Wind in the Garden: It's All Good, Right?

"Awake, O north wind; and come, thy south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." Song of Solomon 4:16

Thanks to Charles H. Spurgeon's writings, among other things, I'm gradually coming to grips with this transient life. If we have to move every year or so, then so be it. I will try to find something good in it. Really, I will. After 32 years of wedded bliss with the same man, I should know by now that his intentions are honorable and unselfish. He wants what's best for all of us. I have faith in him because I have faith in Him.

I honestly don't know how people make it through each day without some kind of faith in Someone greater than themselves. What carries them through the rough spots in life? The dark valleys. The storm that blows through and destroys everything in its path.

There was a storm system yesterday that cut right through the heart of this country. We had some tense moments, wondering if friends and loved ones back in the Midwest were all right. A phone call or two, and we can be at ease, knowing that they are safe and sound. How simple it is to "reach out and touch someone," eh? Apparently, it isn't for some people. They're like "a garden locked up...a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain." For reasons unclear, you're a distant cousin to them instead of a sister. A skeleton in the closet, perhaps. Phone calls and e-mails to them remain either unanswered or not reciprocated. Blood is thicker than water? If it keeps relationships at a standstill, stagnant, not flowing, who needs it?

The tree house, this temporary place we have called "home" for the last year, will be home to some other family soon. We will miss it, the view of the spring-fed lake, the long walks up and down the scenic hills and roads surrounding it. But we will miss the people we've come to know here even more. Good neighbors and friends, all of them.



Sunset, February 29, 2012, on Lake Tallavana



Subsidies? 'Fur' Sure!

Once in a while it's nice to get off this speeding bullet train called life. From the back porch of our temporary home, the lakeside tree house, we witness progress of a different sort. What we think might be a northern river otter, Lutra canadensis, pops its head up from the muck and chomps noisily on some crunchy morsel. A fish made sluggish by the cold winter water or perhaps a frog venturing forth from the cold mud becomes supper for this member of the weasel family. As I try unsuccessfully to capture it in focus on the camera, I think about the trappers and fur traders who once made a substantial income from its ancestors' hides. 

Beavers, otters, muskrats, and minks were at one time so popular as winter outerwear for wealthy Europeans that our own Congress under President George Washington agreed to subsidize the fabulously profitable fur industry. Something unthinkable today, this subsidy encouraged the slaughter of thousands of animals for the sake of a fashion statement. Thank goodness that was short-lived, the fashion I mean. Subsidies continue in perpetuity even though entrepreneurs like John Jacob Astor proved without a doubt that private industry prevails over the lumbering giant known as Government. Just about anything you can think of in this country is subsidized in part or in its entirety by tax dollars: Education, healthcare, ethanol production, farming, ranching, solar power, wind power, oil and gas production, churches.... Help me out here. I know there are more things to add to the list.

Aristocracy never really disappeared from this country. It just morphed into elitism that preys on sluggish minds: We know what's good for you. We must continue those subsidies, or else!

There is something so massive, stable, and almost irresistibly imposing, in the exterior presentment of established rank and great possessions, that their very existence seems to give them a right to exist; at least, so excellent a counterfeit of right, that few poor and humble men have moral force enough to question it, even in their secret minds. Such is the case now, after so many ancient prejudices have been overthrown; and it was far more so in ante-revolutionary days, when the aristocracy could venture to be proud, and the low were content to be abased....

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, 1851

Luna Moth--'Dow's Flat' Relief

Remains of Luna Moth, Actias luna, Lake Tallavana area

Do you ever have one of those mornings? A 'Dow's Flat' kind of morning? See below. You wake up, a miracle in itself. The sun is shining brightly again. A nice breeze is picking up, and the prospects for a long walk are looking mighty fine. Then the stuff hits the fan or at least the floor. My stuff this morning was a glass jar of mayonnaise that slipped from my hand and shattered into a million pieces on the kitchen tile. Walk delayed. Drat! Now it's going to be hot. The bugs will be bugging me. I'll be dripping sweat.

After covering myself with choice epithets from head to toe for being so clumsy and then cleaning up the million pieces of glass and mayo mess, I took that walk anyway. Sweat be damned!

The loop trail (road) is about 2.5 miles long and seemed punishing enough. I didn't expect to be rewarded. But there it was when I looked down at the road. The remains of a luna moth. And then I got to show it to the man who picks up the recyclables and hauls them off in his truck. And then the lady who was going the opposite direction from me stopped and stared at it. I'd passed her earlier on another part of the loop, and we greeted each other briefly. Now we were conversing, and she was smiling. Me too! I was, after all, carrying around a dead moth and showing it off like it was a marvelous thing. It was. "Dow's Flat" relief.

