Veriditas

The rooster is still in the neighborhood, but he is getting quieter. Today was a quiet day for all of us here. Our keeper decided that she was going to pull out all of the ivy along one of the back fences. She filled one dumptster and a garbage can full, and then she started mounding it up in piles. She still has one section left--the middle section, and it is the thickest. But she probably won't be finishing it up tomorrow because she has blisters on her hands and it is raining. Later this afternoon she went to the outdoor garden store and found ferns and other shady plants, because she is going to make the newly cleared plot an official shade garden. When she is out in the garden and in the dirt, she is very very happy, and we are content. It also means we can lounge around on the deck and chase the fattest bumblebees imaginable. She brought home more plants that attract bees today. She taught us a new word today, "veriditas"--- freshness, greenness, growing-ness. She says that the Rheinland mystics used it as a word for grace and God. We wouldn't know about that, but we know that it smells like the warm earth after the rain begins to fall.