From the woman who loses her words

 Oh yes, that's me.  I forget most names these days, although I know them when I see them.  I still read, and I know what the words mean.  But later I can't recall those same words.  I have an longtime friend who is also in the stages of dementia.  She calls me and tells the same story three times in thirty minutes of talking.  I wondered if I was doing that, because I wouldn't know even if I did. 

So I asked Cliff if he had noticed me repeating things over and over, and he said no.  The only thing he notices is my not knowing the words for simple things, which is every time I open my mouth.  So I use words like "that thing over there", or sometimes I just say "never mind".  I have made a game of it though.  One of the earlier words I lost was "microwave".  Another was one that I wanted to put on the grocery list but couldn't think what it was called.  I needed coffee filters, and I would write coffee and finally just put coffee paper.  A while back I decided to get those two words back, come hell or high water.  Most of the time now I can remember microwave, but for some reason I couldn't get the word filter to stay in my brain even five minutes.  I'd say filter, filter, filter... to no avail.  

Then I decided to think of something familiar that it sounded like, and thought fill, fill, fill... and realized that part sounds like Cliff's oldest brother's name:  Phil!  It didn't work all by itself though, and I couldn't think of the rest.  Nothing sounded like "..ter".  As I washed dishes I kept saying, FILter, FILter.  Then I thought, I'll just think about Phil and his wife, and substitute "her" for "ter": Phil Her.  That sounds enough like filter that I know what it is now.   

Does playing the game help anything?  No, I can't play that many word games, but I like that I've gotten two words back.  I made games from those two words.  

I still read, and I know what every word means when I read.  I still like to try for my 10,000 steps a day, although it's been rather hard these hot days.  Sometimes I get it done between six and seven A.M.  Yesterday morning was surprisingly cool, so I hurried out with Gabe to the pasture.  Wouldn't you know I had the most awful walk ever!  The temperature was great, but mosquitoes followed me on the whole walk!  

I still love being in my garden and enjoy cooking, and I don't mess things up any more.  When I started on this journey I ruined several meals, but I have learned to take my time, and haven't had to throw any food out lately.  

I'm about as happy as I have a mind to be.  I don't let myself worry about the future.  Every little thing is going to be alright!   

I say the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm at least twice a day and so far have remembered the words as I learned them as a child.  Also the Beatitudes.  And yes, I can still sing Me and Bobby McGee!  

It's a wonderful life.   

I couldn't wait

Between yesterday and today, we received five inches of rain... at least I think so.  We have two rain gauges: one says we got we got 4 inches, one says five.  Some of it came very fast, and more may be coming.    Yesterday I tilled a lot of my garden and planted some seeds for our autumn garden.  With all that rain landing on tilled ground, here's how it looked.  

I thought to myself, "I would sink to my knees if I tried to walk in there, but I want to see my melons."  

So I walked around the outside of the fence, back behind the corn where the cantaloupes are and saw the one I've been waiting for, looking ready to eat.  

I figured out that if I stayed near the inside of the fence, I wouldn't sink in so much, so I made my way to the end of the garden.  The "umbilical cord" that has been feeding the melon came right off as it should, and I carried my treasure back through the mud and into the house.

It weighed almost 15 pounds.

However, I was a little bit hasty.  Although it looks like it would be delicious... and it is, in the middle... it needed to be left alone for another day or two, because the closer to the rind you get, the less sweet it is.  

So I'll be back here after I wait properly and won't be in such a hurry.  It's the story of my life.  When I was a child one of my mom's hens was setting on eggs waiting to hatch.  I was so wanting to play with them that when I saw the chicks were pecking holes trying to escape, I decided to help one get out of the shell.  It lived for a day, but it wasn't right.  If I had waited one more day, it would have gotten out on its own like the rest of them.  I never told my mom that I was the cause of that chick's untimely death, but I sure felt badly about it.

That's all for now.

I'm excited. I'm also afraid of failure.

 We went to Lexington last spring to see what plants I needed to put in my garden.  Among other things, I bought two cantaloupe plants.  Back in the 70's I had good luck with them, passing them around to anyone who wanted them.   Any time I've tried since then, though, I might get the first one to ripen, but then the plants died.

Those two plants struggled for quite a while, but once they started growing they have been doing very well, and there must be a hundred cantaloupes of all sizes on the vines.  There is one now that looks ready, but I want to wait a day or so.  Maybe it's the goat poop I spread over the garden, or maybe God felt sorry for my failures this year, but I can't believe two plants are doing that well. 

Seeing is believing, so here are some photos:

 Looking to the north:

And looking from the other end:

Here is the one we will be eating soon if nothing happens to it; that's a gallon jug sitting beside it so you can tell how huge it is:

Don't congratulate me, please!  It might bring me bad luck.  This year has been a bad one for my garden.  By the way, the white stuff on the leaves is harmless.  It's food grade diatomaceous earth; it doesn't kill anything, but the bugs, mice, moles and such don't like it.

Oh, the shame

 I am a poor gardener this year.  With very little rain and too much heat, I lost all interest.  We usually start getting tomatoes around July fourth, but not this year.  Not a single red tomato have we had.  I had a few green beans, but I just let most of them pass me by.  Weeds began to sprout everywhere and I couldn't have cared less, so I let them grow.  The week of July fourth, our son was here with his wife, and the day after the fourth we had our usual friends and relatives around.  Everyone brought food.

Our nephew Brian (one of Cliff's late brother's sons) always brings his family, and they want to see my garden.  I told him it was a mess this year and the weeds were getting pretty high, but there we were, walking through the weeds and all, and even with the sad state of my garden, they found things to admire.  So last Monday and for the rest of the last week, I went out at six every morning and pulled weeds for at least an hour; sometimes quite a bit more.  One day I had my 10,000 steps before 8:30 A.M.  Here's how I looked when I'd come inside:

Mud on my clothes and even on my socks, because there had been a little rain, before I started the project; and every time I pulled up a big weed, damp dirt on the roots would go all over me... in my hair, and inside the boots I wear in the garden.  My fingernails were dirty and my face and body were sweaty.  My 81-year-old legs and knees were killing me, but I went out again every morning. 

It's a good thing Brian and his family came, because otherwise my garden would have been a thing of the past.   We have not had much rain.  But I might be trying for a fall garden.

I messed up my blog a while back trying to make sure my daughter could get in it and let people know if or when I've stopped blogging.  I can still blog, but I can't let people who comment on my older blog stories be seen.  And I can never change the picture at the top of my blog.  It makes me even less interested in blogging, and I have no idea how to fix it.