The Last Bouquet

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Gardening, History Lessons, Photography, Political News, Writing

I picked the last batch of dahlias on November 22nd, seventeen days after the disastrous, shameful results in the U.S. presidential election. It had been a relatively warm fall overall and the dahlias just kept on blooming right up until the day when it was time to cut down the stalks, cover the beds with thick plastic, shovel then rake a thick layer of bark mulch on top—their over-wintering insulation so I did not have to dig up all the tubers and put them into crates full of peat moss and newspaper for storage…

 
Read more…

Turning Away from (Anti-) Social Media…

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, History Lessons, Musings, Political News

Well, the time has finally come for me. I am done. I can no longer pretend these social media platforms are harmless, are working for the overall greater good. I can no longer engage, participate, abide even though I know these sites have been good for many communities particularly writers and artists. The latest news that the CEO of the companies under the umbrella of the (very silly) company name Meta will end its fact-checking program in favor of a community-based system to determine veracity and truth is the final straw for me…

 
Read more…

The Scattering and the Shadows

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Political News, Wisdom

I took this photo a few days after the terrible, shameful outcome of the November Presidential election here in the U.S. Those were the days when it felt like I was walking around in a world I finally had to admit existed, one that I do not feel I belong to, a land of cruelty and anger, a population of the aggrieved and the inflamed. No longer was there the stable and reliable world I would prefer to inhabit; everything now felt flung apart, flung down, spent. And so many of us isolated and far far apart. It was a beautiful autumn here in Portland, Oregon. Many days were sunny even verging into warmth…

 
Read more…

Choosing Beauty…

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, History Lessons, Political News

these bleak, dispiriting days since the events of November 5, 2024. Here is the penultimate bouquet from my front yard dahlia farm. One week from today, this year’s deconstruction begins: cutting down the stalks, laying out the plastic to cover the plants, then bark mulch on top of that to (hopefully) keep the tubers from freezing over the wet, winter months…

 
Read more…

Out the Window, Wednesday

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Political News, Stream of Consciousness Archive, Wisdom

Out the window, Wednesday, there’s still life, flora and fauna, chittering nut hatches, bleating red-tailed squirrels. One of my cats sits at the base of a Doug fir, waiting, hoping, but the odds are against him, just like they are against me, too, in spite of all my pretending that I’ll figure it out, find the answer, we end up the same, dead in the end…

Read more…

Book Report: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Book Report, History Lessons, Political News, Wisdom

It seems fitting to post this nod to an excellent primer about tyranny today, February 29, 2024, after the clearly compromised majority of our current Supreme Court decided yesterday to hear a treasonous criminal’s plea for immunity from any and all crimes committed when he was the (accidental) President of the United States…

 
Read more…

Some days are just dazzling…

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Neighborhood, Political News, Writing

And even the mottled, somewhat raggedy witch hazel leaves become a yellow luminescence against the afternoon and its celebration of sky-blue sky. A day to walk, observe, look up, celebrate the riot of color of the so many neighborhood shrubs and trees. A day to rake more fallen browning leaves, to sweep, to wait for the finches and bushtits to arrive for their before dinner dip

Read more…