Blue Norther

Earlier this week I made a remark on Facebook about getting a little ice cream. My more-northerly friends were amused. Today it was about 70 here in Abilene, Texas. The temperature this time of year -- early December -- is a descending roller coaster: up, plunge down, up, down a little, up, down maybe a little further. Not until last week did we see temperatures low enough long enough to change my raggedy but still green cannas to darkened and then shriveled husks. I still have chrysanthemums and geraniums and begonias blooming in the back yard. The fall pansies I planted in November have blooms as big as my palm, sunshine yellow, velvety midnight purple, hopeful clear blue, rusty red, white. On chilly mornings the pansies clench their leaves against the cold, but the midday sun lifts their faces. The strawberry plants have changed from green to red. Everything else looks weary and desiccated. The bird bath evaporates instead of freezing over.

This time of year it's dry, very dry, and windy -- nothing like the Santa Ana winds of California, but more like a freeze dryer. Consumption of hand lotion increases exponentially. Pecans rattle down off the trees -- though this year the crop is light. Grackles pick them up and drop them from midair onto the parking lot at work and squabble over the fragments. This morning the south wind that had been blowing for two days brought a scent of moisture. It was actually cloudy today. I saw a couple of cars with their dusty coats speckled. We've been praying for rain, but it looks like the rain has "gone off" to the north and east of us.

Tonight the weather forecasters predict what we call here in Texas a 'blue norther.' It means that the high will probably be sometime in the morning and then when the front comes in the temperature will fall steadily all day, with a howling north wind. It could be worse -- we could have more than just a stray flake of snow; but they don't seem to think there's enough moisture for that. When a true 'blue norther' is approaching, you can look to the north and see a massive bank of grey-blue clouds blotting out the sky, and coming fast, like a barrel rolling. Maybe it's just scarier because you can see it coming for 40 miles if you are out in the open.

I remember a family story from the 1890s about my great-grandfather's brother Zeph and one of my great uncles, a boy then, who went with his uncle in an open wagon to the Breaks -- where the tableland of the Texas Panhandle crumbles off into arroyos and cedars -- to cut firewood and bring it back to their families three or four days' ride west. They were out on the open plains with no tree, house, or embankment when a sunny day like today suddenly turned blue. The wind began to pick up. Zeph put the boy in the bed of the wagon and covered him with their bedrolls and headed back. They made it. But Zeph was tough, you know. He helped build the Lockney Christian College brick building with a broken shoulder.

I think of Zeph when I load a dire internet weather forecast predicted for two days, three days out; when hurricane forecasters track a storm for a week before the surf even begins to rise. I can't change the weather, but I can decide to take a coat to work tomorrow when the weather is apparently fine. If I lived in Houston, I would have time to evacuate. Outside of aching joints and their sense of smell, what did my pioneer ancestors have to warn them? The great Galveston hurricane of 1900 killed 5,000 people who had no warning.

Last Sunday was Dec 7 -- another day that people remember as one where no warning was given in 1941. People of our generation will remember Sept 11 2001 for the same reason.

March 11, 1971, my father passed into an intersection at the same time as another driver ran the stop sign. No warning.

Thanksgiving, 1999, my mother found a lump. No warning.

Somewhere in my body, there may already be a rogue cell that will bring me to death. If not that, then something.

It's easy to feel like we know what's coming when pundits, economists, analysts, forecasters, Doppler radar all ceaselessly stream from glowing screens. But now and then there is a perfect storm.

When it comes, some are destroyed and some have a chance to hunker down and get through.

It's not that we are necessarily clueless about everything. There are signs and seasons, and reason. Now and then we sniff the warm south wind but also remember that it is December, after all, and take a coat, just in case. Then when the sun comes out again, we can turn our faces up.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." -- James 4:13-15

