Saturday, July 5, 2025

Heartbroken: The Consequences of Stupidity

 I must have been overwhelmed when packing up the house for our multi-state move. Or  maybe I just mis-read the information on the storage of our PODS to include some kind of climate control while sitting for months in Phoenix. Possibly both, overlaid with personal stupidity.

The project started much earlier, when my laptop's photo library was getting way overloaded, and my back-up system wasn't working. I like to shoot shoot shoot and look later, something formerly not economically feasible before I went digital. A single roll of pictures would cost over $10 before I saw anything, and I can shoot multiples of that in a single outing, repeat it the following day and the next, and now not spend a penny unless I want an actual hard copy of something. I can email favorite files to friends. I even figured out how to post itty bitty ones here.

My solution was to pull out the thumbnails of each topic of files onto my desktop, stacked and overlapped like crazy, deleting each one from the photos library as I went. then I'd insert a thumb drive, move each file over, save them there while deleting them from the desktop as well - yep, very labor intensive - and tape a label on the thumb drive to identify the contents. Label might include "videos", "people", one of several different state names where I shot a lot, and above all, the name of my favorite wildlife center which incidentally has an annual photo contest.

I enter that contest nearly every year. Occasionally I place, getting a "second" a couple times. Amazing considering my modest equipment and all the photographers I see along the roads with heavy duty tripods supporting 20 inch lenses. Not that I measure them, that's just an estimate. I'm sure some are longer. Once I was invited to look though one and a tiny black speck off in the distance turned into a black ibis way off its usual migration path. That kind of straying happens a lot. I'm lucky if I can get an ordinary red-winged blackbird next to the road clinging to a cattail.


I got this lucky a couple weeks ago. This fellow was puffing his distinctive wings out every time he trilled his challenge to any nearby males: this was his territory and they could go take a hike - or something even ruder in blackbird-speak. It won't be entered in the contest because the sun was at the wrong angle and the eyes don't show well. Black is tricky that way. I had to fiddle with light levels to overexpose everything just to get a hint of one eye plus an assumption of his bill. Still, it's my best of one of these guys in the years I've been there. The yellow-headed ones are much simpler to shoot, if rarer in fact.

Back to the stupidity. I filled about a dozen thumb drives with what became the only files of a whole bunch of photos. I ignored the bag they were in when I unpacked it, thinking they were as they'd been made, and set it on a shelf in my room. But this year's photos contest is under way, and I was looking through older photos. Or at least looking for them. I'm supposed to have two drives with that name on them, but found one. There was also one with people photos separated out, many from either new babies or backyard bonfires. One held videos, another National Park shots.... you get the idea. 

I'd plug one in to the slot to open it, and nothing came up on my desktop to tell me there was something, anything, in the slot, much less a named thumb drive. Try another. Same. When I finally got to the drive with the pictures I wanted to look for a contest photo from, I finally got a list of file numbers, the kind that all end in jpg. I opened the first, and... 2/3 of it was a grey block. A whole bunch had varying levels of the same, others had grey or multicolor lines running horizontally through it, just enough visible to see what I had lost. Over and over. Again and again. I tried scrolling way down into the files and picked one at random. Same results.

Somehow labels have disappeared of some of the drives, or - knock on wood - when I stocked up before we moved on inexpensive blank thumb drives to spend more weeks  filling, they needed a second bag which might have been stored in another location, like a camera case which made the trip in the car... in March... and didn't get fried. I have no idea where such might be, of course. But I'm hoping it's a wobbly memory and not just a fervent wish.

Meanwhile, I went back into what I did still have on my laptop. I found a great heron photo, taken from the right location, meaning one of the three properties controlled by the refuge folks. That photo reminded me of a heron video I had seen recently, though from the wrong location to enter the contest. It was from 2 years ago when I took the camera along while Steve went fishing. One heron stayed close since we were the only ones there, were staying quiet, and nobody had launched a boat yet that morning.


I'd taken several stills, like the one above (with its tongue stuck out if you look close) and then since it was earnestly watching the water directly under it and stalking, I turned on video and got it catching - and swallowing - a newly caught fish. I love that video, especially with the fish tail still wiggling out my side of the bill until the heron took a second gulp to send it down the hatch. I'd seen that recently, because I'd shown it to somebody else who thought it was disgusting! 

SAY WHAT? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU ?!?

I couldn't find it. I checked around, and other still shots from that exact time are there. Same location, same heron which never came back on any of our visits. I looked for other keepers, contest entries that I didn't want to lose, and hadn't copied elsewhere. Those weren't even on my laptop, and I never erased those even when transferring a copy.

Now I have only memories of those photos, like two different babies gnawing on the visor of whichever ball cap Steve had worn and loaned to the occasion for the day. Elk lying down at the entrance station to RMNP, antlers in velvet, backlit by the rising sun, possible only because of covid and we two geezers had qualified for our first 2 shots and felt able to travel. Nobody minded the entrances, we could park on the road and capture the photos with nobody waiting and honking for us to move. Another elk walked straight in front of the car while we were stopped. I shot it too, even though the windshield turned it slightly green.

It goes on and on and on. I haven't the heart - yet - to try every one of the drives. I've been looking through what I actually still do have, since old photos still qualify if taken at the right location. The good ones still are in my memory... only. I got to the place where I couldn't bear to hunt any more. There are a few more days to get my act together and submit what I can.

What   do you do with a thumb drive which won't even say "I exist"?

Besides mourn?



Monday, June 30, 2025

Addendum: Weather Update

Those spectacular growing columns of clouds yesterday turned into flooding and small twisters, mostly down around the extended Twin City metro area. Morning news reports are just coming in. 

Once again we lucked out. For some reason, systems split  west of here, with the worst going around us instead of through us. Maybe it's the concentration of lakes in the area. We're fine, but flooding and wind damage hit other places. Even as I update, we're getting more rain but only the southern tip of a system this time. On the plus side, it's supposed to settle down and dry out this week. Time to get some yard work done... if I can get out before it heats up too much. Except those cooler morning hours are when my job hours tend to be.

Que sera sera. 


Sunday, June 29, 2025

Weather

Growing up in Minnesota, with my parents, weather was what you talked about when you had nothing else in particular to say to somebody. Or maybe just nothing polite. One ALWAYS had to be polite, or there were consequences, and depending on the violation it either came later in private, or immediately in public. In public meant you'd just been terribly naughty and your parents had to show the people witnessing your misbehavior that they were trying to raise you better than that. I translate that into they're worried more about their own embarrassment than mine.

There was always something to say. Hot (or cold) enough for ya? How much rain did you get yesterday? Do you think we'll get some rain? Did you hear about that storm/twister/wind over at _________? Did you get your hay in before it hit? Have you gotten into the fields yet? How's the creek running over at your place? Need some help from our crew with the chain saw? shovels? rakes? Nasty sunburn there.

One way or another it was all about the weather. It helped that we were in the country, but even for city folk, your weather is your life. What crops grew this season? How much will they cost? How much extra work will it cause me? How much dust is getting in the house? Pollen allergies bad this year? How should I dress? How can I play? How safe are my roads? Can I get wherever there is on time? Will my house be there when I get back? What's amazing when I look up? Does your date include smooching to a beautiful sunset,  or a clear view of the moon reflecting in a long white ribbon on a windless lake? Even for my parents, married 67 years, weather was a significant blessing on their wedding and anniversaries, Over all those years, it rained only 4 of the years their special date came around.

