Addendum and Happy March 1st yay all over

"cemetary" is not a word.  We have Stephen King to thank for  it, and no one seems to realize he was using that spelling deliberately, the way a book entitled "Chimbleys of the City" does not mean that's the way it's spelled,  but rather the way it gets misspelled.

I looked, by the way. It has yet to find its way into the dictionary, but Im sure in a few years...

Charlie and his new 5 minute friend

 At the moment he is recovering from Playtime with Charlie.  I put him out in the leaves but he seems unwilling (or perhaps unable) to scurry away.  Afraid that he might just be in shock, I brought out a temporary shelter for him.  He went in and then came back out.

He is moving around a bit.  This is the sort of critter you want to adopt;  he truly looks like some cat toys I've seen.  Charlie is firmly in the house, still hunting for his new friend, and his attitude reminds me of when I can't find something.  'I know I left it here...somewhere..."

meadow vole

Later:
didnt make it. We found him part way across the lawn,  beside the tractor, all curled up on his side.  At least he wasn't pummeled to death by a playful cat...

6WS update on the weather in pictures

two days ago it was warm, rainy, and clouds drifted across the fields, pushed by a strong south wind.  Warm air over snow, and you get fog.  The air smelled of mud and spring, and there was just enough green to make me want to agree.  ;

I don't mind if the deer get at this,  as aloe stays green all winter but dies back in spring to regrow--they do make a mess of it though

there were titmice (titmouses?) out, practicing,  and a crow or two.  that's when you realize it's been too quiet too long.

this was the one 50 deg, day we had this week, with the warmer south wind making clouds over the snow patches

 I have no idea what this  bulb thinks its doing in late February,  don't even know what it IS...

it's bleak, but I love the colors.  Funny how nature never puts a foot wrong in color choices

grammar (not grammer) (spell check probably won't help you here...)

1.  there, their, they're
2.  discreet  discrete
3.  definitely, definately
4. your, you're
5. hear, here, heir, hair, hare, herr
6. bear (woodland creature), bare, bear(to carry). bier, (to bear the bear on a bier) beer
7. rogue, rouge
8. tongue, tounge
9. capital, capitol
10. baited hook, bated breath
11. wether, weather, whether
12. proposition, preposition
13. principle, principal



Thursday13

Not for the faint of heart

Had to get up in the middle of the night, and as I climbed the stairs I was assaulted by the mother of all dead animal smells. oh. my.   This wasn't mouse sized, this wasn't even squirrel sized or even rat size--judging from the exuberance of it, I'd say maybe St. Bernard sized. Dog or Saint, no matter.  Made my eyes water.

Also made me glad I never met this apparition in the attic, or the cellar, or thundering along the kitchen counters.

There is a definable time limit on most dead-in-the-wall stuff (the kind you either live through or just close the door to that room for a day or so), usually three to five days for the little stuff and five to seven days, give or take, for the larger er, animals.  It also depends on time of year.   In the summer you can count on screaming intensity  for about three days, tops.  In the winter the aroma is less, but it lasts for twice as long.  It's really a tough choice, isn't it.

And to top off all the other winter sports, my husband found a very live rat in the cellar three days ago, scuttling around. Aha, I thought. that accounts for the rustly noises and the outright frenzied galloping overhead in the crawlspace above the  kitchen.  We put down a havahart trap, baited with cracker and peanut butter. Upside down, so who ever takes it, has to contend with the trap tripper.

Whatever is taking the cracker also licks the trip plate clean of peanut butter and walks out through the untripped trap. door.  I would think a rat would be heavy enough, and a mouse would leave crumbs.

I'm pretty sanguine about wildlife, here. Almost have to be. When we moved in the house had begun a relentless southward journey off of its old stone foundation, leaving a gap under the west wall you could see sunlight through...(I found out very quickly that snakes do not like to be disturbed whilst having an afternoon nap under the piano).

I have dealt with snakes in the attic, above the kitchen sink,  in the cellar...  spiders, ticks, bats, squirrels, frogs, toads, chipmunks, dead and half dead and very much alive vermin, raccoons in the shed attic, porcupines in the shed, the neighbor's herd of oxen (they wanted to come in, but I do draw the line on anything with horns), birds up to and including a grosbeak, hummingbirds who took wrong turns, bees, wasps, and an entire swarming colony of honey bees in the east wall.   But field rats (which are basically just a bigger version of mice out here) I do not handle well.   We all have our limits, and Ratty in the Wall is mine.

If anyone is interested in the site...http://www.havahart.com/

In case you were really wondering

It is now 12:45 am, and the temps have just hit -20.  

I just wanted to share that.  =)

closets (Thursday 13)

1. Now I can open the closet door and see what's actually there without fearing for my life
2. All the relevant stuff is finally together
3. Oh, the thrill of finding the cover that matches the jar, or the bowl I thought was gone forever
4. Oh, the thrill of dumping, with a clear conscience, stuff I haven't used yet and probably never will
5. All the shelves are scrubbed, de-moused, and the old wall paper used as shelf paper
6. Labels. Need. more. labels.
7. Now I can close the door all the way
8. The walk in closet now is a walk in closet, rather than a reach in with tongs from the doorway closet
9. If it's broken, why am I saving it
10. If I don't know what it is by now, I never will
11. Wedding presents I didn't like 48 years ago have not improved with age. Unlike us.
12. I had no idea I had acquired so many single rolls of wallpaper
13. The orange conversation piece really has to go. End of discussion

Thursday Thirteen

Poem

Who Never Dreamt of Horses

all night long
she dreams of wild horses
running across open fields
on waking,
she wonders
if horses ever dream
of flying

Bread Day

Cold,  snowy and a stiff north wind. Good day to make bread.

These are smaller loaves, suitable for sandwiches or toast, Oatmeal

this time.  The smell is amazing. I've even converted my husband

to the stuff.  

