Close to quitting time, but another hour for me. I'm working until 5 today, the last day we need coverage to 5 until Labor Day.
I was running early this morning, had my day all planned around a long lunch when I could accomplish a lot & get my errands all done. Sure, that worked fine until I got to Saranac, when I realized I'd forgotten my purse at home. How girly girl, a purse. Anyway, I went back for it, was on the road from 7:15 to 8:45, when I finally got to work. So I didn't take a very long lunch, and I cut out some of the errands I'd hoped to do, but it all worked out. I guess. I went grocery shopping, for just a few things (cheese & crackers for the former in-laws to have on the boat house porch this weekend). Every Canadian in the country is in America for their 3-day weekend. Stay off the roads, it's not worth it. They're all driving campers & towing cars. It's a nightmare. Plus tonight is high school graduation so all hell is breaking loose out there. People people everywhere, all going crazy.
I'll have a busy weekend. Tonight I'm meeting Linda in AuSable at the farmers' market. It's the first time AuSable has had one, so it's important for us all to go to support it. After hanging around there a bit we'll go to dinner, who knows where. Maybe the diner in AuSable. yum. grease. I thought I'd been eating pretty carefully, but I gained 2 pounds this week. Back to where I was after LAST weekend, when I ate too much of the wrong things. A slippery slope. I have to be vigilant all summer.
My friends the Blue Heron Boys (sounds like a musical group, but they're former campers who own a camp down from my house) are here for a week. They're great fun to be with. Each year they have this week together ("workfest") when they open camp and get lots of things done. And climb some mountains. They always have a Theme Dinner Night, and it's a surprise so you don't know ahead of time what to expect. I've no idea what it will be this year, but it'll be this weekend.
I have to walk the dogs this weekend, I've been neglecting them terribly. They practically had to introduce themselves to me this morning, and I realized then that I haven't been with them much, and I certainly haven't been walking them. oops. Seems I mostly walk on the weekends, which is not what I'd hoped for myself.
There will be people in camp this weekend--my ex-husband's parents (cousins). We got along really well for years but then we had a bit of a problem and things have not been great for a while. I try, and we relax after a while of being together, but it's not what it used to be. Which I suppose is to be expected. And though I sort of miss them, my life is simpler now. Busy, but simpler.
My colleague/clerk is on vacation next week. Yikes, this means I'll be doing 2 jobs next week. Or just doing hers. Her work is the sort that needs to be done every day by a certain time. I don't like her job, but she rarely takes time off so I can't complain. She's heading to S.Carolina with her son & parents, is looking forward to being on the ocean. I don't blame her, I'd like to be on the ocean, too. I'll be in RI for 2 weeks in August. That seems like a long time from now.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
001
The boardwalk, looking a little old and sad. It is old.
I like it when the ferns get so big they hang over the boardwalk. There haven't been too many peope in the bog lately--not even Tess is tempted to join the few groups there have been on the weekends. Now that it's almost July I bet business will pick up. Let's see how Tess does this year. She has a new tag on her collar that says, basically "I'm Tess the Bog Dog, I live next door" Hoping that will help people relax and not feel so intense about driving her home or leaving me phone messages reporting my missing dog. People have always been really nice like that, but it's gotten tiresome over the years. Mostly I have Tess cabled, but she runs off every now & then.
I stayed in the boat house last night, it was a pleasant night. Temp around 50. I read on the porch for a long time. There's nothing else to do in the evening there, which is one reason I like going there. Unplug me from the TV. The cat sometimes joins us but last night she stayed home. So she could act irritated with me this morning.
My favorite fern
I like this fern a lot. There's only one of it in the whole bog. I think it's called a Victoria fern. or something like that.
005
Baptisia (false inidigo). This is a great plant but it's getting old. Or rather, IS old. My mother got it for me more than 20 years ago. It used to be a huge shrub, now it's a more modest bush.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Where have I been?
