The scents magnify

Night blooming cereus two nights ago, opening up as the moon brightened a dark greenhouse and this morning, the first gardenia opens. I am delighted and intoxicated. The magnolia still beckons me to pull a bloom to my nostrils as does the frangipani on the deck. 

Meanwhile in New Orleans, tropical storm Barry (which is just off the mouth of the river) threatens to inundate the city. It is a slow moving storm and the river is swollen from the rains in the midwest - levees will be challenged. Pirogues on Coliseum street in front of Commander's Palace just blocks from where I once lived, flooding before Barry, two days ago. What will it take for our government to mount a serious national effort to confront climate change? GOT to vote this dispicable President out!
This morning's harvest from the garden:

pictures from the DR

Thoughtful faces intent on Kindles!

The pool in heavy down pour. We had rain at night and during the day. But always the sun would show up in the day, warm. It is 70 degrees here in Virginia, and Baldwin says that it is only in the 70's in Samana. It has been freezing in Houston and in Ocean Springs this winter. So strange. I wish that more action would be taken by our public officials to prepare for climate change. It seems a stand off not dissimilar to the subject of gun control. We have a bunch of equivocating cowards in office. School shooting in Florida yesterday afternoon, 17 people dead, 12 injured. Shame. I am disgusted.

Pearl took this photo of True and me. A very happy Nanee down in the tropics. Need to be there more of the winter. Have to make it possible.

Half a foot of Snow

I went to bed the night of the snow, thinking that we might get 3". Surprised in the morning to see 4" and skies still falling. With cold, frigid cold, due the next night, I shoveled a path to the chicken coop before the bitter wind grew fierce. The chickens, of course, had no curiosity for snow; in spite of my effort to clear a section of their yard.
Saturday temperature hardly reached 20 degrees, Sunday was only slightly higher. Monday promised 30's and rain - but failed to encourage the chickens out and Mr.Lee and I walked only to the mailboxes. I cancelled qigong Tuesday as the schools were closed. Wednesday I picked up Alma and we went grocery shopping in town and I found a whole chicken to roast. Today was spectacular, 60 degrees. Two walks and making chicken soup. Crazy wild temperature swings, so quickly changing.

New Year's Eve 2015

Ending the year by bringing all my trash to the recycling center before leading my class in qigong. I will begin 2016 with empty garbage cans and aim to spend at least some of the new year weeding thru my too many things. Bring books to the library and clothes to MEAP store. I have accumulated too much to clean out in one day. Besides I need to burn old writing and poems, a cold weather project. And cold winter is due to come the weather man says; we have been unusually warm. I will just dearly pray that snow will hold off until after I return from my trip to Dominican Republic!
Speaking of trips, I enjoyed my time in Houston with Ez, Jen and Fia and with Jen's mom and her brother and his family. Played with Fia's Christmas presents with her: legos (princess and her cat with castle and catapult - really, ha!), playmobile (family camping with tent), tee-pee and huge soft dog, play-do (sea turtle mold and jewelry making kit), and with Fia's doll - oh and puzzles too!! Ez and his friend, Mulvi (who let me stay in his guest room only a few blocks from Ez's house) met me in New Orleans for my brother's party for his daughter, Libby, at the Home of the Blues. I was supposed to be there at 5 PM; but due to fog in Roanoke, I didn't arrive until 10:30. The airline finally got a bus for 50 stranded passengers to Charlotte. Brief hello to Brother, Libby and William - enjoyed the band (Pat Green) and Irma Thomas who sang a couple of songs. We flew to Houston in the morning, Christmas Eve. I was supposed to leave Houston  on the 28th at 8 am, but, deja vie, planes were delayed because of tornadoes in Dallas and foul weather across the country. I finally got home at 8 in the evening, standby status. ah! Global Warming bringing dramatic weather; Mississippi higher than recorded.

Face saved

So I am good in my skin! Certainly a relief; but news that the world has reached 400 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere has me pissy even after two walks. What keeps the industrialized world from changing? After reading an article in a recent New Yorker about new technology that can locate and map ancient ruins in thick rain forest; I wonder if we are just doomed to end our civilization as so many civilizations before us have - we all go back to the bush after whatever happens to make it impossible to continue our folly. 
Pissy too from having just read T.C. Boyle's novel (A Friend of the Earth) on the state of the world in 2026. I think Boyle captures a problem that to me is an issue now in 2013, that being THE WIND. There is hardly a day without it. We get a good rain then the wind arrives to help evaporate the moisture in the earth. We experienced here in the Blue Ridge mountains a derecho, a lateral wind sheer, last summer. The hurricanes are larger. The wind was never such a player here in the mountains until the last decade. I am sick of signing petitions, writing letters to congress folk and getting NO CHANGE. We suffer disasters and yet NOTHING CHANGES. Shootings fail to lead to gun control. Hurricanes fail to lead to climate control. No labels on GMOs. No control on hospital costs. I could go on and on.
At least I have discovered that the contemporary pablum in America to maintain the status quo, is to keep people sick, preferably with some cancer. Sick people turn inwards and don't protest much. Sick or on drugs (and that includes TV). Or both. 

And I am going to cry if it frosts tonight.  The wisteria is beautiful.

Road Robin

Cold Cold day for the first of February and before I could say, "rabbit rabbit," out of my mouth came, "fuck snow" as I saw the white out of my bedroom window. Happily the afternoon is sunny with diminishing wind and Robin is working on the tiny rift valley which water wrought. Robin has had to use his front end loader to get earth from the side of the mountain to fill in the crevasse and he had to weigh down his blade with a railroad tie. Yippee, I am getting my road restored - although, Robin cautions that it will need to settle and to dry some before being navigable. 
Calling my Virginia Senator and Delegate to urge them to vote against the Governor's transportation bill (HB2313 and SB1355). The bills in both houses are very similar to what the Governor has proposed: to end the gasoline tax and to gain revenue from an annual fee of $100 on electric, hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles - along with a raise in sales tax to 4.8 cents (.8 cents going directly to transportation). When I purchased my Prius 4 years ago, I paid approximately 8 thousand dollars more for the technology - it was taxed then! We need to encourage alternative fuel vehicles NOT discourage them, let alone single these cars out for extra fees. We should TAX gasoline to discourage it's use - period. Where is the sanity in the Governor's suggestions??

Surveying the road

Mojo really says it all - "Oh, my gosh, so this is what happened last night! no wonder I couldn't sleep well!" I got up at 4:30, glad to be alive - which I guess I would have been able to surmise if I had been rudely awaken by house being washed away. I had to wait until 6 for enough  light to get a good look at the road and to take pictures. Fortunately the worse damage is  near the house, below where the road to Blue House begins. I will check that road later - it does look like it washed in places  though I doubt as deep as down here. The temperature is already at freezing, road work will be hard. But I need to do some work for Mr T to get out. At this point I don't think even his 4 wheel drive can straddle the gulleys; and I'm not going to try! 

snow flurries too!