We went this past weekend to the memorial service in PA for my father-in-law. It was a lovely service outside under large, spreading trees at Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust. He died late on Mother’s Day, just six months after his wife of 50 some years (she died on Thanksgiving). My husband gave a lovely tribute, in which he talked about life lessons learned from his dad, who he worked with for several years as a surveyor. And then his brother gave a short tribute that made me cry and cry.

They’re cleaning out the house, you know? And found one of those little inspirational books that MIL had, with a page about love or family (I forget) marked off with a day calendar page from 2006, again with some pertinent quote. And FIL wrote, in his scratchy surveyor’s handwriting, a note about how he fell in love the day he met her.

October 30, 1929-May 9, 2010.

What was I taking pictures of?

the backside of the piper

Who, by the way, is wearing County Mayo (an IRISH plaid…). Especially after BIL’s tribute, his piping was haunting and bittersweet.

the family

missing only the youngest BIL and a niece

There are 8 kids, all with partners or spouses except the missing one, and the three girls and DH with kids (including two half siblings to one of the BIL’s, who were raised by my SIL… I just call them all family). It was great to see them all, and especially to meet the littlest one who lives in Colorado.

After the memorial there was a party at the house, where they all grew up. Neighbors of 30 and 50 years and long time friends showed up. We didn’t get to bed until midnight. Even though it was a sad occasion, it was great to see everybody and spend time with them.

the drive

I drove a bit, DH drove more, while I slept in the back of the minivan with the doggies. At one point stuff was hitting the windshield. I just thought it was agricultural duff. But, no, it was agricultural stock… bees.

I rolled down the window to get a better photo and DH said “No! No!” (if you embiggen you can see bees hanging on the backside of the truck)

back to work

and the blue screen of death at 11:30. Actually the black and blue screens of death since I have two monitors. Neither one had any words, just plain color. They want to get me a new machine (this one was new last October). Frustrating since I spent days last week installing some software (old software, but new to the machine). At least now I know where it lives (The people who make it say they don’t know where we would have put it. The person in whose world, an Oracle database, it is supposed to lives said it wasn’t there. The person in the middle, a database server, said it wasn’t there… but I got him to let me remote into his world and we did find it). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what was on my machine and needs to go back on before I can do what I’m supposed to do. yadayadayada…

would it be better if it was a pink screen?

Personally, I think so, given that blue is generally not my favorite color…

vote!

Did you? I did, but didn’t get a sticker! waaaaa!!!!! I figured my boss might not believe me, and sure enough, when I got back and said they didn’t have any stickers she said “I don’t believe you really went“. She was kidding…

knitting

As usual, no pictures. Finished some mitts. And the back of a summer sweater… pics soon.

Chris has some unknown sick tree. What I want to know is, has she figured out what it is yet??

We have way too many sick trees at work, mostly maples, birches, gingkos. The larger maples are likely suffering from sugar maple dieback, but the saplings were probably just not planted right. Or were crappy stock. Or are ailing because they’re on the grounds of the old Maine Insane Asylum, and over 150 years of sadness and suffering is built up into the soil. Here are some old postcard images from the glory days.

That last one is dead, the gingkos to the left don’t have the dead branches like the others, but they don’t look good.

The healthiest looking tree on the grounds? A weeping birch.

snow

still there… but going quickly!

Doesn’t look like much, but there is a fair amount of ice there. I’ll put my wellies in my car to investigate early next week.

winter wood

We have four cords of wood in the driveway…

what else?

Whining. The cortisone is wearing off. The right elbow is starting with that twitchy weird feeling that presaged the actual lateral epicondylitis in the left. The left has that cold after you hit your “funny bone” feeling at the back, and has started again with pain in the lateral epicondyle. I have not been knitting very much. I was out of work for a week, so little to no typing. I won’t be moving much or any of that wood. My dye plant seedlings still await their planting (maybe I’ll harden them off anyhow), and they won’t make into the ground this weekend.

I won’t make this year’s Fiber Frolic. Which is for a good reason, my FIL died Mother’s Day night, and the service for him will be that weekend, in PA. Just 6 months after MIL died around Thanksgiving.

