Just a quick summary for the records. The flooded basement of Monday morning seemed like a disaster at the time. Needless to say it doesn’t now. Tuesday was the only sunny day of this gray week. Mostly the week was rest and relaxation, interrupted by a few little tasks and such. A photo summary …
Over 2 days, I burned up this brushpile.
Got next winter’s cordwood stacked. Thank you son-in-law for the help on Wednesday!
Made a little mobile for imminent grandbaby.
A crow visited the oak tree outside our bedroom window Thursday morning.
Walking iris flower opened Friday morning …
… and was closing Friday night.
While on the topic of flowers. Orchids just go right over the top.
The two beds planted with garlic last fall are peeking out of the snow.
Sorry I don’t have much to say. The disasters in Japan closed last week tragically.
Tomorrow morning it’s back to the workday routine.
Thoughts-0-Dave 
First and foremost, that is some impressive woodstacking.
Second, that orchid is beautiful. I love orchids & have fake ones all over my house. How jealous am I that you grow real ones so perfectly.
I can’t believe what happened in Japan–did you hear a California man was swept away to sea because of it? Scary, scary stuff.
Hi Girl, and thanks. Some folks would disagree about the woodstacking job. There are some who really stack their wood extremely neatly. Not many, but when you see that sort of woodpile (riding your bike through the tonier neighborhoods) you think to yourself, huh, someone with OCD lives there, or, huh, someone paid someone with OCD a lot of money to stack that wood so neatly. What a shame to take the pile apart and burn it.
My wife has a green thumb and has done very well with her orchids. They’re pretty amazing flowers and they’re so perfect that they actually look fake.
The situation in Japan is terrible. So sad and terrible. They are an amazing nation. I didn’t hear about the man in California. Let’s keep Japan in our thoughts and prayers.
By: The Girl from the Ghetto on March 14, 2011
at 7:43 am
Photo comments:
1. Good you burnt it. It looks depressing and deserved it!
2. Nice woodpile! Wish ours was cut.
3. Mobile nicely made. Is it copper then?
4. Creepy! Never more!
5. Beautiful!
6. Looks a bit like an alien. Where did you say you got this supposed flower?
7. Wow! Impressive orchids! Lovely colour!
8. Appears to be 3 fresh graves. I’ll not report you if you pay me to keep quiet.
Well of course it looks depressing NOW. It’s all burnt! There was an old couch on the pile which truly DID deserve the flames.
We buy our firewood (cut split and delivered) from a nice farm family next town over. We’ve been buying hay and firewood from them for years. We don’t have much of a woodlot really, but when a hardwood is dying or needs to be harvested, it becomes firewood.
Yes, the mobile is made from various guages of copper wire, along with 54 sheets of origami paper. Huh, that’s my age, I just realized.
I don’t know where my wife got the walking iris/apostle plant. We’ve had it for many years.
She’s a whiz with the orchids too.
No graves I promise. Check the photos at the bottom of this post from last fall. Besides, I doubt I could afford your silence. 🙂
By: S. Le on March 14, 2011
at 8:50 am
I think we were all blind-sided by the devastation in Japan. Horrific and humbling.
“I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.”
Well put. Nice quote too. God speed the efforts with the nuke plants.
By: S. Le on March 14, 2011
at 8:59 am
This is actually from Withnail’s scene at the end of the film in front of the wolf enclosure. It fitted perfectly I thought.
Quite right. I’ve loaned my DVD out again. Perhaps I need a second copy for myself.
By: S. Le on March 15, 2011
at 7:15 pm
You do. Most certainly. Maybe you could sell them and make a tidy profit!
The DVD costs $15 from Amazon. Gave a copy to my best friend for his birthday. I’ll be surprised if he likes it. And a friend from work who I thought would love it didn’t like it enough to watch the whole thing. Oh well, to each their own.