Enjoy (wicked grin)

Sugar-sugar-3

Follow-up to the Closet Cleaning

One closet done, one half way there, and it has managed to spread itself to the second floor and the kitchen cabinets, spring cleaning frenzy at its finest.  We knew it would.

Took a car full of stuff and I do mean full to the Salvation Army, resisted the temptation to buy the equivalent in Newer Things,  dropped off about 20 lbs of pennies at the bank (do you have any idea how hard it is to walk casually to a bank when you are listing badly to one side...), and bought groceries. Many many groceries.

I did notice a new and fairly interesting way to spell "curtains" in the Salvation Army, combining dyslexia and French, apparently:  "courtians".  This was not a typo. Every courtian in the place had this carefully hand lettered on the individual  tags, giving even the most mundane pair of gingham courtians a  slightly exotic (or is that exotique), racy air...

Finally cleaning out the old closets (6WS)

As I age, and the further shore creeps nearer, year by year I've begun revising some deeply held theories ..."That May Come in Handy  Someday"  has turned into,  "If I Haven't Used It By Now...".   "Oh What a Perfect Storage Container" has become  "How Many of These Things Do I Really Need".

 I am also protected by the unwritten law that says, anything to do with the kitchen that does not involve plumbing or wiring is mine to do with as I choose.

I am ruthless.  I am determined. I have a woodstove,  our landfill recycles, and I have many, many cartons marked Salvation Army.

Thought for the Day =)

No  one can ever
teach you how
to use a hammer

At Least It Isnt Snowing....Yet.... (6WS)

Im still here, still breathing softly

we had some snow,  it's been cold, and then not so cold.

been making bread nearly every day,  trying to get it 'right'.  I figger if I can get sixty loaves ahead by summer we'll have enough to get us through the hot weather because there is no way in hell I am going to fire up a woodstove in July to bake bread.  Im just curious to see if I can get that far ahead.  

Charlie has been perfecting his U-turn,  got it down pretty smooth, now. I open the door in the morning that he insists he HAS to use, marches across the porch, hits the snow, and without pausing U-turns and strides right back in, little mouth working indignantly, ears flat.  My fault, yep.

About the only thing in the news worth writing about is politics, and considering the choices, Id say there's not much worth writing about...

I'm around, in my winter semi-fetal position,  waiting for spring.  Feel free to drop in, don't be strangers.  There's always  coffee and cookies. 

Google strikes again...

I just found this announcement from the powers that be at Google and am so excited about it.  Not.   If you have readers who do not belong to Google,  they need to know about this too.  

"In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer"

Thursday 13 Comment

It's a Jungle Out There

This is the place 
where the pavement ends
and the real world 
begins



Thursday Thirteen

Not much changes, even after 70 years

it's a bit rumply at the bottom, sorry, it  didnt flatten out as well as I'd hoped...this is from a favorite cartoonist of mine,   Gluyas Williams, and he always managed to nail the human condition perfectly  (this was from 1943)

("Fred Perley kept his temper when he had to get dressed up and go out on a wild night to a bridge party at the Dibbles',  and he kept it when he found that his wife  had promised they'd bring their bridge table along, one leg of which kept falling open and tripping him;  but when he got there and found that his wife had got mixed up and the party wasn't  until tomorrow night, things began to happen")

A fascinating view of the solar system

and the music is pretty cool too

A very strange year, as far as wildlife is concerned.

This fall I  heard only one skein of geese, and that was below tree level,  possibly my neighbor's freeloading geese going to visit their friends the other freeloading geese about five miles away.
No other migrations.

No ravens this year to speak of, and no migrations.

The tree swallows were sparse and disappeared in early august.

The crows are usually the rowdiest bunch (they remind me of my dad's family,  shouting and tossing rolls at one another at the dinner table) during migration,  probably wondering who hid the car keys and 'you're not taking THAT on the bus, are you INSANE" and all the checking to see if they left the water running and  trying  all the doors... none this year. Very few actual crows around at all except for the one that kept startling the daylights out of me on the porch when he yelled at me for trespassing....

No robin arrivals in the spring, which is usually heralded by a huge number of robins one morning in april,  all over the fields.  I dont think I saw a robin all summer. A friend who spends time in Florida said they had tons of them, more than he's ever seen.  And no spring peepers at all, which is what we all wait for every year.
There were, however,  a huge number of smaller birds, clouds of them, especially this fall, juncoes and sparrows and wrens.  And of course the turkeys. who, it seems, are always with us now.

No mosquitoes.

Once the early feeding frenzy was over, no ticks.  Lots and lots of yellow jackets and white tailed hornets, with ground nests and filling every crevice they could find in the wood pile (which may account for so many frogs in there, too)--in a dry year you learn to look before you lift.  Or better yet, jiggle it and move away.

We did have woodcocks return, and a whippoorwill in the distance.  Owls in the field and I think a mating/nesting pair of red shouldered hawks living  nearby.

Lack of rain was noticeable, that may have forced the  birds to wetter areas.  What was also noticeable was the total lack of interest the weather people had in mentioning a drought that ran from April to September, with almost no rain at all.  Even the trees were wilting.

More frogs than we normally see, sheltering under the wood piles, so I made a few little frog houses with pans of water, and rocks, and covering.  They seemed to appreciate the effort,  I had one filled and in place and the minute I moved away I heard splashing.  =)

And surprisingly we are now in the flight path of a great blue heron, something I ve  only seen once (and at a distance) before, in forty years. We're just too dry for them, so I suspect they are traveling from one swampy area to another.

A wet fall, all rain, no snow, right up until yesterday.  Maybe things will settle out next year.

Neal Acito

 anyone who visits this stuff, put a 'like' in the box.  I think he's earned it.  Nothing fancy, just a good clear voice and you can sing along.  smiles


Medley

Red River Valley

Goodnight Irene

Lived through another one. Ho Ho (6WS)

Six kids under the age of three,  two trees,  16 adults of varying ages,  one dog.  And if a partridge had appeared in the living room no one would have been even mildly surprised.  "Somebody wanna get the Pear Tree out? The Partridge just flew in..."

