BOOKS



I've sorted my books and have four boxes to go OUT.  This is a second sorting, as I've already disposed of several boxes full.

Hopefully I'll hve a chance to take them to the bookstore in Bemidji where my daughter Heather lives before I get so totally fed up with all the clutter around here that I simply take them to the dump. 

That bookstore is great!  They'll take your books (the ones in good shape) and use them as a discount on the books you want to buy. 

Depending on how many of the books that are filling my four boxes meet their standards, I figure Heather might be able to get at least a few for herself and Zachary (her son) and Bob (her husband) at a mighty fine price. 

I've got about 350 books left after the weeding out process. 

As my grandchildren learn to read they will inherit most of the older books if they want them, a lot of which I grew up with.

Now that I have spcae on my bookshelves I can begin to gradually search for, buy, and shelve more of the books I really want to have on hand.  Over the course of the years, and all the moves, many of my favorites have been lost or left behind along the way.  It's time to replace the ones I love and find others to add to that collection.

WOOLY BEARS WERE RIGHT THIS TIME

Last fall I posted when I found a wooly bear caterpillar in SEPTEMBER (as opposed to June the year we had an AWFUL winter).

Now that I can be pretty sure that our 'winter' is over I can probably safely say that the little guys were right about it being a nice winter.

I have for a long time paid attention to when I saw them migrating for their winter hibernation - early is bad; late is very good; August is about normal.  Naturally this has been solely my own hypothesis and totally NOT based on anyone else's ideas or logic. 

I used to make the drive to the Valley on a fairly regular basis, which is where I generally saw them, crossing the highway.  Because I think they're cute little things I avoided running over them (as opposed to salamanders, which I WILL run over every chance I get) and so watched for them. 

Then I heard that they are harbingers of the winters, and began paying attention to when I noticed them first. 

Having no idea at the time that the size of the stripes was supposed to be what I was looking at (not to mention that it would have considerably slowed down my drive time had I stopped to examine every one I saw) I just kind of unscientifically noted the general time of year I could expect to have to avoid running over them. 

Now, of course, I have researched the hteory and tend to agree with those who say the stripe is a fair indicator of the winter PAST, not the one to come.  That only makes sense to me. 

HOWEVER ... having said THAT, the fact that I saw none crossing any roads last year until September (the winter before was a terrible one and I was afraid they had all perished) together with the fact that last winter was mild (to put it mildly) encourages me to be on the lookout for them this summer, just to test my personal hypothesis. 

We shall see what we shall see I reckon.  I hope not to see THEM crossing my path until at least very late August, but if I see them any time soon, I'll start getting my wood pile ready, invest in lamp oil and candles, and stock up on other winter necessities.

Garden Update!

I have a beginning on my garden!

In the big flower pot (and I do mean BIG) I planted onions and potatoes, both of which are coming up.  The onions are bigger than the potatoes right now, but that is likely to change.

In the pots I used to have geraniums in, flanking the front door steps, I this year planted carrots, which are coming along nicely although still very small.  They aren't flowers, but their tops are very ferny and will be lovely right up until I pull the carrots!

Beets are barely poking through the dirt in one of the front flower beds; hopefully they'll take off and grow like crazy pretty soon.

Along the back yard fence hang small gunny sacks.  Inside the gunny sacks are big pop bottles with the ends cut off and the tops removed (bottom side up) filled with potting soil and sprouting onions at this point.  I'll add carrots as soon as I get more of the sacks constructed and buy more potting soil. 

Buying more dirt (what a concept - I live in one of the best farming areas in the world!) will also mean I'll be ready to put the tomato, pepper, bean, cucumber, and squash sets into their containers as soon as I buy them.

More dirt will also allow me to expand the tire container up a notch with another tire as soon as those potato plants are big enough (it will be a while yet; they're still pretty little) and then yet another notch in due course.  It's a technique I heard about years ago but have never tried - so this year I'm going to see if it really works! 

I threw some chive seeds into a corner of my courtyard, back by the poppies.  If they grow, I'll have a nice chive plot to harvest when I cook out there.  One definite advantage is that they (like onions) produce pretty purple flowers when they're allowed to grow all the way up.  Round purple spots of color will be great in that corner if they manage to survive and thrive. 

