Flashback/Forward

My walls are filled with family photos.  They've hung there for so long that I almost don't see them anymore.  Yesterday this one caught my eye and I looked at it a long time.  This is my Wild Bunch and was taken 30 years ago.  The photograph is beautifully framed and was a wedding gift from the group to Steve and me.  It touched me then as it touches me now.  At that point in the ceremony when the man officiating asked, "Who gives this woman...?," the Kids stood as one and said, "We do."  (Possibly because they were glad to have someone else in charge of the wild woman.  I'm not sure.)  For clarification, Deb is in front and in the back row, left to right, are Dave, Larry, and Pete.  Dem'z my Kids.

In the afternoon I heard a thunk on the big window in the living room.  Looking out, sure enough there was a hummingbird on the deck.  Hoping it was just stunned, I went out and picked up the tiny thing.  I know they're susceptible to cold and cold it was in the shade.  Holding the brilliantly colored male cupped in my hand, I huffed warm breath over him until he slowly began to move, then placed him on the deck railing in the sun and waited.  Finally, to my (and his) delight, he flew off with a whir of wings and flash of green and red.  It was a special moment.

Flash forward.  My little red wagon is so old it has faded to pink and has bald rusting spots.  In fact, the bottom had rusted out and Dave welded a plate underneath to give it continued life.  It certainly got a workout yesterday as the rack was almost completely empty and we (wagon and I) brought load after load of firewood to the porch.  Bess gets excited when I pull on the thick leather gloves because she knows what we're going to do.  There are good sniffs when I pull back the protective tarp from the wood pile as ground squirrels make nests in there.  I did find the remnants of one yesterday, a mound of finely shredded bark.  When my grandson Jake was in grade school, I once sent him an intact squirrel nest, thinking he could take it for show-and-tell and wouldn't that be neat, forgetting completely that he was a city kid.  He probably thought his grandma had lost her marbles.  His dad and siblings grew up in Chino when it was very rural and they were always bringing home treasures found in the hills:  jawbones from some deceased creatures, dead birds, pretty rocks, etc.  That was then....

My timing was good for the woodpile, as the rain started last night.  Unfortunately, it brought the strong winds I'd hoped we'd avoid and they're battering the house this morning.  Bessie needed to go out for a piddle, but wouldn't go out the bedroom door.  "Can't you see what's going on out there, Mom?"  When her whining became desperate, I took her to the door leading to the covered deck.  Since she came back with dry fur, I can only imagine she went just around the corner for quick relief in a leaf pile and didn't make it to the back yard.


Stove says, "Feed me!"  It's going to be one of those days.