Stone Walls and five random thoughts…

1)  On Tuesday, I went with the Photography Group of the Massasoit Art Guild to Moore State Park in Paxton, Massachusetts.  That’s where I took the photos that I am posting today.  I think that one of the most charming things about this area where I live is that one often comes across stone walls.  They meander here and there.  Even walking in the deep woods, you can come upon remnants of them from when the land used to be clear and farms were active.  We have one in our front yard marking our property line.  I don’t know how old the stone walls are in these photos.  They look to be very well maintained, but they are a nice link to the past.

2)  I think that if you have ever checked out my entries for Random 5 Friday, you would know why I was terribly unsuccessful at Twitter and had to close my account.  It made me very frustrated.  I just can’t seem to keep my entries short.  I talk too much.

3)  Yesterday was my husband Greg’s birthday, but we’ve been so busy lately with this and that, we are celebrating tonight.  I am making the usual strawberry rhubarb pie.  We are just not cake people and I got tired of throwing away leftover cakes over the years.  That hardly seems celebratory.  But there is never ever leftover pie to throw out.

4)  I’m cooking up a storm today.  Well, baking up a storm.  I also have a loaf of garlic chorizo bread going.  The garlic has to roast in the oven for an hour or so.   Pretty soon the house will smell like an Italian restaurant and I am going to want something to eat.  Last night I made a loaf of apple/blue cheese bread.  Contributions to a wine and cheese get together tonight.

5)  I’m counting down the days until we leave for Norway – June 12.  But I am still not sure what I am going to pack.  I have a vague idea.  I want to pack light but need to be prepared for different temperatures.  Fortunately, it doesn’t look like it will get below the 40s in any place we are so that is good.  I can stand that.  I actually like that.  Everything I read says to pack layers.  So that is what I am going to do when I figure it all out….  

LINKING WITH A RURAL JOURNAL'S RANDOM 5 FRIDAY

AND

FRIDAY'S FENCES.

Apple blossoms, stone fences and random thoughts…

1)  I took a ride around town the other day even though it was threatening to rain because a friend told me how beautiful the apple blossoms were this year.  I think I got to them a little late, but they were still beautiful with their nice stone fences in front of them.

2)  The alarm clock that sits next to my side of the bed is five minutes slow.  This would not be such a big deal but it is one of those clocks that allegedly sets itself by the Atomic Clock so there is no way to change the time to make it right.  The alarm part of the clock stopped working before it started losing time.  The only real reason I keep it around is because the numbers are really nice and big letting me tell the “time” even without my glasses.  I just do the five minute mental math and am done with it.  Ironically, this silly clock falls back and springs forward as regularly as clockwork without any prompting from me.

3)  Speaking of time pieces, I can’t wear a watch.  There is something about my body chemistry that makes a watch slow down and eventually it dies prematurely.  I’ve given up.  But it has taught me a big life lesson.  And that is that I can’t control time.  It flows as it flows and it will stop when it wants to.

4)  We had a Red-bellied woodpecker at the feeder yesterday in all its glory.  What a beautiful bird!  But I think it has been misnamed as most of its red is on its head not on its belly.

  I want to suggest a new name for this bird.   How about Cool Fancy Woodpecker?

5)  I’m half way through the third Game of Thrones book.  It’s called A Storm of Swords.  It’s takes all my willpower not to lock myself in a room somewhere and finish it.  I am smitten.

LINKING TO

FRIDAY'S FENCES &

{RANDOM 5 FRIDAY}

Horses, fences and 5 random thoughts…

Linking to Friday's Fences.

1)  The events happening in Boston right now are simply surreal.  I am having a hard time wrapping my head around all this and am wondering how long it can possibly go on.  I have no idea whether or not it is the best way to handle this hunt for the Marathon bomber, but I do know that the news coverage is over the top.  For one thing, I think it is appalling that there is no mention on the national news of the tragedy in West, Texas.  There has been so much time wasted on pure speculation about what is going on in Boston, where this person is, who he may or may not be affiliated with.  Sure, it is important that we stay informed, but there is other stuff going on in the world that is important, too.  I want them to take some time away from trying to guess what may happen to tell us some concrete facts about what is happening.  Rant over.