I could talk about Steve's 82nd birthday party yesterday. It would be about the weather, since all the family there were predictably themselves, and everybody got along... (except for one person, and if called on for a vote, those who knew the back story took an expected side. Old news/no news.) It was held outdoors, late afternoon, with a local town park reserved for the day. The number of people invited would never fit in the house. Children were invited, and those ranged from almost two to almost teens, so the large grassy space for running around and the double playground was exactly what was needed, one part toddler sized, the other perfect even for the twenty-somethings who were shepherding the younger ones around. And keeping them out of the temptation of the pond. Maybe even guiding them into the porta-potty, or making sure trash went into the bins, and "assisting" at the water fountains so those who wanted to get wet could do so in the manner they pleased and their parents approved of.

Because the weather was hot. And sticky.  We knew it was likely to be rainy or even stormy in advance, because it's been a wet and stormy June. The the precise forecasts as each day came closer continued to insist on storms. They just didn't all agree on where or when, even while getting daily more insistent about the what. So it turned out to be good planning to pick a location not just with a bunch of picnic tables, but having them tucked nicely under a big roof, no side walls to prevent what turned out to be a fairly steady breeze from shoving its way through and cooling us all down while keeping skeeters away.

We assured our invited guests of the amenities. Just in case, one guest brought a portable charcoal grill with a cover for cooking the burgers, in case it had to be brought inside. The big public one was on a post in concrete out in the open. Rain would not be conducive to having yummy burgers without another option.

Since my garden rain gauge Frog arrived and got stuck into the ground, I've been keeping track of rainfall, in addition to rain locations around the state, along with the abundance of twister warnings sprinkled through the broader area, or straight line winds over 100 mph doing their own amount of damage very near to close family. I've found rain amounts of 3 inches, 4 inches, half an inch, one inch, three inches, half an inch, a quarter inch (gross underachiever!!), and the ever-popular 3 inches again. It did storm last night, but not till everybody was safe in their homes again, no matter from how far away they came for the party. 

It was potluck, plus burgers and buns provided. Some brought presents as well, including the birthday cake with, of course, the theme of a fisherman in a boat out on a lake.

Other people took pictures. Yes, I took my camera, but was too tired from all the prep including loading and unloading the car, to even hunt for the bag it arrived at the party in, until the car was being loaded again at the end. Uhhhhh... Oops! Too late! Food left over did manage to get home in condition safe to eat - we'd been bagging cubes from the ice maker for weeks ahead, and gotten that huge cooler on wheels you've seen from a previous post. I got help loading the car back up, and bringing things into the house, but exhaustion hit hard.

I managed to stay awake long enough to see our helpers out, and put my feet up long enough to start hearing the rumble of thunder in the distance. I was pulling the blanket up during close cracks of thunder and the drumming of hard rain on the roof, windows, and skylight, all of which combined to make a perfect lullabye. It was over when I woke, though another thundershower came through this afternoon, with rivers running down both side of our street. 

Today I've been lazy, eating some of the party leftovers so we can get room in the fridge/freezers again instead of prepping/heating anything. A tag end of laundry was tended to, except for the folding and hanging part - too much strain on the shoulders. I'll have to actually get dressed soon, since I need to go pick up a grocery order - fortunately mostly staples only needing shelf space, not cold space. On the way I'll go check the froggy rain gauge again, see how much came down in these last 24 hours. Steve has been busy choosing how to spend a couple gift cards, then getting more details and changing his mind. At least he's reading the fine print, because one footstool he really liked turned out to be a kit to make it himself!

Uh-uh. No way Jose! Ain't gonna happen! I won't list all the reasons, but any one would sink the effort. On to plan B... C... D........

*    *    *    *    *

Back from picking up the grocery order sent in. On the way out I emptied the rain gauge of another full inch of rain.  That gives sixteen and a quarter inches since keeping track! Hoo boy, no wonder the weeds are needing so much attention! Please note I never said they were getting all the needed attention, and some still have to wait for dry days in order to kill deep woody roots that never quite get fully dug out nor quit growing. With luck that'll take care of those till next year, and new weeds sprout and....

Yes, I dream.

While traveling on my errand, the clouds were giving quite a show. Did I mention I'm  a cloud watcher whenever possible? Skies are blue here since our last system went through a few hours ago. But weather is active northeast and southeast of us, both disturbances having moved by now well into Wisconsin. That's my now, not yours waiting much longer till I post this and you get around to reading it.

The northern one was the least impressive, during the time I was able to view it. Still, it puffed up several large lumps of clouds, coalescing into a possible shower later. Against otherwise cloudless blue, it stood out beautifully, and the afternoon sun highlighted it well. But my drive provided few openings between treetops and field borders on that side of the road to exhibit much of interest.

The start of my drive circled down to the lakeshore where I was treated not just to a very impressive cloud but its reflection as well, now that the wind was all but gone. The first thing one would notice if they were paying any attention was an anvil cloud. The cloud stretched out east past that anvil point, with a few building clouds pushing up through the flat top. Semi-connected on the trailing side was a series of large tall columns chasing and catching up to the anvil, eventually obliterating it altogether, or at least on its back end. The front, or leading side must have hit a high sheer wind while I was getting my order loaded, as the lumpy tops had been ripped off into a long flat cloud, eventually hitting a downdraft where they were sinking in a solid chunk down towards the ground again. Not rain, just cloud, all keeping pace now as a single unit stretched over miles, heading east and into the enveloping evening. Last I saw of it was upon reaching home again, where more building was slowly taking place on the western end, but it was looking tired, like it had had all the day it wanted to endure.

Dang! I wished I'd brought my camera! 

It's not just bad weather I love to watch in the clouds. There are so many different kinds of them, and I've even seen noctilucent clouds, rare as they are. I've come to love cirrus clouds. They can paint a landscape without diminishing the sunshine in it. A few years back I spent a jet boat tour on the Colorado in Utah capturing more cirrus clouds than red rock canyon walls or water reflections.

On my 75th birthday, one particular cirrus cloud lingered so long in the sky I had the chance to drive to where I wanted the perfect foreground to shoot it from. I considered it my private birthday present. I had gone to my favorite nature and wildlife sanctuary, alone, just me with the camera, able to drive where and when I wished to whatever next spot I want to  go to, no worrying about was the other person getting their photos yet or in the way of mine? It happens a lot. I enjoy taking them but solo trips have different rewards. This particular cirrus cloud was formed into my favorite bird in flight - at least in my eye. It was still intact when I hit my spot to shoot. The body arched just so, the wings were up and back, the head out with the long beak rising, and a couple wisps circling to add substance to the head before narrowing for the long beak. Every wisp of cloud could have been a line drawn in place by an artist to make the perfect whole, nothing out of place except to fill in the background a bit.

I cherish a fantasy of some day painting those clouds on a piece of transparent blue glass. The glass is prepped, cut to size and fused to a clear piece for body. I have the special paint and have test run a sample. I just need time... and some courage.


Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Between The Iris And The Daylilies

It's that time of summer, finally. The iris are giving their last gasps, and the daylilies are sending up stalks with still-tiny buds at their tips. Life keeps kicking along, and the columbine are still managing new blossoms, although heat, winds and hail are wreaking their damage on them. I showed the pale blue bearded iris here a while ago, which don't even have stems left, just flat blueish leaves. But the slower to bloom deep purple ones are still chugging along. 

 This was an early one, called All Night Long, and its blooming time overlapped the pale blue as you can see in a corner. It's curled, shriveled, and drippy - unless it's one I already removed for compost. More recent ones are a bit weather-pummeled.Other bearded varieties I mail-ordered last year have nice large leaves but haven't born flowers this year. Next year!!

None of the smaller varieties of iris bloomed this year, but we have healthy leaves for those too. They survive, tucked among daylilies.

While we wait for the daylilies to continue to grow and bloom,  the Asiatic lilies in the south garden are becoming showy, as the bleeding heart dies back until next spring.

