Full Okra Moon
The Full Okra rises just as the sun sets Wednesday evening and again on October 1. Get ready, I am, I love my tart red slightly chilled so I'll take care of that. I know it is a school night but what the hay, this is important stuff y'all. The air is now clear and cool after the passage of a "cold" front Monday.
I call this one the Full Okra because that is what is happening in my garden these days. I planted late and we are in full harvest mode now. It is a mall patch so I pick every other day and we get just enough for P and I. I've been dreaming of Shrimp and Okra and Smoked Sausage Gumbo, perhaps soon! The boiled Okra Salad is a frequent dish at out table in between gumbos. Boiled whole tender pods seasoned to taste and dressed lightly with vinegar and olive oil. I think of the tender okra seeds as vegetable caviar.
Laura has left friends and neighbors to the west in quite a mess P and I had minimal damage. I told several of you that I am so grateful of that and that I'm not sure I have another storm cleanup left in me...
8-29-20 P and I mosey on to Covington to celebrate 52 years of marriage. We detoured by way of Oschners, NO to let her check in on her brother who was recovering from spinal surgery. He moves on soon to a rehab hospital that allows no visiting. Going to be a tough 28 days.
8-30-20 Short celebration, stayed at the Southern, a boutique hotel and ate dinner (the finest soft shell crabs I think I have ever eaten) at the Oxlot 9 restaurant next door. Got up attended mass and ate a late breakfast overlooking the Bogue Falaya River. Pretty cool, then off again to get ready for our children and school tomorrow, Monday. I think we had had all of the relaxation we could stand under the circumstances.
Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.
-Colleen Wilcox
9-10-20 My sister, the one I told you was preparing for a bone marrow transplant, phoned me to say that she had filled 2 extra HB feeders on her porch at her small ranch in the edge of the hill country near Navrasota, the night before because she was seeing 3-4 RTHB at a time fussing over the 2 feeders she had up already. That night she said a cool front came through and when she woke up, delighted, there were 10-12 zooming as they are do during migration preparations. Needless to say she was so delighted.
That prompted me to go out and recharge my neglected feeders and I can report that I immediately began seeing 2-3 moving around instead of my usual occasional one, go figger! All of this fuss and preparations to nearly its double body weight to fly trans-Gulf to a wintering ground to the south. I figger they must have to fly most of a day non-stop to do so and drop lots of weight. When they get on the other end they rest a bit and begin the process all over again for the return trip. Ain't life grand!
"Most people write congrats because they don’t know the correct spelling of conrajulashions."
I know this is a repeat, but I think it is worth repeating.
"The best remedy
for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside."
-Anne Frank
9-13-20 Afer days of dreaming of that Okra Gumbo P came through and put together a To-Die-For Shrimp and Okra and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. We will eat off of it all week!
Granddaughter Maddie, Jake's oldest, is 19 today and a new college student, YAY!
What gives? The leaf load from Laura in the Teche and Vermilion Bayou/River has resulted in clear black stinking water. I understand that the decomposing leaves reduce available oxygen giving the water a rotten smell along with aroma of dead fish and the tannins in the water stain it black, BUT, why clear?
Y'all did I have fun with that one. I did not know why they are clear, our rivers are always turbid, but why and why clear just now? So I went to the mountain and asked the Guru (s). I got my answer from two former students, both soil scientists.
Their message to me was that clay particles in the water column have negative charges that repel each other, like magnet like-poles, keeping them suspended and the water muddy looking. Something in the decomposition process puts + charged ions in the water that cause the clay particles to clump together and drop out of suspension causing unusually clear water. That is so cool, I had no idea! You can learn something every day if you pay attention.
Lay one on us Margaret!
Monarch Nursery
Pearl
on milkweed,
seed for monarch,
still and quiet August:
Promised ingredient
to Mother Earth's recipe
for autumn migration glory.
Like watching the birth of a grandchild,
I'm mere observer of this miracle.
