Monday, December 21, 2009

christmas tree 09 015


christmas tree 09 015
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
I did it! I finally decided to put up a tree. I found the perfect one next to my driveway, and in true North Country style I cut off the top. It's a big table top tree and looks great. I finished decorating it at 6 this morning. Only special ornaments made the cut this year.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Thanksgiving, then December

Thanksgiving wasn't so long ago, but now it's fer shure December. I had a great time at T-giving, nice to visit with everyone. Sometimes I feel bad going there because Mark & Liza tell me how much they love having me visit. That makes me feel as if I should get there more often. Oh well, I do what I can do. At least this time I could say that I'll be back in 3 weeks. A week at Christmas, when we always have a really nice time.

Things in Hawkeye are fine. I bought 5 cords of Ken's wood and Bill arranged for it to be delivered and stacked in the woodshed. I have about 12 cords now, all dry enough to burn. That'll get me through the season, probably with plenty to spare. I'm still practicing new methods of burning in the stove (DON'T shut it down all the way!) and mostly I have no coals left in the morning or when I get home at night. This is a big change, and the price I pay for keeping my stovepipe clean and safe.

I've taken to visiting Ken's niece and her husband on the way home. All 3 of us enjoy this and like catching up on neighborhood news--Pat always has something to share, and I often have updates. Jim stands at the kitchen window nearly all the time, so he knows who drives by, how many times they do, what direction, when, etc. This means there's a gold mine of information for us all to share. It's an OK substitute for Ken, and we talk about him a lot, without too much sadness. I still think of him and want to call to share something, plus I want to have our evening visits again.

There are so many "Favorite/Best Books of 2009" lists that I'm spending a lot of time going through them to see which I've added to our collection, which I've read, what I think of them, if I've heard of them, etc. This is a project that can continue well into 2010, when the lists will hardly be relevant.

Do we call it two thousand ten, or twenty ten? I've heard a lot of twenty tens, I guess it all depends on how many syllables people want to say.

Big storm today, thank you Midwest. 4-8", or maybe a foot, or maybe less. Love these weather people. Snowing hard this morning, rough drive to work. I have yet to have my snow tires put on (oops, what a cliche to put it off this long) so I have trouble getting the car to want to drive without spinning tires and fishtailing. I'm used to dealing with those, so it's not a big deal, but it sure is frustrating when I can barely get up the smallest incline. I guess we're supposed to have sleet/rain this afternoon, but I don't expect to be able to drive to the house tonight. Donny The Plowman works nights so will only be able to plow before 2:00 or so.

I've been getting ready for Christmas but can't figure out if I have any Christmas spirit. I love buying presents for people but haven't shipped out the Italy stuff yet. I did cut 3 trees the other day, though. They're propped up on the deck, waiting for me to make a decision about which will be The Chosen One, or whether I'll bring anyone in to decorate at all. I bought a new tree stand, though, one that will accommodate the tiny trunks these have. They're skanky looking balsams, lots of spaces between the boughs, but they're fresh, free and they are what they are. My father always had us have balsam Christmas trees, but though they smell like Christmas, balsams seldom make good trees for decorating. Sparse, always sparse. My mother now gets Fraser firs, nice and full. Mark puts about 1000 lights on them (no exaggeration, at least 10 strands). The trees are always pretty. White lights. Do I want colored lights or white? Ah, life is full of complex issues, no?

Tess has learned a new term for treats: BISCUITS

"When's the turkey going to ready?" or maybe "Someone dropped food," or maybe "Someone's blowing their nose so maybe I can eat the kleenex." The dog is paper-obsessed. She's allowed to eat kleenex but nothing else. Paper, I mean.

The whole trip was exhausting for some

Plenty of time was spent doing this. The only way I can tell these two apart is by collar color. Chances has a red collar. Tess' is purple. No significance, except that Chances is too dignified for a purple collar and Tess is too childish for any other color.

Run Forrest, Run!


Run Forrest, Run!
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
When we were kids my sister and I liked to pretend that our dogs were horses. We made that poor dachshund jump over the broom handle thousands of times. Here's Tess, looking as if she's leading the pack in the Kentucky Derby.

thanksgiving 09 085


thanksgiving 09 085
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Tess is so happy she's walking on air. Can't see the pond in summer, but when the trees get naked there it is!

Two of my favorites


Two of my favorites
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Although we didn't get to go on our walks as early as we did in the summer, we still had our nice treks. Chilly but not too cold. Brisk, maybe.

Hippo? Chances?


Hippo? Chances?
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
I love seeing Chances enjoy herself. She went for a quick dip but apparently decided to shake, maybe she forgot that you're supposed to do that AFTER you get out of the water. Sort of like breathing in while you're underwatre, I guess.

