Red, white. Blue.

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

I've complained a lot about living here.  As we slowly empty the house to move to a place that's, in many ways, the inland home of our dreams, here I am.  Getting sad.

I haven't forgotten the minuses of living here.  Development is stripping away woods in every direction. The bike bridge brings tourists dumping trash, killing wildlife.  Thieves and intruders have become frequent.  Even as I took these photos of beauty I don't want to give up, the highway noise ground on and on, with varying pitches and decibels, peaking with motorcycle roars.

But living here was a gift from my parents.  It enabled us to survive this decade.  Their love for us is in these walls.

And our love for wildlife permeates this little patch of wood.  Larry especially has grown and nurtured the trees and garden, kept it chemical free, made it a haven for more birds than I can name, bees, garden spiders, dragonflies, little bugs of unknown name.  We've brought highway-trapped turtles here at least 8 times.  We've relocated more raccoons than I can count, 6 in an 8-day period last year.  The loss of woods has them crowded and seeking food, and we can take them to a couple different huge preserves.

We may not see a lot of those guys in the inland suburbs, though we did have a possum a few weeks ago.  8~)

Happy Fourth!

Still, I love the new house more and more.  We take boxes and unload, water plants, eat lunch, hang out, and it gets harder to leave there, but the cats are still here at the Inlet (moving them is a big worry), and we still need to be here to wrap things up.

Moving out of this Inlet house does not necessarily mean losing it.  We own half of it and it can't be sold to some twit who will clearcut to get a better view, without our OK.  Neither my bro. nor I can quite settle on what to do with it, but Larry and I put so much into it, the bond is there.

I bond with homes.  They shelter me and become inhabitants of my heart.

It's getting bare.  And after all my complaints, I confess, the sight makes me sad.