some days are better than others, this one can only get better

About an hour ago  I heard Charlie at the bottom of the back stairs,  scrabbling about. Then I heard a squeak. Oh damn.  He caught something.  He never views them as prey, but as squeaky toys.  When the squeak stops, he wanders off.   This time it was a junco, quite unhappy, and the minute I uncovered the hiding place he flew up onto my back and then up the stairs. 

I put Charlie out.  A half hour later when I finally located the bird behind a box under the table he flew out again, using my shoulder, again, as a springboard.  A little rational voice said, open the window, stupid.  It was directly opposite where he was sitting on a shelf.  Five minutes later he left.  yay team one. 

Then I came in here to celebrate, and it turned out I had somehow hit "log out' which is strategically located in the upper right corner where "save' used to be.  Google, when I wasn't looking,  has rearranged how you find your passwords (to protect your privacy, surrrre...even from you) and it took a lot of hunting before I stumbled on it, accidentally.  I may be back in business.

We were sitting on the porch last night admiring the changing trees,  and I realized that the acorns falling sound a lot like something marching in the woods.  I've always held out hope for a bear to come lumbering up the rise behind the house...=)  

Years ago our next neighbor had rented out his back field to a  local dairyfarm, and they would put their oxen up there to graze.  I was outside one morning when I heard a huge rustly noise and suddenly I saw several pairs of horns coming up the hill toward the house. 

I grabbed the dog and we both went in. He barked out the window, and I just watched, as they turned to see what that funny noise was.  When the boys came to retrieve them,  they assured me they were okay, "now that they know the way home from here, they'll leave when they're ready."  I assure  you, that was not as comforting as they thought it was.  We had them all summer, and you never knew when you were going to open the door and find a huge ox staring at you, or eating your potted plants.  Those were, sadly, the days before digital cameras...

 the wood is in, we are in our fourth day of No Rain,  and I've begun pruning out one of the volunteer apple trees.  No idea where any of them  originally  came from, but by now, after entirely too many years they have reached the status of omg that's way too big  and since I am the designated tree pruner, it's up to me to clean them up.  

The hardest part is not the pruning, but the hundreds of apples underfoot.  It's tricky walking out there, and half of my energy is going into trying not to step on the apples.  I enjoy pruning apple trees,  it's one of those jobs that rewards you almost immediately...I get a bit of smaller wood for kindling,  the brush pile grows and grows, and when my husband gets busy with the chain saw (yes,  it's gone far beyond the gentle little snip snip snip stage...) I expect we'll have a serious amount for the stoves next year.    

apparently half of New Hampshire heard a humoungous  boom and shaking around noon today.  It would appear that the other half didn't.  We were both here, and something tells me I would have noticed,  since my hearing is still pretty good...the reports say that over 40 towns were affected, no one has a clue as to what it was.  

oops

 apparently they moved thursday 13 this week to a seekrit location. I just woke up to the fact that it's not only not Thursday, it's not even September anymore.  

Maybe a calendar...0r the equivalent of Obama's Anger Management guy, someone who can follow me around and shout at me what day it is on an hourly basis...

Thursday 13 (playing with the new camera)

American copper butterfly

hummingbird and flower

bluebird in flight

Chipmunk posing

 

Hairy Woodpecker

         

song sparrow

tiny toad the size of my thumbnail

blackthroated blue warbler female

=)

broad winged hawk

barred owl

                                                                         

                                                                  yellow-bellied   flycatcher

 

                                                    and  my favorite, this sad looking   

                                                   lady coyote at the edge of the field

Too late for the last dance

 

Late last night I went out on the porch to assess the weather and admire the crickets, shouting their heads off.  In the midst of all that darkness and commotion, I saw one lone firefly.  

Flash

flash

flash..

it felt like he may have come back to meet old friends, not realizing that summer was surely over....

ah, memories

 

Yesterday we had surprise company, people we've not seen since they moved away nearly 30 years ago.  

They had to tell us who they were.  The little girls are now women in their 30s.  They are living in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont,  right on the border with Canada ..She has apparently forgiven me all my sins and is now about to become my best friend.  Cognitive decline will do that, and I'm not going to remind her. 

The husband asked about the maple tree (he was working up here at the time) he backed  his truck over, my new little tree. He remembered that vividly.  I invited him to take a look.  

He was impressed.

They seem happy, the girls are a delight, and it was nice that they remembered us so well.  

And now that the latest rain  has passed, I shall go out and stack some wood, and split some and

celebrate my birthday the way I always do, with a stick of wood in each hand and a woodpile waiting for it. It keeps me humble. 

thinking out loud (sort of)

 I've noticed that the people who last longest seem to be the ones that just keep moving forward, anyway.  

