Last Day of Freedom

My 6, 000, six week sojourn, is ending.  I am in a low-rent motel in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and, if the car continues it’s southerly progress without a hitch, will end the day with my daughter in Killeen.  Then, it is but a hop, skip and jump to be reunited with husband, home and hound early Mon morning.  How grand it has all been, but I need to be home.  Like Old Mother Hubbard my husband is declaring the cupboard is bare and, as most men won’t stop for directions, this particular model won’t stop for groceries either.  So, it is time to go home.

I left in spring, but am returning to the full blown, record-breaking heat of summer.  On my way north I went off the beaten path in Arkansas and discovered it was a serious producer of rice. The fields  hadn’t been planted yet, but the snaking mounds of dirt with sluiceways cut through them were the tip-off that, these would be rice fields.  And now, 6 weeks later, they are filled with water and the rice looks to be a foot high.  Who knew that Arkansas was so boggy in this part of the state?  Not I, at any rate.  So, I have been gone long enough for rice to be planted and grow to a decent height.

I have also been gone long enough for the flowers of spring to turn to the flowers of summer.  The trees that were identifiable by their blooming flowers are now just shades of green and leaf shape would be the ID of choice.  Roadside flowers have turned from spring varieties to summer chicory and the omnipresent oxeye daisy, and Queen Anne’s lace that started us off in Texas is now blooming in TN.  Monarch butterflies are in Kentucky and the milkweed of Michigan is getting ready for their arrival. 

Seasons change and changing latitudes through a changing season has been wild.  Remembering how the leaves withdrew back into their buds as I headed to Maine, and how I needed to pick up warmer clothes when I got there, to now, wondering what is the lightest possible clothing I can wear as I head back into Texas.

I am in store for some re-acclimating once I get home.  A neighbor has warned me to steel myself for plants that look less than perfect.  No rain, and no person at home to prop them up, must mean I lost some.  My husband did what he could, I am sure, but he works and really, a home and yard is a job unto itself, and its main employee had skipped town.  The price of all this joy and beauty I have experienced may be some dead plants.  Oh well, this is how we achieve xeriscaping.

I have mentioned before that I hope I can carve out time to write about all I have seen, so expect some “run-the-tape-backwards” blogs in the ensuing days.  But if it takes awhile, you will know I am consumed with giving CPR to plants and home alike or playing with grand nephews and nieces in the Guadalupe.  The best surprise of Texas were the cold, clear springs that exist nearby and although the air temperature is hovering at 100 the water is in the 60’s and staying submerged is a wonderful option.

But now, the road awaits; time to check out, put Willie Nelson on the radio and get myself into a Texas groove again.  “My hero’s HAVE always been cowboys” (and I am just old enough for that to be true) and “On the Road Again” will set the mood.  As has the background of Baroque music as I write this; thanking God for Pandora. It has replaced the cheap motel mood with that of a Renaissance courtyard. Also, I thank God for an imagination that can alter reality by a simple application of music. 

 So, stay cool everyone, till we meet here again, I leave you, the traveling naturalist.