universal bits

bits
I used to have this thing on my blog I could see the visitors and where they were from and when they  visited.  It's gone... but maybe you're still out there, I just don't see you anymore.  I write to look back on years later.. to wonder who I was and what was happening and what would be.  But if you're out there, thanks.. I'm glad you're listening and maybe enjoying things. I don't even think the comments script works anymore..so there's that, too.

I get deep-think sometimes.  I want to explore the depths of math and chemistry.. I want to learn more about plants.  I want to time travel because there are never enough hours in the day.  I like having lots of stuff to rattle around in my head, because then I have a choice of what I listen to rattling amongst everything that is in there. 

I fight against the minimalist.. who wants to scrap everything down to a bare white room - and the hoarder who has everything she might possibly need but she can't find it.  I'm the guru in the middle, trying to find the balance.  It's this way for information, for things, for feelings.  I'm never in just one place even when I'm standing still. 

I read Esme's book 'Lone Wolf', and it was good.  I ordered the second one 'Shadow Wolf', and I'll probably read that one, too.  I'm reading the 'Essex Serpent'.. and I don't know yet if I like it or not.  I downloaded two kids books by Rick Riordan about Apollo being condemned by Zeus to live as a teenager on Earth.  That looks like it will be good -- will get to it after I decide to finish or stash the Essex Serpent.  It's been on my wait list for a while... the writing is good, but I'm just not sure if it is going where I want to go right now.

I found my Math Girls book... I might have to crack that again.  I liked it, but tanked it for doing other things.

We're taking the girls out today - Esme is getting ready to meet her friend.  There is a carnival downtown.  And then we have plants to put in the ground.  I do love the garden.  I wish it was warmer and things would grow this year.  I wish I had more time to watch things grow, to draw them, and study them... but it is really about what do I do with those hours in between right now... and sometimes I don't really know what to do with them because everything feels like it would take too long to get started only to have to stop.

bits

Still reveling, after seven months, in how my 'echo ear' works so well for Welsh, but hasn't worked that well for other languages.  I can still feel it when I play a sentence out loud - I don't have to read it on the screen to remember what was said, even when the sentence gets long.. the pieces are in my inner ear ready to be digested.  Probably because Welsh and English are very similar in structure.. compared to Romance languages.

My dictionary came today.  I've already looked up several words :)  I have a paper tablet that I am writing down other words in, dictionary style, that I come across in TV programs and newspaper articles and forum articles.  That way I write it, see it, and translate it there, too.  I have a Welsh tween book called 'Na, Nell!' coming soon, ..well, by the end of next month.  That will be exciting, too.

I've been ordering Esme more books - and we rearranged her bookshelf to put them there.  Mark helped me cut a new board for a new shelf on top of her clothes rack so she can keep her current book, sketchbook and other special things up near her bed at night without worrying about them falling down to the floor.

Our hosta and daylily and a few other things came today.  We are planning on taking the girls to a parade tomorrow and then planting them in the garden.

I've read The Hazel Wood, by Melisa Albert.  It was intriguing and creepy and hard to put down because of the wonder at the same time.  Very good.  Not kid material, though.  You'll be slightly afraid of Twice-Killed Katherine jumping out of the nearest alleyway or bush for a day or so after reading it... I'm also reading Esme's book 'Lone Wolf' part of the Wolves of the Beyond series from Ga'Hoole owls universe.  It's pretty good.  She'll like it, even though it gets a bit deep in a few places.  I've also ordered her the third Foxcraft book, called 'The Mage'.

chickens moving on up

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The chickens are moving on up to the bigger cage - the one that Esme and Mark built for the rat and the hamster.  They will be warm and safe here until they feather out and we can build something better for them outside.  For posterity : they are 'Cinnamon Queen' variety.

I've been busy today.  I went through Esme's old clothes again (because she just tends to hide them or stack them when they don't fit or are torn) and also moved up her bookshelf in her room with all of the new 'older' books we've been getting.  It fell once - and I had to pound the supports down into the standards on the wall and lighten the load.

Where the shelf was before was exactly at 'sit down on the couch and smack yourself on it' level.. and we needed it a little higher.  She has been sitting there tucking up with me to watch Welsh cartoons at night, and I hope we might get to reading again.