They may make those funny stand-up noises, or they use a stick to get around those tricky corners,  and now and then (like me) they lapse into either the Walter Brennan git-along gait, or the Tim Conway "thousand year old man" shuffle.  sometimes simultaneously. 

But the magic key is: we keep going. If we can't do as much, we still do some.  If they can't reach, they get the tongs and the good step stool.  And most importantly, they know when to ask for help, and when to say, "no, no, I'll be fine." and they are.

Wear out, or rust up. 

This year while he mowed the lawns, and did the grocery shopping, I got to learn how to run the BobCat (at least as far as wood splitting is concerned) and 10 cords later, the shed is full to the edges.  I do this every year, but this year I got to split it, too.   

In a month or sooner we will start undoing all my handiwork, one armload at a time, and the first few armloads will break my heart. All that work.  sob.

 Due to all the rain we had this past month  the larger trees are beginning to loosen their grip  on the side hills above the  driveway.  My husband spent most of yesterday moving what must have been a 50 year old oak out of the road.  I got to help. 

These are trees that were saplings when we first moved in up here, and now they are big enough to come crashing down across the road.   From the looks of things, it would appear that there's enough wood in the trees that have come down to keep us busy for the next year, and warm for nearly as long, once they're 'repurposed".  My inclination is to leave them where they are, as part of the order of things (which sounds pretty good, but it actually translates to a whiney "I really don't want to do this") and let them turn into hollow logs for sleeping quarters, and hosts for mushrooms and such.  

On a more or less literary note, I finally finished up the Sue Grafton alphabet series.  Since I had the last ones and still unread, I decided to read them all one last time ;  when I start a series like this I usually will mark the date each book was finished, so I know where I am in the series, and I was surprised that it had been maybe ten years or longer for any of them.  I was also surprised to see how much I had forgotten, except for certain scenes in each;  and just as surprised at the endings as I was the last time around. 

 However. As the series progressed the books became longer, and more complicated.  More and more characters in each one.  And the last one, "Y is for Yesterday" just left me reeling with all the characters and the shifting allegiances.  I just plain stopped.  I had no idea who had done what to whom, or why.  I was majorly disappointed.   

Chillier now.  And the sun is rising later, setting long before Im ready for it to happen.  Yeah, yeah, I know, get over it.  It'll be back next year.  =)

Keyboards I have known

 After  a month of typing with fingers crossed (no easy feat in any way) on a the laptop from hell,  I now have my old beloved Win7 back with a new motherboard (which always sounds like a polite obscenity amonsgst computer techies) and the old familiar keyboard.  

The laptop is lovely, but for a touch typist it's the keyboard from hell, since the keys are much more sensitive, and there is little space between them.  All the "symbols" are so modern and artsy  it's a guess what any of them mean.  

Toby the Terrified is now consenting to eat in the same room where humans are,  and I do believe I heard a massive purr from him the other day.   Sometimes cats will make up their minds all at once about things,  and it appears he has decided we aren't all that bad.  It only took him 10  years or so, but then he's cautious.   I think I finally understand why he's leery of Humans Holding Doors Open.  At some point in his early life Im giuessing someone either accidentally or on purpose (humans being what they are) slammed a door shut just as  he was going out or coming in.  Ow.  

They do forgive, I think more than dogs do,  but they don't forget.

Overcast this morning,  feels like rain, oh joy.  Gotta go move some wood out of the way.

thinking out loud:

Something Ms. Moon said, the other day:  how dependent we are on our electronics.  

We carry the phone with us now,  or  a laptop, or anything else that will allow us to keep in nearly constant contact with someone else.   It's as if a strange enemy has invaded us, taken over our homes, our lives, and our travels,  and we don't even realize that we've been colonized. 

I saw an ad, years ago,  that showed how electronic devices 'keep the family together".  Daddy was on the computer, Mother was using a laptop, the two boys were duking it on on their own devices, and sister was on her cellphone.  Not one of them was looking at anyone else, and all the communication was outside, not inside.  

This is not togetherness, this is apartness, bunched in one small room. 

If this had been an image from the 60s or 70s there would have been a TV (with  remote) with at least two people watching, two of the kids would be on the floor playing a board game, and one would be on the phone to her best friend.  

And the same scenario in the 40s, showing everyone gathered around a piano, singing while sister or Mom  played.  

