Madame Alfred Carriere is in bloom today. She has had roses budding and open in every month this year. She’s big and floppy and untrained, brushing up against the bedroom windows in the wind.
The Thomas Affleck rose bushes are low and young. Thomas Sr. was about a year old when he was mowed down accidentally. As I fussed about the mowing and insisted the tractor mow only about 15 feet from the house, I noticed that Thomas Sr. had sprouted from the roots. By then I had already planted Thomas Jr. about two feet away. Now both Toms have one or two blooms.
Old Blush by the red barn has a few late flowers. Star of the Republic is covered with fading blooms. At least I think that’s Star, I should go look at the tags on them.
I cut the two Mermaids back to a few sticks even though it’s the wrong time of year for pruning. They don’t care, they are full of super-spiny glossy new growth.
La Biche is the furthest rose bush from the house and probably the most neglected. It will get pruned back when Spouse has the chainsaw out early in the spring. Cutting its old thick canes back will make it bloom more. It’s too far from the house for me to water it, so it just gets one fertilizing a year and then neglect.
Spring and early summer, when we were in Spain, were very rainy and damp. Bindweed grew all up through Climbing Cecile Brunner and almost strangled all of her. I pulled out the bindweed, cut back the strangled branches, and now I am hoping enough is left of her to recover. This was the first rose I planted when we moved to Texas 12 years ago. I would hate to lose her.
Roses in December help me to be less depressed about the short cold days of winter.
Filed under: Personal
This morning I weighed myself. I weighed only 138 pounds, the least I have weighed that I can remember.
Then, up in Taylor, I celebrated by buying a pair of size 10 jeans.
Good friends D. and J. went to a silent auction to raise money for a local public radio station. They bought lunch for 10 with Luci Baines Johnson Turpin, the daughter of Lyndon Baines Johnson, followed by a personal tour of the LBJ Library. Richard and I were fortunate enough to be among the friends invited.
We all met at noon at the entrance to the LBJ Library after winding our way through the construction fencing around the reflecting pools that were leaking into the underground sections of the library.
Luci came in right after us and greeted the library staff as old friends. Luci was dressed simply in black pants, black jacket, and a white jersey top. Her hair was pulled back in a low pony tail. She really does have that distinctive widow’s peak. She carried a purse and a bag that looked as if it might hold a birthday present. She welcomed us, told us we were in for a special treat if we ate lunch quickly, and escorted us to the private dining room at the top of the library.
Lunch was served, chicken breasts in white wine with a dab of white cheese and sundried tomatoes, green beans, asparagus, and a bed of rice, iced tea, rolls and butter. Dessert was apple pear cobbler with vanilla ice cream followed by coffee. While we ate Luci went around the table asking us each to introduce ourselves. She practiced our names.
Then Luci led us through the Library. She stopped at pictures and talked about their background-what that picture meant to her, how it came to be taken, what moment in history it depicted. She’s done this tour many times before. Her words were sure, she really cared about family and the contribution they had made. All the guests were of the same generation as Luci; we had lived during the same events but knew them through different perspectives. And, all of us had been to the LBJ Library before.
She started at the beginning, her grandparents out west of Austin in what is now Johnson City, TX. She moved through their history to the Senate and Presidential years. It was history on the run.
We listened to the story of Luci’s mother and how her nursemaid had named her Lady Bird when she was a lively infant. Lady Bird Johnson is almost the patron saint of Austin. When she died several months ago, the lake at the center of the city was named Lady Bird Lake almost immediately. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a beautiful resource here. We all wanted to hear these stories.
When she spoke of the assassination of Kennedy, we were all moved. Luci had been a student at the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. Her parents were away on a trip to Dallas. An announcement said that there was a shooting at the presidential motorcade. No other news was given. As all the girls filed into the auditorium for an assembly, Luci saw a Secret Service agent heading toward her. She ran to him, flung herself at him and sobbed, “No, no!” He kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She thought he was saying her parents were wounded or killed. He didn’t know she was worried about her parents.
We all did remember where we were when we heard the news about Kennedy. D. and J., the friends who had bought the luncheon and tour were at a hospital giving birth to their first child when they heard. I was teaching a second grade class.