The magic words are,  Someone else's  house, dinner, responsibility.   Yes indeed.

Merry Christmas

I dare you to stop at just one (reblogged from the original site http://tyler-lewis.blogspot.com/2011/02/awesome.html)

Making Music


Thank you Tyler Lewis for this

Happy Solstice --Now, we wait

Got the lawn chair out
and the umberella
swept the porch
the iced tea is sitting in the fridge


I'm ready

Got snow. 'Nuff said.

Just a Sad Song

The Muppets and Paul Williams

Poem for Thursday 13

THIEF

I only know that you have been here

by the swirl of dust motes rising

on a shaft of sunlight.  There is

a hollow place within the air

that but a moment earlier held

flesh and bone and breath.

I put my hand into that place

like a hand into a wound.

I smell the scent you always wore.

And in the distance

an unlatched door,

banging in the wind.

Thursday Thirteen

Let it snow, let it snow (but, please, not yet)

Let your fingers do the walking...(6WS)

Found as page headings in the Yellow Pages


Burial-Cabinet

Carpet-Caskets--for those of us who demand a comfy place to rest

Debt-Dentists

Fence-Fire

Medical Mission

Golf-Hair  (you know what happens when you take off that golf cap...)

Pest-Pet  (one man's pet is another man's pest)

Stairway-Storage

Swimming-Tax (really?  I didn't  know  that...)

Wireless-Youth

Fable from an old poetry prompt (6WS)

(Approach a poem (or short story) as if you were writing a fable. Keep a third-person point of view. Address the anthropomorphic qualities of the objects you introduce. Invite an animal or creature into the poem. Allow an invisible force to alter time and space.)

Fable

Once upon a time in a small dark cottage deep in the forest there lived, quietly but well a wooden settee with a plaid cushion, and her friend, the deal table, well scrubbed and softened by age. They were most suited to each other and lacked for nothing, needing only each other for companionship.

One rainy day the door opened and a small very wet weasel came in, asking for shelter; taking pity on his plight they let him sleep by the fire until he was dry, and were so charmed with his wit and cleverness they invited him to live with them.

After that, time seemed to slow; days lingered at sunset far far longer than either of them ever remembered, and the sun rose much earlier as well.

They thought it might be because the three of them were so content with each other, and never considered that it might be the weasel who, in addition to being a good companion, was also intelligent, and magical.

He thought they'd like the changes. 

18 days

and the days
will start
getting longer.

Oh treats.

Oh joy and feasting.

Good Night, Irene! (have you no sense of dignity)

1. Starry Starry Night
2. In The Still of the Night
3. Goodnight Irene
4. The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
5. Twilight Time
6. One Night With You
7. Hard Day's Night
8. Nighttime is the Right Time
9. O Holy Night
10. Night of the Iguana
11. Strangers in The Night
12. Tender is the Night
13. Night and Day

Thursday Thirteen

Oh give thanks 13 ways --Happy Thanksgiving!--

1. for air
2. for a heart beat
3. for memory
4. for the surety of a sunrise and a sunset
5. for the cats I know and the cats I remember
6  for the deer in the field
7. the turkeys in the middle of the driveway
8. and now and then an eagle
9. for poetry
10. for rain
11. for music
12. for books
13. for you

Thursday Thirteen

to everything that moves or breathes (6WS)

it becomes a meditation

that thrum you feel

when you live

where high water flows

meditation of earth

the gifts we take

the gifts we give back

what we keep for ourselves

it's all good

every point on the compass

connected, mind and fiber,

to everything that moves or breathes

salt from the sea

spit from the rain

part of the monkey the whale

the now and the lost

what touches us once touches us forever

to lie on this hill

look up at the stars

feel the earth move

not under us but with us

like riding a turtle

into the darkness

when we die we go back

to ground

return as rain, as snow,

as part of a wind

bending wheat in a Russian field
stylized trees in a Chinese landscape

or sunflowers in the rain

It's worth the 10 minutes to watch =)

     


Home Sweet Home

Charlie dreams of summer

The only back history a cat has is his own.  As does any animal, actually.  We are, with perhaps the exception of whales and dolphins, the only species that remembers what happened before we were born by word of mouth,  reading,  poems, family histories.  

You can, if you're careful and patient,  figure out why that dog you just got from the shelter is so afraid of pianos,  or resents men wearing hats, or why that lovely cat will quietly disappear when strangers show up wearing boots.  

I wonder what he remembers beyond the bad stuff.  

ohhhh around and around and around...

gosh this is fun,  got the yahoo problem back, and finally removed, now I have to remove the pushy chrome download that wants me to get Chrome for all my other apps.  ::sob:: I dont HAVE other apps.

heads up

I noticed today that there seems to be a new kind of spammer around,  I've had two people (each with five names) commenting on my latest post:  clicking on their blogsite shows that they have very similar blog lists,  clicking on their profile photo and looking for the image online at Google shows photos that have nothing to do with their blog names.
aha, she said. aha.

I just noticed Ron. Lavalette has one of those, as well.
I think of them as the "Five Namers"--nothing flashy, but the names and the photos dont go together, and the three or four word comments seem oddly placed.

anyone here getting comments from Five Namers, check out the profile image in Google images, see what you get.

I deleted both of mine but there are probably more to come.  Traffic is lovely, but not this kind. (She said, loading salt pellets in her over-under)

Some things don't know it's November (6WS)

What's next, turkeys nesting on the porch?

This has magically appeared a foot from our front step, It measures about 14"x 12" and yes its a woodchuck hole, perhaps newly created or maybe an old one that they abandoned--there is a smaller exit/entrance down in the dirt itself--I put this plant pot in to let the owner know we found it--even though it really does look unused. Poor choice of locations, I'd say.

