Upward and Onward

September 17, and G-man is out in the garden, pulling up grass by the roots. This is no mean feat. I haven't touched my flower garden in months due to a shoulder injury, and it's a jungle out there. I tried left-handed weeding for a while. When that shoulder began to hurt and the temperature crept past 95, I gave up.

Bless his heart, my husband took pity on me and the garden. It can be so handy to have a husband out in the yard.
  
I stood by his side, shivering in my shorts and t-shirt. How is it possible to go from a high of 90 to a high of 69 in one day? Breezes I welcomed last week feel uncomfortable this week. I'll never get used to the coast, because I don't think I'll ever be able to wear shorts and flip-flops in January. That and my white legs would not encourage tourists to visit the Crystal Coast.

I assisted the G-man by talking his ear off and cutting my final bouquet of zinnias. They remain stunning to the last. The good old, dependable marigolds have also reached their glory - a riot of orange, copper, bronze, and yellow. Do they just know about Halloween?

In my annual act of faith, I planted zinnia and marigold seeds in the spring, and here in autumn, they are still working hard and pleasing the eye. I call that a garden miracle, good weather or bad.

These plants survived my haphazard gardening test. "Plant something you like in a place you like. If grows; so be it. If it withers or fails to thrive; plant something else." This is my strategy despite having had two excellent horticulturists as close friends. Soil-test? "Gee, do I have to study for that?"

This is all to say we have survived summer, and our first coastal garden has yielded successes and occasions to plant something else. Autumn has arrived at last, and our afternoon of tidying up has ushered in my favorite season.

Purveyors of Poop

This is a post about poop. Squeamish readers beware.
 I have discovered, living in my neighborhood, a critter who takes the concept of recycling to an all-time high. I think it's a highly successful enterprise, because I believe this insect has been around for thousands of years.
   He's called a dung beetle (you're surprised?) or scarab. Remember scarab bracelets from high school? Euuuuuuuu! Yuck!
   The ones in my neighborhood appear only in black with a green iridescent tint, and sport several pairs of menacing and finely honed pincers. I discovered these guys while walking my dogs.
    Nicki and Teddy would make their daily roadside deposits, and we would continue our walk. When we returned, perfectly formed poop balls would be rolling across the road in a somewhat orderly line. Later in the day, the the dog poop would have completely disappeared. Self propelled poop - never had I seen such a thing.
    How nice. Wonder if the Home Owners Assoc. provides this service?
    The next day I looked closer, and that's when I discovered the dung beetles, hard at work maneuvering balls of poop, nearly twice their size across the road. They are quick and highly efficient.
     Though I had previously never thought about dung beetles, I more or less assumed they fell upon a pile of poop, consumed mass quantities and moved on.
      Oh, no. It is so more comprehensive than that.
       According to good old Wickipedia, my dung beetles are of a variety called "rollers" which, as we have observed, roll the poop in a straight line despite all obstacles. They can roll a ball up to 50 times their own weight. They feed exclusively on dung because it is so nutritious!
     Beetle couples work together to roll the ball of poop to a romantic destination where they mate, bury the ball, and create a little dung honeymoon shack where she lays her eggs. When the larvae hatch, they eat the dung ball. Now this is what I call conservation!
     Dung beetles also replenish nutrients and restructure soil when they bury their dung balls. They also protect livestock by burying their feces, which if left above ground, can host any number of pests and diseases.
       Right now, dear reader, you are saying, "This woman needs something more to do with her time!" Too true, but I am happy to acknowledge such valuable and fascinating little critters. They take something NOBODY else wants and turn it into something useful for themselves and others. I am delighted that there is less poop to scoop, and I appreciate their efforts. I will not, however, be inviting them over for a glass of wine on the porch.
  There is something about all of this that reminds me of the movie, "Soylent Green." Honk if you have ever seen that movie. I think about it all the time, but then that is another blog post. 

Fear & Other Things That Go Bump in the Night

I have a quote on my refrigerator (actually my refrigerator contains more wisdom than food, in hopes that I might ingest some, I suppose):

Approach what you find repulsive; help the ones you think you cannot help; and go to places that scare you....  from some Tibetan monk I never heard of

     I've taken this as a general kind of guide to self improvement and living a life less self-centered. Although I once interpreted it to mean travel by myself to a foreign country where I did not speak the language and to eat foods of unknown content and origin.
     There are times, however, when this quote takes on a radically different meaning.
     Did you ever startle awake in the middle of the night for no good reason, gripped by a sweating, heart-pounding feeling of doom - that either this is the big one or else all the awful mistakes you have made in your entire life have gotten together and decided to perform an intervention while you slept? 
     I have, and it usually signifies that the Fear and Anxiety twins have come to pay me a visit for as long as, oh well, as long as they care to stay. They are old acquaintances of mine, but they are unwelcome.
     The problem is that when they visit, they wrap themselves around your head; clutch at your throat; twist up inside your stomach; suck up your energy, and they won't let go until it thunders.
     Your home becomes house-arrest, and the still-pajama-clad creature watching yet another re-run of "What Not to Wear" at 2 p.m. is you: the repulsive thing you can't approach. The place that scares you is the shower; and you are the one you think you cannot help - beyond force-feeding your way to the bottom of a full bag of empty calories. 
    You could do something about this, but you feel, profoundly, that any non-essential movement would split your entire self into a thousand, ungatherable pieces, and that would be that.
    You never felt like this? Hmmm, imagine that.
    After years of hosting the Fear and Anxiety twins at varying intervals and for varying lengths of time, I've learned one, and only one, important coping tip. Remind yourself that it won't last. They will move on.
     So you spend a day or two posing as a lazy, overweight, unmotivated slug, and then you approach that place that scares you. You take a shower; put on some clean clothes, and take a break. Then you do something else; make coffee, maybe make up the bed.
     Funny, the twins have an aversion to clean clothes and made beds; they'll begin to pack up and move out.
     Last night, I went to another place that scared me. I rode my bike through the marsh walk, something I had never tried before. I left the twins back at the house. I enjoyed the ride, and when I returned there was nothing to do but clean up the dregs they'd left behind.
   I'm told this is National Mental Health Week (Month?). Depression gets to most of us sooner or later, but it won't last.
    
    
  

Early Beach

Impossible task to write about a morning beach in any form that approaches originality, and yet .... this morning the beach looked entirely new. Clean, water-swept sand washed into a blank canvas for skittering bird feet and ambling human feet whose heels and toes still cast shadows in the early morning sun. Emerald waves hit the shore with thick white spray and spread foam like a flowing layer of icing onto a crumb-cleaned cake. The sun, for the first time, felt good warming my back.
   Our beach is so forgiving. Just one week past Labor Day, and the cigarette butts and bottle caps have all but disappeared. Nothing left but nature and a few morning worshipers planted in couples, coffee mugs in hand, in silent communion; lone fishermen, lines in the water and thoughts far away; and amblers like me, breathing in fresh, healing air, and breathing out those little prickly things that pinch your insides and make you lose sight of perfection.
    I have no new words, but you could come here at 7 a.m. and find some of your own.

Up Close and Personal

Ah, ha There he was - a Green Heron perched on a railing of the pier, studying the marsh at 7:30 am. So intent was he that I stealthily approached to within in 30 feet. He turned one beady, black eye and studied me back. Several moments passed; woman and bird connected in silent observation. He appeared unperturbed, and I dared one slow step closer. Delicately he arched his back, pooped into the water and flew away.