Don’t Let This Rabbit Miss Easter
Poor rabbit. He’s afraid he’ll miss Easter and he knows it. Just look at his expression.
Not every rabbit has a calendar, you know, and I suspect that causes problems, not to mention that Easter doesn’t always fall on the same Sunday so even if he does have a calendar, it might not help.
Do you know any rabbit with a current calendar? I don’t, so I suspect that if the poor guy did have one it would be last year’s. Or worse.
I think someone should mount a campaign so no rabbit goes unrecognized on Easter. It shouldn’t be too hard. Just go into any garden and wait a while and they’ll arrive and we can tell them the correct date so they’ll know when to scatter painted eggs and be loved and admired by every nearby kid.
Should be easy. Let’s do it.
*****
Counting Flower Petals
Counting Flower Petals
I count the petals on flowers. Do you?
Why? Isn’t having a lovely flower enough without having to know exactly how much beauty we are holding in our hands?
Are we measuring happiness? If so, what other ways do we measure it? And what do we find out when we count those petals?
Do you count petals?
*****
Very Large Horses
Horses Are Very Large
A horse-loving daughter convinced us that we needed horses. We decided she was right and got a horse. Then another. And so on. When we got that first horse, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. But we learned! Did we ever learn!
The main thing to know about horses is that they like to go visiting. As in break through their fencing and wander about the countryside. Especially if you have one horse that’s unusually social. We had such a horse. And when he went visiting, the rest of the horses went with him.
Our neighbors were wonderful. We got calls when our horses showed up in their barnyards. And we went to get them.
One time, my daughter – the horsewoman – and I were the only people home when we got such a call. So we went to get the horses. And guess what – I had to help bring them home. Which meant I had to actually get on one of them and ride said horse home while helping to convince the others to follow.
This took place along a busy highway.
I was never so scared in my life.
My daughter, of course, wasn’t unfazed and when we got home said, “That was nice, wasn’t it?”
I still love horses.
From a distance.
*****
The Power of Cupcakes
Cupcakes are a ‘thing.’ Everyone knows that.
What most people don’t know is how powerful a cupcake is.
Think about it.
It’s small enough not to feel guilty about eating one. And since there’s no obvious spot missing to show that you sneaked a treat as there would be if you cut out a piece of a cake, no one will know if you eat more than one. Or more than two. Or more than three. And so on.
See what I mean? Just by existing and sitting so innocently on the kitchen counter and looking so delicious they draw us in until we succumb to their siren’s song.
All that taste! All those calories! And we don’t regret eating them.
Yes, cupcakes are powerful. No doubt about it.
*****
Morning Coffee
When I realized that coffee was giving me indigestion, I almost had an emotional breakdown. I mean, who can live without coffee, especially in the morning? I certainly couldn’t.
How could I surivive without my morning coffee? COULD I survive? Not likely!
Actually, tragedy never did strike. I did survive. I transitioned to tea and it wasn’t even difficult.
Did you know you can drink tea with cream and sugar or those wonderful flavored creams?
So I’m now a dedicated tea drinker.
I hope tea never gives me indigestion. If it does, what will I do next?
*****
Shadow People
Shadow People
Some people cast a long shadow.
My mother was such a person. When she died at 103, the church was filled to overflowing with people she’d helped during her life.
Some shadows are very long but aren’t as nice as my mother’s. Control freaks. Pushy people. Gossips.
My husband’s shadow was longish. He fished, hunted, played football, snowmobiled, and did just about every other masculine, difficult thing imaginable and often took a kid or two with him. Our kids are now self-sufficient adults and I believe that he was part of the reason why.
Not everyone has a long shadow. I think mine is small and I prefer it that way because I prefer living my life in solitary contentment and letting each day unfold as it will.
What about you?
*****
Sunrise
My daughter took this picture a few mornings ago. She was at work as the sun came up and she thought it was beautiful so she took a picture and shared it with the world.
What is it about sunrises that speaks to us so deeply? The promise of another day? The beauty of the colored sky? The return of light after darkness? The awesome expanse of grandeur slowly spreading across the sky and surrounding us? The beauty of a new beginning?
I admit that I don’t know. Don’t have a clue.
I just know that I’m glad my daughter shared this picture with the world because perhaps it’s all of those things jumbled together and because of her we too can experience that lovely morning.
Can’t have too many beautiful sunrises.
*****
Smoke Knows How To Cat
I admit it. I’m a cat person. And a dog person and a horse person and more.
But for the last few years my life companion has been feline so my animal musings these days tend towards cats.
