Living with the sun

bigger birds

2012-01-30T19:32:00.000-05:00

Here's Booger! (That should be a Johnny-Carson announcing "Here.")

Her foot is in focus, but the rest of her is moving very fast, coming to see what that shiny thing I've got in my hand can be. Booger's an Amazon who is a permanent resident at my second job. We all refer to her as she, but she has not, as far as anyone knows, laid an egg.

I've realized that I get such good expressions from the birds because the back of the iPod is shiny.

Shiny, I tell you!

The two macaws also find it fascinating.

They examine the shiny...

...from several angles.

I find the large birds more and more fascinating, but at my age I have no intention of getting too interested in creatures with lifespans averaging greater than forty years. (Aside from the feather allergy.)

orchids again

2012-01-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

I must think of more distinguishable orchid titles, because I think there will be a lot of them.

You don't usually think of brown as a possible flower color, but these carry it off beautifully. I love the shape of the buds.

Here, the red is almost brown.

And for a color change, a white from springtime.

surprise at work

2012-01-23T19:03:00.000-05:00

This bird, a boarder, has an unmistakably masculine name from Lord of the Rings.

Yesterday at work, I found this.

Since this bird lives quite alone, there's no chance of it hatching.

orchids, et cetera

2012-01-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

This is a new and fascinating one:

These pink ones frustrate me; they face out from the balcony across a lot of open space (you can see them in the distance behind the star attraction above), and there's no way to get close to them from the front unless you're sixteen feet tall.

This shot was an accidental brush of the finger, and I was surprised by how much I like the composition.

Another orchid that hasn't bloomed since I started working here:

Notice the banana leaf that has had an encounter with the ceiling fan. Nature, red in tooth and claw even indoors.

I'm not even sure that this is an orchid, but it probably is:

I love the way the yellow ones catch the sun:

I tried a tabata

2012-01-19T20:24:00.000-05:00

Cranky Fitness has awesome powers. When I read about tabatas in Crabby's post here I thought they sounded horrible. My whole approach to exercise is can be summed up as "just keep moving." But I went to the gym today, and while I was on the elliptical, I noticed the man next to me doing intervals, and I thought, what the heck. So I tried one. I counted seconds in my head instead of looking at my watch, which would have required removing one hand from my death-grip on the elliptical, and I almost fell off as it was. I also suspect my version of "all-out effort" isn't as out as all that. But I tried one, and I might do it again. I was near the end of my mile, so I went straight into cool down, since I had actually broken a sweat.
This post is without illustration, since getting the iPod out of my pocket and trying to take a picture of my rapidly moving feet would have resulted in injury or death.

the little birds

2012-01-16T21:20:00.000-05:00

In addition to the macaws and amazon parrot that live at my second job, there are several small birds who don't interest me as much. They are pretty, though.

This fellow is rather shy, but the camera interested him.

These two posed in perfect imitation of their leaf-substitute.

Here, the lovebirds, the only ones I know the species of, were strangely hard to get into a single shot.

the coffee fairy

2012-01-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

The coffee fairy visited me yesterday. I came home from work to find a large box on my doorstep.

It says "Happy Birthday" on the shipping not-invoice (no prices), and it is my birth month, although not near the day, but there's no clue to the giver. What a lot of coffee.

after the play

2012-01-12T16:24:00.000-05:00

In December, all of us from my first job went to a play together, which has been a tradition for a number of years. In a metro area the size of Louisville, there are several different Christmas themed plays every year, but this year we went back to Actors' Theatre's A Christmas Carol and it was very good.

Afterwards, we went to a restaurant which does not take reservations, but which is a favorite of several members of the party. Consequently, we spent more than half an hour waiting on the sidewalk as they tried to find room to set up for sixteen people. I did not have the sense to pull out my iPod and use its camera until the third time a horse tram pulled away with people willing to pay a disproportionate amount of money for a fifteen minute ride. (Of course, I'm allergic to horses, besides seeing several horses look over the fence at me every time I leave my driveway, so it isn't the kind of thing I would splurge on, although it would be enjoyable. In warmer weather.)

After I remembered I had a camera of sorts with me, I started taking pictures of things I was enjoying looking at as I shivered in the wind.

The sun was going down, and making interesting light patterns:

But it hid behind the clouds just as I clicked on this tower, leaving it quite menacing, instead of lacy:

And the iPod's digital zoom was seriously overstrained by this tower:

It got too dark to get anything with that camera soon after I took this reflection:

But I must try harder to remember I have a halfway decent camera in my pocket when I see interesting things.

new orchid

2012-01-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

Yet another orchid has bloomed in the greenhouse. From one direction it could almost be a bird.

Or not.

bird of inspiration

2012-01-05T21:32:00.000-05:00

Working seven days a week I don't need ideas for fiber art!

This guy was part of my Christmas loot from work. I'm not keeping him, because I can't think of a thing to do with a felt bucket, but I like the style of the applique/embroidery enough to want to do something similar. Maybe in my next life I'll have time.

Christmas latkes

2012-01-02T21:28:00.000-05:00

Christmas day I had the morning off, so I had plenty of time to cook latkes for breakfast.

My attention wandered to what I was reading often enough that some of them scorched, but not enough to matter. Filling enough to keep me going through a full kennel of dogs and cats.

a day off

2011-12-24T19:02:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm working two jobs I usually work seven days a week, if not whole days every day. Yesterday I had a Whole Day Off. I spent the morning sitting by the fire drinking coffee (and reading blogs.)

Don't fail to notice the dark green coffee pot keeping warm on top of the stove.

From that chair I have an excellent view of the tree.

In my never-home-for-long existence I haven't bothered to cover up the paint bucket with a sheet (flannel, the better to represent snow) as I usually do, because I'm not going to have time to entertain. I did get the sheet out, though, in case I have any warning if people drop by.

