It's been a good couple of days for adorable and intricate photographs. We've found kittens in unexpected places, rare evening mists, and bejewelled cobwebs decorating absolutely everything this morning. (Click the photos for the larger images.)
I spent two hours digging over a flowerbed today. For the last two years, my beds have suffered serious neglect in favour of the market garden. Now that I'm no longer doing that...well, actually, I feel like myself again.
One of the reasons I quit the market garden was that it was killing my enjoyment of horticulture. The other was that it just didn't pay. For less work, I can save way more money off the food bill than what people were paying me to garden for them. Plus, no weekly hour-long drive, and no Mr. Ornery Customer (I only had one of those types, but he was an amazing jerk).
So, today was the first day of the rest of my season. I'm not starting seedlings this year. I'm actually looking forward to my yard. I'm looking forward to having time for flowers again. As an online pal told me back when I started at this place, "Vegetables are for the body. But flowers are for the soul."
However, I just got rid of the dino dial-up (WOOHOO), so I'm now able to access a lot more information. Here's what has resulted:
Added a bazillion news feeds from all over the world to my RSS reader.
Started a YahooGroup for brainstorming blogging ideas, where I can post links to a wide variety of news topics. (ChristianBloggersHitList is found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBHL/, for anyone interested.)
Having great fun sorting through all the amazing news stories out there. For instance, this week, I found one on how classical music causes climate change. The solution involved cow manure. Now that's how to tickle my funny bone.
And, of course, we're greatly enjoying being able to bribe the kids to do their schoolwork with classic Looney Tunes clips on YouTube.
Last night was crisp, clear, the stars standing out of the bright sky. There is such a thing as a bright darkness; just combine a full moon with miles upon miles of ice-coated snow.
We watched the earth’s shadow drift across the pale moon. I tried taking some digital photos of it over the course of the evening. None are wonderful, but the event is documented for posterity. We got out the telescope and tried to see Saturn, a golden speck to the left of the shadowed satellite of Earth. I had hoped to see the rings. However, we never did quite get it all sorted out before the brilliant white sliver began crossing back onto the moon’s face. But we did look at some lunar craters.
By the time the light returned to the moon, it had moved farther south in our sky, and its position was changed relative to the earth's movement. Although the earth's shadow came across it from left to right, the moon "reappeared" starting at its bottom edge.
Welcome to the Canadian Prairies! Let us teach you how to apologetically get tangled in garden hose, chase cattle across the Canuck outback, homebrew your own biodiesel and raise your own honey. Smarten up, eh?
Welcome to the Canadian Prairies! Let us teach you how to apologetically get tangled in garden hose, chase cattle across the Canuck outback, homebrew your own biodiesel and raise your own honey. Smarten up, eh?