Hello Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly was excellent - I read it on my Kindle today.  I'm reading her Wolves of the Beyond 'Lone Wolf' book by Kathryn Lasky, too - before she does.. and it seems like it will be a really good match for her.   I have 'The Hazel Wood' by Melissa Albert on my Kindle now, it was highly reviewed.

I need to get her 'The Mage' by Inbali Iserles and a copy of the Hello Universe but both of them are a bit high right now as they are new releases.  Have them on lists and alerts if one gets cheap.

Our plants arrive on Friday!  We had ordered hosta and day lilies and some other ornamentals from Gilbert H. Wild and sons.   And it is supposed to be nice this weekend.  yay!

Lucy thinks the chickens are hers to look after.  She has been sitting here with Esme and watching them.  She had to sniff every other one as Mark put them from one cage to the other.  She said they didn't smell right on the tail end.  *ha*  People raise strange puppies, apparently.

garden between the rain storms

 I planted some gladiolus bulbs and nasturtiums and morning glories here.

 This is the hosta garden.  I planted some tiger lily bulbs near the white post.

 Another shot of the tree in the garden .. still trying to find out exactly what it is.
Update : Through some help on Gardenweb it is a Prunus serotina, or a Wild Black Cherry tree.  

My white and green hosta is beginning to come up.  I am glad to see it.  I think this is a full two weeks behind the other one?  I'll have to remember that so I'm not so worried later.. I wonder if it is the age or size of the hosta or the variety that affects how early it comes up?

the bits

I have a backlog of library books to read.  It has been raining cats and dogs outside.  Our baby chickens are growing so fast we will need to make an enclosure for them soon.  We have ordered some plants and seeds that will come in the mail soon, as well as a Welsh dictionary for me and some dog books for Esme.

I've been watching 'Gwaith Cartref' on S4c to learn more Welsh.  It is a drama about teacheras and students at aWelsh-speaking school (ysgol yn Cymraeg).  It has a lot of colloquial speech in it - which is good - and subtitles in Welsh so I can catch what words they are actually speaking in case I'm mishearing.

I have these next two days off.  I'm still not entirely better from this sinus stuff.. and the weather is not helping.  I feel like I almost get rid of it and then it comes back.  Now one of my ears feels a bit plugged and I have this weird cold-surface feeling around my chest that I don't like.

identified!  This is a wild black cherry tree, also called Prunus serotina in the Latin.   We were in the right family!


This is a tree that has been growing in the front of the garden.  We have to chop it down or move it - looked it up and the closest thing I can find is a sweet cherry family... prunus avicum.  It does seem to fit some of those characteristics.. I can't remember if it had any fruit on it last year - but it has grown to about chest-high in a few years in the herb garden right beside the fence.   The goat is trying hard to eat it and getting her head stuck in the fence.

Garden update

The soil is still cold a few inches down.  But I bought some flowers anyway, and put them out in the garden.  I'm sure I'll have a sun burn tomorrow.   I reserved the sweet pepper we bought for later in the week.  The biggest thing is I got down on my hands and knees and cleared out all of the weeds from the flower garden and located all the actual 'plants'.  Some of the weeds I tend to actually like - but I cleared them, too, this year. I replanted cucumbers and prepared the lettuce pots for a second go (but they got too watered down, so plant them another day).  I planted lettuce and purslane in the raised beds.  I also bought a hosta and Mark bought a coleus for the shade garden.  We are loving our clover!

 There is a wild chicken alert to the left.  And a 'Take me Home because I Said So' hosta to the right.

 planted lantana, pink petunias, pink dianthus (porkchop plants), red and yellow marigolds and a Snapdragon is hiding behind one of those white pipes.  The pipes are marking what might be an Asiatic lily and another set of dianthus that could have seeded itself last year... it sure looks like it, and there isn't any other elsewhere to say this is a common weed.

 We had planted seed marigolds in the places where I now put store bought ones, as none had sprouted.

 Our lush field of clover..

 mint and lemon balm and oregano (which is the green mass in the flower bed)

Something - I have to guess the wind, tore the roof off the chicken house.  We have to think a bit about how to fix it best.