Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.) (The above photo was taken on Monday. Yes, we had a woodstove fire.)
- Weather
On the cool side this week, with highs ranging from 69.4°F to 47.7°F, averaging 56.6°F. The first three days were sunny and we had rain on Thurs. and Sat. Total rainfall this week was about 1.4 inches. The low temperatures ranged narrowly, from 33.1°F to 40.5°F, averaging 37.4°F. We’re still in a severe drought and in fact most of the U.S. is in a drought to some degree, per Axios.
- Beginnings/Firsts
We heard a northern waterthrush at the lake for the first time (ever?) and saw red trillium in bloom there on Wed. We saw the first mourning cloak butterfly we’d seen this year on Monday (which seems late). On Sat., we walked through a local house/condo for sale just to see what it was like (I’d been in one in the same community several times but had never seen the whole unit).
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
TOP row: tan crab spider; chipping sparrow; ground beetle. MIDDLE row: bad photo of bluebird; painted turtle; tulip-eating deer. BOTTOM row: large crane fly; Canada goose.
- Wandering
I walked in town on Mon., Tues., Fri., Sat., and Sunday, and at the lake on Wednesday. Also wandered to Hooksett, NH for Salon on Friday with a friend.
in town
lake
- Curiosity & Discoveries
Saw a small colony of this yellow flowering plant on a walk in town and didn’t know what it was. Both PlantNet and iNaturalist identify it as lesser celandine (Ficaria verna, formerly Ranunculus ficaria). It’s a “non-native highly-invasive weed [that] belongs to the buttercup family,” as does something similar I have in my own yard, creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens (it’s what I was pulling out and sheet-mulch-suffocating last week).
As one website says of lesser celandine, “It’s a beautiful sight unless you consider that the magic carpet rolls over native spring wildflowers, particularly spring ephemerals. Although lesser celandine plants seldom rise more than 4 – 5″ above the soil, they have dense root systems, and plants grow together to form mat-like impenetrable canopies.” I have found this to be all too true of my creeping buttercup species. (More on creeping buttercup from a permaculture subreddit.) Both species will easily displace native spring wildflowers — and creeping buttercup is allelopathic, meaning it discourages other plants, like probably the Jack in the pulpits that were there.
- Creating
“Creating” time for meditation every day in May (except 1 May, when I forgot).
- Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars
Human: I worked out four times (4 hours) this week with weights, stretching, dancing. I walked more than 10,000 steps on six days this week, including five days over 12,000 steps, three days over 14,000 steps, and two days over 16,000 steps. I got my hair cut on Thursday morning. I meditated on Sat. (17 mins) and Sun. (20 mins) mornings.
Cars: My husband replaced the BMW’s battery with a new one on Wed. but all was not well. On Friday he drove to another town hoping to find an autoparts place that had a scanner to read more codes than he could access with his reader, to try to solve the battery/persistent dashlights issue. That was fruitless but he ordered a scanner cable and software online which will arrive here next week.
- Nesting
Cleaning/Maintenance: Laundry week! Bedding on Monday, towels on Thurs., and clothes on Friday. I watered the houseplants on Thursday.
Financial/Admin: I backed-up the laptop on Friday.
Supplies: The new raised bed from Vego and Bumble’s Chewy treats autoship both were delivered on Thursday.
Food: My husband made three loaves of rye bread on Sunday (gave one away).
I made “butterflies and beans” on Monday (farfelle pasta, green beans, pesto), to which my husband added roasted chicken. Same on Tues. but with shrimp, plus raw carrots and radishes and humus. Wednesday was either tuna (me) or chicken (him) with leftover mac & cheese and peas, + veg and humus. I made the tuna-farfelle-kalamata-tomatoes-capers dinner on Thursday, which we had for the rest of the week, with raw veggies and humus.