Margaret Simon, 2020
"Children are
the best audience: they are curious, enthusiastic, impulsive, generous, and
pleased by simple joys. They laugh easily at the ridiculous and are willing to
believe the absurd. Children are not ironic, disillusioned, or indifferent, but
hopeful, open-minded, and open-hearted, with a voracious hunger for pictures
and stories."
-Eric Rohmann
9-14-20 I walk out into the weak dawn light, almost darkness, into the light of a beautiful fingernail standing above my tree line next in line with the Morning Star. I called Mimi out in her sleep socks (she ususally fusses if she gets her warm sleep socks dirty) to wonder with me. Day after tomorrow is New Moon y'all.
9-18-20 It is slightly cooler today, RTHBs have gone away for now. My theory backed by my observations is that the HBs move down here to the Gulf Rim, continue to fattening up readying themselves for the migration flight over the big pond, then leave in flights or waves. Then another group in the queue move in to replace them and repeat the process. Pretty cool y'all.
After Sunrise at Gardiner Landing by Paula Bourque
I would like to be remembered*
as someone who softened things
like the still, blue surface
of a lake at dawn.Margaret Simon, draft
- words from a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote, "I would like to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability."
9-19-20 Cooler yet today, still no RTHBs, storm Beta to our South, headed West, then then a flyby over us to the North, I hope...
9-20-20 Today was the day of the great twig fire and it was memorable, rain over night. The Barred Owl concert we enjoyed during the 'far' was memorable all by itself.
RBG
There’s an empty chair at the table,
a vacancy on the highest court.
Candles burn a vigil
for a cherished colleague,
champion of Justice.
Joan Ruth–a pioneer
for equality,
for women,
for righteousness.
Historic tributes glow
for her stalwart stature
in a lace collar.
Margaret Simon, found poem
9-25-20 Beta passed us low hit Houston, wet, made a hard right and passed back by us high. 3" of rain we can do this. That is all... So grateful!
9-27-20 Jan Richer's Long Story Short column in Acadian Advocate was memorable today. Her story Life in the Slow Lane is about her family after quarinteening hard for months, vacation plans damaged by fire in the West and facing empty nest for the first time, so she and hubby head out on a road trip with no destination, a real wander, with no return date, driving maybe 5 hours a day, stopping at will, learning so much about our country and its people, all socially distanced and safe. Sounds so good to the Ol Possum after the sickness and death and online socially distanced work world, ugh! Sigh...
9-28-20 Frontal passage, 3/4" rainfall, cooler temperatures, blue skies, gentle breezes, thank God! I am so grateful fot this break and for you my friends! Come on Full Okra!
9-29-20 David Lee, how about that Presidential "Debate" tonight? I have no comment other than that P and I lasted 10 minutes, I'm embarrassed to say..
Time for a David Lee pome from his book of pomes Mine Tailings, y'all-
PACIFIC NORTHWEST POEM
based on a bumper sticker on a '61 GMC pickup
that I liked
for himself
I am a Sasquatch
and I vote
I am a semi-literate Texan
who made it through 5th grade on the first try
and I vote
I am a husband, the father of a daughter
and two granddaughters
and I vote
I am a married man who has progeny
and many loving friends who are women
and I was long ago a teacher
to hundreds of coeds who are adapted daughters
all of whom vote
and if you ever walk up to any one of these
and grab them Anywhere, I swear to the gods
I'll knock you on your ass
and then I will vote against you
again
Whew! Got that Dave, loud and clear, this is why you are my favorite poet, thanks brother!
"There is in fact no distinction between the fate of the land and the fate of the people. when one is abused,m the other suffers." -Wendell Berry
From Doug Tallamy's most excellent Nature's Best Hope, most excellent Doug! Doug taught me about how many diferent species of moths and caterpillars are supported by one white oak. He did his research on a number of east coast tree species in his first effort Bringing Nature Home. Exciting stuff y'all. you need to read them.
:"What we see with food we see with energy: all of the want and suffering in the world---all of it---arises not from the Earth's inability to produce but from out inability to share." Hope Jahren in the Story of More. Her mantra: Use Less and Share More. Another exciting read y'all.
I'm getting wordy...
peace, love, possumhugs
BT
.
Comments
Post a Comment