Awesome new iphone app

This is an awesome new app that kinda makes me look like an artist with just a click of the camera and nothing else. It's called Cartooniacs. These would look even more artsy if I had taken any care at all to compose them.

 

A Sign Near Home

This is so excellent and kind of post-modern at the same time. A meta-sign, commenting on the lack of a sign, but still working as a sign.

Plus - who steals Free Manure signs?  Is it decorating a dorm wall somewhere?  Is there an aggressive competitor in the free manure business who is hoping to drive business their way?  Lots of fun to think of ideas here.

Son of COG called today......

He was in Biddeford Maine and he asked if I wanted to come up for lunch.   I hopped in the car and drove the hour and a half to meet him.  He had spent a couple of nights in the house they'll be staying in during their research this summer.  It's pretty wonderful - a charming old summer camp with electricity and plumbing and hot water -  perched on a wooded hillock in a salt marsh, across the street from the ocean.  He made a nice spinach salad for us and we sat and admired the view and talked. Then, we walked across the street to the beach.  What a great place to spend the summer. Although, as he pointed out, they'll be getting up at 4 am and going onto Scarborough Marsh, which is 30 minutes south of there. But they'll be done midday, and come back and nap and swim etc.  They have computer facilities set up a few miles away at the Biddeford campus of the University of New England, so they'll spend some time there, too. 

The place was left to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, which really wants the land, not the house. Kind of sad that they will be tearing it down in the future, but now it's used by researchers. This will be the Son of's room.

Above,  the loft under the roof where the two undergrads will be staying. It's reached by very steep stairs.

The Son of making salad in the little kitchen.

The sitting area.

One of the other bedrooms.

From the outside.

 And last is a picture of the road out. You can see two houses, they are right on the ocean. And the bit of blue through the trees on the right is water in the salt marsh.

Cosmic Thoughts

This is the COG crossing a stile.

The COG's last name comes from 'stile' which is a structure allowing people to cross through or over a fence or boundary, while keeping the animals confined.  My last name comes from the word 'bridge',  a structure allowing people to cross over a river, ravine, road or other barrier. Presumably each of us had an ancestor who lived by one of these structures and who became known by the name of the structure. And here we both are, millennia later, still straddling two worlds.

It's sometimes difficult to feel as if I have two places where I belong. Two places where I want to be. I've always kind of envied people who live in the same place all their lives and run into people they've known as long as they can remember at the supermarket or the library.  But then I think of what I would give up, if I only had one place, if I'd never left home. Then, feeling divided seems a small price to pay.

Every place you go, you miss something you left behind. But if you never go anywhere, you miss all the things you would have discovered in new places.

So, no complaints. In fact, I kind of like the sense that I am somehow fulfilling an imperative built into my DNA.

Has this happened to you?

I had a stack of nice clean towels to put away.

But the linen closet was stuffed so full and was such a mess that there was no room. I had to pull out a few things to refold them.

Before long,  I had emptied the whole linen closet on the floor.  But why stop there -  why not include the linens in the trunk in my bedroom?

I pulled everything out of the trunk in my bedroom to discover that a lot of it had been discolored by the unpainted wood inside the trunk.  Searched the internet for cleaning suggestions and soaked and washed them. And, with all the stuff on the floor next to the linen closet, I took the time to paint three coats of paint in the trunk before putting anything back.

I started sorting. I made 3 stacks: 'discard', 'keep', and 'what the heck is it' - the latter being mostly white sheets of unknown size.

I went to Target to get the same boxes I always use when organizing anything and discovered that they don't carry them in white anymore - only deep purple, lime green, and black.  (?? what? who thought that was a good idea?) After some hunting, I found a similar kind of box at a different store.

So I refolded and sorted like with like,  in labelled plastic bags and then into the boxes by size (twin/double/queen).  I had a marathon session on the computer printing labels for everything.
I sorted towels by color and size and pruned a large number of unneeded towels and sheets. Which necessitated a trip to the vet, because they re-use old linens for bedding.

In the linen closet, I found a lovely piece of fabric - sheer cotton organdy with dragonflies painted on it - just big enough for the window in the bathroom.  I quickly stitched up the curtain - a panel with hems at top and bottom and found a tension rod to hang it with.

But then,  I discovered the window in the bathroom rather desperately needed painting- the inner frame only had a thin primer on it. So I put three coats on the window and the dormer around it, finishing yesterday, and today I hung the curtain after it dried.

It has taken 10 days or so to finally finish what I started when I went to put that stack of towels away. And I didn't even paint the inside of the linen closet, which I want to do but decided to defer.

Wo-he-lo, Campfire Sisters

I've been discussing pine trees over at the FrenchKate blog and the discussion reminded me of a Campfire Pledge.  I must have learned this when I was about 9 and I have never forgotten it.  I'm pretty sure they must have changed the wording since the 1960s.

As faggots are brought from the forest,
Firmly held by the sinews that bind them,
I will cleave to my Campfire sisters,
Wherever, whenever I find them.

I will strive to be straight like the Pine Tree,
To be pure in my deepest desire,
To be true to the truth that is in me,
And follow the law of Campfire.

Note: I love Google - this is called the Wood-Gatherers Desire and dates to 1914.  It must have been changed before I learned it in the late 1950's because I stand by my memory of the pine tree and the first person.  Perhaps it's just not used anymore.  Also, I find the note by the first line 'here faggot means a bundle of twigs tied together' kind of hilarious.  Way to suggest to 9 year olds that there are other meanings not used here.

Here it is the version I found online:

WOOD GATHERER's DESIRE (1914) (spoken)
As fagots are brought from the forest ["Fagot" here means "a bundle of sticks tied together."]
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Wherever, whenever you find them.
Be strong as the fagots are sturdy,
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;
And--follow the Law of the Fire.

Short Video of Kitchen Garden at Standen