It's your decision...

 August 27, 2025

As of today, there are four more days left in the month of August. I think this may be our new normal, sliding into what one would consider to be traditional late September temperatures for the last week of what used to be thought of as the hottest month of the year.

I’m not complaining, exactly. I can cope, especially first thing in the morning as I get out of bed and begin to shiver. I can run hot water into my coffee mug to take the chill off it before brewing that first cup. I can drape a blanket over my legs, and struggle into a sweater. I can even turn on my office’s “electric fireplace” to get the chill off the air. There most definitely was chill in the air first thing this morning.

However, it’s a solid line I draw against turning on the house’s furnace in August. And yes, when the idea crosses my mind that there is no way in hell that I am turning the furnace on in August, it is my mother’s voice I hear.

The last few days have featured rain, and that’s okay too. My arthritis will act up regardless, but the lawns and the gardens need rain. The crops in the fields need rain as this is the crucial build up-time to harvest. I’ve never been the sort of person who believed, or wished, that the weather should be just so to suit my individual needs or desires.

Chilly and damp? I have heating pad, blanket, topical balms and if need be strong medication to counteract the effects thereof.

This past weekend we attended a baby shower for our soon to be born fifth great-grandchild. The baby, a girl, is due mid-September. The event was held outdoors, at a beautiful, large, city-run park. Bathroom facilities were just across a small narrow road from the location of the party, which was held under and around a nice and spacious pavilion.

I don’t generally attend outdoor events, because, again, the arthritis. But I do when the event is one that I truly want to join. And I accept as fair enough the consequences of my decision to do so.

That has always been how I have managed the inconvenience of osteoarthritis. This condition has, of course, become progressively worse through the years. I began using a cane more than 30 years ago, to help me walk, and because there were times my ankles would threaten to give out.

These days, if I can’t walk it with my cane, I use my walker. If the walker won’t cut it, why, I have a three-wheeled motorized scooter at the ready. That scooter is sturdy enough to support me and small enough to fit inside most stores, shops and malls.

I don’t let my condition prevent me from doing what I truly want to do. If the next day I’m sore, well then, so be it.

Life is 5 percent what happens to me and 95 percent how I deal with it. I won’t tell you I never break down and cry, because that would be a lie. I will tell you I do my best to do that in private. I’ve always advised in these essays that it’s ok, once in a while, to get on the pity pot. Just as long as you clean up, and then flush when you get off.

I don’t break rules, especially my own.

Getting older is no picnic, even if you do occasionally attend one. It’s not a journey for the weak of spirit. But it is a part of the lessons I believe we are meant to receive and hopefully master as we travel this path of life that we’re on.

The difference between learning to cope, and giving in to the negatives is this, and only this: when you learn to cope you find a peace and contentment within yourself. You’re happier, and if you hang on with both hands and your teeth to your sense of humor, you’re a joy to be around, too.

However, if you prefer to wallow in self-pity like a hog will wallow in the mud and manure of its own pigsty, you’ll find yourself miserable and for the most part, alone.

That decision, and the inherent consequences of it, dear reader, is yours and yours alone, to make.

 

Love,
Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Sweet memories

 August 20, 2025

The last few days have been much cooler than the blazing heat of just a few days before, and it’s been a bit rainy, as well. I’m glad to see the rain, as the grass has turned that parched shade of brown it gets this time of year but will now soon be green again. Of course, the rain is appreciated for gardens, and in our case for the tomatoes and the green beans. Yesterday, I had my second lettuce, tomato and sweet onion sandwich of the season. The first step, of course, is going out to the garden and choosing a tomato.  Ah, the sweet memories from my youth. Strolling out to the garden to pluck a ripe tomato for lunch was forever permissible and actively encouraged.

When I was a child, my mother always had a thriving veggie garden. One that was big enough to warrant paying the farmer down the road each year to come by with his tractor to first plow and then disc the empty patch. My garden memories are all from after my father’s death, when there were four of us in the “big house”, a four-bedroom story-and-a-half farmhouse on a country road. We had three-quarters of an acre, which even now I consider huge.

