May 26, 2021

The Ashbury household held fast to a time-honored tradition this past weekend. It was the Victoria Day weekend here, so named to honor Queen Victoria, the second longest reigning British monarch (she was the longest, until Sept 9, 2015 when she was surpassed by our current queen).

We tend to call this holiday weekend “The May two four weekend” for two reasons. The first is because the designated day to celebrate Queen Victoria is on her birthday which was May 24^th—or, since it’s a legislated holiday, the closest Monday before the 24^th. And the second reason is what I have in the past referred to as one of the most sacred of all Canadian things: beer.

Yes, seriously. Beer. The most common large pack of beer sold here is 24 bottles in a case. That case is nicknamed the two four. Cases are 6 packs, 12 packs and 24 packs. In Canadian-speak, that’s a six, a twelve, and a two four.

But beer is not the tradition we upheld this past weekend here at our house. It was that other great annual event, garden planting. As a rule in these parts, one doesn’t plant their garden until this weekend when legend proclaims all danger of frost is past. And it usually is, but not always, as the good folks in part of the Canadian province of Alberta have discovered in the last week.

Some of our neighbors upheld yet one more tradition of the weekend: fireworks. Each night, Friday to Monday in this little neighborhood in our small town, we were treated to the sound of fireworks being set off. We didn’t run outside to see them, but we could hear them well enough, and of course, so could the dogs. But all of the dogs living here now are small dogs, and they don’t seem to be concerned one bit about the pyrotechnics. Our last large dog, Rochie, was terrified of them. When they occurred, he would immediately seek me out and then try to hide under me. A fond memory and yes, another story for another day.

David and our daughter began their weekend project of gardening with a trip to a couple of local garden centers, considered essential businesses, for supplies. Jennifer had her eye on the flowers and David, of course, on the veggies. I may address the state of our flower gardens here at the Ashbury’s in a later essay.

The only veggie seeds David purchased this year were for green beans. He also bought some green bean plants, and both seeds and plants were of the bush variety and not “string-pole” sort. He also purchased swiss chard plants, cucumber plants, and several varieties of tomatoes. No one, apparently, had any squash plants. They hadn’t come in yet. But over the next few weeks he’ll try again.

As some of you may recall from last year, David had been planning on building one more raised table garden this year, in order to plant potatoes. Now, there’s something you likely already know about my dear husband, as I have hinted at it over the years. He tends to be…frugal. Very frugal. Some might even say cheap. Not me, of course. I would never say that. But others have, and so, by the way, has he. In fact, he’s very proud of that trait.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but the price of lumber has skyrocketed over the last year. As well, we are still under a “stay-at-home” state-of-emergency order. And while the grocery stores and the nurseries are open, the lumber yards are not. One can still order lumber and either have it delivered or pick it up curbside. But that means there’s one thing you can’t do and that is pick each individual piece of wood yourself.

David likes to buy only the wood that he can see, as not all two-by-fours (there are those numbers again) are created equal. For that reason, as well as the fact that the wood is several times pricier than it was last year, he chose not to build a raised bed for the potatoes in 2021.

He decided to repurpose an old plastic storage tote that had been living in the basement, instead.

Beige, with holes about a half inch in diameter along the sides, this tote looks like it’s been through a few wars. And now it’s going to be a spud garden. The tote is 48 inches long, 22 inches wide and about 18 inches deep. He should be able to do most of what needs doing to tend the potato plants, even if it isn’t raised to a height of four feet off the ground. Potatoes aren’t particularly labor intensive.

No, the plain yet sturdy potato doesn’t need a lot of fussing. You have to keep hilling the dirt around them to make a mound and maybe pluck a few weeds, and you need to water them some, and that’s about it.

Shortly after he filled the new potato garden with dirt and planted the seed potatoes he’d purchased, he discovered that one more improvisation was required. And after a search, he located what had once been someone else’s wooden, slatted piece of fencing, purchased for a dollar at a yard sale a couple of years ago. And this he laid over the top of the spud garden to keep Bella Dog out of what she believed to be her brand new, earthy dog bed that her grandpa had made just for her. It’s sufficient to keep the dog out and to allow the sun in.

David has been looking forward to being a potato farmer. Over the winter he’d spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos on how to do just that. Last year’s last-minute impulse planting of a few potatoes out of the kitchen supply wasn’t a resounding success, but there were some potatoes grown.

The deed has been done, the plants—and spuds—are in the earth, and now all that’s left is to water, weed, and hope Mother Nature treats our endeavors kindly.

The first two are a given. The last, only time will tell.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 May 19, 2021

Getting older sure is not for the faint of heart. The pains and the aches that attack me as I move about each day have been an ongoing thing since, well, I can’t actually recall when I wasn’t aching. Pain comes, pain goes, and I adapt. Some days I take only one dose of pain meds, and some days I take the maximum my doctor allows. I never take more than I absolutely need, so that’s something, at least.

The writing is much as it has ever been, if perhaps a bit slower. I have a new book coming out on the 28^th of this month, and it is my 66^th title for my publisher. I manage somehow to produce this essay each week. I will confess that there are times when I wonder if the words I write in this medium, when strung together to form the essay, make any sense. But mostly I think I’m able to get my message across.

