A Country Mouse in the Duckpond

It’s been years since I have had neighbors less than acres away, or paid a water bill, or had a street light, or suffered from a paucity of parking. But, through a series of complex events - the sort through which life sometimes has a way of herding us in unexpected directions - I suddenly found myself the proud payment-maker on a charming little house in the Duckpond.

Though the decision to move to The Big City had been made, “Plan A” entailed dipping my toe in the pond before plunging in head-first, and I was shopping for a rental house in the neighborhood. By some folks’ standards you “pay more for less” in the Duckpond but no other place in the city has the same feel to it, the same sense of history, pride and community. I love the varied architectural style of the old homes, each with their own story, the tree-lined streets, and character of the neighborhood, and that you can step out the front door to any number of things to see and do. I knew this was where I wanted to live.

After several days of driving around looking for rentals I stopped in front of a newly-placed For Sale sign on 5^th Street. The unimposing, little 1957 concrete block house wasn’t going to make the history books, but it had an air about it and, out of curiosity, I called the listing agent to obtain permission to let myself in. From the terrazzo floors and funky kitchen cabinets which remind me of my Mamaw’s, to the open beams in the dining room and esoteric bamboo and Japanese wisteria trellis in the back yard, when I crossed the threshold for the first time…I was home.

Thoughts of a rental clattered to the wayside, replaced with the requisite brief waltzing over the price, and 24 hours later a contract was signed. Thanks to having a bank president for a friend and well-established relationships with title companies and appraisers and such, we closed seven days later. I’m not sure whose head was spinning more – mine or the seller’s – but I began moving in that afternoon, passing him in the doorway as he hauled out his last load.

May 2^nd was my “one-year anniversary” of being a city girl, and four more months have come and gone since then. I have yet to regret my move, and know I never will, but it’s been a bit of an adjustment.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve lived in the city before. As long as they don’t give me too many choices, I know which fork to use when, and enough about wine to fake it with a snob. I clean up pretty well when I need to, appreciate the arts, and know when it’s okay to talk politics and when it’s better to hush (usually the latter). I know how to dress for a cocktail party and if I scrounge around in the back of my closet I can probably dig out the dress for it, but it’s been a while and I’m not sure it fits anymore.

I moved to The Country a lot of years ago. Like too many folks, life didn’t work out according to my youthful grand master plan and I ended up divorced and alone with two babies I was determined to “raise right” in an area where the schools were fast turning wrong. So nine years ago I moved from crowded south-central Florida to rural north-central Florida, finding myself in tiny Mayo, 75 miles northwest of Gainesville.

Mayo is the only town in Lafayette County, through which runs the famous Suwannee River. It’s an anachronistic step back in time where everybody knows everybody and, by the way, their business. Values, faith, and family run deep, and most residents were born and raised there. It’s a “dry” county with one traffic light - a veritable ghost-town on Sundays, when everything shuts down and everyone goes to church. Performing Arts are limited to listening to the high school marching band play “We Will Rock You” at a Friday night football game, and if it’s not related to school sports, church, or hunting season, there’s not much in the way of extracurricular activities.

Downtown Mayo is two blocks long, and when you drive down the street you recognize most everyone you see; a smile and a friendly wave are intrinsic to life there. There’s a lot of chewing tobacco, pickup trucks, well-worn work clothes and camouflage. The crime rate is virtually nil, the kids still say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am,” and the whole town turns out for a home game. The community has strong UF ties and for us die-hard Gator fans Mayo is better known as the home town of Kerwin Bell, “The Throwin’ Mayoan” (if I have to explain it, you wouldn’t understand). It wasn’t Shangri-La, mind you, but it was a simple life with a lot of good people and I am grateful for the years I spent there. But after my nest was emptied it was not without its limitations.

