Friday, January 28, 2011

catching some ZZZzzzzzz's...





"Oh, to be a young owl
with a taste for adventure,
arriving at the Tree for the first time."
~Boron, The Legend of the Guardians

(our neighborhood Barred Owl spotted  in an old oak tree out front)

stay cool.  keep wandering.  laura :]

Only when the last tree has died 
and the last river been poisoned 
and the last fish been caught 
will we realize we cannot eat money.  
~Cree Indian Proverb 




Wednesday, January 26, 2011

museum time-out, turtles & fossils, surprise package!


oh! it's wednesday again! hump day!
to be optimistic...the weekend's not far off!!

last weekend i attended "Collector's Day" 
Collector's Day. it happens once a year. you sign up in advance...
they give you a table to use...you bring your 'collection'...
and display it for all to see!
there were all kinds of collections...from the Simpsons...to swords...old microscopes...
frogs...snoopy...spatulas...old lures...beanie babies...light houses...manatees...cats...
gemstones...old wind up toys...old army stuff...you name it!!  
all kinds of weird...unusual...cool...collections!

ok...so let me start at the beginning...
have i ever mentioned that i also have a turtle collection?
yeah, besides bones, feathers, rocks, artifacts, beads, driftwood, old bottles...
i also collect turtles!  (not live ones)
if you're around my age...maybe you remember
the little green turtle we would get as a pet.
this poor little turtle was plucked out of a tank and sentenced to
  live  in a round plastic container with a little ramp leading up to a little plastic palm tree.
poor turtles!
my next turtle was a box turtle. named charlie.
then...after that...when i lived in california, i had a kiddie pool out on the porch.
this kiddie pool was home to a few koi and a diamondback terrapin.
over the years, i've rescued a few turtles...
scooping them up and moving them across the road...out of harms way...
moving them faster than their little legs would carry them!
i've picked up injured turtles and taken them home 
to nurse them back to health.

so, for as long as i can remember, i've collected little turtle figurines...
i've always been drawn to turtles. they're my totem.
a friend of mine who also collects turtles signed us up to attend 'collector's day'.
our collection.
it was pretty cool...
it was the first time i'd ever gathered up all my turtles...
and 'showed them off'. 
turns out there were over two thousand visitors that day to see the collections!

i brought MOST of my turtles.
some were just a little too shy and didn't want to be plucked
out of the garden...or off the shelf.
we had a lot of compliments, comments...and questions...
and learned there are a lot of other turtle lovers out there!

at 3pm  we packed up our turtles...
sam came by and helped load them in the car...
then we wandered around the museum!  i was looking forward to this!
all the prehistoric fossils & bones. ancient times. nature stuff. i love it!!
 
On every stem, on every leaf ... and at the root of everything that grew, 
was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, 
or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
(go here...to read more...about the butterfly exhibit...)

and...so...that was last saturday's adventure...

i have ONE more thing to mention before i go...
this past monday...home between appointments...
i stop at the mailbox on the corner.

there's a key in there for the package bin. i thought to myself...
hmmmm, i don't remember ordering anything...
so i open it and there's a 'priority box' in there.

i look at the return address, and it's from a fellow blogger...
someone i've become friendly with.
anyway...i pick up the box...shake it...and hear the tell-tale rattling sound
of bone against bone! HUH??!

i put it in the car...took it home...opened it...
A BOX OF BONES!
yikes!  what a surprise!
a DEER!!  the skull. ribs...all the bones!!
and a note saying she found these up on the mountain while walking her dogs...
and she thought of me!!  hahahaaaa!!

SO...what about the fact that i was in someone's thoughts 
when they encountered a dead animal...a carcass...a skeleton...
ha! i guess you could be remembered for worse things!

i was glad the box didn't open up during its journey from virginia to florida!
THANKS  for making my day JP!!  visit her blog at  Home In The Hollow!!
and thanks for thinking of me, JP when you saw that pile of bones! i think! :))
no, really... i love 'em!!


have a good rest of the week...

Little by little one travels far.   ~J. R. R. Tolkien

stay cool - travel safe
laura  :]

((ps - remember the post i did about 'spelling'...
well, while watching the news the other night...all about the unusual freezing weather 
here in the US...they spelled MINNESOTA wrong!! they gave it only one N!
that's pretty bad....))

