Monday, March 29, 2010
forsythia 004
Yesterday I cut some branches from my bloomingest apple tree. I'm hoping to have a similar result. well, not yellow, but pink and pretty.
There's not much snow left in Hawkeye, and my daffodils and crocuses are showing up in the spots where it's sunniest. The other clumps are still buried under snow. About 6" of snow left. I'm like one of those people with a metal detector on the beach--I walk around, studying the ground.
I never know where my perennials will end up in the spring--my plowman pushes dirt around when he plows. Like, this weekend I tried to find a wood stove that had been in one spot near the woods for at least 15 years. It wasn't there. You can't just pick up a wood stove & move it, but I bet you can move it with a plow. Can't wait until the snowbanks melt so I can find it.
too cute
Guess which one is me? middle one holding the keys to a car she wants to drive. It looks as if my sister doesn't think I should be the only one to play with the keys.
The family lore about this picture is that we had just had our shots, in prep. for our move to Turkey. The doctor said "This won't hurt a bit," but it sure did. The photographer taking this picture said "This won't hurt a bit." Here's our reaction.
How cute is my brother, with his suspenders?
forsythia 020
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Poko
This mountain is between Westport and home, though not near either one. I like the way the trees on top are all leaning in the same direction (duh--guess which way the wind comes from?). There's a firetower on top, one of the few left here. There's also a firetower on a hill outside of our town. The hill is called Palmer Hill, but lots of people here call it Parmer Hill. There were iron ore mines there in the 19th century, and there are still huge, deep holes in the hill. Dangerous and not monitored. You can lean far down into them, but wow would I be afraid to do that. I've never been in a cave but it doesn't appeal to me at all.
A few times we went up Parmer Hill (you can drive most of the way) and climbed the firetower. There's one of the best views around from there, looking toward Whiteface. Go there on a clear sunny day and you'll be happy.
I've never climbed Poko-Moonshine--people say there's a great view from the top, but it's a view of Vermont. Like, why would I want to see Vermont?
Anyway, I drove past here because I took my dog to Westport for dental work. Now, I'm not one of those people who take their dog to the vet all the time, or paints toenails, or puts bows or little coats on them, but the vetress told me she (the dog, not vetress) had bad tartar and needed to have her teeth cleaned or her gums would get infected, her teeth would fall out, she wouldn't be able to eat (as if), the world would stop spinning, and she'd be flung into a black hole. So I took her to the main vet office, an hour from my house, on Fri. morning and picked her up Sat. They knock the critters out to laser away the tartare.
Dog Tess was perky and unaffected by the trauma. One extraction, they said, and a cracked tooth they left alone. I didn't tell them she chews on stones as if they were chewing gum. "Is that right!" I said.
Whie Tess was gone, Chances and I had a very nice visit. The house was peaceful and quiet, without any bouncing around. It made me think that maybe it would be nice to have ONE dog instead of two. I've always had two, one younger than the other, sort of like a spare for when the old dog dies. This pair, though, are half-sisters and adore each other. Well, to be honest, Tess adores her sister, and her sister tolerates her and sometimes plays "run really, really fast" so they look like a team of horses.
I've had pairs before who barely tolerated each other, but I didn't find that out until one of them died and the other perked right up. "Oh, it turns out you never liked Emma--who knew?"
Westport 03 19 2010 013
Sticks and stones
I like this because the trees are lined up so nicely and are all at attention, pointing to the sky. I also like it because the ice is getting dark. That's the first thing that really convinces you it will melt. It gets darker & darker, then WHAM-O it starts some serious melting.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Surf you wouldn't believe
I had a really nice trip to RI for my mother's birthday. Jenica rode with me, allowing us to spend plenty of time speaking libraryspeak. More cool, though, was looking up things on her iPhon*. "Check out Clinton Correctional Facility and the chapel there." "Let's see what the weather in Naples is." More interesting things, very entertaining and good for driving.
This is the beach my sister likes to go to, her favorite swimming spot because there's never any surf. NOT. There was a Nor'easter in RI while we were there, and this is the most amazing surf. At a beach protected by a breakwater, in the Harbor of Refuge. It's called Salty Brine beach, named after one of those really dorky broadcasters. Yes, he was called Salty Brine. Even though I haven't lived in RI for 25 years I can still picture him. Swell, taking up space in my brain.
Anyway, Mark calls this Trailer Trash Beach because of the people who go there (no offense to those who live in trailers). My mother says "DON'T CALL IT THAT!"
There's never surf there and it's very shallow. What was so cool about our long walk there was the roar of the surf and the sizes of the waves. I hope my sister gets to see it like this sometime, it was so cool.
