Preparing for winter -- again

~Google images~

 

          Time to bring the plants in, says Ms. Janet Carson, the horticulturist. Where do I put them? I ask myself. In front of windows, I answer.
 

          Now, I have plenty of windows but not all of them will host a plant--small, tall, narrow, H-UG-E, like the schefflera that's 3-feet wide and 2-feet tall. OK, narrow it down to possibilities: the breakfast room/green room on the southwest corner. Three windows, two doors. In fact, since the hardwood floors in the office/sunroom are again beautiful (without years of water spots from dripping plants), they won’t go in there. The Green Room/ old breakfast-room area will soon be filled. It reminds me of the late Edna Brown’s room of wintering-over plants.

          The pear-motif-ed curtains are still down to let in the light. I must cut the huge variegated privet from the west window—again for more light.

           Since this is an old house with thin-paned windows, time and weather have messed with the casings, etc. Where air can get in, I either caulk or lay vintage lace into those places, then arrange clear or colored glass pieces on top. One winter, I used fake snow fabric. That way, I could imagine an inside, but never-melting, snow scene.

          This winter, however, the newly-laid vinyl tile floor is to be considered. No water should stand on it, the tile men warned. So each plant must have its own saucer.

          
            At the south windows, on a two-by-twelve, hand-built-by-Dad, bench (we used to sit on at breakfast many years ago), I will arrange the jade plant, an 8-year-old dish garden, a drunkard’s dream, and anything else that will fit. Then, I’ll maneuver the huge schefflera into the corner.

          At the west window, I’ll bring in another like-sized bench from the front porch and place the two ferns on it, and whatever else that there’s room for. Mom’s lacy fern will go in a tall metal plant holder. The smaller plants will rest on the table in the center.

         The angel wings and beefsteak begonias and the pepperomia I might place on card-table chairs or wooden step stools. The mother-in-law’s tongue and split-leafed philodendron, the peace lilies, a corn plant and the Norfolk Pine will more than likely have to spend the winter on a back porch table covered with a flannel-backed plastic cloth. Oh, how could I forget the money plant the church gave me when I retired in 2009?

        
       Changing the subject: The theme of this year’s Season’s Greeting Letters, published in Baltimore by Mohammed H. Siddiqui, was “breeze/ breezes.” Each year he asks for haiku and tanka on a selected theme. I have been lucky enough to warrant a place or two in a dozen years’ issues. This year, he chose these poems of mine:

 

parking lot breezes

aluminum can 

rolling, rolling

 

mid-June rain

 in the porch swing

 making my own breeze

         
   May your autumn breezes bring happiness and contentment.
   And bring your plants in soon.

 

Two Junes ago - a perfect combination and setting

                “Writers, like other dangerous criminals, should come to know solitary confinement.” – Paul Greenberg, Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

 I had been in Florida when he delivered his speech to the Arkansas Writer’s Conference, but  caught it in his next Sunday’s column. (Which saw double duty.)

Greenberg’s sentence hit me like a dirt clod. For each of eight mornings, some days as early as 6:15, I sat in solitude (not solitary confinement, but still...) and read and wrote. It was like being at a writers’ colony with Gulf breezes and doves as a background for creativity. What better place could I find myself?

Never mind that I had to look out over a parking lot as large as a football field. I tried to look up and beyond to the little patch of Gulf across the street and behind a row of ubiquitous condos fenced in against any but the owners/ guests. 

Our arrival at the condo turned out to be not-so-pleasant. The air conditioning labored, but got no cooler than 74 degrees. Billy couldn’t stand the heat so all the others in our party--Billy, his mother, his sister and a friend—“jumped ship” and stayed at J.’s place. “An emergency,” Daughter said, until a definite complaint to the lessors could be made the next day.

I found myself alone in room 2C of Tristan Towers, which touted three queen-sized beds but held only one-- they must have meant a blow-up mattress (in the closet) and a pull-out sofa for the other two. I had an oscillating fan that Billy traded for my smaller “face” fan.     

The AC was repaired later the next day, but by 6:15 Friday morning, I was outside on the deck.

Myriad doves with a different sound than those at home—a 3-pulse motif: coo-coooooo-cuk ––called over and over.

Sights included the horizon––the curved edge of the earth––a cloudless sky, dog walkers, joggers, swallows, palms, oleanders, river gravel, ornamental grasses and CARS! 

A business man, satchel in one hand, lunch in the other, purple shirt, taupe trousers, walked to the farthest vehicle in the parking lot––a slate gray hatchback. Before exiting, he pulled over to the concrete barrier/fence and hosed off the car and then headed into the gate’s security eye and disappeared. He must have been one of the 90 families who lived in the Towers. (I counted the mailboxes in the lobby!)

A dove settled on the top of a nearby light standard. Before I could get a good look through my binoculars, it flew. Another--or perhaps the one that flew—a gray blob fluffing its feathers--perched on the clubhouse chimney.

A cool breeze barely moved; a school bus passed silently––the merging of nature versus man, an attempt to meld them into a mecca where inlanders like us long to go on vacation.

If folks needed and enjoyed solitude as much as I did, they’d escape to a deserted place where only the water, birds, and fish were companionable. And the breeze.

My family didn’t know what a gift they gave me when they—for want of a cooler abode—fled to J.’s place for the night.

And they left me in a $1680-for-ten-days, Gulf-area condo—spacious, q-u-i-e-t, orderly.

For a day or so, at least.