Well I’ve done it again, I’ve managed to arrange 7 days off of work in a row. WooHoo ! Got home from work Monday, slept for 5 hours, got up and mowed my back yard, disposed of various little piles of brushwood and then settled down to a nice cup of java and a good mystery novel in my pleasant & delightful freshly mowed backyard. Tuesday saw me mowing the front yard, deposited the clipping from said mowing on the woods path on the far side of the bridge over the creek, trimming brush away from the bridge, removing the jungle from the front garden, burning a fair amount of the white pine trimmings, doing the laundry and the dishes. Wednesday was payday so there were various errands I needed to run. While it was cooler than the previous 2 days it was also heavily overcast with short but heavy rain showers throughout the day. I did get brush removed from the side-back yard and more trimming on the forsythia done. The snow load over the winter had done a number on 3 of my 4 oldest bushes and they needed more substantial pruning than I had thought at first. The rain really woke up the fireflies and the evening rising was the first really big one this year. The damp seemed to make them hover within a yard of the ground for almost an hour before they dispersed to find the love of their life in the trees and bushes to the song of the evening frogs. Thursday was an absolutely lovely day, cooler and with a cloudless deep blue sky. After I did some more house chores I just sat in the back of my yard near the trees just chillin’. The flagpole for my 1700’s camp got another coat of paint, the 8 pointed star on my 1812 wooden canteen got its final coat of paint and several letters were written. After the wind quit in the late afternoon I burned more of the white pine trimmings so 2/3 to 3/4 of them are now just ashes. Around 6pm the fireflies rose as thick as on Wednesday but without hovering near the yard as long. The frogs weren’t quite as nosey either.
While doing payday errands and food shopping I ran into another once common item which has become hard to find – writing paper. I don’t mean printer paper, typing paper, 3-hole notebook paper, steno pads, legal pads,etc., I mean plain white paper without lines for the purpose of writing a personal letter to one’s friends. Writing paper used to be available in every grocery, Five & Dime and variety mart in several sizes and various qualities. Well no longer. Not in Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Wal-Mart, the Dollar General or even Target. Kroger had half a dozen 6x9 pads of writing paper one of which followed me home. I guess letter writing is no longer a common skill. Sad.
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