Sea glass

I used to rent a charming little cottage on a secluded cove in the eastern most city in the US, Lubec Maine. This little city borders New Brunswick Canada across the harbor. Here is what the cottage looks like-

Expired property listing

Here is the front porch overlooking the cove- ahhh driftwood and Adirondack chair. Bliss

EPrata photo

Here is the view. See what I mean about bliss?!

EPrata photo

A short meander down the lane brings you to the cove's beach. Since Johnson Bay and its smaller nook Globe Cove was used by fishing fleets for over 100 years, thee is a lot of old sea glass that the violently tumbling tides of the Bay of Fundy wash ashore. The fishermen would toss the glass overboard, the tides would break it and tumble it to a sheen, rubbing off all the sharp angles and removing the sheen and pitting it like frost. That's sea glass.

There was a lot of it. There was so much, I actually got tired of picking it up. Little did I know how rare it is.

Here is Wikipedia on sea glass-

"There is only one true type of "genuine sea glass" that can be produced and that is by the sea naturally. Pieces of glass from broken bottles, broken tableware or even shipwrecks are rolled and tumbled in the ocean for years until all of their edges are rounded off, and the slickness of the glass has been worn to a frosted appearance."

'My' sea glass is in various states of finished tumbling. One or two pieces were totally rounded and quite frosted by the ocean's wave action and the salt. Others had sharper edges but their colors let me know they were indeed older pieces of glass.

Extremely rare colors include gray, pink (often from Great Depression-era plates), teal (often from Mateus wine bottles), black (older, very dark olive green glass), yellow (often from 1930s Vaseline containers), turquoise (from tableware and art glass), red (often from old Schlitz bottles,[4] car tail lights, dinnerware or from nautical lights, it is found once in about every 5,000 pieces), and orange (the least common type of sea glass, found once in about 10,000 pieces). These colors are found once for every 1,000 to 10,000 pieces collected. Some shards of black glass are quite old, originating from thick eighteenth-century gin, beer and wine bottles.

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"The most common colors of sea glass are kelly green, brown, and white (clear). These colors come from bottles used by companies that sell beer, juices, and soft drinks. The clear or white glass comes from clear plates and glasses, windshields, windows, and assorted other sources."

EPrata photo

Less common colors include jade, amber (from bottles for whiskey, medicine, spirits, and early bleach bottles), golden amber or amberina (mostly used for spirit bottles), lime green (from soda bottles during the 1960s), forest green, and ice- or soft blue (from soda bottles, medicine bottles, ink bottles, and fruit jars from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, windows, and windshields). These colors are found about once for every 25 to 100 pieces of sea glass found.

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Uncommon colors of sea glass include a type of green, which comes primarily from early to mid-1900s Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, and RC Cola bottles as well as beer bottles. Soft green colors could come from bottles that were used for ink, fruit, and baking soda. These colors are found once in every 50 to 100 pieces.

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Purple sea glass is very uncommon, as is citron, opaque white (from milk glass), cobalt and cornflower blue (from early Milk of Magnesia bottles, poison bottles, artwork, and Bromo-Seltzer and Vicks VapoRub containers), and aqua (from Ball Mason jars and 19th century glass bottles). These colors are found once for every 200 to 1,000 pieces found.

EPrata photo

I found other kinds of ceramics besides just glass.

The color of sea glass is determined by its original source. Most sea glass comes from bottles, but it can also come from jars, plates, windows, windshields, ceramics or sea pottery.

EPrata photo

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In all, the sea is a treasure and the sea yields up treasures. Whether it's sea glass from Lubec Maine, rounded granite and rhyolite rocks from Jasper Beach Maine, or shark's teeth from Venice Beach Florida, or fossils from the Peace River in Florida, or conch shells from the Bahamas, or giant scallop shells from Labrador Canada... No matter what beach I've walked, I've always enjoyed the scenery, but mostly, I'm looking down at the sand to search for treasures!