And for the past few weeks we've been noticing extreme cat food disappearances overnight. Now, Charlie is a big cat, but not fat and he never struck me as a big eater anyway.  Lately I've heard, especially late at night,  rustly sounds in the walls that were too loud for mice and kept thinking, oh, lord, I hope its not a rat.  Today I had left the outside door open to let the nice weather in--and when I came downstairs at one point there was a very chubby chipmunk on my kitchen counter, cleaning up crumbs from the cutting board.  

We talked about that, and he finally took off out the open door, hesitating on the porch for a few seconds as if to say, well,  are you sure--  

Oh, yes. I'm sure. 

I said to my husband, it does feel as if we're losing the battle, maybe we should move out now before they take over completely...

Ten + Three (Thursday 13)

1. The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessner

2. David Gray ("Snow in Vegas")

3.The Decembrists ("Carolina Low")

4. Pearl Jam "Better Man"

5, Mark Knopfler/Emmy Lou Harris

6. Ray Lamontagne

7. Tracy Chapman ("Baby Can I Hold You")

8. Waylon Jennings/Jessie Colter ("Storms Never Last")

9. Animator vs. Animation

10. "Baby It's Cold Outside"

11. Van Morrison ("Shenandoah")

12. David Gray ("This Year's Love")

13. Simon and Garfunkel ("El Condor Pasa")


Thursday Thirteen

A Tale of Two Browsers

Last night I opened up the computer and found Yahoo search staring at me, instead of my regular Google Chrome.  yikes.  It wouldnt go away.  It ate Chrome, it ate I.E.   we did everything, and it kept coming back like a lost puppy.

Late last night I thought I had it fixed, I ran virus checks and scans and Spybot, and all seemed well.  right.

Aside from the fact that I had munged my Chrome (and by default Blogger) password,  and had to start over with a new one, it looked okay.  By 2 AM I was sure.

This morning I opened Blogger, and while I could write posts I couldn't post them. "loading...." it said. "loading..."   sobbing...Then Yahoo appeared again, and ate IE, took it right off the computer.

Ran virus checks again, nothing.  In the back of my mind I kept thinking, didn't I just download Java  and isn't that the one that really really wants you to make Yahoo your browser page...and I was out of the room during the download.  oh dear.  

So we decided that nice new (well sort of) backup from a month ago might be just the thing to use. Wheels whirred,  buttons were pushed,  I paced,  the mister did the button pushing.  He let me turn it on when it was done, and yay me it was back; a bit more October than I needed, and some things had to be updated including, Java.  This time I sat through the process and watched and sure enough there was the already checked off yahoo home page offer.  Not in this life or the next.

I'm older now, by about ten years, lol.  It does seem that the anxiety level this sort of thing engenders is way out of proportion to what's actually there.  We've become so attached to this medium of computers and phones and passwords that if one of them goes all funny, so do we.   All better now, until the next earth shaking crisis.

I guess the bottom line is, always hang around when you're downloading a program, and read those checkboxes, to see what you're REALLY getting.

Never Buy Groceries on Saturday Afternoon (6WS)

I stole this from Ron (the idea not the list)

1.  Don't give me that look
2. Tell me another,  this one's got bells on
3. Don't play with your food
4. Make me an offer
5. Tell me a story
6. Call me later
7. No, you can't use that
8. I can't hear you
9. Hurry, we'll be late
10. Let me see what you've written
11. You don't have to shout
12. A fine mess you've gotten us into
13. It's for  you

Thursday Thirteen

Well it has been awhile

It's been maybe 30 years since I baked a pie, partly because if I make pie, I eat pie.  And I eat it steadily until it's gone.

This year we had an incredible number of apples, all of them perfect or close to it,  and now that the season is nearly over and the deer/turkeys/everyone else has had their turn at it,  I realized,  if I don't do this now, I may not be around for the next Final Gift.  Last one was beyond memory.

Yes, the crust is lumpy (but good), the apples inside are small yellow ones (unnamed, I have NO idea what they might have been originally) about the size of swollen golf balls, and like a less tart MacIntosh.

Yes, yes, I know it looks like shepherd's pie, but that really is a crust and it really is good...

I'll get over this, eventually.   =)

Follow-up to the Mouse Drama

Talked to a very nice saleman at Tractor Supply today, about havaheart traps for really small critters.  (this is, by the way, not the season to visit this store  if you have a low tolerance for poison baits, traps, hunting gear and deer bait stations) and we discussed various methods of mouse removal. He's a fan of electric shock.  I'm a big fan of catch and release, let them work their own way home.

He suggested  a tall pail with a bait lure and a little walkway to get them up and over the top. As he said, they can't leap high enough to get back out.  In thinking it over, I realized that they can't, but my cat can.  Good idea, poor ending. However-- I have a faux composition garden pot that is big enough and tall enough to trap a mouse or two,  and if the top were closed off, and upended, there is a drain hole in the bottom they could enter, and be trapped that way.    Paws could enter, but not entire cats.

Stay tuned.  It might just work.

Angry Mice

I had noticed that Charlie's food dish was being emptied a lot faster lately,  and idly considered the idea of mice... then three or four days ago I happened to open a kitchen drawer and found it filled with cat food kibble.

I mean stuffed.

Sooooo I cleaned out the drawer and put most of the kibble back in the cat's dish,  dumped the rest.  scoured the drawer.  plugged up  the space at the back where I suspected they were getting in.  Next day I opened another drawer and found that they had been busy.  Mouse droppings everywhere,  no food, just vandalism.  Every drawer in the kitchen, even places they had never been, had been visited. 

Angry mice, yep.  Mess with our food supply, lady, and you're in Trouble.