I haven't blogged in a long time, obviously. I've been sending long letters to my mother, which seems to leave me all written out. She likes getting mail (who doesn't, probably) so I try to send her a long chatty letter every week. Not hard for me to be chatty, but I don't like repeating myself in a blog or email, so my mother usually gets the best efforts. She's doing well, enjoying the season pretty much but tired of the rain. She doesn't complain, just comments. She, like me, has a bunch of little plantlets to put in the ground. Most of my flowers have been planted and are doing all right. I never planted the marigolds, which were free seeds so I never felt too attached to them. The cosmos acre is coming along nicely. I'm soaking my morning glory seeds so I can plant them, maybe tonight. My nasturtiums didn't do very well, quite a disappointment. I'm hoping enough will survive and thrive so that I'll be able to pick flowers later on. I like a small bouquet of nasties next to my bed. It's a nice smell.
Work is going well, no big adventures. Trip to Tupper Lake last week, which was a nice thing. There's a rooster across the street from the library and it crows all day. I like the sound but I can see that you might get tired of it. My mother told me that we had chickens in Turkey and that our rooster crowed so much the neighbors got annoyed so we had to get rid of him. Wonder how ... We had finches, too. My father always liked having birds. He bred canaries at one point. We had a male (orange) and female (brown--sparrow-like) who hatched 3 eggs. One was orange and beautiful, one looked just like the female and the third was piebald, orange and brown, not attractive. My sister and I each picked one of the pretty ones and played with the baby birds until they died. We played them to death. Anyway, the survivor turned out to be a male who lived for 11 years and sang beautifully. He was in my sister's room for years but she got tired of him & he moved to my room. I liked having him and was sad when he died. We lived in 3 different places while we had him.
I've got the boat house pretty much opened up, but there's cleaning I need to get done. I did sweep the floor, in prep. of book group. There are a bunch of magazines, from many years, which I seem to leave there every year. This will be the year I'll get rid of them. I'll also wash the refridgerator and empty the garbage. Tonight I'm picking up a comforter, king-sized, and some sheets. Freecycle. Let's see how groaty they are, but maybe they'll be ok to use in the b.house.
I've been pretty busy having a social life. And it's just the beginning. Some friends were up a couple of weekends ago and I saw them. Joe & Martha are in residence and I stop there often. Jim & Pat are around, of course, and I see them often. Linda is here and I see her once in a while. Fred is in residence and I try to see him often. We've been out to dinner a couple of times--we bravely went to Big Daddy's restaurant in Clayburg. It's quite an experience. It's an old biker bar and the door to the restroom is heavy metal and all dented. Lends an air of authenticity to the place, no?
I got a lot done during my May vacation. Painted the windowsills in the living room, though the color wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. It matched the chip perfectly, just looked different than I'd expected. Brown. They look better than before, when they were dirty white, but it's an odd color, I think. I primed the kitchen cupboards/doors. Now I have to pick out a color for them. Some sort of gray-ish something. Not the black I had intended, I know now that would make the room seem even smaller than it is. Big goal is to paint the living room. Now THERE'S a big goal. How would I ever decide what color to paint it? Something that goes with a strange shade of brown.
Work is going well, no big adventures. Trip to Tupper Lake last week, which was a nice thing. There's a rooster across the street from the library and it crows all day. I like the sound but I can see that you might get tired of it. My mother told me that we had chickens in Turkey and that our rooster crowed so much the neighbors got annoyed so we had to get rid of him. Wonder how ... We had finches, too. My father always liked having birds. He bred canaries at one point. We had a male (orange) and female (brown--sparrow-like) who hatched 3 eggs. One was orange and beautiful, one looked just like the female and the third was piebald, orange and brown, not attractive. My sister and I each picked one of the pretty ones and played with the baby birds until they died. We played them to death. Anyway, the survivor turned out to be a male who lived for 11 years and sang beautifully. He was in my sister's room for years but she got tired of him & he moved to my room. I liked having him and was sad when he died. We lived in 3 different places while we had him.
