Random Thoughts

Random Thought #1
I wish I had a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish ice cream or coffee heath bar crunch.......I would eat all of it. Instead, I'm reduced to a handful of chocolate chips
RT #2
Spring has been absolutely gorgeous at my house. The tree outside the kitchen door has been full of brilliant pink flowers, and as they fade slowly the petals have blanketed the ground beneath. This tree has been beautiful other years, but I haven't had as much chance to enjoy it, or simply stand at the kitchen door and contemplate it.

Similarly, I have seen more different birds at the feeder this year than ever before. I was actually watching while an indigo bunting, which I've never seen before, stayed at the feeder for 20 minutes or so one morning. A pair of orioles are eating the oranges I have out; some little redpoles (sp) are responsible for cleaning the feeder out every second day; the male cardinal is busy chasing a catbird away from the female. A male and female rose-breasted grosbeak have been at the feeder this week. Several wrens vie for the wren house hanging from the crabapple tree.

RT #3
I've been thinking a lot about my dad this week. First, I thought of him as I tied string (the same string he used to use to tie newspapers together into rolls) in between two stakes at regular intervals so that the peas would have support as they climb. Just the fact that I have vegetables growing this year reminds me of dad and the beautiful gardens he used to tend so faithfully, and the bountiful harvest he always had, and which he shared with others through the Co-op in Laconia.

I thought about him as I hung fencing around the raised bed, carefully pounding in the metal stakes with a hammer that had been his.

I thought how I should write down the date I planted the peas, chard, lettuce and onions and how I should have kept track of how long it took for each to come up. I thought about recording the amount of rain when it fell so I would know when I need to water. Then I thought of all his painstakingly kept records we had thrown out, and thought, what is the point of such record-keeping, as eventually, it will all be thrown out.

I thought how many years dad stacked wood in exact 4 x 4 x 8 rectangles as I moved all my outside wood into the basement into a somewhat less than perfect stack and wondered what fraction of a cord I had. I made a mental plan as to how I would stack the ultra-dry wood I'm going to get from the Geeslins back toward the house under the deck, while putting the newly cut wood from the three choke cherry trees under the outer edge of the deck. I started a stack of the smallest pieces of the choke cherry branches and covered them with corrugated plastic, to keep the rain off, just like dad did.

It's hard to work outside and not think of dad. I wonder how long I'll be able to maintain the lawn and gardens and will I, like dad, find it impossible to hire people to do the work I've always done.

RT#4
I've pondered the fact that at the same time I am marveling over the beauty of Mother Nature, people have died by the thousand in the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China. How can the world be so serene here and so dangerous and deadly over there? When Senator Kennedy was discovered to have a malignant brain tumor, I felt that we had experienced our own form of Mother Nature's negativity - a tsunami of grief for the family that has experienced so much already.

RT#4
I returned to the classroom this week to teach two Peace Studies classes and found the kids to be engaged participants, eager to think about how they can become "peace activists." That same night, I had dinner at a friend's house and had a chance to meeet two extraordinary activists - one who works for Non-Violent Peace Force, a group who goes into countries where there is violence and stands beside the victims of the violence hoping to protect them from their aggressors - the theory being that it is harder to bomb a house in which Americans are staying; the other is on her way to Nairobi where she will be running a training program for 15 teams of African women to learn how to build a water filtration system and use a small solar cooker to pasteurize their water. I am privileged to have the chance to meet people like these who are devoting their lives to others.