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

fox, owl and oodles of found bones!


i've been trying to find the time to write a post.
now...home between appointments...i'll get started!
appointments? you may ask...
i'm a massage therapist. 
and no, i don't massage squirrels!

Massage is the study of anatomy in Braille.

i've been licensed since '97...
(a kind of late in life career change. i was the oldest in my massage class. 
before that, i worked as a Tech Assistant in Rehab...before that, screen printer...)
i work  mainly with the elderly and individuals with Cerebral Palsy, 
Prader-Willi Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis and AIDS. i love my work!

but i'm also looking forward to the day i can retire...
when i can wake up in the morning 
and NOT gather all my massage stuff for that day's appointments.
i want to get out of bed...and think to myself...
hmmmm...what do i want to do today? 
maybe go hiking. boating. camping. or just sit around and read all day. 
or get on the computer and spend the day in cyberspace.
or make something. be creative.
or just do nothing!
aaaaaaaahhh...
ok...enough dreaming for now...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sometime over this past weekend, sam spotted the first stinkbug of the year!
this may not sound like much...but i love taking pictures of all the bugs
and lizards we have here in florida! and believe me...we have A LOT!
but during the winter...you don't see too much...
so you can imagine my excitement when sam yelled
"STINKBUG!!"

we've also been seeing the gray foxes lately...strolling through the backyard. 

The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. 
Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind. 
~  Philipus Aureolus Paracelsus


and the owl! 
a pair of Barred Owls have been hanging out in the yard lately too.
unfortunately, i haven't been able to get a picture of them together. 
but we can hear them hooting...
and doing their monkey-like scream back and forth to each other!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
last weekend we went exploring...out back...
working our way through the vines and underbrush...
in search of...artifacts...evidence of animals...feathers...
or just really cool things to get pictures of!


Always watch where you are going. 
Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.
~Winnie the Pooh 

after wandering around for a while...we decided to head across the street...

to the field where we usually find bones!
bones from carcasses dumped by the hunters...
after they have cleaned their kill...and filled their freezers.

if you've been here before...then you know me...you know my love of bones.
i like to collect them. clean them. display them. decorate some of them.

i don't know what it is...but there's just something about BoNES.
their feel...shape...texture...they inspire me.
they fascinate me...and i respect them.

ANYWAY...WE FOUND THE MOTHER-LODE!!
oodles of bones!
SIX deer skulls, jawbones and assorted vertebrae...scattered in this one area of the field.
 
well...needless to say...i started to hyperventilate!! WOW!
sam turned the 4-wheeler around and we raced back home to get a bucket
so we could collect the bones!
"my bucket-'o-bones"   :]

a couple of days later...after a little cleaning...
see that one skull in the back, right side...the upper skull is sawed off.
must've had a nice rack...and the hunter kept it.

that same day we also found another small skull...