 
First Asiatic lilies to bloom after planting were what they call tiger lilies. OK, they're orange. Big whoop, (The yellowish bits on the petals were hit by the sun, so the color is overexposed, not how the eye sees it.)  But I'm used to a very different tiger lily, recurved speckled orange petals and black balls (bulbils) lining the stem where leaves sit. Oh well. I grew up with those in northern Minnesota, proving how hardy they are. Mom grew them in her gardens. I have some still growing in the garden in my previous MN yard, now my son's yard.

A couple days ago we got an orange/purple combo called Forever Susan, though their "purple" is my brown. Still, it's striking. Since then several other varieties started opening.

 Can't be sure - no match to varietal pictures. The colors hold steady for at least a couple days anyway.

Exotic Sun 

I'm still deciding if this one is a red "tiger" called Red Velvet. A lot of these change colors as they age, and who knows with photos posted where Google can display them exactly where in their color changes a shot was taken? I still have several others I hope produce this year but which got slow starts, and a very few left from last fall that I hope to eventually prove weren't all eaten then. 
 
This pale pink might be Josephine.                 
                                

While these are in the garden now that they finished blooming, I bought them past full bloom at a reduced price from the store. The color fades from deep pink into soft lavender (lower left corner) as petals drop. These are shown on the porch where they could get sun and be easily watered via the tray they were sitting in, and surrounded by plastic hardware cloth to keep the bunnies at bay.  The tag identified them as Summer Sky.

I'm waiting for full white ones called My Wedding,  some Stargazers, some Fireworks, a couple Turkish near blacks called Nightrider, different pinks. I know many of those will never appear due to squirrels, as they were ordered online from Holland. But I do plan to keep photo records of what does show this year. There will be surprises next year if I can continue to keep the bunnies out because this spring they've already nibbled budding tips off of several newly sprouted ones before I noticed, Those won't bloom now, of course, but they're still surviving, surrounded by generous helpings or rhubarb stalks.

I'm told by the packaging that several of these varieties are fragrant. Perhaps after a few more seasons I'll be able to tell for myself. Of such things dreams are made.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Living Under A Skylight

Until this place, I never have. Everywhere either had a solid roof, or was in a building with another floor on top. But this home has two skylights.

Now I was raised to value privacy, almost to extremes. Mom taught us - or me in particular, being a young girl at the time - not just to keep the blinds or curtains closed, but the importance of the difference in light levels between inside and outside. It had better be darker in the house if curtains were going to be opened. Or windows for fresh air, for that matter. It wasn't by any means a total prohibition for her. I have many memories of her standing with her back to a south-facing window with the sum coming in and warming up her back. The colder the day, the longer she stood there to collect free heat.

Inside doors had to be shut tight when changing clothes, sleeping, or using the bathroom for any purpose including brushing one's teeth - that last not being something I'd think of for a modesty fetish. Nobody thought to argue, it was just how to be "proper".

To this day I still judge internal light versus external light in deciding whether blinds need to be re-angled to give us privacy or if we could open them wider to see what was going on outside. Because it was outside, we weren't spying on the neighbors of course. Any good lawyer will tell you there is no expectation of privacy out in public. Besides, we like to know which delivery trucks are stopping, especially when it might mean something we ordered was being delivered. I can tell you which neighbor shakes out their small rugs from their front porch, who waxes their car at least monthly, whether it's recycle day or just garbage day by the colors of the lids on the cans brought to the curb. And we always check whether it's raining or snowing by looking at the street pavement.

But all that is normal stuff, typical for any dwelling that isn't a cave.

There are two skylights in our roof. One is in each bathroom, either over the toilet or the shower. On the one hand it's nice not to need to turn on a light every time it's in use, since neither bathroom has an actual window on any wall. On the other hand, there's Mom's paranoia about being seen when not perfectly clothed. And she never had to worry about who might have a drone out scouting, or how sensitive satellite cameras really are.

But when under a skylight I can actually hear rain hitting the roof because it's hitting the glass, no insulation in between us. I can look up and see where a cloud stops and blue sky begins, or catch sunrise/sunset colors otherwise blocked by trees or other homes. On cloudless nights I can see two bright stars when forces of nature wake me out of bed. Should I wish to I could head out and locate constellations, moon phases, or what have you, though I never actually do, preferring more sleep instead.Well, unless it's a clear but not too cold winter evening, of course, since I don't have to wait till the wee hours to see the sky. Besides, summer night skies here are often blocked by general humidity, or in recent years, wildfire smoke drifting down from Canada. Winter cold seems to knock both those out.

Other things that do not manage to impede the skylight view include birds, since they do not seem to like to land or walk on the glass. On the other hand occasionally the local crows become the view as they glide overhead. We do see them walking on the neighbor's roofs, just not anywhere near our skylights. It may be a puzzle to be solved... or just ignored. Leaves don't gather there either. It could become quite the rainbow in the fall if they did, with all the maples we're surrounded by. Even that possibility is waning now that the park management has been cutting down a number of trees, saying they have become diseased.

Some of those trunks are huge. I have fall shots of a huge variety of colors while the trees were still here. If a huge storm did go through, the damage could be incredible, so I can see their point. And for a bonus, fewer trees just might mean fewer squirrel nests on the site, meaning fewer bulbs dug up for squirrel dinners, and even fewer oak trees arising in the middle of plantings around the house, like we've had the last two summers. I get the maple trees popping up all over, since their seeds helicopter their way down to wherever the breeze drops them. But acorns have to be planted by thrifty squirrels since there are no oak trees in fact in the park. Not a one is close as a block away. None were before the cutting, anyway. But at least no tiny trees have tried to sprout around our skylights.

On the whole, despite Mom's lessons in paranoia, I find the skylights much more boon than problem. But ask me again, if and when we are next in line for baseball-sized hail, eh? Somebody (else) will have to be hired for replacing them. I don't do ladders. I don't do roofs. So I sure as hell won't be doing any skylight installations myself.


Monday, June 23, 2025

The Blind Men and The Elephant

You're probably saying, "I can skip this, I know that story."  Yes, you probably do know that story, but this isn't THAT story. I'll show you the connection. 

For you who have forgotten or - is it possible? - never heard it, several blind men had never seen an elephant, nor gotten otherwise acquainted with one. Each of them reached out and touched a different part of one. The fellow who touched its tail described an elephant as being like a rope. The one finding a leg said it was like a tree. The one hitting its side thought it was a wall, and so on. We who see elephants know, of course, it is like all those things but so very much more.

There is a big family birthday party coming up. With all the family invited, we're holding it in a city park. It's got a lot of running room in addition to a playground full of equipment for the kids, a grill for cooking, a porta potty for anybody, and a large roofed area over picnic tables. Since everybody is driving, it's also got the necessary huge parking lot.

We're bringing hamburgers to grill, and charcoal and tools have been acquired. The burgers come from a meat packing plant where one family member works and got us an employee discount. There's room in the freezer, but there are a lot of things to transport which are temperature sensitive for food safety and require a cooler for the afternoon. Anything resembling one has long since been used for fishing and I'd never want to eat anything coming out of one of those.  I went and bought a brand new one. It's huge, very squarishly cubical, and has wheels and a long handle for pulling, plus extra handles for lifting it in/out of the car hatch.

There won't just be burgers in there, but buns, condiments, baked beans, and one family member plans to hit our kitchen just ahead of time and do something with potatoes to bring. We also have a hyperactive ice maker in our freezer, and have been collecting bread bags full of ice cubes to take over.

Steve and I have been disagreeing about what color the cooler is. It was sitting in the living room for a few days, but was placed back into the car over the weekend ago to transport the hamburger patties for their over-an-hour trip north, needing to stay frozen. The patties came into the house, but not the cooler. In its absence, Steve has been referring to it as the red cooler. I've been referring to it as the blue cooler. Both of us are positive we are correct, vehemently enough to get us laughing about the disagreement while scratching our heads over how one of us could be so wrong. 