Source Wikipedia

Reminiscing about Lubec Maine and Ridge Baptist Church

By this time of summer my routine has calmed me and the cats. I do the exact same thing at the exact same time every day and every week. I like it that way. But because my social sphere is small-to-zero, and because I never add any new experiences to the pantheon of experiences that make me me, I have little to report.

The bible always brings something new, and I comment at The End Time every day. Or twice. Or quadruple times. But here at The Quiet Life, all is, well, quiet.

I bought a John MacArthur study bible and I'm looking forward to start using that. At the same time I bought a neat little book about Lubec Maine. Lubec is the most eastern town in the US and it is my favorite little secret place where I used to vacation in the summer.

It was about 3 and a half hours' drive from where I lived in Gray Maine. The drive was beautiful as the further north and east you go in Maine the fewer vehicles you wrangle with. There is the occasional exception of the old logging truck here and there, but overall, the population density is so low that beyond Bangor, I hardly saw a car at all for an hour on end.

Lubec is at the end of a long peninsula and finishes at the Bay of Fundy. Next stop, Canada. The little town sits atop a high bluff where the 22-foot tides swoosh in and out, where the seals bask and the eagles perch. Where the fog bank rolls in and out in time with the fog horns that toot after it. The town has a little but well-stocked and clean library, a coffee shop, not much else and so much beauty it hurts your eyes.

The place I rented for a ridiculously low price, which also allowed cats, was Globe View Cottage. It was on a small dead end road overlooking Johnson Bay. The views were so dynamic because they changed every hour. The high tides swelling in and out changed the landscape, the fog rolling in and out did the same, and the animals that chased the tides were a joy to look at. There was a small fishing fleet and lobstering fleet that steamed in and out twice a day. It was glorious.

The view from that bay window looks out at this:

A one minute walk brings you to the harbor edge where polished sea glass from centuries of salmon fishermen having thrown old bottles overboard will wash up. They glitter like sapphires and emeralds and diamonds in the soft wet sand.

I traveled down a long and winding road for two miles to get to the cottage. At the end of the road intersecting the main drag there is a gas station and eat-in convenience store, and a small New England white clapboard Baptist church.

One year, in 2004 I think, I decided to attend Sunday Services at the church. In Lubec there is a large Congregational church, a Catholic church, Methodist church and something called Christian Temple. The town was settled, after all, 250 years ago by sea captains and mariners who were Godly and knew well the suddenness of life's end.

I had been saved a few months before but was not yet attending church. I thought that the Baptist church would be good to attend, for some reason, I say now, as the Spirit laughs. Anyway, that was the one He drew me to. It also happened to be across from the street where I come out of Globe View so I couldn't miss it or ignore it.

It is called Ridge Baptist Church and I was plenty nervous when I went in. It is a very small country church, at that time having maybe 30 congregants who were attending that particular day. There were also a lot of kids running up and down the handicapped ramp and being educated in other parts of the building.

I don't know if they get a lot of visitors there, but I was welcomed warmly and the service was absolutely sweet. I had very good feelings about the place and I've never forgotten it.

Now that the economic downturn has occurred and seems to be deepening, and now that I have been a church goer regularly for 6 years, I know well the vagaries of the dropping offering plate and the difficulties of keeping a church family together. I searched recently on Google for "Ridge Baptist Church" and I found two things. One was a lovely photo:

Photo by Tom Genovese, a free Commons photo

The other was a comment by one of the church members on a prayer board in 2011. She said that they were without a pastor at that time, and were in need of revival.

I have often wondered about little town like Lubec, out of the way places that have no industry and no opportunity for industry. The fish smoking and sardine canning industries had collapsed long ago, and now they rely on service industries such as tourism and hotels/B&B. And we all know how those are doing with the majority of Americans opting for staycations these days. Times are hard, no doubt about it.

As for that little church, you never know when a weary and lost traveler like myself may stumble in, and are greeted with the warmth of Jesus and the friendliness of the Holy Spirit. I carry that seed the people there offered me to this very day. We are all persevering in the faith, and we are united by our common love of the Savior. Though this church or that church may seem to have needs that exceed earthly solutions, we're all bound in the body of Christ, and I want to thank the people of Ridge Baptist and the small town of Lubec Maine for their hospitality and rest that has been offered to me so generously through the years.