I did some decorating just for my own pleasure. I can't stop putting shiny egg-like objects in the real, gilded, bird's nest.

I put more in my grandmother's cut glass bowl, on the table with the unwritten Christmas cards.

Here's most of the loot from work: my share of all the food our customers brought us that wasn't so perishable we had to eat it right away. I had eaten a little, though, before I took the picture.

Last but not least, I spent the afternoon cooking a turkey. A restful job. It looks quite decorative, doesn't it? I'm not sure whether the slight bow in the edge of the rack is really there or an artifact of the camera, but it was an eighteen pound turkey. I may live alone and have few guests, but I have a freezer. This is the only time of year you can get a fresh turkey at my grocery (the frozen ones have all been injected with a variety of things I'm either allergic to, or don't want in my meat--sugar? are you kidding???), and I obviously don't have time to raise turkeys myself. Maybe someday.

orchids, yes, orchids

2011-12-14T17:30:00.000-05:00

I hope you all don't get tired of all these orchid pictures, because I don't think I'm going to.

Trying to grow through the roof....

more orchids

2011-12-10T10:58:00.000-05:00

If you look carefully at the enlargement, you may be able to see Muffet the Yorkie enjoying the atrium in the "outdoor" part of his run.

He's the little yellow-grey blur between leaves almost at the center of the picture.

I am not sure what the woven bird nests hung among the plants are for, because all the birds are kept in cages.

Here's a view from the break room upstairs, rather blurry through its railing and the double-glazing, into the front greenhouse, which is plants only.

Back in the main greenhouse, the future:

mother of invention

2011-12-07T21:16:00.001-05:00

In the forty-eight hours from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon I collected two and a half inches of rain in the rain gauge. (The few pieces of sleet and snow from Tuesday wouldn't have made much difference to the total.)
The building where my second job doing kennel work takes place is, shall we say, unusual. Bits and pieces have been added on over the years seemingly at random. Therefore, there are leaks. Monday evening I was asked to move a set of cat condos because the water running down the wall behind them was getting into them. When I had moved them, we found that catching the drip was a bit difficult, because it ran down the wall and then dropped to the window sill, where it splashed and splattered. Putting a pan at floor level did nothing to collect the water.
So my co-worker's ingenuity was tested. He collected a bird-cage stand, a food bowl, a flower pot hanger, and an upturned litter box to prop the stand against the wall. I added the towels in case of overflow.

A closer look at the pot:

And three seconds of live action, with local background music:

It made me proud to be human. Rube Goldberg's got nothing on us.

indoor summer

2011-11-29T10:36:00.000-05:00

The more time I spend in the two-story greenhouse at Second Job, the more I want one of my own. But I don't want to do the work; I have quite enough work at home outdoors.

I remember Phaelenopsis (however it's spelled!) and Cymbidium for my days as the niece of a florist.

But these guys? I have no idea. They look more like insects than flowers.

The color of the pot is not as much of a match for the dark red of the flowers as it seems through the camera.

Tropical lushness.

Thanksgiving wedding

2011-11-24T20:43:00.001-05:00

My grandparents were married on Thanksgiving Day, 1907. I can never remember the date, because they always celebrated their anniversary on Thanksgiving, whenever it fell, except in 1957 when they had a Golden Anniversary party on the date.

My grandmother made her wedding suit herself. The skirt, being silk, had fallen apart when I was still a little girl, but the bodice, also silk but heavily tailored underneath its froth, and the wool jacket are still more or less in one piece.

I'm disappointed with the light in these pictures. It was bright enough, but the late afternoon angle doesn't seem to show detail as well as I expected. There's a lot of fine handwork in there, and I think my grandmother did all of it herself except this beaded piece in the middle of the bodice:

I know she and her sisters all did tatting, although only one great-aunt on the other side was still doing tatting when I was a child. I'm sure she made the crocheted buttons, because she showed me how to do it, only I've forgotten how, since I never did it for real. (Thankful for the internet.)

I know the colors were brighter long ago: the greens, especially, would have been selected to make my grandmother's grey eyes look green.

But the reds were brighter, too.

Looking at the successful combination of so many decorative patterns, all her own choosing, I would like to think I have inherited her eye for design.

I take it out and look at it every few years, and feel the guilt of a librarian towards the Goddess of Archives for not preserving it better, but I've never done so on Thanksgiving before. Very appropriate.

a taste of the tropics

2011-11-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't think this picture was taken at my second job, would you? I may have mentioned that I'm working seven days a week now; my second job is also dog-related, being at the boarding kennel of an animal hospital.

I am not, luckily, responsible for the care of the plants in the two-story greenhouse, since I have no gardening experience in the tropics.

I pass through it many times a day, though, on my way from one part of the building to another. This orange tree is on one route to the bathroom.

I'm sure I will enjoy it more and more as the days grow colder. Things are always in bloom.

Evening Exercise Experiment

2011-11-15T21:04:00.000-05:00

During my search for ways to improve my post-menopausal interrupted sleep, I keep coming across the advice to avoid exercise near bedtime. Each time, I have thought "What nonsense! It doesn't interfere with my sleep at all." After the fifth or tenth or seventieth time I encountered this, I decided to conduct an experiment.

Hypothesis: Contrary to common wisdom, exercise near bedtime is not detrimental to sleep.

Methodology: For about three weeks, I have spent fifteen minutes on the exercise bike just before letting the dog out one last time and getting into bed. I continued to record my sleep data (time to bed, time fell asleep, number of times waking up, time alarm went off, quality of tiredness) in my journal as usual. I have been too lazy or too busy, pick one, to chart this data and present it in a table.

Conclusion: Bedtime exercise does not increase interruptions to sleep, and may even be preventative. (The one time I missed doing the bike was the time I woke up once every hour all night long, instead of one to three times a night. I wasn't missing exercise per se because I'd been for a long walk earlier in the day.) Of course, the drawback to a study with one subject is the lack of controls. It is convincing enough to make me keep working at squeezing the time for exercise in at the end of the day.

