Life’s Little Detours

August is the season of A Laid Back Affair motorcycle rally.  Usually Kat & I head off on our respective rides to Buena Vista, hang out with our friends all weekend & cruise around the Blue Ridge.  This year Kat’s fella JR was going to come too.  I’ve been looking forward to this weekend all summer.  Enter some pot holes in the road of life.

Kat is sick so she can’t make it.  No Kat equals no JR either.  No Affair for them this weekend.  My bike is still in the shop.  Its engine oil, trans oil, primary oil, condenser, points & spark plugs are all new.  But its plugs aren’t firing.  So now it has a new coil too, but its not yet registered, insured or inspected, so its not going to the Affair either.  Phooey.

Oh well, I’m going anyway, in my NNMC truck (that’s No Name Motorcycle Club).  I can take pictures, go swimming & maybe ride on the back of someone’s bike.  JP’s trike died on the way to the rally yesterday (Jim Post, the father of the Affair) so I’m not the only one who found a pothole or two.  Viva La Affair !

A Quiet Day of Rest

Since I was given this extra day of rest, I decided to rest.  The various projects on my plate right now could just stay there for one more day.  So after breakfast at noon – I do need to go to work tonight – I put a few stray things away around the house & then headed out to my lawn chair near the woods line to see what was to be seen. 

Its clearly mid summer in my woods.  The cardinals, titmice, wrens, nuthatches, thrushes, finches, pine siskins & various sparrows are all busy calling out to one another while they hunt down this or that tasty morsel.  The honeysuckle are about done blooming but the little orange flowered perennials are just starting up.  The shallowtailed butterflies and bumblebees are busy checking out the flowers, waiting for their feast to begin in earnest.  Various insects are calling one to another but not many this early in the day.  The world moves as it will & the wheel of time turns in its circle of life.  It has been a good day off. 

Life’s Wonderful Little Gifts

For various reasons I ended up having  tonight off.  Given I’m currently harboring a cold, this was rather nice.  So as twilight moved over my house & yard I built a small fire in my fire ring (wasn’t cool enough for anything larger) and let the smoke carry various troubles off into the darkening woods.  The fire flies were rising, two different kinds from here & there in the yard & the woods alike.  A humming bird flew along the woods edge, stopped & chittered at me & then flew on its business.  Paws-in Trouble hopped into my lap & got his tummy rubbed as we watched the green of the woods darken into green-gray backlit  by the setting sun.  The day birds had quieted & the night insects were beginning to take  their place in the cycle of sound.

I’m not sure whether it was sound or a touch of movement but I turned slightly to my right as I was watching the fire flies in the yard – to see a nice 4 point buck saunter into my yard between my chair & the tulip popular.  He totally ignored me & Paws from a distance of less than  twenty feet.  As near as I can tell he never even saw us, the sound of the weed wacker  across the street had his attention.  He nibbled his way across my yard, around the honeysuckle bush, along the pines between my yard & the neighbor’s yard & then walked alone the woods edge for maybe 20 yards before moving under the trees & back into the woods.  For slightly over 20 minutes this handsome fella was never more than 50 feet from me.

Now in the almost 18 years I’ve lived here I’ve seen several deer in my yard.  For the first 8 years there was a magnificent 10 pointer that showed up every October.  Various smaller bucks & does  have walked along the tree line & once I saw a fawn resting under the forsythia.  But I’d always seen them from inside the house through the kitchen or back bedroom window, never when I was outside in the yard.   I feel honored to have been able to enjoy this buck’s visit. 

Hippo Birdie to Ewe Urchin

Twenty eight years ago at about 9:15 AM my Urchin was born.  Its been a good 28 years and I’m proud of the woman my little girl has become.

Urchin with Munchkin the Turbo Kittah

Urchin drove to my place in the wee hours of the morn & we spent her birthday together.  Around 7:30 AM we took her car into C’ville & dropped it off to get 4 new tires.  While that was happening we had a Birthday Breakfast at IHOP, then cruised back to my place once her car was finished.  It was much too hot a day to really do anything, so we just hung out at my place, chatted about this & that – not at all a bad way to spend the day. 

Happy Birthday Urchin. 

Stray Thoughts

Wednesday it was 103 here at high noon, today it was 100.  I didn’t even consider going paddling, painting house trim, mowing the yard, working on N&K’s cabinet doors or any other similar tasks.  I did do my dishes, wash clothes which I spread out on my lawn to dry rather than use the dryer, brushed out Sophia, gave Pookie a bath, cleaned & flea sprayed my bedroom which has AC, brushed Baboo, read some, got the truck oil changed and met the farrier for a hoof trimming session.   I also drank a LOT of ice water.  And considered various truths of life.

1.No matter how you list the items of a household budget the bottom line stays the same.  Changing the order of the budget entries does nothing to alter the budget.  Phooey, why does creative budgeting only work for the government. 

2.Washing your laundry in cold water does reduce how hot the laundry area gets.  Drying your clothes outside helps a great deal too.

