Did you ever have one of those long, long nights where you were getting some good quality sleep, yet woke up several times in the night just to check the clock and see you felt great, felt rested, felt sleepy and still had hours and hours left to sleep?  I had one of those last night.  It barely entered my mind whether I should check email or catch up on email readings, and I wasn’t waiting on anything urgent so I simply went back to sleep.

My brother said something the other night about having a sense of urgency in responding to my emails.  I was surprised, since I never want him to feel pressured to get to my nonsense right away ~ unless I’ve done something like replace the main Horizons Magazine webpage with the Horoscopes or something, which I’ve done.  Then it’s Brothermine to the rescue. But I realized as soon as he said that, that I, too, have a sense of urgency in keeping up with emails and responding to let people know right away that I have received their message. To let them know they’ve been heard and it matters to me.  But it’s egoic if I get obsessive about it, and I realize I can tone it down a little.

YinYang chill axin'

I’ve brought my laptop out here into the east woods and thought I’d share my morning experience with you.  I’m sitting here under the big oak and have my little harlequin black and white girl kitty YinYang here under the palmetto next to me.  Maine coon cat Izzy is nowhere in sight, although he did participate in the photo shoot about an hour ago.  Yinny does NOT like to share photos with him, she always gets that Linda Blair Exorcist face on when he walks nearby.

My pal Deb down the street is having a garage sale.  I can tell because a lot of cars are using my driveway to turn around in.  I’m well hidden though, they can see nothing back here *smile*  I have a nice row of bamboo, turks cap, loquat, oaks, almonds, pines, palms, eleagnus, bottlebrush and arbor vitae along the front of the property.  Even if I am out watering, if I am wearing dark colors and stand still, walkers by may miss me.  But right now the chair is halfway into the property so I’m deep in the palmettos.

The outside office

I can hear a weedeater at the home behind me and a chain saw down the street.  It might just be some of Deb‘s garage sale power tools being tested.  The garbage truck just passed.  I’m always stoked when I have so little garbage to take to the curb. I shred paper and compost veggie trimmings and don’t buy much that comes in packaging.

I can hear several sets of birds calling back and forth, and have seen 5 squirrels so far.  An hour earlier, I’d brought the camera out with me and was going to specifically shoot the mulberries but they didn’t turn out real well and maybe nobody would be excited about them anyway but me.  Well, me and the squirrels who will do their best to get at the berries before the birds do.

Izzy knows when he sees me come out with the camera that he should begin preening for his closeups, and Yin Yang is just plain nosy and follows me everywhere.  So I took a few shots each of them.  Izzy always looks like he’s smug and Yinny always looks pissed off that she has to share air with that moose.  Then I took a few shots of the outer office here in the woods.  Then I sat down and got some work done.

There are butterflies flitting in and out of the woods here, this is the spot I did a major pruning in November 08 of the palmetto fans, so it is a nice open space in the middle here.  There’s a big gopher turtle burrow here but I believe it’s not being used right now.  The burrows on the west land are on higher ground and more concealed.

My mail chick just came and the weed eater is still going off and on behind me.  A lot of travel on this road today because of the garage sale.  Plus on the next block over, apparently a resident had an incident with an unwelcome visitor and a baseball bat Saturday night and Florida Today gave the address,  so people are driving by hoping to see some action.  They’ll be disappointed, then go to Deb‘s garage sale to ask if she knows what happened and then they’ll turn around in my driveway as they leave.  Just another day in the neighborhood 🙂

Ok, now all the birds seem to know it’s noon and are giving the noon whistle, although this is the last time for 6 months their noon whistle will be on time, since daylight Savings time goes into effect after midnight tonight.  Spring FORWARD, so at midnight I’ll set the clocks to 1:00am so they will be the correct time when I wake up.

I love how the wind sounds as it goes through the trees; the bamboo and the palms make the most rustling sounds.  A plane in the distance behind me heading east, an invasion of little wrens chatting noisily at the bird bath, a car backfiring.  Another weedeater blocks away.  Another plane way to the west heading south.  Lots of leaves rustling, a motorcycle headed south about a mile to the east of me.  The sun is right overhead, but I’m shaded and hidden in this nice deep canopy of tall oaks and palms.

I hear Izzy approaching on the path behind me and know right where he is.  I have learned to tell the difference in the way a cat walks in the leaves; a raccoon, an armadillo and an opossum.  That’s helpful at night when you’re sleeping in a tent and hear Sasquatch coming your way.

Today is the perfect temperature.  I have on jeans and my New Balance 608s, a blue Mountain teeshirt with owls and a full moon on it, and a flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up.  My hair is up and it feels about 70 under here.  Yellow butterflies must be having a convention I have seen so many in the last hour.  An especially strong wind just knocked dozens of dried oak leaves from the branches around me!  They wanted to be acknowledged, too.

Isn’t that all we want sometimes, just to be acknowledged?

For just one person to say, “Hey, I see you in there.”

Well, just so you know: hey, I see you in there.