Rain-Washed Treasures

Well, the forecast was right. It rained last night. It rained this morning. It’s been raining off and on this afternoon.

When Luna and Millie and I rambled around the yard this morning, the sun was out...

but it was blustery...

and things were still a bit drippy and soggy.

There were fresh deer tracks in the damp, soft earth...

and newly uncovered airsoft pellets.

Years ago, my son and his buddies were really into airsoft—as in, shooting airsoft guns at each other. Consequently, there are an infinite number of airsoft pellets scattered around our property.

(Seriously. Infinite. No end to them.)

When I married my sweetie and joined this family, I was a thirty-nine-year-old singleton who had grown up with only sisters. (I have four brothers but didn’t grow up with them; I grew up with two of my five sisters—kind of a girly family.)

So marrying into an all-male family of my husband and two sons, I had a wee bit of culture shock.

The airsoft pellets scattered all over the property kind of appalled me. It seemed like careless, wanton littering. I could see they had fun shooting at each other, but I was still appalled. And so many of the pellets were fluorescent orange! Ugly plastic!

(As they say, “You spot it, you got it.” Of course my son’s sloppiness drives me crazy because my own does, too. But that’s a topic for another day. For many, many other days.)

Well, then my grandkid came along.

How old was she when she discovered the airsoft pellets? Two? Two and a half?

Old enough to say, Look, Grammalisa, little, tiny balls!

Look! Anudder one!

An’ anudder one!

Lots of little, tiny balls!

Here, you hode dem.

(Natch.)

Looking for “little balls” became as much a part of our routine as blowing bubbles, 

reading stories,

going down slides,

and petting the cats.

Soon, we had a glass bottle with a cork stopper just for collecting little balls.

Finding a green one in the grass, May 2012:

Gloating over the growing hoard, June 2012:

The only reason the jar is so empty right now is because just a few weeks ago, it was so full that we had to empty it into a larger jar.

Now if I had begun collecting those little tiny little plastic balls when I first saw them, it could only have been a tedious, onerous trash cleanup, undertaken with resentment and self-righteous indignation, because I didn’t shoot them! It’s not my job to clean them up!

But now, because of that sweet little girl, it’s a treasure hunt. 

I even picked up a few this morning, all by myself.  

Good job, Grammalisa.

November 1 Reprieve

Today was November 1. 

Last week we had the first snow of the season...

and the first icicles.

Starting tomorrow, the weather is turning cold and wet again. 

But today, we had a reprieve. 

It was like all those warm, sunny days we enjoyed during October.

We scavenged a bunch of airsoft pellets...which is a subject for a whole ’nother post. 

The grandkid got to go down the slide.

She found not one but two ponderosa saplings by the garage that were just about her size. 

She followed the dog all over the back yard...

and the cat, too.

And Millie got another luxurious dust bath.

How could November 1 get any better than that?

Millie's Dust Bath

Millie: There’s nothing like a warm dust bath on a sunny day...

...even if I do have to keep an eye on that jumpy little dog the whole time.

Yup. Nothin' like a good dust bath. 

Luna & Millie: Will they ever be friends?

It's been fun to watch Luna and Millie get to know each other and negotiate their boundaries - of both personal space and physical territory. To my surprise, Millie often follows Luna and me when we ramble around the yard. Luna was quite pleased the first time this happened.

Luna: Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Millie! Millie! Millie! Did you come out to play with me? Didja? Didja? Didja? Huh? Huh? Huh? 

Millie: Wha...?

Luna: We're gonna have so much fun! 

Millie: Fight or flight? Fight or flight? And which direction shall I run?

Both: Hey....what's the neighbor dog barking about? 
Millie: Is it danger?
Luna: Is it someone to play with?
Both: Is it headed our way?

Both: Hey, what happened to the pinky? Hurry up, slowpoke!

Luna: Something smells interesting over here...

Millie: Good. Go away. Then I'll have the pinky all to myself again. Stupid interloper. 

