Memorial Day Note

On this night I am keeping vigil, partly out of respect for the fallen who have paid the price which enables me to sit in the safety and comfort of my own home, sitting up all night every night if I want to, sleeping in peace, pattering at my keyboard, just doing what I do.

Another part of it is that on this night I can feel so many emotions riding the air that I doubt I could sleep anyway.

Yet another part is that I want to be awake as the morning dawns - because that's when my flag goes into its place by my front door. 

2015 May: Robin Hood

While mowing my front yard last week a pair of agitated robins kept making their warning cheep and swooping around the corner of my house. I looked in the honeysuckle and up into the trees nearby but didn't see a nest that they would be defending, so finished my mowing and they calmed down.

Yesterday when I mowed again they did the same thing and this time I found the nest - tucked into the corner of the outside window ledge at the front corner of my porch.

The grass will likely get a little long right around there for a while here. I'm fine with that.

Today, while out in my porch, I glanced over that way and saw a wide open baby robin beak waving around and ran to get my camera. By the time I got close enough to have taken a photo, a sharp cheep from a parent had that baby huddled down playing possum in the nest.

After a little while along comes a parent with a worm in its beak, landing on a little branch of the honeysuckle. It cocked its head at me one way, then cocked it the other way, and the baby kept its head down in the nest. I watched for a while, hoping to get a nice photo of the little one getting that worm, but that parent bird just kept giving me that old eagle eye so I'm leaving them alone for a while.

I did, however, raise the blind of that window right there so as to be able to have a better view. It gives them a better view, too. When I went back out, a parent was on the nest, watching me through the window.

Heh heh.

I just got myself a scolding from a bird.

I also got a 'sort of' picture of that baby's open mouth ... 

I'm fascinated by having a bird's nest that's only a windowpane away and it's tempting to just sit out there and watch- but I won't. It's not worth it to cause the parents the worry or to interfere with the baby's feeding, not just because I want to watch them and try to take pictures of them. 

While doing yard work on the other side of the house I saw that a nest in my ash tree over there wasn't the old abandoned nest that I had thought it was!

I'm surrounded!

Ah yes, life in the Robin Hood ... 

2015 May 22 Beautiful Day Outdoors

1800

Below - watch out for the stickers among these things. This is a pile of last year's six foot tall thistles that the owners of the house next door let get out of hand. 

Getting rid of the ones that had spread to my yard didn't do me much good so I went ahead and pulled all of the old ones from last year, getting filled with cockle-burrs in the process, not the least bit fun. It took me almost an hour to get them all off of my clothes, hat, and skin - not to mention my hair (OUCH!).

Then I mixed up a concoction I read about on line (vinegar, salt, and Dawn dish soap) and gave my own yard in that area a good dosing with it. If it works I'll have a dead place right there but it's better than six foot thistles.

Next on my agenda was finally getting around to edging my sidewalks. Below is 'before'. Over the years my yard has grown higher than the sidewalk. Grass clippings and dirt from the snow removal piles have started to fill in the edges of the yard/sidewalk, over-growing it with new turf.

In the below photo you can see the beginnings of progress on this project.

And this (below), my friend, is what I've been wanting to see. That's probably about three inches of sod above the level of the sidewalk, mm-hmmm. 

I have a plan for that space, I tell you true. But before I can proceed with it, I have some collecting to do, yes indeed I do! And some basic supplies to buy. And some time to do it. And several days of really nice weather.

It will get done this summer, though, watch me. I have to remember to stop in at the old Strata place next time I'm in the Forks. I don't think it's a Strata division any more, but the products ought to be about the same - and I have a certain thing in mind that those guys, if anyone, will have or get for me. It will be the sixth of next month before I get up that way, but the timing ought to be just about right if they have what I need on hand. Which I'm betting they will.

So it's been a kind of busy day. For much of the afternoon, while I was cutting the turf from the sidewalk with a flat spade and carrying it to places that need a bit of building up, I had as company a couple of the most charming little boys I've ever met. 

Chattering away to beat the band, they were excellent company and made my job actually sort of fun. They helped me load my little red wagon and the littler one (age 4) walked alongside to keep the top turfs from falling off. He had to pick up a couple, and we laughed.

A bunch of the pieces went to fill an old stump hole; the rest went into the front flower beds (flower-less, alas).

The trees, however, are not flowerless.

Lilac

Honeysuckle

Chokecherry

All of the above plus Flowering Crab 

I don't have Flowering Crab any more although they used to be in the mixed hedge between my house and the little house next door. Some years ago some outsiders moved into the little white house and, while I was working dark to dark (work hours, not including commute time) on road-building projects, they one day cut the whole entire hedge down, including the lilacs and the Flowering Crab trees. I could have shot them but didn't have the time or the energy. Those were the ones who informed me that they believed everyone ought to get rid of their grass lawns, pour their yards with concrete, and paint it green. And I do believe they were serious.

The Steeds of the Younglings

*laughing*

I do the best I can and hope for a miracle.

Here's a rough sketch of the Younglings' rides:

Merri on Glisten, a chestnut Percheron (the 'blooded' horses of these books); Arabians for Diann and Corrbed; Welsh Ponies for Dothann and Brann; a Shetland for little Rua.