I can't go back to visit, times being what they are, but I'm glad I found the little book by Ronald Pesha,
"Remembering Lubec (ME): Stories from the Easternmost Point (Amercian Chronicles)." I will re-visit by reading.

And I can look at the photo of a small country church in the snow, and remember the warmth of the people there by faith, and pray for the day when we are all in each other's presence by sight.

Photos from the archive

I ran a newspaper in the early part of the decade. I took a lot of photos for my work. A LOT. I enjoyed that part of my job and I miss taking photos of people, now. Kids are the biggest hoot to take pictures of. I'd spend time at the soccer fields or playgrounds taking kids' pictures and then I'd ask their parents for permission to put them in the paper. The town was small and the people knew who I was and what I was doing anyway, and they usually said yes or waved and pointed to their kid.

It's capturing the candid moments that I like. Seeing the expression on peoples' faces, their sadness, worry, or excitement. When you're a reporter and there's an issue that people want to get in the paper or a fair or business event they want promoted, they are very accommodating when you raise the camera. If you are not a reporter and you take photos of people at a fair or an event, people are suspicious. And taking photos of kids these days for no reason other than to enjoy the artistic qualities of innocence is not as valid to a parent. The press pass IS a pass, from suspicion to credibility.

That leaves still shots and landscapes photos of grass and trees and flowers...which you have seen a lot of on my blog lately, lol.

So I spent time last night looking through my archive of photos taken when I was stumping around Gray Maine as a reporter, covering ribbon cuttings and fairs and school events and parades...people.

I was struck in this photo of the faces and the gently fluttering ribbon. The man cutting the ribbon opened his furniture store in 1976 and today it is still a family owned and run business. His daughter is the woman in the black dress standing next to him. A two-generation, thirty-year small business is a miracle of fortitude and grit and I admire it. Businesses like these are the backbone of America and all that is right with it.

This store in Gray, Maine had grown from 2000 sf to 40,000 sf. over thirty years' time. I see the pride on the owner's face, and the happiness of his daughter. The smiles of accomplishment of small business in America is what this photo is about, and it is contained on the faces of those people who have vision and persistence.

I miss the fog

My friend Jeanne is a great artist and a wonderful photographer. She recently posted this photo of her morning awakening at a camp on Crescent Lake, Maine. What a gorgeous photo, and it truly captures what Maine in summer is all about. Loons, a quiet lake, fishing, quiet putt-putts as the sun rises. And fog.

I never thought much about fog. On my last trip several years ago to Lubec, I tried to photograph fog and learned about light bouncing everywhere but where you want it ... but I realized after seeing Jeanne's picture, that I miss the old fog. And foghorns.

On a Georgia summer morning we may get some fog for short periods as the warm ground meets the briefly cool air. But that is just temporary fog, not the earth-to-sky, enveloping, dripping, getting lost kind of fog. The kind of fog I see mostly is on the way to work in the morning, like this:














On that trip to Lubec Maine, I was working one sunny morning at the table by the bay window of the cottage I'd rented by the Cove. I looked up some minutes later to see:












The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on...

[Fog, by Carl Sandburg]

The fog had come in like that, silently, on cat feet, and continued coming in until even the near boats at moorings were obscured. I smiled, basking in the wonder that is a foggy day in Maine, never thinking that I was taking it for granted, and that little cat feet of fog did not exist everywhere.

Ocean emotion

I'm missing the ocean this summer so here you go, another shot from the Lubec Maine harbor. Dinghy at rest.

Celebrate Liberty

Happy Independence Day!

This is a 4th of July decorated gazebo in the town of Lubec Maine, a faraway place at the edge of Maine that loves liberty and celebrates accordingly.

