Dec
31
2014
Coco, one of our dogs, has to greet my wife first before going out. When we return after being out for awhile, we let all the dogs out immediately into our fenced yard. Coco will not dash out before she gives my wife a big hello. She is the only dog of our three that does that. She enthusiastically greets my wife and then she runs out in the yard.
Dec
23
2014
So far only one bird has gone into the cage inclosing the suet cake–a downy woodpecker. I have seen a number of different birds crawl up and down the trunk of the tree the cage is near but that is what the birds are used to–feeding from the trunk. Let us see how long it takes for other birds to crawl inside the cage and eat the suet cake placed there.
Dec
19
2014
My son likes painting water colors. He showed us on his cell a picture of one he made for his young nephew–less than a year old. It was lovely. I was thrilled he did that. His nephew will appreciate the picture when he gets older. It so happened that we gave him a paint set for Hanukkah and Christmas. He was delighted with it. My wife bought the set for him. I still have two collages he made for me–one was for father’s day and he made a small one on a mirror. I do not see him often enough but when he is in the area, he makes an effort to see me, which I appreciate. I talk to him every few weeks briefly. I am glad we have that contact. All I know he gives great hugs.
Dec
19
2014
My son said, “I am always striving to hear something new and different in music.” When I was his age (twenty-four), I was the same although I never listened to country. I always wanted to hear something new. My taste in music is still eclectic and so is my wife’s, which makes it a little easier to listen to music when she is around. Eventually I also started listening to jazz and my taste there is very varied to the most discordant (seldom) to the most mellow and everything in between. When he was growing up I had the stereo on all the time so it is not surprising he loves music, too.
Dec
19
2014
I was watching a brand new branch come up of my rubber tree which I have in my study. There was an almost two foot section of a branch which lost all their leaves. There were leaves on one end. They were curling up and had trouble getting enough light. A few days ago I noticed in the middle of the bare branch there was sudden growth and it was growing fast: Each day I could see a change in growth. There were two leaves erupting with another coming up. I eagerly was watching this. It was a treat. Each day I awaited the new branch’s progress still in its infancy.
Dec
19
2014
I am waiting to see how long it takes for the birds to find the suet, again. For years I put some up right next to the trunk of the large white pine outside our window. I got tired of sharing the suet with the squirrels. Sometimes I would have to put up new suet once a day. My wife surprised me with not one but two cages to enclose suet cakes. It was a Christmas present she gave me before the holidays. The cages are supposed to be squirrel proof. I put up the one that had largest holes. I wanted bigger woodpeckers to be able to reach the suet. The suet I put near the trunk of the tree was finally gone. I want to see how long it would take the birds to find the suet in the cages. Today I saw a chickadee alight on the outside of the cage briefly. That is the closest I got to seeing a bird go in the cage. It might take weeks before a woodpecker goes into the cage. And they seemed to like that the suet near the trunk of the tree. Let us see how many weeks go by. Birds are creatures of habit.
Dec
19
2014
Pumpkin is an extremely mild-mannered cat. We had to bring him to the vet. He is the easiest cat (of our seven) to catch. I put him in the carrier and he meowed plaintively. The vet even commented how docile he was. And how glad he was about that. The last two animals he examined were not. The vet had to give him three injections. He did not react to that. Not a sound out of him. Though, when he got home and we released him: he yowled for a minute or two as if to say, “It was bad enough I had to be confined to a carrier but I got stuck three times and that hurt. How could you do that to me?” He won’t forget about that for awhile.
Dec
17
2014
I had to remind myself of the scripture that says, ‘Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.’ My wife kept complaining I was interrupting her all the time. And I thought of that passage from the bible and it gave me a weapon to help me to stop doing that. It was a bad habit I had and now I had a way to stop doing it. It would not be easy, though. I would have to work at it.
Dec
13
2014
Today I saw an hairy and a red bellied woodpecker at the same time travelling up and down on the trunk of our white pine we put a suet cake on. The hairy woodpecker was an unusual visitor. A hairy woodpecker looks just like a downy woodpecker–just bigger. For months we stopped putting out birdseed because a bear visited our property one time too often destroying our gate during one visit. Our dogs were no help: they slept right through all the bear’s visits. My wife once saw the bear standing in the yard at night munching on birdseed on the ground.
Dec
9
2014
Some books you don’t even “see”. I had to move a big book case so some workers could remove the old thermostat and place a new one where I could reach it (the old one was hidden behind the bookcase). It was a job I was avoiding. I quickly removed dozens of books and threw them temporarily on the floor. I was amazed at the titles of some books. I either forgot I had them on the shelves or didn’t remember some titles. It was like getting some new books. Some had become “invisible”.
Dec
5
2014
My wife and I have a fierce Scrabble rivalry. I taught her all my tricks. Now she beats me more than I beat her–at least it seems that way usually by using all her tiles in one move: there is a fifty point bonus if you do that. Recently I had a game where I did that three times. I won that game.
Lately our games don’t last longer than an hour. She used to deliberate forever: I taught her how to focus logically on the words and premiums played. There was a time years ago she thought counting points was mercenary. I taught her how to maximize her points.
In the instructions of the game it says the total of the points scored in one game is usually between 500 and 700 hundred or more depending on the skill of the players. Yesterday we played our second highest score (890 points). In over ten years we have played hundreds of games between us. It is hard to lose a game when you score 419 points but I did: she had 471 points.
She has become a worthy opponent. That we have an activity we both enjoy so much and are so equally matched is only by the grace of God. And she is my wife. I still think she has become a better player than me. Only by a hair.
Dec
5
2014
I can’t believe how fast the time is going. A little more than two weeks we will have reached winter officially and another thirteen weeks spring-officially anyway. It seemed as if Thanksgiving has just come and Christmas is less than three weeks away. Then New Year. I know every January and February we have at least one “freeze”. And those periods will seem forever. Before we know it the Farm Show will be here. And it invariably snows that week. There is always two periods of time. The Greek language described time at least two different ways. There will be the period where it flows forever. And then where everything happens in slow motion. All this at the same time.
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