So here I am in Gainesville starting over; enjoying the culture, diversity, and general “busy-ness” the city affords. I don’t recognize the people I pass on the street anymore, but I have met some really great neighbors. Frank and I chat over the fence, while his dog Bentley carries on, barking for all he’s worth (which is a fair amount judging by the ruckus he can make). I’ve met a fine young man by the name of Hunter, whose grandma pushes him in his stroller. John and Larre and their friends play Irish traditional music that fills the house and touches my heart. Brenda, who lives a few blocks east of me, has a lovely voice and sings jazz at Emiliano’s on Mondays. I’ve chatted with Howard in the drizzle after a storm, helped Jim fix his computer, and passed the time with Mike and Doug while our dogs galloped about the dog park.

I’ve been to art shows and visited the Museum of Natural History and Butterfly Rainforest. I’ve ridden the Gainesville-to-Hawthorne trail on my bicycle (well, part of it anyway), and accidentally ended up at a children’s piano recital at the Thomas Center one evening, which turned out to be my favorite cultural highlight since moving here. I bicycle to the Farmer’s Market downtown on Wednesdays, picking up fresh organic fruits, vegetables and honey; Friday evenings it’s a walk to the free music concerts, and I hear there are swing dance lessons at the Thelma Bolton Center on Tuesdays.

There’s no more hauling smelly garbage ten miles to the dump (did you know they actually pick it up at the curb?!) and I’ve learned to recycle everything under the shining sun. It used to take me half a day on a 26 hp., zero-radius mower with a 48” deck to get the lawn done; now all it takes is a weed-eater and ten minutes. What’s not to love!? It’s not 35 miles to Publix anymore, but a five-minute pedal, and if I feel like a bottle of Pinot Noir I don’t have to drive across two counties to get it. A license plate is more likely to read “BEATNIK” now, rather than “GOTMILK”, and bumper stickers proclaim “Coexist” instead of “You Eat Because I Farm”.

I attended an art gala at the Thomas Center shortly after moving to the Duckpond. On display was a collection of plein air paintings by dozens of artists portraying the byways and countryside of rural north Florida. Stroke of brush illustrated tractors and fields, cattle grazing in serene pastures, sunsets over crop rows, country stores, dirt roads and barbed-wire fences, old folks with old ways on old porches…the life I left behind. City folks in Birkenstocks sipped merlot and admired the paintings and there wasn’t a muddy workboot nor tobacco chaw anywhere in site. It was a strange, incongruous feeling to stand there in this new place, gazing at the paintings of the old place only an hour - and yet a world - away.

I realized a page in my life had been forever turned.

Full of unknown promise, new beginnings are a wonderful and scary place to be when you’re starting over alone in what amounts to a whole new world. A lot of things have changed and the transition hasn’t been without its hurdles. An old dog who had his run of woods and fields for his twelve years walks around the Duckpond with me now. He had to learn what a leash was and I had to learn about pooper-scooping. We’ve come a long way, baby!

Erstwhile and innovative, demure and diverse, tradition with an eclectic perspective - the Duckpond is home now and I love it here. This country mouse and her old dog are making our adjustments. We’re where we belong and we’re happy in our little house on Fifth Street.

War is Hell...

... and the fact that the skirmishes take place in the back yard over sugar water make it no less a pitched battle.

Some 14' from my kitchen window stands an Asian pergola. From the end of the cross frame closest to the window is suspended a hummingbird feeder. Beneath the feeder is a row of mature azaleas taller than my head; above it, suspended from the pergola, is a thick covering of Japanese wisteria. Still higher up is an oak tree, the tippy-branches of which serve as lookout posts, offering 360-degree vantage points for hyper-vigilant Ruby-throated hummingbirds who defend the red plastic feeder with tireless vengeance.

The airborne skirmishes over the endless and ever-fresh supply of nectar are fierce; the fussing, threatening chirps, and dive-bombing constant. If I happen to have the audacity to sit in the chairs in the vicinity of the feeder, I, too, am cursed vehemently. While reading the other afternoon, a bossy little flying ace whizzed past my head, fussing as she flew, and dropped a tiny bomb directly on my book! If Baron von Richthofen had been half as determined, WWI might have had a whole different outcome!