In those days, the vegetable garden wasn’t just trendy. It fed us. We grew some corn. Of all the veggies we grew the corn was perhaps the most whimsical. One couldn’t grow enough in a couple of rows in our garden to garner more than a few meals into the freezer. The corn was just for us to enjoy in the moment. I know my mother froze some, but she also supplemented what we grew with a few dozen ears from another farmer, farther down the same road so that there could be several side dishes of the veggie to grace our fall, winter and spring table. 

We grew carrots and radishes, green and yellow beans, and plenty of cucumbers. We had tomatoes, squash, potatoes, zucchini a few times, and sweet green peppers. We grew cabbage and Brussels Sprouts. But not cauliflower, as Mother said it was too fussy. We also had dill planted, so that in the fall, when it was time to harvest and process, we had all we needed, grown on our own land to make dill pickles.

All of us worked that garden, weeding, hoeing, and watering. Picking here and there to supplement our supper through the summer. When it was time for a full harvest, that time Mother would deem to be the day when it was clear that the colder weather was on its way? It was a matter of all hands on deck, to pluck everything or risk good food being spoiled by the frost.

My mother never could abide wasting food, and neither can I.

On “harvest weekend” it was my job as the youngest was to wash all that came out of the garden (except the cabbages). Not that we used chemicals because we didn’t. But just to have the veggies clean, and dried and ready to use. We had a set of laundry tubs that we would pull out of the house and into the back yard. One tub was filled with water from the garden hose.

My most vivid memory is of ice-cold water and red, painful hands. I was about ten at the time.

After the harvest, there was the freezing and the canning. Potatoes which had been washed and then dried in the autumn sun and fresh air would be gently stored in paper bags and put into what we called the cellarway. This was a small, darkish room that resembled a cellar in that the walls were made of huge stones cemented together. This room had a five-foot-two ceiling, and contained our freezer, our water pump, and our hot water heater. The back of the narrow room held wooden shelves that we used for storage—a pantry, if you will—of goods both bought and made. On the bottom shelf went our potatoes, where it was the darkest and the coolest.

My mother always made sweet green relish, chili sauce (not spicy like chili. Not sure where the name came from), dill pickles and sweet bread-and-butter style pickles, too. She tired her had a time or two at making sauerkraut, but she found that to be a long, drawn out and frankly too smelly an endeavour. And she would also always make jam, but for that confection, she turned to other area farms for their pick-your-own strawberries and blueberries.

I do recall she made crab apple jelly once, from our own two trees—trees we gifted her for Mother’s Day one year and that she had planted, one each in two round flower beds she dug in our front lawn.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the large rhubarb patch that thrived close to the garden. Each year we looked forward to that stewed rhubarb which, of course, we made in our large aluminum saucepan.

One always knew when the sweet green relish was being made. I recall the way our eyes would run a bit as mother added the “bouquet garni” to the huge pot that contained ground up cucumbers, onions, vinegar, and sugar. Her process was to bring the mixture to a slow simmer and keep it cooking for a few hours, and over the course of a couple of days, before declaring it ready to be put in jars and sealed.

I swear that smell even worked its way into the woodwork.

In my career as wife, mother, and chief procurement officer of all things edible, I tried my hand at all my mother had made, save the sauerkraut. My canning days are over now, but I did what I could while I could and in that, I have no regrets.

My oldest son is the one who took up the mantle of sowing and reaping. And he’s added to his repertoire by learning how to “smoke” meats as well.

Traditions may be adjusted and modified. But the thread of them connects us, generation to generation. It’s a kernel of who we were and what we did instilled into the hearts and minds of those who come next. A very basic and lovely form of immortality.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Neither snow nor rain...

 August 13, 2025

By the end of last week, we’d all gotten used to living in an area under construction. Even the dogs had become used to the noise of the machines, and the people wearing hard hats, in our vicinity. And then this week we have been living in relative silence.

The crew had mentioned that they wouldn’t be here on our street this week, that they had to be in another area of the town, completing their previous project.