Time to let them go

Like many towns in the nation and across the globe, Gray Maine is struggling to maintain their historic buildings. Many congregations are struggling to maintain their historic churches. In Ontario Canada, one of the stone spires atop the 18th century roof crashed down as parishioners made their way into mass. Forty-five of the 115 churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa were built in the nineteenth century.

Upgrading churches to meet safety standards is beyond the financial capacity of many congregations, and maintaining historic municipal buildings is beyond the tax revenue of many towns. Below, the church steps were damaged where the spire crashed.

In the town of Gray Maine, there has been an ongoing discussion of what to do with Stimson, Pennell, the old Town Hall (became the old fire station, now it's empty). The key to successful preservation in many places seems to be releasing the buildings to developers who will rehab them and bring them back to their former glory., Such a process benefits everyone, including the developer, who knows that preservation and attractive town centers bring customers.

The town of Gray has utterly failed in its municipal endeavor to preserve these buildings, and the protracted fight has only served allow the buildings to fail further. If the town cannot find a solution, give/sell Pennell and the others to legitimate developers to do what they know best. Below, Pennell Institute's steps deteriorated due to road salt exposure.













It has worked magnificently in so many other places, from
Saskatchewan to

Pennsylvania to

Japan to

Comer GA : Comer is Madison County’s most populous town, and certain areas are designated as an historic district. Comer’s Historic Downtown Area is currently experiencing several restoration and revitalization projects" as described here. Over a million in grant money has been given and construction starts this year.

Sell those albatrosses, Gray, and work with a knowledgeable developer to restore the buildings. Municipalities are not in the business of developing, developers are. And given the heartache and negativity around Pennell for the last 7 years, I say let someone else start anew.

Public Notice: The Town of Gray, Maine
•The Town of Gray is seeking a proposal to list for sale the following municipal properties

1. Former Post Office facility, located at 8 Shaker Road
2. Municipal Office (Town Hall), located at 6 Shaker Road
3. Stimson Hall, located at 4 Shaker Road
4. Dry Mills Fire Station, located at 249 Shaker Road
5. Pennell Institute and Science building, located at 20 Main Street

For more information, please call the Town Office at 657-3339.

DEBORAH CABANA
TOWN MANAGER

A pretty plant ... THAT KILLS!

A pitcher plant on the tundra at New Brunswick. I was looking at some of my old pics and I've always liked this one. The greenery and softness of the pines contrasts with the deceptive vibrancy of the carnivorous plant.

Oh noooo, Mr. Bill, Don't fall into the pitfall trap!

"Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. foraging, flying or crawling insects such as flies are attracted to the cavity formed by the cupped leaf, often by visual lures such as anthocyanin pigments, and nectar bribes. The sides of the pitcher are slippery and may be grooved in such a way so as to ensure that the insects cannot climb out. The small bodies of liquid contained within the pitcher traps are called phytotelmata. They drown the insect, and the body of it is gradually dissolved."

That's some pitfall!

Call me Neptuna

If you love the ocean, don't move to North Georgia. The sound of soothing waves become dim and retreat only to the farthest reaches of your mind. Thankfully, I have many memories to revisit when I feel the ocean's pull here in forested, hilly, dry Northeast Georgia.

Growing up in East Greenwich RI, my family joined the Greenwich Club, a private swim club open to all. We'd pile in the car, drive the 3 miles, and once the car was parked, leap out, and run barefoot over the gravel stones to the entry hut. The wait to check in seemed like forever, but then I'd run down the concrete apron and jump in the kiddie pool. To a kid, this was pure joy. We would just swim and swim all day. Here I am at age 6. Does it look like I am in heaven, or what?

My grandparents lived in Providence, but they'd bought a small cottage on Charlotte Drive in Warwick RI, right on Greenwich Bay. Oh, summers at Nonnie's were great, for a kid. The big Sunday Supper, many adults hanging around, and the BAY!! Swim, run off dock, swim, snorkel, pick stones and shells, and best of all, at night when we fell asleep all snuggly and tired from playing, the last sound I'd hear would be the tiny flip-flip of the wavelets on the shore. The first sound I'd hear in the morning was the same. How lucky, the ocean right out my window.

