New Neighbors

When I was Josie's age or a bit older, we lived on a block comprised of new houses and vacant lots. And houses under construction. Often, after supper my family would stroll down the block and, if a house was being built and had not yet been dried in, we felt free to wander through it, speculating on what these rooms, now just spaces defined by 2x4s, would become.

 

If roofing was underway, my little brother and I would collect those little tin circles that went under the nails that held down the tar paper. Treasure!

That was then. Today, and here in the country, I wouldn't dare to wander onto a building site, knowing how folks who move here value their privacy.  But I must say I'm fascinated (from a distance) by what is going on next door

They border us on the lower part of our property and we can see (and hear) big doings in the area below the main house. It adjoins one of our pastures below the pond (see hay ring above,) and crews of workers have been busy most days, all day until dark. They've cut and dug up and burned the bamboo a previous owner planted and are constructing what looks like a corral for buffalo.

Asking around hasn't revealed much. I don't know if the owners have moved in or what their plans for the property are. Mention was made of the large workshop being converted to a barn and caretaker's quarters, which sounds like they won't be full time residents.

Raising horses, perhaps?  Rodeo broncs or bulls? Or buffalo or ostriches or zebus? Time will tell. 

Meanwhile, I'm loving the look of the log wall, punctuated by old metal wagon wheels. 

 

Summer Solstice

 Marking the longest day, celebrants gather round the traditional solstice bonfire in hopes of foiling evil spirits and ensuring a good harvest.

(Photo by Justin S.)

In Extreme Heat . . .

 . . . dogs may melt.

Meema Strikes Out

 

Josie's dad was always a great one for arguing, so much so that we often told him he was perfect for a legal career. Actually, one of his teachers, noticing the same talent told him the same thing-- "Justin, you'd make a good lawyer."

The reply was quick and not very polite."Mr. ___, you'd make a good truck driver." 

Yesterday, Josie was scheduled for a dental procedure in the afternoon, and I was to take her in to Asheville to meet her mother. Thinking it would be a thoughtful thing for the child to show up with clean teeth, I proposed several things.

It did not go well. Here's the series of texts I exchanged with Josie's mom:

Josie says that after her appointment, she's coming back here. Is that correct?

No. It will be dinnertime when we get home

I thought so but she was so sure

She doesn't like to be wrong

Tell me. I was trying to get her to brush her teeth with a new (adult) toothbrush, and she said she wasn't allowed to use that. Tried to get her to floss. Also the wrong kind of floss. Asked her to rinse her mouth at least and she said the dentist said sink water was bad for her teeth.

She went and got water from the kitchen (sink) and rinsed

I tried

Also we had the wrong kind of mouthwash

None of that is true LOL

I had a feeling but it's too hot to argue

I don't blame you

Often wrong but never in doubt

Forty Years

                                                                                                                                                                           

Our little south-facing shed greenhouse has been an ongoing pleasure. It's been used mainly to overwinter things like lavender, rosemary, and bay, as well as various tender potted plants.

                                                                                     

In the early years, we attempted to grow tomatoes out of season but the results were pretty tasteless. For several years I grew Japanese cucumbers on trellises and they did quite well--till the year that something ate all the seedlings.  

                                                                                      

 

Now the deep soil bed is home to a Brown Turkey fig tree that seems to like its environment very well--I had to prune it back severely last fall to keep it from global domination.

Last fall I brought in a pot of dill and, to my surprise, it did well and provided me with fresh dill weed for my scrambled eggs etc. all through the winter and spring. It's looking kinda sad now, but I have two pots of dill on the porch, waiting to come inside in the fall.

When we first began to talk about adding a greenhouse using sliding glass door panels for glazing, a friend scoffed. All the homemade greenhouses he'd seen, he advised us, tended to self-destruct after about five years.

Well, it's true the little ventilation windows are getting a bit funky. (A fall project for John in the workshop.) But the date of construction, according to the record etched in concrete inside, is 1984. Forty years! 

(Bozozo Construction was the name of John's short-lived, ad hoc construction company that was hired to remodel a restaurant into a health clinic. Bozozo was what a very young Ethan called bulldozers. And the motto of the company was We're All Bozos on This Bus (cue Firesign Theater.)

For All the Good Fathers

A very Happy Fathers Day!

 

Connections?

Part of my morning routine, along with coffee, Heather Cox Richardson and the NY Times, is playing the game Connections in which you try to make groups of four out of sixteen seemingly unconnected words (or numbers or letters.) It kinda gets my mind in gear for the day.

So, for your Saturday morning mind, what's the connection between these four photos?

Hmm?