This afternoon, standing at the kitchen window, I watched a battle won not with brawn, but brains. One of the smaller females was being bullied away from the feeder, chased relentlessly by a larger one. They circled each other mid-air, lunging and chirping, until the littler girl darted into the azaleas for cover and respite. Her pursuer hovered just outside the foliage, head cocking side-to-side, searching for her target. Unable to spot her prey, she flew upward to the oak branches to keep angry watch over the approaches to the feeder.

Moments passed and then, from the far end of the row of azaleas where the branches are thickest, emerged the little girl. Stealthily, cautiously, she skirted up the edge of the shrubs to the feeder, keeping under the cover of the wisteria as she flew. As Frau Dominatrix glared confidently about the yard, Little Girl sipped lunch peacefully undetected directly beneath her tormentor.

War is hell, but the victory does not always go to the most swift and strong. Sometimes you gotta run away so you can return to fight another day. And being sneaky doesn't hurt, either!

Two steps forward and five steps back...

Remember the comic strip "Family Circus"?

Every now and then the artist would draw a sequence in which the harried mother would ask one of the youngsters to do a simple chore. "Go next door and borrow a cup of sugar from Grandma."

Junior would happily trot out the door, cup in hand, and immediately become irretrievably side-tracked. A little dashed line would track his progress (or lack thereof) as he trekked about the neighborhood doing everything BUT borrowing that cup of sugar.

My yard work is a lot like that.

Yesterday I decided the most pressing job at hand was to spray the wooden privacy fence (which has seen better days, but I can't afford to replace it, so I have to take care of it) with water sealant. So I headed to my local home improvement giant to buy sealant and one of those pump pressure sprayers with which to apply it.

I first stopped at customer service to return an item it turned out I didn't need after all. Immediately thereafter I was side-tracked by the flowers (a foregone conclusion) and yard ornaments, and found the perfect gorgeous big, cobalt blue pot to use for a bamboo water fountain I'm planning in the future. It took me some time to select it; there was a great brown one, too, with a turquoise-blue interior, and I had a hard time deciding between the two. I also remembered several other items I needed, including duct tape (for an issue with insulation around AC ducts in my attic), light bulbs, paint thinner for clean-up, and two bags of water softener salt.

Congratulating myself on remembering the other sundries, I ambled to the pump sprayers. After standing in front of a selection of half a dozen for several minutes, trying to decide which one to get, it suddenly dawned on me that I already had one in my storage shed.

Time to head to the checkout counter.

While pushing my shopping buggy out to the car, looking at my big blue bowl, I decided I should have gotten the brown one; it was more natural-looking and would better fit the wabi-sabi Japanese style I'm working toward in my yard.

Back inside the store to the return counter; then to select which one of the two available brown pots I wanted (no-brainer cuz one of them had more blue inside); and back to the checkout girl who looked at me like I was a nut case, and possibly up to something. Obviously, she doesn't garden.

By the time I got back home it had started to rain, which brought my fence-spraying plans to a halt.

This morning I got up bright and early (well, bright anyway) with the grandest of intentions and headed outside. In looking at the fence in question, I decided it had a fair amount of green moldy gunk on it and that I was going to have to bleach it before treating it with water sealant.

But before I could bleach it I was going to have to mend the hose I had accidentally lopped in half (in two places, don't ask me how, I don't want to talk about it, but it could happen to anyone) with my big branch clippers a couple of weeks ago.

Now, in order to mend the hose, which was lying over by two pots of bamboo on a side of the house I rarely visit because it's a jungle, I had to go get my pruners to cut out the two sections where I'd gouged the hose with the clippers. By the time I'd gathered everything I needed to fix the hose and gotten the job done (it took longer than it should have because one of the four hose clamps was boogered and wouldn't close properly), 30 minutes had gone by.