Thank you?

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

I’ve been pondering why the phrase “thank you for your service” to veterans makes me so uncomfortable. I think it would have made my father uncomfortable, too, although I don’t think it became so prevalent before he died. He served in the Coast Guard during WWII, and had three battle stars on his service ribbons, and stayed in the Reserve for thirty years, during the Cold War (he was on one-hour alert during the Cuban missile crisis--I don’t think my parents knew that I knew that), and his service was gladly and freely given. I grew up expecting to spend some years in some branch of the military, like him, and then stay in the reserve, and I probably would have if I’d ever been able to pass the physical on my healthiest day in my twenties.

I honor those who serve, but thanks from me seem inappropriate in some way. I've failed to pin it down. The portable road sign at the county line flashing "Welcome home, Spc. Gore" seemed entirely and delightfully appropriate.

vote

2011-11-08T19:24:00.000-05:00

I seldom discuss politics, and I never discuss who I'm going to vote for, who I have voted for, who I might vote for. This is the fortieth year I've voted, and I've missed two elections in that time. The first primary election after I turned eighteen we didn't get me from high school down to the county clerk's office nearly forty-five minutes away in the hour gap between getting out of school and the office closing before the registration deadline. The second time I didn't vote I was too sick to get out of bed for longer than it took to get to the bathroom by holding onto the walls. So you can guess I approve of representative democracy. I just wish it worked better.

"Reindeer Jesus"

2011-11-02T22:23:00.000-04:00

Every year at work we all carve pumpkins to display, and the customers vote for their favorite. I never win, but this year, one of our customers looked at my pumpkin and exclaimed "Reindeer Jesus!" I'm still chewing this one over. I've even considered "Reign, dear Jesus."

After we'd had too many pumpkins surreptitiously rot on us, we switched to plastic pumpkins, and I had to use a pattern. I've always done my pumpkin carving freehand, but that just doesn't work with styrofoam. So this year, to commemorate the Jeep's misadventure, I chose a deer pattern.

Thanks to that customer I'll never forget this one.

recycling run

2011-10-28T21:23:00.000-04:00

Here's an illustration of how little packaging a frugal single woman consumes:

That bundle of newspapers is one-third (you can see the edges of the other two-thirds) of ten months of my weekly local paper, plus the advertising with front page that the weekly papers of two next door counties distribute. I don't really use as much bleach as that, because I save up bleach bottles and take them in a big batch, so that's probably two years' worth. Under the bleach bottles is the single plastic grocery bag of cans. (Our county recycling doesn't accept glass anymore, or there'd be a lot of pasta sauce jars.) Yes, I do drink that much cider in ten months, and even more, because some of the cider jugs are made of a different plastic and are still sitting in the basement awaiting more companions.

fading leaves

2011-10-25T21:57:00.000-04:00

There are more leaves hanging on than I expected after the high winds, and some of them are still green, but fall is in full swing.

snake indoors

2011-10-21T06:51:00.000-04:00

Look what I found about three feet from the front door one of the many times I walked from the kitchen to the living room and back during supper. He wasn’t very big; I persuaded him onto a magazine and tossed him out the door. Avoiding hibernation is bad for your health!

leaf by leaf

2011-10-17T19:20:00.000-04:00

less green

2011-10-14T17:00:00.000-04:00

More yellow.

And orange.

And red.

hints of color

2011-10-12T18:55:00.000-04:00

Most of my surroundings are still green, but the colors are beginning to stick their toes in the water.

heat

2011-10-09T20:27:00.000-04:00

I'm not ready for winter yet, but I'm closer than I was.

That's nearly a cord. Now I need at least another one.

yard art

2011-10-06T20:15:00.000-04:00

I didn't get nearly enough good shots of this amazing collection.

But I knew I had to cross the street.

Do enlarge at least this one to see the detail.

we haven't changed a bit

2011-10-04T20:01:00.000-04:00

My fortieth high school reunion was this weekend, and I managed to go to several small gatherings. The people I spent the most time with in high school have all led interesting lives and seem intent on continuing to do so. I recognized people I haven't seen for twenty years instantly.

On the last day we had brunch at a nice café,

and after more than an hour, we spilled out to block the sidewalk for another hour or more.

The balloons had nothing to do with us, actually.

It was well worth a trip to the city.

last fall flowers

2011-10-02T19:01:00.000-04:00

The last fall flowers I can bring indoors. There's plenty of goldenrod still, but I'm allergic to it. There may be more Queen Anne's lace, but it isn't colorful. So I'm celebrating the start of fall with these that I cut down by the pond.

From the yellow of daffodils to these is half a year.

deer event

2011-09-29T20:52:00.002-04:00

I hit a deer this morning. All the time I've driven country roads I never have before. I was amazed to be unharmed. The Jeep, however, was not doing so well. Neither was the deer. The woman who came out to see if I was all right called her husband out to shoot it; both rear legs were broken and it kept trying to get out of the ditch and cause another accident. (It was rush hour; although I took the picture when the road was empty, there was a steady stream of cars coming along.)

This is when I am so thankful to have two cars. You can't see in the picture, but the radiator is leaning back against the engine, and the power steering was non-functional, so I have not yet even had an estimate of how long the work will take.

predator and prey

2011-09-25T17:40:00.000-04:00

I went for a walk down to the creek Sunday afternoon. As I got back up near the clearing south of the house, I started two deer, a buck and a doe, who crossed the "road" from east to west, and I thought a third deer was following, but the creature turned and ran the other way, and I think it was a coyote, not a dog. It was reddish brown and had prick ears and a bushy tail, and was about the size of a coyote, but it was moving awfully fast. Did I startle the deer into moving before he could creep up on them? Or was he lying in wait for them to move, and then when they did he saw me? I didn't have the camera, of course, but it happened too fast for me to have it ready if I'd had it with me.

rodent sighting

2011-09-21T17:12:00.000-04:00

This is an antidote to Wordless Wednesday--Wordy Wednesday? Thesaurus Thursday?--because there was no time to reach for the camera, even UNsafely.