Chances up close and personal. or maybe it's Tess

Tess up close and personal. She can't sit still for ANYTHING

Chances? or Tess.


Chances? or Tess.
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Chances up close and personal.

thanksgiving 09 073


thanksgiving 09 073
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Liza on lobster night. Not a good picture, but here's my mom.

Two more of my favorites


Two more of my favorites
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Chances in Hog Heaven. Jenica indulging

As always, Mark outdid himself

Thanksgiving centerpiece, by Mark Tucker. Imagine what his wedding work looks like--

thanksgiving 09 024


thanksgiving 09 024
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
A different way of serving turkey: carve first, then reassemble on the serving platter. Mark is at it again--

This is what Mark calls a salad

The masterpiece that was Mark's salad. It was so cool, what a creative mind he has.

It fell from the sky


It fell from the sky
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
What would a RI holiday be without this?

After


After
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
This is what greeted me when I got home: a clean, almost empty kitchen counter. I cleared pretty much everything off of it when I put up the backsplash. Bill says my counter is the litmus test for whether or not I can keep my living room clean. So far so good

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Back for more

I know, it's been a long time. Life is just going along these days, my life is very different without Ken. I have reflex reactions to things like, I can't wait to talk to Ken about the new polling place, and calling him when it's raining to say "It's raining at my house, is it raining at yours?" that was a standing joke between us, since our homes are only a mile apart.

Work is different, one of the clerks in our department retired. I won't go into the joy we're all experiencing, but she's not being replaced, so I have to figure out which of her tasks I'll do and which the other (nice, funny, charming, personable) clerk will do. So far I'm making some progress but I don't want to overload the clerk with too much. Can it be that I'll have to do interlibrary loan again? After all these years of not doing it? When I came here (25 years ago) I hoped I'd never catalog another book or work with MARC records again. That didn't work out. I feel the same way about ILL, but there's no one else to do it. At least I'll use better judgment than She Finally Retired did.

I accomplished a major task recently, cleaned 3 whole rooms in my house. Kitchen, bathroom, living room. Wow do they look great. I'm making a huge effort to keep the look, avoiding cluttering things up, cleaning all the time. One of the most amazing feats is taking everything off of the kitchen counter. Wow! does it look great. Bill came the other day and said the counter would be the litmus test of how well I can do keeping the house organized. I can't imagine having as little room on the counter as I used to, so this might just work out.

It was suggested that I'm so interested in organizing/cleaning because of Ken's death--this is a new phase of my life. That may be true. Or else I've finally taken a good look at my house and realize how awful it looks.

I've been enjoying autumn more, I think, than any other year. I walk the bog on weekends and the colors have been great. Once I took pictures of individual leaves, making up stories and situations for each one. It would have made a great children's book, except that there are already hundreds of books about colored leaves and autumn already. Plus, of course, there's always the getting it published part ...

I'm reading a lot more these days, too. The new John Irving book just came in, hopefully great to read. Well, maybe great, or maybe my expectations are too high. He's always been one of my favorite authors, so let's see how he's doing.

I had a chimney man come to take a look at my stove last week. I have Stage 3 creosote. This is very bad, I think there are only 3 stages. My stovepipe is glazed with creosote. I said to Duane (very cute, very knowledgeable), "You've seen worse, haven't you?" No answer. I take it this means I will be the "worse" that he'll refer to when other customers ask this question. swell. Anyway he's coming back to fix everything and I'm soooo looking forward to that. It's cold at night (20's, 30's) and I can't get my living room very warm without the stove. I'm acclimated though, 60 feels comfortable, especially when the room is 54 when I get up or get home. I have electric baseboard heat as a back up, and have been a loyal and lucrative customer of the electric company for years. I did order shades for my huge windows, though, with great regret. I'm getting honeycomb shades, hoping that what people have told me is true and they'll make a big difference. I'll miss looking out the windows at night, but I can always leave them up and lower them when I go to bed. Boy this all seems very mundane and not very stimulating, but this is my life these days.

Flat tire on the way to work this morning, just as I pulled into my coffee stop. Swell. A flat tire is a great man magnet, though--at one point there were 4 men standing around watching an acquaintance change the tire. Lots of offers of tools, help, etc. I just found out that the tire can't be fixed, so swell, my new tire will now be replaced by a newer one. Although I like having new things, a tire offers little anticipation or interest.

