate 2019 with Reuseable Content! From it I learned that it’s important to figure out what is your most viewed post & then reuse it [somehow] to get more eyeballs looking at your blog.

Soooo that’s what I’m doing today. Repurposing old content like a social media guru, sort of. Wondering if this idea will work on a personal blog, even kind of sort of.

Yep, I am your personal blogging dominatrix reusing that which is, to engage with &/or command influence over those readers who find this blog and read this post, ostensibly about deer and pansies.

Discuss.

Last Week Was Ridiculous, Therefore I Shall Whine About It Here

INTRODUCTION

Doorbell *after* being shown who is boss.

Last week was a troublesome one for me. It was rascally and I got scattered and I lost focus on my one word of the year, streamlined.

I had dreams of getting it together last week, doing the things on my to-do list in a smooth and centered way like the organized lady of the list I long to be. But the Universe scoffed and instead, beleaguered by annoying things, I was distracted me from my true purpose.

THE WHINING PART

Nothing bad happened, only small RIDICULOUS annoying things happened that began to slow me down and wear on my very last nerve. Here is a list of those annoying things:

• tornado warning with winds gusting to 60 mph that took down a piece of our house’s gutter;

• smoke detector battery went chirpy during the day when I was here by myself, without anyone to spot me to climb on a ladder to change the battery, so the smoke detector sang all stinking day;

• the water department turned off the water to this subdivision because of a nearby traffic accident, thus in one day our water was off for 6 hours, on for 2 hours, then off again for 4 hours;

• landscape crew arrived without advance warning to do spring cleanup, then piled mulch in such a way as to trap my car inside the garage;

• laundry service lost one of Z-D’s shirts and told me such when the delivery man came to the front door, handed me the laundered unlost shirts and asked me if I could tell him which shirt was missing… as if I pay any attention to Z-D’s extensive collection of mostly white or pale blue button-down Oxford cloth dress shirts; and finally

• doorbell got stuck on meaning that the button, after being pushed in, connected with the bell box that rang its melodious ding, then the bell box started to buzz… loudly and ceaselessly… until I got a screwdriver and dismantled the doorbell separating the wires to make the stupid thing be quiet.

AND IN CONCLUSION

Pretty hot pink geranium harbinger of better days.

At this point, if I were an inspirational sort of blogger, I’d share with you a pithy lesson, succinctly put, so that you might learn from my experiences too and say to yourselves: what a wise Bean is Ally for sharing her troubles here and showing us, through her example, how to live better lives.

However, I’ve no such conclusion to this post.

Other than to say, I guess, it’s rather empowering to acknowledge setbacks, complain about them, then get over your sorry self while you carry on with another week as if you’ve got it all together.

We’ll see about that. Won’t we?