With the super hot temperatures these last couple days, going out to look at it or better yet, bring it inside, has not been any kind of a priority. Today was cooler, and I had to head to work. I remembered to bring the cooler inside, even if for no other reason than to cool it down to room temperature from sunny car-oven heat so it will actually keep meat cool by party time. I decided to take a shot of it against a very neutral wall, and - I promise - no shenanigans with fiddling with the color. Here it is below. So now, you help us decide: is it blue or is it red?


                           ; )


Sunday, June 22, 2025

Heat Wave!

 I'm used to dealing with cold weather, being a Minnesota native. Spending three years in Georgia back in the '70s was a total revelation, particularly after watching the neighbor mow their lawn on Christmas eve! Any yard care we'd have had to do in MN would involve shoveling and spreading sand or salt. Becoming recent AZ snowbirds for ten years got our bodies accustomed to heat, and our wardrobes bereft of heavy coats, boots, mittens, scarves... all things a part of us hoped never to have to deal with again.

So now we're back for good. It was a chilly winter, nothing like the old ones which routinely hit -40, which is just as cold in fahrenheit as it is in centigrade. But we did hit -30 at least once this last winter. It also bounced right back again so whatever snow we got was gone from the streets in a couple days. Our bodies adjusted a bit, our wardrobes more so. We again were surviving winters. Minnesota winters.

Our bodies didn't adjust all the way, however. It used to be the thermostat was set to heat the house to between 65 and 68. Now our old bones start feeling comfortable at 72, which is comfy if we're moving and wearing sweats as a second layer. When we sit to read or watch TV, or even snooze ( because geezers, hello!), a lap blanket is added in addition. Double layer polar fleece.  Ah-h-h-h-h-h....

Last summer we turned the AC on about 3 times, not for long periods, but with ceiling fans to keep us comfy. I was being cheap about it too, having no idea what the electric bill would turn out to be. Turned out to be fairly modest for the summer, and even for winter, because this place was made with gas in mind instead of electricity. Gas furnace, gas stove and oven, gas water heater. I do all the cooking I can in the microwave. There are ceiling fans for cooling down - 4 in various rooms. A light whisper of breeze over my bed at night in the summer usually means no AC needed. For contrast the AC was on 6 months of the year in AZ, and we were grateful to have gotten solar installed on the roof.

This summer is being different. We switched from El Nino to La Nina. We're setting summer heat records. If that isn't enough, the humidity pushes up the heat index - the "feels like" temperature. I wanted to hibernate inside for two days, since the low temperature this morning was 81! In Minnesota! That's often the nice warm summer high, good swimming weather. But today the feels-like temperature is supposed to be around 110! Inside my little car with a black interior and no garage or shade would be just plain cruel. 

Life intervened.  I had to climb into my mobile furnace just before noon. It was a short errand, a trip to the local grocery store which would almost cool it down by the time I arrived. But it was all in a good cause.

My youngest son called, asking if we had a mixer. Nope. OK, he'd bring one if I'd go pick up some heavy whipping cream. Also, if I made shortcakes (Bisquick alone will fill that bill, no other brand allowed!) he'd also bring the strawberrries! I am so glad I taught him years ago what Mom taught me, the one and only acceptable way to make strawberry shortcake! In addition to the good company, he will have been out at the local apple orchard to a separate patch on thier property where you pick your own strawberries, charged by weight. He'll have picked extras for making jellies this fall when it cools down, and meanwhile they'll be sharing freezer space in his basement with cherries, elderberries, grapes, and whatever else he can harvest from his yard, or maybe supplement from the store, to produce jars of jelly for all on his Christmas list.

But today, it's "only" strawberry shortcake. Yummmmmm!

Tomorrow it's supposed to cool back down, a good thing since my yard is calling. Heat-blown flowers are in need of deadheading.

Thursday, June 19, 2025

A Granddaughter's First Rainbow

I'm "borrowing" a granddaughter for a few days. She's old enough now that we can do some things together (making her some earrings), and she can appreciate a trip to my favorite nature center to look for swans, cranes, egrets, eagles, turtles, deer, herons, water lilies, and whatever else there we might be able to find. She's also old enough to have her own cell phone and use its camera. I planned to give her some tips, as well as lots of opportunities to try to use them. She's got the technical stuff down, but I was trying to get her to do some horizontal shots for wide subjects, or zoom in before clicking instead of cropping afterwards to get a full(er) and less pixelated screen shot.

She soon tired of that, so we had supper and she returned to her cell for non-photo reasons. After a few minutes I wondered why planes were flying overhead. The sun was shining, so surely it wasn't constant thunder? I stepped outside and not only was the thunder louder and non-stop,  but I was getting pelted by the first onslaught of rain. As soon as I was back inside, I noted hail hitting the neighbor's roof and bouncing down its slope and into the grass. 

I called her in the room I was in to see it before it stopped, and then we went to the other side of the house since the cloud was moving in that direction. Besides there is a covered porch on that side for our protection. Even more hail was falling on that side of the house, and with a metal roof over that porch, was loud enough to keep her jumping until she realized she was still protected. We watched it bouncing off several roofs, and both grabbed cameras to see what we could capture. 

Suddenly she cried, "There's a rainbow!" Both our cameras pointed in that direction, and I shot some video trying to include both hail and a rainbow in the same sequence. It didn't seem to be working, and the hail was letting up. I lowered my camera enough to pay more attention to the rainbow and discovered it was now in fact a double!

I grabbed a still shot, noting later a few pieces of hail still stuck on the neighbor's roof peak. There was also time to notice that the space between the rainbows was the darkest part of the sky, as if rainbows stole light from their surroundings so they could paint the sky in all their colors.

It didn't last long,  the hail was over, and we both retreated back into the house. I went to pull out my laptop for a radar view of what else might be coming our way. Only now, finally after all the action was past, were the town sirens going off. Was more on the way? Worse?

Radar showed us as getting poured on, orange and red with a trace of green covered the screen. It just wasn't raining any more however. Radar is goofy around here, showing rain where it won't hit for at least 5 more minutes, or not showing this while I checked it before the hail hit to see if the rumble was weather or aviation created. Now it was working, and I expanded the view outward for a bigger picture of what lay in store. 

Nothing.

Nada.

The one lone cloud in the entire state had landed on us and us alone, giving my granddaughter, at 11, her first ever rainbow in a real sky. She'd had hail before, and shared a couple stories. Only now, not just her first rainbow, but a double!

I can't wait to see what the rest of her visit has in store for her!


Tuesday, June 17, 2025

No Kings... And Way Fewer Monarchs

We in America, for the most part, honor our history of separating from a king who wanted to rule us from across a wide ocean. Our ancestors came here to be free of such kinds of governance. Just because your dad was a king didn't make you qualified to be one yourself. We all recognize that our children are not carbon copies of their parents in every other way, but somehow there are still places where who your parents were determines your right - or not - to tell others what to do. For the most part, we elect the people we most wish to write our laws and lead our country. Millions of us were out demonstrating all over this country last Saturday, showing our displeasure over somebody who would do their best to declare himself King - or autocrat - of this country. With the backing of a very narrow segment of the population, he is doing his worst to change how this country runs, and who it does it for. 

 

 There is another change in monarchs in this country, and it is becoming just as worrysome, a visible symptom of a much larger problem we have caused. Latest counts show the population of monarch butterflies is down over 22% in the last few years. All kinds of reasons are looked at. Pesticides get part of the blame. Extending agriculture over wide swaths of the country to eliminate habitat and food sources is another problem. Perhaps the most telling is climate change. 

