Roger was always the one to rise early and get moving. Recently (since I retired anyway) he would be out and back in at least 3 and up to 5 times before I was fully awake! I miss the slamming of the kitchen door. Slamming, not because he was angry, but because he never knew how to softly close the door. (Turn door knob, pull it closed, release knob) Nope, we got...bam!
Who knew you could miss such a thing?
Being in the garden just does something to you. It must be about nurturing something, getting out the weeds, preparing the soil, the challenge of creating or at least piling up all the oak leaves to achieve 'compost.' I loved it when Roger would sit in the garden while I worked. If he was going to work, I had to catch him the hour before or the hour after his run. But sometimes he would just stand out there on critter patrol, or sit in a chair and talk to me while I tended to the weeds. Karin did that this afternoon. Nice. (Well, she is not so much on critter patrol as she is with the chair and blanket with the doggie on her lap, but she is very encouraging!)
Jacob and Emily spent time with me this morning. Jacob cut the white strand of twinkle lights out of the fig tree. He asked me how long it had been there...I did not know....he said it was as long as he could remember. Hmm....he is about to turn 13. But he was tall enough to get every last one, so I would call that perfect timing. Emily LOVES the garden and we had so much fun planting flowers last year. This year we talked about what should and should not be in our orchard. Things that bear fruit. (Peaches, Plums, Figs, Grapefruit, Hot peppers that are still producing from last year!) Everything else could be pruned back or eliminated all together.
Now Jacob is a really good helper after you fill him up with pancakes and sausage....and before he is attacked by a critter. Unfortunately, Jacob will not be filling Roger's critter control shoes. Jacob is a little too much like me....needing someone to watch out for the critters. He is tough though. When that crab spider dropped out of the tree and took a little chunk out of his arm, he was TOUGH. No, we did not call 911. We did not panic. We did not flail around as if we were leaving this earth immediately. (We, meaning neither he, nor I) Emily calmly kept pulling weeds and keeping an eye out for snakes and such. After a quick search through the area, finding no critter of any kind, we decided that he had to have sent that baby sailing through the air after it bit him. We headed to the house for a cold water wash, some antiseptic cleanser, and benadryl. Then off to his house for benadryl liquid. Yes, we had this thing under control even as Emily impatiently wanted to know when we could go back to the garden.
Why Jacob and I also did our due diligence by researching through Google, just to be sure what we were dealing with.
And indeed...Roger would have said..."ya done well" Yep, we done well indeed!
Roger's Lesson: I guess it might have been to watch, observe, listen because one day you might need to know all of this stuff. He definitely showed us how to 'never react'...he was always able to put emotion aside and deal with the crisis at hand. And goodness knows that I did not practice this stuff too often...he was just always there.
And while Jacob's strengths lie in places other than EMT skills, Emily definitely knows how to access the needed supplies and bandaids! And she did it calmly too! What a sister! Jacob is blessed. I am blessed! And yes, Jacob is fine and will survive.
Though morning was a little stressful for me, I did just 'jump back on that horse' and get back to the garden in the late afternoon. Nothing but oak worms (that curly pollen stuff) landed on me.
Thank goodness!
Fun reading your post as usual.
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