September 9, 2008
“Same song, second verse. Should get better, but it’s gonna get worse.” As I read the CBC results yesterday afternoon, these words in a raucous singing voice came into my head after remaining dormant since high school bussing days. I have had a splendid week of happy living and feeling well, so I hoped that the state of the blood would be better than it was 2 1/2 weeks ago. It wasn’t. Instead, the reading revealed a little loss in the red blood cell count while the white cells and platelets stayed nearly the same.
The trees, grasses, and wild flowers of Sanctuary are very beautiful now. The flowers are predominantly white, yellow, rich gold, or dark pink and lavender, and the grasses have lovely cream colored heads. The trees add more yellow leaves each day as the sunlight recedes, and some of the wild plums are filled with fruit in colors ranging from a soft pink to a dark purple. When Alphie and I walked at dawn today, the plumes of grass in the pasture held myriad droplets of moisture which shimmered in the early morning sunlight. I try to memorize these sights because they are always singular and worth remembering. Only the blue jays were calling to each other at that time – the nighttime temperature has dropped to 39 degrees which is quite low for early September, so it is possible that many more bird species have determined to get to their winter homes sooner rather than later.
We have a chandelier in our living room that has a large glass bowl in the middle which can be filled with cut or seasonal flowers. Charles filled it with pink sedum and a wild flower called “snow-on-the-mountain” which is white and green with tiny white flowers that form very small green, furry seed pods at their bases. What we have found out since is that at a certain moment of ripeness, the little seed pods literally explode, popping out the ripened seed and causing it to fly a goodly distance from the plant. Last night we heard the little pops, and had the sensation of getting struck by tiny spit balls as seeds began to randomly fly about the room. At first, we had no clue about what was going on, but after a bit, Charles identified the source. This activity is still going on as I write, and I have been struck a number of times. When one looks closely at the floor, there are quite a few seeds generously sprinkled about, and Charles has announced that the flowers will have to go outside. I say the whole method is ingenious and explains why this wild flower shows up in different spots all over the yard and pasture each year but I have to agree that having a well-seeded living room is not the level of sophisticated living for which one would like to be recognized.