It's So Dark!

Did you remember to "spring forward"?  Didn't you think it was too dark when your alarm clock jangled this morning?  I did.  I got up, sprinted around the foot of the bed, slapped it off, and scurried right back under the covers for a half hour so that I could see my hand in front of my face when I got out of bed.  Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little, but it was demoralizing for it to be dark that late when we've battled back into the light from the mid-winter dark.

An amazing thing happened on Saturday afternoon.  The phone rang and it was a woman asking if we'd allow campaign signs in our yard for a father and son running for city council and county board, respectively.  I said no, and then she asked if I'd vote for them so I asked the candidates' opinions on the Walmart issue (Wally World is the only company willing to step up and redevelop a property on the fringe of a burgeoning local specialty-business district but also smack dab in the middle of one of the poorest and underserved (no grocery store in reach if you haven't a car) parts of the city, plus Walmart's willing to foot the bill to remediate the asbestos and tainted ground of the site.  Seems like a win-win to us but the mayor's totally against it.)  She said they're against it so I told her that they both lost our votes.  Within 15 minutes the phone rang and it was the Jr. of the pair setting the record straight that both he and his dad are for the Walmart project.  Durwood picked up another phone and the three of us had a lively discussion about that issue and a few others.  It felt good to be listened to so actively.

Yesterday on my way out of the university after the concert (which was good and short, at least "our" part) I spied a small flock of wild turkeys.  They immediately started to move away and the snowdrift was pretty darned high but I kind of got a picture.  See?

March 10--Winslow Homer, Boys in a Dory.  Caleb and Amy bought an odd lot for fifty dollars at the estate auction.  Caleb was a big fan of odd lot boxes but Amy had lost her enthusiasm for them when her two dollar "box of buttons and oddments" turned out to include a full set of false teeth.  Caleb's lot contained a pair of mismatched wooden chairs, a pine box of canning jars, and three original paintings in frames.  She was glad to get the jars because she'd given most of hers away full of applesauce over the last year and the chairs could get sanded and painted for patio use.  The picture frames were a little ornate for her taste but she liked the painting in shades of gray of boys in a boat.  That one might make the living room wall.

I'm a big fan of Winslow Homer's work, not that portrait of his mom so much, but his other works.  He's one traditional artist whose work I regularly recognize.  It's a work day and it's finally getting light enough to see across the street.  Oh, and I had to take the big green baffle off of the feeder and put the little red one back.  When I got home from the concert yesterday the wind had whipped the green one around so that the whole feeder assembly flew off the hook and landed on the ground.  Plus Durwood opined that the bluejays would never come to feed on the peanuts (our target bird for that feeder) with all the flapping and clanging.  So I clomped out, brought it in, cut off the big green baffle, and put the small red baffle back on with his help.  Now I hear him in the kitchen pumping up his BB gun so I assume the squirrels (at least one of them) has rediscovered how to launch themselves at the thing and come back to earth with a prize.  Maybe we'll concede this battle and just buy more peanuts.  It's work day.  It's PAY day.  It's also the day that DD starts her trek homeward.  So not a bad day considering it's Monday.  See you later, alligator.
--Barbara