Sigh.  I sent my husband to the store for good old reliable DCon, and he came home with something in green gel cubes that was so toxic you were told to wear gloves, keep kids, pets, and hands away from the stuff...it causes internal bleeding in mice (which seems a particularly vicious way to die) and also in humans and pets if you get it in your system.  Someone told me it was the equivalent of Warfarin.   If I put this stuff down,  the mouse gets some, one of the cats kills the mouse and eats some or all of it, and then dies too.  Really really nice.

I started thinking about food chains here.  If the mouse eats the poison,  and goes outside, whats to stop a snake or owl from grabbing him as live prey?  The snake dies, or the owl dies, and whatever finishes off the  owl or snake passes along the poison in their system too.

He took the DCon back.  Havaheart traps are kinder and definitely safer.  I'm all for catch and release, yeah, its a bit more work for me, (and for the mouse),  but if i can rescue snakes, birds, hornets, spiders and whatever else blunders in,  surely I can do the same for a mouse. 

Primes of my life (fudging the challenge just a tad)

3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 37, 41, 43, 47    are the first 13 primes

like Pi,  the list is endless and apparently random

only number strings that end in 1, 3, 7 and 9 are possibilities

unlike Pi, new primes are still being discovered but even with super computers it still takes years to churn through all the numbers in between

http://primes.utm.edu/  is a good source that won't make you cross your eyes to understand

inside the lists are endless patterns, but nothing that you can write a formula for to predict the next one



Thursday Thirteen

oh happy happy hallowe'en, joy joy

There is an ad that just sprang up on the radio station I listen to while Im in the kitchen,  and this particular ad is geared toward Hallowe'en.   It's from a place that grows raw vegetables and then freezes and markets them that way as healthy snacks.

Their ad suggested that instead of giving out harmful candy and stuff this Hallowe'en we should all pass out little packets of fresh frozen raw vegetables to the kiddies,  carrots, celery,  parsnips,  beets...

dry leaves sound like the rain (6WS)

the wind is shaking the leaves loose
everything is in motion

Even as we speak

he's in there typing up the instructions for me on how to run his Bobcat.  Not only turn it on, but how to turn it off, too, which is not as easy as you might think.   It involves hydraulic hoses, four buttons to just power the thing up, and if anyone makes a sharp remark about "gosh that sounds like my ex..."

Good man. I think he's more worried about the BobCat than he is me at this point.

I just had a flash into the future which is as Terry Pratchett so aptly puts it, "not necessarily a light at the end of the tunnel but a flamethrower" where this very old lady has had to call 911 because she ran out of fuel while she was plowing, skidded into a snowbank, and is now trapped because the door is against a wall of snow...

to be grateful 13 times

1.  that at 70 I'm in as good condition as I am
2. we had rain yesterday, more tomorrow
3. I'm ahead of the garden, for once
4. that deer come to the apple trees to feed
5. that turkeys march across our driveway as if they owned it
6. maybe the drought is over
7. I'm no shorter than I was last year
8. whatever memory I still have is still spot on, it just takes longer to get to it
9. most of our wood is in
10.  the cats are getting along (sort of)
11. we haven't lost the power lately
12. yay it's october
13. in about 13 weeks more or less the days start getting longer =)

Thursday Thirteen

Across the lake, the loon calls (6WS)

meditations

1. across the lake, the loon calls
2. leaves rustle with a papery sound
3. morning fires are becoming evening fires
4. an extra blanket for the bed
5. warm in the sun, cool in the shade
6. look up,  the geese are leaving

Poem for An Early Autumn Morning (6WS)

THE NAMES OF STONES

I have forgotten the names of stones

and clouds, the better to admire color and form

without the burden of name

to tell me what I should be seeing.

The classifications for various sedges

and creeping vines have finally eluded me;

taxonomy can never describe the way

a particular grass tickles your skin

when you walk barelegged through a field,

or the delicate arching of seed heads

heavy and ripe along the side of a shady path.

Nor am I now able to recall 

the fifty words for snow

or sixteen words for water;

knowing the subtle differences between ivies

is less important than it was,

and while I hunt for the name

of that strange red bird

it has grown weary of posing,

and flown back to the nameless tree

in the unnamed wood, and mocks me

with its call, for the rest of the day

Bottoms Up (Thursday 13)

1 Beer for My Horses

2 Whiskey and Wimmin

3 One More for the Road

4 Days of Wine andRoses

5 Whiskey Rye Whiskey

6 Bottle of Wine

7 Little Brown Jug

8 The Parting Glass

9 Whiskey in the Jar

10 There is a Tavern in the Town

11 Drunken Sailor

12 Elderberry Wine

13 Scotch and Soda

Thursday Thirteen

Funny and scary at the same time

Just clicked on Google and oh golly there's a graphic on the homepage, of birthday cakes...I had a really strange feeling about that, and held the cursor over it and a little popup said "happy birthday Judy"

No, you don't have it.

I can't tell you how unsettling that is, it's like looking out your remote cabin window and seeing a stranger peering in the window at you.  

Thinking Out Loud (2) On 6WS

Rain, finally.  We have had no appreciable rain since March.  It sprinkled a few times, we had one thunderstorm in August,  one last week (which took out two of our kitchen light bulbs),  and even the big maples in the yard were beginning to wilt.  Rain yesterday, a good solid soaker.   We need a week of this,  and then another week, just to catch up.

Last week I noticed that frogs (not toads) were living in the woodpiles,  because it's cool and damp. So I put out a huge heavy waiter's tray beside the woodpile, filled it with water, put a few sticks around it for verisimilitude, an old footstool on top for shade, and a bunch of hay and weedy things. Ten minutes, and I heard splashing.  lol.

In the late evening, when it's nearly dark, I can once again hear whippoorwills, and early early in the morning.  Far from here, maybe down near the stream at the end of the road.  But definite and distinct.  To a forest dweller, whippoorwills are the equivalent of  loons to a lake dweller.