It’s hard to believe that our small town has work crews in more than one place at a time, but it’s true. With all the new housing that has gone up in the last couple of years, the town is in the enviable position of having relatively full coffers. And you know what that means, right? For reasons that I will never fully grasp, if the town doesn’t spend the money that it has budgeted for various projects each year, funds received from collecting fees and fines and taxes and such, then the following year provincial and federal grant money will be less than the year before.

Those of us who are parents find this a hard concept to wrap our heads around. In the lexicon of my teen years, “way to teach the local government how to manage their money!”

In the lead up to this work project, we had believed that we were as prepared for what would be happening as it was possible for us to be. And that was true except for two minor exceptions.

The first was we missed the small paragraph on the back of the newsletter that advised that our regular garbage collection trucks would not be allowed in the area at all during the project period. But not to fear, our garbage would be collected on our regular day—by the construction crew. Monday night was a bit of a last-minute scramble as we had to use black marker to put our address on the recycle boxes, so they could be returned to us. But we got it done.

The second exception was discovered when we realized that we have not received our mail since the pavement came up. Now, we double checked all the paperwork we had, and there was no mention of an alternate place to collect our snail mail from. Not at all. And since both Amazon and UPS have been making deliveries hereabouts as the crews got to work, we didn’t expect our post office to be any different.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for us, but I had ordered some balm from the west coast, and it was being sent via the post office to us. It was due to arrive last week, and it didn’t. I did receive an email from Canada Post telling me that the parcel has not been delivered, that it was still enroute, and that they would let me know when it might be coming. But there hadn’t been a word from them in nearly a week.

I've learned something in the last couple of days, and as all of you know I’m always looking for new things to learn. This week’s “new thing” is that if you want to get in touch with someone to tell you what’s going on with your mail delivery…. good luck.

I got no real human on the phone, yesterday, except when I called our local post office branch. You might have thought that is where I should start, but I knew the mail was collected from the depot in the next town by those whose job it is to deliver it, and that our local post office had not part in that process. We’re lucky here in these streets as we still get home delivery.

Our local postmaster gave me a number to call which was (of course) different from all the other numbers I had found online and subsequently been calling. And I suppose the deed was done faster than one might expect. It only took two and a half hours to know that my package was indeed somewhere—unless it had been sent back. But by last night I had received word of its precise location.

With any luck at all, by the end of the day today I will have my package in hand. The only unknown portion of this equation is whether or not I will chide the postal people for being “wary” of the dangers on our street, when three other delivery services were not.

There is a famous quote that goes back to ancient Greece, about the nobility of those who work delivering mail. It goes, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” I think that’s true, for the most part.

But no one every said anything about road construction.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Roadwork...

 August 6, 2025

You may recall that our house is on a corner lot. And it seems like only yesterday that the powers that be here in our town, in their infinite wisdom, decided to reconstruct the cross-street at the south side of our house. That was a small project as these things go, and when it was done, we were left with a newly paved side street, but one without a paved dip into our driveway, as the workers were told there wasn’t a driveway there.

Yesterday, two weeks after the original projected start date, began the work on the street that our house is addressed upon.

My husband, utilizing his extensive knowledge of these matters informed us several days ago that likely the work would begin at the southern-most end of our street which, at two and a half blocks away, is the end furthest from our house. No need for any rush to take up the large pavement stones that form our walkway between our house and the sidewalk. No need to hurry to move our mailbox sitting on the edge of the sidewalk out of harm’s way.

As I said, they began yesterday morning just before eight a.m., and by 10:00am, there was no longer any pavement in front of my house. By the end of the work day, the crew had removed all the pavement for the entire length of our street which is the first phase of this infrastructure project.

And this morning they began to pull up the sidewalks.

At least the last time, my office being two rooms away from the action, I was able to focus well enough to get some work done. This time? Quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not creation is going to happen at my keyboard. Lately, focus and discipline don’t seem to be my strong suits.

I can tell you it’s a very odd sensation, having my entire house trembling as the compacter makes certain that the base layer of the road—mostly brown earth of an indeterminate sort—is well and truly tromped down.