In the last few years, I've seen plenty of milkweed blooming. We have deliberately planted, or allowed self-planted milkweed plants to grow where they would in the yard in small-town Minnnesota. They infested the gardens, the grassy patches which then protected them from being mowed for the full season... and the next... and next.  Butterfly bushes (asclepias) mostly left the formal garden areas and sprung up in the lawn, so mowing detoured around them, allowing their growth and spread. Neighbors may have complained, but while grass height lowered, individual plants remained. We have been trying to provide for the ones that do finally reach here.

The problem these days is the timing. The above photo shows the ideal. Milkweed blossoms are in full bloom, each filled with nectar for the curled up proboscis to extend into and drink from. Unfortunately, this photo is nearly a dozen years old. These days the flowers are done blooming, and seed pods forming, before the first monarch appears.

Sure, the plant has been pollinated by other insects, its seeds will develop and be fertile. Grandchildren will be invited over to POOF! them into the winds to be carried wherever then can go in hopes of finding the right spot of soil. But no monarchs will have been fed here.

With luck they might have found another plant to sustain them for a bit, like this liatris.

Or they may have landed on a late season balloon flower, long past offering anything but a perch.

 They might have even laid eggs which hatched.... though this picture is several years old. These lucky monarch caterpillars found plenty of tender leaves to munch on while they grew.

Some find food but which comes with competitors for the supply.

 I haven't seen a caterpillar for about ten years now. They are hard to miss! Even the smallest of us can usually spot them even hiding in a bunch of similar colors.

The last time I watched a green chrysallis turn clear, split, and allow a new butterfly to spread its wings was so long ago I didn't even have a digital camera yet, nevermind being on #4 in my series of them. Somehow cameras just don't work at capturing what is no longer around to find. And while I do oppose having any kings over us in this country, I do hope we don't soon loose sight of our spectacular flying monarchs.

Monday, June 16, 2025

How To Earn $50 Grand In A Few Easy Steps

1: Live in the right location. This is very difficult to plan for of course, because it depends on other people's actions. One significant part of that is that somebody puts up a cell tower providing good service to your home.

2: Set up trail cams around your property and get in the habit of watching them to see what's going on in your vicinity. While this may only bring you wealth in the rarest of circumstances, it can still reward you with hours of entertainment and information.

3: Keep your phone handy and with a full charge.

4: Practice calming breathing exercises so when you get that "money shot" you can take the appropriate steps. All this preparation will be for nothing if you pass out or start jumping up and down, loudly yelling "I've got him! I'm gonna be rich!" or some other such nonsense loudly enough that your whole county can hear you.

5: Keep abreast of the important news which may affect you and others in your area. Every so often, mentally practice your "'what ifs" about what kinds of actions you would take if certain events unfolded where you could observe them. Consider the possible need of a wide range of actions in response to an even wider range of events.

6: Learn to know and recognize your neighbors, know where they live, learn their names.

7: This is the most difficult part of your preparation: have a neighbor become a whack-job killer who goes around killing and/or trying to kill famous people and making national headlines.This must be somebody who doesn't immediately get themselves killed in a police confrontation, but who successfully flees and becomes the object of a widespread hunt. Note that a large reward has been offered, and what the details of earning such reward entail.

8: Have said person hiding out on or near your property, in the process of which they pass in front of one of more of your trail cams, and do so at a time when you can see them do so and recognize that they are the object of a huge manhunt.

9: Once all those pieces fall into place, call in the sighting of said fugitive ASAP to the authorities who are hunting that person., giving all the relevant details that are necessary to their capture or death, depending on the specifics of the reward offer, of course.

10: Lock your doors and wait. If no capture is announced, keep an eye on those trail cams, especially those nearest your house. Once capture is announced, claim your reward.

Friday, June 6, 2025

Clockwork Rage

 By now you all know I use these pages to vent about things that annoy me. I'm at it again, though this time I'm going to mellow it at the end with some flower photos.

The replica antique Coca Cola wall clock that has been following our travels around the country for years now is beginning to have some interesting glitches. It's nothing we can't deal with if we give it a few tweaks over the first couple days after we put the new battery in. For some reason the hands seem to snag on something in the vicinity of 7 or 8, and the time needs to be reset. We also have noticed that when setting the time we have to come at it from behind. In other words, we can't set the time to before where it was sitting, we have to go around the dial  until our last crank comes from behind, making the hands move ahead. None of these are a big deal, but it can get tiresome. We decided to look for a new one to replace it. It had been sentimental for Steve, but he also was willing to leave it behind via one of our garage sales before we moved. That didn't happen.

Rather than hunt for clock stores we went online to hunt. Steve started with the idea of looking for a pendulum clock. Not a huge Grandfather affair, being way beyond what we wanted to spend. But the ones we did find had chimes, and much as we like the Big Ben chimes which are now in our front doorbell, we were sure they'd be going off right when there was something on the TV which sits right next to where it would hang, with something we'd want to hear obliterated by the chimes going off.  In short, no chiming clock.

We did find a nice enough looking one (in it's picture), with a reasonable price, and ordered it. It arrived on time.

That's the last thing that went right.

The pendulum is shipped as a separate piece, which makes perfect sense, since a jolt during transit could give it enough leverage to bend something. We did try to put the pendulum on when we unwrapped it, but there was nothing we could find for it to cling to. There were a lot of things the right location, size and shape, but....

I'd recently bought batteries since we were siphoning so many through the old Coke clock. I dug one out and put it where it went... except it didn't go there. Or the other spot that looked perfect. Or even the third one which really did fit it snugly. Maybe it was upside down? I always make sure when I'm changing either AA or AAA batteries to be sure to note the orientation of the ones I remove and lay the dead ones out in that position as a template for their replacements. This didn't have any old ones of course. Nothing I tried, or that Steve tried, worked. We looked at each other and nearly simultaneously, said, "Call Paul."

He'd be off work soon, was usually willing to come over after and fix or install whatever we needed to make this place livable. (We joke that he does it to keep us from moving back in with him! I like to think it's a joke, anyway.)

When he arrived, he immediately found where the pendulum went... after three other tries. Buy hey, who's counting? I brought him a new battery and he figured out where it went, even if not sure after trying both possibilities which was correct. When he got no results from a second hand that resembled any kind of motion, he pulled the still functioning battery from the Coke clock, and... still nothing in the new clock. He replaced it in the Coke clock and it's still going strong. 

In the process of working with the battery he discovered that the pendulum swings freely - so freely that nothing in the clock mechanism is set up to move it. The damn things moves only when somebody swings the clock! It stops whenever gravity and friction win, usually about 3 swings.

Since we all came to the same conclusion that this was a total piece of cheap-shit crap, I started looking around for the box to put it back into for a return. Considering how things were going so far, it likely won't surprise anybody that the shipping box had already been torn up, de-taped and de-stapled, its pieces ready for the recycling bin. At least one thing worked! If I don't mind being called a thing in this context, that is. Yes, I did that. : (

Today came the email I've been waiting for, a chance to give a review on the clock. I wasn't going to get a refund, but I could give out a warning to the next rube. and boy, did I!

Meanwhile the Coke clock is still keeping perfect time up on the mantle. There is a large supply of  AA batteries left, and I'm just not in a hurry to buy a replacement. The next purchase clock-wise will be one of those kits like the one in the back of the current clock, where a central post/spindle/whatever goes through a hole, batteries on one side and hands and numbers on the other so it can be turned into a clock. I have just the thing. It will be its second life as a wall clock.

