My Exciting Life

May 27, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I had a rare treat today. My body got me up at 5:00 a.m. as usual, and as usual, I went back to bed. And surprise! I actually went back to sleep and didn’t wake up again until 7:00. As much as I like not dragging my tired body through the day, the restfulness came with a price — two hours less in the day.

So here I am, scrambling to find something quick to write about for today’s blog post before I head out to work. I mean, head out to my job. I’ve already been working. I spent the past three hours outside getting caught up on gardening chores — weeding, watering, planting, transplanting. And oh, my. I hurt from top to bottom!

It’s funny — I keep telling people in another few years I’m going to have a fabulous yard, but the truth is, I have a fabulous yard this year. Admittedly, in a few years the lilac bushes will grow to maturity, offering me a few more nooks and crannies in my yard to give me an excuse to wander around and see what’s there (instead of being able to see everything at a glance, that is). And more perennials will take hold, as well as the last few wild places filled in. The raised garden is still just an idea built on top of a long rectangular hole in the ground, and as much as I’d like to see the finished project, I have enough to keep me active. I certainly don’t need another forty-square-feet of garden to take care of right now. One day, however, I will be glad of a new garden spot.

Just not today.

I’m glad I’ll be going outside again — I’ll be walking the couple of blocks to my job — because in all the working this morning, I forgot to enjoy the perfect day. No high winds, just a bit of a breeze to temper the heat of the sun, and blue skies.

Well, thanks for reading. I’ll be back again tomorrow for more news about my oh, so exciting life!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in blogging, gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

What a Day!

May 26, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I don’t know where I get the idea that I don’t do much. Perhaps because there are times when I lay about, such as the rainy day a couple of days ago, but today wasn’t such a day. I woke this morning at 5:00 a.m. (Not by choice, you understand. It’s just when my body decided it didn’t want to sleep anymore.)

It is now 5:00 p.m., and this is the first time I’ve managed to sit all day. Well, I did take a break for a quick meal, and I’ll be eating again soon, but for the most part, I’ve been on the go since I awoke.

After I exercised and straightened the house, I did a bit of weeding, then a friend came to pick me up so we could check the roof on our absent friend’s house. It’s still holding up despite the rain we had. We made a couple of quick stops at food stores, then she dropped me off and I put the groceries away.

By that time, the morning dew was long dried, so I hauled out my lawn mower. The mowing is easy. The hard part is emptying the grass catcher. It seems a very long way from the northwest corner of my yard to the southeast corner where I need to dump the clippings, and since the grass got long and thick because of the rain, I had to empty the catcher about ten times. The good part is the mower mulches the clippings, and I need a lot of mulch to try to suffocate the bindweed that proliferates in that far corner.

While I was resting after my hard work, I got a text from my neighbor asking if I wanted to look at her “yard pretties” and see what I wanted since she loved to share. We wandered around her lush yard, and greedy me, I said I wanted a bit of everything except the climbers. Although ivy and Virginia creepers are pretty, I don’t want to deal with keeping them in check. Once I finished admiring everything in her yard, we came over to my place and looked at everything here. I ended up giving her some larkspur and wildflower seeds, and promised to give her some New England aster in the late fall when I divide them.

She was glad to see I still have so much uncultivated yard. She can thin her plants as much as she needs to because she will have an extension garden to fill up. (That’s what I’m calling that unplanted area, her “extension garden.”)

I still had a couple of errands to run, so she promised to send the plants over to me when they were dug up, we said goodbye, and I headed out again.

Despite the offer of plants, as I passed the hardware store with the racks of plants out in front, I stopped and browsed and bought. Just one four-pack of petunias to fill in an area that cried out for a bit of color. I’m not totally obsessed.

What a day!

I must admit, I was so exhausted after all my exertions that I didn’t plant the flowers, even though it wouldn’t have taken long.

While I’m admitting things, I might as well admit I never thought spending so much time (and money) on a yard would be worth it, but I do so love to wander around my paths and see what’s new. There’s always something to look at, and what’s even better, it can’t all be seen at a glance. Knowing so many elderlies who are property-bound (not housebound exactly; they just don’t feel comfortable straying too far from home), I wanted to make sure that if the same thing happened to me, I’d have things to look at as I wandered around my yard. As I’d hoped, with each curve of the pathways, I get a different view. Even better, I don’t have to wait until I’m property-bound to enjoy the scenery.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Garden Withdrawal

May 23, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I’m going through garden withdrawal. With the weather we’ve been having — cold, wind, rain — I haven’t been in my yard much except to check to make sure things are okay. Everything is fine, mostly because we were out of the path of the snowfall that was dumped in the mountains and on the major cities in Colorado. The only problem is that my grass is growing quickly (apparently, it likes the cold) and I haven’t been able to mow it. It’s not a problem for me because I don’t mind long grass, but it is a problem for the mower because it does mind long grass. Still, I am grateful for such a silly problem. So many people have real problems that devastate their lives. Of course, I’ve had such problems too, but not currently.

