Decades Makes A Difference
When I moved to the NC coast in 2006, I was 57 years old. Besides no longer having income from my job at Apple, I felt like I could tackle almost anything. We learned how to be boaters. I put over 500 hours on our 20 ft. skiff, often taking visitors into the Atlantic Ocean by way of the sometimes challenging Bogue Inlet. I fished, hiked, and kayaked some days until it was dangerous to sit own when I got in the house because I could fall asleep sitting up. I learned that skill in military school.
In 2017, I managed an average of 10,000 steps a day for a whole year. It was almost 3.4 million steps or over1,680 miles. The next year I did almost 8,000 steps a day for a total of 1,260 miles. Sometime in 2019, I hurt my back and it dropped down to 6,000 steps a day. It was still almost 1,000 miles. The back did not get better quickly likely because I had turned seventy. For two years I managed only about 600 miles. This year I am back up to 700 miles.
My perspective has changed in the eighteen years since our coastal move. I have gone from thinking I could to almost anything to being proud when I plan out something and actually get it completed. A good example is the most recent Saturday before Mother’s Day.
Based on past experience, I knew it was likely that our daughter and two grandchildren would be coming for a visit. A visit in our family means a meal. Usually that would be no problem, my wife would whip up a meal. It might mean a trip to the store for me but mostly my wife would plan the menu, sometimes do the shopping, and any cooking not done on a grill.
However, our lives changed back in August 2023. My wife was coming out of a restaurant after our 50th anniversary dinner celebration, her feet got tangled. She fell and severely bruised herself. It has been nine months and she is still recovering and now walking with a cane. All grocery shopping, errands, and some of the cooking and kitchen duties fall to me. She hasn’t got back to driving so either my son or I drive her to appointments. She has gotten back to doing most of the housework but it has been a major change in our lives.
Most weekends during the spring, we would head out and visit all the farmers markets or work in our garden, my wife mostly doing the flowers and me the vegetables. Her visits to the gardens now are short with token weeding.
Given the change, I knew that if we had a special meal for daughter and grandchildren, it was would be on me. I decided on chicken. In my wanderings, I got the chicken and some asparagus at Food Lion. I got some nice russet baking potatoes at Aldi. My daughter texted me Saturday morning that they would be leaving around noon for the hour drive. She confirmed the chicken would a good choice and told me she would bring dessert.
I checked my recipe and the chicken would be done on my smoker after about an hour fifteen minutes. While the smoker was heating to 350F, I got the chicken ready which wats mostly getting it out of the plastic shrink wrap, getting the cavity emptied, salting it and putting some paprika on it. Chicken is not hard, you just spend a lot of time cleaning up with bleach. I have a porcelain container which I fill with beer and then put the chicken on it. I have learned to use a cookie sheet to carry the chicken, container, and beer to the grill where I assemble it all. I got the chicken on the pre-heated grill with the temperature probe inserted by noon.
Next I washed the potatoes, sprayed them with olive oil, sprinkled Kosher salt on them, pierced them with a fork and stuck them in the toaster oven with a timer on for 45 minutes. I washed the asparagus and checked my phone which controls the smoker to see how the chicken was doing. Everything looked like it was all coming together. By one fifteen the whole crew had arrived, the chicken and potatoes were done, asparagus and broccoli were ready to be cooked at the last minute. My wife and daughter set the table. We had a wonderful meal, my chicken was a hit. My wife and daughter chatted at the table while I did the cleanup. I was really proud that we had such a wonderful Mother’s Day. Life dealt us a lemon and we were still able to make some lemonade.
Just off the grill above and then on the table.
Today we made some more, planting Angelonia in the bed at the front of the house. For over fifty years we have had a bed by the entrance to our home no matter where we have lived. It took us a lot longer than it used to take, but we got it done. Then we moved to the garden where we planted two Blue Sage Salvia and a tiny clump of little Bluestem Grass. I also fertilized our six tomato plants and caged the summer squash that I am going to try to train to grow vertically. The garden is in good shape and doing it together was another step forward.
Forty years ago, I might have come to the house after sixteen hours working the farm and planted ten times what I did today. I could have done it after dinner with the long evenings in Canada. It would likely have been done while swatting black flies. Today after dinner I headed for the easy chair. Six hours of office work and a couple hours in the garden did me in completely.
Our front bed above and the garden out back below.
Our lives change. If we accept the change and make the best of it, we are far better off than complaining about what we cannot do. I am happy we can still do things and some of them together. That will keep us going.