on the way to work

Some time last year a large old tree blew down in a pasture I drive past. This morning (in daylight, hurray!) I saw that the curve of the trunk makes an arch that is the perfect height for a cow to scratch her back. I wish I had such a convenience.

more turkeys

This time they were far enough from the house that I could stand right at the window and not spook them. The sound of the zoom lens didn't carry to them more than a hundred feet away, either.

I don't know (I never do) what they were finding to eat out there.

They were in a hurry, though. Down the hill and out of sight in less than a minute.

still giggling

My friend-the-doctor bought some specialty coffee when she was in Louisville visiting her mother, but didn't have time to come all the way out here and bring it to me. She mailed it after she got back to Ohio, and she included a few things to fill up the box:

The box in front is a glucose meter. ("Everyone should check their blood glucose from time to time. It's a freebie," she said when I asked "????") The jar with the blue lid is full of honey from her husband's bees.

The combination just won't let my funny bone rest.

spring for real

I walked down the hill looking for trees with swelling buds, which I've been seeing on the way to work, but not here at home, and found the daffodil area at the old foundations looking promising.

"Area" is a bit vague, but "patch" is definitely too small.

I had expected to see color in the buds, but I found more than that:

Spring is yellow and green.

too pretty to burn

I will burn this piece eventually, but for now it's propped up on the porch where I can enjoy the blue lichens.

Even Image Stabilization could not fix how wobbly I was on one knee:

They remind me of angel wing shells, sort of.

cabbage wars

All my life I have eaten (and enjoyed) steamed cabbage. A few weeks ago one of my neighbors gave me some roasted cabbage and it was delicious, so I looked up roast cabbage recipes and tried it myself. It didn't work. After the shortest recommended time in the oven at the recommended temperature, the outside was beginning to blacken but the inner parts were not tender. So I asked her for advice, and she said to cook it a little longer.

How did I get from here

to here?

After picking off the crispy burnt parts, what was left was tender and delicious, but I think I will go back to steamed cabbage.

a feeling of accomplishment

I've been trying for several days to upload some pictures, but my satellite connection has been so slow and so unreliable that even email has been chancy. Somehow it knows what I want: when I try to load blogger to read other blogs, I sometimes get through, but if I'm even thinking about blogging the photos I get "cannot establish a secure connection to the server."

This is an all text post. Heh heh heh. Sneaky me.

So blogging was only one of many things I meant to do on my day off, but I didn't get many of the others done, either. I did two loads of laundry (sorry, Bag Lady), and brought in wood, and filled all the bird feeders, but mostly I sat by the fire and read, and watched birds, from turkeys down to chickadees. I'm finding that just keeping the fire going nicely all day, so the main rooms are ten degrees warmer than they would be on a cloudy day otherwise, feels as though I marked a big check mark on my list.