I've got the boat house pretty much opened up, but there's cleaning I need to get done. I did sweep the floor, in prep. of book group. There are a bunch of magazines, from many years, which I seem to leave there every year. This will be the year I'll get rid of them. I'll also wash the refridgerator and empty the garbage. Tonight I'm picking up a comforter, king-sized, and some sheets. Freecycle. Let's see how groaty they are, but maybe they'll be ok to use in the b.house.
I've been pretty busy having a social life. And it's just the beginning. Some friends were up a couple of weekends ago and I saw them. Joe & Martha are in residence and I stop there often. Jim & Pat are around, of course, and I see them often. Linda is here and I see her once in a while. Fred is in residence and I try to see him often. We've been out to dinner a couple of times--we bravely went to Big Daddy's restaurant in Clayburg. It's quite an experience. It's an old biker bar and the door to the restroom is heavy metal and all dented. Lends an air of authenticity to the place, no?
I got a lot done during my May vacation. Painted the windowsills in the living room, though the color wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. It matched the chip perfectly, just looked different than I'd expected. Brown. They look better than before, when they were dirty white, but it's an odd color, I think. I primed the kitchen cupboards/doors. Now I have to pick out a color for them. Some sort of gray-ish something. Not the black I had intended, I know now that would make the room seem even smaller than it is. Big goal is to paint the living room. Now THERE'S a big goal. How would I ever decide what color to paint it? Something that goes with a strange shade of brown.
003
Silver Lake Mountain, of course. You can just see the brightness of the deciduous trees. Leaves a poppin'.
This is the view from the boat house. I've stayed there a few times but not lately. It was wicked hot so I stayed there, but now it's cooler so I've been staying at home. Will I regret this later? Anyone's guess. I like staying at home when the weather's nice, sleeping with the window open. And getting up to my house/yard in the spring. Summer. Whatever. It feels as if summer is well underway, though the season hasn't really started yet. July, that's when it's really summer. Right now it feels as if it's time to move on to the next season. We've already had a bunch of summer.
This is the view from the boat house. I've stayed there a few times but not lately. It was wicked hot so I stayed there, but now it's cooler so I've been staying at home. Will I regret this later? Anyone's guess. I like staying at home when the weather's nice, sleeping with the window open. And getting up to my house/yard in the spring. Summer. Whatever. It feels as if summer is well underway, though the season hasn't really started yet. July, that's when it's really summer. Right now it feels as if it's time to move on to the next season. We've already had a bunch of summer.
002
I really like the way my driveway looks when it's a little hazy and humid. The forest is incredibly lush right now.
016
Ferns in bloom in the bog. They're getting big, which is what I love. They get huge, as tall as I am, and look really prehistoric. Right now they're an incredibly bright green. They look so happy.
012
Labrador tea. Not leatherleaf. I can't imagine the tea made from these plants would be at all ingestible.
008
Canada mayflower. In June. These are very tiny little things and come up early but take a while to bloom. Not to be confused with foamflower.
009
Bunchberry. Member of the dogwood family. Found everywhere. Very pretty. Red berries emerge when the flowers go by.
002
Clintonia. Named for the governor of New York (DeWitt, not Hillary, who has yet to be a governor). The blossom turns into a huge blue berry-like thing that looks delicious. But DON'T EAT IT. It's poisonous (supposedly).
005
I don't know the name of these tiny plants. Mountain something. Every year I have to look up the name. They're reallly tiny and drape on the ground in a very pretty way.
003
This is what a spruce tree looks like if it's growing, in the spring. New growth on the tips of the boughs. Very pretty effect. These are black spruce trees, which smell like cat pee when they get wet. I have a friend who learned that the hard way at Christmas time.
008
New growth on a balsam. We always had balsam Christmas trees when I was growing up. It was something my father wanted. My 1st (rude) sister-in-law commented on how crappy our Christmas trees looked, so my mother swtiched to a Douglas fir. Now she loves her fir trees and has a full, gorgeous tree every Christmas. I still have balsam trees and try to get them from my own land. Not a philosophical thing, more like I cut it because it's convenient. One year I had a huge pine tree. Never again--I got wicked bad scratched just putting it up, never mind what happened when I decorated it. It was pretty, though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)