By: S. Le on March 17, 2011
at 5:50 pm
Most of the workers at those nuclear plants have been evacuated, but 50 remain there. It doesn’t say whether they are volunteers. And in the holy name of equality, I do hope there are at least 25 women among them.
As to the people that have to take decisions, they have now been up and talking and phoning and reading and calculating and screaming at God for 80? 90? or how many hours?
All I can think to say is that this disaster has struck with perfect and sad equality. As to the evolving nuclear plant problems, I hope and pray that they are able to solve them soon.
I have a great deal of respect for the work of scientists and engineers who figured out how to split the atom and harness that energy. But I also have a contrary point of view here. I believe that using nuclear fission to generate electricity is a terrible idea.
First, the effort required to coax the 0.72% of fissionable isotopes from uranium ore is gargantuan and generates tons of hot toxic waste before any bomb or reactor fuel is made. Second, the ‘permanent’ disposal of depleted reactor fuel (and other weapon manufacture related waste) remains a huge and unsolved problem. Third, the statistical safety we’ve enjoyed through application of our impressive engineering does not justify the risk vs. benefit when that million-to-one disaster does occur, and the plant melts down. The scope of this rare disaster is just too big, in my opinion, to justify the megawatts.
We would not have nuclear electric plants had we not needed to somehow justify our effort in creating nuclear weapons during WWII. There was no unringing that bell. I feel that nuclear power plants represent an overapplication of technology. Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean that we should. The safety of our nuke plants is a result of hard work and thorough testing. Chernobyl and the uninhabitable lands around are sad testament to the folly of ignoring enormous potential consequences.
By: cantueso on March 15, 2011
at 4:11 am
Business ideas:
“……candles, water, instant noodles and batteries for radios”. From the NYT. I would have thought that flour was better than noodles.
Plus milk powder and a bottle of oil. And the complete A la recherche du temps perdu.
Flour, water, oil and Proust. And perhaps a spare pair of reading glasses.
By: cantueso on March 15, 2011
at 4:23 am
wow! that orchid…!
I know! Heinous isn’t it?
By: nursemyra on March 15, 2011
at 5:54 am
I love the photo summary, and the mobile is SO adorable, was it made via your origami prowess? 😉 Also, the garlic beds give me hope that Spring is actually coming!! 🙂
Also, yes been a bad, bad news week; I just read an article that a cry was heard and they found a little baby alive in the rubble, 5 days after the earthquake!
Thanks Romi. Glad you’re here. As soon as the garlic sprouts I’ll be posting that too.
Yes, origami and copper wire bending prowess.
Glad to hear about a rescued baby. 🙂
By: Romi on March 15, 2011
at 10:24 pm
Is that baby due soon? Does everybody hold his breath when the telephone rings?
When my little sister was born, my father took me on skis down to the valley at night. There was a path through a pine forest. I remember that and all the lights and corridors, afterwards, at the hospital, but can’t remember the baby. Maybe I was similar to that boy (or did I tell you that joke before?)
–Paquito, would you like to see the cute tiny little baby that the stork has brought us?
–No. But I want to see the stork.
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At http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/ they turn a post into a neat PDF instantly at no charge, including header, sidebar, and comments. I made a few and discovered the ads that Google placed on my posts. One was from a magazine called “Fress Press Culture”, eh? or similar? of the ha-ha ha-ha kind. I was surprised to see those sophisticated people running so hard to catch that train.
But that PDF converter is nice. I had been looking for something to make collectionable copies of some of my posts.
TODAY is the due date. We expected that phone to ring last night, but it didn’t. She’s having contractions and starting to dilate now.
I like that stork joke. I similarly remember my younger sister’s birth but only leaving the hospital with my dad. We must’ve dropped mom off. I think I asked about what was for breakfast and was told that it would be eggs.
I like that PDF converter, although it makes a mess of the title text in my header. It does a nice job capturing all the page content. Thanks for that link.
By: cantueso on March 18, 2011
at 4:47 am