3.Cats are more willing to ignore other cats they don’t like much when  sharing a room with AC in really really hot weather. 

4.Kittens are unaffected by ugly hot weather much to the displeasure of older cats who really don’t want to play tag in the heat.

5.No matter how frequently one brushes a collie-type dog there is always a lot of undercoat to brush out.  Maybe the undercoat clones itself.

6.Thunderstorms like to tease humans during heat waves by promising torrential rain which never actually falls.  If by chance a thunderstorm actually does drop heavy rain it will also knock out the power thereby nuking the AC in your home. 

7.”The heat is much easier to handle than 28 inches of snow.”  Its a good mantra, use it.

8.Tina in Japan lives in the back of beyond.  So far, no atlas or map of Japan has shown her current abode.  She’s done it, she’s off the map !  Huzzah Tina !

Summer’s Halfway Point

Its hot.  Its humid.  My To-Do list is getting shortened but very slowly.  Its just too hot to do much Mightly Mouse work.  I have managed to get kayaking on the Rivanna River once each work break.  I’ve been up the Jumping Branch of the river into the Ivy Creek Natural area until the Branch got too shallow to continue.  Last trip I saw 2 great blue herons, a muskrat, a doe drinking from the branch not 12 ft. from me, about 4 dozen Canada geese, a dozen or so Mallard ducks, more turtles than I could easily count and a selection of birds I couldn’t quite identify.  Yesterday I went up the river itself half way to the Earlysville bridge and saw a nice 6 point buck, an adult great blue heron, a juvenile great blue heron, half a hundred Canada geese, several dozen mallard ducks, a whole convention of turtles at a bend in the river and 3 kingfishers.  I’ve working on improving my paddling skills, the Rivanna where I’m kayaking is impounded so there’s no current to speak of.  I’ve got basic straight forward and staying centered down, working on tight turns.  I don’t think I’m ready for moving water yet. 

I’ve also been helping friends in Staunton ready their house for sale.  Their new kitchen cabinet doors have been primed, sanded, various little voids filled and given their first coat of paint.  Its going slowly in part because they have me using oil based paint and its taking 6 to 8 hours for the paint to dry.  So I can only work on one coat on one side of the doors a day.  They need another light sanding & a second coat of paint before I can deliver them.  Saturday I spent at their place removing wall to wall carpet, wall to wall carpet padding & the nail strips used to hold wall to wall carpet in place.  Uufda.  Once the carpets & carpet strips were up we chilled for a bit, had dinner & then headed out for the local fireworks.  Not a bad day all in all, not bad at all.

Happy Birthday to the USA and here’s to a good July & August for all my friends.

It Just Wasn’t My Day – Or Was It ? June 24th

I let myself sleep this morning until I just woke up on my own, which meant it was morning but not by much when I got up.  I decided to continue chillin’, so I went out & washed my kayak, located all the kayak stuff in the yellow bedroom & put the kayak paddle together (it comes apart for storage.)  Loaded the kayak et all into my truck & headed over to the Rivanna for some paddling.  It was hot but clear.  Unloaded the boat, got it in the water, pushed off & flipped.  The 3 guys and 2 boys fishing at the put-in got their afternoon comic relief performance.  I was a bit short of dignity at this point but managed to re-launch nicely if not all that elegantly.  At least I didn’t loose any gear.

Paddled out of sight of the landing as fast as was prudent - one flip in a “No Swimming” impound was enough for me – & headed towards the Ivy Creek Natural Area coves.  Well at least I was a great deal cooler than when I unloaded the boat, being as I was soaking wet.   A great blue heron flew over and landed at the head of the first cove & proceeded to get lunch-to-go in short order.  I halted the kayak & watched said bird enjoy its suchi snack, then headed on into the 2nd cove & watched some turtles swimming in front of my boat. 

Unfortunately I forgot to watch the weather.  Just as I reached the back of the 2nd cove the sky gets dark, the wind picks up and the thunder starts.  Great.  I’m in an open boat, a thunderstorm is building & I’m about a half mile from the landing with the wind strong & against me.  So I paddled to an opening in the trees near a granite boulder and beached the kayak to wait out the storm.  Serious storm too, half an hour of locally severe weather, at one point I couldn’t even see the other side of the cove & its a modest cove.  Once the weather moved on I paddled back to the landing post haste by following the shoreline.  The wind was blowing diagonally across the water & strong enough to produce a nasty chop, so along the shore was prudent.  I’ve flipped once already, let’s not make it twice !  Made it back OK, just very wet & very chilled.

Once I got home & into dry stuff I headed back out to C’ville for dinner, except C’ville had no power & thus no functioning places to eat out.  This is clearly not exactly my day.  Finally found a pizza place open on the way back home & had a meatball sub.  Oh well.  I had a good if somewhat shortened paddle, I finished the forsythia trimming & pine trimmings disposal after dinner and generally have recharged my internal batteries.  Spent the remainder of the evening doing various small sewing projects since C’ville had no power & thus I had no interwebs.  Funny thing, those servers want electric juice.