MORNING MEDITATION

The past couple of weeks have been hectic, if you don’t mind an understatement. But then, compared to what some of the others around me have been going thru, I guess it hasn’t been bad, unless you are a cat or a flea. We put the cats in the kennel to be “defleaed,” took ourselves to Rehoboth to the outlets (LLBEAN!!! YEAH!!!!) having set off flea bombs in the house before we left. Having a cat with serious allergies, we then had to scrub and clean every surface he might step on when he came home. Spring house cleaning in the fall! They say the fleas have been so extraordinarily bad this year because of the drought and I believe that is so. We do seem to have flea problems during the dry years. So, having to do serious cleaning inside meant ignoring the outside chores, sigh. Soooo, the last few days have been spent trying to get many of the yard jobs done and finish getting all the house plants in as it has gotten down to the upper 30s. The croton and tropical plants have been in for a month or more as they can’t take temps below 50. Saturday I got the greenhouse cleaned out and finished putting in the geraniums, aloe and some cuttings. The greenhouse is tiny, so that means climbing on my hands and knees to reach the back of it, but it gives me flowers all winter when the weather does a number on the camellias or pansies outside.
This is Fino’s grave – World’s Best Cat – I had her for 21 years.

I keep pansies on her grave all the time. She is buried in the center of my Prayer Circle. The rocks around the grinding stone (for my ancestors) and shells are from friends who wanted to be remembered in the Prayer Circle. There are also some marbles in there, placed by some of my real young friends. Since stones are not naturally found here on the shore, some people bring shells.
Soon I will be doing my morning meditations in the house. Spook will have to do his all alone. The Buddhas have been enjoying the fall azaleas. I tried to take some pictures yesterday before we got any frost. Good thing I did as I can’t walk very well today. But, then, that will give me the time to sit here at the computer and finally get something on here, right?

Have you ever grown sweet potatoes as an ornamental plant, just for its beauty? A friend gave me this one in a pot of Persian Shield (Strobilanthes.) It has grown along the edge of the carport. I think it looks so cool.
The fall camellias are looking great. Some of the bushes are now over 10 feet tall. They look pretty good with the impatiens. I am so grateful for the beauty around me… I know I don’t have the mountains, hills, rivers and waterfalls down here, but I do have flowers that I could not have up there.

I do want to thank all of you who emailed me to see if I was all right. It is nice to be missed. I did try to keep up with many of your blogs, but half the time I could not get on to leave a comment, or someone was having a crisis and I had to go (see sentence 2.) It has been a hard couple of weeks physically and emotionally, but if we can’t be there for our friends in their times of need, who will be there for us? Enjoy the beauty of my flowers…