i wasn't sure what it was...thought maybe a small goat...
turns out it's a domestic cat.   :(    poor kitty.
we DO have a lot of cats around here. supposedly there's a 'cat lady'
living on our street some where. anyway...i didn't see any bullet holes...
i have no idea what happened to it...but its skull can now rest in peace...
it has a good home!
~~~~~~~~~~
so, here i am...here we are...
the weather fluctuating between freezing...and the upper 50's.
sam's got the burn barrel going outside...pretty much non-stop...
aaaah..feels nice. warm. toasty.

so...if you happen to wander through here on the day i posted this...
happy wednesday...hump day...
just a couple more 'til the weekend!

Weekends are a bit like rainbows; 
they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.  
~John Shirley

i have much catching up to do...with lots of things...this weekend.
there just aren't enough days in the weekend...and not enough hours in a day...
to get everything done... 

((maybe when i retire?!   but then my list of things i want to do 
will probably grow to such an extent...
that there never will be enough hours in a day!))

stay cool. travel safe. 

Little by little one travels far.      ~J. R. R. Tolkien 

have cool adventures! wander!

laura  :]



Wednesday, January 12, 2011

a spelling freak...


"I think that I shall never see, a billboard lovely as a tree. 
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, 
I'll never see a tree at all." 
Ogden Nash

o~o~o~o~o~o

one thing that's always been a 'pet peeve' for me...
are spelling mistakes.

i guess it stems from my dad's constant obsession 
with sounding out words and
spelling them correctly. 

while growing up...every night...at the dinner table...
it was 'spelling bee' time!  
to this day...i can recite...off the top of my head...
antidisestablishmentarianism!!
got that? i knew how to spell it...
before i even knew what it meant!
scary.
so his obsession...rubbed off on me.

not that i know how to spell every word correctly...but if i'm not sure...
i know how to use a dictionary.
it's always amazed me how a business can actually put up a sign...
with a word misspelled!

i've seen this countless times!
(i hate to say it...but i've seen it more in FL than anywhere else i've lived)
a few miles up the road...across from the (locally) famous  waldo flea market...

'dinning'...
are they trying to be funny? making up their own word? intentional?
some kind of play on words?
i don't get it. i tried to give them the benefit of the doubt...
but what else can it be?
they misspelled DINING!!
what's really scary is that more than one person had to see this sign...
before it was constructed!

between the people who own the restaurant...
the people who decided what the sign should say...
the people who did the lettering & painted it...
and the people who put it up there...
on the main road...for all to see...

NONE of them noticed that DINNING should be DINING!
damn!!
((ok, so DIN is a word...to make a loud noise...
but i don't think the Pea Patch meant 
"come eat here...in our very noisy dining room!" 
uh, make that dinning room!))

nowadays with computers...and spell check...
people don't have to learn to spell. BUT even spell check isn't fool proof. 
spell check doesn't necessarily know the difference between their, they're and there.
or bear and bare. hare and hair. to, too and two. your and you're.
angle instead of angel.
and so on. 
even i...master speller that i am...HA!...
have to sometimes repeat the phrase
i before e except after c
or when sounded like a
as in neighbor and weigh...

gee, thanks dad!
i'm a spelling freak. obsessed! 
noticing big unbelievable blunders...to minute typos.

blah blah blah.
i'm getting carried away...just a dumb pet peeve that was instilled in me in youth!
finally...got it off my chest...or back...or outa my head! ha! 
(outa...short for out of.  :)  )

o~o~o~o~o~o
quickly now...before i go...
been feeling a little stressed lately.
one of those days...yeah...day after day.

The walls we build around us 
to keep out the sadness 
also keep out the joy.  
~Jim Rohn
   
when i get down...down in the dumps...i tend to withdraw!
withdraw...and write. 
if i could sing (and i sure as hell can't) i'd be singin' the blues right about now...

anyway...by the weekend i hope to have clawed my way out of this hole...
and post a few pic's from last weekend when sam and i went exploring through the dead
thorny brush...out back!

'til then...stay cool...wander safely!

laura  :]


Wednesday, January 5, 2011

weathered wood 'n fungi


i mentioned in my last post...
that my NEXT post
would be pictures of mushrooms...lichen...fungi...wood
taken while camping in georgia
between christmas and new years.

enjoy...the fungusamungus!


fungi...and weathered wood...always make me stop in my tracks!

wild. natural. mysterious. each is unique...in color...size...shape...

"Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? 
Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself."
~Henry David Thoreau 


Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - 
we all dance to a mysterious tune, 
intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.  
~Albert Einstein, 
in The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929 

during the week we were gone. other than the geese...
and a few other birds...
and an occasional turtle sticking its head up out of the water...
evidence of deer and raccoons by the tracks we spotted...
we didn't see any other wildlife! 
no fish. no squirrels. no insects.
SO, you can imagine how excited i got, when our last morning...
as we were packing up...i saw this brightly colored bug!!
(i'm not sure what it is...if i find out...i'll let you know...)
**thanks to Kate (2nd comment on post)...yes! this is a box elder bug!!**


i'm always picking stuff up.
collecting.
bones, rocks, shells, feathers...
well, here's a picture of all the STUFF collected last week.
goose feathers. small rocks. a snail shell.

and  "what's that white fluffy stuff?"  you ask?
it's just what it looks like...cotton!  
we drove by field after field...in north florida & georgia...
huge rectangular bales of cotton sitting at the edge of the fields awaiting pick up.
cotton that was ripped away from the bales...
by the wind...
as they sit on the back of flatbeds...
dotting the roadways...like snow.


sam...seeing that longing look in my eyes...
pulled over so i could grab a handful from the side of the road.
he knows me well!

((gotta get ready for work...))
keep wandering. have a safe journey.
stay cool.

laura  :]