'This Petty Pace From Day to Day'

Mornings have been looking like this--a bit of cool mist and the sun climbing the sky at a more 

southerly angle.

It is still almost dark in the bedroom when the cats begin beseeching me to arise and serve their breakfast.

I am lovingly but insistently trod upon, patted, poked.  My pillow becomes a stomping area for determined furry feet. Little chirrups of polite morning greetings quickly become rather loud and plaintive 'Meows.' I roll over in resignation and swing my feet down to the floor.

The reaction is one of feline enthusiasm. My bare toes are caressed by whiskery faces, paws reach up to encourage me. 

I am escorted to the bathroom where I retrieve my spectacles and then  herded down the hall to the kitchen.

Such intense drama for the reward of a teaspoonful of smelly 'pate' from a little tin!

The kitchen is small and I clamber over milling cats to measure coffee and water into the coffee maker.

The past several mornings I've bundled into a sweatshirt to be comfortable on the porch with my coffee--the one cup of the day.

There were bird sounds this morning--crows in noisy conversation and the drumroll of a woodpecker hammering across the creek.

A pair of bluebirds warmed their feathers on the power line.  The hummingbirds whizzed past me, darting between their syrup feeder and the clump of cleome by the big rock.

Charlie-cat who has been staying outside at night [by choice] flung himself into my lap.

I sat there savoring the morning, hands wrapped around the warm mug.

Over the years we've had insulated travel mugs pressed on us--'freebies' when we bought a vehicle or signed up for insurance.

I find them unfriendly things--horrid little slots to sip from, slight warmth to bless my fingers, the tall cylindrical shapes lacking in coziness.

We have a carefully edited shelf of coffee mugs--the sort that would be referred to by Hyacinth Bucket as 'beakers.'

I located my current favorite at a charity shop--white ironstone with a narrow black band, a soothing rounded shape. I brought home two of them--and have chipped one in the kitchen sink.

The burning bush just outside the sliding doors off the dining area.

I noticed this morning a faint blush of the red that will soon envelope the entire shrub.

This hedge was probably first planted to screen the view of an equipment shed which was demolished before we bought the farm.

It has hollow bamboo-like stems which must be cut back to the ground after the leaves fall.

New canes don't emerge in spring until the weather has settled into real warmth--then the stalks leap up in a rush. It would become invasive if we allowed.

As promised, I went in search of the stem of white cosmos I had marked with garden twine. 

It is one slender plant hemmed in by the more robust pink flowering ones.

I located it rather quickly, then found a fencing stake and tied it in.

The seed pods lack a bit of being ripe.  I'll need to watch that I harvest them before they shatter.

It was a subdued season for the trumpet vine.

Trumpet vine--so cossetted and fragile in Vermont dooryards, is a rampaging thug in Kentucky, naturalized and popping up everywhere to climb with grasping tendrils.

The Michaelmas daisies were aflutter this morning with small brown moths.

The wind was stirring the plants just enough to shift focus as I pressed the camera shutter.

This was the nicest photo from several 'takes.'

Our only fall-planted crop this season: broccoli and two varieties of cabbage.

I spotted several white cabbage butterflies hovering--must check if we have rotenone powder on hand.

I took a few minutes this morning to read back over my blog posts from the past 6 weeks.

I was disconcerted to realize that I have been quite tedious, grumbling about the wet weather, rambling on about quilts in progress.

I've photographed the same bits of garden repeatedly--even to focusing on orange/scarlet zinnias and endless close-ups of pink cosmos and phlox.

I thought about this as I continued along the edges of the garden, cats at my heels.

I have journaled intermittently for years, keeping a record that notes events large and small, interactions with people, my responses to daily life. 

I've been wary in those pages, even as I am in this blog, about revealing too much that is highly personal. 

The hints are there for me to discern, to trigger memory.

I can read a series of entries and recall whether I was feeling well and enthused or perhaps beset with aches and uncertainties. 

My world has narrowed with the move to retirement.

I am no longer living in a part of the country that is completely unfamiliar to my family and must be shared in words and photos.

We aren't building houses, no longer climbing into the truck and roaring over mountain passes to bring home lumber and windows and doors. 

There is now--and will be, I think--a certain sameness to my days, subtle changes that are prompted by weather and seasons, the demands of family and finances, the ritual of daily chores, the 

companionship of animals, the joys of creating.

I spent a few moments questioning whether this life of mine has an appeal for others.

I know that I enjoy the day to day sharing of my favorite bloggers.

I love knowing about the weather in Wales--or Dorset--or Somerset--all the places that I've read about in English literature. I enjoy the photos of a walk on the moor--or a ramble through the New Forest, an  

outing in Scotland.

When I read the latest from an American blogger her landscape comes to mind--Florida, Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, New England--the states of the southern US--those are familiar areas.

I can read and nod in sympathy over the humidity in Georgia, the harsh winds on the plains.

I am inspired by the sharing of projects, photos of gardens and baked goods, crafts, cats, dogs, horses.

I suspect that if these 'friends' from far away could pop through my back door I would smile in recognition and put the kettle on!

I am never bored, even when the pattern of my days runs along with little change.

Friends who garden know that weather is important.

Those who have pets understand the wrenchings of grief when we must put down a beloved creature, the delight we have in the antics and distinct personalities of the animals who share our homes.

Those who love crafting, reading, writing, thrift-shopping, preparing food or putting it by for the winter, share in the homey satisfaction of these pursuits.

And so, I console myself that my 'day to day' as expressed by my blogging journal has its tiny place in the vast scheme of things!

And--just maybe--orange zinnias adapt well to rainy summers!

I could have wandered about the dooryard for hours, pondering concepts great and small, waiting for the perfect shot of a butterfly poised on a blossom.

The sun was gaining strength, the day heating up.

There was a load of laundry waiting to be pegged out, the daunting stint of book keeping to be tackled again.

I turned reluctantly toward the house, procrastinating, snapping photos as I walked slowly along.

The bristly brown seed heads of coneflower caught the sun.

A cow in the neighboring pasture bellowed.

Hawks wheeled overhead, their sharp cries slicing the sunlit morning.

Bobby McGee paused to sniff at the dark composted manure which J. has flung on the garden. 

Sunflowers, brown and crispy, loom against the blue sky.

The stalks are ready to cut down. My neighbor, Gracie, has asked for a head of seeds to serve in her bird feeder. Sunflower seeds stay viable for a number of years--and I have saved seed enough for a plantation of sunflowers, but I will shuck out a few fresh ones as I've promised to share them come another spring.

A bee hums in the fuzzy blue blossoms--I rootled around at the base of the plant hoping to find a name tag.

Identified or not the flowers add to the richness of an autumn day---another precious day!