The tour mentioned Vietnam only as a time of trouble and concern. We moved on through LBJ’s decision not to run for a second term. We finished up at the replica oval office. We looked at the three television sets where LBJ watched the network news, the news ticker tape, the presidential seal in the carpet, the flags given by the military service.
Too soon our afternoon was over. Then Luci opened the gift bag she had carried all afternoon. She gave each of us one of the presidential pens that President Johnson had given as souvenirs. Luci said they were almost the last of a dwindling stock. We shook hands goodbye.
Then Richard and I went to the Library’s gift shop, bought “Future President” tee shirts for our youngest grandchildren, and went home.
Story of my life…a week late to national blogging month.
But, I have managed to make some disciplinary changes in my life. I’ve been faithful about testing my blood sugar every single day. I have been losing weight, maybe only an ounce or two a day, but steadily.
I’ve been a good exerciser. A good treadmill walker, a balanced diet eater.
On the other hand, I should have studied more for my Spanish test, kept the house cleaner, been more cheerful about life in general.
For the first time in about a year I forgot to clip the pedometer on the waist of my pants this morning. On a typical day getting up, having breakfast, and the other at home after the shower things and going to exercise get me to about 4,000 steps. When I write down my steps tonight in my weight, glucose, and steps journal I will just add those 4,000 steps to today’s total.
Maybe I will set my own month of blogging. Today to December 7th. Let’s see.
Filed under: Personal
This blog started as an inchoate group of nature rambles and as a trip diary. I’ve avoided personal information, telling about myself, discussing my family, my health, or my unvoiced thoughts. No more.
I’ve been living through a minor depression – not deep enough to seek formal help, not severe enough to cause others to worry – just enough to add some uncertainty to spouse’s life.
Yesterday I decided to end it all, the depression I mean, not life. I said it wasn’t serious.
Just over a year ago I went to the doctor for my annual checkup. I was new to Medicare and wanted to start out healthy. The employer I retired from still provided health insurance, but for a high price. My goal was to avoid medication except for the Fosamax I was already taking. I couldn’t blame myself for having small bones, being short, white, and getting older. I didn’t want to be like my mom who had broken many bones before Fosamax was invented.
The doctor sent me for those miserable blood tests. After I was about 7 gallons low, he said I was heading toward type 2 diabetes and had to do something about it. I cried.
My grandmother had been diabetic and took insulin injections. When I was a child my family would take my grandmother to Boston to Dr. Joslin at the Lahey Clinic. It was a favorite outing. My dad took us riding on the Boston trolley cars while my mom sat with grandmother at the doctor’s office. My father also became diabetic later in his life. He did not diet, exercise, or take any care of himself. He did give up smoking a pipe after he caught the mattress on fire and filled the house with smoke.
I cried and thought of my friend Mada who was diabetic, had lost two legs and most of her vision and was ill most of the time. I cried more. I weighted 177.7 pounds on the scale we bought. About 2 weeks later I went to Mada’s funeral and cried for myself more than for her.
The doctor sent me to a nutritionist. She helped me see how much I was eating and how little exercise I really was doing. I cried there some more. I lost some weight.
This summer the doctor gave me some medication to try. He handed me a glucose test meter and told me to use it. Ouch. For a week my fingers were black and blue. It’s hard to squeeze blood from my fingers when they flinch from the nasty lancet. I got better at it. I joined an online diabetes community. I studied everything I could about the disease.
This morning I weighed 142.4 pounds. I bought the beginning of a new wardrobe. I can’t lick this disease but it is not going to lick me. Now I have to stop typing and go walk today’s 3 miles on the treadmill while I watch CSI.
This entry is a test of how to do it. There is no useful content in this post.
I want to be able to create attractive content, but am not ready.
I am listening to thunder now and seeing some lightening. On the prairie a lightening storm is beautiful and frightening.
The caracara, Caracara cheriway, is also called the Mexican Eagle. One web site describes the caracara as a sluggish scavenger. We don’t see caracaras often around our home on the prairie. Occasionally one is perched on a power pole looking for a dead armadillo.
As we drove along last weekend I saw more caracaras than I have ever seen. Sometimes three or four would be feeding in the middle of the road and wait until the last minute to avoid my car.
Saturday evening I almost ran over several who just did not want to miss their dinner.
