Month: May 2019

This is an evening view to my north, it reminds me of the eastern view from Ram in the sunset

I watch a bunch of British TV and often use the subtitles because I have trouble hearing a word here or there.  I have becxome a fan of british captioning, although I’ave seen some good ones elsewhere.  My most recent, I’m watching the British mystery, Father Brown.  Several times while watching a scene with Father Brown officiating at Mass, the caption reads “Father Brown talking in a foreign language.”  Why not “Father Brown talking in a dead language?”
Faint sound, caption “whimpering” one character, “What was that”  The other, “That was whimpering.”
Another one I admired was “Birds singing, crows cawing.”   Lots of inging going on.  

The latest news on my section of canyon:
Rita Baker from the Greater Oregon City Watershed Council and some other folks went to look at the creek down in the canyon in my yard to see why it’s not flowing.  They said they think there was a landslide or beaver dam and it might be on my property. She said someone needs to explore it from the water.  I mentioned my kayak and she said she was thinking of waders.  Anyway, she told me about a man who is a watershed ecologist who can not only give me more information about the creek, but also about the canyon walls, that in one place are practically vertical.  

HERE ‘TIS FOR ANYONE WHO WADED THROUGH THE ABOVE:
I don’t know if you heard the single tolling of a huge bell on the 24^th, but The Move is now set and it and looks like I will actually hit the Oregon Trail before the end of the year. 
My move is becoming real, tediously, slowly, but getting there.  And getting more complicated of course, especially vehicularly.  I have to get my car on a truck in Portland, ME, rent a car, the movers will pack me up on June 21^stand take all my possessions away. I will get back to Portland with the rental car so I can hop on the train down to Boston where I get the plane the next day.   I have tickets for me and M’Weec to fly out on June 24^th. 

I have no idea if my family have any appreciation of how much clearing out I am doing.

Home is where the cat is.

I don’t bother to read other people’s sappy reminiscences about their mothers, and I can’t put into words other than one, soulmate, for mine. The rest is between us. But to mothers all, I stand up and salute you. The sun shines for you today.

I’m grateful that I can make long recordings on my phone.  For the longest time I used a set of nature sound CDs, one of frogs, one of rain, one of waves, birds.  I still have them but I also wanted to make my own.  Mine aren’t quite studio quality, but they are an accurate recording of the sounds around my house.  Including road noises.  I especially like the morning and evening songs.  We don’t have the veerys and hermit thrushes here yet which sing my favorite songs, along with the cat bird.  But the brown headed cow bird has arrived, which has a call like two large drops of water and then a screeee.  I’m including the link to the Cornell website, listen to the flock sounds, like a babbling brook!

The poor cow bird gets a lot of grief because they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and the cowbird chicks kick out the others.  It’s caused significant harm to song bird populations.  They probably evolved following buffalo  as the herds traveled, hence the inability to have their own fixed nest location.  Still, I enjoy listening to them.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown-headed_Cowbird/sounds#

May 10th.
My 4th and 5th tick, this season, I must be grateful for the 4 months, Dec thru March when I didn’t worry about ticks at all 😉
And I am not doing a lot of outdoor activities!
So far all I’ve found are dog ticks, not a vector of disease but the dangerous ones, the deer ticks are now in the nymph stage, I despair of ever finding one of those, they are the size of a pin. Also we got ticks here now that cause disease right away, not politely waiting 24 hours like the deer ticks to infect you. I mowed for the first time and that evening felt a slight tickling at my hairline in back. I was able to grab her but when I tried to flick her off into the toilet bowl, she flew to the floor and I spent several tension ladened moments searching for her.
Flushed.
May 12, 2 more ticks, Orkin will be out here tomorrow!!!
It’s interesting, lots of people up here blame Conn. for the ticks because a lot of the first turkey reintroductions came from there and they say the turkeys brought ’em. I had a guy at the transfer station, he’s from Conn. no less, say it. I reminded him that we hardly ever had ticks in Conn when we were kids, just like up in Maine at that time.
Of course we weren’t in Lyme.

They came and emptied the dumpster, so I have a whole new gaping maw to toss stuff into. Only this one last maw, I hope.