Still hanging in there!
The Old Redbud Friday, Nov 28 2014
gardening and Modern Photos cercis canadensis, eastern redbud, gardening, photography 20:50
Winter Wednesday, Nov 26 2014
Julie's Pond and Landscapes and Modern Photos northwest Connecticut, photography 16:12
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Modern ephemera Tuesday, Nov 25 2014
Uncategorized 11:01
Our tech guru spent most, all?, of yesterday resurrecting our personal email accounts which had been suddenly terminated thanks to ATT and Frontier, who assumed that nobody was still using their old dial-up email accounts. (or given the current nonsense, they just didn’t care) In my case, most of my professional/personal contacts are accessible only through those email addresses stored in that email account, I don’t know where they live or their phone numbers.* Sure, I could find out most of them, eventually. But it would take quite a bit of time. It also stores nearly ten years of emails that took the place of personal letters during college/post grad, and the account dates back to the late 1990’s. Or did.
The fact is, I wasn’t treating my email account like an email account; but more like a personal archive. And that doesn’t actually work on the internet for long periods of time.
The near loss of the material and the loss of the address illustrates a well known issue. On one hand, you can find anything on the internet. On the other hand….the connection is astonishingly fragile and entirely out of one’s physical control.
Unless steps are taken otherwise, which is why I am contemplating the creation of an address book that does not exist on the internet and probably not even on the computer. As a medievalist, and a believer in the lasting power of the pen and paper, you would think I would have already done this!
Still, it is funny. Physically, I am still here, where I have maintained an address for all my life. But briefly, my virtual address, which so many more people know, vanished from existence. It will take me forever to remember to give out my new email address….
Now, where’s my pencil?
*I know I am stupidly lucky, you don’t need to tell me that again.
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Six months Saturday, Nov 22 2014
to this…..seems a bit long!
But there are a lot of projects to get done inside in the meantime. Not much more that can be done outside. The ground is frozen and the wind is hunting hard across the forest.
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Photo for the day Thursday, Nov 20 2014
Esperanza and Landscapes and Modern Photos photography, trees 12:06
Taken a few weeks ago. I always like subtle colors of the beeches, (top right in this instance a European Copper Beech) and the oaks (center, an ordinary volunteer black). Top left is a Sugar Maple,. The closer trees are the apples which hold their leaves quite late.
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Must be nearly winter Tuesday, Nov 18 2014
Uncategorized indoor plants, weather 21:43
If all the scented geraniums and the jasmine and the citrus have been moved from beneath the south porch (an enclosed, but not insulated area) to various locations inside. This is a bit of project: we have four jasmine, one passionflower, three full sized geraniums in gallon pots, and multiple small ones, along with various other plants including a collection of baby citrus grown from seed (so who knows what they are, maybe Meyer Lemons maybe mini oranges, maybe?)
Most of these plants like a period of cold weather, but they can’t take an actual freeze. The area beneath the porch is ideal for a month/month and a half. If the interior basement door is kept open, this enclosed space can be kept above freezing as long as the true outside temperatures stay above 20 and the day was sunny. If not…on a night when it is windy and severe clear with a low in the teens, well it just isn’t good for things that can’t take an actual dip into freezing: i.e. the temperature of the leaf surface gets down to 32. Which weather usually occurs right about now!
But it is definitely nearly winter when the space is promptly given over to a frozen solid, aromatic*, grubby horse blanket that must get dried out before the next storm.
*I put it next to the furnace in the basement only once….the odor when drying is well, exactly what one would expect!
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The last gold Monday, Nov 17 2014
Esperanza and Landscapes and Modern Photos northwest Connecticut, photography 20:49
Before the snow and the cold rain! Now it finally looks like November here, the dark trees and the grey fog that steals through the woods. This was October, though barely a week ago.
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Thanksgiving Dinner? Saturday, Nov 15 2014
gardening and Modern Photos connecticut wildlife, turkeys 20:17
Hard to believe that forty years ago, turkeys were locally extinct in Connecticut. This is part of our local bachelor band, nine in total this year.
and not dinner!
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First Snow! Friday, Nov 14 2014
gardening and Landscapes and Trees gardening, weather 10:25
About two fluffy, sticky inches likely to be gone by evening. Very pretty. (remind me of that in March…) Driving home from a meeting last night, just as it was turning from rain to snow, was gorgeous: cut crystals in the headlights.
What is distinctly odd about it though is that we actually have not had a killing frost yet. But I am glad that we spent time alternately mulching into the lawn and raking up leaves yesterday. We are trying a new tactic on leaves this year. Instead of collecting them with the lawnmower, we are running the lawnmower with the leaf catcher attachment, but no bags, spreading the cut leaves far and wide as we go.* There actually is a noticeable difference to the feel of the North Lawn* where we have done this: all those oak and magnolia leaves are back on the lawn in little pieces and it is definitely springier/softer, even in another year of nasty fall drought. The question is whether it will work with the denser ginkgo leaves, we shall see next spring. It is much better than taking dozens of bags of leaves off the lawn each year. Maybe it will even slow the appalling subsidence of the lawn!
*I am pondering whether the pipe could rotated a bit so it makes a better rooster tail and wider spread….
**The North Lawn is dominated by two full sized Black oaks, two Cucumber Magnolias (one at full size), a good sized Tulip tree, a mature ginkgo, and three young trees: elm, maple, and beech. There are A lot of leaves.
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Cat in a room of rocking chairs Wednesday, Nov 12 2014
Trees connecticut 16:03
Otherwise known as feeling twitchy. If I was an animal, it would be a highly territorial one.
Those of you with a passing knowledge of Connecticut may have heard of the long running arguments over trees vs roads. There is a sizable faction in the state DOT, backed by the ever whimsical voter, who yowls for clear cuts 100 feet back from Either side of the road. On the pretext that then the power will never go out and people will never die. Or at least not die from the physics of tree plus car. This conveniently ignores a number of things, not least the fact that the DOT only owns 25 feet to either side of the road. In some places they have done a fifty foot cut, without any particular consultation.
They like cutting trees and they have been making money from cutting the trees. Which is laudable, better than chipping them, and I completely understand the need for proper maintenance. But it makes me twitchy. Those seventy-five feet contain some very nice, very large oak, pine, and spruce here. And they do not belong to the state.
So the appearance of a bright orange ribbon and arrow? Twitchy. Nothing in the woods is marked, but it means something and I don’t know what. Except what I have seen in other areas.
Funny how there is no contact number for general inquiries, just the classic drop-down box form, without a category about trees.
Acair Fearann 