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!!!'

Singing Peas

This morning as I sat in my office overlooking the garden, I thought I heard, amidst the sound of rain drops, a quiet, happy tune coming from the garden. No, it wasn't the gnome who lives below the weather vane. It was, to my delight, the peas.....tendrils humming....in the cool June mist.

Disaster...what is it about us?

What is it about us that makes us apparently so inept at planning for disaster? Is there some kind of systemic problem in our land, in our national psyche, that makes us incapable of taking the potential for disaster seriously?

I was just reading the AP's analysis of BP's preparation for dealing with a catastrophic oil disaster. Sad but true, the plan for dealing with a major blow out of a Gulf oil well was woefully inadequate. That's pretty obvious now. But why wasn't it obvious to the regulators in advance? Had the government enforced its own regulations and studied the plan months ago, the 'plan' would have been shot full of holes. Is it the fox guarding the hen house? Is it our insatiable need for oil? Is it the dumbing-down of the regulatory process to the point that 'drill baby drill capitalism' sadly outweighs rational thought that protects the common good? Is it the big money that lubricates and permeates the political process?

In a word, YES.

I know I don't want to support the so-called 'Nanny State' in which government takes care of everything. But wouldn't it be nice to be confident that existing laws and regulations were being enforced?

But, you know what really worries me? It worries me that our free world is so fragile. We assume so much until there's a disaster of some sort, until the lights go out, the retirement fund is gone, the Internet totally crashes worldwide, until we find the most common, untested chemical is killing us, or there's one of those horrific attacks.

Each new catastrophe makes me hope we are learning.

Truth be told, in large measure, I think it's just the nature of things...we muddle through, do what we can, and hope it all works out. Much of the time it does work out. It's just when it doesn't work out, it makes me wonder why we're just so damned inept at being ready for disaster. It's infuriating when we know how to be ready but we (or those who are supposed to be in charge) just haven't bothered.