Years ago I read a fascinating and very short story, (science fiction sometimes is chillingly accurate) about the last two people on earth, one man, one woman, separated by hundreds of miles,  but each with a computer,  and they could communicate.  At the end of the story,  they had just had a fight, and blocked each other permanently.  Now the last two people on earth were truly alone, only they didn't know it yet. 

Sometimes I think we're heading the same way.  

Way too much excitement here

Lost the power last night and got to try out the generator.  We went out to eat, and drove home in one of the meanest thunderstorms I've ever seen.  (Generator got its first trial run,  I think Im in love with it)

We lost the electricity, and then the phones went out, and the internet.  (It reads like the beginning of a short horror story, doesn't it)

We just got it back a little while ago.  I read four Sue Grafton books today, lol. The weather people said the winds hit up to 70 mph in some places, I can believe it.   I think we've become too isolated from other people (not just us necessarily, but everyone),  with computers and cell phones and  internet connections.  When the connecting link  breaks, we're stuck, especially anyone  living outside of a town or city.

adventure of the year

 

Yesterday  was the first day in 15 months that I actually ventured out alone, to drive in town.   After a few wrong turns and Oops I Should have been in The Other Lane,  I realized that when you start over that way, you forget that this lane takes you to the Mall, and the left lane takes you to the other Mall, and why are those people tooting at me?  When you become familiar with the way you get in and out of a small city, you automatically know where the pivot point is, to get in the proper lane.  Missed every damn one of them, lol.   

The city hasn't changed a bit. I should know, I drove around most of it.

The good news is, I am finally comfortable in the 'new' car.  It suddenly felt right, and even though I need a map to figure out how to turn the lights on, it's familiar. Finally. 

Repurposing the easy way

Last winter the old  pear tree that was in the  yard got hit badly by that one shot snowstorm,  and it was just about finished off.  This spring while we were doing clean up, my husband said he wanted to take it  down, it was hollow inside anyway.  He offered to leave it stand about 7 feet up, so I could use it for a clothesline pole.   My husband's grandfather had planted it about 100 years ago, when he and his wife moved into the house here.  It was a poor quality pear, good for eating but didn't keep well, ripening from the inside out.  Clapp's Family Favorite, yessah.  

For years it was the happy feeding ground for porcupines (who preferred the branches to the fruit),  and squirrels (who preferred the fruit),  and anything else that could climb.  But it aged, and developed a hollow core, and my husband has been threatening to cut it down for several years.   But then this happened, after we lopped the top off. 

Being hollow has piqued the interest of birds:

looks good, but I'll have to ask the missusr

hrmmm right size...

aha we have a winner

Catching up with the 20th century. Oh, wait...

 having a nice fire in the woodstove tonight:  it's 35 outside and 64 inside and what a grand excuse to have one more fire.  We're supposed to have rain for the next two days or so, and the lord knows we need it.    I've been catching up on the mowing this week, and part of the process has been to clear up the downed tree limbs and such.   it's old dead wood, and perfect for a night like this. 

The old fashioned peonies are the first to open

I don't know if they're viewing this as a potential nest site or a snack bar, but they keep coming back to it...it used to be a pear tree.  Sadly.  Im in  hopes it will sprout some new branches,   It's not entirely dead, just er, ah, hollow...

                                                                                 

                                               and my cheeky little friend, posing for the camera.

                                                                      

We are also installing a new generator later this summer, to replace the cumshaw arrangement we have now. New, and a  flip switch that even I can use.  What we have now requires prayers in four languages and several moments of cursing (which is a kind of prayer in itself) and then it roars into life, and the entire house begins to smell like a kerosene can.  

It was time.  After the blizzard last winter and the Cleansing of the Freezer after no power for four days,  I think he realized we do need a bit more power in our generator. 

Not sure if i can handle too many more of these new fangled devices.  What's next?  cell phones?

The saga of the bridge

 We live in the country;  back roads 'r' us, in every direction, and in a small town your road crew can make or break you very quickly.   No matter which road you take, in which direction, you will invariably encounter at least one steep  hill,   one or more crossroads,  and at least one bridge.  Most of them are now paved roads, which is both a boon in the spring and a curse in the wintah.

Last year the one bridge over the one small river needed repairing, so when they resurfaced the road, they put in a  strange, strange 'ribbed' bridge consisting of metal and wood planks.   It was a jiggly thing, and when someone drove across it, the sound was very close to the noise you hear in a car crushing place.  We got used to it.  The speed limit for the bridge on a 40 mph road was 25 mph which  not too many people took  seriously. 