Spooks

Every summer evening the spooks come out on my back porch. They are hard to see in the yellow porch light, flattened as they are against the woodwork, even harder to see against the light colored brick. They cling to the wall or the ceiling and almost never move, and then suddenly. They are Mediterranean geckos, a feral species in this part of the country. I like them, but at first they were a little spooky. They are pale tan with splotches of darker tan, and their eyes look almost blue, so dark under such thin skin. Their little hands hold on, splayed out flat on the wood. For a long time I thought they were completely silent. But once or twice I have heard a tiny hissing when some miniature dispute over bug-stalking territory developed.
In the daytime they're gone, hiding from the sunlight behind the wood trim in the eaves, or maybe in a neglected basket of leaves. In the winter they vanish into the shed, the woodpiles, the soffitts, the garage. I know that summer is on the way when moths flutter around the porch light and the spooks materialize.
They make me remember the chameleons that lived near -- and sometimes in -- our apartment in Tallahassee when we were newlyweds. They were anoles, and they truly could change color from brown to bright green. I learned that they actually reponded to the saturation of the color around them, not the shade itself. So on a mottled bush, they'd turn mottled brownish green. On a dark solid surface, solid brown. On a bright green surface, solid green. On a bright red enameled surface of a hibachi turned upside down, likewise solid green! Those were the seventies, when the LOVE poster in bright red and green was everywhere. The anole on the hibachi produced the same visual vibration. Too bright to look at head on!
Another thing I liked about the anoles: their threat display / territorial display consisted of a series of bright green pushups followed by throwing back the head and puffing out a bright red throat sac, as if the lizard had swallowed a dime lengthwise. Push, push, push, PUFF! Push, push, push, PUFF!
I'm grateful for silent wall lizards: they consume mosquitoes. I was especially grateful to see them when we spent a week or so in Haiti on a mission trip once. Every room had its lizard or two, patrolling the malaria beat. Spooks, maybe angels, unseen almost, usually unnoticed, doing their appointed work in the corners of our busy lives.

Sunset Garden

It's been a busy day from early to late. I worked in the yard most of the morning and in the kitchen most of the rest of the day. But twice today I took time just to enjoy the garden. I enjoy working in it, but truly, most of my time in the garden is working time, early in the morning before getting ready for work. Then I look out the kitchen windows at the flowers, or go out in the yard to take the dog out. I have a chaise that I scrounged from the alley a couple of years ago. It sits on a large concrete slab on the east side of our yard, probably the floor of a shed long ago. It is shaded by my neighbor's large pecan tree. After putting in a solid hour and a half pruning the boysenberry thicket and cleaning up the wreckage, I let myself stretch out on the chaise with a cup of coffee. I thought, I work in the garden all the time, but I don't often just sit in it. It had been a good morning to work in the yard, 68 or so when I started early. Now and then a cloud deck would pass by and shade me as I worked, and there was a pleasant breeze.

After supper this evening I sat by the dining room window and looked out at the dusk, watching the colors fade. I crossed my arms on the deep window sill and gazed out at the four beds stretching from left to right across the back half of the yard. I remembered the work I had done in the morning, pruning the berry vines, putting down newspapers for mulch, weeding, setting up a rabbit fence around the short "patio" tomatoes. I thought, I wonder what birds are calling this evening? I bet I can hear a robin. I stepped to the front door, took a few steps outside. The sky was clear aqua, the air still warm and a little humid. Brilliant part of a moon, evening star. A robin fluted in the distance. Here came two women and two little girls, walking up the street, walking in the street since there isn't a sidewalk. One little girl about four years old had shoes that flashed red and orange with every step. "Hello," "Nice night for a walk," "Sure is."

Rain, Rain

We are now about 7 inches above normal annual rainfall for this time of year, and we are relatively dry compared to more central regions of Texas. Last week I was gone on business from Tuesday 'til Sunday night. I gave my 21-year-old detailed watering instructions for the yard and garden -- and he never needed to use them. It rained three times while I was gone -- amazing!

The weeds are deliriously happy. I try to pull some every day. The flower seedlings are coming right along, and the tomatoes may be the happiest of all. I am a little concerned about the okra, which is enjoying the hot afternoons but really doesn't like wet feet. I also have some sage seedlings that are looking sort of soggily discouraged. I may have to replant them.

I am beginning to see baby green tomatoes, and the cucumbers are beginning to run. The zucchini are blooming, but so far no squashes.

Reruns -- I had red verbenas come back from seed in the flower pots out front, and in the back I've seen a green and red coleus seedling, now about 4 inches tall, from the plant that sat under a mesquite tree all last summer. I had taken some cuttings of the parent plant and wintered them in the house -- so now I have a pot on the patio and a seedling out in the garden.

Austin in June

Three of us from ACU library went down to Austin Tuesday to visit a donor. You could tell we have had a rainy spring -- the flowers were lush along the roadside: meadow swaths of little yellow daisies, or white ones, standing cypress rockets of red, horsemint with its knee-high purple pagodas, banks of Indian Blanket (firewheel, gaillardia). Another indicator of how moist it has been in Central Texas: creeks and springs and glades full of water, my, my.

We came into the south end of Austin from the west, so I saw residential areas I had never seen. The limestone rocks remind me of Nashville, just with smaller trees, but lots of them. There are so many luxury homes in that area, where there are magnificent views. Some of the most spectacular are on the bluffs above the Pedernales River (pronounced LBJ-style as PERD-uh-nallis).

