The Caregiver’s Tales: A Blog

I know I fancy myself a gardener. But no one, seeing the wild growth beneath my big oaks, would take that seriously. Sure, I like to plant things, but after that they’re on their own. Take my scarlet sage. I dug up one plant fifteen years ago. Brought it home. Planted it. Babied it. And helped it thrive. Now. Its descendants are everywhere in the garden, and I have no say as to where. They just go where the wind blows.

I’ve been working on my next book since November of last year. It’s called Learning to Live. It’s a Caregiver’s Tale about grief. Once again, I’m collecting my writings into a book. The work, however, has gone in fits and spurts. The difficulties I’m having arise from the subject, grief. It’s not an oh-I-hurt-myself-but-I’ll-heal sort of wound. It’s the sort of wound that keeps on giving.

My garden must think it’s Spring. Everything is flowering. Naturally, the Fall plants are abloom, the Asters and the Gulf Muhly. But even the spring and summer plants are getting in on the action. The one that most excites me is our antique rose, Marie Pavia. I cut out the Turks Caps just for her, with more sunlight as the goal. And I reconditioned the soil at her feet. She grew a ton of fresh leaves in response, and now buds have sprouted. Soon there will be flowers. That’s a nice thank you.

There’s more fog this morning which means there’s a heavy dew. So, it’s wet to walk in the grass. Out in the pasture as the sunlight first hit the field I thought I was seeing a patch of rain lilies mixed in with the dry grass and field flowers, but they turned out to be spiderwebs, spun in the tall grass, collecting water out of the air, and making themselves known to their intended victims.

The air is heavy with fog this morning. There are no lights to see in the distance and the only sounds I hear, except for passing cars, are the sounds of the fog that is gathering on the tin roof sliding down into the gutters. It sounds like rain. My roof. The cloud catcher. It reminds me of stories I’ve heard about people in Chile and Peru doing the same in the Andes, spreading large nets to capture the sea fog to drink and grow crops.

We got rain yesterday. It was gentle. The ground had time to take a long slow drink. More is expected today. It was cool and damp outside, so I decided to have a fire in my newly refurbished fireplace. It was a small one, mostly comprised of dead pecan limbs gathered from a neighbor’s yard during a cleanup. The smoke rose straight and true right up the flue. It was gratifying.

It’s a still morning with a promise of rain. An emergency vehicle just went down the road. Sirens wailing. Most likely EMS. But I didn’t look. The grounds and gardens are prepared for rain. New plants are in and mulch laid down. I even aerated the front yard, mostly for the trees and plants. I don’t think much about grass. My suburban dad days are long gone. I want things that flower and give me color.

Well, the garden spider on the east eave of the southern porch is done. She died sometime in the night on Sunday. I figured the cooling weather would do her in. She left four egg sacs, however, and each one of them might have between 300 to 1,000 eggs. That’s a lot of little spiderlings to carry on the family business, but we have lots of little mosquitoes so I’ll take all the help I can get. She lived a short, but productive life. About a year.