And it's not that I've been overwhelmingly busy, either. I just really haven't felt like writing here. But I'm trying to push myself a bit. I've discovered that when I have too much time on my hands, it stays right there, on my hands. I don't do anything with it at all. Like many other mentally organized people--those of us with a non-institutionalizable level of OCD (like that non-word there?)--I'm much more productive when I have too little time. So my current assignment for myself is to get the things done that I said I would.
This raises a pretty interesting question for myself: Should I have retired so early? My answer is still a ringing YES, but not because I have so many things I want to do; it's because I was so very ready to stop doing what I had been doing. Now, like many other Boomers, I'm trying to "find myself"--my new self, that is. I'm on the hunt. If and when I find myself, we'll introduce ourselves to you
For now I'll move on to the trivia of my life that I'm sure you all find absolutely fascinating. I actually took this little video and planned to post it under the title, "Why I'll Probably Never Move Away from Here." It's the sound that gets me--we can hear it from our back porch even though the dam is about 1/2 mile away. And if we get our screens on somewhat early we can hear it when we go to sleep at night--sometimes with the windows closed!--and first thing in the morning too. I love it.
My other favorite spring sound was affected by the oddness of this spring: the peepers. These little froggies start singing early early in spring and then their sound disappears as we get into summer. Well, this year they apparently got fooled by a week of warm days and then got clobbered by plummeting temperatures. I hope it didn't wipe them out completely. This is one of the sounds I used to have to go to our camp for (here in NY a cabin/cottage in the Adirondacks is known as a camp). Now I can hear peepers in the comfort of my VERY comfortable Serta Memory Foam bed. (Just had to put that here.) Anyway, I miss the peepers this yearMy garden is coming right along this year, though. The wicked winter of 2007-08 almost did in a few residents but they're coming back--smaller but tougher, I guess. I did have one "resurrection" that really surprised me. Last year my friend Lynn had me pick out a couple of plants as a gift to me in memory of my mom. Of course, one of them had to be a dahlia--maybe more about dahlias some other time--and then I saw a white Bleeding Heart. I didn't know they came in white. So I dutifully dug the hole and put some good soil in, and planted it. It looked very nice and healthy, and then it disappeared. I don't mean it shriveled up, or got some disease or anything like that. It was just there one week and not there the next. I dug up the soil a little and everything, looking for it because I could NOT figure out what had happened to it. If something had eaten it--like that pesky rabbit, another thing for maybe more later, even if it had eaten ALL of it, there should have been some stem left at ground level or evidence of digging to eat the whole thing. Nada. Nothing. No sign of it at all. So I just wrote it off as some freaky fluke. Well, the freakiness continues. This year it was the first plant to show growth, as in about an inch a day when the snow melted. Now it's out there in full flower (early for us!). All I can do is shake my head and say, "W H A T ?" But it's lovely.
This is a not-very-good picture of "Resurrection--the Plant" so you all (that's implying more than one reader, y'know) can see it ... before it disappears again this year. (I don't know that it will but I'm prepared!) And one more plant of note.My friend Rachelle also gave me a plant in memory of mom so this is my magnolia, "Marie." I rarely name things but both this and Resurrection just needed them! Isn't this a lovely shrub? The leaves will appear after the blossoms all fall off and form a skirt around the bush on the ground. Since this was such a tough winter I have hopes of Marie continuing on. (Just like another Marie I loved.)
Ah, there is one more thing I named. I'd like you to meet my new toy, "Raleigh Rose." I think that sounds like a name for a thoroughbred. (BTW, I told Stan's daughter Lana to bet on Eight Belles and if she had put her $50 on the filly to win, place or show, she would've made $500. But she only bet her to win. Which I think Eight Belles did in her own heart anyway.) 
Anyway, I did a 5 mile ride this morning, up some VERY tough hills and found out just how not in shape I am currently. My whole windpipe is still very sensitive from all the hard panting I did. No joke. So here's my trusty steed. She was an impulse buy and she replaces my trusty O-L-D Gitane, the men's skinny-wheel racing bike I bought in 1972. And was still riding, although I figured that I didn't ride it last year even one time because I just didn't want to hassle with the glitchy dérailleur anymore, carrying a paper towel tucked in my waistband to wipe the grease off my fingers after I put the chain back on after the dérailleur made it overshoot the sprocket. AaAAARRRrgGGHHH. Much more fun this year!The best thing Raleigh Rose does is keep me away from the blackflies. You wouldn't believe how gigantic they are this year. They're like the ones I first encountered: in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota on Memorial Day weekend in 1975, I think it was. I remember telling people in Iowa that there were these horrific bugs that "looked just like black regular flies only littler." Well, that's what the Nort' Country has this year, eh? All my gardening has been done with a headnet on, and just to let you know HOW bad the blackflies are, even Stan is working outside wearing a headnet most of the time!
So until next time I get the inspiration--or have a video or photo I want you to see--Happy Spring!
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