I started feeding the birds recently. The first to appear were the blue jays (not my favorites, but they are a beautiful color). I always associate the squawk of jays with my grandmother's house in New Jersey. It was the first time I got acquainted with the bird and it's noise. Did we not have them in Ill.? We didn't like going to NJ as children--there was nothing to do. When we were young, my sister and I played with the best dollhouse ever --light bulbs in the rooms, a porcelain bathroom sink, a neat telephone cubby under the stairs. We'd spend hours in the basement with that. When we got older, there was nothing to do, except for the year my sister read Gone With The Wind. She sat on the window seat on the 3rd floor (which was a really cool bedroom, you could almost see the NYC skyline from there) and read for hours, no, days, no, years. I remember asking her over and over when she'd be done & play with me. Later, in high school when I was home sick I read GWTW and finally understood what that summer was all about. I read it all day. The book is much more engrossing than the film, although the film was full of beautiful people.

I brought guppies to work, their tank is next to the goldfish's. I'd finally culled the herd of guppies and had just 4 males left, but it turns out that there's a Guppy Gang thing, and they intimidated the other fish. I don't like to see anyone/thing suffer like that, so I broke up the gang. I brought 3 here. One died and the others feasted on his remains. How to keep a clean tank--

The neighborhood is quiet now, only about 4 houses are occupied. I'm spending time with Pat & Jim, Ken's neighbors. Pat is Ken's niece. They're my surrogate Ken, but we all seem to be all right with that, they miss him terribly too.

And so we've been dumped into the days of darkness. I usually have trouble adjusting to the time changes, but so far I've been OK. Except for yesterday, when I didn't realize I hadn't set my bedside clock back. There I was, dressed & ready for work an hour early. duh.

deer me


deer me
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Here's a deer track (cloven hoof). There are lots & lots of deer in the neighborhood, maybe too many. Anyway, on my land is an old apple orchard, which is a huge attraction to the deer. Lots of apples on the ground, and the dogs and deer vie for who gets the most. Yesterday there were 2 deer grazing under an apple tree. They really are pretty--so dainty, and beautiful when they bound through the woods.

tamaracks 027


tamaracks 027
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
This is what lotsof the "roads" look like now. This is Laundry Lane, looking toward Linda's camp. Roads to camps are pretty much all one lane dirt roads, and look really pretty.

end of season 09 056


end of season 09 056
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
In September (yes it's been a long time) I followed the trail at the end of the boardwalk. It goes to the top of the bluffs, which are at the head of the lake. This is what it looks like when you first get to the top.

end of season 09 054


end of season 09 054
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
This is your reward when you get to the edge. There's a better view if you go down to a ledge, but I was afraid the dogs would be too reckless. Or in Chances' case, wouldn't see the edge.

end of season 09 083


end of season 09 083
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
who's poop this is, I think I know...
I'm pretty sure it's fox poop--or scat, if you want to be a naturalist.

more oct 09 003


more oct 09 003
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
I have fun taking pictures of things. Of course this is in the bog--the pool you find on the boardwalk. Lots of times the dogs walk right in but they're learning to wait until I've finished taking a picture-- f

late oct 09 004


late oct 09 004
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Tamarack fuzz. Looks like caterpillars, no?

tamaracks 028


tamaracks 028
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
These are the steps leading to Bill's camp (well, one of them--he owns 2). The camp is called Morningside and is a wonderful place, tucked up the hill from the road. This is like Stairway to Heaven, no?

tamaracks 001


tamaracks 001
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
This is what the tamaracks look like when they get ready to be naked. It's pretty much the last color we see--

yellow brick road


yellow brick road
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
And this is what it looks like now. Tams are pretty much bare, but the effect of their shedding leaves is really pretty.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009


This might be funnier if I hadn't fallen so soundly asleep once that 3 people gathered around me (after conferring with each other), wondering if there were something wrong with me, if they should touch me, if they should wake me up, call 911, or what. I was sprawled out, leaning way back in my chair, arms stretched out to the sides, head way back. At least I wasn't snoring, and at least they were kind eough not to call the director in. It's one of those "remember the time that" stories.

Friday, October 09, 2009

autumn 09 009


autumn 09 009
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
We had our weekend bog walk last weekend. It had rained so the boardwalk was slippery. I kept yelling at the dogs to SLOW DOWN or they would slip and break their backs. They would slow down--for a little while, but the fun of the boardwalk is running fastfastfast like steeds pulling a chariot.

The cat likes to go ahead, only once in a while, and here she's sitting on a bench staring at who knows what.

Some friends wanted to get together to chip in on a bench in memory of someone who died, so they asked the Nature Conservancy how much that would cost. When they found out it was $10,000 they decided to do something else.

tams


autumn 09 006
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Some call them larches, some call them tamaracks. I like tamaracks. There was an old inn/restaurant where my mother lives called The Larchwood Inn. I don't think there were any larches there.

