Carnivals

I've just discovered the blog concept of Carnivals - a kind of rotating party of links to 'best of...' blog entries related to the carnival topic. History, Philoshopy, Science, Future, Education, Comedy and many, many more.

This morning from The Panda's Thumb, I found Tangled Bank #28. There I found 10,000 Birds and many other wild and wonderful links to diverse things from Evolution to Economics to Feminism to Psychology and more. One thought underlying Carnivals is that they save time looking for gems. While that is undoubtably true, they consume enormous amounts of time reading the gems.

Wildlife

The pavement must be warm. And it's been raining a bit. So there's a light fog rising from the road. A fawn, with its quick little steps, runs across in front of me to join it's sibling on the right side of the road while the doe lags behind and watches from the left side of the road. In the next mile I dodge a 'possum. I turn right onto my road and slow down for a buck in the ditch, and another a hundred yards beyond. I turn into my driveway, looking out for the deer that usually graze in my yard - not there tonight. But the cat and dog run out to the car before I can pull into my parking spot and turn of the engine.

I'm gonna go watch the photographer's awards. I understand Bush is attending.

Grown-up Women

Thanks to Jill at The Business of Life for steering me to Time Goes By. It's a pleasure to find well written pieces written by someone with whom I have something in common.

Yet another obstacle to gardening

Tang in Catnip

Tang has claimed this catnip plant and - well - several square feet around it. While he was lounging there, I managed to finish adding compost to the other beds. So, I'm pretty much ready to plant as soon as I can count on frost free weather. Peas, lettuce, spinach and onions are already growing. The plan this year is for more flowers, fewer vegetables. Maybe just tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers and squash. And dahlias, glads, marigolds, calendula, zinnia, poppies, nasturtiums and probably more I can't think of at the moment.

Jack-in-the-pulpits are blooming in their own discreet way. Fritellarias are still in bloom and Japanese primroses will be out in a day or two. Violets and veronica everywhere in the lawn! And the hummingbirds are back.

I have finally figured out how to add links to the sidebar. And I started with Living in Dryden where Simon, bless his heart, spares me the need to read the Ithaca Journal by summarizing any local news I might want to be aware of. He also writes about local government and community events. Thanks, Simon.

Picasa again

skunk cabbage

Okay. Obviously I need practice with this. It took half an hour of kind of random clicking to get this picture here using Picasa. And maybe I can contact the nice person who left a comment a while ago about how to format text around a picture. And maybe if I figure out just how this worked, I can write instructions to help me do it again. I'm sure they think it's really simple. After all, there is that button labeled "Publish." But obviously Picasa's instructions are not working for me.

Anyway, this is the skunk cabbage in the beech woods that I was describing earlier.

Freeze

I know the weather report last night said "freeze." Not just "chance of frost" but FREEZE. Still, for some reason I didn't think of protecting the geraniums I had moved out to the deck after nurturing them all winter in the studio. They're looking pretty damned disappointed. They're not dead. But I'll have to cut them back pretty far. Oh, well. Maybe the cutting back will improve their shapes. I also have lots of cuttings from the last time I cut them back.

Belinda drove around the north trails with the chainsaw to scope out how many trees had fallen across the trails during the winter. When she got back she urged me to walk with her back up the the beech woods in the northeast 'cause it was so beautiful. She was right. The grey background of the beech trees, still leafless was gorgeous against the emerald green swath of skunk cabbage coming up along the brook.

Multitasking

As I fed cans into the machine that crushes them and spits out my refund receipt, I was patting myself on the back for being fairly orgainzed. I hang a shopping bag in the closet and put empty returnable cans and bottles in it. On shopping day, if it's full, I return them. So, I never have many to deal with. Tuesday, picking up the bottles and heading to the car, I'm glad I don't have much to carry and I walk right past the 3 winter coats I had laid on the banister to remind myself to take them to the drycleaner. So, while I may be fairly orgainzed, I'm kidding myself if I think I can do two things at once.

Like I can never remember to take my camera unless it's a specific photo trip. Yet I often find myself with a bit of time on my hands at a site that might make a good photo. Today I'm taking Bill to the library and we'll drive through the Plantations on the way home. I'll try to remember the camera.

Oh, dear

Oh, dear. A whole month and no writing. It was a tough month for some reason. A couple of days stand out. Belinda and Bill's birthdays. The Monday of my bookclub meeting when I did almost all my weekly housekeeping in one day. The Wednesday the new satellite dish was installed. The Thursday town board meeting filled with questions from the board member who hadn't read the report under discussion. The Saturday that Maggy was home and Belinda and I saw Death of a Salesman at the Cider Mill Theater.

But it's May now. I'm sorry I didn't celebrate May Day. I really can't count fixing the pasture fence as celebration. But I'm glad it's done. Maybe I'll celebrate tonight. Flexibility is a good thing.

This morning I was happy to read the big brass blog entry about Bush's reference to the "drawer of IOUs" that he says threaten the Social Security trust. I was listening to a rerun of the press conference on CSPAN when my outrage at hearing this dumb comment again made me turn it off. Check it out. Those IOUs Bush wants you to think are worthless are treasury bonds. When Bush says the surplus in the social security trust is used to "fund other government programs," he doesn't mean the government just spends the money. The money is borrowed to cover a part of the huge budget deficit. I don't understand why no one demands that he clarify that point - among many others.

On a lighter note, Based on a True Story... has a comical entry - Unitarian Jihad.