Vibrant Village ™

Wise old tree, thank you for missing our home and shed and fence.

Just when we storm-tossed folks of the East Coast need it most comes the welcome relief of cooler weather.

In my small coastal North Carolina town, you couldn't ask for nicer weather for the Labor Day weekend.  A hint of Autumn is in the air and the sky is Carolina blue with white puff clouds sailing across its expanse.

Though our roads and lanes are lined with walls of fallen limbs and branches and yard rakings, we're grateful that Irene did not make landfall here as a Catergory 3, 4, or 5.

Nonetheless, she blew so hard from the East and West, and for so long, that she quite wore us out.  We're plumb tuckered. It starts with the constant media alerts and warnings, all the weather charts and graphs to consider, the prep, deciding to stay or go, the event itself, and the clean-up and repairs...

I found out from friends and other villagers, that many of us are just now getting grounded again after what I can only think of as "Post-Irene Stress Syndrome."  The symptoms are disturbed sleep, weariness (maybe it's from all that raking and sawing and cleaning up) and a feeling of general malaise. Any of that going around at your house?

Meanwhile, there are hopeful signs everywhere that life continues, grows and flourishes.  A new foal was born to a wild mare on our Banks and some smart person named the new baby horse "Aftermath."  Don't you love it?

Making lemonade out of lemons

Having had to throw out a lot of food, I decided that now that the frig was bare, that this was a wonderful time to clean the appliance.  What better way to channel all the nervous energy I had during the powerless aftermath?

So I took out every shelf and drawer and squirted all with orange cleaner and scoured and scrubbed the whole thing down.  Some food-like artifacts were discovered that might interest an archeologist.  How embarrassing to find these jars of petrified food stuff. The label might say "garlic-stuffed olives," but the visual said otherwise.  I'll not go into details.

My refrigerator sparkles and seems quite new.  My front and back yards are a different story, littered as they are with a million pine cones.

I'd prefer Fig trees to pines...

Love the small town life

Our town and its people were calm, helpful, experienced, courteous and kind.  If you have to go through a hurricane, you couldn't wish for a better crowd to weather the storm with.  We're very lucky.

I love small town life where daily there are sweet reminders that we inhabit a small planet.  At the gym the other day, post-Irene, on the next treadmills, I met the folks who built the house in which I live.

They built it as newlyweds back in 1969.  And the towering pines that now plague us during every blow (one big one fell during Irene) were planted by them to dress their naked lot.  The Forest Service offered the seedlings at $1.00 per.

Now, forty-two years later, the seedlings tower over the house and keep us hopping with fallen pines cones, pine straw and wayward fallen branches and limbs during wind storms--or any time the pines feel like dropping a branch.

This nice couple who planted those seedlings in 1969?  Lovely people, I enjoyed chatting with them a bunch, but I rather wished they'd gone in for Fig Trees and maybe an oak or two.

Well, I'm off to do more raking, it's my new hobby and I've got the blisters to prove it. Wishing you a good night's sleep and a fair settlement from your insurance company

And isn't power wonderful?

Flick a switch and there it is.  What a treasure, eh? Appreciation is what I'm feeling.

Blessed Autumn after a hot summer--I can hardly wait to bake a pumpkin pie--and maybe a pecan one, too.  If the squirrels don't gobble up all the pecans--they're very busy right now in our pecan trees--you can hear them chomping away and throwing the shells at us.

To get you in the mood for coming Autumn, here's a nostalgic and sweet poem from our faithful bard, C.G. Mack:

A  LONE  SENTRY

Autumn---she's soon coming in...

In the midst of my flowers - this year was born
The absolutely tallest - stalk of horsey corn
The stalk, now tan - had been so bright green
With quite the largest ear - of corn I've seen

While peeking up - at that stately ear
Is the cutest pumpkin - how did it get here?
The corn can decorate - my autumn door
While a smiley pumpkin - will add much more...

--C.G. Mack