I was driving to work, and I was almost thirty miles from home, stopped at a traffic light, when something brown moving across the windshield drew my eye down from the red light. Leaves don't move like that, I thought, a split second before recognizing it as something very like a field mouse. It scrambled across the windshield from one side to the other, and climbed around on the windshield wipers, just as the light turned green before I could grab the iPod out of my purse on the seat beside me. As soon as the car moved, it darted back into the engine compartment.

Where, I have no doubt, it had been engaged in storing acorns inside the hollow spaces in the hood, and elsewhere, when I left the house. (I hear them rattling and rolling when I turn corners sharply.) I hope it left the car in the parking lot at work. I hope it didn't chew on anything during its terrifying journey. Two years ago something larger than a mouse chewed a hole in the air-intake hose in this very engine. That, at least, was not dangerous.

foolish deer

2011-09-17T20:52:00.000-04:00

These two were young and foolish. Older deer pay no attention to the barking dog, trapped behind glass, but when I open a door and step outside, they leave. Not these.

No zoom. That's about thirty feet from the corner of the balcony.

That's about thirty feet in the other direction.

They finally both looked up at me, but they didn't leave until I spoke to them and told them to go away.

Sunday afternoon nap with dirigible

2011-08-30T20:51:00.000-04:00

I often hear aircraft overhead in this house-in-the-woods, and my drowsy mind wondered "Why does that motor sound so loud? Why hasn't it passed over me yet?" until I woke up and looked out the window.

The iPod touch camera may not be very good, but it was beside the bed. If I'd had to run into the next room to get the real camera, I might not have bothered, since I'd have been missing part of the show. Of course, two of the shots have no dirigible in them, because I couldn't really see what was in the view screen.

This one is from outside on the balcony, looking almost straight up. I don't think you can see the "Goodyear" on the side even if you enlarge it. It had a red LCD readout on the belly, but I couldn't read what it was saying, so I have no clue why it was there. My reaction makes me feel like someone from 1920 running outside to see an airplane.

volunteering again

2011-08-22T06:44:00.000-04:00

I planted morning glories around the corner from here two years ago. There was no sign of them. Last year, they came up here. Now, they're back again!

Although my second job means I'm not home to see them much. Or to do any weeding.

a walk in the park

2011-08-16T21:24:00.000-04:00

Sunday afternoon I found time to go to the county park, which is ten miles from me. (There's second county park, which is nearly twenty miles away.)
The walking trail goes around the outer edge of the park, with the playing fields and the fieldhouse in the middle.

I meant to walk a mile, but I had the iPod in my pocket, and I tried using it outdoors.

The problem is that outdoors, it's too bright to see what's on the screen when you click the touch screen shutter.
This is what moved me to get the thing out of my pocket:

I don't think that any of this was planted on purpose; it's outside the park fence on the embankment for the highway.

After that I kept seeing things I wanted to shoot. Here's my favorite piece of the Par Cours equipment. I always leave the asphalt to walk the balance boards on every circuit, even though I go to this park to walk when I want to keep my feet dry. (Or avoid ticks.)

Of course, when the creek's up, it's not possible to keep your feet dry. Right now it's very low.

I decided to take pictures of all the Par Cours equipment. It's beginning to decay, and the signs telling you what to do are gone.

I don't remember what you're supposed to use this one for, but I did ten "wall" pushups on it.

More finger over the lens, in my haste to catch these joggers before they disappeared. Many people actually run at the park, instead of walking. If the creek had been up a lot, though, that stretch of trail would have been under water.

Next, this piece of equipment. I think you're supposed to jump over each piece like a hurdle, but the sign is gone. When I raise my leg that high, my keys poke into my leg quite painfully, so I've never tried it.

In my childhood, I could have swung along these without any trouble. They built these for adults, though, and I can't jump high enough to catch them.

I never could do much with parallel bars, but I meant to see if I could get my legs up into a pike. However, one of the bars moved when I tried, because the wood is rotting, so I didn't.

I tried a pullup just for Crabby. This bar I could jump high enough to catch. I can raise myself about an inch. Not very impressive.

Then I walked another half mile round and went home to a late lunch. I have a feeling I will be pulling the camera out of my pocket a lot.

the shiny arrives

2011-08-14T18:58:00.001-04:00

My three year old first generation iPod touch, that I bought refurbished in the fall of 2008, suddenly stopped having a touch screen. I feared this would be expensive. I was right: replacing/repairing the touch capability would have cost 75% of the cost of a new (refurb) fourth generation iPod touch, which could actually be upgraded to the current iOS.
So. Even though I really can't spare the money, I now have a working iPod.

I like to buy second-hand for this kind of thing. I've become used to always having an up-to-date address list and calendar at hand, plus a library of ebooks in case I'm stuck anywhere, plus electronic notes. I also find that the Boring Exercise Bike is much easier to use while listening to podcasts. (Music just doesn't do the same thing. Neither does video.) Plus it has a timer.
In addition to these amenities, the new one also has voice memos. I will be using that!

It was extremely well packaged.

And it has a camera. A much better camera than my phone's pitiful 1.3 megapixels with truly awful lens (I think it must be plastic.)
The iPod doesn't see through screen very well, though. There really is a deer out there.

Really.

Then I learned to use the zoom function:

There's the deer:

I was hoping I could get some shots of wary wildlife, if I have it in my pocket instead of having to sneak off to another room, and I will be taking it down to the creek as soon as the weather cools off enough that I can think about walking through woods in long, tick-preventive pants.

enough red?

2011-08-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

Recently when I was dressing to go somewhere other than work I got out all the red necklaces I have. I only wore three of them, but I love them all.

