Rock on wood

Posted: May 19, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in art, home, Just wondering, nature | 4 Comments

(005:  Rock on wood.  Photo © 2009 by Robin)

I was walking by the stumps of the elm trees that we had cut down not too long ago.  I saw this rock sitting on one of them and liked the texture and contrasts between them.  You can even see the cuts in the wood from the saw.

I do wonder, though, how the rock got there.

The music.  Or there’s always this one.

Hits and misses

Posted: April 10, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Fun!, home, Just wondering, memes, nature, Spring, Thanks!, weather | Tags: , | 7 Comments

(Goodyear Blimp over Cleveland last Sunday.  All photos © 2009 by Robin)

I know I promised a post about our trip up to Cleveland last Sunday.  This may be it if I have time to fit in everything I want to fit in.  Or I may have to do it in two posts.  Or come back tomorrow and start the first post.

Because, you see, there’s something else I want to write about first.  It’s a mystery.  A puzzle.  A puzzle within a mystery.  It’s, well, it’s all about the blog hits.  The oddest thing has happened.  Life in the Bogs has suddenly become popular for reasons I can’t fathom although I think I’m getting close to figuring it out.  I have been getting almost 300 hits a day on this blog over the past 4-5 days.  That is very unusual.   My other blog comes pretty close to that during this time of year (due to searches for red-beet egg recipes), but I rarely see that sort of traffic here.

It also looks as though someone is reading all of my blog posts.  Now, really.  That has GOT to be incredibly boring.  I can’t imagine why anyone would keep going after the first few posts.  Whoever (whomever?) you are, I admire your fortitude.  Thank you for stopping by and keeping old posts alive.

I have one other piece of blog business to attend to and then it’s on to Cleveland.

Back in March (March 23rd, to be exact), BiblioMom passed The Torch of Happiness to me.  I don’t want the torch to go out so I’m going to have to pass it on to someone else.  Thank you, BiblioMom, for thinking of me and my little old Life in the Bogs blog.

(Thank you, BiblioMom!)

Here are the rules:

The rules are that the recipient is to list six things that make him/her happy before subsequently passing forward the glee to others.

So, here goes.  Six things that make me happy:

  1. Seeing the color come back with the spring.  It’s green and yellow season here in the Bogs right now.  The daffodils and forsythia are blooming, the trees are budding, and the grass is beginning to green-up.
  2. Pedicures, especially pedicures that are not rushed.  (I had one this morning and my feet are very happy now.)
  3. Shrinking.  I’ve been losing weight and the weight loss is making me feel much more comfortable in my body.
  4. Jasmine tea.
  5. A good book, the kind I don’t want to ever end.
  6. Sunny days.  We get so many gray days here that a sunny one is always greatly appreciated.

This is not, of course, an all-inclusive list.  Since it clearly stated “things” I did not include people (other than by implication in #2).

Here is the part where I get myself in trouble by awarding/tagging others.  (Apologies in advance!)  Passing forward the glee to:

That was tough to do.  There are so many wonderfully creative bloggers out there in the vast reaches of cyberspace.  These are a few of my favorites.

That’s it for my allotted blog time for today.  I hope to be back tomorrow with that trip to Cleveland.

So, I was wondering…

Posted: December 4, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Autumn, home, Just wondering, nature, Thanks! | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

If I put the pink flamingos out by the pond, do you think they’ll scare away the Great Blue Herons?

I wouldn’t want to do that.

M and I attended a pond clinic sometime during our first year or so on this lovely piece of land.  We realized early on that we knew nothing about the care and upkeep of a pond (especially a 1.5 acre pond!).  I remember it was on a cold and windy day, but I can’t remember what time of year it was.  I’m thinking it was supposed to be spring, but spring hadn’t arrived yet.

Some of the other people attending had small ponds and one guy asked about keeping herons away from his pond.  He was stocking his pond with expensive koi and the herons were eating them.  Herons can’t resist a big, shiny fish.

If I remember correctly, decoys of any kind don’t work in the long run.  The heron will fly over several times over the course of a few days, getting closer and closer to the decoy, until they figure out it isn’t real.  Hopefully the pink flamingos, which are hot pink and about as unnatural looking as a decoy can be, won’t fool the herons into thinking this is an inhospitable place for them to be.

Unless, of course, they have some sense of taste or class.

(Great blue heron at the pond. 2007.  Photo © Robin)

Thanks! to the great blue herons that come to visit and help to keep down the fish and frog population.  We don’t fish enough (or eat frogs legs) to keep the population down to healthy level without their help.  Even if they weren’t helping out, I’d still enjoy their visits as they’re beautiful birds and I delight in watching them as the wade around the edges of the pond, stalking the fish and frogs.

Just wondering

Posted: October 30, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: current events, Just wondering, politics | 2 Comments

Why is it the Republican Party thinks it’s ok to sue the Ohio Democratic secretary of state in an effort to possibly purge some voters from the rolls, but when that same Democratic secretary of state looks into phone calls linked back to the Republican Party, it’s a “partisan witch hunt”?

Oh never mind.  I suppose it all depends on which side of the fence you’re standing.

My phone is ringing off the hook today.  Just about everybody is checking in, from professional athletes to famous actors and actresses.  It’s amazing how popular we are in Ohio.

It’ll be a relief to get past election day and have something else to talk about.

A couple of interesting stories

Posted: October 20, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Autumn, Just wondering, politics | 2 Comments

As we get closer to election day here in the U.S., I get more and more skeptical about the whole process.  A healthy dose of skepticism is ok.  It keeps my mind open and willing to look at things from more than one perspective.  However, I find my skepticism leaning closer and closer in the direction of cynicism.  In my opinion, that’s not healthy.  I don’t want to go through life distrusting society in general or seeing conspiracies where there are none.

There were two interesting stories in the news this morning.

The first story was of interest to me because of all the noise being made by the GOP regarding ACORN, Obama, and the Democratic party.  I wonder if the so-called liberal media will pick up the story about the GOP and this allegation of voter registration fraud.  I mean really pick it up and run with it the way they’ve been running with the ACORN story.

The second real news story reminded me of this fake story at The Onion.  The Onion story cracked me up.  Can’t say the same for what’s happening in West Viriginia.  Is the problem with the voters or the machines?  Will this problem, if there is one, keep people from voting because they think their votes don’t count and/or the system is corrupt?  Or is this just a minor blip in the grand scheme of things?