May 20, 2017 – Fog in the meadows

        It was such a lovely sight this morning just after dawn when misty fog masked what lay in the distance.  Truly a perfect photographer’s moment with dew on the grass, the outline of a fence softened by the fog and then the inability to see what was in the distance.  It gave me a romantic perspective for only minutes before the sun came up and started to dissipate the fog.

        I never remember if it is cold ground with warm air or warm ground and cold air.  Or, maybe it happens to be both that make this fog effect.  But, it is May and we usually have this in August.  When it is in August the local folk lore advises you to count the days of fog in August and that is how many days of snow you will have the following winter.   So, if we are having this fog in May – what is that telling us?

        I headed out of the house as soon as I could to get my morning health walk in.  Me, retired now I feel I need to step up to the “health walk” regime.  I take my Rosary beads and do a Divine Mercy Chaplet followed by a daily Rosary which times out to just a little over a half hour.  It is a peaceful start to my day.   But also it is the easiest way to get it to rain. When it rains for a few days it breaks my regime cycle and makes it hard for me to get back into it.

        Along with the beautiful fog this morning I noticed more traffic on our dead end road than usual.  This week at the very end of our dead end development drive, a neighbor has moved out and another has moved in and we commented this morning there is an awful lot of traffic for one family who has just moved in. We raised our eyebrows in unison at each other not saying the words but thinking . . . if this is permanent we will go crazy with the lights flashing into the day room window when we watch TV in the evenings.

        Lap number one of my walk – the mist has slipped away too soon for my artistic soul – yet I have a concrete answer to all the traffic.   A “Garage Sale” sign is stuck at the end of the street, and I have to step out on the grass apron of the subdivision drive to let bargain-hunter’s cars pass as I am walking.   After lap number one I report the Garage Sale to my husband who is getting increasing upset by the amount of traffic.

        Of course, at the end of my health walk I did walk down to the neighbor’s garage sale, two houses down to check out their sale.  Various items are piled on a row of tables the full length of their shop driveway.  I see lots of buying and I say to the owner, “You’ve got plenty of traffic, looks like you are having a successful sale.”  I don’t get much of an answer as she doesn't realize I’m a neighbor and not a bargain hunter.

        I added, “Did you put an ad in the paper and on Facebook?”

        “No, just the paper.”  She answers as she is busy pocketing money and packing something up for a customer.

        “I’ll have to look at your newspaper ad – whatever you said, got them here.”  I was trying to be upbeat, but it fell on deaf ears.  I thought there must be a reason why she wasn’t friendly and strolled on home.

        Later, when my husband is taking his health walk, another neighbor stops by to talk.  [It seems men talk among themselves much more than they talk to their wives. My husband finds out all that is going on in the neighborhood from the other men who stop their pickup trucks in the middle of the road to kibitz.]

        It didn’t take long for the mist to clear from the neighborhood and to find out the reason for the big Garage Sale a few doors down.  They are “selling up” and moving back to Florida another neighbor reports.   My mind latched onto the phrase “selling up” which sounds optimistic compared to the usual “selling out”.

        That makes three houses that will be up for sale in the eleven house neighborhood at the same time.   As we are both now retired, we will have plenty to entertain us this season as we watch our neighborhood evolve with all sorts of interesting new neighbors.