I have other necklaces. You have been warned.

late hay

2011-08-07T17:54:00.000-04:00

I was much too late getting out into the heat with a camera to take pictures. The unknown person who cuts my hay has already moved it. (I asked my neighbor, L, before the house was even finished, to find someone to do that.) I wondered, this very wet and then very dry summer, when my horsy neighbor has moved away, if he would even bother, so I was thrilled to see it had been cut. This year, because it was July hay, instead of May hay, he got four bales instead of two.

From the archives:

what happened?

2011-08-04T08:45:00.001-04:00

I came into the living room and saw this:

I looked up.

I finally figured out that it was a piece of drywall mud, not a piece of drywall, but I still don't understand why it fell off. I do suspect the unusually dry heat this summer had something to do with it.
And no, I'm not climbing up more than ten feet to try to mend it.

Sunday morning coffee with "gazpacho"

2011-08-01T20:44:00.000-04:00

I've left out so many things I was allergic to over the years that it isn't really gazpacho, it's a vegetable smoothie. As I commented over on Cranky Fitness, I don't often bother with fruit smoothies. I like fruit, but I like it unblended. I mostly don't like my cooked vegetables messed about with, either, but in the case of my allergy-friendly version of gazpacho, I find the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

I put it together (heirloom tomato, zucchini, bell pepper, and just a touch of cayenne) and it was so pretty I had to take a picture.

Liquify.

Drink for breakfast. (I don't do protein powder. I ate some chunks of cheddar.)

deer again

2011-07-25T10:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to close the living room door, and sneaked carefully back to get the camera. The pictures, taken hurriedly through screens in different rooms, aren't very good, but I got them.

That's two fawns up there, not one six-legged one. Mama is just out of sight past the window, even closer to the house than they are.

And the third fawn was lagging behind.

I followed them around the corner of the house (inside) so the screen in the window here is really visible. The black spot is an insect on the outside of the window.

They were quite calm about the moving human indoors.

But outside, although I opened and closed the front door without causing alarm, the moment I raised the camera Mama snorted her warning and they were off.

adopted?

2011-07-21T20:55:00.000-04:00

This evening my dog started barking at deer (since I won't let him out to be a herding dog! what else can he do???) and I looked up to see a doe with three spotted fawns. So I got the camera and went to the window.

They don't look like they're all the same age. I know does have twins more often than cattle do, more like goats, but triplets? I think there's a pair of twins and a younger one. Do deer fawn-sit for each other, or is one an orphan?

After listening to Stony barking for a while, they began to move off, but not quickly.

They disappeared down the hill, stopping to graze here and there.

field of flowers

2011-07-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

During my month of working two jobs I didn't find time to sleep enough, or eat regularly, but early on I took the camera out in daylight (what's that?) in case someone made hay. I didn't really expect them too, since my horsy neighbor has moved out, and it was she who paid someone to cut her hay, and they cut my two bales too and gave them to her, since I have nothing to feed them to. So I could have waited until I'd recovered. But here we are:

I was annoyed at how little the flowers show up in the distance. They are there!

And as I drive from the road to the house they're bright and highly visible.

Unfortunately, when I walk to the road and back (a rare occasion) I keep my eyes on the gravel most of the time so I won't stumble.
Before we moved in I thought I'd use the driveway for exercise. Three-tenths of a mile, so two trips to the road and I've have walked more than a mile while not being away from the house for more than ten minutes, so I could check on my father frequently. But it's very cold and windy, or very sunny and hot, and harder to walk on than knee high grass, strangely enough, so I usually walk in the woods, or down the (dirt) road to the creek.

wild flowers at home

2011-06-12T18:47:00.000-04:00

The black-eyed Susans are just beginning to bloom. These two are the first I've found and they're right below my bedroom balcony. (As seen from above.)

As you can see the daisies are fading. Luckily the Queen Anne's lace is beginning, so I'm not short of fluffy white flowers for my black vase.

I'll be disappearing from the blog for a few weeks, as I'm about to begin working sixty hours a week. I expect I'll spend Sundays either frantically cooking enough for a week or staring out at the trees wondering what happened.

peach ice cream

2011-06-07T20:33:00.000-04:00

I felt inspired to get out my ice cream freezer and make some ice cream last week. The peaches were from Georgia by way of my local produce stand, but it's not freestone season yet, so I had to use clings.

I added sugar, and ran them in the blender.

Then, following to the recipe I adapted from one of my mother's 1940s cookbooks, I slowly added the peach-sugar mixture to the milk, not the other way around. I have no idea why.

Then into the freezer canister.

And put the whole contraption together...

and into the freezer. You can see I don't lack for storebought ice cream.

After stirring randomly for about two hours I had the best ice cream I've tasted in a long time.

I will be making more.

natural landscaping

2011-06-04T17:17:00.000-04:00

Of a sort.

I planted the hostas. I left the yarrow where it came up.

fleeting beauty

2011-06-02T15:08:00.000-04:00

I can't identify these yellow flowers in my "Wildflowers of Kentucky" (which isn't restricted to natives, but includes Stuff That Grows Here.) I didn't think they would last well indoors, and they don't.

Less than twelve hours from above to below:

But they're pretty enough to make the frequent clean up worthwhile.

surrounded by daisies

2011-05-30T19:50:00.001-04:00

I have lots of daisies indoors right now.

Outdoors they have me surrounded.

More approaching all the time.

surrounded by green

2011-05-27T12:30:00.001-04:00

I love my house.

blackberries-to-be

2011-05-24T17:17:00.001-04:00

I walked downhill to check on growth after it stopped raining so much. At least for a while.

Wild roses are beginning to fade, but still arranged themselves so elegantly it's hard to believe only Nature was involved in the design.

The blackberries are in full bloom.

It looks like there will be lots of them, if I can get to them before the deer and everyone else do!

serendipity

2011-05-22T12:16:00.000-04:00

When I planted the coleus in this pot, the sourgrass hadn't shown itself. I really like the combination, though.