The area where aging has been taking its toll on me is when it comes to that whole “juggling” thing that we humans tend to do—or in my case lately, try to do.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when I could handle two or three or more things happening concurrently. In other words, I could have several balls in the air at one time. I’d be in the middle of writing something, or doing something, and would get a phone call about something else. I’d make a note and then, in the midst of following that trail, one or two other things would arise. I’d smoothly and with no difficulty whatsoever add each item in turn to my mental to-do list, and then, with great aptitude, and not a little finesse, deal with everything on my overflowing plate. One after the other after the next. Boom, boom, boom boom, done.

Now? Not so much.

I find any more that if I get interrupted—if I am asked to handle something else, or something comes up, I don’t feel as if I can be as calm as I used to be with being side-tracked. It’s almost as if I have a little A.D.D. happening here. I get things done, but I suppose the great difference I’m referring to is that I don’t feel as if I am getting things done, or that I’m giving the original task in question my best effort, because I was sidetracked. At a time in my life when I suspect that getting the job done should bring me a greater sense of accomplishment than at any time previous in my life, it gives me less.

I was “zooming” with two author friends in the course of our Tuesday writing-sprint routine, and then I got a phone call. I’m currently “power-of-attorney” for a family member, and I knew by looking at the call display that this call was about that person. I had to mute my zoom, and also my sound. I didn’t care that my fellow authors could still see me on the phone, but maybe I should have cared? Anyway, I was distracted by the call, and it took me a little time to settle, once the call was concluded. I made a quick note about the call but it did take me a few minutes to get back into the mindset I needed to be able to focus on the zoom meeting.

I understand, of course, that it’s normal that some changes come with age. And most of the time, I’m fine with that. I can’t clean my entire house in two and a half hours anymore, the way I could twenty years ago. I sit more often than I used to when I’m busy doing things around the house. And while I understand everything that happens around me, I do find that some little things just don’t seem to matter so much anymore.

As I am composing this essay, an image inserts itself in my mind. I imagine myself like a hot-air balloon, once held in place by a dozen or more strong mooring lines, secure in my place and comfortable in my range of motion.  And then the older I get, I notice that with each passing year, some of those lines are, one by one, giving way.

As I said, getting older is not for the faint of heart. On the other hand it is, if we’re lucky enough to keep living, inevitable.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 May 12, 2021

I hope all the moms reading this had a good Mother’s Day on Sunday. I heard from most of my family, and that for me is the most important thing of all. Having a day when I’ve heard from so many of my loved ones always puts a smile on my face. I look forward to the day when I can hug them all close.

The girls corralled my two grandchildren who live in town, here—my late son’s two children—and since they’re members of the working world, secured their contribution to flowering my porch. It’s the Mother’s Day tradition my girls have chosen, and while they know that I would be just as happy having only some of their time, I nevertheless made sure they knew I appreciated the gifts.

My front porch now sports five hanging baskets of flowers (including one dropped off by my son and that, too, is his tradition), and David got me a window box to hang on the porch railing. We have two more of those flower boxes in storage, currently empty, that we will fill ourselves in the next month. The plan is for me to go to the local nursery and tour the place on my scooter and pick out what I’d like.

I do love pansies, but we weren’t able to get there in time this year for them. The local place only sells those for the first little while in March and April. They say that pansies are spring flowers, not well suited to the heat of summer, and while that is true, mine have usually lasted the entire growing season because they only get the morning sun and are in shade from about 11:30 on. I can’t very well blame the growers for doing what for them makes the most economic sense.

Leaves have replaced buds on most of the neighborhood trees and are growing more mature with each day. It well and truly is springtime here in Southern Ontario, and in a supreme act of faith that spring is here to stay until it melts into summer, I put away my “snuggie” on Sunday, though it isn’t an actual trademarked snuggie. We bought two wearable blankets from Amazon, one for each of us this past winter, and there were evenings I was very grateful to be able to put on this fuzzy, warm blanket and tuck my feet into the inside pocket. David felt the same way. It was the best money we spent on ourselves this year. Better, because they really were quite inexpensive.

Mine is currently neatly rolled up in the same way one would roll a sleeping bag, tied with ribbon, and sitting in my bedroom closet until the fall.

In our gardens, flowers are blooming. At the moment I have daffodils and tulips, narcissi and hyacinths. My two peonies are getting ready to make their annual appearance, and man are those lilies-of-the-valley popping up everywhere! I have a bud vase that I am longing to see filled with those fragrant little flowers. They, like the lilacs, once picked, don’t last long. I often think the reason they die quickly in a vase is they’re so full of scent that they’re the “flaming comets” of flowers. It takes all their essence to scent the air with their beauty, that they die off quickly. At least, that’s my take on the subject.