Apparently the people who lived near it were unhappy . Complaints were issued. So this year the road crew decided to fix the problem. Not, as you would guess, with a nice wooden bridge, but with speed bumps on each side.  If you honored the speed bumps you could jolt over it, but quietly.  If you ignored the speed bumps you risked tires, screaming babies, and your grandmother napping in the back.   Granted, the rattle and grindy sound is gone.  Im not sure it's an improvement. 

(Got our second Covid shot. Yay us.)

A thought to chew toast by...

 I was browsing over some of my older posts, and discovered one that seemed fairly cool, and doable, if I lived in a more  populated region:  the bookstore post.  Since then Ive modified the idea a bit, and it seems to make sense.

If I had a bookstore, it would be a used bookstore,  called "Browsers".   Books to read, books to buy, books to trade for yours.  Bring a book, swap it for one you want to read. Or two. Or ten.  

In fact, and i had forgotten this, I had a neighbor years ago who operated on just this principle, without the "book trade" aspect.  And she never really organized it. She invited me to straighten it out, it was such a mess. took me two weeks, and I loved every minute ot it. 

not gonna happen, but it's fun to think about.  Maybe next time around. 

=)

welcome to May

somehow, in spite of all the cold, all the rain, all the weather around it, every year a small group of Trillium with the delighful name "stinking robert" appears, in what was once a field behind the house that got turned into a mowed bit of lawn and then a temporary woodyard.  And by then the ash trees took over, crowding out a lovely bartlett pear and an apple tree who had been minding their own business.  And one day the Mr. came in and said, come see what's out there under the ash trees. 

Bang slap up against the old apple tree was this guy.  There are now at least a half dozen or more blooming, and smaller ones on the way.    

Every year we make  a pilgrimage out there, as a kind of encouragement to it.  

And yes, it was 36 deg. this morning when I let the cats out.   At the moment a tufted titmouse is trying to outshout a robin, and it appears he may win.  

And to celebrate the arrival of spring

 Which apparently happened six weeks ago,  we are encased in a fogshroud, and when I stepped out on the porch around 7 AM to admire five very wet deer, the temp was an even 38 degrees.  If it dropped a few degrees more we could have snow. 

The cats, wh0 no longer have access to a catflap,  have been sitting in the window begging to go out. And two minutes later they are sitting at the  other side of the window begging to come in.  

It's that time of year

 Went out to watch the robins, and suddenly,  a way off down over the hill and the trees, I heard geese, rowing north again.   The sound that makes you forget that your feet are cold,  the door is open, and you need to keep breathing.  

I read this aloud.  Like most  poems, it's  meant to be heard, too.

Wild Geese--Robert P. Tristam Coffin

Beauty is coming North again

Slanting eager as the rain;

With necks like arrows on a bow

Across the sky the wild geese go.

Beauty is coming moulded by

High winds of the upper sky

Into shapes that burn to be

In a patterned symmetry.

Loveliness comes like a host

Of lean ships headed for a coast,

Every sail and every keel

Pointed at a common weal.

Comeliness in company,

Every wing where it should be,

Their feathers are communal things.

They help each other with their wings.

House cleaning, computer style

 

Just spent the last day and 1/2 scrolling through my entire hard drive, one file (or compilation) at a time,  rereading posts that go back to nearly the first boards I was on, before Y2K.   Some I deleted, huge huge files of saves that mean nothing to anyone, and are only a thin memory even for me. 

I tend to get involved, sometimes a tad too much.  

Out. 

photos that are duplicates of duplicates.  Out

old emails, some so far back I don't even remember who they were from, and even scarier, some I do.  Out. 

I even have two complete novels someone else wrote, why Im saving them I have no idea.  Out.

I did notice, and I suspect it's not just coincidence,  cleaning out 20+ years of detritus has sped up this computer very nicely.  

One thing that might come in handy if I ever find another online scrabble game:  a complete list of allowed  two and three letter words.  Also deleted at least two dozen failed-attempt games, where you sign up, play for a bit and realize this is not for you.  But the works for those games were still buried.  Out. 

On a slightly different note, I think we finally found food that Toby the Fussy will actually eat.  He rackets around in here at top speed and cannot keep an ounce of fat on him.  It's like patting a furry skeleton, yet he seems healthy, just er, sleekly boney.  Im  hoping a canned food diet will fatten him up a bit.  At least he's friendlier.   And he's learned to communicate. He stands in front of what he wants and  Looks At Me, very expectantly.  I feel like Im playing 'what's my line" in Cat.   

Warmer today, all way up to 60, but my husband was quick to poke holes in that balloon, the basic "don't get used to it' by reminding me that its supposed to get cold again, and rain.    sigh.