Of course, when I planted the coleus, it was standing upright. Then, because of the rain, even though the pot is under the edge of the porch roof, it was full of mud, not dirt, and the plant slowly sank sideways, allowing the lighter sourgrass plants to spread out.

I like the final design, even though I had little hand in it.

greener still

2011-05-09T21:00:00.000-04:00

I stepped out on the porch with my camera to take pictures of the increasingly leafy trees, and at the very moment I raised the camera the sun went behind clouds.

So I lurked, pretending to fix supper, until the sun came out again, and grabbed the camera again.

Two different greens, both welcome.

brightness

2011-05-06T16:47:00.004-04:00

Here's the mustard blooming near the house, where I would have mowed if it had ever been dry for a day.

The reward of difficulties.

Also a very tall dandelion:

rain, lots

2011-05-04T18:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I came home from work and checked the rain gauge after 24 hours. Four inches. Four inches. Really. Four!

I can't quite believe it. It certainly didn't look wetter than usual (for lately values of usual) during the day. The creeks weren't any higher, and the flash flood warnings no more exciting.

Not again, please?

greening

2011-05-03T17:00:00.001-04:00

Here come the leaves.

Farther left.

And farther.

lily-of-the-valley

2011-05-01T16:53:00.000-04:00

These finally came up. They show up later every year since I moved them from the old place, and fewer.

I planted a row as long as the hostas. They don't seem to like where they are.

But there may be a bud under there.

more woods floor

2011-04-28T16:36:00.000-04:00

A swash of mayapples with a little phlox.

Then the sun came out.

Phlox with highlights.

random flowering trees

2011-04-26T20:55:00.001-04:00

A late redbud using a cedar for background.

Some dogwoods lurking deep in the woods.

Pretending to be part of a larger tree.

hostas

2011-04-23T15:24:00.001-04:00

I get so excited when the hostas unfurl themselves every year. They are so reliable. It's a welcoming kind of excitement, not the "Thank goodness they made it!" kind.

Green growing things, hurray!

dogwoods opening

2011-04-20T15:17:00.000-04:00

At first, they still look green.

Or maybe grey-green.

Then they open more.

And more.

Until the flowers are completely white.

And the leaves begin to unfold.

rain

2011-04-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

Last week the total rainfall measured in my rain gauge was 6.2 inches/15.7 cm. One of the days the total for twenty-four hours was three inches. It stopped raining about noon, and by the time I got home from work and got down to the creek with the camera, there was less water than I expected.

The bluebells had been underwater.

You can see how the grass has been combed in one direction by the current.

There's still plenty of water. Most of the time there are more rocks than riffle.

Here's the standing water left in the field.

The debris indicates the water was moving fairly fast.

I'm glad the house is far uphill from here.

another sun shadow

2011-04-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

I can't decide whether this one looks like a horse's head with flowers braided into the mane, or a gunboat in action seen from above.

forest floor

2011-04-15T16:00:00.001-04:00

Small things. Things I have to get down low to see.

Phlox.

Mayapples, at all stages of development in the same area.

See the furled umbrella?

They open a bit.

Almost all the way, and you can see the bud, that will be the mayapple flower, and then, looking almost as it does now, the mayapple.

greening

2011-04-13T20:18:00.003-04:00

The trees don't have any (many) leaves yet, but the woods floor is greening up.

And so are my pansy pots.

nuthatches

2011-04-10T14:08:00.000-04:00

I spotted this pair of nuthatches exploring the tree outside my balcony.

They kept checking out the hole.

Also the rest of the area.

But they don't seem to have moved in. They would have made such nice neighbours.

sun shadow

2011-04-07T17:59:00.001-04:00

Another light picture made by the sun through my glass fan window over the front door.

I know the sun only moves so much, and the window only captures so much light, but it produces enough variety that I'm never tired of the light sculpture it makes.

courting dance

2011-04-04T16:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the weather was lovely, and the turkeys thought so, too. A flock of them came much closer to the house than usual. I went carefully and slowly to get the camera, and for once they didn't all head for the woods as soon as I came to the window.

When the tom began trailing a wing for this hen, the others all went farther downhill and continued eating.

She circled with him:

And crouched:

He is a fine fellow, isn't he?

But she seemed to lose interest and went back to her lunch in spite of his display:

Soon, they rejoined the rest of the flock and gradually disappeared.

fence post

2011-03-31T12:02:00.003-04:00

Yes, that's a pun.

I have fences on my land, or maybe just the remains of fences, because they don't confine anything.

Not even the trees.

This stretch of fence was clearly meant to prevent the cows from falling down the bluff, which is even steeper than it looks here.

This part is on the other side of the ridge, dividing two slopes of what's now woods and was once pasture, although marginal pasture.

The strand running diagonally from lower left to upper right is broken. Not surprising after many decades. Some of these trees were there when the wire was run, but most of them have grown into it without human help.

Looking uphill along the fence.
None of these pieces of fence meet up, and I don't have a clear idea of how the pastures were divided when they were in use.

Sunday morning coffee with mixed precipitation

2011-03-28T11:59:00.000-04:00

Saturday afternoon into evening there was freezing rain (although the temperature was slightly above freezing, it froze on the way down without turning into sleet, exactly), sleet, and snow. All at once.

Sunday morning it appeared that the snow had won.

If you look carefully, you can see the pellets of sleet under the snow on the balcony.

It didn't do as thorough a job of covering the grass. I believe I've discovered an angle where I can sneak up on the birds at the feeder.

Let's get on with some spring!

monster from the vasty deep

2011-03-26T20:51:00.001-04:00

It's been raining a lot lately, as I may have mentioned.

Recently, I met this creature on the driveway. I'm glad I stopped and took a few shots with the phone camera, because by the time I got back with the real camera he was gone. They're terrible pictures and they won't enlarge, but here you can see this terrapin-ish fellow in comparison to the jeep wheel.