2)  At times like this, I sure am glad we live in the country.  We are an hour west of Boston and if we didn’t have a television and didn’t check facebook, we would have no idea what is going on there.  But I feel for the people who live there and have been on pins and needles all day.

3)  In order to stay sane, we are going to a rock and roll music trivia night tonight.  We bid on it and won it in a silent auction last year.  This should be fun.  The contest is four against one.  The one happens to be a friend of ours who is a musician who, according to those who have played him before, can’t be beat.  The chance is good that his streak won’t be broken tonight, but we’ll have fun trying.

4)  You know, I love my Toyota Prius, but one of my keys needs a new battery.  In order not to forget that, I put a note on my calendar that shows up every Monday and says “Think about Prius Key.”  It has been there for about a month and a half and, by golly, I haven’t thought about it once when I could do anything about it.  I guess that method doesn’t work.

5)  I don’t understand Google+.  Help!

Linking to A Rural Journal:

{Random 5 Friday}

Three random fences and five random thoughts…

I got lucky on Monday when Carrie and I went out to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory.  I came home with fence pictures.  The first was a shot taken inside of Magic Wings, the second was taken at Historic Deerfield, a living museum in (duh!) Deerfield, Massachusetts and the third is on a country road close to the museum in Deerfield.

My Random 5

1)  My son Evan is not done reading the third book the A Song of Fire and Ice series (aka The Game of Thrones) by George R. R. Martin.  I am itching to get my hands on that book.  Read faster, kid!!

2)  I have decided to start a 365 project on my birthday this year, which is June 25, and have started a notebook of ideas.  A 365 project is a photo a day for a year, in case you aren’t familiar.  I will be posting them on my Flickr site.  Any suggestions from any of you would be most appreciated.  

I will definitely not be doing self-portraits.

3)  Friends of ours are having a house concert this evening and we’re going.  The musicians are called “MagicalStrings.” It is a group of harp and dulcimer players.  That’s something different for a Friday night!

4)  I hate iTunes!  Why do they have to make things so difficult?   Can you say "necessary evil?"

5)  Greg and I went to the Red Sox game last night.  It wasn’t a nice night and the game wasn’t very good but I still love baseball.  We were in Boston twice in one week.  That may be a first for me since I quit working there.

Multi-tasking Friday…

I decided to kill two birds with one stone today and participate in Friday’s Fences and in A Rural Journal’s Random 5 Friday.  Damn, I’m good…

Taken last year in Charleston, South Carolina

My Random 5 

1. I found out earlier this week that Worcester, Massachusetts, which is the closest city to where we live, has received the dubious honor of winning The Golden Snow Globe Award for being the U.S city with the most snowfall this winter measured in inches.  At 108.9 inches, they beat out the runner up Syracuse, New York by about 12 inches.  Yes, it’s been one of those years…

2. When I’m on Facebook at four in the morning, I’m always amazed that I’m not the only one.  You people need to get some sleep!

3. I looked out the window this morning to see turkey tracks in the snow.  That made me smile.  You know, their feet are almost as big as my hands.

4. I miss my cats terribly.  But it is not time to replace them yet.  Well, special little beings that they were, they can never really be replaced, but you know what I mean.

5. I am currently involved in a discussion group about Voluntary Simplicity using the curriculum from the Northwest Earth Institute.  This week, one of the things we talked about was multi-tasking and how it is not necessarily such a good thing.  But apparently, old habits die hard.

Leaving Western Mass at last…

Here are a few more of the batch of photos I took on my little jaunt with my daughter Carrie last week.

 

I managed to find one for Friday’s Fences.

