34 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-18-17”

  4. Morning all and good night.
    The children are so full of excitement it is hard to contain them. One little girl got in my lap and wanted to climb me like a mountain. Prayers for wisdom and patience appreciated.

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  5. Last night I saw a discussion on TV about “solo gamy”. That is, people marry themselves. Some have big weddings and pledge fealty to themselves.

    I wonder how much a solo divorce would cost because I know I couldn’t live with me for long.
    That’s the reason I respect The Sweetest Woman In The World so much. I can’t imagine putting up with me for sixty years. Yet. She’s still here.
    And I would really hate snuggling up with me at night.

    I once said that I don’t know what the world is coming to. But this way, it doesn’t matter because it won’t last lone this way.

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  6. The header is, of course, another eastern meadowlark. My husband and I often drive by this patch. This is just a narrow fence, a few feet wide, across the road from a big long fence around an airport (this, too, is airport property, and the fence–really a gate–simply goes across a drive, no further). Meadowlarks are often singing on this or the bigger fence, but when I’m with my husband and I tell him there is one there, either there is a car behind us and he won’t stop in the road (it’s a country road, little traffic), or we pull up a little too much and the bird flies, or one thing or another. This day I myself was the one driving, in meadowlark season, and this bird was sitting there with his back to me, so I got some photos. I hoped he’d turn around (he might have flown if he had been facing me when I stopped, but he probably would have turned around without fear), but he gave me what were to that point the best shots I had. But he didn’t sing and he didn’t turn his body to face me.

    This picture does show something I’ve really only noticed since I’ve been taking bird photos: how often birds stop what they are doing and carefully scan the sky. I’ve even seen immature killdeer do it. Whether they understand instinctively the danger of hawks or know from experience and a close call, I don’t know, bu all of them seem to periodically do such a scan for aerial danger. Sometimes I see a bird just freeze without moving for several minutes–I might see several of them on different branches in the tree–and then I know that somewhere near is a hawk, and they think that movement will alert him to their presence, so they don’t move. I think a cardinal would be inclined to move, to get into deeper cover, because he seems to know how bright and visible he is. But brown birds cling tightly to a branch and don’t move, and that seems to spell safety for them.

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  7. Good Morning Everyone. Our guests arrived yesterday afternoon. We did a low country boil for dinner (shrimp, sausage, potatoes, corn all cooked in Zatarain’s Crab Boil and Old Bay Seasoning). We sat outside talking for quite a while and I discovered that we have “lightning bugs” in our back yard. Think about when you last saw them. Did you ever catch them and put then in jars? How cruel were we as children?
    This morning Patty and I went for a 3 mile walk. It goes quickly if you have someone to talk to while you are doing it. If you are alone it seems a lot longer! We wore poor Lulabelle out, so maybe she will be calmer today. Amos made it a mile and a half and is napping on his dog bed in the dining room right now. Being a male he had to check all the “pee mail” and leave a message too.
    The will all be leaving in a little while to go over to the boat and I will join them tomorrow. Lulabelle is going to the Dog Ranch Resort (how pretentious can you be?) and Amos will be going to stay with ex-husband. His wife is going to New Orleans this weekend so he and Amos will have “Boy’s Weekend”. It is a lot of work to go away these days. Dog’s have to be taken care of, I have plants that need to be watered so they don’t die, and I am sure there is something I am forgetting.

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  8. We had a few lightning bugs “fireflies” “glowworms” in Hendersonville, but not many.
    I am dismayed by the dwindling of the good species.
    When I first moved to H’ville, I used to pick blackberries for pies and just eating. But the bees stooped coming. So no berries.

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  9. I am curious how others celebrate high school graduation. We had an open house for each of our graduates. We had a music jam included for the one who was in bands. We had that gathering at a town hall and others at home. Then one with a band was for the high school graduation, but also celebrated both our daughters graduation from community college. The one who graduated from highschool actually graduated from the college the night before her high school graduation.

    There was an all night party, also, for each class with games and prizes. That was a ‘lock in’ event. Those are designed to prevent drinking and driving, but I have no idea if they do so.

    There was way too much food, since many people would have more than one open house invitation.

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  10. Chas, we have bees of many species, fireflies (not this early in the season, though), and wild black raspberries. I had no idea how many species of bees there were until I moved here. I’ve started to recognize species I’ve seen before, but I may have seen dozens of species–the variety is amazing.

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  11. Lots of different types of bees around here already this spring. They keep getting into my yellow jacket traps and I have to let them out. I prefer to allow the yellow jackets to stay in them. Ten year old already got a sting this year when he put on his boots without checking first. Yellow jackets…..

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  12. Graduations; our eldest had an open house party and lots of curious people as he was one of the first of the new wave of home schoolers and a lot of folk did not know it was possible or how it worked. None of the others wanted much recognition or did not stay around to get any so we have not had any celebrations since other than very low key, family.

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  13. I’m glad to see they are somewhere. The blackberry bushes didn’t produce when the bees stopped. They need each other. I’ve said this before, I think, but I’m amazed at the design God made. Think of this:

    Blackberry bush blooms.
    A bee comes along and takes some of the pollen to make honey.
    And it pollinates the bush, which makes a blackberry.
    The bee doesn’t care because it’s on the way to the hive to make honey.
    But a bird comes along to take a blackberry. And flies away.
    Later, it will drip part of an undigested seed into the ground with it’s own fertilizer.
    More blackberries.

