animals i have seen recently:
~ fox (crossing the street, many times now. eyes flashing in the glare of the headlights, tail always bouncy and beautiful.)
~ slug (in my left rainboot, just a little one.)
~ bird (in nest, on top of a ledge in the lower garage, sitting very still as i pulled the car in)
~ koi fish (only by the deck, the ones by the gazebo are gone – heron ate them(!) )
~ frogs (orchestra every night. my dad used to collect them by the bucket & take them to the canal where it’s all park land. my mom keeps dropping hints i should do it too. hm.)
~ tadpoles (there are so many they deserve their own line)
~ dragonfly (three days now, the same blue one, i think)
~ neighbor’s dogs (annoying yips)
~ our dogs (the best sweethearts)
~ my cats (loving their new cat beds & scratch lounge-things)
~ junebugs (pepper, my black cat from many years ago, used to love to snack on them)
~ fireflies (official summer bug, i love them.)
~ moth (giant grey beauty in the horse’s stable, and made a straight beeline to my red clogs. oh! and another one clinging to the side of a gas station pump. aqua colors. — just found out, it’s called a luna moth. ;) )
~ horses (they’re getting re-used to the halter. and coats are gleaming. except when it just rained & then they’re encrusted with mud. they like to play.)
~ bees (ginormous ones and plain old little honeybees. wish we had a beehive still.)
~ beaver (chomping very loudly on some greens near the canal)
~ deer (many, most of them alive ;(. and one sitting by the side of the road with cars flashing their hazards as they parked, got out, and approached the deer. i kept driving but worried. :Z)
~ fish (fish tanks upstairs and downstairs. now that my mom’s back, she looks after them.)
~ sheep (at poole’s store)
~ turkey (ditto)
~ chickens (ditto. baby chicks too, but now they’re outside, no longer in the box in the store with a heat lamp over them.)
~ ducks and geese (fed them bread with my nieces & nephew last weekend, at a nearby manmade pond / shopping complex thing)
~ snake (in the stable’s attic, as i was loading up horse food. black little beauty.)
comment [1]
{ posted 14 days ago, under the-outdoors & kittens }
happy may day!
“In 1890, when the government first tracked workers’ hours, the average workweek for full-time manufacturing employees was 100 hours and 102 hours for building tradesmen.” (link) ~ i am very glad there is an 8 hour work day, aren’t you?
i love may day, and since this year it also coincides with the beginning of the maryland sheep & wool festival, i took the day off, yay. i’m going to clean and organize a bit (yeah, 8 hours of pure recreation sounds great, but in reality it’s recreation + cleaning + cooking + etc etc, and that’s not even talking about if you’re a parent, and so on!), then get in the car and head on up to the fairgrounds. ;)
a mix of things on my mind lately
hi there ~
sometimes i worry that i’ll stay in maryland forever, surrounded by my siblings and their growing families. i never intended that. this was only supposed to be a months-long family visit – a reconnection with family, a space to think and plan my dreams – .. and now i find myself two year later, with roots firmly dug in: a job i love, a garden and orchard i’ve spent countless days planning and dreaming and working on, nieces and nephews that expect their happy aunt to always be around, and so on. and of course part of me loves that and wants that. but oh, a much much bigger part wants so much more. it’s hard because i want so much. i want all of this and more. i don’t want to give up anything. but, in my good moments, i’ve decided the one big thing is: i have to really appreciate now, because before i know it, as usually happens, things change with no warning and i will think is, “oh! how good it was!” so. no lesson here to pass on, but just a little worrying and sadness and stuff i wanted to share.
also on my mind, i’ve been researching and reading a lot recently on palestine and israel. consistently, it seems there’s this block, where people feel like they shouldn’t dare criticize israel at the risk of being called anti-semitic, which is a powerful tool for a group to have, to put it mildly. nonetheless, i agree with this quote, made by the president of the middle east policy council who was also for a little while a few months ago the obama administration’s pick to head the national intelligence council:
“As long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected. Israeli occupation and settlement of Arab lands is inherently violent.” (C. Freeman, link 1, 2)
the more i read, the more questions i have: before the december/january attacks on the gaza strip, hamas said it was open to a two-state settlement, with borders as defined pre-june 1967, and a long-term truce between palestine and israel – why isn’t that enough? 14 thousand homes were destroyed in two months in gaza – how is that acceptable? how are the illegal jewish settlements justified – and why do they keep growing? how does this bogusly-named “separation barrier” justify crossing the border so often onto palestinian land, taking even more land away? 150,000 people right now don’t have access to even tap water. on top of everything else they’ve had to deal with, can you imagine that? why does the u.s. not have a problem with israel having nuclear weapons? why does the u.s. give 3 billion dollars every year to israel under different terms than with any other country in the world?
so. i support palestine. i think the israeli occupation of palestinian lands is wrong. their treatment of and war on the palestinian people is wrong. and the u.s.‘s role in all this death and war and destruction makes me angry and ashamed. i will keep on researching and reading but i just wanted to say all this.
