Babies Gladden the Heart (Especially GRANDbabies)

One of the highlights of 2010 was the arrival of Baby Bentley, daughter Theresa's and Mike's 2nd (left)...our 3rd grandchild. Another of the highlights, the arrival of Baby Jack, daughter Trisha's and US Army Capt. Kyle's first bambino, arrived in August (right). They join Theresa and Mike's, our number one grandson, Brody, (below).

Nearly six months since posting....

Months have slipped by. Cats have died. Company from Germany has come and stayed for five weeks, and finally gone. Thanksgiving came and went and a massive Christmas party came and went. Then Christmas. Ah, Christmas. It came, and a long with it, the stomach flu. Gudrun got hit first. It was Christmas Eve and company was coming.....Theresa & Mike and the B-boys, Bentley and Brody. And my sister, Linda. Gudrun was tense. She had final pet sitting jobs to do and that's when the disaster began forming. It was sort of OK when we stopped on an emergency basis to see the local EMT's. They pronounced her 'likely to live' and we continued on...We postponed dinner but decided we should 'do the tree' anyhow. "Clear a path," said she as she hurried to the bathroom. BLAM. She didn't make it. Poor wretched soul. Poor bathroom. And everything else within range. Yikes. Nasty stuff...and the volume... I could go on and on. We limped onward through the night and into Christmas. Gudrun, weak from her illness, sat on the sidelines as I prepared a pork roast....and then we dined. And, after a fashion, Christmas was saved.
Fast forward two days. I awaken two mornings after Christmas to that rush of saliva feeling...that unmistakable sensation of impending doom. And so it begins...I had caught the illness and it was slapping me 'up side the head' pretty bad. I need not go on and on. Suffice it to say.... I was knocked on my butt for 5 days until New Year's Eve. About the time I realized I looked and sounded better than Dick Clark, I knew I was going to live. And I knew 2011 was going to be a good one.
Here's to blogging, just a wee bit more often!

Bermuda Breeze

Feathery whisps of clouds slowly drifted across the summer sky on a Bermuda breeze in Maine. Early moring humidity lingered and the scent of roses and moist soil filled the air. That's how it

was this morning here in Portland, Maine. The tropics in the early morning have this same scent...like that perfume I remember from years and years ago when I went to Bermuda. Floral, warm, gentle and delicious. That's how this mornng was born.

The Chuck, the Scarlet Runners and June

Often I'm asked, 'Pete, how's the chuck treating ya?' People remember my yearly battle with the chuck, the fat rodent who visits my gardens savaging beans and flowers and lupine. This year, after a few assaults, I spread chicken wire along part of the woodpile and rocks, too. Somehow, that seems to have discouraged him from making his home under the wood pile. I have waited and watched. I have studied the lupine leaves, a delectable favorite of El-Chuckoh. I've seen nothing. I know. I know. He sits, waiting on the perimeter, waiting for the moment to attack. But so far, even the scarlet runner beans (right) have not been eaten by him. (Earwigs, snails, and who knows what have been chewing on the leaves, but at least it's not the chuck!)
June has been good for the garden so far. The birds have been teaching their young, with baby finches, mocking birds, and cardinals flitting about the neighborhood. And the chuck perhaps is tending to his/her brood in some distant place where the pickings are better. Or more likely, he's just waiting for me to let down my guard. (Wasn't it last summer that we found the chuck in mid-summer standing on the wire fence plucking pole beans?) And so we wait with vigilance.

Lost in My Own Cyberspace

So, this morning while walking Baxter, I figured I'd take some photos of the hound wearing his new German-made collar. Sure enough, my trusty iPhone was at the ready. I took the pictures and that was that. Now, having downloaded them to my computer, I just can't seem to find them. I think there's a lesson here. I know I saved them. I know I carefully placed them in a folder.

I know I dated them for easy reference. But no. Five times I search my documents, My Pictures, Desktop, and I see nothing. So, I stopped doing the blog, stopped all other tasks I had been attempting to do at the same time. Then I went file by file in My Pictures. One by one. Painstakingly. And, as you can tell from the picture posted above, I found the folder of photos. There it sat, labeled differently than I had labeled it. I swear, there is a gnome who lives in my computer who changes things, moves things in the night, and wanders my office piling paperwork, old mail, pens, notebooks, seed packages, CD's, semi-used AA batteries, and scraps of paper with reminders on them, all over the place. Thank goodness there's a search function on my computer. Too bad it doesn't always lead me out of my cyber-maze. That search function seems to point to bread crumbs for me to follow part of the way. Then I realize the gnome has eaten most of the bread crumbs. Then I get frustrated. But it's amazing what taking a deep breath and pushing forward can do when dealing with the gnome. There's almost always a solution if the intellect can push aside the gnome of frustration. Onward!

After the rain, a foggy dawn in Maine

June, that cool, damp month in Maine, is back at it with early morning fogs and cool nights, showers, and life emerging. The blaze roses on the front trellis hang, laden with the nighttime wet. Soon the beetles will browse looking for marvelous morsels of rosebuds.

Baxter

When we go for a ride, Baxter often careens from seat to seat, window to window, chasing, barking, enjoying the passing world.

But if it's an especially long trip, like on the Interstate, he almost always climbs up onto our shoulders and jams himself between the headrest and the driver or passenger's head. I shot this picture after calling his name and awakening him, just barely awakening him, on a recent excursion.

As I am so fond of saying, 'He's not much of a dog, but he's a GOOD dog!....all 6 pounds of him!!!'