As an adult in my thirties, I sailed the ocean blue. An explorer like Columbus, I lived aboard a trusty sailing ship. Aboard a Tayana 37 with my then-husband, we departed from Yarmouth Maine and took a year to make way to the Bahamas and back. We lived aboard for two years total, and saw many waters as we went up and down the eastern seaboard.

Different water has different moods, and we encountered them all. The placid Chesapeake could churn into an angry roil in an instant. The Dismal Swamp was serene and mysterious, and the blue waters of Lake Worth with the millionaire's mansions very beautiful. Here I am at first light, after an overnight passage from Charleston SC to Lake Worth FL. Clutching my hot coffee!
>
As an older adult, I vacationed quite a bit between Machias and Lubec Maine, the far eastern portion of the part of Maine that borders the ocean. In that neck of the woods the waters are cold, gray, forbidding and beautiful also, in a steely way. In Lubec, which abuts New Brunswick Canada, the waters are the renowned Bay of Fundy.

"The Bay of Fundy is one of the world's greatest natural phenomena situated on the right shoulder of the North American continent. The 173 mile long arm of the Atlantic Ocean is wedged between the Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and is accessed through the Gulf of Maine. The Bay features a narrowing width 74 miles between Yarmouth, N.S. and Cutler, Maine, to 27 miles at Cape Chignecto (Thurston, 1998). The diminishing width gives the Fundy a "funnel" shape, and has a remarkable amplifying effect on the tidal patterns." Above, Cutler Maine, where tides rise and fall 20-30 feet.

The pool, the bay, the ocean are all far away from me now, but I do have a lovely pond in which to watch for the resident heron. And I do love the rolling hills and the trees, which house riotous birds, calling out the dawn's daybreak to my delighted ears. But the ocean is the ocean, there's nothing like its power, draw, and beauty. Fortunately, I've experienced much of it and can retreat in my mind to where the splashing of waves can instantly appear.

tornados stink

I'm used to slow moving weather catastrophes. The large, lumbering kind that you can see coming for days at a time. The kind you go out and buy milk and bread for. The type where you glance out the window, looking for the first snowflake or raindrop, and then return to business as usual. Where the weathermen put on sweaters and talk about inches of predicted precipitation, in between sips of coffee and graphics of isobar charts.

That was Maine.

Here in Georgia, the storms are tornados and the warning comes in as little as 8 minutes, as those in the Georgia Dome Friday night will attest. Or Saturday in Madison County, about ten minutes. We stayed glued to the tv all day, watching the progression of tornado watches change to warnings and the actual storms traverse the northern portion of the state, one after another. Many of them, thankfully, scooted below Madison County or north of us, but a few did hit here. At one point the tv guy said that there was circular motion at Transco, 3 miles away. They can go right down to the street level and so when he said that and we looked out and saw the sky darkened and hail hitting the metal roof, we said, well, let's go. We went into the closet, & thought, 'OK, this is it.'

Photos: which would you prefer, the backyard with tree house in snow, or the doom over Atlanta?

I cannot say I am a fan of the tornado as natural catastrophes go. You can't see them coming and they dodge and weave. Blizzards and hurricanes lumber in a line that is well-tracked and they gear up slowly. Tornados are wiry, snaky little buggers and all I can say is, I can't wait for tornado season to be over.

Unearthing an old notebook

I found an old notebook of observations I'd jotted down on some of my trips.

At the Chelsea Hostel in NYC, a sign taped above the toilet: "Please do not discharge anything into the toilet except toilet paper." Hmmm, I'm still crossing my legs.

A sign on a nice building: "Beech Block: Artist in Residence at this Address." Is it a zoo? Can we feed it?

In Lubec Maine: "I like the Italian people, I just got back from NYC. The Gambino wedding. My uncle was their tax attorney." Back away slowly...

"The only bookstore in Washington County!" How sad to bill yourself as such.