It’s funny that without a problem to discuss, a new flower to show, an onerous task to accomplish, I have nothing to say. (Though as you can see, I still manage to say something.)

It’s a good thing I go to work today because otherwise all I’d do is sit and laze around here because without spending time out in my yard, I’ve been able to catch up on the inside chores. There isn’t a layer of dust nagging at me or dingy floors screaming for attention or laundry that’s waiting patiently for me to get desperate for clean clothes. Even my gardening journal is caught up (which for some reason I have a hard time remembering to update) by dint of the fact that there’s been no gardening for me to do.

I’m not even worrying about anything. It helps that because I work so few days now, I seldom see the news. (The only time I watch the news is when the woman I help care for wants to watch.)

There is one task I could do but I keep putting it off because it entails a trip to the post office. A friend moved to a different country in Europe, and I don’t have her new email address. The way I figure, if she wants to hear from me, she should have given me that email address, and since she didn’t, it’s her fault she hasn’t heard from me. As you can see, the use of email sure has spoiled me! Admittedly, the local post office isn’t anywhere near the problem those in major cities are, but it’s still time consuming to mail a letter for overseas. One of these days, I will send her a note, if for no other reason than to be able to cross off that item from my to-do list.

But for today, I will be glad that except for the unwritten note, this time is so uneventful. As soon as this cold spell passes and my garden withdrawal a thing of the past, I’ll have more than enough work to keep me busy.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Cottage Garden

May 22, 2022 — Pat Bertram

A friend once referred to my house as a cottage. I made some sort of noncommittal response, and whatever my remark was, she took it to mean I was insulted. I wasn’t at all insulted. I’d just never put a name to the architectural style of the house. Besides, in my mind (not necessarily in other people’s minds), an American cottage is a summer home, generally near a beach or lake or other vacation spot (though in the mountains, a cottage would be called a cabin) and an English cottage is sort of a fairytale dwelling with a thatched roof and surrounded by a lush informal garden.

If my house were out in the countryside somewhere, it might be a considered cottage, but a house in town generally isn’t a cottage. Still, my house is cozy enough to be a cottage, though it is a tad large (a cottage is typically 600 to 1000 square feet unless one is exceedingly rich in which case those numbers are increased ten-fold).

Come to think of it, maybe she thought I was insulted because of the relationship between the words “cottage” and “hut” — cottage derives from Old English (cote), Old French (kot) and Old Norse (kotten) words meaning “hut,” and compared to a hut, my house is a mansion. To me, anyway.

What made me think of this three-year-old exchange is that my yard is starting to look like a cottage garden. Or rather it’s starting to look like my impression of what a cottage garden is. Which makes me wonder if my house is turning into a cottage after all.

Not that it matters. I tend not to put names on things since a name limits that which is named. For example, Jeff and I never defined our relationship. We were what we were. It was only after he was gone and I started writing about my grief that I had to find a name for what we were to each other. Nor do I give human names to things. People often ask me what the name of my car is. Sheesh. It’s a car. It doesn’t have a name. Nor, despite people referring to the bug as “she,” does the car have a sex. Need I iterate? It’s a car!

So, my car is a car.

My house is a house.

And my yard is a yard. But oh, such a pretty yard!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in gardening, home, house, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Surprises. Mostly Pleasant.

May 8, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I made good use of my day off and mowed the grass. The hardest part of using any bit of machinery seems to be cleaning the machine after use, and this mower, because it’s a mulcher that chops up the grass after it’s cut, seems to get “gunkier” than most. I never can clean all the grass gunk (for lack of a better word, and believe me, I’ve been on Google looking) off the underside of the mower. The second hardest part is emptying the grass catcher, mostly because it has to be done so frequently. This grass grows fast, and it is densely packed, so there is a lot of it. I’ve been using the ensuing mulch for mulch, so in some cases, I had to pull weeds before I dumped the clippings. The easiest part of mowing is . . . mowing. Though even that isn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Still, the whole project doesn’t take long, just a little more than an hour, so it’s not all that onerous.

