Small towns

Our Post Office has 3 employees (soon to be two) Post Mistress Diane, a weekday delivery person Lid and a substitute for Sat. delivery person Sarah.  Our weekday delivery driver Lid York retired today after 25 years.  There was a party at the Masonic Hall for Lid with townspeople celebrating her retirement with homemade goodies and a party.    

Our mail box is a long way from the house so I don't see her often, but I  know Lid from around town and she always smiles and waves when you pass her delivering mail.  Rain, snow, ice, heat there she was and the mail was always delivered around 10, like clockwork.  We are blessed to have good people here doing their jobs well.   We won't know till next week if our substitute person is hired as the weekday delivery person.  Job could go to a veteran.  Nothing against vets, but Sarah could use the money.

Hours are due to be cut 2014 so Diana will lose two hours a day.  Ouch to her and ouch to us who might want to buy stamps in those hours.     I love the smallness and the fact that Sarah asks after our dogs whenever I see her and Diane knows that the wildly wrapped packages are from my sister.

warmish

Not yet the end of May and we are having 80's 

which is pretty funny considering part of the state had snow two days ago.  

Working on my garden out at the nest which was looking pretty ratty.  

Still needs work, but is better.

Noticed when out there that Gis died this week 10 years ago.  

He died right at the nest which he loved.

He and I sat out there a great deal. Good memories of a good dog.

soaking wet weekend

transistion

So we have gone from dandelions to buttercups 
and 

from apple blossoms to hawthorn blooming.  
As one fades,

 the next takes center stage.  

Grass is growing and the field birds are all over, 

flycatchers and meadowlarks 

and the other night I heard the whippoorwill for the first time this year.  
The air is heady with the smell of flowers
oh yes we have moved from black flies to mosquitoes.
This is Memorial Day weekend which is the start of summer,
yard sales and BBQ.

then the rains came

Shunka, Indigo and I were walking in a slight drizzle up to the top of the hill on our evening walk when the skies opened and it poured.  Shunka gets wild in rain so he started to chase poor Indigo around every bush, tree and stick in the field.  I said home dogs so they both charged down the path next to the stone wall towards the house ---- Way faster than I were they.  They both came to a screaming stop mid path each running under a pine tree for shelter-- How smart these hounds!  As I came close they both took off again, racing home, Shunka to the basement door and Indigo ducked into the dome where it was dry.  

Happiness is a wet puppy, or a dry puppy, or any puppy at all.

space

The other day I was sitting in a small interior room at a hospital 

for over two hours which really isn't all that long, but it felt it. 

 I was not a happy camper.  

It had no views, very akin to Dr examining rooms (or a closet!)

 I find I need light and views even if windows don't open.  

Maybe we are spoiled with the giant windows all over the house. 

My space is important to me, bright, airy, comfortable is important. 

Those other spaces are claustrophobic, confining, depressing, oppressive

and how could one enjoy that!

childhood friend

what is not to love with the dandelion?

early 15c., earlier dent-de-lioun (late 14c.), 
from Middle French dent de lion, 

literally "lion's tooth" (from its toothed leaves), 

Other folk names, like tell-time refer to the custom of telling the time 
by blowing the white seed (the number of puffs 
required to blow them all off supposedly being the number of the hour),

 or to the plant's more authentic diuretic qualities, 
preserved in Middle English

 piss-a-bed and French pissenlit.

mornings are bestest

Once we get in gear we walk; the yard, the fields, the woods, 

down to the neighboring bog. 

Stunningly beautiful is our world and ever changing, 

good exercise and new sniffs for Shunka and Indigo, 

BIG exercise for short legged Wooly Bear,

new sights for us, hawks, ducks, geese, orioles, flora and fauna. 

Then home again, home again, 

~ Home is where the heart is. ~

powerful

In winter here some plants get weighted down by  

leaves, branches, trees or just the weight of plowed snow.  

This fern instead of coming up straight way was growing out flat sideways,

 but has been slowly straightening itself over the last week.

These ferns remind me of the dance of a thousand hands.....

http://www.youtube.com/embed/7vs-H7xLnrs?rel=0

the disease of muchness

I rejoined BJ's.   In hindsight this is not so wise as 
BJ's sells things in bulk

 and muchness and multitudes. 

People with huge families or those running restaurants can buy there, 

but we are a family of two. 

 I find myself noticing the signs of a disease we all suffer in this country, 
muchness. 

