Another day at Plum Cottage

 

It’s Thursday morning, traffic is just waking up 5:50 a.m., I’ve been awake since around 3:30, got up at 4. Had a good sleep last night and I am thankful for that.

Here’s a picture taken looking out into the dark from the scullery. Everywhere I look in our little cottage, and around our little haven/compound, I see love, encouragement, inspiration. Oh how I miss my DH, but really he is here all over the place, if you know what I mean. We have lived here since the summer of 1973. We’ve had up and down times, and were blessed that the up times were much more than the down. My heart and mind are flooded with loving, fun memories, of the hard work done around here. Of times when we were strengthened by God and our love for each other.  I am thankful for so much.

Our winter weather is certainly very mild, bordering on the beginnings of summer, although chilly weather is predicted and that will most definitely be nice.

One of my sweet followers asked me: What is weed wacking? She lives in the land down under and they might have another term other than the one DH and I used. I use my weed wacker to trim around things. I didn’t really take any photos so will have to do that in the next couple of days while it looks fresh.

My weed wacker is electric, you can get gas models, but I like electric better even if I have to pull the extension cord around. I had never had to restring the wacker, so had someone at work show me how to do it. Only when I started using it yesterday, it wouldn’t spit the string out automatically. I thought, oh that’s just great. I unplugged it, took it back to the outdoor workbench, unsnapped the cap, pulled out more string, and tried again. It still didn’t work, so back to the bench once again and I looked at the thing, after taking the part that holds the string out I saw that there’s a little plastic lever in there that I shifted to how it looked like it ought to be, plugged it back in, started wacking and EUREKA it worked. That was another accomplishment for me. Oh, and I cleaned most of the crud from underneath.

Yesterday I repotted this gardenia bush. It is loaded with buds. I can hardly wait to go outside this morning to take in the lovely scent. It is one of my all time favorites and one of my earliest memories of Florida. My grandmother had a bush in her yard and the scent was and still is intoxicating to me.

Yesterday just before noon my boss called and asked if I was ready for him to pick up the dragons pictured below. (He’s putting them in the shop on consignment for me.) DH and I bought these many, many years ago when we had our little antique shop. DH did some restoration on them, then we hung them in the shop. They did not sell there as we lost the shop soon after, because the landlord decided he wanted the shop and gave us 30 days to get out, he was not renewing our lease, after 8 years. (By the way, he lasted 2 years.) We moved to another location, found out after we moved in that it had a leaky roof, and that road construction was going to be starting there shortly. That did it.  We had given it our best shot, and we just wanted out of the whole business, so we auctioned everything off, well, except for a few things, and this pair of dragons was something we kept. We had them hanging on the pole barn front posts until we closed the space in, then we were going to put them over the two windows on the front of the workshop, but didn’t quite make it. They were sitting close and it was one of our next projects. (Actually, we’ve said over and over that the landlord doing that to us was really a blessing, although we certainly didn’t think so at the time. We were devastated.)

These are wonderful works of wrought iron art. The story we got when we bought them is that they came off a mansion in Palm Beach before the mansion was torn down. They were probably made in the early 1920’s. The iron is thick bars in some spots that has been split and bent, and twisted. Just fabulous.

This is how they look upright. This was after they were freshly restored. Being out in the weather has given them a nice patina. They are 8 ft. tall and 3 ft. from wall to snout.

After my boss left I had one of my worst crying jags yet. A piece of ‘us’ had just left. It made me realize just how much I’ve lost physically. Memories are what I have now. No chance to make new ones together, we made our memories. Someone once said we fit each other like a hand in a glove and that was oh so true. Oh how my heart aches.

This is the space where they had been sitting. After my cry, I went out and worked on the space. Dear Mark had a quirky since of humor which I loved. He could always make me laugh. He cut one of the wheels down from this old camper turned stationary caravan, and sunk the hubcap, then put the wheel up to it so that it looks like it is stuck in the sand. I see that I’ve got to do some other arrangement for over the tiny a.c. unit. We just had that there temporarily.

So, that was my day yesterday, a roller coaster of emotions. Some joy and some sorrow. I felt Mark and his love throughout the day. I felt the love and strength of God flowing through and surrounding me also.

The verse for yesterday was this:

Be of good courage,

and he shall strengthen your heart,

all ye that hope in the LORD.

Psa_31:24

With that I will close this post.

May you all be of good courage.

FlowerLady Lorraine