Maybe I’ll get out the spinning wheel… But after a nap, I feel better, but still get tired easily. waaaaa….

The sun seems to come up late here. This is about 7 AM. I puttered around on the canals, hoping to see an alligator or two.

Didn’t get any good wildlife pics, but I saw a Louisiana Heron successfully fishing. Hmmm… The Audubon site says: The flesh of the young birds (Louisiana Herons) affords tolerable eating. I just wasn’t thinking about eating this bird!

Also saw pelicans, some little terns, a great egret, grackles, weird ducks, and the loch ness monster. Probably was a carp.

I think this one was after my paper cup of cold cereal…

I learned that kayaking (even in putter mode) is one of those things (along with snow shoveling, sweeping, typing, knitting, triceps weight work, lifting my coffee cup) that irritate my tendonitis. …le sigh le sigh…

knitting

I started the Prairie Rose Shawl (ravelry link) with some georgeous Madeline Tosh dk just before leaving. I figured I’d work on it on the plane. I copied the pattern out of my book but didn’t read through it before I left. I wasn’t very far along before I found an abbreviation I didn’t know! sk2p. I had to put it down and go buy a book because I’d finished the one I brought on the first leg part of the flight.

I told kiddo I need somebody with internet access to look it up for me (we pretty much live in the mobile dark ages, we don’t even have cell phones). He said why don’t you just ask somebody with a computer? So I saw somebody nearby, and asked if she’d look up a knitting abbreviation, and she was intrigued. She is a knitter! But clearly not obsessed like most of us because she didn’t know one could take needles on a plane, and didn’t know about ravelry (I told her she should join, it is way better than the Lion free patterns she’s been looking at). The connection wasn’t very good, so we didn’t have any luck. I got it figured out once I got here and could look around. I need to work on the shawl with no distractions (ha!) to get beyond some little trouble I’m having… I keep ending up with extra stitches on the row and have to tink back 3 rows to get back to the right number and move forward.

It’s that time year, when it’s all about reproducing…

I visited my brother and his family in Massachusetts on Sunday, and we went for a walk…

Toads in and out (I lifted them out) of a drainage ditch at the edge of an agricultural field. Bro asked, are they humping? Well… not quite like he was thinking. You can read more about toads here

Boys and their curious questions… On Friday night, six 14 year old boys were here (1 is mine), and they asked, do girls have erect1ons?

Um, back to the walk….

One thing I learned is that it is way easier to see ticks on a fawn colored boxer than on my hairy black girls. You could see the beasties walking on the dog and could flick them off out in the woods. Because of the early warm weather and mild winter, Lyme disease could soar this year. So watch out, eh?

Polygamodioecious

Poly…what? Fernald says it means polygamous but chiefly monoecious. Which in the end means with hermaphrodite and unisexual flowers on the same or on different individuals of the same species but chiefly with male and female reproductive parts in separate flowers on the same plant. Lucia thinks red maple reproduction is kinky. It certainly is all over the place. These are male flowers, which seem to be what we usually see. If you have any photos of female red maple flowers, Lucia and I would love to see them!

Speaking of maples, the maplewing is almost done. Here it is yesterday morning,

I have only the neck edging left to do. It should take half an hour or so, once I figure out what the instructions are telling me to do! I need to seek assistance. The blocking wires arrived yesterday, but I didn’t open the package.

Because I had to go to the Goodwill. I had this feeling on Sunday and yesterday that there was something really good there waiting for me. So I went shopping last evening. Didn’t find what I somehow thought might be there, but I did find a mauvy pink cashmere sweater that fits me (I might have to overdye it) and some spanky cool reading glasses with lots of color and flowers on them and some weird maybe old black top that has the potential to be absolutely fabulous (everything was $5!).

An hour ago I was full of big F bombs in my head though… Kiddo not where he said he’d be, but he is now. Oh the joys of teenagers! (I do hear my mother snickering someplace).

New eyeglasses (first pair of progressives) are on… little wtf’s going on in my head along with the dizziness… Pics soon.

So I guess it’s a good thing you see what I write and not what I think, eh?