The News from My Yard

I'm sitting here on the couch tonight watching television and feeling sort of pitiful. I went to have a temporary crown put in one one side of my mouth this afternoon. For those of you who don't know me well, or might have forgotten the six dozen times I've mentioned it in the past, I have a dentist phobia. So I got no sleep last night (helped out by my stupid dog who decided to bark and bark and bark....) and was a bundle of nerves by the time I got there. I had to tell them that while the broken molar I need capped wasn't causing me a speck of problem (knock on wood), the OTHER side of my mouth had been paining me for a couple of weeks. Turned out it was a cavity in the back molar that was borderline root canal scenario.

So the dentist decided that took priority and gave me a temporary filling and antibiotics. If it stays good and fixed for a few months, I can have a permanent filling or maybe a cap done. If it doesn't, well, then I get my first root canal.I think he thought it was gonna hurt a lot to work on cause he sure kept sticking me up with more anesthetic. It didn't hurt (well, a few mild tweaks), but it sure made me think he was worried it would! Honestly, I've had so much sensitivity to hot and cold and pressure on that side of my mouth recently, I was glad to be getting it fixed. Me. Glad to be in the dentist's chair. WOW. Well, glad that if I have to be in the dentist's chair I have a dentist to go to, as opposed to not having the ability to have it fixed like a lot of people. My first choice would have been not to have needed to be in the dentist's chair in the first place. Duh.

But my point is, he shot me up so much that now, five hours later, I'm just starting to have some feeling in my mouth. I'm hungry but I can't eat because I keep biting my cheek. So, here I am, feeling sort of pitiful. Hubby just went on a sympathy trip to find me a smoothie.

I'm browsing through a new magazine, Country Home. It's got lots of great Halloween and autumn ideas. I'm in my annual crazy Halloween mode (I've been trying to hold off until October before submitting you all to nothing but seasonal posts - not sure if I can wait until then though) but I have only found a few magazines worth buying and bringing home. A lot of them have a pumpkin or two on the cover, but don't really follow up with much inside. I bought Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, which is always a good buy no matter what, and Country Living. I read them late one night and was only moderately happy with them but I think it might have been because I was too tired to really see the pages. I'm gonna give them another chance tonight. I've got a couple more here too. I don't buy magazines much, maybe one or two a month, but I tend to buy (and save) more of the October issues. Anyone know if Martha Stewart is doing a Halloween issue this year?


See, I couldn't wait. Like my new hat? Green! A hedgewitch type can't pass up having a GREEN witch hat! Of course I'm not a very competent hedgewitch lately - here's part of my garden behind me, all overgrown and ignored.

I snuck up on Miranda sleeping in the middle of the old hammock. With her stormy coloring, the fallen leaves around her, the torn and faded hammock cover looking sort of mummy-ish, I thought it was a good seasonal image.

Do any of you remember a few years back when a local deer treated my Charlie cat as a salt lick? Well, a young relative of that deer came by for a visit recently. This one was even younger, not a fawn but just lost it's spots looked like. It was sniffing noses with three or four of my cats while Rosie jumped up and down from behind the screen door like oil popping in a hot frying pan, barking up a storm. By the time I grabbed a camera, he'd (she'd?) had enough of a yappy little dog was on his way.

I've never seen such a fuzzy deer before, look at that cute butt!

The peach tree that my husband accidentally planted by the front door has been giving us peaches for a couple of years now. Maybe a half dozen the first year, a dozen last year. This year it looks like we have two or three dozen up there. I like how bright they show up in this photo, like little orange photo orbs caught in the picture.

Two nights ago we had a teeny wind storm. Well, it didn't feel teeny, it whipped up suddenly and blew the trees around like those nylon dancing guys they set up in front of car lots and such. I say teeny though because even though it was sort of "fun scary", all I could think of was that if it was "scary scary", like the folks that have been dealing with the recent hurricanes, it would be NO fun at all. It only lasted about five minutes and then it was over. I went outside and picked up the peaches that were on the ground.

Don't the orange look pretty in the green bowl?

A late night snack with tea and reading. Just finished that book. It was another good one, a new series for me, by Charlaine Harris who writes the wonderful Sookie Stackhouse southern vampire books. Have you been watching True Blood, the new HBO series based on them? I have. I actually ordered HBO just so I could watch'em. Except for what appears to be the need for an overly graphic gratuitious sex scene per episode, it's totally great! (not that I mind a sex scene, but I prefer mine on the suggestive side, particularly when I'm watching it with my teenage son). Speaking of Sookie.... never mind, maybe tomorrow.

Hubby came back with my smoothie a bit ago. It's great because I have a straw and I don't have anything to chew, but it's still a bit odd as it tastes sweet and cold on one side of my mouth and it tastes hot and salty on the other side of my mouth.

If you want to see the fun box of Halloween goodies that arrived from my mom yesterday, hop on your broom and fly on over to Laume's Studio.