Wednesday, May 12, 2021

 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

 


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