Sitting here, pondering the day and wonder, I realized quickly that it was just far too cold to mooch about outside yesterday. But because I had diligently cleaned up and filled the assorted mesh and good buffet feeders in front of me window a short while back, as well as leaving the now quickly browning remains of the White Pine Swamp Ticks for the assorted little feathered dinosaurs, I saw the cold had awakened their munchies button. Maggie was squacking behind me atop the computer chair all dangly and even tried to walk around my desk top. I was having none of it and lifted her protesting hairy arse back to the top where she dangled again and gave me the feline stink eye. lol I had sat yesterday here in my computer chair and drifted in thoughts and gazed past the blinds and glass to the rapidly disappearing electric Fall colors on the Crabby apple tree to the dark drawn in leaves of the Korean Spice viburnum just next to her and in her expanding embrace to just see how the Heavy Metal grass had endured the freezing sleet and bit of snow we got in the wee hours. The bird bath was frozen solid, and I saw there was a marauding horde of feathered little ruffian dinosaurs pushing and shoving each other on the three feeders I have hanging (I have two more amazing ones, but cant afford to fill ALL of them up!) Red Polls, house finches, Wrens with their slick racing stripe, the scene just outside me windows made me think of tiny little Vikings and the only thing missing was tiny flagons of mead and horned helmets with all the pushing and shoving and snarling in peeps and chirps and trills that I could hear through the closed window and storm pane. As I watched them, I narrowed my focus closer to myself. An old friend returned to me, my desk that daddy had bought for me when I went into junior high school as a pre-teenager that served me decades was brought out of Patricks room finally when he started moving all his things home in preparation of his new adventure and journey to South Korea in December. I had loaned it to him when we lived in Greeneville so that he too would have a desk to do his homework upon, and now that he has a most serious solid wood old fashioned office desk set up in his room in the same spot, I got my old friend back to shove against the windows like I had wanted to do in the first place. I needed the surface as well as places to put papers and little things important to me. Another share was the old metal and mica adjustable school desk that James and I found in Greeneville at the amazing two story Habitat for Humanity store for $5 that also had served as an extra desk to sit at to pull the Internet signal to his laptop in the living area. Patrick had moved it out as well, as his room quickly filled up with assorted things to be gone through and put into storage, and its sudden appearance the other morning next to James own computer folding table was a nice surprise, and now James has placed the older scanner/printer upon it and hooked it up to his computer behind me. Its something that would benefit this old broad with all the little things I use (stickers, stamps, making my unique envelopes to send cards or letters to friends to deliver smiles as well as messages) but I cant be greedy...LOL My old desk now has replaced drawer knobs of ceramic that have flowers on them, something I began doing quite awhile back, when the gardening madness fully took hold of me in Faerie Holler. And as I sat daydreaming, my focus rested upon the many colorful pots of succulents, cacti and a few foliage plants in small pots that I had hurriedly just sat upon the desk top when I was schlepping in everyone before the early freezes. The longer they sat upon the desk, basking in the bright Eastern sunlight, the more I realized I needed to figure out something more benevolent for the plants this year. Youd think after being here over 5 years now that Id figured it all out, but its a work in progress for me. To relegate everyone to the dark and dimly lit den isnt fair to any plants but the sanseveria (mother in law tongues) and even they suffer and whine when I put them there. The wonderful sliding shelf system that James made for the heavy and widely assorted sized pots of cacti and desert-like plants is wonderful for that only good large window in the den that faces Eastwards, but the sunlight has to shoot past and underneath the kitchen porch roof, and the other sources of light is the Southern window that has weak light simply due to having to travel across a two car carport to get into the room The back door we decided should be a 15 pane glass door as well as the best but affordable storm door we could get at the time since once the willow oaks lose their leaves, there IS Western sunlight coming through across the deck. As my brain ran amok with tangent thoughts, my eyes focused upon the immediate before me. The plants.....ahh the pots. Then seeing something I hadnt noticed before, I just shifted into action as I am want to do. I started putting the smaller pots upon the narrow window sill behind the desk because now the desk prevented the pots from tipping over! And that started me seeking out the assorted ceramic trays and such that I have gathered from GoodWill stores through the years for just those purposes. A brightly colored and glazed trivet tray I found for 99c last week was perfect for three if not at least two good sized pots who have no attached saucer to themselves. putting pots on the sill cleared up the space on the small wooden desk better, but still allowed the plants to bask in the bright sunlight and I could hear no protests as I arranged them better. I even temporarily put a wall pot on the window wood trim to hold pens and such until I organize things better later on. The tangent quickly formed decisions within me, and I decided I could sacrifice a bit of outer edged room on the desk top as long as I still had working area to do the gardening journal and such because the folding computer table I use is taken up by the keyboard, tower and leaves me room only when I shove the keyboard towards the monitor when I need to write. The ol madgardener apparently needs surface area a lot of the times whether I realize it at that precise moment or not. LOL I picked up the little silver Sony and took pictures of where they had been on the desk top, and where I decided they needed to be now. Easier to water, I even moved a few from the kitchen window garden area over the sinks to enjoy the plant and pot. A sudden thought, the retrieved antique glass Frigidaire butter? container I found at a dump site and vaguely remembered what it was once for in the old ice boxes when I was a young child was more for what I could plant into it or what tiny pot would enjoy being inside it as it fit perfectly on a narrow windowsill. The solution quickly fleshed out and I felt good about the decisions as the light faded and the returned marauding feathered miniature Vikings descended into their pre-dusk munchies (or was that Happy hour freebies?) pushing and shoving and grousing at each other something fierce. In the midst of all that, I decided to truly make the arrangement of the plants more pleasing to me and try and take some pictures while I was at it. its going to be a challenge to work around the additional foliage I think. The blinds are partially up to give the succulent pieces room to stretch towards the sunlight, and hopefully the little feathered friends adjust to the blinds being in a different position. Outside the hard freezes, wind chills and slight snow, sleet and other pre-Winter mixes have done more damage to the Fall colors of things around the Delta Faerie Holler. More Bidens have shriveled up, there are still a few screaming blue asters at the base of the mailbox out front, defying logic and good sense. I dont mind. It makes me smile. I will tuck in three bulbs in the middle of the Autumn Joy, aster and Helenium for a Spring surprise I will forget about until they pop up hopefully not until February or March next Spring. Were going to go up to 64° with thunderstorms in a few days, and if I have a slight window of time, I will madly plant bulbs before the rains descend. Or at least thats the hopeful plan ROFLMAO. I will stop before my wandering mind closes the page again like I did yesterday and attach pictures. Thanks for letting me share a moment.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:51:17 +0000