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Deserving

June 10, 2022 — Pat Bertram

People often say, “You get what you deserve.” They don’t say it to me, necessarily; it’s just one of those meaningless phrases people use to try to find meaning — and fairness — when there is none.

A good example of the phrase meaning what it says is when a person picks on someone and that someone retaliates. As I have observed, though, bullies never see the retaliation in terms of their actions; they see the retaliation as the victim picking on them. So even though the bullies might deserve what they get, the bullies do not see it.

It’s the same with smokers who get lung cancer; people assume the smokers get what they deserve, but non-smokers also get lung cancer. My mother was one of those — never smoked, was never around smokers — though in a bizarre twist, her death certificate states that she was a lifelong smoker. She neither “deserved” to die of lung cancer nor to have a falsified death certificate, but those things happened. And speaking of death, did Jeff “deserve” to die at 63? Did my dad deserve to live to 97? Those are questions I have no answer for, nor does anyone.

What has made me think of this matter of deserving is something else, something more pleasant. My current living situation to be exact.

Here I am, living in a lovely house surrounded by a lovely yard with a fabulous garage and a delightful outdoor room (aka a gazebo). I do not know how I got to be so lucky, especially since it wasn’t that long ago when I was worrying about ending up on the streets. I had a small amount of savings that was rapidly being depleted, and I had no idea what I would do when it was gone. (I wouldn’t have lived “on the streets” as such — naively, I figured I would live in the national parks, going from one to another. If I had to be homeless, that seemed a more interesting way of living.)

Instead, following advice from a relative, I used that money to buy a house in the poorest county in Colorado, only a couple of hundred miles from some of the most expensive real estate in the country. It was the only place I could afford, but it turned out to be a true boon. The perfect place for me — not just the house and neighborhood, but the town itself.

Do I deserve my good fortune? I doubt it. (Did I deserve all the bad luck I’ve previously had? I doubt that, too.)

I also ended up with a lot of friends — some close friends, some close acquaintances, and some casual acquaintances. (This seems to be a good town for making friends — one such friend recently mentioned that they’d never had so many friends. Neither have I, to be honest.) I might deserve these friends because as far as I can tell, I am a good friend in return, and I do try to do things if not for these people, then for the community. (Such as my most recent donation of brownies for a local event.) But whether deserved or not, I do cherish each friendship.

But the rest of it? As far as I can see, my good fortune has little to do with my deserving it. Perhaps I deserve to have a pretty yard since I am putting a lot of effort into it, but so much of the beauty comes other from people’s labor as well as nature’s work. (Many of the flowers reseed themselves, so I reap the benefit without having any blisters and calluses to show for it.)

I wake up every morning amazed that I am living in such a house on a mini estate. And I am eternally grateful for my good luck, especially since deep down I truly doubt I did anything to “deserve” it. Though I am doing what I can to try to deserve what I’ve been given.

Still in the end, perhaps it’s not about deserving, but about making the best of whatever life hands us.

***

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, history/myth, home, life. Tags: bullies getting what they deserve, deserving friends, deserving what we get, do we get what we deserve, growing a garden, making the best of life. 6 Comments »

A “Not Too” Sort of Day

June 9, 2022 — Pat Bertram

The problem with taking a day off is that it doesn’t give me anything to write about. I didn’t need to do any work in my yard today or catch up on household chores. I did make a quick grocery shopping trip to the next town over, but even that was pretty typical. They did overcharge me for an item and it took a while to find someone who would correct it, but that, too, is typical and not worth discussing. There’s not even any weather to comment on because so far, it’s been a “not too” sort of day. Not too hot. Not too cold. Not too sunny. Not too cloudy. Not too windy. Not too dry. Not too humid.

I did wander around my estate for a few minutes, checking to make sure my charges were all doing well. And they were. In fact, more wildflowers are springing up, though I had thought all the seeds I’d planted last fall had already sprouted. But they are still coming in.

Since there’s nothing new to talk about, I thought I’d post photos of some of my garden whimsies. Ever since seeing my sister’s garden, where she planted broken pieces of pottery among her flowers, I’ve been enamored with the idea of garden decorations. (Though, truly, a garden should be decoration enough!)

There were a few stray tiled concrete blocks in the yard when I bought the place, so I moved them from the refuse heap to the middle of a garden. Not only are they attractive, but they give me something to stand on when I weed in hard-to-reach places.