Then, as I was gathering up tools and cleaning up my work area, I noticed the bamboo was looking overgrown, and had a lot of dead-looking stalks. Since I had my pruners handy...another half-hour gone by.

Pruners still at the ready, I began to make my way about the back yard looking for strays that needed clipping (it's a never-ending job), and before it was over with, I'd watered all the hydrangeas, filled the water softener with salt, duct-taped the air vent in the attic, got stung by a bee in the armpit (I'm not making this stuff up), the big clippers had come out of the shed for more serious pruning, a huge pile of stuff had been hauled to the curb, and another hour and a half had slipped away.

Finally, back to the job at hand. I filled up my little pump sprayer with bleach

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and water, deciding that was going to be the easiest way to bleach the fence. But the pressure was so weak, I opted to haul out the gas-powered pressure washer. I hooked up my newly repaired hose, burned a large hole in the grass pouring the bleach from the pump sprayer into the power washer tank, turned on the water (hose bib in front of house, had to trek out front), and BLEWSH! - I guess I didn't get that boogered hose clamp quite tight enough - the whole thing blew apart.

So. Ask me if I got the fence sprayed. Go ahead, ask me. Nope. Not a drop. And now I'm hot and sweaty, sitting in the AC eating cereal, and thinking maybe mossy green isn't such a bad color for a fence after all.

It's a wonder I get anything done.

But isn't my brown bowl pretty!

virtually nothing to do with gardening...

...unless you count that I'm sitting in one.

It's 11:37 p.m. on the 24th of June. In 23 minutes I will be 45 years old.

Gosh, that sounds like a lot.

But as gray hair, dulling skin, gravity-challenged body parts, and crows feet creep slowly, but surely, upon me...life is good.

If I looked back over my shoulder at the year gone by it would be easy to reflect with maudlin mood on the substantial hardships it held. But I can't help but put behind me the sorrows of days I cannot retrieve, and look forward instead with anticipation at the year before me. If I allow myself a backward glance it is only so I might see the mistakes I made (and there were a few) and remember not to make them again.

Because, despite tears and loss in the vapor that was the last 365 days, I have been given many blessings. And though they may not seem like much to folks who measure success with yardsticks different than my own, the small joys make me happy; in them I find peace.

The crickets are chirping their nocturnal symphony; a soft breeze stirs the bamboo; an owl is hooting in the distance; and an old dog lies contentedly at my feet.

I am 45 now, and I look forward to whatever the coming year holds.

From the outset I think it's important to be forthright. If you've come here looking for sage and learned gardening advice, you've probably come to the wrong place.

Now, I'm not saying I haven't learned a thing or two from trial and error along the way. And, though what I know won't take long to pass along, I'm happy to share it with you. But I'm no garden guru. The joke about keeping the marigolds alive is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

What I am, though, is a lover of the outdoors, of growing things; and a great experimenter. I'm also somewhat easily distracted by enticing rabbit trails and just as apt to change paths with my gardening plan as I am to stick to it, a fact which has made my local home improvement giant more money than I ever intended to give them.

In fact, just this morning, while looking around the yard and cursing the weeds, snails, and moles which seem to have proliferated with the last several weeks' rain, I realized how like my life-plan is my gardening plan. I kinda-sorta know what I want to do with the space and time allotted, but not exactly. In both cases nothing turns out like I planned and I never have enough cash-flow to live up to the grandeur of my schemes and dreams; but they're as like as not to morph into something entirely unexpected, so I never let that bother me. The dreaming of a thing is half the fun anyway.

My garden plan at the moment is loosely Asian in theme, which is a bit difficult to pull off given my threadbare budget, allotted space, and climate. I'm in zone 8b here, which means that it's humid and hotter than H-E-double-hockeysticks in the summer, and slightly sub-freezing for short stretches in the winter. Not hot enough year-round to be tropical like Miami, but not cold enough to really kill off the bugs. Add to the mix that I have a strange penchant for flowers ranging from coral to orange and blue to purple-black, and the plan becomes even more dodgy. (Purple and orange Asian flowers in zone 8b? Yeah, I'll get back to you on that.)