Thinking Out Loud (1)

Gave in about two weeks ago and bought one of those pill reminder trays with the day of the week on each one.  Hate to admit it, but it works, in two ways.  I always know what day it is,  and always know if Ive taken my pills.  
None of them are life and death meds, but life is a bit easier with them than without.


Had to have new tires on the car,  all the rubber between the treads was cracked.  The garage guy said tires now are so full of recycled materials its a wonder they last as long as they do.  Six years is about average.  So recycling things into other things is noble, and I do it automatically, but when you  reuse stuff you are also factoring in impurities that shorten the life of the new product.  It's a trade, I guess.

The literary clue (most of them silly) Thursday 13

1.  The wife goes missing. The husband calls the police, and the first thing they do is ask what was she wearing.  Either he rattles off exactly what she wore ('grey slacks, wool, with a yellow silk blouse and grey wool sweater")   or they go upstairs where he flings open the fully loaded closet and says, "aha, her light green silk blouse is missing, and her dark brown cotton slacks.  I dont see her blue walking shoes anywhere, that's odd, she hated them, NEVER wore them..."

If the cops asked my husband what I was wearing I doubt if he could even remember I was clothed.  "I think she had bluejeans on, and one of those hooded thingies, maybe yellow, but it's warm, I really don't know"...

2.  The mysterious match book--definitely a clue.  The Blue Chicken Bar and Grill.

3.  A lipstick stain on a wine glass.  "That's odd, it's not her color at all. She must have had company".

4.  Advertising ashtray--track down the logo to the TaiWan Sushi Bar in Japan (never mind that the story takes place in Cleveland) and you have your killer

5.  Searching the house for clues.  (this one has me in stitches)  It assumes maids, spotless rooms, an attic so barren it only takes two hours to search, and checking every single damn book.  yep.

6. Dusting for fingerprints.  In a house that has seen innumerable parties,  sleep  over guests,  and endless visits by relatives bringing friends, and the detective will find the odd fingerprint among the welter of finger prints (assuming the maids didnt get there first and buff them away)

7.  Mysterious phone calls (in), strange unwarranted moods, behaviors, etc. well he's been terribly moody these past few weeks...

8.  The mystery pen with an advertising logo from, say, a chain of motels or an airline (but he HATED flying...)

9.  Red Herrings (1)--some writers will throw you a gentle curve, some will buffet you with red herring clues that veer off in all directions and after awhile you don't even try.

10. The hidden movie (dvd, , photographs, etc)

11.  The Mysterious Letter

12.  Unexplained jewelry in the jewelry box (hey, what's this?  I never saw this before...I wonder where she got this, it looks expensive

13.  The glance between two people that only the terribly astute and perceptive detective can interpret


Thursday Thirteen

and a moose in the woods

Moose Walking


(where the chipmunk is I have no idea. I will assume he got out through the window until my nose tells me differently.  yeuwww)

A Chipmunk in the Dining Room (6WS)

I have a chipmunk in the dining room. Yesterday afternoon I went in there for something and  heard a terrified shriek from under the small bookcase between the windows. Oh dear, I thought. We have a guest.
So I left the window up, a chipmunk sized but not cat-sized opening,  and closed the door on my way out.  He shrieked once more and was still.

This morning I went in to see how things were going and he screamed at me again.  The cat came hurrying over, surely intent on comforting his new best friend, but I put him outside the room and closed the door.  Cat food, I thought.  Little chipmunk-sized kibble.  And water. Can't have him dehydrating on me.  The kibble leads to the chair placed artfully and invitingly in front of the table that leads to the outside.

This is his last chance to figure it out. By tomorrow morning if he's still here I'm letting the cat in.  There is a limit, and I so do not want to be sharing quarters with an overfed chipmunk and all his friends...

Reprise of Morris Lessner and the FlyingBooks

I posted this once some time ago and it got taken down for some reason, but it has surfaced again and seems only fitting that I should try again. It's a lovely careful charming animation.  Enjoy.

september (Thursday 13)

13 things about September which may or may not fascinate you


1. my birthday month

2. its another of those indeterminate months--like May--that can't make up its mind

3. September begins on the same day of the week as December every year, because there are 91 days separating September and December, which is a multiple of seven (the number of days in the week).

4.No other month ends on the same day of the week as September in any year.

5.Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day

followed closely by :

6.National Chicken Month

7. National Rice Month

8. National Wild Rice Month 

9,National Potato Month

(which solves the problem of what to have for supper, eh)

10.  it's one of our busier months (not counting all the others): chimneys need cleaning, I'm stacking wood on two sides of the house short wood here on the porch-- longer wood there in the shed -- the grass will be getting its final haircut of the summer soon

11. potatoes need digging and my pitiful onions are more like fetal onions than I really had planned on. Note to self:  maybe lime, next year.

12.  time to deconstruct the garden before it gets too cold to do it. can I send anyone some lovely jonquil bulbs?

13. O joy, the tourists have gone.  At least until the leaves change color.  The beaches are now ours again, and the hiking trails.

Thursday Thirteen

From the new camera

from last night, a very suspicious 8 point buck has just discovered a strange critter in his woods

Whether its a large deer or a small cat, the body language apparently is remarkably similar. 

August twins

How they survive the winter is beyond me, they may get special attention from the rest of the herd, as to warmth and protection,  and they're still light enough on their feet to not sink in the way a heavier adult would, on crusted snow.    Pretty things, though, arent they. I couldnt get a shot of the two together,  sadly.  They are bigger than they look;  they've lost that Bambi cute part, and are now more like adolescent kids with a grown spurt.  =)

Head Shakers (Thursday13)

1. Clothesline is now being packaged and sold
in kit form, with a few clothespins, a small
length of clothesline, and (swallowing bravely)
instructions. I believe it also touts the benefits
of hanging your clothes out in the fresh air
but says nothing about 'restrictions in some areas
may apply".