Anyway, they are not coniferous, and those aren't needles but leaves. They turn a beautiful gold that signals the end of the season, just before the leaves drop. Plunk, that's the end of it all. I don't know why this guy is leading the pack.

octopi


autumn 09 014
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
If there were land octopuses, this would be one. It's a fern, oddly green and oddly small for this time of year. Isn't it great that it's so round? Pretty little thing, it is.

autumn 09 018


autumn 09 018
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Everyone has tried to take an Escher shot of this pool. This is the trees reflected on the surface. I gave up trying for the 3 views a long time ago--you can sometimes see the bottom of the pool, something floating on top, and the reflection. Once my photographer cousin was getting ready to take a beautiful shot of that and just before she clicked the image my hahaha dog jumped into the pool. Not funny, she thought. Clever dog, I thought.

autumn 09 027


autumn 09 027
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Ah, an Eliot Porter shot.

autumn 09 041


autumn 09 041
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
I think this may be one of those "you had to be there" shots. The rain drops stuck to the tamarack/larches and made them a little ghostly. It was a grand effect.

autumn 09 060


autumn 09 060
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Ah yes, Alder Brook. We have so many choices of views, colors changing and different hues everywhere you look. This is not one of the brightest spots but it's my usual spot.

autumn 09 063


autumn 09 063
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
And looking upstream. Much more interesting than usual, with the backdrop of colors.

at random


autumn 09 056
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
This is a random stream, who knows the name-- It's on the way to Paul Smiths from my house (yes, there's no Smith's, it's Smiths) Across from Jones Pond. There's just pretty scenery everywhere you go. How lucky is a girl to see this whenever she wants to?

autumn 09 029


autumn 09 029
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
And finally, this could be a raindrop, or a tear drop, the way I feel about losing Ken these days. Every fall I bought him a pumpkin and a mum. Force of habit, when I picked out my pumpkin I thought--"which one is right for Ken?," and getting my mums drew the same reaction. Well, life goes on.

This, of course is a raindrop. I had to ask (politely) if Tess would wait a minute before swimming in the pool. She was very patient and I congratulated her.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

watches 004


watches 004
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Some people agonize over what clothes to wear when they get dressed in the morning. Thanks to my sister's generosity (and good taste), I face the dilemma of which Swatch to wear--every day. These are my latest choices. This is a fraction of my Swatch collection, I've narrowed it dow to these. Well, wait, I have 2 others that I mix in with the bunch, too.

watches 010


watches 010
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
No, really, maybe you don't get just how complicated this is--

Monday, September 21, 2009

shrooms sept 011


shrooms sept 011
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
I've started walking the bog again. It's wearing autumn clothes now. The ferns are such pretty colors. The dogs love it--Tess either walks next to me on an invisible leash, runs ahead with Chances like a team of horses, or swishes back & forth, right to left, left to right, behind me. She's a girl who loves patterns.

Anyway, there's peace in the neighborhood. Even if there was a mountain lion at the foot of the lake earlier, stalking the horses. Labs are too small a morsel, and besides, why would a mtn lion come to my house--it's so messy?

shrooms sept 010


shrooms sept 010
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Pretty, no?

shrooms sept 015


shrooms sept 015
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
She thinks the walk in is great & bounds ahead, runs like thunder. The walk out, however, is as long as the walk across America that Granny Dee made. She yowls and wowls the whole way. Sometimes she just collapses.

shrooms sept 004


shrooms sept 004
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Linda knows all about mushrooms--names, degrees of poisonessness, degress of deliciousness, etc. I told her about these & said they look like WWII helmets. She said "German?" I guess that's about as good a description as any.

shrooms sept 003


shrooms sept 003
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Oh, they just look so cute. I don't know what it is, they're just all cuddled up together.

camo


shrooms sept 014
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Can you find the cat? She thinks you can't

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

sept 09 09 046


sept 09 09 046
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Not to worry, things have improved. Cheery friends, beautiful weather, sweetie dogs, lots of boat house time, perspective, etc. Passage of time. Lots of beauty in my life. Still miss my lost people, sad news of others, but I'm ok.

I think sunrises like this are pretty gaudy, but when you watch them you're impressed. This was today. The sun now rises on the opposite side of the mountain--in July it was coming up on the left shoulder, now we're right-handed.

There are things to tell, anecdotes to share.

Frank III


sept 09 09 024
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
And then there's Frank, Lin's new beagle. Who can resist a face like this? When my father was really pleased with something he'd say it was "as pretty as a speckled pup." Frank qualifies in every respect.

Friday, August 21, 2009

A few vacation pictures


august 16 09 118
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Liza, Molly, Mark--and my chair. We had great beach days.

I feel pretty sad these days, not a good blogger at all. Won't share details, will feel better and then will bore everyone with details of a wonderful two weeks in RI, plus the past many weeks here at home.

ri august 09


ri august 09
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
We are a happy group and we truly enjoy being together

august 16 09 149


august 16 09 149
Originally uploaded by woodsrun
Don't worry, there will be more later