Flying Shoes

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Death, Home, Ice cream, Michigan, Mother, Munising, munising michigan, Texas

 

My blog is many things to me.  I can share photos, stories of my family, trips I’ve taken, food I’ve eaten, a recipe or something I’ve created (on occasion I am creative), my gardens, my environment.  The list for blogs and their content are as countless as the numbers of people who write them.

Today I’ve decided self-indulgence is my entry.  My mother, Audrey Marie Dolaski is dying, maybe today, perhaps tomorrow but very soon.   I live in Texas; she lives in Munising, Michigan.  She chose to die in her home surrounded by the things she treasures.  What she treasures now are the baby squirrels outside her window, the multitude of birds that come to her feeders, Coke and ice cream, she never was a soda drinker but these days, it’s what she can swallow and eating has become painful. She’s always enjoyed ice cream, only in moderate portions (she always watched her weight carefully).  She’s never been one to over indulge.  Yesterday she described butterscotch with generous portions of the butterscotch veins like it was manna from heaven ☺

These are our conversations, trivial but communication just the same and quality time  over distance using the telephone.  I must do most of the talking and listen carefully as her once strong voice is weak and she is also slowed a bit by pain medication.  She is still as sharp as she ever was, it simply takes her a bit more time to formulate her thoughts and a great deal of effort to express them, as her energy disappears.

Before I make my call I become agitated, wander around my house like a pacing panther, I don’t like to make these calls.  Who wants to poke a stick in a wound?  I know that I need to keep our communication going until she dies, gotten her wings, or flying shoes.

After the call I have a period of many feelings, always tears because I cry easily (one of my weaknesses), it’s just me, although a dying mother is sad! I feel frustrated, not because she is dying, she is 89, will be 90 if she makes it to the 4th of July and she’s made a good life for herself.  We will celebrate her life when the time comes.  My problem is  I’m not certain I heard what she said, if I answered her question with the right answer because I didn’t hear well, I don’t want her to think I’m not listening to her.  I’m still looking for approval (at 65) from a dying woman who I always had a difficult time pleasing and it affects my conversations with her as she dies.

I asked her yesterday if she wanted me to call everyday I didn’t want to disturb her.  To me that was a normal question because mom often didn’t like me to bother her, and she was not shy about  expressing  those feelings.  Yesterday her answer was, “yes call everyday, you are my daughter you can’t bother me.”   That’s amazing for me to hear, also emotional seeing five years ago her answer may have been that she was busy, call later, maybe the next day!

It’s getting around to the time of the day I call my mother and I feel myself already becoming anxious.  This is sad, it’s sad for both of us.  I don’t believe she realizes that I feel this way (a good thing) this is something that I need to simply get over, it is what it is, grow up kind of thing!  It’s life, it’s been my life and I’ve lived it quite well.  Most families have some degree of dysfunction, and mine was not an exception.

My mother deserves my respect, my love, and gratitude, she has it. I can return to the past and speculate about what might have been, but  the reality was my life, one doesn’t go backward.   None of us come with a set of instructions how to properly parent, we parent by our past observations, our personalities our faults and hope for the best possible future for our children.

A Cottage Garden in Texas?

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Cottage Garden, England, Flower, Garden, Home, Plant, Shopping, Texas

One of the last things that would come to mind when thinking about my favorite cottage gardens would be Texas.  A cottage garden usually brings gardeners thoughts to England and the Texas climate hardly resembles England by any stretch of the imagination. Texas does have multiples of gardening zones, the state is huge and the climate varies drastically from region to region.  Still, cottage garden and Cedar Creek Texas don’t go together.   The heat in the summer turns the water in the hose to what feels like boiling water, cook your veggies right on the spot!  And the winds can howl for days decimating any growing thing that hasn’t adapted it’s self to our environment.