The usual white cattle egrets accompanied the cattle in the fields. We often wonder whether the egrets have a hierarchy that apportions two egrets to each steer or whether the egrets freelance.
Filed under: Ham radio
This past weekend, from 9 am Saturday to 9 pm and then from 9 am Sunday to 3 pm I was part of The Driving Burrito Brothers in the Texas QSO Party.
The TQP is a ham radio contest that tries to have representatives operating from each of the 254 counties in Texas. We operated in the multi-operator mobile category. As we rode along we tried to contact as many other hams all over the world as we could. Other groups operated from their own stations or from their cars.
Our group of four operated mobile in 41 counties from my Tahoe. We had ham radio operators on 4 bands (frequencies). Gary in the rear row of seats operated both phone and morse code on 20 meters. Larry in the middle row operated 40 meters, both phone and morse code. In the front seat Spouse operated 15 meters on morse code only. And I did all the driving, 1,095 miles, and operated 2 meters FM.
My Tahoe had antennas stuck to it with bumper mounts, magnetic mounts with huge multi-magnets, antennas on the roof rack, and a spare mount on the rear trailer hitch. The tallest antenna was about 14 ft. high, enough to clear bridges but we did clip some low hanging tree branches. The vehicle looked as if it were having acupuncture.
As a woman in a mostly male hobby I am used to being the only female in a group of guys. We have all operated together before and we all get along so it was a pleasant weekend.
We used three computers, one for each operator, connected with a router in a network. Each operator could see where the others were operating and the scores were sent to all the computers on the network. I went over one big bump that did disconnect everyone from the router. And, once we stopped to let Larry change his radio for the spare he was smart enough to bring.
We ate breakfast in Travis county and then I drove to Bastrop county for the contest start. Our route zigged and zagged south to Corpus Christi where the heavens opened in a real Texas frog choker. I couldn’t see where I was driving, slid on the wet roads, crossed my fingers, and kept going. At Harlingin, near the border with Mexico, we turned west and headed for Laredo. We arrived at our motel just as the contest broke for the night.
Sunday morning we started a roundabout route to Eagle Pass, then San Antonio, and finally Bell County north of Austin. I was tired.
We won our category in 2004, didn’t enter in 2005 because of Katrina and Rita, and won again in 2006. This year I do not think we had much competition.
Will we do it again next year. I had said I wouldn’t do it this year. I don’t know.
Filed under: Prairie days
I am not a fussy gardener. I don’t like to cover up plants for the winter, spray them with chemicals, or prune them into gracious shapes. I like to plant plants, water them occasionally if at all, and then let them grow or not grow.
I like plants that have flowers, smell pretty, and don’t demand much of me. Right now, after a spring and summer of lots of rain, my favorite plant is the Brugmansia that grows near the front porch.
The Brugmansia loves lots of water, is very fragrant, and does die back to the ground each winter if we have a heavy frost. But it grows 5 or 6 feet tall from the ground again each spring. Some bug likes to eat some of the leaves, but not enough to worry about.
It is a poisonous plant, eating the leaves is supposed to be hallucinogenic, but none of us tastes the leaves.
Filed under: Prairie days
We’ve been away a lot this summer. First we spent several weeks traveling to the west coast. Then home for a few weeks to tall grass and rainy weather. Then we went to Portugal and Spain for almost a week during which we had great weather but the prairie had rain and rain and rain.
Our grass grew and grew. Down toward the pond the Johnson grass is taller than our visiting grandson Raven. It’s taller than I am. It’s taller than Spouse sitting on the big tractor with the shredder. He’s going up and down the field cutting a path from the house to the pond so that we can go fishing.
I am not the fisherman. Spouse and Raven will fish. I am the official camera person. If Spouse catches a big fish I take a picture. If Raven catches a fish I take several pictures and keep some and send some to his Mom and Dad.
This is the first fish he caught the summer when he was learning how.
This summer I will take some more pictures. But now we should get some cool water or a cold drink and take it out to Spouse who is still mowing while Raven and I figured out how to put a picture in the middle of this story.
And, outside, the grass is growing around the house where I should mow. I did fertilize and water 15 of the rosebushes this morning so I did not waste all my time.
Written by Rosegrower and Raven.