 Long ago, in a state far far away, friends of my parents used a kit to turn a piece of petrified wood into a clock. It's grey and white and red and tan-ish yellow. (The bright white at about 6:30 o'clock in the photo is from the flash.) The hole is well placed, and somebody worked a long time in lapidary to turn it into a smooth- faced pretty thing. It worked as a clock for a very long time. Unfortunately, rather than finish it off the way I learned to do for a polish, they simply poured lacquer over it all, stone, numbers, everything. Decades later the color was old brownish yellow. I mean everything was brownish yellow, except the black numerals were still black. I liked the stone, remembered its former glory, and went about finding out how to restore it. About three bottles of acetone later, in which it sat in a flat pan of, face down for several days (outside), the numerals were scraped off, the mechanism removed, nearly all the lacquer now gone, and color mostly restored. One more bottle for a last soak and scrape, then on to the machines in the club. This time however it got a wax-type polishing with a cloth wheel for a couple hours. The back side is rough but who cares? Someday if somebody wishes to reverse the clock and use new numbers and motor, they can repeat what I've done on the other side. I refused to find it necessary for my own use. Perhaps as a present? For me it was just restoring old beauty in a nod to its original maker and it's being gifted to my parents. Petrified wood is one of the hardest stones to work, and one side sufficed. The ugly yellow is gone. Now it's just a matter of style and size of what goes on the face.

Meanwhile I bought another houseplant:

This one is a calla lily, with lavender-purple blooms, bluer than shown. But purple is always hard for cameras to figure out: Red? blue? I had a decades long best friend who died a couple years back. Calla lilies were special to her, but at that time the only ones on the market were white. Where my plants sit for light is already white enough, so I go for color there when I can. When this came home there was a single bloom. Today there are 7, one hiding from the camera. A ponytail palm intrudes from the right, and a begonia maculata is trying to photobomb from the left.

Heading outside, this is the first of these greeting me in full bloom this morning,

They have a story to tell as well. Decades ago at the last MN house I lived in, a humongous rock was delivered to my front yard, granite with large seams of feldspar, and big enough to sit on - for two people. All because I stopped at city hall and asked the clerk if they city had a plan for it or it needed a home. It wasn't my choice of location, but no way could I budge it! When I got some sky blue iris needing a new home, they were planted next to it. They thrived. It became impossible to mow the lawn near it. Last year when I needed iris for my new raised circle bed, they got dug out and transplanted. Or at least we thought they all had. This spring Paul showed me three which escaped the shovel and which will be moved in a month or two. This is the first to bloom in the new home of all the iris or daylilies planted.

Meanwhile over by the rhubarb bed, my newly planted fancy columbines are thriving.

Yellow were the first in, followed by the rose/white ones.
Because Steve is from Colorado, one very important color combination was missing:
Have I stopped planting for the year? Do pigs fly? There are some late sprouting lily bulbs just showing life now, and a pair of potted early blooming ones on sale at a discount because they were already dropping petals. No more pictures for now, however. The weeds after 4 1/2" in recent rains are thriving all too well  and are calling for attention.


Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Those Damned Yahoos!

Yahoo used to be an exclamation of celebration.  On the other hand, yahoos were pretty clueless folks, provincial, ignorant, not terribly well educated. It was with a smidgen of wonderment that I first noted an email network with the name Yahoo: which did they mean?

Yahoo is not part of my email address. I have a much older name on my address, so old that it's been prevented from going through on form replies at times as being likely made up... or something. Eventually the company originating it "sold" those email addresses to Yahoo.com. It didn't change much. The address is the same, format was the same, the boxes in the same locations, using the same commands, in the same colors, shapes, and sizes. I particularly like the wide box for writing the body of any given email. I knew exactly where the new ones were, which were archived and how to send stuff there, how to designate spam and even rescue stuff from span.

Yesterday, with no fanfare or warning, everything changed but the name. I dread trying to read or send my email now. There's a space called folders but .... it's empty and no clue what goes where or how to organize. I can't find my old archived stuff. Things might or might not be going to spam, with or without my approval, but there's nothing named spam to go through to check. Somehow the system has decided what's important to me to read (yeah, sure....) and I had to search to find an "all" to click on to see what I was missing, but still with no indication of what might be spam. If you happen to send me stuff and know I want to hear from you but haven't replied, this may be why. If it's about that gadget you're selling or wonderful new financial plan,well......

When I want to send something out, especially in reply to what it's attached to, I'm used to the new, composed-with-proofing-required message going on the bottom. It was the widest part of the email, getting about 2/3 of the page, horizontally. Now it's squished between stuff at the top of the message  - I finally found it! - and squeezed into a vertical column about an inch and a half wide. I can use a single word that takes up more space!  And it limits just how many people I can send the same message to. Or at least I think that's what happens. 

It's more complicated than that, starting with garbling up what I should just be able to click on among possible options to finish the first two characters into a choice of people to send to. There are a lot of people in that address book it's no longer communicating well with, and once it chooses the wrong one I have to fully delete after multiple tries, try typing it again, and hope this time some stupid algorithm picks a different one or just stays the hell out of the process! For some stupid incomprehensible reason it won't accept a backspace erase of characters on bad addresses. It will accept a full delete of everything, which is my frustration's last resort.  (Well. tossing the laptop across the room is a bit too expensive for my budget, so it's not part of my last resort list. However, if I could locate the one the software Yahoos put their new program on...  That might be worth worsening the pain in my bad shoulder for, right? )

How did I find this out? The first thing I needed to do with the new piece of crap software was type and send a birthday invitation to bunch of people. I finally made a single one successfully, sent it to my husband, and had him forward it in one group-send to all the recipients. He doesn't have Yahoo anymore, switching to Gmail months ago. (Did I need to mention that?)

Meanwhile I had to deal with disappearing messages whenever I hit a shift key to capitalize a new sentence, or addresses that weren't but just put the first letter followed by an X inside parentheses and couldn't be deleted, and about every other thing I could imagine somebody pulling on any given April 1st.

After fighting my way through that, Yahoo had the audacity - or hubris - to ask me for my feedback on their new system. After a couple thoroughly rude but honest paragraphs, including asking them to quit "improving" their system because they weren't, I asked for my old system back.

They've been a bit slow in acknowledging that.

Hey, I wonder of those DOGE boys were fooling around with some new project after Elon was done with them. Or is he actually done.....???????


ADDENDUM:

Having cooled down a bit after venting, I went back to my email out of desperation to explore some more and see what else I could figure out.  Let's just say the results were mixed. I did manage to find my Spam folder. In it was one thing of interest. It said I needed to reactivate my account in the new system, or words to that effect, "click here" (which yielded no noticeable result,) and it had to be done by May 31st. I didn't even get the new stuff until yesterday.  But as soon as I read it I went back to the main page to see if the opportunity for feedback was still up. It was. I used the opportunity:

Are you insane????? You tell me to click to update/activate my account in the new version or face deactivation, and then HIDE IT IN SPAM WITH WARNINGS ?????????

I did, of course, include a link to this.  : )

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

About Long Covid Anosmia

Steve and I met friends in St. Paul for dinner last night. It was raining very lightly, so little that I didn't bother with the umbrellas I'd put in the car. Walking past some evergreen plantings in the restaurant's  landscaping, he commented on how wonderful they smelled in the light rain, and all the great memories they brought back. Like me, much of his childhood was in or near pine forests.

I told him I know what he meant since I have those memories of that scent. But since covid I no longer smell what I used to enjoy. (Of course I no longer smell what I hate either.) Very rarely does some kind of scent get my attention, like the first grass cutting of the season this month. Subsequent ones in the neighborhood were simply mower noise. I have been with him in the car when he mentions how strong a skunk stink we just passed, and I take a deep breath to see what I might be able to detect. If there is anything, it will be faint and bears no resemblance to the weapon of that adorable black and white fuzzy creature that, when alive, waddles so cutely past. There is the tiniest bit of something, but bears no relation to any skunk, living or dead. Or anything else I can recognize or name. That's on a good day. Otherwise, nothing. If I had a farting dog I wouldn't have a clue, and unless you're noisy, none about you either.

