Thursday, January 25, 2007




Wow sometimes it gets pretty emotional around here!

We just kind of cruise along for the most part. Keeping an eye on dad. Taking time to sit with him, talk about things, remark on the birds. It's just kind of slow and easy. Then all the sudden he'll kind of do his little roll over so he's looking at me while leaning into the bed handrail and say, 'boy I miss Betty' and my heart just shatters and I try and hold it together and get him talking. Ouch!

It hit me the other day that all our plans were for dad to leave us first. We had spent time talking about his wished for a funeral, his fears, his thoughts about the life after this. We never even thought about mom's.

I'm taking a Master Gardener class with WSU for 6 weeks. I guess a little prompted by a comment Mirk made about people in the South West having evolved beyond the hunter, gatherer existence after I sent him a pic of the gargantuan salmon and I pulled out of the Samish. Something about extreme gardening and he included a pic of a 25 foot pepper tree and later sent a small jar of pepper powder that we still haven't been able to open due to hazmat restrictions in the area.

As I take these classes and imagine all the flowers etc guess where my mind goes? I know the rest of you do the same thing. We bough two Witchhazel last weekend to plant. One is called Diane and it is the color of Garnet and is in bloom now and garnet is Sally's birthstone and her birthday was this Tuesday I think. Here's a little note I got from Julie -

Hi Steve and family,
I just got back from an evening at the Pacific Inn, the Wallingford neighborhood pub where Sally used to hang out. Lil and Hanna decided that would be the best place to go to remember their Mom's birthday. A bunch of their friends were there, including Emily and Mollie Aylward, and several of Sally's old buddies. One of them brought red roses. We kept the jukebox going, ate some fish and chips, and had a good time. I thought you'd like to know in what spirit we remembered her on this day.
I had a very vivid dream about Sally and your Mom this morning just before I woke up. They came together to see my witch hazel 'Diane' which is in full bloom right now. They looked great! Your Mom gave me a big hug. I pass it on to you...
Love, Julie

A thought from learning about soils today.
Human
Humus
Humble
Do all these words come from the same root?

You remember man comes from the dust
which can with good reason be more correctly read topsoil
one of the most important ingredients for soil is what
our bodies become part of the humus
working with nature does make us humble
which comes from being face down in the ?

You guessed it, topsoil.
Not a bad place to be whether in a garden or before God
Face down

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