I love a cat on my lap and Smoke isn’t shy about telling me when he needs ‘lap’ time. He’s also not shy about telling me when he’s hungry, even if it’s two in the morning. Especially if it’s two in the morning. And I’ve not needed an alarm clock since he came to live with me because he makes sure I don’t oversleep.
In other words, he’s an expert on being a cat. If he ran for president of the House Cat Society, he’d have a good chance of winning. He knows every nook and cranny of his kingdom as well as the idiosyncrasies of his subjects.
But I love him to pieces. Including when he’s asleep. Maybe especially when he’s asleep. Like in the picture. He’s so cute.
And so quiet.
*****
Onion Rings
I love onion rings. Love them. Actually, I love anything fried but onion rings hold a special place in my heart.
But there’s a problem with onion rings and I’m throwing this out for any entrepreneur who wants to start a new business.
The one and only problem with onion rings is that whomever makes them seems to always use huge onions. This is a problem because, as anyone who eats as many onion rings as I do knows, it’s nearly impossible to eat just a part of an onion ring. Impossible to bite down and just get a bite sized portion because if you try, what happens is that the onion slides out and drops to the ground (ugh!) leaving just the fried coating. And you can’t fit an entire very large onion ring in your mouth in one bite. (Unless you are willing to look like a greedy fool.) So you are left with the coating and no onion.
Maybe it’s old age, but I simply can’t eat a whole, huge onion ring. Sooooo — like I said —- if anyone out there starts making fried onion rings with onions that are small enough to eat in one bite, I’ll be first in line to get some.
******
What Month Is This?
I woke up this morning and looked out the window and stared in shock. Why? Because the world was white. Again. It snowed last night. It actually snowed. Inches.
Yesterday the snow was almost gone. Some in the woods where the trees are thick enough that the sun doesn’t reach and, of course, the places where snowplows left huge drifts. But that’s all.
This morning, though, it’s white out. Again.
It looked like it looked last week. Again.
How did this happen?!
After the first shock of all that whiteness when the world had already turned brown, I realized why.
It’s March.
March is the month when we can have green shoots coming up through the dirt one day and blizzards that strand motorists the next. Yesterday was a day of tow trucks pulling motorists out of ditches a bit west of us. You know – west – the direction from which our weather comes.
So I should have known it was coming. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the world was white today.
More to the point, I should have just reminded myself that it’s March and not been surprised by anything at all.
***
Pandemic Personalities
Pandemic Personalities
The pandemic has divided people into two groups. One group likes to be with people. The other group would be happy as hermits.
I belong in the latter group. I’d make a good hermit. I loved moving to the wilderness where my neighbors were trees and wild animals. I loved the slow pace of life, following the sun to know what time it was, watching the snow pile up in the winter, and just generally listening to the silence and taking as long as need be to understand what it was telling me.
When the pandemic came into our lives and with it, lockdown, my family reminded me, laughing as they spoke, that the world was now the way I’d always thought it should be. Private. Quiet. Slow. And isolated.
I’ve been reading the thoughts of others in lockdown and I’ve discovered that many people reacted the same way I did. They loved it. They still love it. Though we hermits can’t wait for the pandemic to be done with we wish that solitude would never end.
Because some people are public people.
Others are private.
*****
The Other Side Of The Story
The other day I listened to a podcast giving ‘the other side’ of a well-publicized trial. It was with something close to shock that I realized that yes, there actually was another side, one that the newspapers for the most part, didn’t report.
Hearing the things that most of the media did not report made me remember that newspapers and other media outlets aren’t in the business of providing news. They are in the business of making money.
That’s a whole different thing.
They report what will sell the most newspapers or garner the most views and, therefore, make the most money.
Getting real news from the media would be sooooo easy and soooo nice for lazy people like me. But it isn’t likely to happen.
The thing is, I know how to do my own research.
So I guess I just have to remind myself to get busy and check things out for myself every time the news media says whatever it says.
Hmmmmm – Think for yourself.
Isn’t that what wise people have been recommending just about forever?
***
I like butterflies. I was overjoyed when we noticed a patch of milkweeds on the edge of our yard and decided not to cut them because they are where Monarch butterflies live.
We watch the Monarchs. It’s wonderful.
But even as I am glad for Monarchs, I must admit that I prefer the other butterflies. The really huge, gorgeous ones. Yellow and green and red and every color in the rainbow.
Actually, I don’t know all the colors that butterflies can be. I just know that I love bright, beautiful colors and I also love butterflies.