An elderly man was zipping along the main street of a small, coastal Maine town on a riding lawnmower. It had a crate rigged on the hood containing spare oil and a book, his walking cane, and an American flag. Pasted along the side was a bumper sticker touting WMYX 91.9, and hung crookedly on the taillight was a wooden sign stating "Beware of Dog." Worked for him.

From a court decision involving Pete Seeger: "We are not inclined to disagree with his opinion even thought he is unworthy of our respect."

Don’t bug me

New to this area, I haven’t spent a summer here yet. Locals laugh knowingly when I tell them this. It will be quite a show, I know, this Yankee will be melting like a puddle of butter in on a hot biscuit.

Maine’s cold weather for most of the year means for most of the year we don’t have to deal with bugs. We have to deal with frigid temperatures, snow, mud, heating issues, fuel prices, but bugs? Not so much. Overwhelmingly, the bugs stay on their side of the battle lines, outdoors.

Here, it’s a different story.

Over the last week I’ve noticed these fruit flies in the kitchen. I don’t have any fruit in the kitchen. I’ve got spiders, too. They’re fast and black and they scurry across the wood floors, quite visible and a little too bold, if you ask me. “Go get it!” I’ll tell Abby the cat. “What kind of a cat are you?” Nada. Adding insult to injury, she’ll lay there with one eye open, tracking the spider’s progress across the carpet. I was OK with the fruit fly intrusion and the occasional spider. Apparently Abby was, too.

But I was not prepared for the fire ants. And that they invaded my apartment in horrifying numbers last weekend was just wrong. Very, very wrong.

I noticed them in my closet, where I had set my damp laundry bag. Unbeknownst to me, these things out of a science fiction movie are sensitive to even the tiniest changes in humidity. I thought they were regular ants, and I thought there were only a few, so I shook off the clothes and started to sweep the ants up with a paper towel. Secure in the knowledge that I am way bigger and have superior intelligence, I was muttering something akin to “I’ll get you my pretty,” when they started to bite.

All over my hands, they bit. I had been concentrating so hard on getting the scattering ants on the floor, I had not noticed their pointed and strategic attack on the killing machine that was my hand. It worked, I stood up and shook my hands and yelled a few things. Then I started stomping on them. However, that was a poor tactical move on my part because I was barefoot. They climbed on my ankles and bit me harder. Now who is the higher intelligence, one may ask. Let’s not dwell.

I shot to the store and bought traps and spray. When I came back I noticed a neat line of ants crawling along the kitchen, bathroom, and emerging in the bedroom closet. Long lines, always in one direction. Being a smart human, one who is now shod in high ankle sneakers and armed with deadly spray, I intuited that they were likely being driven inside by the severly dry conditions and looking to set up a nest behind the damp bathroom wall. I set the traps and sprayed. Mocking me, they just re-routed. I sprayed again. The fire ants re-routed again. This was serious, the blows to my ego were too much to bear. I called in the big guns: my knowledgeable landlord.

I’ve never seen a person move so fast. Arriving a few minutes later, unscrewing a trap door in the closet that allowed access to the areas behind the bathroom along the length of the building (very, very smart!) she sprayed with some stuff that I am sure has higher concentrations of poison than Bikini after the hydrogen bomb tests. I didn’t care. And neither did my cat, who for the last 12 hours had been attacked wherever she slept and had plunged her nose into her food dish that had been crawling with fire ants. The landlord then went outside and sprayed the perimeter. For the last day I have not seen hide nor pincer of these frighteningly intelligent and vicious creatures.

I have learned that it is important to wear shoes in Georgia, indoors or out. And that your home is your castle, as long as there isn’t a smaller but more aggressive creature that wants to move in.

Consider Sunshine

Composer W. R. Williams said in his 1908 song “Ev'rybody's Happy When The Sun Shines.” I know I’m happier when it’s sunny out. I love sunny days, and I love to feel the warmth on my back, see the livening pastures in the morning as the shadows retreat and the sunrays get strong. Sun is a precious commodity where I’m from, Gray, Maine.