And who can’t help smiling at frogs courting among the petunias?

Or at birds creating a home for themselves in a teapot?

I’m limited in areas where I can place such artifacts — because of our wind, they need to be in protected locations. I am looking for something large to be a focal point, but I don’t know what that would be or where I would put it. Since the yard is a perpetual work in progress, I’m sure that piece (and a place for it) will come in time. And if not, well, what I have is plenty. Not too many. Not too few.

***

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: a garden as a work in progress, garden decorations, garden focal points, garden whimsies, wildflowers. 1 Comment »

Garden Party

June 8, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Today was the “maiden voyage” of my new gazebo. The Art Guild held their meeting here in the gazebo, and oh, it was so lovely! We were cool and comfortable in what is essentially an outdoor room. It took a little while to set up because I don’t have patio furniture, so I had to scrounge for a table and enough chairs for all of us.

It was fun being able to show off my house, garage, yard. Especially the yard. It looked so very nice, though admittedly, before they came, I had to spend time clearing away all the detritus that blew in from last night’s storm. (Odd how so many things blow into the yard — trash, leaves, twigs — but nothing blows out again.) Still, it was worth taking the time to make everything nice. One of the members used to live here (I bought the house from her and her husband), and she was thrilled to see what I’ve done with the place.

After the business meeting and refreshments (ice tea and made-from-scratch brownie bites), we started in on a surprise project. A surprise to them but not to me, obviously, since I’d planned it.

Until I became a gardener for real, using live plants, I made miniature gardens and miniature plants, using all sorts of materials such as paper, clay, beads, florist tape, whatever I could find. I only have room in my house for a couple of those miniature gardens, so I thought I’d share my extra flowers and plants with the Art Guild. The guild members picked out the tile they wanted for their garden base, and then they filled them with various miniature pretties.

(I thought that was a clever idea, to make gardens at a garden party.)

It was amazing to me (and to them!) seeing all the work that had gone into making those small plants, but that was a different time and place, as well as a different version of me. It’s amazing, too, to think I had so much free time to spend on such projects because now I seem to have barely enough time to do the basic things of daily life. Well, those and working in my yard.

Luckily, there is a joint Art Guild and Historical Museum tea this weekend, so I was able to donate the rest of the brownie bites to a good cause.

It was a good day, and I was thrilled that my gazebo was as wonderful as I’d hoped it would be.

***

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

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: gazebo, making gardens at a garden party, miniature garden, miniature plants, outside room. 4 Comments »

Growing Smiles

June 7, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I wore myself out today, not just watering and weeding, but sweeping the sidewalks and putting everything back the way it was before the construction crew did their work. (They’re still not completely finished with the gazebo/hut, but all that’s left to do is paint the ceiling and do some touchups on the roof.) I wasn’t sure I liked my hut — it’s a lot darker and the roof is a lot steeper than I thought it would be — but it’s growing on me. It’s going to be a great addition to my mini estate!

I also got a few more plant starters at the hardware store. The owner kind of laughed at me when she noticed me, or rather I should say, she laughed with me. She finds it as amusing as I do that I stop by so often to indulge my plant addiction.

It was kind of silly, I suppose, to have spent so much time today grooming my yard in preparation for the Art Guild meeting tomorrow, partly because the wind came up and blew more detritus on the newly swept walks, partly because it ended up raining, and partly because I’m sure the members would never notice the holes in the landscaping, especially since the yard is a work in progress.

But I notice.

The biggest hole was where the pole for a hanging plant was recently set at the junction of my two sidewalks/ramps. Ramps will go up eventually, but I need something now at that junction so people who are unfamiliar with my house don’t step back and tumble off the stoop. Unfortunately, while planting the pole, a lot of larkspurs got demolished. So I filled in the area with golden-yellow zinnias.

It’s funny to me that despite my wearing myself out with yardwork, the very sight of the yard makes me smile. It’s just so pretty! Even better, are the surprises, such as my “ugly duckling.” It’s not at all ugly, of course. In fact, it’s beautiful. It’s just a different sort of poppy than the rest. The yellow ones are California poppies, and the pink is an Icelandic poppy.

It’s also funny that I never wanted a yard that took a lot of work. But, oh, the smiles that I grow— mine and everyone else’s — are so worth it!