Here's a closer look.

He didn't even draw in his head when I got right in his face:

But when I came back ten minutes later, he was gone, leaving no tracks to indicate where the water was driving him.

hail, hail

2011-03-24T20:33:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I came home from work, where we had had a slight rain shower in the morning, and then sun, to find my gutters full of white stuff.

Also scattered on the ground:

In heaps:

It's supposed to be melting now!

boiling water

2011-03-23T08:26:00.010-04:00

This is how I boil the water without electricity when I grind the beans by hand. (I've actually had to do this only a few times.) I can heat water on the wood stoves, if the electricity goes out in winter, but to get water to the not quite boiling temperature for making coffee on the stoves would take too long first thing in the morning, when I Must Have Coffee NOW.

So.

This is my great-great-aunt's chafing dish. Various parts of it have patent dates of 1899 and 1901, but it may be several years newer than that. My mother, born in 1916, remembered it being used at parties when she was a very small child, so it can't be later than 1920. The shiny pieces are nickel, not silver. So, I believe, are the not shiny pieces. (Matte? Can metal be matte?)

Here's the alcohol burner, closed. I had hoped its name would show but I don't think you will be able to read the lid even enlarging it all the way.

"Perfection. Manning, Bowman, and Co. Feb. 15, 1898-June 18, 1901." I do hope the company lasted longer than that. I don't imagine the dates refer to the design process, either. But they certainly aimed high.

It opens farther than this, and the handle makes it easy to adjust the flame to exactly the right amount of heat.

The burner fits into its place in the stand very solidly, so there is no danger of it tipping when you adjust the flame. The feet of the stand are smoothly finished so there's little chance of it marring whatever surface it is placed on.

Next, the water bath goes on top of the stand, to act as the bottom of a double boiler, for foods you want to keep warm, rather than cooking directly.

Then, the enamel sauce pan, with the long handle for safely serving hot foods around the table. It can be used without the lower water bath if you want to heat water quickly, or fry things, or otherwise cook over direct flame. On one memorable occasion in my childhood, my parents--who didn't entertain very much--used this setup to make Crepes Suzette, which they had enjoyed in restaurants when they lived in New Orleans, but never made themselves before, for friends of theirs. (We are a brave people, my family; we cook flaming foods for guests without practicing beforehand. Fortunately, we usually have brave guests.) The long handle provided protection from the burning brandy, and allowed my father to serve the crepes onto the plates still on fire without burning himself or anyone else.

Should the flames get out of hand (which they didn't on that occasion) the lid fits quite tightly.

So much more fun than a camp stove, if not quite as portable.

more daffodils

2011-03-21T12:59:00.003-04:00

When the sun comes out, briefly, I go down and pick more daffodils.

water gardening?

2011-03-18T20:58:00.000-04:00

I am not getting ready for spring. I should be digging places in the garden to set out broccoli plants and lettuce seeds in about two weeks, but in the past two weeks it has rained four and a half inches. Digging mud is not a good idea. The forecast for the next week is rain, rain, and more rain.

Gardening is such an exciting pastime.

Sunday morning coffee by hand

2011-03-13T15:49:00.001-04:00

When I first changed from buying coffee already ground to grinding my own, I got a coffee grinder that was not electric. Having grown up where the electricity went off an average of ten times a year (from a few hours to a few days) I did not want to depend on it for anything as vital as coffee.

I never quite brought myself to screw it to the wall, even when the last two places I lived were houses that I owned, so I was restricted to positioning it on something it could clamp to.

It's very sturdy.

After about fifteen years of use, I moved into a kitchen where there was simply no place to put it that did not block access to a drawer or a cabinet. I had to get an electric one. However, I still keep the non-electric one where I can find it without hesitation in the dark.

spring flooding

2011-03-10T13:03:00.000-05:00

There was a flash flood watch after I'd measured more than two inches of rain in thirty-six hours, but by the time I got down to the creek with the camera, the water level was merely pleasing, not astonishing.

After the drought it's nice to see water moving again. Below is about where I was standing when I shot the pictures of disconnected puddles back in November.

Water moving too fast for reflections, framed by actual leaf buds.

On the creek bank, unknown green things coming up into the air.

first picking

2011-03-07T21:10:00.001-05:00

I picked these at dusk on Sunday.

They weren't all open when I picked them, but by the time I got the camera out today they were.

Spring is traveling north as fast as it can.

looking for spring

2011-03-06T15:02:00.000-05:00

I went out to check on the daffodil growth.

First I spotted these poking their leaves up near the house. My grandmother (I brought these from my parents' house, and those came from my grandmother's garden, where they came from a friend of hers) called them paperwhite narcissus, but they aren't like anything called that in the catalogs I've seen.

Around the corner of the house there are more of them.

Also the daylily I accidentally transplanted with them. I didn't even see the second daylily in the top left until I had the pictures on the computer. Considering that this particular plant was run over by the tractor three times last summer, and string trimmed twice by me, who knew where it was, its reproducing itself is amazing.

When I got down the hill, the daffodils were inches taller, with buds almost ready to open.

And there are plenty more to come.

Showing color, but not open all the way.

feet: the finale

2011-03-02T20:17:00.001-05:00

feet: part 8

2011-02-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite sets of feet (so graceful!) support a little marble top that was in my grandmother's living room all my life. No one seemed to know where it came from. Maybe it sneaked in.

It contrasts so nicely with less curvy feet.

Much smaller but equally elegant feet:

A wedding present to my (other) grandparents:

And really small feet:

promises

2011-02-21T17:57:00.001-05:00

Down in the woods at the site of the old house:

Daffodil leaves up at least two inches.

Then the sun came out.

green

2011-02-19T21:05:00.000-05:00

Saturday I got home from work in time to do some yard work before dark. I was clearing up a lot of dead plants, when I saw some tiny green leaves. I was so excited I had to get the camera.

