Ladies, Pups, and Storm Recovery

Some of you moms who have daughters moving in with you understand that feminine energy, age, and youth can conflict. That's why I'm sleeping on the floor tonight. Given that we’re in recovery from being in the eye of the hurricane, I could be on the floor for lots of reasons.

But we're okay on those counts because living in a really old house makes that easier. Whoever built this house in 1750 set it up for summer (and no a/c) with big windows and great airflow. We even have a sleeping porch with a few bunk beds. That was great fun for children, but now I’m more mosquito-averse. But with the new energy in the house, I might brave it.

Momma deals with all this hurricane primitive living well. Remember, my mom grew up riding on a mule cart to town to get blocks of ice for their "refrigerator/ice box." She's pretty tough. Amidst all this, she’s cooking okra/tomatoes and lima bean lunch on gas for our tree-clearing crews. She is also trying to learn the new digital security locks—she made a post-it note with the codes and instructions and tacked that to the door.

The annoyance is a young diva who’s bothering a set-in-her-ways old gal.

Actually, the diva is trying really hard to be friends—too hard. She's all over the place, and if we do enforce a little quiet time, she yodels the whole time, reminding us that life is unfair. Coco is an 8-month-old stray who looks like a long-legged dachshund and acts like a wanna-be prom queen.

I don't mind the yodeling, but the old girl, Sweetie Pie, is entirely annoyed. Entirely. She wanders around room to room, looking for peace. If it weren’t pitch dark, I’d tell you she has her nose up in the air. At about 3:30 this morning, she woke me up in the cave-black, standing by my bed, nudging my hand.

We got up together and, by the light of the cell phone, walked down the steps. I thought she needed to go out to potty. Instead, with me in boxers, standing on wet grass, Sweetiepie went toward the farthest barn, where she had a bed under a shed. She wouldn't go back inside. But I’m a peacemaker, and I recognize that we brought the pup Coco into this house, and I can’t let the old girl feel like she’s being replaced or something. Besides, the yodeling started up now from a kennel in the living room. So I followed.

So here I am, sprawled on the shed floor with Sweetie Pie snoring beside me while the diva occasionally serenades us, stimulating a coyote pack in the swamp to howl like a Dracula movie.

A brilliant orange light glows over the back field. It’s about sunrise, so time to get up.

We’re working dark to dark these days. Once Momma gets up, we’ll get her safely down the stairs, into the kitchen, and set up with a cup of Nescafe and Sweetiepie. They are allies, sharing annoyance with the pup. The little diva will come outside, chase some frogs, dig through the compost for some rotting tomatoes, roll in donkey poo, and then come back looking for friends. All will be well for a while. We’ll get through the hurricane recovery. I’ve done this a dozen times. But the storm of personalities rages on.

All that prep for the hurricane, yet managing this motley crew of humans and canines is the real challenge and the real fun. You know what the redneck fellas around here would say, ‘feminine energies can’t live with them….”

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Check out my book Garden Disruptors if you enjoy stories of people finding ways to bond while gardening and working. We can ship books, t-shirts and crinum bulbs but not living plants at the moment due to the storm/post office issues.

Our other animal, Buck, is making the best of things. What a disturbing loss of the pecan grove to me. It is a great backscratcher to Buck.