Taking stock/Irene

We were luckier than most;  one large tree down across our driveway,  a huge amount of small limb debris the entire length of it (most of which needed to be removed by hand),  the yard had a brief moment of glory as it became Lake Overflow.  The power flickered, flickered, flickered, and finally went out and stayed out for about four or five hours.  When it came on we were still here.

Other people weren't so lucky and even the next day (and possibly even now) are still struggling with no power and large trees draped across their landscapes.

There is an outage map (local) that shows power status for NH, and how much has been restored.  it seems that this is a kind of rolling blackout, where x number of people get their power restored, and by the next day another group has lit up the grid.  They do not pay those line crews enough money,  ever, for the kind of work they do. 

Some weeks are like that

Tuesday we had an earthquake here on the east coast, never felt a thing. 
Today I found that the Invisible Tomato Worm Horde has been cutting my plants down to size.
This coming weekend we are probably going to get a fairly juicy hurricane.

I can hardly wait for next week...

Roma paste tomatoes

The plants were so little in the containers, I thought, how many tomatoes can they have?   So I bought six plants.  The plants are now nearly five feet high, and while these are the size of small pears, there are at least a hundred to a bush.  That is a LOT of future tomato paste...

Flight

if you were to go from here
trailing your long white feet
in the dust like a flightless bird
wanting to fly, not knowing how,
I would wait to watch
you go, heart closed
against the weather
brewing in your eyes:
never saying stay or go

only wait for you
to come back
as if nothing
had happened,
to finish your
breakfast cooling
on the table,

or make that last long step
over the final rise and take wing

Rainbow

this was the largest rainbow I can remember seeing here--one end of it actually was in the field *g* and it felt like looking into a round prism of some sort, just enchanting.

 

And the dark side of Sf Fantasy

has to be Terry Goodkind, hands down.  His heroines and all her friends, female relatives and children suffer horrible events, both psychological and physical, in great and dreadful detail.  I found two of his books in a book sale, and since Ive seen his books around forEVER I thought, what the hey, for 50 cents, im not losing anything.   yeuwww.

Of course the women are young, terrified, and magical, and of course there is both the Evil Oppressor from whom she is hiding or, it turns out, is actually her father or mother or both--and along comes the Wonderful Hero and manages to put them in even more danger by wanting to help.  The second chapter is where I gave up, on each of them.  

There is something disturbing about that kind of writing, you can almost see the author drooling over the blood and grue.  And you have to wonder why anyone would write this unrelentingly grim kind of SF Fantasy.  It puts me in mind of Stephen Donaldson (Donalson?), but even he lightens the load with a time warp now and then.  Too much leprosy can wear a reader down, after awhile. 

These are going back in the used book cart at the supermarket, may someone else enjoy them. 

Took me 35 years but by gum I got some now

from
"Portrait of a Neighbor"
               --Edna Millay

.....
Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!

yay tomato yay tomato

You mean it's August again??

Jeeze, I just got used to June, and here it is August.  Im thinking that may account for the slightly puzzled look on many older people's faces;  they've given up keeping track of months, and sometimes years, and wonder where it all went. So do I.

Got our three cords of green wood (for next year) and are waiting for the three cords of seasoned, for this year.  Always have to hope it's enough, no matter how much we have. As I stack the rows now I thumbtack a numbered card on each one, so I can see how far we've got to go.  It only gets scary when we hit April and the card on the next row says "2"...

The Early Girl tomatoes are getting ready to ripen; I expect a tinge of red any day now.  and the six (my god i cannot believe I planted six) Roma pastes are setting fruit.  Late, but that's okay, I think we'll beat the frosts. And I have many many sheets, if there's a threat of frost.  Ive also started constructing next year's potato box, one layer at a time.  Always next week, next  month, next year. 

Live in the moment, but plan ahead

One Love

Stand By Me

Playing for change

symphony of one

Overheard in the checkout line:  "ya know, I worked, I slaved, I RUINT my health for thirty years,  and the thanks I get from those two ungrateful kids?  Nuthin.  I put my daughter through school, my son through college, not once did either of them come to me and say, 'ma, thanks, you did a great job.'  Mother's day?  I get a card, for crissakes, my DAUGHTER has to be somewhere else, can't even spend time with her mother,  my son showed up for ten minutes and left, and there I am (pending tears here) all alone on  a day that HONORS MOTHERS." (sympathetic murmurs from her new best friend)  NEVER brought their friends around, how do I know what kind of trash they're hanging out with, I worried over them, fed them, and never a thank you.  Kids, I don't know why I kept it up, (murmur murmur) all the thanks you get, that's all I can say..."

deja vu /Ursula LeGuin

Im up to the fourth book in the Earthsea cycle;  the pleasure comes from the reading, which is dark, and visual, and compelling.  However, in reading each of the first three I realized that I had read them before, apparently long enough ago to not remember What Happens Next but still, as it happens, I think, ah, I remember this...the fourth book so far hasn't given me any deja vu moments, so I'm cool with that.
The pain comes from having bought the entire set (two at a used book table and two in the bookstore at full price), apparently, again.  The fourth book wasn't published until 1990, and that may explain why I've not read it.  Thank heaven for small favors.

Its about the parts not the machine

Reading yesterday at another site, someone was saying how fragmented they felt with all the technology swirling around them.  I understand the feeling, big time.  Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook, iphones and smart phones and tablets and a new social network every week, it seems, all staring at me across the breakfast table. 

It's a bit like keeping up with a very powerful, insistent, Jones family.

When I first came online in the mid 90s message boards were the big deal, and once I realized what 'interactive' really meant I was hooked.  At one point I was in a board fight at one, writing poetry in another and finding people with whom I am still friends, even now, and joining at least four other boards, all in the space of two years.  How I managed to do that on dial up and a shared machine amazes me. 

But, it was the words, the communication, the interchanges, that mattered.  The day I found the 'net, was the day I gave up television. 

And I realize now, looking back, that I only went where I wanted or needed to go, avoiding that ferocious paddling some people indulge in in order to keep up with the rest of the world.  Simplify, simplify.  I don't do peripherals, I don't do cellphones or smart phones or kindle or Nook or social networks.  Not bragging, here,  just sayin'.  The only way I can keep this entire mess from taking over my life and brain any more than it already does is to skim off the stuff I don't need, don't want, and don't care about. 

Take what you need, let the rest go.

And I do miss the old (good) Speakeasy.  It was an amazing place to be part of.

Hollyhock and fuzzy bee

Book day

The four book trilogy by Ursula LeGuin, Earthsea,  a Ted Kooser and (to even up the sides) a Merwin, and one Jesse Stone/Parker mystery.  This should keep me going (if you factor in the last half of my yearly hike through the Discworld series) until maybe September. 

I think of this as my sick stash,  and add them to the ever changing pile of books by the bed;  the last time I got sick enough to not move for several days I managed to work my way through an entire collection of these things, and that worried me.  What happens, I think, if I got REALLY immobilized?  what if I ran out?  The mind reels. 

What a well cap looks like

Losing an artesian (drilled) well is embarrassing.  Luckily we didnt need to find it (as in, emergency situation) but rather locate it now before we have to play Hunt the Slipper in the middle of the winter...

and YES we are going to mark it really really clearly this time...

now we get serious

I know I left it out here somewhere

sometimes, through no fault of our own, things go missing.  We'll find it, yes we will.