…in other news, my garden planning is going well. this weekend will be gorgeous, but it’s been very rainy and overcast this past week, so thank goodness for the greenhouse. i have tomatos, cucumbers, various herbs, including mugwort!, growing..
and yes, for those with sharp eyes, no jiffy pots for me. this year i thought i’d give soil blocking a try. so far so great. except i forgot to pot up the cucumbers quick enough, so there were lots of torn roots growing under the capillary mat i put all the blocks on. they seem to be fine nevertheless. now to finish tilling outside and getting the garden beds ready. lots of work but it’s very satisfying.
& lastly, see, there’s been knitting!
..this might not look like much, but every other row – the knitted lace row – takes at least fifteen minutes each, with constant back and forth looks at the pattern. once again, only for my sisters! sheesh. but it is lovely and i can’t wait to finish it,, though at this rate, it will be winter before it’s entirely done. and next weekend, wow, is maryland sheep & wool festival. for once, i’m not taking a class, but i’m still volunteering that friday, took work off and everything, and i can’t wait.
so that’s it, i think. i feel best in life when i’m working on and through a wide variety of interests and concerns and plans. lately, that’s more or less how i’ve been living, hooray. today’s post was a little snapshot of that life. thanks for reading as always. happy weekend ~ ~
comment [2]
{ posted 70 days ago, under the-outdoors & politics }
trouble & mamacat
i’m in my room, on my bed, typing away on the laptop, and i hear a loud scared ‘meooow’. i know mamacat is sitting next to me, because every once in a while, even though i’ve asked her for years now not to, she gives me a hesitant wet little lick on my arm. so sweet but so startling and distracting and.. annoying! but it’s love. anyhow, so then i’m about to call out trouble’s name when i hear my mom say in spanish, ‘are you lost, kitty? what are you doing in my kitchen!?!’ trouble meows once more really loud, really lost, and i call out to her. a scramble of claws on the floor, up the stairs, into my room, up some more stairs, and a jump onto the bed.. here’s trouble, coming straight up to my face, tail waving all agitated. as soon as i pet her, a loud loud purr.
happy sigh. time to eat ~ ~ hope it’s pretty wherever you are. maryland is nice in april. ;)
second try
i started writing something and it was just coming out too heavy, too much. so i saved it, i don’t like erasing history, but enough of that. how are you? i’m doing o.k.
i haven’t been doing much on the craftsy front for a while now.. though come to think of it, last night i sewed on a ton of girl scout badges on a vest for my niece. but besides that, i haven’t been doing much craftsy stuff besides my garden and orchard work, which doesn’t quite fit into that category. i’ve been meaning to draw for a while, and then the wheel and needles call out to me at times too (especially since i got the maryland sheep and wool festival catalog, yay), but all in all, i’ve been too busy with my new library job (two months now!) and other projects and priorities.. and i don’t miss it half as much as i thought i would.
i mean, i wish i could do everything all the time, but i can’t. and as much as i love making things with my hands, i’ve found so many ways to do that beyond knitting.. it’s pretty great, now that i think of it. ! when i first started knitting, i didn’t really think of myself as creative or very capable with my hands, capable at making things, but since then, i’ve taken on a ton of little projects and curioisties, and i’ve learned that my hands can do anything almost. it just takes a little time and effort. and along with my hands, my head has gotten better at figuring things out, feeling confident that i can do almost anything as long as i take my time and give it some thought. even though sometimes, i’ve learned, barreling through will also work. just a little bit messier, that’s for sure. !
anyhow, besides that realization, my life has been a balancing act that so far, when i think about it outside of the righthererightnow moment, is pretty great and full.. there’s online projects, plans and dreams to get started on already, family to appreciate and be with while i’m around, outdoor work galore here at the family house, and then add in sleeping and eating and working (adjusting to that forty-hour workload) and so on. basically, like all of you, i’m busy! it’s easy to get caught in an exausted/cranky/whatever mode, and i think i was for a while, but besides the regular dips and lows that happen to everyone, things are looking way better than they did even a year ago. even six months ago. and that’s important to appreciate.
so, with that said, i’ll post some pictures later. i just wanted to write something, to remind myself and everyone else, i haven’t given up. i’m here, and i have plans and dreams that will come true. or that’s the goal, at least. !
happy thursday ~ ~ thanks for reading.