After I finished with the grass, I watered the bushes and other plants that didn’t get a drink yesterday, then I planted hollyhocks. I have a lot of seeds grown from last year’s hollyhocks, and even though I planted them in the fall as my neighbor (who gifted me the original hollyhock seeds) suggested, none came up. A few minutes online gave me a different method — to soak the seeds overnight, then just lay them on the ground without covering them with dirt. Apparently, they need the light to germinate. So that’s what I did. I have plenty more seeds to experiment with if these don’t sprout.

When these tasks were finished, I roamed my pathways, looking for anything new, and I found some nice surprises.

The first rose of the season! I have never been able to find out what kind of roses these are. A rather lengthy bout of online searching didn’t produce any definitive results, though some people call this five-petaled flower a simple rose, a prairie rose, a shrub rose, a native rose, a wild rose, or any number of other names. All I know for sure is that it is some type of rose.

This allium grew among the lilacs. I didn’t even know it was there since it had never bloomed before. It’s so pretty with the purple allium, the green leaves, and the white lilacs.

The honeysuckle is in bloom, too. This honeysuckle is an old one and has been here for many years, perhaps even decades. It’s a bush, not a vine as many honeysuckles are, including a few I planted a couple of years ago.

I was also surprised to see an iris blooming. Before the fence was built, I’d tried to transplant some of the irises that would be caged between my fence and the neighbor’s garage, but most of those transplants seem to have died. This is the first time an iris I planted actually flowered.

The only unpleasant surprise was a pile of dirt off to the side of one of my paths. I thought I’d somehow shoveled dirt onto the path when I dug up some weeds, but when I started to push the dirt back where it came from, I discovered the real culprit of the dastardly deed. Ants!! Red fire ants are building a home. Considering how vicious the bites are from those ants, I’m lucky I managed to remain bite-free. If they continue to deconstruct my landscaping, I’ll have to do something about them, but I really don’t want to. I’m one of those people who literally won’t hurt a fly, or any creature, for that matter, but I make an exception for any that hurt me.

Luckily, my surprises were mostly pleasant ones.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Treasure Hunt

April 24, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I went on a treasure hunt of a different kind, today. Last fall, I’d planted a few pink echinacea, and that area of my garden, next to the new grass, had become so overgrown with crabgrass and weeds (probably because of all the watering I had to do to keep my new sod alive through the winter), that the echinacea disappeared. I knew vaguely where they were, but the new growth made the area seem so much like foreign territory, that I didn’t know for sure, and I was afraid to just start yanking unwanted vegetation in case I also yanked the wanted plants.

I finally noticed that one plant, a bit farther from the sod than the others, had broken the surface. I figured if the other plants survived the winter, they should also be visible now, so that’s what my hunt was about — looking through all the weeds to find the echinacea. I think I found them all. I carefully dug up the thick clumps of weeds and crabgrass to give the echinacea space, and then drove stakes next to the plants so I wouldn’t have to go searching for them again.

There is still a lot more cleaning up I have to do, but until I can identify more of the baby plants, I don’t want to start digging lest I remove some seedlings I might want. Many plants look alike when they are young, such as larkspur and wild mustard, and it’s too easy to pull up the wrong thing. In fact, the mustard grows among the larkspur, making the whole patch look as if it might be mustard, so when the plants are big enough to differentiate, I have to be very careful to only pull the weeds.

I tend to think most of the small unidentified seedlings are weeds. I don’t see anything that looks as if it might be the beginning of a wildflower field, so either it’s too early or the birds ate the seed. The birds did seem to be inordinately interested in my little garden patch this winter despite a full birdfeeder just a few feet away in my neighbor’s yard, so who knows what, if anything, I will end up with.

What’s nice about having work to do outside is that it gives me an excuse to be out in the open air, especially on nice days. Although today wasn’t particularly warm, it qualified as a nice day because the horrid winds we’ve having took a brief break. I did enjoy that!

If the ten-day forecast is anything to go by, it looks as if we are heading into frost-free weather, so I could start planting if I wished. But I don’t wish. The wind, you know.

After my treasure hunt and the clean-up that followed it, I spent some time wandering my paths, enjoying both the landscape and the hardscape that’s been laid down, and thinking about someday having my own private park, when everywhere I turn, I’ll see a different aspect of the yard. For example, the lilac bushes are all still young (the big plant in the corner of this garden photo is a baby lilac), but when they are grown up, that part of the yard will look completely different.

As with everything else in my life, I’m trying to not look too much to the future, trying to keep my eyes on what is rather than what might be or what will be.