I put them on my handmade cards. I look for pictures of them. And I watch them in real life.
I guess I’m just like almost everyone else on Earth.
The Irish
Top ‘o’ the mornin’ to ye all.
I’m practicing my Irish brogue.
When I was a kid, my father told me we were part Irish.
Not much, he said, but I figure even a little bit is enough so I can wear green in March and talk ‘Irish.’
I’ll keep practicing.
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Thursday — Questions
How long will it take to get humans on Mars?
This is not a rhetorical question.
Not too long ago, I was gifted with a piece of property on Mars. I have a deed and everything and it’s posted on my wall, complete with the signature of the Official Land Registrar, John Carter, of course, so that means it’s for real.
The thing is, I’m not getting any younger and I want to inspect that property myself or at the very least, have someone else inspect it for me. That means getting to Mars pronto!
I’m thinking of emailing Elon Musk and telling him to WORK FASTER!
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Wednesday — People
During the years that we owned a resort on a wilderness lake, our only neighbor was an elderly lady who owned many hundreds of acres of lakeshore, including a point that jutted out into the lake and was used by both fishermen and duck hunters as a place to stop for a shore lunch.
She didn’t mind them using her property and she never complained about the litter they left behind, which was considerable.
Every autumn just before the snow started to fly, she’d drag a few huge garbage bags and a rake through the forest to that point – quite a long walk for an elderly woman — and clean up after those thoughtless fishermen and hunters.
Perhaps they didn’t realize that trash accumulates even in the forest. Perhaps they didn’t think about an elderly woman making her way through the forest dragging their garbage behind her. Perhaps they didn’t care.
She could have posted a ‘no trespassing’ sign. But she didn’t. Instead she let them use her property and kept it clean herself. Every year, as long as she was physically able.
We never helped because we didn’t know what she was doing. Because she never told anyone. She just did it.
When we found out what she’d been doing all those years, she simply said she didn’t mind spending a day cleaning her property. It’s what homemakers do and the forest was her home.
I think the world could use more people with that philosophy.
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TUESDAY — THOUGHTS
Yep, that could be me. Or not.
I’ve never been able to twist myself into a pretzel no matter how hard I tried. And believe me, I’ve tried, having taken ballet lessons for years until I realized that there are people who are born to be pretzels and people who aren’t. People like me.
But it must be wonderful to be able put yourself into such a pose at will, close your eyes, and just zone out.
I can’t become a pretzel but I can zone out. Actually, I’m rather good at it. I believe some people call it daydreaming, but as everyone like me knows, it’s more than that.
It’s leaving this world and finding another, totally different one. It’s taking a trip without physically going anywhere or ingesting anything because you don’t need either. You just need your imagination and the ability to go still for a while.
It’s a fun way to travel, a useful skill during a pandemic.
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MONDAY IS FOR ANIMALS — POLAR BEARS
I read an article about polar bears a while back that made it abundantly clear that polar bears are endangered.
Not too long before reading that article, I read different one that quoted Canadian scientists who track the polar bear population saying their numbers are increasing and the bears are very healthy.
One article was based on the word of scientists who study polar bears in depth and know them inside out. The other was based on the actual count of polar bears today.
Which is right? I don’t know but I’m glad I looked at both sides of the question so I don’t go off half-cocked and start screaming and saying either they are endangered or they are multiplying exponentially.
I think most of life’s like that. No clear answers.
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I normally eschew ‘things.’ I’m not sentimental at all. My family constantly reminds me not to toss family memorabilia because even though I don’t care for it, someone else might treasure it, something that would never have occurred to me if they hadn’t made sure I got the message.
I like the restful look of a room not full of unnecessary stuff. I would like that look if I could actually have it. Goodness knows I have enough essential stuff in my life to fill a dozen rooms without adding anything else!
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Love is in the air. And in people’s smiles (behind their masks) and on paper because valentines are a grand tradition. Everybody likes frilly red and pink and white creations filled to the brim with love!
St. Valentine had a good idea way back when. Hallmark had another in 1913 when it started selling valentines. And the rest is history.
Ask any school kid who’s busy making valentines (instead of making mischief) for 21 classmates while begging their mother for enough candy for everyone while making fudge early in the morning to surprise their mom who of course won’t know how the kitchen got so messy when she wasn’t there.
We have a better idea. Save the kitchen and share the love with some NWFF creations in an NWFF gift box accompanied by a handmade paper valentine at no extra charge. St. Valentine would approve. Hallmark might be jealous.
Best of all, there’s a whole lot of love and gourmet treats to choose from.
