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