2. In our now defunct old style hardware store they
were selling lamp oil in various 'weights', some in
designer packages with pretty colors and scents
to mask but not really hide the scent of kerosene...
I watched as a very nicely dressed lady debated
the benefits of each, and then chose the micro-
processed variety which clearly stated that it should
not be used in ceramic lamps, as it could bleed
through the pottery.  "It's safer", she said, firmly,
"than kerosene.  Less flammable."

3. City street detours that must have been  designed by
werewolves and malcontents--I was in one of these
 Moebius strip detours a few weeks ago,  and realized
the Detour sign was at the far end of a one way street
and the street itself was closed to traffic...

4. Two older people were in the dairy section of
the supermarket, debating the wisdom of buying yogurt
that was on the last "sell by' day.  "We'll never be
able to eat all that yogurt by tomorrow" the wife said,
the husband agreed, and they put it back on the shelf.

5. People in other,  more geographically organized states
who give bizarre directions to lost drivers: 'well you go
north for ten blocks and thenturn east at the first light
after that, and then south. You can't miss it."   Watch me.
First question, 'which way is north?"

6. You ask directions to a particular highway/street/etc. and
the clerk says, "see where that red truck is turning up there?
You turn there and you'll be all set."  yep.

7. On back roads with not a lot of wiggle room, you expect
the road crews to start (and most of them do) around 8 or 9
in the morning, after the school buses and commuters
have had their turn.  Now and then an over eager roadcrew
already has their gear firmly planted in the center of the
road by 7 AM, and its obvious they have been there since
dawn.  Why?

8. If you buy a loaf of fresh bread in the supermarket
and eat only half the loaf on that day, do you finish off
the loaf the next day, or do you toss it and buy another?
Isn't it now day-old bread?

9. One-a-Day multivitamins now come in Men's and Women's
bottles, the women's vitamins in pink and the men's in a
manly blue.  I thought there might be a difference in what's
in 'em, but the labels are identical.

10. People who think nothing about driving past parked cars
on a crowded city street,  but a car parked well off the highway,
clearly unoccupied,  causes people to shy like nervous horses,
pulling way out to drive around the vehicle, often  scaring
the bejebus out of oncoming traffic...

11. I can never decide if  "Road Work 1 Mile" means one mile ahead
or one miles' worth of it.

12. "Closed to through traffic" seems plain enough,  but don't you
wonder how many people pretend they're really just going down the
street, because this is where I LIVE, mister... and sneak out the
other end.

13. You are hopelessly lost. You aren't even sure what town you're in
at this stage, so  you stop at a convenience store.  "What town am I in?"
you ask, opening your map so you can backtrack....  There's a pause.
The girl behind the counter says,  "I don't know." She calls over to another
clerk and says, "What town are we in?" and neither of them has the
faintest idea.

Thursday Thirteen

Look what I found in Google Images

If you type in your blog's name, (along with maybe an image such as "ducks" or some other photo or image you have on the blog),  into google Images  I think youll see every image or graphic you've ever posted on that site (along with a few strays from other similar venues)

I tried this with Field and Fen cooking, and wow what a lot of food, lol.  Annnnd with "forest trees" and there were all my forest photos.

Liz, do NOT try this with just the name "boud' in the subject line. Trust me.

Full credit is given, but its still a bit of a jolt to see them elsewhere than where you expect them to be. The mind races...

The disappearing wood in New Hampshire (6WS)

Not what you might think, however.

One of the most appalling things I can think of to happen to a tree (I think some part of me is part Druid...) is the way they harvest them today, and demolish trees into wood chips, from whole trees to finished product in a very short time.  The trees are sucked out of the ground by huge huge machines,  roots and all, and chipped into, er, chips.  This is where your pellet stoves come in.

We have two power companies in NH, one is the one we use, New Hampshire Electric Coop. Nice folks. really into recycling, reducing costs, waste, and such.  The other company is Public Service. They announced last fall or last winter that they were converting their coal fired plants to wood pellets, in an effort to conserve our non renewable resources.  Sounds pretty good doesn't it.

All them trees, yessah. Chip, chip, chip.

Now.  People have been told for years that burning wood is almost a mortal sin, as it adds pollutants to the air. (apparently oil and gas don't, isn't that good to know) and we could be shut down at anytime by the EPA, there is even a LAW against owning or using a non-approved woodstove.  And along comes Public Service to do the very thing we are told we shouldn't be doing and isn't it SWELL?

The drawback to this dance is that most of the loggers are now heading to PSNH with their truck loads, since apparently the money is much better and no one has to spend their days bucking this stuff up,  splitting it, dealing with customers, trucks, splinters, mashed fingers, and weather.  So they take their logs to a wood chipping facility instead and then race back home for more.  It hurts the people who sell wood to home owners and it hurts the homeowners like us who depend totally on wood for fuel.  By the first of July we were scrambling to find enough individuals who have a  cord here and a cord there, to spare.

We have also been told (and it does almost make sense) that selling seasoned wood is cheaper than selling green, simply because it can be stockpiled  and sold year-round, and they can charge more for seasoned.  You takes what you can get, I guess.

But what bothers me is all the wood that will be cut down, now, "in the name of' Public Service of New Hampshire".  Once that's gone (and the amount of wood chips per hour that get used for this sort of thing is appalling) what will they use?  I don't quite know how the system works on a large scale, but I do know that anyone who uses wood chips or pellets in their pellet stove has to rely on electricity to run it.  And if PSNH is using electricity to run their giant Pellet Stove in the Sky, well...

porcupines from the wildlife camera

Now we're havin' FUN--the baby must have told his family, and they decided to see what was going on...he's on the right in both of these.  Got 27 pictures last night on the game camera, everyone of them with at least two porcupines in it, chowing down...