This morning we were again discussing last night, and his reminiscence of the evergreens in the rain. I love that he can still have that as part of his life, and hope mine can someday finally return. He sympathized with me while I rejoiced for him. But I added I might be just a bit selective in my wish for myself, not being over-eager to smell my own stink again!

Probably best to just assume it's still there though, eh?

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Columbines In the Garden

 I've been doing a bit of shopping lately, mostly for the garden. The fantasy is that once things are planted this time the critters won't come in and dig them out or chop them off or whatever their personal version of Nuclear War is this time around. "This time", of course, is defined as anything between my seeing something in the garden, or a store, or in a photo calling out for a new home here, and the end of the next century. Those critters mean business, by gum, and train their future generations in all versions of their particular vendettas and successful warfare techniques. Well, I can wage war too!

It's notable that the expensive stuff is always the first to go. These vegetarians' idea of steak, oysters, champagne and caviar had been everything coming from my bulbs that is wanted to grow here. If that wasn't enough, (since who's patient?) they've gone after the bulbs themselves as kind of a hardship buffet. It does seem like I finally have a modest win on my hands now that I'm spreading rhubarb bits amongst their smorgasbord. And here I've been doing everything I can to get rid of those plants since they've been crowding out really good planting space. It should have occurred to me that there was a good reason rhubarb was doing so well. Or at least noted that this end of the garden had more survivors. Good thing I am a failure at getting rid of it (though I'm still happy to let any and everybody pick it so long as they leave something. I'm going to need it by fall and for next spring during those hungry times for the critters: pick, chop, freeze some, scatter more. Then come snowmelt, thaw and scatter more and more till it's back growing all over the place again so I can take it directly from live plants. Hey, sounds like a plan anyway.

The south garden starts with rhubarb. In the middle is still-active bleeding heart, something else I inherited and which is unbothered by critters. It's large enough to hide the far end of the bed in this shot, so it's been around for a while. I guess I should have known what's still around is not on the critters' high-buck menu. Whether I think it's lovely or plug-ugly, they won't touch it. On both sides of the Bleeding heart is what IS on their menu: lily bulbs. And of course, lily tops.You may look at this and wonder what the complaint is. There's obviously a lot of lilies there, and even a hint of a bloom. That's a whole second planting to replace the first.


 The bloom was short-lived, but that was not the doing of any critters. After several days petals dropped. This was just an early bloomer. A generous assortment of rhubarb leaf pieces and stalk chunks decorated the ground with the second planting, and the "good stuff" was left alone. Well, except for the wind, but I'm not doing that battle. We all know who'd lose. 

There is one way only to fight the wind, and then only up to a point. That's with wire  cages, well seated in the ground. Once I was sure my tall balloon flower (remember that one?) was going to thrive, I visited the hardware store on its behalf.


You can see how much it's grown in a week or so. This was taken before we had several days in a row of rain and cold here. I set out a bucket and it shows rain of 2 inches! Not an official rain gauge, but upon that realization, a search online was made, and one should be delivered by month end. Meanwhile, these look like tender shoots, but they've not been bothered by anything's teeth, are growing quickly, and are tucked in behind one of the 4 wires keeping their cage properly shaped. If the rain ever stops and temperatures rise again, I'll take more progress shots. This was before the system moved through (s-l-o-w-w-w-l-y) knocking the temperature from high 80s to mid 30s.

I did say this was about columbines, didn't I? I've had the wild small red and yellow natives blooming in my previous garden since its first or second year, meaning early '90s. They are reliable, hardy, and spread seeds in any empty space to grow more. 

 Fine, but it's time for VARIETY !!!  Big and fancy! And by gum, already potted since the packaged ones I bought were apparently thoroughly deceased and determined to remain so. (Glad my nose still doesn't recognize rot - nor skunk either, but 'nother story.)

Last week on the way home from a grocery run, I stopped at a local garden center. I had one thing on my mind: fancy columbines. They have a huge area to browse, so I asked directions. 

"Hey, (fellow employee), do we carry columbines?... Where?" She looked terrible at giving coherent directions, but luckily just invited me to follow her ziz-zag through tables. I noted she slowed and was looking around for them just before I noticed I was already standing next to them! They had 3 varieties, so I picked out two. One pot of solid yellow, one of red/pink. The third was red/white, but they weren't quite as healthy looking. I looked around, but no blue ones. 

Sigh.

The pots went in a box for support for the trip home, and were immediately planted once the groceries were put away. Where did I pick to plant them? Next to the rhubarb, of course! We'd let enough be dug out the fall before that there was some open dirt space waiting. I don't know that they need the protection, but it was there and why not?

 
 
The yellow had fully open blossoms which dropped in a couple days. The red was showing color, but even now hasn't opened to show off, likely from the cold. 

There was one problem, however. The garden needs a blue columbine. Not only are they beautiful, but Steve's from Colorado, and grew up with those, its state flower. Time for more research online. I started with metro garden centers, the really huge ones for the best chance of finding a blue columbine. The first website didn't show plants, just gave hours and address plus listed major categories of merchandise and plants. I needed specifics!

I remembered I still had a gift card for one from Christmas. They had a fantastic website, the kind you show when you actually want customers instead of relying on decades of reputation alone to haul them in. This one had blue and white columbines! The photos were exquisite, easily found by selecting for perennials and spring blooming. I made a quick call to be sure they were still in stock, since a one way trip was about 60 miles. In rush hour. In the rain. Past construction!

After a quick conversation with Steve, confirming he'd like them in the garden enough to not mind me taking the trip (despite his worrying about all those previously mentioned conditions of the trip), and confirming he wasn't about to bounce around in the car that long despite having had his back surgery but was staying home, off I headed.

Once there, of course there was something else on my list, so I got directions to where to find those, which incidentally passed an irresistible succulent that would fill a gap in a planter where another had died about a year earlier. Those in my cart, it was time to head outdoors into the cold windy rain. Once I located all the columbines, about a block from the end of the building, helpfully organized under "Perrennials - A" for asclepius, I located two different blue/white varieties, a purple/white, a pink/cream, and a couple more empty spaces where varieties had sold out. I did a very speedy check since I was already chilled and the car's warmth was still about 15 minutes away. Comparing the two blue, my original choice stood out. The purple was tempting, but instead I went with two pots of the blue! Back inside, check out, wheel the cart down to where I parked, unload into the car, properly dispose of the cart which belonged back next to the building.... Yep. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! Fortunately  the car still held its warmth and shortly everything was cozy.

Once home the pots were set on the porch till the rain ended. (two days?)  I wasn't going to ask Steve to leave his cozy spot to come out and have a look, but one of the blossoms was perfect! I plucked it, showed him inside, and then made a white background to get a photo.

The browns are not the flower, but the shadow. My camera insists of an overall light amount for grey, so even with flash and brightening it to the limit of my software, the background remains grey. But the blue is that deep! The black "tails" of the flower are also that deep blue. The tiny green stub was the stem.

I figure tomorrow they'll go in the ground. The rain has got to stop sometime, right?

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Early Memories On The Farm

I told somebody yesterday I grew up on a farm. My family remembers it as a resort on the Crow Wing chain of lakes.  Of course I remember that part of it too. But it was also a farm, however modest. We moved in when I was maybe 3 or 4, then moved into town in a different school system when I was already in third grade, so my tender age is my excuse for many gaps in my memories. What I write here is not all I recall, but is indelible, however, for what it is.

Looking back it seems kind of weird that those years split into two sets of memories when it was all one home on one chunk of land. The private parts were the family home except for the store it was built over, and the bits up the hill and behind the cabins that were farm, nothing much like the full farms our neighbors lived on, with fields and barns, cows to milk and pigs. The public part was the resort, with 8 fairly rustic cabins, separate plumbing for them in a shower building our Dad put in. This was the way my parents made their living for about 4 months of the year, their public identity. Our dad had a winter job at a tree nursery, which barely made ends meet but kept us going for a few years. Few people care to vacation in uninsulated wooden cabins in what back then were very cold winters, reaching -40 often enough to think of that as common, so the resort season was understandably very short.

