A Toast!

A toast to my wife. She turned 64. A more loving woman I cannot imagine, nor a more caring one. She is loyal, she is gentle, and she loves me more than I deserve. Yet I have taken care of her. She isn't good with financial issues and I have provided for her. She can buy things if she wants, we can enjoy good food, and our property is paid for. In retirement we can relax and bask in our mutual efforts to live in a rural, olde tyme way.

Yet intruding on this scene is my cancer history and her diabetes. We both have crosses to bear that may make our life short and our  time together brief. I pray not, so does she. The longer we live in "our" log cabin and improve our land and grow small crops the greater the ownership we feel. History is being lived and enjoyed, day after day, month after month and year after year. I am 69 and she is 64, we hope to have many more days of taking care of the land, growing things, and planting flower beds. We hope there is much grass to mow, and much land to clear that we may enjoy the look of the sun filtering through the trees and the filling the senses with joy and beauty.

It may sound surreal, and to some degree it is. However, we sit and drink our cocktails and talk of the flowers and watch the Downy Woodpecker come it to feed at the suet biscuit. We watch the dragon fly sit on the clothesline and dart to and fro snatching its meal that is too small for us to see. We watch ants march across the clothesline from 4:30 to 5:30 as if they had schedule to keep. We watch the dragon fly make room for them as they are not his prey. These are the things we watch and talk about.

We talk of the herb garden that I am working on preparing. We talk of what plants need water tomorrow. We talk of the Peaches coming ripe and how shall we process the bountiful crop it appears we are going to have. We talk with our children on the phone and laugh at their humor and rejoice in the success. We talk about what improvements we would like to make, but we enjoy what we have done already. "Blackie" the Black Walnut tree we uncovered from "honeysuckle" vine is flourishing in the light of day the freedom of weight on its branches. Bentley, a cherry tree forced to a right angle to the ground by the weight of the vines is presenting a wonderful, gravity defying attempt to grow, and we shall support it as we must. The small flower bed in front of Blackie and Bentley is thickening and looking better and better as the days move along.

Things are at peace in the house and home. We are growing old and both hope we have many more years to enjoy our efforts.