***

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: gardening makes me smile, gazebo, hanging plants, Icelandic poppy, love my garden, mini estate, yellow zinnias. 3 Comments »

Twenty Wishes

June 6, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I just finished a book where a group of widows, in an effort to find joy in life again, decided to each make a list of twenty wishes. It was a project they put a lot of time into, trying to come up with so many wishes. The wishes weren’t supposed to be a to-do list, but in the end, some of their wishes were things they were able to do for themselves rather than leave it up to the fates. (Buying a pair of red cowboy boots, for example, vs. falling in love again.)

It was a clever idea, but something like that would never work for me. Though come to think of it, I did attempt to start wishing about three years after Jeff died. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very successful at it. I just couldn’t think of many things I wanted, except truly impossible things like hiking one of the long trails.

As it turns out, so many of the good things that have happened to me — or that I made happen — after Jeff died, were things I would never have wished for because I didn’t know I wanted them. Dance classes, for example. They were an important part of my life for many years, but dancing was not something I’d ever wanted to do, and performance? Totally out of my realm. And yet I did go on stage.

Then there was my cross-country trip, my backpacking trip, my house, my garden. None of these things would ever have ended up on a wish list (except perhaps for wishes that included hiking) because they just didn’t seem feasible. And more importantly, weren’t things I wanted.

And yet all of those things have made my life what it is today. A special life, for sure.

One thing that I might have put on a wish list is a gazebo because I’ve always loved the idea of a gazebo. Weirdly, I still don’t have a gazebo — what I have (or almost have) is a hut.

Instead of being a light, airy, white wrought iron structure, it’s dark and heavy. But it functions the same, or even better, since it’s cool and shady under there. And it will be comfortable when I decide what furniture (if any) would be appropriate.

I’m not really sure the hut fits with my other buildings — the house and the garage, but I have a hunch that if I had painted the hut to match those buildings, it would be too much of the same thing.

But, gazebo or hut, I have a covered structure in my backyard. I’m looking forward to entertaining the Art Guild in a couple of days, and with any luck, the weather will cooperate. Right now, though, the sky is as dark and heavy as my hut. Eek! I sure hope those construction workers manage to get off the roof if a storm rolls in.

But I’m getting off the topic — perhaps — of twenty wishes. Making such a list worked for the women in the story, but in my life, not so much. I certainly wouldn’t want to limit myself to only things I can imagine. I would have missed out on too many great life experiences.

***

Posted in gardening, grief, home, life. Tags: gazebo, getting things I didn't know I wanted, hut, life experiences, wishing, wishing you a year of health and peace. 2 Comments »

Workers!

June 4, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I spent the day outside. I needed to clean up after the wind and hailstorm yesterday. All I really needed to do was pick up small branches that were blown in from a neighbor’s tree, so it wasn’t an arduous task, just a long one. I also weeded a part of my yard I’d been letting go. I’d planned to mow when the grass dried out, but . . . ta da! Workers showed up!

While I had their attention, I pointed out various small jobs I’d like them to finish, and then I remained outside to look around in case I’d forgotten anything. And to watch. It’s always a joy seeing work done on my place. Work that’s not done by me, I mean.

The garage was built a couple of years ago, but somehow the gutters were never finished, and the parts that had been constructed hadn’t been done right. So today they worked on the gutters and yay! The garage is now completely finished.

They also cleaned the gutters on my house. Oy. What a mess. They hadn’t planned on doing that; I merely asked if they could check to see if there was any debris blocking the downspouts, and yes, there was. A whole bucketful of leaves and dirt. But not anymore. They are clean for now.

And they did some work on the gazebo, hoping to get it done before the Art Guild meets here next week.

It felt good to have so many niggling projects finished.

What doesn’t feel good are my myriad mosquito bites that are itching like crazy. Since I hadn’t planned to spend the day outside, I didn’t wear my mosquito-repelling clothes. I wore my normal black pants, and oh, do those voracious little creatures love black.

That’s life, I guess. Taking the bad with the good. And the good — workers showing up — was very good.

***

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, house, life. Tags: building a gazebo, cleaning gutters, cleaning up after a hailstorm, gutters on garage, mosquito bites. 2 Comments »

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: fabulous yard, postaday, raised garden, waking up early, weeding and watering. 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.

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: bindweed, extension garden, keeping busy, mulching, sharing plants, thinning plants, yard pretties. 2 Comments »

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.

***

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: chores done, cold May, don't watch the news, long grass, nothing to discuss, problem free. 4 Comments »

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!