In other news, the oppressive heat has broken, and I credit my daughter entirely with that fact. Why, you ask? Because a couple of days before the heat broke, she finally gave in and ordered a new air conditioner for her area upstairs.

The day the unit arrived was the first coolish day in ages. Before I could chide her, she came in, looked at the heavy box at the base of the stairs, looked at us, and said, “you’re welcome”.

A good sense of humor has always been strong in this family.

We have been happily nibbling on cherry tomatoes from our garden and have now enjoyed our second fist-sized tomato. There are several green ones growing, and we’ve all got our fingers crossed that some of them will gain impressive size before ripening. We all enjoy a light supper of toasted tomato sandwiches, and we are all eager to make it so.

We already had our first veggie-only supper of the season a few short weeks ago, and that was quite delicious. Green beans, new potatoes and corn all picked fresh that day.

David had an interesting experience on his dog walks yesterday morning. For some time now, he has transitioned this routine by using his scooter. He has trained the dogs to walk while he rides. But because we live on a busy street (when it’s not under construction) he lets them ride for a few blocks, as he takes them to a quieter neighborhood.

The dogs love this. Rather than having to walk at David’s pace, which is not what once it was, they are able to run to their heart’s content. They always come home with big doggie grins. There’s not much that can brighten one’s spirit in quite the same way that a doggie grin can.

But yesterday, the work crew kept such a good pace that when he returned from walking the one dog—about a half hour—he drove his scooter from the north corner a half block before he realized he wouldn’t be able to cross the street on his scooter to get to our porch. And on his return from walking the second dog? He realized he would have to go up the hill on our north cross street, across a small street that runs parallel to our own, and then down the hill of the street right beside our house.

But he now knows it’s doable. Later today he will discover whether or not he can do all that twice, all on one (new)battery charge.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Nothing is all bad...

 July 30, 2025

As July burns itself out—I had to use a heat metaphor because this month has been brutal—I find myself thinking about the passage of time. And also, the fickleness of humanity.

On the one hand time seems to be speeding by at the speed of light. And on the other hand, we’re obsessed with the slowness of it all.  An example?

“My gosh, I can’t believe it’s almost August already! Oh, and will these long stiflingly hot days never end?”

We can’t blame God for any of this. We change our moods and our minds so darn fast, I’m certain He’s come to the conclusion that no matter what He does, we will never be happy.

The heat is slightly less oppressive today, and according to the weather network, cooler temperatures are on their way. The highs here will be in the mid-seventies tomorrow, and it will likely be raining as well. For those of you who claim they would be happy with mid-seventies year-round, tomorrow should be a banner day.  

Personally, I’ve ventured out very little over these last couple of previews-of-hot-as-hell weeks. I don’t do well in the high heat and humidity, and so I try to structure my days in such a way that I don’t have to. I am eternally grateful, each and every day, that we have central A/C. I would like to point out that this is not a brag; it’s gratitude. We went the first sixty plus years of our lives without any A/C at all. Well, unless you count the bowl of ice in front of the box fan.

We had a window air conditioner for a couple of years, in our late fifties, and that was miraculous. In the days before our daughter moved in with us, in the deep winter and high summer, we closed off our upstairs. In the winter, our heating costs were not outrageous, and in the few of summers that we had that window a/c unit, a couple of well-placed fans—in the living room and my office—gave us a nicely cooled house all day long. Then we’d shut the bedroom door at night, and sleep very well.

I am very aware that a lot of people don’t have air conditioners at home. I am grateful on their behalf that many cities have places where folks can go to cool down. For me, in my younger days, that was always in my bathtub. You can get nicely cooled, wearing your bathing suit and not using the “hot” tap to fill the tub.

For a while we had small swimming pools in our back yard. Over our years in this house, we had a couple of them. They were inexpensive, and about three feet deep. Every day, after work, David and I would put on our suits as soon as we got home and head out to the pool. We both agreed that once you got your body temperature down in that pool, you didn’t get quite so hot again.

Sometimes bedtime would be preceded by another dip in that pool. A final cooling off and bit of relaxation before sleep.