- Garden
I worked in the garden for 2.5 hours on Tuesday, planting 12 pansies, tearing out a lot of bittersweet from the rock wall between us and our neighbours (with our neighbour, JL), watering veg seeds, and putting out the patio furniture. My husband, also on Tuesday, sawed up some fallen, pruned, and scrounged tree limbs for our raised bed hugelkultur, moved weed and brush piles to the back, and installed the shepherds hook in the front yard for hanging baskets yet to come. I collected winter sand into a bucket from the sidewalk on Tuesday with a whisk broom and dustpan, to use this year for filling in gaps in the patio pavers and the brick walkway.
garden pics this week
and this flower fly on spicebush (Lindera benzoin) flowers
I moved this dwarf ginseng (in bud) that’s been coming up in the lawn for the past couple of years to a shade bed this week. Hoping it will take. Another 🤞.
- Sleeping & Dreaming
I slept an average of 7-1/2 hours per night this week, with a Samsung Fit 3 sleep score of 91.4. REM sleep accounted for 13 hours 20 mins and deep sleep for exactly 8 hours.
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
BOOKS: I’m almost finished with Tana French’s The Keeper, the third in the Cal Hooper trilogy set in a rural town in Ireland. She’s a glorious writer.
OTHER:
Essays and articles of interest to me this week:
I enjoyed all of this nature photo essay and cocktail recipe idea, “Pebbles, Mr Sardine, yellowhammers, and a very fine elderflower liqueur and cocktail,” in Mark Diacono’s Abundance newsletter.
Things Your Pastor [Probably] Won’t Tell You About Pain, by KJ Ramsey in her Embodied newsletter. “Honesty about pain—not positivity nor praise—is the path to peace. … You don’t have to know or find the purpose of your pain to live well with it. … Pain is not punishment from God nor a chance to teach you a lesson. … Your pain doesn’t have to have any more purpose than prompting you to pay attention to your life as worthy of care and support. … Healing is not the removal of pain but the recovery of full humanness. We cannot heal our way out of being human.“
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media by danah boyd at Sage Journals. A brief history of the rise and fall of social networking sites as places where people actively participated in connecting in meaningful ways with friends and with other people around the world who shared the same interests. boyd posits that “we now live in a world of parasocial media. Parasocial relationships are one-sided connections, where individuals keep tabs on the lives and movements of people – like celebrities – who do not know us and feel no pressure to reciprocate. In a parasocial world, people dedicate their attention and emotions to tracking the dramas of individuals who exist at a distance. Parasocial relationships … do not produce the kinds of social fabric that anchor us when we are struggling.”
✨✨✨
✨✨✨
Watching
I forgot to write down what we watched this week, except for Agatha Christie’s Poirot’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on Sunday (on VHS tape!).
Listening
- Connections & Community
Local Support: We had breakfast at a local restaurant on Tuesday and another breakfast at a local bakery/café on Thursday. I bought 12 pansies and some fresh spinach at the farmstand on Monday.
Relationships: We dropped off friends (ED&SD) for the bus on Tues. morning and I watered their veggie seedlings twice while they were away this week. They let me dig up some trout lilies from their yard to transplant 🤞on Monday. On Sat. night, we picked up another friend (ND) from the bus and on Sun. afternoon we took her one of the loaves of rye bread my husband made and visited for an hour or so. I attended Salon with two other members (BF, RL; and the host’s husband DF joined us for a bit) on Friday afternoon for two hours. Our friends CF & JS stopped by Friday evening with a to-go box of truffle fries for Bumble! I had flowers delivered to CF earlier that day for her birthday. Visited with my hair stylist/friend (GV) on Thurs. morning. Chatted with neighbour JL for 20-30 mins while we were pulling out bittersweet together on Tuesday. Ran into several friends and acquaintances this week for brief to 10-min. chats: LT, DO, KE, AS. Zoomed with my college friends (RVN, CN) for 1.5 hours on Monday night.
Donations: I renewed our membership in a local lake protection organisation on Sunday.
- Endings
Our friend ND returned after being away for three weeks!
- All This Useless Beauty
unsanctioned photoshoot
Royal Heritage series hellebore basking in the light of the distant star
Avant Garde double early cream tulip in rain
Leave a Reply