But I have plans. Big ones. I can see it all now.

I bought this place by accident. Seriously. I didn't plan to buy a house, but somehow it worked out that way. Without waxing maudlin, a little over a year ago life as I knew it imploded around me and I relocated on impulse and instinct. ("Must...get...out...of here...!") My quickly constructed, loosely drafted, and possibly somewhat ill-conceived plan was to find a place to rent, get the lay of the land for a year or so, get my real estate business off the ground again (ha!), and then maybe buy. I scouted the city, quickly finding the neighborhood I wanted (more on that later) and spent the next week looking for rentals.

It didn't take a week to figure out I couldn't afford to rent in this neighborhood. But on my fourth day of hunting I spotted a brand new For Sale sign. Long story short, I fell in love with a funky little 1957 2/1 house with terrazzo floors, open-beam ceiling in the dining room (read: no insulation) and original cabinetry and ghastly blue bath fixtures. Ten days later the bank and I owned the place. I moved in the day the seller moved out.

I'm pretty sure the previous owner, a sweet Irishman named Maurice, didn't have a gardening plan, either. Unless maybe the plan was to do as little yard work as possible. The postage stamp of grass loosely defined as the back yard was 18'x24' and surrounded by a thick periphery of shrubs and ferns which thought they owned the place. I hauled 15 lawn bags of leaves off that little 432 square foot patch of grass the first week, and Lord-knows how many since then.

But the cool thing about the yard was this: During the aforementioned life-implosion, I'd been thinking that if I could build any house I wanted it would be one with an Oriental spirit to it. I could see it all in my mind: rice paper partitions, sleek lines, open and airy spaces, bamboo cabinetry, sandalwood...beauty and calm in simplicity.

Now, this "historically contributing" little concrete block house with its blue bathtub didn't quite fit that bill, but Maurice had planted patches of bamboo in several places about the yard; built a an Oriental-looking trellis for Japanese wisteria in the patio area; and had placed a little ornamental pagoda in its own rock garden in the back corner. Lovely, old azaleas line three sections of the yard, and you have to walk under a bamboo archway to get to the front door.


The beginnings for my imaginings were already in place. I couldn't afford to build my dream house, but I could rebuild my dreams with the blessings at hand.

In the beginning....

I first thought about writing this blog several weeks ago. I was gardening at the time - filthy, sweaty, and bug-bitten – thinking happy thoughts about what was doubtless a profound and brilliant topic, the subject matter of which I can no longer recall (I knew I’d forget it if I didn’t write it down).

I don't think it's any coincidence that cognitive life began in a Garden...nor that, for those of us who seek joy and peace in the simple things in life, we've been trying to get back to it ever since. No matter how haywire (to put it nicely) my day, if I can just get outside and look up through the trees, piddle among the flowers, listen to the wind rustle the bamboo, or just sit outside and hear the birds carry on about the things important to birds...the cares just seem to melt away. They get replaced with a "garden state of mind" which, for me, is respite and peace and which seems to put everything into perspective.

I do some of my best thinking while getting dirt under my fingernails and mosquito bites behind my knees. And while many of the things I hope to share are directly related to working in the garden, the posts won't always be about gardening in particular; nor certainly will they always be introspective. As much as anything they will be about maintaining that state of mind - the Pollyanna outlook, if you will - in a world which is increasingly haywire ("Where are we going and what am I doing in this handbasket!?"). Maybe sharing some happy thoughts, and some practical stuff, too, will brighten someone else's day. And maybe I'll be lucky enough to make a few friends along the way.

So what’s a blog about a Garden State of Mind got to do with New Jersey? Nothing at all.