Dow's Flat

1856

Dow's Flat. That's its name.

And I reckon that you

Are a stranger? The same?

Well, I thought it was true,--

For thar isn't a man on the river as can't spot the place at

First view.

It was called after Dow,--

Which the same was an ass,--

And as to the how

Thet the thing kem to pass,--

Just tie up your hoss to that buckeye, and sit ye down here

in the grass:

You see this yer Dow
Hed the worst kind of luck;
He slipped up somehow
On each thing thet he struck.
Why, ef he'd a straddled that fence-rail the derned thing 'ed
Get up and buck.

He mined on the bar
Till he couldn't pay rates;
He was smashed by a car
When he tunnelled with Bates;
And right on the top of his trouble kem his wife and five
Kids from the States.

It was rough,--mighty rough;
But the boys they stood by,
And they brought him the stuff
For a house, on the sly;
And the old woman,--well, she did washing, and took on
When no one was nigh.

But this yer luck of Dow's
Was so powerful mean
That the spring near his house
Dried right up on the green;
And he sunk forty feet down for water, but nary a drop to
Be seen.

Then the bar petered out,
And the boys wouldn't stay;
And the chills got about,
And his wife fell away;
But Dow, in his well, kept a peggin' in his usual ridikilous
Way.

One day,--it was June,--
And a year ago, jest,--
This Dow kem at noon
To his work like the rest,
With a shovel and pick on his shoulder, and a derringer
Hid in his breast.

He goes to the well,
And he stands on the brink,
And stops for a spell
Jest to listen and think;
For the sun in his eyes, (jest like this, sir!) you see, kinder
Made the cuss blink.

His two ragged gals
In the gulch were at play,
And a gownd that was Sal's
Kinder flapped on a bay;
Not much for a man to be leavin', but his all,--as I've
Heer'd the folks say.

And--That's a peart hoss
Thet you've got,--ain't it now?
What might be her cost?
Eh? Oh!--Well, then, Dow--
Let's see,--well, that forty-foot grave wasn't his sir, that
Day anyhow.

For a blow of his pick
Sorter caved in the side,
And he looked and turned sick,
Then he trembled and cried.
For you see, the dern cuss had struck--"Water?"--
Beg your parding, young man, there you lied!

It was gold,--in the quartz,
And it ran all alike;
And I reckon five oughts
Was the worth of that strike;
And that house with the coopillow's his'n,--which the same
Isn't bad for a Pike.

Thet's why it's Dow's Flat;
And the thing of it is
That he kinder got that
Through sheer contrariness;
For 'twas water the derned cuss was seekin', and his luck
Made him certain to miss.

Thet's so. Thar's your way
To the left of yon tree;
But--a--look h'yur, say?
Won't you come up to tea?
No? Well, then, the next time you're passin'; and ask after
Dow,--and thet's me.

(A poem by Bret Harte)

Landscape Looting, Sweat Equity, and a New Way of Living

One day not long ago, a pair of walkers packed up all of their worldly belongings and set off to find their fame and fortune in Tallahassee. They thought that their modest home and garden near Pensacola would be in good hands with an experienced property manager watching over them. He promised that the tenants he had found would take care of and cherish this landscape the walkers considered was truly sweat equity.

Would it be okay if the tenants were to add a few plants of their own? They love to garden, you say? Well, then, what's a few more plants?

Oh! We see (courtesy of a concerned neighbor and friend). They've moved--among many things--mature, fruit-bearing trees during a drought to make room for their "few more plants." And they promise to change it back to the way it was if they decide they don't like it here. Nice thought! It would require way more than "seven maids with seven mops" (see below) to accomplish that feat.

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand:
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear...

(excerpt from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, 1871)

The same weekend that the pair of walkers were packing up all of their worldly belongings to seek their fame and fortune in Tallahassee, their pride and joy (Son and Daughter) were graduating together from Pensacola State College. No bitter tears shed here.

By the time all that pomp and circumstance was said and done, though, there weren't many dry eyes in the place.

 Brother and sister graduating at the same time. One more step, completed together.

SAM has taken to the new way of living on a lake like...well, a fish takes to water! The landscape here suits him just fine.

This walker, for as long as she's allowed, will follow the eldest Oyster's example and stay put for a while. And this latest "oyster-bed" will not be disturbed. Even if she could afford "seven maids with seven mops," no sand sweeping (landscape looting) is necessary or desired.