Isak Dinesen: "Shoot Not the Iguana"

Yesterday’s quote from George MacDonald reminded me of this passage from Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen. (Note: It was originally published in 1937, so be forewarned, her attitudes towards and language describing African people are of her time and are not politically correct. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting reflection on acquisition.)

 “In the Reserve I have sometimes come upon the Iguana, the big lizards, as they were sunning themselves upon a flat stone in a river-bed. They are not pretty in shape, but nothing can be imagined more beautiful than their colouring. They shine like a heap of precious stones or like a pane cut out of an old church window. When, as you approach, they swish away, there is a flash of azure, green and purple over the stones, the colour seems to be standing behind them in the air, like a comet’s luminous tail.

         “Once I shot an Iguana. I thought that I should be able to make some pretty things from his skin. A strange thing happened then, that I have never afterwards forgotten. As I went up to him, where he was lying dead upon his stone, and actually while I was walking the few steps, he faded and grew pale, all colour died out of him as in one long sigh, and by the time that I touched him he was grey and dull like a lump of concrete. It was the live impetuous blood pulsating within the animal, which had radiated out all that glow and splendour. Now that the flame was put out, and the soul had flown, the Iguana was as dead as a sandbag.

          “Often since I have, in some sort, shot an Iguana, and I have remembered the one of the Reserve. Up at Meru I saw a young Native girl with a bracelet on, a leather strap two inches wide, and embroidered all over with very small turquoise-coloured beads which varied a little in colour and played in green, light blue and ultramarine. It was an extraordinarily live thing; it seemed to draw breath on her arm, so that I wanted it for myself, and made Farah buy it from her. No sooner had it come upon my own arm than it gave up the ghost. It was nothing now, a small, cheap, purchased article of finery. It had been the play of colours, the duet between the turquoise and the ‘nègre’,—that quick, sweet, brownish black, like peat and black pottery, of the Native’s skin,—that had created the life of the bracelet.... I stood in Meru and looked at my pale hand and at the dead bracelet, it was as if an injustice had been done to a noble thing, as if truth had been suppressed....

          “To the settlers of East Africa I give the advice: ‘For the sake of your own eyes and heart, shoot not the Iguana.’”

                                                                                   —Isak Dinesen, 1885–1962

George MacDonald on Hoarding

“The heart of man cannot hoard. His brain or his hand may gather into its box and hoard, but the moment the thing has passed into the box, the heart has lost it and is hungry again. If a man would have, it is the Giver he must have; . . . Therefore all that He makes must be free to come and go through the heart of His child; he can enjoy it only as it passes, can enjoy only its life, its soul, its vision, its meaning, not itself.” —George MacDonald, 1824–1905

A blow struck for sanity . . .

I just rounded up all the volumes I could find from the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and put them on a shelf together in my living room. 

For the past thirteen years, my books have been scattered and in disarray. It makes me crazy. It’s also quite unlike me. Usually, when I move into a new dwelling, organizing my books is one of the first things I do. My books bring me great joy and satisfaction. But the circumstances, over several years, of my move to Oregon, having a lot of my books in storage, my grandmother’s passing, and my marriage and move into my husband’s house—well, the books have remained in chaos. 

Gretchen Rubin has noted the tremendous effect that physical order has on our happiness. I agree in theory, but you’d never know it from the condition of my house. 

Ever since being completely overwhelmed by lovely Ann Voskamp’s 25 Point Manifesto for Sanity, I’ve been toying with making my own list. What contributes to my sanity? I even did a mindmap about that a few days ago. “Organized bookshelves” was nowhere on the radar. However . . . 

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is one of three current series (along with Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs books and Laurie King’s Mary Russell books) that I try to follow as they appear in paperback and I get around to it. There were stray volumes in my office, in the living room, and in the piano room. 

Enough was enough. 

In about two minutes, I was able to round up eight out of the first twelve volumes and shelve them together.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.