The Caregiver’s Tales: A Blog

With the appearance of the sun, after days of rain, you can almost hear the engines revving in the gardens, and the flower’s shouting, “Let’s go, boys, time for some photosynthesis.” Water, light and carbon dioxide are ready to come crashing together. Roots will get fed, oxygen will pour out, and plants will raise arms of new growth and shout, “Alleluia!” These are the days of plenty.

We’ve always had fireplaces in our homes because, well, how was Santa gonna get into our home without one. So, when we built our current home, of course we needed a fireplace. Unfortunately, we didn’t really pay attention, and we got a firebox that was a little too small, and it also failed to draw. Now, why we didn’t immediately get with our builder and resolve this problem I’ll never know. But we didn’t and for fifteen years the fireplace sat silent.

There’s a softness that comes after a hard rain, especially when the clouds close in and the weather cools. The birds let loose a mighty chorus, and the leaves are green in more shades than have been cataloged. There seems no need to rush, to hurry, to do anything other than simply stand and look and listen. So, I stand and look and listen.

The gutters of my house occasionally need cleaning. Fortunately, it is a one-story house. Fortunately, there are only trees on one side that drop leaves and tassels into the gutters. Unfortunately, I am the chosen one to climb and clean. Unfortunately, the ladder I use, although aluminum, is heavy and more than once it has pinched my fingers with its sliding sections.

I love flowers that thrive and surprise. My scarlet sage, the mealy sage, the spiderworts, gregg’s mist flowers, and the trees my son planted. All came as unknowns but took up residence once in the ground as though it were the culmination of their life’s work. Now I have another. The Scarlet Leather Flower (Clematis texensis). Gifted to me by a friend, for two seasons it pondered its future, before springing to life this spring. The vine climbed. The flowers bloomed. And now it’s showtime. As of this writing, the vine is up in the neighboring crape myrtle.

‍ Data Centers seem very much in the news. Although, to be fair, it may simply be something that’s on my mind and the algorithms are making sure I see it. In either case, I want to talk about them, and I’m not sure I need an excuse. Mostly, the news I’ve heard is that people don’t want them, cities don’t want them, and states don’t want them because they use lots of electricity, they use lots of water, and they take up space with ugly buildings.

“I had an assistant once who believed in fourth dimensional traps. They sprang up unannounced. You’d lay something down, go back to get it and find it missing. Then some time later, maybe even days, you’d find it, often in a totally unexpected place, sometimes in the same place. The thing had slipped into the fourth dimension and returned.” I wrote that in August of 2014.

I’ve almost always felt that I was, if not the sharpest, then at least one of the pointiest tacks in the box of life. As has been happening with my faulty misconception of being well read, however, I have discovered that as tacks go I might be fairly dull. Here’s a short tale of discovery to illustrate my point.