My former town’s name, Gray, is depressing to be sure. Coastal Maine is cloudy, with a lack of sunshine and what sun there is isn’t strong. It gets to you after a while.

On average, Portland, Maine has about 101 sunny days a year. Athens, Georgia has about 113. Twelve extra days of sunshine might not seem like much, but that is an addition of one sunny day per month!

“Our appreciation of sunshine is one of the most important advances of the century," remarked an eminent Canadian physician in the opening sentence in the Canadian Medical Association Journal 1927 editorial entitled “The Importance of Sunshine.” The author stated, “This means that for over four months of the year, nature usually so lavish in her distribution of the essentials for life distributes these rays only sparingly to Canada.” And sparingly to nearby Gray, Maine, too.

When I decided to move from Gray to NE Georgia, I eagerly anticipated the sunshine. “It’s sunny and warm there!” I told my parting friends. It was the thing I looked most forward to. I’ve been here for seven months and I’ve enjoyed the fall, winter, and spring. But last week there were a few days that were really hot. Egad, the temps reached nearly ninety! Locals here laughed when I told them that in the north a heat wave is pronounced when the temps rise above 90 degrees for 3 or more consecutive days. They said that that soon I can expect three consecutive months of ninety degree weather. Egad!

Immediately I began to think of the sun as a nemesis instead of the blessing I had previously thought it. I reviewed my wardrobe, now un-content with the clothing I had. I dreaded the sun now because of the heat it would bring.

And then one day while having a long, chastising conversation with myself, I told myself to get over it. I am where I am and every blessing is still a blessing. He sun was a blessing before and it still is. I know that the drought is deep, the sun is hot, and the dryness is dire. But I decided to appreciate the sunshine in good times and bad. During drought or fresh dewy mornings, whether warming the spring flowers or wilting this hot Yankee.

It is the same sun, whether shining on seeds that are scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away; and the seeds that fell onto good ground and bring forth good fruit. It is me that has moved. I decided to stay with my original mid-set and see the sun as a blessing, no matter how hot Comer gets. But I admit I did add one more thing to my growing list of things to be thankful for: air conditioning.

Where I work...now

As my former fellow townsfolk struggle today with the heavy snowfall back in Gray, Maine, this photo was taken by my friend (who is so talented).

It shows the window through which I looked out on from my old office and it the scene that would be greeting me today, had I not moved a few months ago to NE Georgia. Heavy snow fell and late this afternoon a state of emergency was declared by the Governor.



This is what I look out on as I work, now, at one of my part-time jobs. As I leave work this late afternoon, this scene is what greets me. I am lucky, no?

Week's end round up

Yay! I've been accepted as a participant in an upcoming photography show to be held at the library. It'll be my first so I need to get the digital pics I want to submit professionally printed out and then buy some 8X10 frames. Move forward, try new things, yikes, it's nerve wracking to put myself out there with my art and photos but it's exciting too.

I put up a new entry on my agriculture and arts blog, http://madcoga.blogspot.com/ A friend of mine had sent me the photo of the cow with its head stuck in a chair and agreed to let me put it up.

The country life...the other day I went out to get pics of chickens to submit for the weekly I contribute to. I spent a pleasant half hour with some great folks and loved seeing the chicken house. Imagine, 11,000 chickens inside! I'd never seen a rooster! I loved learning about the commercial eggs versus store eggs (store eggs are not fertilized). I was thinking of where I was a year ago, the longest and pretty contentious meeting in Gray's history had just occurred - lasting till midnight with lots of negativity- and I wrote a blog entry entitled "One Tired Editor." A year later, pics of chickens! LOL!

I manned the checkout desk today at the Friends of the Library Book sale. I watched twin boys, about 7 years old, very seriously take their time choosing their books and videos. One was carrying and oversize Pinocchio hardcover that kept falling out of his hands. I offered him a bag and he was so delighted. Those two were so cute I could hardly stand it.

I've been invited to the Women's Club supper tomorrow night. The supper is taking place at 'the clubhouse.' Cool! I can't wait to see it. And I'm looking forward to meeting the women who put it on.