It's not finished by a long shot but what the heck. I'm having way too much fun with this, I tell ya. I spent hours deciding who was going to ride what kind of 'horse'. The only one I knew for sure was that Merri was on a Percheron; she's the only one who has an actual full-sized official Dunnottar horse. The rest I had to figure out. Diann and Corrbed are too big for ponies so I went with Arabians for them being as they aren't as big as the Percherons. Dothann and Brann are old enough to not want to ride Shetlands, so they got Welsh Ponies, leaving little Rua with her little Shetland Pony.

Part of the fun of this has been remembering the ponies and horses of my own ancient past, my younger days.

Grandad raised Quarterhorses and Herefords - working horses and red cattle.

But he had a couple of ponies for us little ones. These were Muggy, a Shetland Pony, and Midnight, a Welsh Pony.

Now you would think that it would make sense to start us on the smallest of the bunch, Muggy the Shetland. But it didn't work that way. We (at least I) started with Midnight, the Welsh Pony. You see, although he was bigger, Midnight was the sweetest thing on the face of the earth. Muggy, by comparison, was a demon from hell.

Once we got to a certain age, old enough to not ride with an adult or be led by one, we got to ride Midnight. Someone would help us saddle up, and around the yard we would go, first being led and then on our own. 

When we got proficient with Midnight, we could give Muggy a try. After giving that a try or two, it was a distinct relief to get back up on Midnight. 

Midnight would go where I wanted him to go. He would walk, trot, lope like he was supposed to. He never bucked, no matter what. He never bit. He never kicked. He never tried to swipe me off on the corral posts. He never was anything but kind and gentle.

Muggy, the devil, was the opposite. He did all of the above bad things and none of the good ones. He was mean.

We did, however, learn to ride him and to make him do what we wanted instead of any old thing he felt like at any given time.

As we grew, we naturally started eyeing the Quarterhorses. Me, I had my eye on a palomino named Mr. Ed after the horse in the television show, the one who could talk.

When I was big enough and strong enough and capable enough to saddle him, that's when I got to ride him.

Saddling him wasn't a real problem; he was good natured about it for the most part. Except for the times he took a deep breath and swelled his chest cavity just before I tightened the cinch. I'd to go climb aboard and he'd let that breath out. And the saddle wasn't on nearly as firmly as I had figured. Twice he did that and then Grandad told me to knee him in the belly when I tightened the cinch. Worked like a charm, that did. Whoosh - out would go his breath. And quick like a snake I'd tighten that cinch.

There have been a couple of other horses in my life but Mr. Ed will forever have my heart. He grew old out on the ranch and his bones may be there yet for all I know.

Anyway, looking at the mounts of the Younglings, there are no Quarterhorses among them (the breed wasn't a breed back then). Dothann's pony looks like he might have an attitude, Rua's little pony needs to get the hair out of her eyes, and Brann's pony seems to be a nice person.

At any rate, I've got a lot of fixing to do on that sketch if I intend to use it, and the Younglings to get onto their mounts. I can only hope to get the figures right without wrecking what I've already got done here.

I started with the biggest, drew it complete; drew the next one over the top of it and erased the parts of the horse behind it; and so it went. Seems strange to have erased so much of the work I put into them, but it is what it is - has to be that way.

And I guess I'd better get to it or it won't get done.

It's been far too long since I've done any sketching to speak of - it will be good for me to get back into it. It's for the fun of it - I'm certainly not much good at it, but it is fun.

Two 'Youngling' Books Texts Finished

Now I just have to get the cover paintings and the illustrations done ... 

That pretty much tells you what I'll be doing for the next few days!

Why I Sometimes Just Walk Away

The other person may not feel it in the air, but if I do feel it I will hopefully be able to just walk away.

Being unable to do so can and has resulted in some intensely uncomfortable physical reactions for me.

What does that have to do with dolphins?

Nothing.

I just like dolphins, find them soothing to my soul.

Spending Time vs Killing Time

One of the things I love most in this life is spending time with my daughters.

One of the things I love most about technology is that it can give us some 'together time' even when we're far apart. I thoroughly adore talking to them, getting pictures and videos, going 'shopping' with them, messaging on social media, even texting - these are communication tools no prior generations had and they are truly blessings for many of us who live too far from those we love.

The access to research on line, the ability to submit a file instead of snail-mailing a manuscript, the absolute convenience of being able to go in and change a word or add a paragraph without having to re-type an entire page or chapter - you bet it's handy! Being able to use computers for publishing purposes enables a lot of us to share in ways that would have been impossible not so very long ago.

Spending time with people I love, spending time doing my homework and doing my job ... these are what time is meant to be spent on.

Spending time is an investment that pays off always emotionally when it comes to my daughters, and many times financially as the investment pays off in royalties.

So I'm not knocking technology here, believe me!

On the other side of the coin, however, is another side to the story.

Right now, for example, I could (and should) be doing any number of things besides sitting at my keyboard.

All too often I find myself killing time - I don't play the games that many do on line, but hours can go by without my notice when I'm just browsing around the web. Unless it's daughter-time or research that will directly contribute to the content of my books, or using the web to reach out to others with what I want to share, those hours are but killing time. Those hours are dead, and once dead, time cannot be called back.

There's a big difference between spending time, investing it so to speak, and killing it.

Mea culpa. I have murdered many of my days, and forfeited more I could have spent on worthy investments, by killing time.

That's what's on my mind this day.