Here’s a shot of the Congregational Church in Goshen, Massachusetts.  This church dates from the 1780s.  I think it is an interesting and beautiful building but there is no way that I could figure out, short of standing in the middle of the street, how to take this photo without wires all over the place.  Sure, I could have sat here for hours cloning them out, but at some point, we just have to accept the fact that wires are part of our lives.  Heck, I am surrounded by wires right now and I bet you are, too.

Carrie and I took the long way out to North Adams so we could drive by the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace.  Susan B. Anthony has long been a hero of mine and it meant a lot to me to stop and spend a little time here even though the museum associated with it was closed the day we passed through.  This building is located in Adams, Massachusetts.

It was cold when we were out there as you can tell by the ice hanging off of the Windsor, Massachusetts Town Hall.

Happy March, you all!

Linking to Friday's Fences.

Snowy fences...

My daughter Carrie and I took a little jaunt out to North Adams, Massachusetts for a little overnight in the very cool Porches Inn.  The real reason for our trip was to spend a day at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA).  Here's a nice snowy fence scene we saw along the way...

LINKING TO FRIDAY'S FENCES.

Black and white fences….

I took a lot of photos of the snow last week and looked through them hoping to find a fence, but there were no fences in the whole batch.  Must be that the snow was so high all the fences were buried.  Oh, well…  So I went back to our trip down to Florida and found a couple that I like and will post them today for Friday’s Fences.  These particular photos were taken somewhere off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Fancy Gap, Virginia.

LINKING TO FRIDAY'S FENCES.

Fence and fence parts…

The sad truth is that I haven’t picked up my camera since I went out to see Carrie in January.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, but the weather has been crummy and I have been busy.  I am hoping for a lull in the weather and the action sometime soon so that I can do a little picture taking.

In the meantime, I figured I got enough stuff from the Chestnut Street Cemetery when we were in Apalachicola to post another fence for Friday’s Fences.  So here’s another one along with a few pics of some fence details.

LINKING TO FRIDAY'S FENCES.

Graveyard fence for Friday Fences...

Here are some photos taken at the Chestnut Street Cemetery of Old Apalachicola.  I love these old places and could wander around them for some time without getting bored or running out of ways to take photos of them.  This cemetery was simply lovely.  What a wonderful place to spend eternity.

This is a close up of the detail on the gate above.

Linking to Friday's Fences.

Now that's a fence....

Scrounging around in my archives for a fence to post today, I came across this photo that I took while in Capri, Italy.  At the time I took this photo, I remember standing there and wondering  whether or not I would be in much better shape or much worse shape if I had had to navigate those stairs every day.  There seemed to be a school at the top so mostly there were youngsters climbing down.  But just the thought of all that climbing right now makes my knee scream in agony.  Hopefully, once fully recovered, that will not be the case.  But in the meantime, it's a good thing I am living in the relative flatness of Central Massachusetts.

Linking to Friday Fences.

A country fence...

Taken on the grounds of The Salem Cross Inn in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, where we had lunch with my brother Rob while he was visiting earlier this month.

My son and I went to see Star Trek, The Next Generation last night on the big screen at our local cinema Cinemagic.  What fun!  If you are any bit of a Trekkie, I would recommend it if it comes to a cinema near you.

Linking to Friday's Fences.

Italian fence...

Here's a little fence on the property of Villa Miragalli where we spent a heavenly week.  It kept us from falling into the sea after drinking that wonderful Italian wine.  Just one of the Villa's many charms.

LINKING TO FRIDAY FENCES.

Facing fabulous fall fence for Friday Fences...

Just wondering how many "f words" I could use in one sentence and still stay family friendly...

LINKING TO JAN and JER'S FRIDAY FENCES.

A fence for Friday Fences...

Here's one I picked up somewhere along the way while roaming around these parts...

LINKING TO FRIDAY'S FENCES!

Fences for Friday…

Here are a couple fences I found on our ride down to see the sunflowers in Connecticut.  I know, I know.   I need to get out more and get some new material…

Linking to Friday's Fences.