                                                                                   

                                                                                  

Dragonflies

                                                              

The photo above is an old one-- I blogged about it HERE.    I took it in the garden a long time back. I'll never duplicate that luck, but I continue to be fascinated by dragonflies and spent some time by the goldfish pool trying to get some close ups.

                                                       

This one, with the semaphore wings is, I think, a young White Tailed Dragonfly. The tail is all white on an adult.

And this metallic beauty is a Blue Dragonfly. I'm not sure about the one below . . .

I welcome more information on these critters. 

                                                                         

For the Birds

A Downy Woodpecker, followed by a Cardinal, Goldfinch, and what I think is a young Rufous Sided Towhee.

 

Return to a Place of Godliness?

                                                                             

                                                                             

The following is from a NY times story:

 Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative last week that compromise in America between the left and right might be impossible and then agreed with the view that the nation should return to a place of godliness.

“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised."

Ms. Windsor pressed Justice Alito further. “I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument,” she told him . . . “Like, people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”

“I agree with you, I agree with you,” he responded.

... Chief Justice Roberts, who was also secretly recorded at the same event ... pushed back against Ms. Windsor’s assertion that the court had an obligation to lead the country on a more “moral path.”

“Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?” the chief justice said. “That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers.”

Ms. Windsor persevered ... “I believe that the founders were godly, like were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path.”

Chief Justice Roberts quickly answered, “I don’t know if that’s true.”

He added: “I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it’s not our job to do that.”

Well, thank god (in whom I don't believe) for Justice Roberts.

I find this push from the right for a Christian nation completely terrifying. Particularly as this brand of Christianity has long since departed from the loving tenets of the one they say they worship.

 Christianity and organized religion lost me a long time ago as I learned about the history of the Crusades, the various Protestant/ Catholic bloody conflicts, the witch-burning, the Othering of various groups for their beliefs. It goes on today, in India, as Hindus increasingly target Muslims, in Muslim countries that target other religions and other versions of their preferred take on Islam. And in Gaza, as the nation founded as a result of Nazi genocide, embraces genocide as a final solution to the Palestinian problem.

I could weep.

But when religion is being wielded as a blunt instrument, when 'true believers' assign a messianic role to an individual as petty, vindictive, and increasingly loony as the felon/candidate, like Mrs. Alito, I find myself wanting to raise a flag-- but my flag would call for a wall between church (temple, synagogue, mosque) and state. 

And maybe some more flags: Tax the Churches! No Public Money for Religious Education aka Grooming. 

I could probably think of more. But we don't have a flagpole and, even if we did, no one could see it. 

So, consider this post, my flag. 

No Words

 

Hamlet and the Pirates (and Me Josie) at the Library

On Friday, I took the babies to the library to see a performance.  I am careful to buckle them in.

An actor was doing a story about a guy named Hamlet who is trying to find out who killed his father. (His father is a ghost now.) But then Hamlet got mixed up with some pirates. 

There were lots of kids there, including my friends Sylvia and Regan. (Meema was sitting in a chair back with the grownups and she had the babies.) We sat and watched and laughed and then . . .

...Hamlet needed our help! I was one of the kids he picked to be dragons. I do not have stage fright. When I was little, I did, but last summer I went to theater camp and learned not to have stage fright.

It was fun being a dragon. But one very lucky girl got to sword fight with Hamlet. (They were blow-up swords, so no one got hurt.)

When the play was over and everybody clapped, it was time to go to the playground! We had a picnic and I played with some kids and then went inside and played checkers with a girl, and I picked out nine books to take home. Our library is the best!

 

Looking East--Giving Thanks

Almost fifty years here and still not tired of the view.

 

June Means Daylilies

 

                                                                                    

Dress-Up Day

On Wednesday, I brought up four fancy skirts to Meema and Grumpy's so I could dress up. That is a pink purse on my head, not a helmet. It makes a good hat.

My dogs came up too for doggy daycare. I shared my pancakes.

In the room, I got out lots of my stuff and did a circus act with tightrope and trapeze for the babies.

I always get out lots of stuff but at the end of the day, I put it all away. Meema will tell you that is true. (Yes, it is--with no fusing either.)

I brushed Corycat. She is a little bit afraid of me but she likes being brushed. Angeline hides under the bed.

Bailey loves for me to brush her. She likes being pretty.

I had chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs for lunch. There has to be a lot of ketchup. Also there were carrots and blueberries and strawberries.

After lunch Meema made a shortbread crust and spread cream cheese on it. Then I decorated it with strawberries and blueberries like the flag. I took one flag home and Meema and Grumpy kept one for their dessert.

I put my tiara on Grumpy so he could be a princess too.

It was a fun day!