If one is good, two is better. 
Bigger CD player, a TV on each floor, 

 more powerful engine on the car, huge dish of food at the eatery.
I can save if I buy more, but do I need that more?

We own 5 pairs of snowshoes, tons of baseball caps, sweaters, 

I have woven many things given away many, but still have an abundance. 
three, count them, looms, tons of yarn, 
2 cameras and Tim has one.  Really this is crazy when you consider it.

 Not one, but Two 40 acre lots, a house (we downsized), 

but then we added 
a 8 x 10 playhouse, a sauna, a yurt, a garage and a greenhouse.
Does this seem a tad excessive for two with no kids, no extended family?

What is with this?  What am I trying to fill?  

I feel I live simply.  

Well balderdash to that!  

I am not sure of a cure.

  Maybe trying to be aware 

that buying two pairs of shoes when I need one is nuts. 

THAT MORE IS NOT BETTER

 Maybe I need to ask each and every time 

I am in buy mode, 

is this needed?  

It is like a camel with it nose under the tent, 
slow, sneaky ~~soon you have a camel in the tent 

inviting in friends.  

window on the woods

violets a favorite...

Everyone has favorites and violets are one of mine. 

 I wanted them for my wedding bouquet 

and was told they were not available.  

Daisies were what I and my bridesmaids carried and were lovely.   

 Bet nowadays violets could be had!

it is may and it is amazing.

Primroses, oh my goodness, stunning this May

Pear tree on our first rainy day in forever! Lots and lots of blossoms.

happy little pussytoes - they are everywhere

Lots of apples this year.  Look at all the beautiful blossoms!
This is a banner year for fruit blossoms.  Can't ever remember so many.

Spring is nature's way of saying, Let's Party 
~ Robin Williams

spring springeth

Everyday there is another something blooming.  Ah ha moments!  

 One day there is nothing 

and

then one by one leaves leaf out and buds swell and bees buzz.

Spring makes one so believe in a power greater than ourselves.  

Miracles, Big Fat miracles starting with the birds finding their way back

 and daffadils pushing up leaves to green and bloom!  

Magic and miracles.  

If one sat and watched 

 one could just watch spring spring.

to be celebrated

When Women Were Birds

Once upon a time

when women were birds,

There was the simple understanding

that to sing at dawn

and to sing at dusk

Was to heal the world through joy.

The birds still remember what we have forgotten,

That the world is meant to be celebrated.

- Terry Tempest Williams

play and pray

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, 

places to play and pray, 

where nature heals and gives strength to body and soul alike.

John Muir

the development

falling down shed at Joey's

We live on 80 acres, in a development of 6 forty acre+ lots.  

 Yesterday I was wandering Joey's acreage, the one with the original farmhouse

 and barn that he torched 12 years ago.  His land used to be easy to walk.   

Now it is overgrowing and difficult.  I had decided to walk to the farm pond 

which used to be pretty easy to get to.  It used to be in the midst of nothing

 on the edge of the cleared field.  

Now the field is full of trees and two houses are close by, within sight.  

Our little undeveloped sub development has developed.  

It was wonderfully magical way back 

when I didn't share this space 

when it was mostly untouched and mostly uninhabited and oh so quiet and wild

and only me enjoying the 240 acres.  

Progress, time marching on.  

It touches us all even when we try to get away and hide away from it.

From Joey's field the nest

one side of the farm pond

second life

In losing our oak we gained a big empty stump, not too lovely.

Last year I tried sunflowers which worked, but lacked excitement.

This year I decided to fill it with tall fountain grasses. 

I went to Plainview and had helpful conversation

 with the owner's husband. 

 I also looked at what the grasses looked like early spring.  

Like a mowed lawn. Terrible. 

Need to be cut back, new growth then appears and new growth 
very slow according to my source.  This was not going to work!

 I spotted the weeping trees which I had seen in the garden at Pineland.

Oh my they are wonderful, oh so lovely.  Like dancers. 

   Price tag (how gauche to discuss the price)  made my eyeballs spin.  

I justified cost as I would have had to buy at least 3 of the grasses

to fill the space and they don't give grasses away either.  

 I made the leap and the investment

and lovely staff put my weeping spruce in the Scion.

As if that were not enough joy for one day, 

got home to a box from Patti who felt Buddha Bear

should be ours.  Love Buddha!!!!

Buddha is beautious and looks charming on the stump.

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."
Les Brown