    And the farmer gets some honey,
    I get a pie and Cheryl gets a picture. Just because a bee got some pollen.

    Liked by 3 people

  14. I’m up waiting for a phone interview but the person didn’t call at 7 as planned, so I may just take my shower if I don’t hear in another 5 or 10 minutes. She’s working in Fla this week and this was the only time she could call me, but the interview isn’t vital for my story, I was already able to use a comment she’d sent me via a FB message and that’s probably enough to suffice since the story isn’t about her per se.

    I heard back in a text last night from the furniture repair guy who says my bed frame gets varnished today and it should be ready for delivery by Sunday.

    On Saturday, I’m picking up a craftsman-stye interior door from a couple in town who have several of the doors (they’ve been renovating their old Victorian for the past several years). Ever since I moved in here I’ve wanted to replace the two closet doors that face out into the hallway. Those are the only 2 doors in the house that aren’t the original craftsman style (someone put in those hollow-core flat panel, contemporary doors which don’t really “go” in this house at all). This one that I’m picking up will have will have to be cut down a bit but it will fit. I still need one more. But all of that won’t be ready to deal with until it’s time to think about painting. For now, I can put it into the garage ( 🙂 ).

    Meanwhile, the new gardener (the old ones never did re-surface, so odd) is supposed come around today to trim either my neighbor’s tree or mine in the back, we’re not sure which one he’ll start with.

    Sounds like Kim has a nice weekend ahead — when I initially read they had a “slow boil” at dinner, I thought Oh-Oh …

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  15. OK, got my call — she works in the film industry and is in Fla shooting, says she’s more than ready to return today to get back to our nice, cool, cloudy beaches. We Californians don’t do humidity well.

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  17. There’s a lizard in my house (again), Annie’s watchful but for now he seems to be in deep hiding. Sigh. Must be spring.

    (Most likely scenario, of course, is she found him outside and brought him in, now she can’t catch him. Same old story — but better a lizard than a mouse or rat; she’s brought all of those home as house guests though the years.)

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  18. We have plenty of lightening bugs every year. I have not been out much at night so I don’t know if they are here yet. I remember that smell they leave with you if held in your hand. I suppose we caught some in hard, but I don’t remember much about that. I do remember the excitement of catching June bugs and trying to get a piece of string attached to a leg so we could let them fly like kites. That was cruel. Of course a lot lost their legs. We never considered the cruelty back then. It was just fun to us. Our parents never corrected us for doing it.

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  20. Mr. P has left on his adventure with friends. I have DETAILED instructions for dropping Lulabelle off at the Dog Ranch. She went for a total of a 4 mile walk today so she should be worn out. Sure is quiet around this house right now.

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  21. Janice, insects and spiders lose their legs so easily I doubt it hurts them. Or were you saying you’d let them fly while you held the string? My brothers would catch insects and tie little bright strings to a leg and let them go, with the string being a bit of a “kite,” and while that might have distressed the insects a little (thinking my brothers were predators), I doubt it rose to the level of cruelty. But you might be talking about something else.

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  23. Ooh. My refurbished bed frame. I think I’ll just have to rope it off and not allow me or the animals on it ever again. We can all just keep sleeping on the mattress on the floor.

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  24. And here’s the repaired & refinished white oak cabinet (there were 2 of them from my mom’s childhood home in Iowa, the other one went to a cousin)

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  25. Since there is so much “red” tone in the bed, he asked if I wanted him to add some red to the cabinet so they’d match, but I’m a purist and said no, let’s let them each be originally what they are. 🙂 Cabinet is a bedroom piece also.

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  30. The cabinet opens secretly.

    Kidding … the handles are off for the work being done, but there are two drawers on the top and a small cabinet below. One of the cabinet doors had come off which is why it needed to be repaired but it also needed a freshening-up. My mom loved them, They were in her parents’ bedroom in Iowa when she was growing up. But it doesn’t have to be in the bedroom.

    And yes, they will be definitely worth the wait.

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  32. You were wise not to worry about those woods matching. No need. My dad made several rocking chairs, which were patterned after one my grandmother had from Germany. My parents were given the original. Your bed reminds me of it.

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  33. Thanks Kathaleena, I agree about trying to “match” the woods on old pieces like that. I like things are are original — besides, I may not always use that cabinet in the bedroom, or I may wind up putting it in the other bedroom someday.

    Got home tonight to find the new gardener, Alberto, and crew slashing and burning (well, sawing up) after roaring through my backyard to seriously trim the ficus tree & take all that overgrown vegetation off the back fence. And the fence is still standing! Neighbor came over to help secure places where dogs might get out and Alberto said he’d check with his brother and his friend who have done fences to see what might be done — whether repairs or replacement.

    He’s a cousin of my neighbor’s daughter-in-law so my neighbor said she told him to give me the “family rate” — he was certainly affordable enough for all this work they did today, I have to say.

    Onward.

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