Tuesday evening we met Don Davis at Ironworks, a former wrought iron forge turned bbq restaurant. It sits right over a creek. http://www.ironworksbbq.com/about-us.asp We had great bbq and I think the mosquitoes also enjoyed our open-air dining. At lunch Wednesday, our host treated us to lunch at Green Pastures, a late 19th century mansion turned fine restaurant. http://greenpastures.citysearch.com/ We ate in the Music Room, with an immense antique piano at one side. Both meals were the finest of their kind, but at completely different ends of the spectrum.

On the way back Wednesday we ate supper at Hard Eight Pit BBQ in Brady, Texas. The pitmaster greets you outside the entrance, opens the immense smoker, and cuts the meat you point out. I had chicken, but they also serve quail, goat, and of course turkey, ham, beef, and sausage. After getting your cut of meat on a paper lined tray you proceed to the inside, choose your side dishes (beans and bread are free) and drinks, pay, and then proceed to wooden seats mounted on posts in the floor. The trestle style tables have spindles of paper towels, condiments, whole loaves of Mrs. Baird's bread, and huge jars of jalapenos. Eating with fingers is required, but you can get implements for the beans, potato salad, cornbread salad, and pie. Or you could probably just grab one of the many sets of antlers adorning the room and stab at your food.

As we left the restaurant Beth and I met a young man with a bandana head rag and a jawline beard smoking at one of the outside tables, accompanied by an immense and friendly black and tan long haired dog. He said she rides in his pickup inside on the seat with a seatbelt. I could believe it. She might even drive, she looked so intelligent. She wasn't smoking, but I think she had been eating barbeque.

We returned with a dozen boxes of books and memorabilia. Mark estimates that's ten percent of what we will eventually receive for preservation.

All the way down and back we talked library shoptalk, of course, but just for fun I got Mark started on auto racing. He's a very knowledgeable fan. I always learn something. In fact, we had to stop at Gordon Motors in Brady so Mark could peer in the display window at the restored vintage automobiles on display. When he and Barbara lived in Indiana, they knew driver Tony Stewart's family.

Tribute

Earlier this month, on the morning of September 11, I was driving on an errand that took me past a fire station about 9 am. In the moment that I passed the fire station, here is what I saw: the fire truck pulled out and parked in the driveway; four firemen in red suspenders standing side by side with their backs to the truck and their hands clasped in front of them; and in the direction of their gaze, their flag in front of the fire station at half staff.

When I returned that way a half hour later, the truck and crew were inside, but the flag was still at half staff.

I suppose, all over America, this small ritual took place at thousands of fire stations.

Hummingbird Shower

Saturday August 12, one of my two weekly lawn-watering-with-a-sprinkler days, I had an old-fashioned ring sprinkler going in the back yard. The water sprayed up gently in a circle and fell in a crown. I started to step out on the back porch for something, and stopped, not daring to move. A female Ruby-throated hummingbird was playing in the sprinkler. She hovered just eight or ten inches off the ground, where each arc of water fell and spread into a shower of droplets. She moved in and out, between the showers, turning to let the cool water fall on her back and then front. Only once did I see her stoop and sip a drop off the glistening grass. We have seen her at our birdbath, though seldom; usually she is at the hummingbird feeder, sipping the bright-red syrup. Who knew that hummingbirds would like sprinklers? I was enchanted.

We have been praying for rain for weeks. Even last week the mayor of Abilene asked all the churches to pray for rain. We had two tenths of an inch last Saturday evening, and fifteen hundredths on Sunday evening. It may have showered a little in the night Monday, but I was back to the watering routine today. Twice today we heard thunder, and someone got some rain, but we didn't get any here on our side of town. That's what the weather forecaster means by "isolated thunderstorms."

When I went out this morning at sunrise to bring in the newspaper and water the potted plants on the front walk, a light shower was passing off west of us, moving north. A wide rainbow glimmered softly in the early light. It covered the whole western sky, except right at the top, where it faded out. At the south end, a second rainbow hovered just outside the second. My neighbor across the street to the east was out pulling weeds. I called to her as I walked toward her: "Look! a rainbow!" She staightened up and ran out into the street, and as we stood there she prayed, "Isn't God good? Isn't God good? Oh, thank you for the rain we have had, but please send us some more, not just for us and our yards but for the farmers and ranchers with their horses and cattle and goats and sheep." I said, "Amen."

We went back to our respective tasks, and I watched the rainbow for another 20 minutes as I moved around the back yard tending to the garden and the potted coleuses. What a silent mystery it is, and how immense. I thought about the words of the Old Testament -- God set the rainbow in the sky. What is it like to see the first one you ever see? What if the first one you ever saw, you saw as an adult? I thought about little children I know, about my little friend Jaxon going to preschool for the first time today -- would he remember the first time he saw a rainbow? I don't think I remember that. But when I see one, a familiar feeling of awe and security arcs over me.

Joy is a fountain. It rises in praise and falls as a blessing.