With the arrival of sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures, our front porch is getting more use. We have three padded chairs on it, and what a coincidence, there are three of us living here. I don’t go out that often, so the third chair is a point of competition between three dogs of  my daughter’s dogs. We have what looks like a wooden doll bed on the porch, too, but of course it’s not a doll bed, but a dog bed. My daughter’s other dog, the teacup chihuahua, likes that because like him, it’s low to the ground. Dogs who will not share a chair will share that little bed with Zeus, or even each other, which is odd. And not that our daughter’s four dogs are spoiled exactly, but they would rather be on a bed or chair than on the carpeted (this year with artificial grass) porch itself. As she often says, her dogs are not floor dogs.

Our two puppies who are now more than a year old don’t, as the others, insist on sitting on the chair, nor do they clamor of that little bed.

They’re much smarter than that.

They insist, instead, on sitting upon their daddy—Missy, the bigger of the two, on his lap and Bear-Bear, who weighs in at a whopping two pounds, a bit higher, on his chest. And they don’t even complain, overly much, if he brings out his kindle and insists on reading while they’re being held.

As long as he is also their faithful pet bed, they are content.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 May 5, 2021

There’s a relatively new expression that I’ve been hearing over the last several months. It is, “saying the quiet part out loud”. Now, normally, I don’t spend too much time thinking about these expressions that make the rounds. For example, I think that referring to silence on the part of officials as “crickets” is just a great big nothing burger.

And while it’s true that these expressions come and blessedly go—I mean does anyone ever refer to something they really like as “the bee’s knees” anymore? The individual expressions pass, but the habit of coining them doesn’t. I think that’s just human nature at work, our sometimes-desperate desire to ensure that we get everything lined up into neat little piles, with labels and directions. Sort of like the words in the song Alice’s Restaurant. We want to turn our lives into a series of “twenty-seven eight by ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, explain what each one is about”.

And by the way, “crickets” = quiet doesn’t work for me because there have been summer nights in my life when there’s been a cricket in the bedroom. That, my friends, is the antithesis of quiet.

But I digress.

The reason for this convoluted opening is that I believe I have committed the sin of saying the quiet part out loud. Yes, although I wrote it instead of saying it…and it happened in my essay last week.

If you will be so kind as to recall, in last week’s essay I expressed my great joy and everlasting gratitude that the girls, instead of gifting David with the Fitbit he’d asked as his gift for Christmas gave him, instead, an Apple Watch. I was happy because, you see, I don’t know anything about that device, I didn’t want to know anything about that device, so my beloved would have to get his help for the use of that device from someone else.

Ah, well, it was a nice idea, a lovely concept, and I did enjoy a day or two of bliss because of it. A few very short day or two.

Apparently, I’m not the only senior citizen in this house who doesn’t want to learn anything about the Apple Watch. And if anyone from Apple is reading this, no, there is nothing wrong with that wonderful, dare I say miraculous device you’ve created. The problem lay with the person around whose wrist that device was positioned.

I don’t blame David for his reaction, not at all. The older we get the more difficult it is to adapt to advancing technology. And if we’re to be perfectly honest here, his use of the devices he has “mastered”—his laptop, his desktop, and his cell phone—well, that usage hasn’t actually been very masterful.

Our daughter and I have learned to agree with him whole-heartedly that the damn thing did something stupid all by itself, and just fix the “glitch” for him, rather than to try and convince him the only thing truly “the matter” with the device was the person using it. We know, we know. Whatever happens, he didn’t do it, the device did!

I think he tried, at least for a couple of minutes, to learn something about the watch but I totally understand the fact that for our senior minds there is a wall which can be impenetrable when it comes to technology or anything new. I can’t wrap my head around that which began as photoshop (and who the hell knows what it’s called now)? I am blessed to have a good friend who creates memes and banners for me that I use on Face Book to promote my new releases. David is thinking of publishing his books when he finishes the last one of his trilogy, and I am cheering him on. But we’ll have to hire someone to do it for us because, yeah, that formatting and all the other stuff that goes along with publishing a novel? Way above my pay grade.

Seriously.

And also seriously was the fantasy I had in my mind, thinking that I would be saved interruptions and pleas for help several times a day because I didn’t know anything about the watch. We did have one very predictable exchange not long after I posted that essay last week.

Him: (holding the watch across his palm much like one would hold a dead lizard) It did this, and then it did that, and now it won’t do the other thing! (Followed by his thrusting said palm as close to me as he could).

Me: (trying very hard to speak kindly) Why are you telling me? I don’t know anything about it. I can’t help you. Please, go and text our second daughter.

It was the look on his face that slew me. He clearly believed I can fix anything, and I was sorry that he had to learn the truth—I can’t.

But now, I don’t have to worry anymore, nope, no worries here.

Last night our daughter relieved him of the watch and gave him her three-month old Fitbit in place of it. The Fitbit app is on his phone, the watch app is off his phone, and he is a happy camper. When he got up this morning, he was able to check his sleep, and he can check his steps, and that was all he wanted the device for. Well, perhaps he is obsessing a bit about his heartrate (Why is my heart doing that? What’s wrong with it?). But that, I predict, will be another essay.

And I really don’t mind helping him out with the device itself. I do know a thing or two about the Fitbit, having worn one now for nearly five years.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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