Little yarrow plants are ready for spring!

feet: part 7

2011-02-17T15:44:00.001-05:00

Glass feet:

Another "Is it a foot or a base?" issue. Some call the part that supports the stem the base, but it's also called a footed goblet....

If you've been looking at this blog for long, you'll have seen this lamp before, behind many a flower picture:

My grandmother's favorite.

feet: part 6

2011-02-14T13:29:00.001-05:00

Multi-feet:

My parents, not finding any end tables they liked, even after post-war shortages of household goods should have been ending in 1949, hired a high school senior woodshop student to make them a pair out of cherry.

My father's high school woodworking project (one of many), an end table made to measure for his mother's couch, had only three feet.

Monopod:

Or half of one, anyway. I'd have to move the furniture to get far enough back to get the whole width in frame. My mother's grandmother's walnut dresser.

feet: part 5

2011-02-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Are these feet? Or bases?

They're dusty, whichever they are. I could not see most of that dust in the sunlight when I shot the pictures.

I liked the shadows too much to move the chair. (Whose feet have not yet been feet-ured.)

we interrupt this series

2011-02-09T10:19:00.000-05:00

for a brief weather report.

Monday about noon:

About an hour later:

And another hour later:

Where is spring? I'm used to seeing some hints of warmth to come by this time of year.

feet: part 4

2011-02-07T09:52:00.000-05:00

This is the one that started me off.

I was down on the floor taking pictures of the wood you can see in the lower left (for this post) and I thought "I haven't had as good a look at those feet since I was young enough to spend a lot of time playing on the floor. I'd forgotten how interesting they are." I looked around the room from that perspective and a series (or possibly an obsession) was born.

Here we see one of my focal length failures. The front leg was supposed to be in focus, not the back one. The other attempts had both legs out of focus, because I let shutter speed rule, or perhaps I wobbled.

Another leg from my childhood. We called this the sugar chest, but my great-grandmother kept flour, sugar, and corn meal in its compartments. It's from my father's family, but where it came from and how long ago is unknown. Cherry, undoubtedly built in Kentucky, and almost certainly before the Civil War.

feet: part 3

2011-02-04T10:04:00.001-05:00

More feet. More dust, too.

feet: part 2

2011-02-01T11:27:00.001-05:00

Here's one specially for Bag Lady. The first two shots are what I intended when I thought of "feet."

But when Bag Lady complained about the comforter always sliding off the foot of the bed, I expanded my definition.

You can see that the covers are struggling to escape, but they can't get loose.

feet: part 1

2011-01-30T10:03:00.000-05:00

I warn you now, this is going to get repetitive. I've been attacked by a series.

So far, I've learned I need to vacuum the cobwebs up more often. But the series is really supposed to be exploring depth of field, as inspired by something of Hilary's.

wood sculpture

2011-01-23T09:14:00.001-05:00

I'm not going to burn this piece any time soon.

So much variety of color and texture in one piece of tree.

Changing the angle of light and new shapes are revealed.

It's funny that with all the art processes I've played with since childhood (drawing, painting, clay, several kinds of embroidery, patchwork, photography (!), beading, collage, jewelry...I might be forgetting something) I've never been interested in trying wood sculpture. Maybe trees do it better?

greed

2011-01-19T14:54:00.000-05:00

It's supposed to be like this:

Not like this:

Occasionally, the wind has blown it up and over and down the pole, but not this time. The wind last night and this morning was much too tame. I think I know what furry vandal did it so he could reach the goodies.

In the middle of the morning my dog went crazy, barking and bouncing off the window, and I looked out to see a possum slowly departing from that direction, but I didn't see the state of the the feeder until afternoon.

He looked rather like this only going downhill instead of up.

The raccoons already think they own this place day and night. I don't need a nocturnal animal invading the daytime as well.

decay and renewal

2011-01-15T08:41:00.001-05:00

The leaves have been looking shabbier and shabbier. Suddenly the new bloom, the first since midsummer, opened before I'd even seen the bud (several feet above eye level.) I'd like to think it an omen.

Sunday morning coffee with warmth

2011-01-11T07:05:00.001-05:00

I only eat in the kitchen (instead of the living room) if I have a fire going in the kitchen stove. Saturday night was going to be very cold, so I kept both fires going. Sitting with my back to the heat--in the sun by the time I get up on days off!--is such luxury.

I was especially grateful I was able to wake up the kitchen fire quickly, because at dawn Sunday morning the temperature was -2F/-19C, more than ten degrees colder than predicted. In the kitchen and living room it was 62F/17C which is well above where the thermostat is set.

Warmth on the outside as well as the inside:

scattering of snow

2011-01-09T14:57:00.001-05:00

I get so tired of cold weather, and snow makes driving 34 miles to work even more trouble than it usually is, but I keep taking pictures of it, because it's too beautiful to not enjoy.

I did get some dry wood indoors before this began to collect.

It was my favorite foxtails that drew me outdoors with the camera, though.

My yard is full of foxtails, an atrocious weed, because I love them too much to cut them all down.

And I take far too many pictures of them.

The foxtails got me to take the camera outdoors, though, instead of taking pictures through the window of these trees collecting snow.

horse sense?

2011-01-07T19:17:00.000-05:00

(A photo-less Friday.)
On my way home from Lexington from my allergy appointment I came upon a horse and rider going down the road--the middle of the road--ahead of me and the car ahead of me. It was a two lane road, but just outside of a town, and far from untravelled. The rider tried to get the horse onto the grass beside the road, but when he pulled the horse's head towards the edge, the horse's body and legs leaned the other way. Eventually they did get off the road, but there was some crow-hopping involved. The car ahead of me and I both passed very slowly, not accelerating until we were well past, not wanting to give the horse any excuse to spook. Apparently this horse believes that grass is for eating, not for walking on.