If you've never seen what a wildlife camera does, it operates with infrared light, which accounts for the "bug eyed monster" syndrome in these.  It also allows easier spotting of dark animals, you just look for the little white dot

Book titles

"Paws"   the real story of what happens Out There in the dark

"Lord of the Rungs"  Ladder dancers. Illustrated. 

"Stranger in a Strange Band"

"Lord of the Fries"  never touch my fryolater

"Withering Heights"  One woman's struggle with Osteoporosis 

"Thirty Nine Stops"    A bus driver's life  "as told to..."

"Lady Chatterley's Loser"

"A Rivet Runs Through It"  Shipbuilding , the Basics

"20,000 Legumes Under the Sea"  Hydroponics at Work For You

"The Tide Machine" one setting, one detergent 

"The Quiche and the Dead"-- The Cook's Confession

"A Brief History of Lime" --there's  just so much one can say about lime...

"Oliver Twit"


Thursday Thirteen

Baby Porcupine and Pear Branch--(still life with fruit)

We have an old pear tree in the yard, and due to this year's bumper crop of fruit one or two branches just peeled off the tree.  Last night this little guy, no bigger than a  softball,  showed up for his own private feast.   When they eat fruit, they spit out the icky skin, and rotate the piece of fruit in their paws the way we do corn on the cob.  And they eat all of it. Not just bits.  In the bottom picture he  has finally found the branch, and a pear nearly the size of his head.  Happy porcupine. 

What are you reading these days

Started up reading after I quit the RailNation game, and haven't let down yet. Plowed my way through Lee Child (who seems to be a successor to Robert Parker) , several of John Grisham's huge and extremely gory novels (guttural screams in the night seem to be a favorite of his)  and Neil Gaiman first novel, "Neverwhere" which is the most satisfying of his books that I've read so far, since
it trusts the reader to understand where he is, if not where the book is heading, and the ending works. I found his other books sort of left you hanging three feet off the ground at the end, with nowhere soft to land.  This is the first I've ventured to take on in a long time.

And never one for much biography,  I finally finished John Matteson's "Eden's Outcasts", which is basically the life stories of Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson.  Not a book to sail through on a slow Sunday afternoon, and it took me over three weeks to finally sit down and finish it.  Funny, and sad, and extremely well put together, two complicated people in a complicated family.   If you like biography this is the one to dig into.

I find when I revisit books (especially the series books like LOTR and the Discworld series) they are slightly different each time I read them.  LOTR I first read when it first came to this country in the 1960s.  I've read it several times since, and this last time, after a hiatus of maybe 20 years, picked it up last summer, read all four books in the trilogy, without stopping.   The books haven't changed, but I have, so what I bring to them and what I take from them are quite different now.

Same for the DiscWorld series. I read that as an ongoing project for the better part of the year, and each time I find new things to wonder at, and be amused or moved by.

Internationale

English muffin
French toast
Dutch courage
Irish stew
Chinese Pie
Scotch Whiskey
English Ivy
Welsh Rabbit
Tasmanian Devil
Hungarian Goulash
Brazil nut
California raisin
Canadian bacon


Thursday Thirteen

Winter Poem for A Summer Saturday (6WS)

Untitled

Having fallen off the edge
of winter I have become
the unraveled rim of a basket,
the moonstone missing
from a favored ring.

 
The earth fills up with snow,
edge to edge, level as a knife
across a cup of flour,
featureless as death.

There is no here, no there,
no past beyond my own construction.
Hindsight is a greedy crow
and every time it flaps its wings
I remember what I've missed

 
Small pieces sliding into place
make sense at last, connected
like dried leaves trapped
in a thawing stream
as silent as the possibility
of what comes next

s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g a bit for this one

bluebird

red-headed woodpecker

yellow goldfinch

scarlet tanager

black capped chickadee

white dove

grey goose

purple finch

lemon meringue pie

pink flamingo

black and white warbler

indigo bunting

ruby throated hummingbird

Thursday Thirteen

Right time, right place, no regrets (6WS)

My mother was a city woman, and the city held no terrors for her:  (this was also the 1950s, a very different animal)  when we moved there the year I was 9, I was stunned to realize that I was given almost complete physical freedom without the annoying mummy-daddy thing going on.

In the country,  where I started out, I was kept on a really tight lead:  my folks bought into the idea of lecherous truckers with candy and cute little girls at risk--it was drummed into me that you never never talked to strangers.   If I went anywhere, it was in the company of an adult.

The transition for a soon to be 9 year old girl was incredible. I must admit, I spent half my time lost in a school that had 1000 kids (four times as many kids as the pop. of the town I came from) or trying to find the Principal's office, or  learning city rules vs. country rules, but still...

In the city I acquired two bands of girlfriends, and I became a marauding, wide ranging kid, all over the streets, I had shortcuts to the library, the church, the school...god help people's lawns, lol--on Saturday I would disappear after breakfast and not surface until nearly supper time, just in time for Roy Rogers.  Never once did my mother quiz me (and a good thing too) about my day, she seemed blithely unconcerned.  Not speak to strangers?  my GFs and I spent all one summer making and selling potholders, door to door, 2 for a quarter.  We cleaned up.  If we'd had baby sisters or brothers we'd have peddled them too.

That was where I learned to ride a bike, and that, surprisingly, was limited to our parking lot (we lived in an apartment) and never on the street.

When we returned to NH the clamp came down again, but now I could ride the bike anywhere I wanted, even to school, 8 miles away.  Go figure.

I never had another bike and by the time I was 15 or 16 it was just too much effort to haul me and the bike up our steep hills so I became a walker. But the difference in attitude was stunning.

Those two years in the city were, as a kid, two of the happiest and scariest  years of my growing up. I wept when we moved back here...=)  sometimes I wonder what might have happened if we had stayed:  obviously there's no way of knowing,  or even guessing, but I would not be the me I am now. That much is clear.  What is also clear,  I have no regrets.  Right time, right place.  No regrets