The sun had set but the Mama continued to bury the dried leaves from the miracle tree into the soil in preparation for spring planting. She was nearly finished and she would accomplish her task. It did not matter to her that night was falling and getting colder. And with luck, her daughter would not come along and bully her to stop and go inside the house already. That was yesterday evening. Her daughter -- me! -- did come along. I don't think I bullied her, but I did make a silly exasperating remark about it being cold and dark, as I put her garden bench away for the night. She did finish her gardening task, by the way. The lovely dedicated crew at ABC Wednesday (begun by Mrs. Nesbitt) is starting a new weekly round of the alphabet today. So, I've decided to do a theme for this round -- The Mama and Her Authentic Green Thumbs. . .and Fingers . Among this avid, assiduous agriculturist's feats are taking the stink out of broccoli, growing three awesome producing apple

If I want to, I can start my social security benefits at the end of the year. So, do I really want to finally learn about social media? This came to mind yesterday afternoon when I wanted to know something about Twitter hashtags. Yes, indeed, I can cross that off my January To-do list . Learning about Twitter hashtags opened up a new can of black beans. (Not worms, because there are a lot of them in our compost bin.) Just like that, I found an easy-to-comprehend article about hashtags. That got me curious to go to my Twitter account, which I rarely do because I plead the old person's lament of "I don't understand how it works." Yet, I have a Twitter account that is hooked up to the Facebook pages for my two blogs -- this one and Take 25 to Hollister . A technical friend told me I could do that, so I did and left it at that. Until yesterday morning when I daringly added a hashtag to a Facebook post. I had to find out if I used it correctly and appropriately. So, ther

Molly the Cat is more prrrrrr! than bite. She climbed this tree a few times last winter to catch a bird or two. No luck. Will she climb it this year?  Perhaps when the Mama and I no longer have any leaves to rake.

I'm one of those people who has good intentions of doing things. I'm also one of those people who needs to make a To-Do list to keep her focused on performing the tasks. Some times I even complete every item on the list. That said, here are the things I want to accomplish in January. Put photos back into the Mama's albums.  Now, this item I ought to be able to finish in a flash. Make cafe curtains for the kitchen window. A few years ago, I made easy-peasy yellow curtains that are not the easiest to scoot along the rod. I did not put the centerpiece for holding up the rod in the precise center, which bugs a certain precise person, who shall be nameless, and possibly the other precise person, who shall also be nameless, in this household. Make a bird feeder. The screw mechanism for the cover of the feeder failed sometime last year. But, because the birds can still balance and eat on the feeder, I've ignored replacing it. Recently, the birds have taken to poop

Sawing. Clipping. Raking. Sweeping. Pushing dried limbs, branches, vines, leaves, and seed pods into plastic bags. That's how I spent most of my afternoon. It wasn't what I had planned. When the Husband and I left this morning to do the errands, the Mama was reading the newspaper in the living room. Ninety minutes later, I looked out the back door to see a high limb on the miracle tree precariously hanging above the Mama, who sat beside the tall ladder, stripping dried leaves from skinny branches into her bucket. I was furious. One, the Mama had been up the ladder. And, two, I had asked her the other day, after cutting back her banana trees, if she'd like me to prune the rest of the miracle tree. "No," she said. "The green (recycle) can is already full." Good, I thought, I'd prune the tree next Thursday.  Ha! "You know we don't like you on the ladder," I growled, throwing my purse on the ground, and hurriedly climbing the ladde