And today, what is, is a garden spot that still looks nice, weeds, and all.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Momentous Day

April 23, 2022 — Pat Bertram

This is turning out to be rather a momentous day. Shortly after I woke up, I heard banging. I kept looking outside at the neighbors’ houses, trying to see what was going on. I even stepped outside for a minute to peek across the alley, but I couldn’t see anyone doing any sort of work.

The banging continued, and then I heard the sound of a pipe reverberating near my house, which made me realize the banging was in my yard. So I went back outside and walked around the house, and there was one of the people who has been sporadically working on my property. He was pounding in the metal edging between the path and the grass to make it easier for me to mow. It was supposed to be done anyway, so it wasn’t a special consideration, but still I was thrilled to see him doing the work today. It’s been a while since anyone stopped by to anything. (The last time was when they came to check the plumbing to make sure a leak didn’t account for my exorbitant water bill.)

He did a few other minor chores while he was here, and we talked about some of the work that needed to be done (apparently, this worker is one that my contractor trusts to do my work). He says he’ll be back, and I’m sure he will . . . some day. Still, I’m delighted that a bit of work was done!

My tarot reading amused me today since it seemed to reflect the work he did: “What was accomplished up to now gets an even greater boost.” A secondary meaning to my reading was: “Everything grows and becomes more abundant.” For sure!! Weeds, anyone? Lots and lots of weeds are growing everywhere.

Adding to the momentousness, today is the birthday of a tree in Denver’s City Park near where I grew up. Shakespeare’s Elm, a tree planted from a scion taken from the tree on Shakespeare’s grave, is 106 years old today. The tree was always special to me. In fact, a friend and I threw birthday parties for the tree many years ago. We’d sent out invitations to friends as well as the media and some city bigwigs, but the only people who showed up besides those we knew were a couple of cops. We made them welcome, gave them green punch and tree cookies, but they weren’t really there to party. They were scoping out the gathering, thinking perhaps it was . . . I don’t . . . some sort of drug rendezvous. Anyway, after about a half an hour, they looked at each other, and one said with amazement in his voice, “They really are having a party for this tree.”

Back then, it was a forgotten historical monument, but over the years, there have been several articles in the Denver newspapers and magazines showcasing that amazing tree.

So all in all, a momentous day, and it’s not even over yet!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in history/myth, home, life, tarot. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

The Courage to Start Over

April 22, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Two characters in the book I am reading are talking about why they moved to that particular small town. One was born there, moved away, then returned for as yet undisclosed reasons. The other said she just wanted to start over. The first woman said, “I think it’s admirable. A lot of people don’t have the courage to do something like that.”

Is it true? Does it take courage to move to a new place to start over? Or is it that sometimes we’ve lost so much there’s nothing to lose by doing so?

I know several widows who moved out of their homes, and then took off, looking for a place to settle. A couple of them bought RVs, traveled across country, and eventually found a place they liked well enough to stay. Others just . . . wandered. It might have taken courage, but I have a hunch it was simply easier than staying and living with the memories and the ghosts of things past. Some people who are left behind do stay in their once-shared home and that, perhaps, takes more courage than heading out to look for a new place.

In my case, after Jeff died, I moved to a different state to take care of my father, and when he too died, I wandered. In between road trips, I’d rent rooms in people’s houses. Then three years ago, I bought a house sight unseen (though I had seen photos), in an area I’d only driven through once. At the time, I knew no one in town, though I promptly rectified that little matter. Did any of this take courage? Not particularly. Does it take courage for a stone that was catapulted into the air to land somewhere? No. It’s just the way things are. It’s the same thing when you are catapulted out of your life — you eventually have to land somewhere. It’s just the way things are.

Come to think of it, that’s not the only time I went looking for a new place to live, though the other times were with Jeff. We were fed up with the growth of Denver and the attendant problems like crime and pollution. We were also without work. So we just took off with no destination in mind. I don’t think that took courage; it was an adventure, and to be honest, once we left everything behind, it was the freest I ever felt in my entire life. The problem with such an irrevocable act is that eventually you have to find a place to live, and that search destroys the feeling of freedom.

It’s a good thing this place is working out for me because I don’t have another move left in me.

