For Shelter, the World

Winter's a-coming

2009-10-14T03:20:19-07:00

It snowed yesterday morning in my little town in the bend of the Columbia River. Yep, not even the middle of October yet, and it was cold enough to snow for two hours, putting half an inch of the white stuff on the ground. During the afternoon, the temperature rose into the lower 40s Fahrenheit, and by the end of the day the snow had melted. We've had several days of extremely windy and unseasonably cold weather, although a warming trend (into the upper 50s during the daytime) is supposedly on its way. Last Sunday, in advance of the predicted...

Harvest

2009-09-30T15:29:00-07:00

One day last April I stopped by the little country store on the highway to pick up the local weekly newspaper, and noticed a flyer announcing a new community garden. With the family farming DNA that I inherited from my Dad, something inside of me said, "that's for me!" So I gave them a call, paid $15 for a ten by four foot plot, and began planning the garden layout. After I got back from my trip to Dallas in late May, I commenced planting my crops ... baby carrots, mesclun salad greens, golden zucchini (summer squash), tomatoes, sweet onions,...

What I did on my summer vacation

2009-08-31T15:12:00-07:00

It's the last day of August, and already brown and gold leaves are beginning to appear on the trees here in the Gorge. What a short, hot and productive summer it's been. I spent 17 hours of it in the dentist's chair, beginning the process of what's known as a full mouth reconstruction. Because the work is so extensive, requiring lengthy sessions (the first one took almost 7 hours), I've chosen to have it done under sedation; that's conscious sedation, not general anesthesia, using pharmaceuticals such as diazepam (tradename Valium) and triazolam (Halcyon). Since if at all possible I avoid...

Heat wave

2009-07-28T02:32:01-07:00

Yep, we're having one here in the Pacific Northwest ... several days of temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with more humidity than normal. Since I'm a former Southern girl, hot days don't scare me the way they do folks here. However, I'm glad this kind of weather doesn't go on for months the way it does on the Gulf Coast. My body and my emotions do a lot better without the oppressive feeling that hot and humid weather bring. I'm especially happy the heat doesn't last long here, inasmuch as I don't have an air conditioner in my house. Usually,...

Making the leap

2009-07-14T15:54:01-07:00

GLOUCESTER: There is a cliff whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep: Bring me but to the very brim of it, And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear With something rich about me: from that place I shall no leading need. -- King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1 Googling this phrase brings up an article from the UK newspaper "The Independent", written in 1993 on the occasion of Shakespeare's 429th birthday, which synopsizes the scene as follows: Poor Tom, Gloucester's estranged son Edgar in disguise, leads his father part-way up the 'horrible steep', and convinces...