I can and do miss those days and at the same time acknowledge that I would be hard-pressed to get into either of those pools now. My mobility isn’t what it was even five years ago which is not a surprise to me, or anyone who really knows me.

We’ve had two meals of beans from our garden, as well as having frozen two meals worth. We purchased a vacuum-seal appliance a few months ago, an inexpensive one just to see how well we liked it. Don’t like it, love it. When our inexpensive model died (likely from overuse) we bought a slightly better one, on sale, during prime days.

And as a side note, our farmer from down the road is back again for one more season, and we are so happy. We plan on buying lots of corn.

We have a lot of tomatoes on those plants of ours, many growing and some beginning to ripen. We’re hoping for a bumper crop this year. We may get one, too, thanks to that darn heat and so much rain.

Fellow fickle folks, I present to you yet one more fact of life: the heat and the rain can both be a pain, but not even they are all bad.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Just because you can do something...

 July 23, 2025

Last week there was a video that, like so many other videos before it, has gone viral online. Moreover, it actually showed up as an item on the evening news. The video-captured moment took place at a concert—the band that was in concert was Cold Play. The venue was using the so-called “kiss-cam”, a camera that will focus in on a couple (generally), or sometimes a cute child or some famous person in the audience, and that image goes up on the same very big video screen where the entire audience can also see sports replays, or in this case, the concert itself.

I guess this camera got its nick name because so often the camera operator found and focused on a couple kissing. More than one time, in Atlanta Georgia and at different sporting events, the camera operator found former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, sitting side by side, their focus on the game…and then on the image of themselves on the screen. Now the tradition is, apparently, that if you’re not kissing when you see your image up on the video screen, you’re expected to do so, in the interest of being a good sport.

The Carters, as I recall, usually obliged with just the sweetest kisses—as they were the ultimate good sports.

Now the incident I’m writing about that happened last week, well, that was the moment we found out that being a good sport only goes so far—the couple being spotlighted is expected to perform for any and all who are watching.

You know, I understand that cameras are everywhere, these days. And I understand that it’s like a game. Sitting in an arena or auditorium and eagerly hoping, fearing, wondering will that camera show me? I get it.

I also have a very strong moral thread that does not condone cheating, in any way, shape, or form. Neither do I agree with lying, or any number of acts people commit that are considered sins, crimes, or simply acts of poor taste or lackluster upbringing.

But honestly, when I first saw that video that has gone viral, the video of a man and a woman enjoying a concert, together, in the moment…his arms around her from behind, her arms over his….and then their reaction to seeing themselves on the screen? Their shock, their mortification, the way they immediately tried to hide themselves…..I felt ashamed—of myself and the rest of us that for even a moment experienced some sort of vicarious–or maybe that should be vicious—thrill.

Now, to be fair and lest anyone think I’m blaming the camera operator, one can wonder if there would have been a viral moment at all had the couple not so publicly shown their guilt. On the other hand, it could also be argued that the fact that they felt guilt and reacted in the way they did might speak to their not being used to doing that which they shouldn’t do.

Strictly speaking and in the eyes of God, that couple never should have been together in a romantic way at all as at least one of them was married to someone else.

But in the wake of the bruhaha and the fallout for the man (he lost his job) I need to ask a few simple but basic questions: Have we become a society of no quarter given? Have we become a people who seek pleasure through the embarrassment of others? Is this a case of mass schadenfreude? Are our lives so bereft of meaning and substance that we grab at any chance to lift up others who’ve misstepped, and gleefully hold them up to public ridicule?

Yes, there are cameras everywhere and yes, I also get the urge we all experience to snap a pic with our ever-present camera (cell phone) when something catches our eye. And really, knowing all this, we each of us do bear responsibility not to offer ourselves up that way.

I guess the principle I would put forth with this essay, and it applies to all of us, is this:

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.

Over these past several months I have been watching as those in whose hands power has been placed by the electorate have, rather than dedicating themselves as public servants to make life better for everyone have instead worked tirelessly as public overlords to render as much pain as they can to as many as they can, and as quickly as they can. And the only people they are trying to benefit are those who have less need for any kind of “ministering unto” than all the rest of us combined.

