Tag: Summer

Saturday Morning Blips

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

Good morning everyone. 🙂

I’m writing this post on my phone, so will be brief. Having computer issues; lately browsing has been so slow and this morning it won’t take me anywhere at all. Sigh…

We had a real fall day yesterday with dark rolling clouds and a chilly wind. Thankfully it’s sunny this morning and only breezy.

I see the young hummers tanking up at my feeder and realize they will soon be leaving us. Fields are golden with ripening grain and yesterday we saw a swather cutting a field of canola.

I’m in a bit of a slump lately, so little energy — and less as far as writing goes. At least when it comes to actually sitting and putting my words down in a file. Hopefully this will “come to pass.”

I hope you’re all staying safe and making the best of the last month of summer.

 

Interambling

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

It’s a beautiful, semi-sunny afternoon here and I have a short while to write before I head off to make supper for the folks at the Villa. Our landscape is lush and green after several heavy rains this last week; the crops look beautiful at this moment and the sloughs have some water in them again. Wrens nesting in the yard greet us with bursts of song as we step out the door.

I was looking at the various prompt words this morning and have decided to do a “conflation” — which was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day yesterday. A conflation is a blend or fusing. So I’m going to interfuse the various prompt words with a rambling account of life at our house. So this will be an inter-rambling. (“Rambleflation” just didn’t cut it.)

Life has changed  for me in the past week, as I’ve left the comfort of my office chair and well situated PC keyboard for a more nomadic life with a laptop at the table. And this setup is not ergonomic, but hopefully will only be for a season.

Sue’s Jibber Jabber prompt word for today is TRIP. Unfortunately for me, some microscopic organisms — aka “mites” have hitched a ride into the house on our cat and decided that
a) — the location where they hopped off seemed promising re: settlement. (This being my vinyl office chair where the cats love to curl up when I’m not in it. (I’ve mentioned this issue before.)

b) My flesh tastes about as good as any other. (A fact the mosquitoes have already established.) A tiny nip now and then seems to satisfy them. It doesn’t satisfy me, however.

Merriam-Webster’s word for today is STALWART, and I’m not, when it comes to getting bitten. Summer is hard on me in that respect; mosquito and other bug bites never used to cause me the grief they do now.

As I said, they are microscopic. I feel a tiny itch and see nothing, but a dot soon shows up and swells into a red lump. A few days ago I was typing on my computer and felt that tiny itch on my hand. I looked down and, sure enough, a red spot was appearing. Must have had my hand on the chair and the thing migrated. Hubby either never gets bitten or doesn’t react, but I’m allergic to bug bites, mosquito bites, etc., and get big red lumps. I’m apt to get a bite around my thighs at the edge of the chair.

Thankfully the rest of the house is okay — Thanks much, Mr Vacuum, or whoever invented said device. But a small colony of mites must have established itself in the folded seams of the vinyl of my chair at one point. I’ve liberally sprayed the whole area several times, blocked the cats’ access to my desk chair and vacated, leaving the critters to starve. I’ve set up my laptop  in the dining room for the duration, but it’s not quite so easy, nor comfortable, to ensconce myself and write to my heat’s content.

On to a better subject. Being a lover of history, I was very tempted when I saw these books offered as Book Cave special this morning: ANGLO-SAXON KINGDOMS. These days when I’m very tempted, I put the books on my wish list — though I fear I’ll never live long enough to make it to the end!

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is ALMOST — a word that suits almost every circumstance. For example, “It’s almost time for me to leave for work.”

And the Word of the Day prompt is READY, an equally multi-purpose word. Once I put in the links, this post will be ready to publish.

 

Is 60kmph Breezy?

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is BREEZY.
Sue’s Jibber Jabber prompt is SEE

Our weather was doing “breezy” earlier this morning. Now the wind has stepped up some and to me it seems more like “gale.” What do you think? Would you still call winds 40 kmph with gusts up to 60 kmph — 26, gusts to 39mph — breezy? Or downright windy?

With dark gray clouds moving in, it feels like we went from June to the end of September in a day. However, looking out my window I see the lilacs are in bloom and robins are foraging on the lawn. When I was out I heard wrens singing from branches beside their little birdhouses. And I have a number of itchy insect bites after my planting session yesterday. So there’s no doubt about the season.

Years ago the poet Helen Hunt Jackson wrote:
O suns and skies and clouds of June,
and flowers of June together
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather.

To each his own, they say. Bug bites notwithstanding, I’ll take June.

H. Tulips

Twilight Settles

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning was SETTLE and it’s taken me awhile to settle down and respond to it. Actually, for my response I’m going to publish a poem by Canadian poet Archibald Lampman.

EVENING

From upland slopes I see the cows file by,
Lowing, great-chested,
down the homeward trail,
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale
With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,
A peevish night-hawk in the western sky
Beats up into the lucent solitudes,
Or drops with gliding wing. The stilly woods
Grow dark and deep, and gloom mysteriously.
Cool night winds creep
and whisper in mine ear.
The homely cricket gossips at my feet.
From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear,
Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweet
In full Pandean chorus. One by one
Shine out the stars
and the great night comes on.

I’m slowly getting used to the new editor. Some features I really like — one of them being the wide color range I can use for my type. Another is this Subscript. I sometimes tried using the tiniest font in the Classic editor, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to the size — not like this.

Skirmishes

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

On these cool-ish mornings I watch from my doorway as the hummers come to the two feeders I’ve set up. There appear to be about four juvies, though who can count such fast-moving flight artists.

I don’t know why they make hummingbird feeders with more than three holes. Perhaps in the land where they were designed, hummers know how to peacefully co-exist, but in our yard they behave much like humans. One feeder, one bird. If any other shows up, he or she is immediately urged to leave. Sometimes a few siblings can drink at the same feeder for a time, but mainly it seems to be, “This is mine. You beat it!”

Last summer I decided to hang a second feeder about a metre over and a metre lower than the main one. Occasionally I will see a bird at each, but more often the bird at the upper feeder will drive away the one wanting to light on the lower feeder. Sigh…

one hummingbird two feeders eight options zero tolerance

A few times this morning an oriole has come to the feeder to get his breakfast, so the syrup has gone down fast. I’m serving up a richer brew these days: 1 part sugar; 3 parts water. I’ve read they need more calories during migration — and that time will be coming soon. Though they be feisty little things, I hate to see them go.

I have a number of tubs of flowers on the step underneath the feeders, and planted two of them with red nicotiana this spring, thinking they’d appeal to hummers. As I observe, the hummers pretty much ignore the nicotiana blooms and seem to love my salvia and reddish-orange lantana blossoms. Duly noted for next spring. 🙂