Up on the hill behind the cabins was a corn crib. I can still envision it both full and empty. I still am not completely sure what ate the corn. We didn't even grow corn, so it's likely a neighbor who did rented the space, though those kinds of details were not part of my awareness. A fenced area which also enclosed the corn crib held sheep. I have great memories of shearing time, watching neighborhood experts run clippers over the sheep and neatly separating fleece from suddenly sleek skin. The sheep were released to go wander within the fence, just like we kids were when watching got boring enough. I was short enough to hide in the tall grass, and occasionally one of my parents remembered I was... somewhere, and called me in to prove I was still safe. In hindsight it's weird that the grass was so tall at sheering time, as that is done in early summer so the fleece can grow out enough to keep them warm for winter. But sheep eat the grass so short that nothing is left for cows, and ranchers tend to hate them. This of course is me looking back more than 70 years, not something that made any kind of impression on my carefree mind, not like hiding in the grass, or looking for butterflies or whatever other bugs that might have been hiding next to me in the grass, or even picking a stalk to see what it could do or how it came apart.

I wasn't allowed back there by myself, being so young, so sheering time took on a unique importance. Other things made much less impact. I'm sure there must have been a barn of some sort, as I kind of mentally place it as a backdrop to the sheering activity. But having a mental picture of it? I can picture the inside of a barn, without being able to swear whether it was ours or one belonging to the neighbors we kids visited with fairly often. It may well be overlaid with TV and movie images with the inside of barns as sets. There was hay up on the overhead platform, and a wooden ladder nailed to a hefty post. I could climb it easily, but transferring to the hayloft itself meant letting go of the ladder, a new thing at a young age.  I had to do it just to show that I could be just as brave and able as my older brother. He would tease me unmercifully if I didn't. So of course Mom decided it was too dangerous and I should stop climbing it. Somehow that made what I had been doing because everybody else did it into something scary, and made me doubt myself and whether I could safely do it. Still, I never did fall, and the views from up high and the games we could invent filled some otherwise boring days.

By the time I was five, my attention was drawn to the windmill tower on the property, down lower in the trees. It was just there and always had been in my existence, but once I really looked at it, I saw all the triangles it was made out of and figured out how safe it would be to climb. All I had to do was move and refasten one limb at a time and I'd be perfectly safe. One foot, the other foot, one arm, the other arm. The triangles got smaller and smaller as I rose, but the principle was the same. It was a fantastic adventure, written about here way back on July 28, 2011. It had been printed elsewhere while I was still getting comfortable with writing things to be read - actually read!!! - and finally brought over to my own blog to keep. It's title is "Reclaimed 3: Two Towers, Part 1. "

I bring it back as a different view of that day because I was a bit different when I wrote it, and did so then in large part because it contrasted with "Two Towers, Part 2." Today the climb contrasts with the hayloft ladder. Once again Mom freaked out, just much more so since I got much higher this time to the point where she couldn't even find me up above the tree line. After debating whether I could stay up there until my parents quit calling and went away, never knowing just where I'd been, I reluctantly decided that would never happen but only make what trouble I was in worse. Announcing myself, I climbed back down, one limb moving at a time, nothing else letting go until the previous piece of me was secure. I never was scared, never regretted doing it, and Mom never succeeded in making me feel scared for what I'd done. She was doing that adequately by and for herself. I gloried in that cllimb! I still do. What she did succeed in was getting me to promise never to climb it ever again! I never did break that promise.... Darn it! She made me unsure about hayloft ladders, but never the windmill tower.

Perhaps she should have left well enough alone, and me able to climb, since my next self-taught skill was learning how striker matches worked... in singles and multiples... right behind the house... in a pile of dry leaves. I scared myself just fine that time, but got the fire out before any real damage was done. I smuggled the box of matches back to where they were supposed to be without getting caught. I also had the presence of mind to bury the black leaves under brown ones to hide the rest of the evidence. I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has worn out by now anyway, so you have my full confession written down for the very first time.

In addition to the sheep, we had a chicken coop. It wasn't back up on the hill, but down on the level with the cabins, just back a bit behind them. I remember most clearly the part where it was time to eat one. Whichever parent was to dispatch one pulled it out by the feet, held it down with its head extended, and brought down the hatchet. Then the fun began, this headless feather-shedding thing flopping all around, this way and that, taking what felt like a full minute to die. My parents kept telling us it was dead the second its head came off, that all this wild activity was "just its nerves". I'm not sure whether we believed that then, but we tried to take comfort that it wasn't in pain. The rest of food prep details are fuzzy, but I recall dunking the bird in (hot?) water to help get the feathers off. I also recall spending what seemed like hours anyway removing them. We must not have had chickens long, because I also recall visiting a neighbor a few miles away and waiting while she "candled" eggs so Mom could buy them. I couldn't tell how she did it, perhaps because I had a bad angle for watching, but when the eggs got home none of them had the blob of blood that said they were fertilized and ready to become a chick instead of breakfast.

There were two more things involving animals, though not necessarily farm animals. There was a fairly long hike from the house up the hill to where the school bus picked us up. Something drew my attention to a pile of brush in the woods next to the road a bit more than halfway there. I wasn't in a hurry, nor was my brother along, so it must have been just an errand up to get the mail, also at the entrance to the property. There was a litter of new kittens in a pile under the brush, eyes still closed, happy to stay put rather than run away from those two small hands reaching in, gently petting them, picking them up for a cuddle and putting them back. Mom was nowhere around, likely hunting so she had milk to feed them. Eventually I went on my way, keeping the secret of what was under the brush pile. As always, had I told anybody, I would have been forbidden from doing at again. They were there the next day, and the next, so it was a total shock when they'd been moved. I never saw them again, not as kittens, not as wild cats doing rodent cleanup. But for years afterwards, any time I saw a brush pile, I'd wonder about what kittens might be hiding under it, sure that there must be some somewhere.

The other animal was memorable both for it's size and for the tragedy almost breaking my heart. A pine snake came visiting. A huge one, possibly 6 feet long and as thick as the 4x4 my dad used to kill it. They are harmless, except to rats or perhaps your pet cat, but we didn't have a pet cat back then. What we did have were customers on the resort part of the property, and they noticed the snake. How could they not? Just because many people fear them, and that's bad for business, the snake had to go away, and in a way that reassured everybody it would never return.  It could so easily been put in a gunnysack, into the car, and driven a few miles away to go about its business of rodent control. I didn't fear it, for two reasons: there are no poisonous snakes in that part of Minnesota, and my brother and I were well acquainted with chasing and occasionally catching garter snakes. We'd never been told to fear snakes. Our parents didn't seem afraid of it, but while they were intent on my Dad doing his grim job of pounding it over and over,  a crowd had gathered to watch, with nobody telling them to stay back for safety. Eventually it quit moving, and once the curious had examined it, the body was disposed of. I'm not sure I ever forgave that unneeded brutality. 

The last memory involves no animals. I got to drive a tractor! If memory serves, I was way too small to have had any sane person put me up in the seat by myself, tell me where to put my feet (I assume there was a clutch as well as the gas pedal) and how to move them. Yet there I was, getting it moving, steering it to avoid knocking over the swing set, and all too quickly asking how did I stop this very intimidating piece of machinery. Once again I did it to show big brother I was just as good as he was since he'd just driven it, but this time I also knew it was sheer luck that I did as well as I had and didn't do any damage. I never drove anything again until high school driver's ed, and after than not until I was married and had my first kid. Oddly enough I love driving now, and just in my working career as an IC courier over 29 years clocked over 2 million miles. (I kept track for tax purposes.)