Gardeners are tenacious, we try, fail and try again, burned or baked plants, soil so hot a root couldn’t survive no matter how much you water we don’t give up.   The upside for me is I don’t live where the soil is solid rock and blasting caps might be my best option!  The high hills in Texas look like mountains and they are rock, we live in rolling hill country on the edge of the piney forests, which is relatively close to black land soil.  We do not miss out on the heat and the winds, they  come with the territory, and we live on top of a hill, howling wind is often my companion, it’s howling as I write.  The rocks found in our neighborhood are typical Texas rocks,  very large, a tractor bucket is usually needed to move them, the rocks found on our property have all been put to good use in our gardens or other places in our landscape.

Let me explain what a cottage garden was and is today.  Manor houses in England employed gardeners and the gardener’s family usually lived with him in a cottage on the property.  Very often the wife and the children worked at the manor also.  In the process of maintaining the gardens of these gigantic homes and the structures themselves much of the debris, be it plant material or hard scape material was given to the cottagers to use in any way they wanted.  Old roses being replaced by newer varieties, seeds from the cutting back of flower heads, vegetable seeds, pieces of brick, wood, chimney pots, just about anything not being used  was taken home and used for another purpose or in the case of plants, its original purpose.  Desirable seeds were often saved in these gardens over the years,  they come back into fashion again.  As in most things garden ideas come and go in fashion, what’s new once was old changed a bit and once again is desirable.  Most gardeners do like heirloom  vegetable seeds and roses.

Vegetable plants  among the flowers, planting closely,  allowing herbs to  grow in paths, paths built from the cast away bricks, millstones and other solid materials, even a thick piece of wood could find it’s way into the path.  Chimney pots made great containers.     After many years these gardens were given a ‘name’ and  became a  garden design and not a need to feed a cottage family.   They are beautiful, utilitarian and they are a great deal of work.  From what looks to some like chaos is actually rather well thought out, and right outside your door for easy access; herbs, vegetables for cooking and flowers for a quick bouquet.

I am able to use two of my gardens to make my version of a Cottage Garden.   Both of my gardens are close to the house, one  fenced, and has a small amount of grass, it’s a bit more formal, but not much seeing I’m not exactly a formal person or gardener!  I lean toward overgrown, it’s a matter of choice, what looks good to the gardener;  in the case of roses I wouldn’t want visitors  attacked by over zealous bushes!

I use many roses, they are the backbone of my gardens, all Texas tough roses from a supplier that specializes in roses that it reclaims from old homesteads, and various other places where nothing seems to survive but the rose-bush.  It is surprising how many old varieties, many with beautiful scents, colors and multiples of petals .  There are some newer roses that are grown at the Rose Emporium to see if they will take our weather.  The only rose that won’t be found is a long-stemmed tea rose.  Tea roses are often a great deal of work as they are almost always dependent on chemicals for bugs, needs for food and many diseases that attack the leaves.  So I don’t miss them, the roses I grow I do pick, they look as lovely as long-stemmed teas.  One ‘new’ rose that does grow well is Knockout in all its varieties;  I allow it to grow large to suit my cottage garden look.  The most daunting challenge I face with my roses is keeping them pruned; they grow like Jack’s bean stock!   Like most things I undertake I overdo my cottage look but there is order, my order 🙂

In my cottage garden you will find roses, lavender, laurel, sunflowers, sweet potato vines, native hibiscus, native mist flowers, cosmos,  tomatoes, eggplant, chard, Thai and ‘regular’ basil, thyme, rosemary (grows as a shrub here) all go into my gardens, one garden by our kitchen the other the front door and courtyard.  Vegetable plants need planting early in the season to escape the heat of summer; once summer is upon us it becomes my ‘winter’ and the gardens become somewhat dormant.  Our other gardens are  Texas Tough gardens, native plants that are tolerant of drought, wind and heat.  They have their own kind of beauty, I still get carried away and try to turn them into cottage gardens and Mother Nature takes care of that for me, plants die!  Slowly I am giving up my ambitious plans and remember where I live!

Today if I sit in the courtyard I can pretend I’m in a beautiful English garden having tea (in Texas, sweet tea) and a scone with clotted cream.  We must remember to blend all the good things life, a bit of England in a Texas courtyard; sounds like a plan to me.