The beach walk was great--it was raining, but not too hard, and it was warm. My first spring walk in warm rain. Mark & I seem to have established a routine of going to this beach to find shells. This was only our second time doing it, but we walk with our heads looking down, scanning the sand for good shells. There aren't very many kinds of shells (well, that we find anyway). Mark found a toenail shell, which is really gross because it looks like an old man's yellowed toenail. Mostly we looked for prized scallop shells, and I found two periwinkle shells (which would totally gross me out if the snails were in them). This trip there were HUGE clam shells.
My mother is now 84. No one in the family can believe it, including her.
I'm going back to RI for Easter. That's coming right up. There will be daffodils and forsythia in bloom then. My mother cut some branches of forsythia for me to bring home and force to bloom. Yes, that's right, FORCE them to bloom--"Now bloom, damn it, or I'll turn you into firewood."
We have mud, deep mud here now. It's way goopy and I can't drive in it to my house, but it freezes every night so I can at least walk to my car at the end of the driveway without getting mud up to my ankles. I've had my car stuck in the mud, up to the floorboards, twice. Not much makes you feel stoopider than getting your car stuck in the mud. Once the mud froze and I had to get a big tow truck pull it out. Then I threw frozen mud to all who drove in back of me. I was not popular on the roadways.
typical pose
In NJ the cover was pink. My mother recovered it in a bluish color. Blue, everything of my mother's is always blue. I have no favorite color--every time I try to pick one out I think of another color I like as much or more. Olive green used to be my favorite color, but that was in my militant feminist days. Guess I've mellowed.
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JP & MRT3 at beach
EFR presents
galloping dog at beach
More shell collection
Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the shells.
Lobster dinner prep.
EFR Livinig room
Friday, March 12, 2010
wind farm 002
I went to a place called Ellenburg Depot the other evening. I call it a place because there's nothing commercial there except for a diner where they sell a few things, like an Ellenburg version of a Cumberland Farms. Anyway, I went there to pick up something I got on Freecycl*, where everyone swaps out stuff. I like the site because I've been able to unload a fair amount of crap, crap that other people want and are excited to get.
Sometimes I'm one of the people who picks up the crap and is excited. I have an almost new, beautiful sewing machine that a nice woman from Dannemora wanted to get rid of.
ANYWAY, let's go back to Ellenburg. It took me an hour to get there from work, and I had a little trouble finding the house until I got her directions right.
There was a big fuss about wind power in the area, and the windmills won. There are ridges, and lots of flat windy land in the area, so this is what most of the people in the country see.
I love these windmills--they're probably not called windmills anymore.
They're huge, just huge. At least 6 times the size of a telephone pole. I made that up, I have no idea. I love the idea of wind power, clean, an endless supply. Would I want to look at these from my land? Probably not. Sometimes we talk about wind power and say "What would it be like if there were windmills along the ridge of the mountain across the lake?" Of course it would ruin our view. Oh, we're so self-centered and greedy.
wind farm 009
The fireplace was massive. It had no mantle, but there was a ledge in front of it for you to sit on. When my mother came home from work (she was a public school teacher, and with her work ethic she was exhausted by the end of the day) my father would get her a glass of dry sherry and she would sit in front of the fire, feet up on the ledge, sipping it before making dinner. I like remembering that part of our midwestern life. We also had time like that when we got home from church: my mother reading the Sunday papers while she sat there sipping her sherry. We subscribed to 3 papers: 2 Rockford papers and one Chicago paper. My father was an avid reader who enjoyed knowing what was going on. I attribute this to his having grown up in a small town (which is now MY small town), where everyone knew everything about their neighbors and the surrounding communities.
My mother put a bed next to the windows--we used it as a couch. I think she didn't want a couch there because the back of the couch would block the view. One of her favorite things was "blue snow." There's a time in the evening when the snow is a very pretty blue. I see it a lot, and mostly think of my mother when I notice it. I must be romantic and sentimental, like my mother.
Take away the mountains in the background and this could be northern IL.
wind farm 008
wind farm 012
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Monday, March 08, 2010
Thursday, March 04, 2010
contrail 002
Sometimes contrails (do people still call them that?) make a pretty effect in a blue sky. Having such a big skyline helps.
What's better than a contrail like this?
contrail 005
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
March sunrise
Good weather this week--high 30's. Hopefully that will melt the ice on my deck and stairs so I'll stop sliding down and landing on my butt. with plenty of embarrassing bruises on arms.
I've taken on some of the work that the retired (nasty) clerk did. I thought it wouldn't take long & maybe would even be entertaining. I was wrong, way wrong. B-O-R-I-N-G and time-consuming. Although I do get to see what people in other libraries are reading--or at least want to borrow from us.
I ordered a bathing suit yesterday, still on the hunt for the perfect fit. I got one the other day (I only shop Land's E*d overstocks). It's ok but not very pretty. At least I have something. I'll NEVER order a suit that's all one color. That made me look particularly sausage-like. I have a barrel-shaped body, lucky me I inherited my mother's body type. Not true for my sister, or my brother. At least my mother also gave me good hair color--it's barely gray and the gray hairs are barely visible.