But I am getting off the theme of “courage.” Although I have done many things people say take courage — such as dealing with grief, my solo road trips, buying my first house so late in life — I didn’t particularly feel courageous. I did endure, however, and I did persevere despite having lost so much, and I tend to think that counts more than mere courage.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in grief, home, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

The Day Was Just Packed

April 16, 2022 — Pat Bertram

This was one of those days that was so packed I barely had time to relax or eat, though I did manage to do both. Making the day even more insane was the wind. Without the wind, it would have been a lovely warm day, conducive to doing all I needed and wanted to get done, but with the wind? Yikes.

I started out walking errands. (Since I no longer run, I can’t in all honesty use the phrase “running errands,” and since the part for my brakes remains elusive — or perhaps it’s just the mechanic that remains elusive — I can’t run my car for errands, either.) I visited with friends I encountered at the store for a while, then went home and mowed the lawn.

The grass might not have been needed to be mown so soon — it was just last weekend, if I remember correctly, that I mowed it the first time — but I gave that lawn such a bad haircut that it needed to be redone. (The grass had been so tall, the poor mowers — both the machine and the human working the machine — struggled to get the job finished any way they could.)

I had just finished cutting the grass and was admiring my work when a man who lives across the street and down the alley came running up to me, all upset to see that the lawn had been mown. It turns out he wanted the clippings for his compost heap. I told him I still have the clippings — my mower mulches the clippings, so I spread them around my plants — but he wasn’t interested. He asked if he could have the clippings the next time, and I agreed; he even said he’d mow the lawn to get the clippings, and I agreed to that, too.

I did some other outside work, then came in for a quick bite to eat because a friend was due to come pick me up so we could join the community wellness walk. The wind was extraordinarily strong, but we did the walk. We just didn’t stand in line at all the check-in booths along the way. We knew we walked; it didn’t matter if anyone else knew, too.

As if that weren’t enough, I still had to go check out the house I am taking care of for an absent friend, and now here I am.

Whew! What a day!

The thing I am most proud of is that despite all that, I still took time to tiptoe through the tulips. Well, not through them, beside them. These particular tulips I planted alongside one of my pathways, and I am thrilled that the sight is as lovely as I hoped.

Yep. The day was just packed.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Letting the Future Take Care of Itself

April 14, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I accidentally came across an article yesterday about how signs of neglect when it comes to the home of an elderly person, such as an overgrown yard or dilapidated house, can prompt an investigation and perhaps have their home taken away.

I say I “accidentally” came across the article because it’s not a subject I would ever pursue on purpose — just that brief scan gave me the heebie-jeebies. I’m not sure how true it is that signs of neglect can prompt an investigation, especially in an area like this where there are so many derelict houses (many owned by the resident slumlord), but it made me worry about taking care of my house and made me wonder what I was thinking when I put in the lawn.

I can take care of both the house and lawn now with no problem, but as I get older? Not so much. And it’s doubtful whether I’d have the wherewithal to pay for getting things taken care of. So there I will be, a frail old lady, with an unkempt yard and a house desperately in need of paint, and . . .

Nope. Don’t want to go there.

Actually, I do know what I was thinking when I put in the yard. I wanted a small patch of green in the front because I figured I could easily take care of that even if I got frail, but I ended up with the tag-end of someone else’s sod job. I worried that those leftovers wouldn’t be enough to cover the area I’d set aside for a small lawn, but the workers kept laying the sod and laying the sod and pretty soon I had a pretty yard that will eventually be pretty hard to take care of.

I did have to laugh at my tarot reading today. The Three of Wands said I had great skill in realizing plans and goals, but the Two of Pentacles warned that my goals are becoming incompatible with reality. Yep. Sounds about right. Especially when it comes to the yard. The whole point of creating paths and planting wildflowers that will eventually naturalize was to make things easier on me in my old age, not harder.

But I can’t be sorry about the grass. It is so pretty! I’ll keep it looking good as long as I can and try not to worry about what comes after. I did think, the other day when I was mowing, that I should have put the pretty lawn on the neighbor’s property. That way I’d be able to enjoy it without having to do the upkeep!

I suppose I’ll get used to the work when I get used to the tools (the next one I need to figure out how to use is my string trimmer), but for the next few days, I’m taking a hiatus, both on the worrying and on the work. I’m not even watering anything. It’s just too darn windy to be outside.

By the time the wind dies down (according to the forecast, we’re in for a lot of wind for another couple of weeks), the last frost will have passed. I’m hoping the frost we had last night will be the last — it sure took a toll on my poor tulips. Luckily, I thought to take a picture yesterday when they were looking good.

Also, luckily, I am hale enough that I can still maintain myself and my property. That’s all that should matter today. The future can take care of itself.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in dealing with old age, gardening, home, house, life. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »
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