We want them—those in charge—to change, to stop the hurting, to stop the persecution. But maybe we’re looking at this all wrong.

Maybe, if we want things to change, then we must begin to make changes within ourselves.

In the private sector and at public venues in this, our capitalistic society, commerce is plied, and the law of supply and demand reigns supreme.

Maybe it’s time for us to stop supplying careless opportunities and to start demanding less cheap hits and more responsible behavior, all the way around. It’s up to us to begin with ourselves, because in this reality we live in, there are some true facts, and this is one:

If we don’t buy the candy, my friends, they will stop making it.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Some lessons learned...

 July 16, 2025

This past Monday was our 53^rd wedding anniversary. We dated for a year before we tied the knot. Hard to believe we’ve been together that long. It’s become a bit of a challenge for me, recalling the all the details of that long-ago Friday. Our ceremony was held in the evening, at the church where I used to attend as a child when my father was alive.

The older you get, you not only lose a few memories, but you can also lose some of your time-perspective. A statement given with absolute conviction, like, say, “we had that repair done five years ago,” surrenders to the actual truth that it was more than ten years ago.

No wonder some younger folks hold onto an image of elderly persons as being “confused”. It’s a sad truth, of course. Except when it’s funny.

I have a word of advice for those of my readers not yet there on the cusp of being elderly. Hang onto your sense of humor. You really will need it in the decades to come.

And one more suggestion, if I may. If you could plan to have a time-definite when you reduce the number of causes you’re willing to go to the mat for, that would be a help, too.

When we’re in our prime, we tend to be a bit full of ourselves. It’s a facet of human nature. We can feel varying degrees of pride that we’re “masters of our fate and captains of our souls”. But as we age, we begin to understand the truth. When we came into this life, we were masters of nothing. And as we become elderly, what mastery we think we have achieved in life begins, little by little, to eke away.

There are a lot of lessons I’ve learned over the years, and some of them, I am sorry to say, took too damn long for me to really learn. Some are still in progress. I suppose that’s why we humans, as opposed to dogs or cats tend to have somewhat longer lifespans, decades more, even. So that we have plenty of time to learn the lessons life has in store for us.

It’s mid July, and I must say that our gardens are looking quite healthy. The combination of heat and rain has done a good job so far. Many of our bean plants have budded, and we have some small green tomatoes already on the vine, and busy growing. I’ll venture out with my phone to take pictures as soon as the humidity drops a bit.

Did I mention that the street on which our house is located is about to be under construction? The main job the crews will be performing includes work to be done on the water and sewer systems. In the process, we will lose the sidewalk on this side of the street. We’ll have a curb, instead, which isn’t a bad thing—but I can’t tell you if, when all is said and done, the parking for our street, which for the last few years has been on this side only of the road, will remain as is or not. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Impending construction means impending noise.  They’re supposed to take only 12 weeks, but really, why do they say that? Have you ever known a construction project to begin and end when “they” say it will? Me, neither.

I’ve already begun the long process of getting into the habit of parking my car in my newly returned driveway. While the street is being worked on, cars may not be parked there. But the noise is not something I can prepare for. I might be able to come up with a work-around, but it’s doubtful. I suspect that my brain will not be able to differentiate between the noise of construction and the noise of music from headphones, where my creative activity is concerned. My brain seems to spasm with whatever loud sounds—read barking dogs—that arise as I ply my trade at the keyboard.

Again, that’s just one more thing to file into the column of “wait and see”.

As I said, there are a lot of life’s lessons I took too long to learn, and some I’ve yet to absorb. But one I think I’ve pretty well nailed is this: I no longer sweat the small stuff. Yes, the causes I’m willing to go to the mat for really are few in number. And yes, sometimes that fact can annoy those nearest and dearest to me, but that’s all right, too.

Because I’m also in possession of an awesome sense of humor, and very good at laughing at myself, and the farce that day-to-day life can sometimes be.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury