What, really, is a shell? Is it a nest-wing of comfort? Is it a book of wise lessons and sage advice? Is it a warm blanket? A home? A roof that doesn’t leak? A hole in the base of a tree? A fence? Is it a place of solace like a fort or barricade? Does it keep something safely in or keep something out? Is it self-serving or sharing?
I’m pondering shells today. I recently rescued a six year old miniature schnauzer whose owner surrendered him when her boys left for college. She wanted to travel. My new dog’s former shell crumbled, but I took him into mine. As I hold him and stroke his soft fur and feel his playful nose-nudges, I have to wonder: will the boys and their mother feel the empty shell syndrome when they come home for holidays and realize that there’s a lot of love missing? Will they rearrange the furniture as they put up the Christmas tree and realize when they discover a forgotten toy that he was part of a family he’d loved and now he isn’t there to chase the ball anymore and nestle in their blankets as they kick back and watch a movie?
Have their hearts hardened, or will their shells soften when they realize the grief impact of their mother’s decision to teach her sons that love is a one-way street just for when it’s convenient?
I’ve been reviving my bird garden for the coming winter months, for when the insects aren’t as plentiful and the shrubs all die down in the cold. We’re those people who toss handfuls of birdseed onto the blanket of pristine white snow, knowing the birds will make the seeds disappear faster than bags of bread when a hurricane nears. When the last of the hummingbirds have flown south, that’s the time I stock up on different seeds and fill the suet feeders with berry-laden block cakes.
And the salt licks, too, are fully replenished, sitting on the tree stumps the deer use like an office water cooler to gather and gossip about news of coyote sightings and Great Horned Owl conversations heard between the northwest and southwest corner trees. The foxes and bobcats haven’t been spotted lately, but we know they’re back in the thick trees on the dirt road side of the farm. The possums are welcome, keeping the lawn free of ticks that would travel inside on the legs of our dogs, but those armadillos are party crashers, showing up without an invitation, eyeing our new air conditioning unit like it’s a football player needing tackling. They succeeded, indirectly, in taking down the last one. And I don’t like them now for a new reason: they traipse across Fitz’s grave, and I just know if he could raise his little head up out of the ground, he’d take them down hard.
And so it’s time for the talk with Jay. I’m going to have Ollie, our dog who actually gets it, try to explain that back here in the woods on the farm, we welcome creatures and critters and yes, even the Slytherins. The Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws must appreciate the dark art types if we are to fully embrace the wild things of the farm. We live by Aldo Leopold’s iconic line from A Sand County Almanac: There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.
Halloween held all the fun with friends human and furry – and even one with feathers. I attended a Mahjoween gathering at the home of a friend on Friday, and she had rescued an injured duck from the highway on the way home from a birthday dinner in town the night before. She brought the hen to the sanctuary of her fenced back yard to protect it from predators before she released it back into a nearby lake, and this little lady took a liking to her oasis. Have you ever played Mahjong poolside where there was a duck quacking and paddling, happy to be alive in a saltwater swimming pool? Because let me tell you: it’s a little surreal. Someone yells “Mahjong!” and there is a congratulatory quack chorus happening like a drunk uncle’s loud holiday party laugh in the midst of all the cheers.
My husband and I spent quieter time at home with our three dogs on Saturday. Since we, too, live deep in the country and don’t get trick-or-treaters down our two/tenths-of-a-mile driveway, we still always prepare for the evening with a small bag of just-in-case candy and spend extra time playing in the yard with the dogs for exercise on a night when they won’t get to go back out again until much later – – just to be on the safe side. We secretly wonder how long the cupboard candy will last, between the two of us sneaking Snickers here and there.
This year’s tricks included Zoomies with the newbie, Jay, who is catching on quickly about what it means to have brothers and what it means to play. He’s had two main people play with him in his six years, then a couple of foster dogs including a Husky he detested (he does not like big breeds, according to the lady who was fostering him, which she discovered at the dog park where he’d lunged with terroristic threats at the fence dividing the big dogs and the little dogs). And now here he is, learning what it means to belong and have fun, zipping around in Funny Farm-style figure 8s.
What a treat to share life and admire the antics of the people and the dogs and the wildlife we love!
Something about Halloween in a Mahjong group has us scrambling for spooky snacks like we’re back in the days of making party treats for our children. What is it about the childlike fun of playing a game that makes us feel so excited again? The assignment: Bring a Spooky Snack to Mahjoween on Friday.
On Thursday, I scoured the aisles of the grocery store. Cranberry Crackdragons were out of the realm of possibility, since there were no fresh cranberries to put powdered sugar on and pop in the oven to create a burst of tart sweetness with every bite. A candy corn shaped cheeseball was a consideration, and that shifted to a cheese puff- crumbed cheeseball in a pumpkin shape, but I was not in the mood to cut cheese. I toyed with the idea of cream cheese-filled mushroom eyeballs with pitted black olive pupils and sun dried tomato veins. But honestly, I’m just not all that creative when it comes to food. I’d threatened to bring Halloween Oreos or BOO-nana bread, but even I rolled my eyes at the thought of that kind of laziness.
That was when it hit me. A certain little seven inch porch goose the host and I bought as a gift for our Sensei (Mahjong instructor) as a gift got me thinking about the little witch hat and the way I could try to replicate those same size snack hats using Bugles, mini Nilla wafers, and melted chocolate chips with a peanut butter chip as a hat buckle. I rounded up the ingredients, satisfied I’d made the right choice.
First, I opened the bag and found the best-shaped Bugles that had a rounded opening at the bottom so they would stand on the cookies until the chocolate hardened. I did the math and planned for three dozen, and then laid out some extra cookies to put chocolate on. I made one prototype so I could see if it would work, and lo and behold, it did! I surprised myself. Even the Reese’s peanut butter chip stuck once I coated the top of the cookie, coated the Bugle and stuck it on, and affixed the chip onto the base of the Bugle.
Our teacher from Augusta is coming to be with us. We call her Sensei Susan, and she is coming even as one of her dachshunds is recovering from back surgery last week (and an abscess after that) and she’s had to cancel her tennis games. We’re so blessed that she is willing to travel two and a half hours to be with us and spend time helping us refine our strategies and skills.
We got her a small porch goose all dressed for Halloween that is perfect for her kitchen counter, to remind her how much we enjoy spending time with her. We’ll sew on some Mahjong beads and give it to her as we play the day away and make plans for a Thanksmahj and Christmahj. And we’ll add some festive Mahjong outfits each time we get together.
We’ve already been shopping for the fabric and the rick rack and hem trims. Get ready to see a gaggle of gregariously dressed game-ready geese! I’m hopping from the kitchen to the sewing room now……
Have I mentioned lately how much I love being retired?
One live book group organizer I’ve discovered recently that offers fabulous events is Bookaccino. You can sign up to get their newsletters to learn about their author talks and other webinars here.
I was blessed to attend the talk with Kathryn Stockett, author of The Calamity Club, on Wednesday night. Having just finished the book in the past week, I was thrilled that at the time of the discussion, the story was still fresh on my mind, and the characters unforgettable. As is so often the case, the ending of a great book never really coincides with the turning of its last page, but I was blessed that it did this time.
Three top things I took from this discussion:
Kathryn Stockett does extensive research on the time frame setting of her novels, and she likes to use characters’ voices to call attention to the social issues and the BS that needs to be called out.
She will not be writing a sequel to this book, preferring to leave the characters as they are for the reader to determine what happens to them next. There will be a screenplay.
She reads extensively, and was inspired tremendously by Eudora Welty, particularly the short stories “Why I live at the P.O.,” “The Petrified Man,” and the novel Delta Wedding. She also is a fan of the memoirist Mary Carr.
I’m rereading some excerpts of Gladys Taber’s books and also Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews. There will be Eudora Welty’s works appearing in my TBR Pile.
These sunshiny and warm fall days make a perfect backdrop for outdoor activities, and yesterday was no exception. The cool breezes blew as my friend Christian Jackson and I played Mahjong by her pool. Of COURSE we laughed most of the afternoon, and we even had a mahjong tile (Seven Dot) end up at the bottom of the pool and had to fish it out with a net. We got a little carried away. We’ve been busy preparing for our Wednesday morning Mahjong games at our local coffee shop on the town square; we hope to widen our net of players. Also, we are planning a Mahjoween gathering for Friday afternoon, poolside at Christian’s house.
One of my favorite parts of playing out by the pool is being able to include the dogs in the fun. Two of Christian’s dogs, Barkley and Charlie, are diehard Mahjong partners ~ mostly for the snacks of sausage balls and all the hugs, and Charlie even smiles for pictures. Especially when he’s helping us celebrate wins!
celebrating wins
while playing poolside mahjong
is better with dogs!
Christian with Barkley
Me with Smiling Charlie
I also want to share a Postcard Poetry Fest poem today as well. Here’s a Dragonfly Haiku.
October afternoons here in middle Georgia on the farm have been nothing short of sheer perfection as Mother Nature blows gentle cool breezes across the sun’s warmth. I have pulled out the camp chairs just to sit outdoors rereading Gladys Taber books while the dogs run and play in the fresh air. As we were listening to the Ella Langley station on Pandora today, I happened to look up and see Jay wallowing in the joy of the sunshine, basking in the love of a forever home.
It’s true what they say: give dogs the 3/3/3 timeframe. Three days to adjust to their new surroundings, three weeks to learn the routines and expectations, and three months to accept that this is their new home and family. We are only at the three week mark, but somehow I think he is beginning to feel part of the family already.
Part of it may be because of “chicken time.” My brother and sister-in-law have chicken time every night in their house. Their dogs get a strip of chicken jerky, and it’s such a hit there that we brought that nightly treat here using the Member’s Mark chicken jerky strips in the blue bag I get at Sam’s Wholesale Club. It’s the dog equivalent of having a place at the family dinner table; they know they belong when they get these treats.
Oh, to be able to express this happiness of love and sunshine with such exuberance! Blessed are we.
Retirement officially began for me August 1st, so each second and fourth Friday, I reflect on the first year of retirement in two-week windows and what it’s like in this new chapter of life. This idea of retirement reflection was sparked when members of my writing communities and personal friends asked me how I would spend my time and if I thought I would get bored. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well.
My late father said this about retirement: You don’t retire FROM something, you retire TO something, and you’ll be busier than you’ve ever been. He was right, and I love doing what I want to do when I want to do it and having the flexibility to travel and engage in new hobbies – or stay home in comfortable clothes and enjoy more relaxed pace on the Johnson Funny Farm.
Here are eight of the most recent things I’ve enjoyed in my first three months of retirement:
51. Kindred Spirits October Book Club – We met at our favorite coffee shop last night to discuss Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth and The Songteller by Dolly Parton. We talked about the power of story, the refusal of women to be thrust into a particular identity determined by the world, and the perceptions of aging women in terms of freedoms and restraints. These two books paired nicely as nonfiction and fiction text selections. Our book club has remained six strong, and we’re nearing the end of our second year together.
50. Watercolor Poetry Postcards – One of my favorite things to do is enjoy a watercolor painting day a couple of times a month. I like the watercolor workbooks by Emily Lex because she simplifies the process of creating art. Recently, I’ve discovered the YouTube Easy Design painters, who take viewers step by step through techniques. This month, I created postcards for my November postcard poetry challenge and also Bible bookmarks for Christmas gift bag items collected by a faith-based women’s recovery program in a neighboring state.
49. Attending two Stafford Challenge Guest Poet Zooms – C. Marie Fuhrman was the October Guest Poet on the Stafford Challenge monthly lineup of poets that we get to write with throughout the year. She used poetry by Joy Harjo to inspire us to write our own poems in our one hour Zoom session for October. Dr. Deborah Grayson kicked off a Poetry as a Healing Art series this month and brought spectacular prompts for getting us geared up for writing. I always look forward to these monthly evening events – I gather my notebook and pen, make a cup of tea, and log in to see the faces of other poets from all across the globe as we write together.
48. Open Write with my EthicalELA writing community – I’ve belonged to the Ethicalela writing community for nine years now, and each month we write poetry together for a few days out of the month (excluding April, when we write poetry together every day in honor of the Bard’s Birthday month – a/k/a National Poetry Month). This month, I wrote four poems inspired by prompts shared by rotating hosts throughout our writing community. You can check out the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com and click on Open Write to see what this community offers!
47. Making the Perfect Cup of Tea to drink while making mental notes about Things that Don’t Suck– For Christmas in 2025, I got one of those electric tea kettles that has the Digital Touch feature to make certain kinds of tea at their optimal temperatures. In Blue Ridge, Georgia in the fall of 2025, I picked up two tea mugs with the metal steeping strainer that lets us steep loose tea leaves directly in our cups for maximum coagulation with the water. When my late father returned from a mission trip to China in 2014, he’d brought back loose tea and given us a masterclass in how to steep it. It’s a retirement treat to be able to sit back with a cup and reflect on the day joyfully with at least the work demands removed from all the bad things happening in the world.
46. Daytime Movies – It’s always been a weekend thing or an evening thing for us unless we were on a break, but being able to take off in the day to go see a movie is a guilty pleasure!
45. Decoupaging Candles and Bookmarks with Wildflowers – It will take about 6 weeks for my own pressed plants and flowers to be ready for projects in the traditional plant press, and I don’t own a microwave plant press, so I found a Utah-based flower farm as a source for pressed wildflowers and ordered a selection based on birthday month flowers. These are the plants I’m using currently to create decoupaged candles and bookmarks. It’s fun to feel the energy of creativity and see the beautiful transformation of candles as I work. I also love how something as simple as a bookmark and a touch of greenery and some flower petals can create the loveliest page markers.
44. Plant Pressing – I hauled out the old plant press and gathered wildflowers and greenery from all across the Johnson Funny Farm, including my sister-in-law’s zinnia gardens. I pressed plants for using in decoupage projects.
Here are the previous things I’ve added to my list of 100 Things I’m Enjoying in Retirement. I’ve reversed the order, going backwards in time to the beginning.
43. Virtual Author Reading for Time in the Landscape
42. Author Readingfor Anna Roseboro’s Book Study
41. Indie Bookstore Shopping
40. Dock Time on Jackson Lake in Georgia
39. Adopt a Dog
38. Train Ride to See Fall Foliage
37. Cabin for a Birthday Celebration in North Georgia
36. Fall Baking
35. Hosting Open Write
34. Kindred Spirits September Book Club
33. Mahjong in Blairsville, Georgia
32. Daytripping for Lunch and Small Town Adventuring
31. Hiking the Appalachian Trail
30. Camping at Vogel State Park
29. Lunch with Friends
28. Almost-Birthday Pedicures with my Sister-in-Law
27. Mahjongg Regular Group Formation
26. Stafford Challenge Writing Workshop
25. Stafford Challenge Small Group Zoom Meetings
24. Dolly Parton Tribute at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee
23. Labor Day Camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia
Last night was a fabulous kickoff of the Poetry as a Healing Art series that is being sponsored by The Stafford Challenge. These sessions are free, and you can visit this link to register for the remaining sessions if you are interested. Dr. Deborah Grayson led the first session and took us through the many ways that poetry can heal hurts, instill hope, and inspire creativity.
Of the many activities and prompts that she led us through, one of my favorites was making a soundtrack of our lives. The chat thread lit up with so many fabulous songs, and I’ll bet there were 200 songs listed by the entire group of participants in attendance.
Earlier in the day, my daughter sent me a Spotify playlist to enjoy in retirement, particularly while I’m working on creative ventures such as painting our decoupaging. You can click here to listen! She’s so thoughtful and creative, and she knows I love all these songs.
What a treat to have music and those in our lives who share lyrics – which is, of course, poetry – with us to celebrate the moments of our lives. Poetry IS a healing art, and one for which I remain ever so grateful.
For Mallory and everyone reading today, go to YouTube and listen to a song from my playlist just for you:
I Love by Tom T. Hall ~ enjoy it!
take the time today
to create a soundtrack of
your life ~ share a song!
‘
I took a picture right as my daughter shared the playlist, and she replied: perfect timing! She knew I would be in the middle of something creative right at that moment when she sent it.
I invite you today to find a seventh book anywhere and join me in a fun discovery.
Process
Find the 7th book on a shelf or pile wherever you are, in a library, a bookshop, at home or school (any genre).
Turn to page 7.
Read the seventh line.
Let that line inspire a 7-line poem. The line can become part of your poem, or just a muse.
I looked to the seventh shelf, seventh book from the left, and plucked Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge by Gladys Taber and Barbara Webster from the bookcase. The seventh sentence: Even when the mortgage reared its ugly head, we never regretted it and now it is fine to know everything is paid for, our forty acres – although how can man own God’s earth? – and the 1690 farmhouse, and the barn, even the pond, and presumably that cricket chirping endlessly on the hearth is also ours.
I chose a tanka for today and can split the last two lines into two more if I decide on having 7.
Merely Caretakers
how can man own God’s
earth? impossible, for we’re
merely caretakers!
and let’s be real ~ we pretty
much suck at that simple task….
For more information on Gladys Taber and her cozy books, check out A Reader’s Almanac with Celeste on YouTube and search for Gladys Taber’s Cozy Seasonal Books episode. I tried to embed the link here, but sharing has been prohibited by the owner of the channel. Gladys Taber’s books are like stepping into a painting by Currier and Ives and living there for a little while in the days before the world went sour.