Well For Heaven's Sake!!!!!

Blogs are wonderful things.

I was just reading some of my older posts and realized that I have more to do than I remembered. 

Nothing like a nice long LIST to keep me busy, huh? 

A couple of the things I had almost forgotten about doing are projects that I can do with my feet on the GROUND (as opposed to roofing) so I'm thinking I should maybe get to them on one of these windy days when I don't want to have to depend on my lifeline (a great big rope) to keep me on the roof while the wind tries to whoosh me off of it.

One of the 'back-burner' projects is turning that window into a door. 

Getting it done will:  1)  Give me a very satisfying immediate access to my courtyard, and this is the time of year to thoroughly enjoy it; 2)  Get the door and frame OUT of the kitchen (out of my way, in other words) and into place in the wall where it belongs; and 3)  Allow me to mark at least ONE of my projects off my list in a matter of one day, as opposed to the MANY days it's going to take for most of the rest of them.

Here I've been letting myself feel discouraged at the lack of noticeable progress, and the solution to THAT is right there in front of me every time I go into the kitchen. 

Sometimes I have to wonder about myself.

Back Porch Demolition

Half wall and door area gone.

One set of scaffolding so I can reach the roof.

The floor has to GO!

Beginning a debris pile.

It's a dirty job, but I've got to do it!

Roofless.

The debris pile grows.

Supervisor.



Time For WANT TO ... Enough HAVE TO Already!

2012 MAY

I HAVE A NUMBER OF BLOGS GOING 

One of them is like a catch-all blog, where I tend to put any- and every-thing as I go along, and then eventually go through them all and try to figure out which ones go where. 

I’ve got Shiela Branson, that’s the main one.  Then there’s Poetry, Artwork, Youth Fiction, Photography, and Short Stories.  I’m going to have to start other sub-blogs for my family tree stuff, yet another one for the Vignettes I’ve written along the way, and one where I can post some of the newspaper articles I wrote back when I was doing that on a regular basis. 

In my main blog I have a fairly large number of drafts; I’m trying to garner the courage to put them out there but it’s a challenge. 

At any rate, there are photos that I have to add to a lot of the ones I’ve already got written.  It seems such a CHORE, adding them all. 

Well, geez.  It wouldn’t be such a CHORE if I’d just put them in as I go along.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I just have to DO it! 

Once in a while I look at the different blogs and realize that I have dozens of things I want to add to them.  I tell myself I’m going to JUST DO IT.  And then I turn around and do something else instead.  There are too many things I HAVE to do; as soon as I get caught up on all of them I’ll be able to do some of the things I WANT to do. 

Hmmm … I can see that I’m going to have to figure out some kind of compromise here.  Right now there’s no BALANCE; except for the rare times I go visit one of my girls, my life consists of the HAVE TO and the WANT TO just isn’t anywhere in the picture. 

So there’s one thing I need to focus on for just a bit I reckon.  Finding a balance sure would be nice.

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES - EVENTUALLY - I HOPE - BUT NOT TODAY

2012 MAY SORTING OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

I could spend far more time than I have available doing this, let me tell you!

There are several good-sized boxes of photos waiting for my attention, and part of me is eager to get into them!  I want to see what’s there, to have a chance to ‘visit’ once again people who are now gone but whom I still love as dearly as always.

And I have to laugh at myself.  Because I know that I had better NOT give in to that temptation any time soon – there are projects I have to get done before I can reward myself. 

I must be STERN with myself!  I must be STRONGER than the temptation.  I must RESIST. 

Mm-hmmm. 

I’ll do the best I can. 

No guarantees.

One of these days I’ll set aside an entire day for scanning pictures, just to see how big a dent I can make in one day.  I already know it’s going to take a lot more than just that one day, so don’t get excited about immediate results! 

Today I found a SMALL box of old pictures, from my own archives.  That alone took me several hours to go through. 

Maybe it took so long because I was popping into and out of various abodes lining my Memory Lane, spending a little time in each.