Jan 23, 2010 by Naomi.

No recorded history is available to trace the development of social behavior of humans but sociologists and archaeologists make suggestions that cover a wide range of possibilities. Current cartoons of early mankind favor the image of a brute dragging a woman by the hair into his cave. Now people visualize dirty savages hovering in fear of predators, fire, and storms.

Considering that those early peoples - and at first they must have been very few - had the capability to think, remember and plan. Years went by - perhaps decades - before the realization that after short days the sun would return. But that did not happen for the eons our ancestors lived in “Eden”. The solstices are not celebrated in the tropics. Why not?

In the tropics where humans likely evolved the days are almost equal in length to the nights. That is true now and would have been no different a few million years ago as long as the axis and rotation of the earth was as it is now. So the understanding that the sun changed the length of days was not relevant until clans or individuals went northward. The farther north humans went the more challenging the conditions they found. Probably even the weather in the Mediterranean area was not harsh enough to concern people about length of daylight hours. Clans gathered around safe ports and created villages fed by fishermen while the home-bound learned to plant and harvest on the hillsides. Some individuals observed and thought.

Farther north people shivered with the first cold winds that swept down from the arctic. They hunkered inside caves with fire for warmth and light. They processed hides for clothing and blankets, painted pictures on the walls, counted time until daylight lengthened and the sun once again welcomed them outdoors.

Solstices were celebrated when villagers found time on their hands and in their days. Time spent outdoors at work or leisure allowed more than one insightful individual to notice the annual positions of the sun. Each year those familiar positions were anticipated with relish, if for no other reason than to verify past observations. Excitement is as contagious as the measles so the next step is to be happy and dance and sing to celebrate a natural occurrence when it comes.

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Jan 21, 2010 by Naomi.

Deplaning in wind driven rain doesn’t sound like entering paradise but
that is what I did today. Paradise is a state of mind. To remove myself
from the stress of my everyday activities is paradise to me. And I arrived
via Horizon Air in Bellingham after an air bumpy ride from Richland. Well
not directly. An hour’s layover with a sandwich and walk in Salt Lake City.

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Jan 21, 2010 by Naomi.

Upon waking I check outdoors for stars or rain. Regardless of the weather I come back to the computer and check cyberspace. Earthquakes? This week those registered form a semi-circular shape beginning in Alaska at the Aleutian Islands swinging westward in an arch like the blade of a scythe along the western Pacific shore, turning southward east of Australia and ending like a handle at New Zealand. These are the areas showing dozens of quakes, from 2.5 to 5.7 on the Richter scale. Of the six shown within the US the one in Georgia along the Mississippi yesterday and one in Yellowstone were in the 2.5 range. Over a dozen are shown along the edge of California. A very graphic location of the weakness in the earth’s shell.

The lines of quakes show where the earth’s crustal plates are making adjustments as one plate slips under another rather than pushing it up. That’s at the west coast. In India the plate has been shoving the land into the ridge we call the Himalayas, not sliding under. To me it is fascinating that the skin of the earth, estimated at about 35 miles thick, is on the move — not enlarging or shrinking - the circumference holding its own. Science is defining reality with technology created by the only animals with the ability to communicate and record changes all around. The more we learn, the more questions arise. And the answers show the progress made. Good show.

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Jan 20, 2010 by Naomi.

A few last words before I shut down my trusty Toshiba because it certainly has been one full day. Beginning with coffee and quick oats then a rushed trip to the Refuge because of a committee meeting called early. We planned our second Saturday events for the year. Would you believe our Education Center was given the skull and claws of a grizzly bear — that’s right a - Ursus arctos horribilis. An animal decidedly not on the list in any hunt season. A carcass was found, too badly decomposed for hide to be retrieved. But truthfully there is no good place to display an animal that size anyway. Besides the fact that I do not approve of making a big deal of animals that are not native although bear totems go over very well in the teepee station.

Returned library books and a trip on the sitting walker in the exercise room took a half hour. I sat/walked a mile in twenty minutes. The community center is a repository for day old breads as well and today I grabbed a red/green pepper filone. There never is any 12 grain bread nor whole wheat so I sort the hamburger and wiener buns and bagels and come away empty handed.

This ought to become a report from my kitchen window because my day begins and end there. I know who goes off to school, one group to Christian school and the walkers to public, who goes on Dial-A-Ride, which neighbor goes off the work at 530 and who gets home at 7 am. Lately the red car neighbor has been off at an early hour without the toothless man and his walker. The white balloon snow man and related holiday decorations were removed. I was able to wash dishes in daylight at 5 pm. I hadn’t realized how much longer the days are until this one clear sunny day. I think it would be helpful if a wind would come and blow all my leaves down the street. What wind did a few days past was blow oh so many little branches off poor Douglas - my big fir tree.

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Jan 19, 2010 by Naomi.

Some writers, in my estimation, do a better job of tying up a plot in such an intriguing way that I seek other titles by that author. That happened when I read “The Smoke Jumpers” several years past. However it was only yesterday that, while cruising the fiction stacks in my library, I recognized Nicholas Evans and took out “The Loop” and just to be certain I remembered correctly I added the one I’d read before to refresh my memory. He is a Brit whose book “The Horse Whisperer” was acknowledged in weekly TV as a healer that made his work bestsellers in the US.

Though a totally unrelated plot, I found “The Loop” as intriguing as the first and couldn’t put it down so unlike the wolves who were being put down by those who could get their hands on a rifle or some other terrifying killing tool.

Wolves are the entire subject — torn between extinction and protection by the two opposing advocates. The protector was a wolf biologist and the destroyer was a rancher who insisted his purebred herd would be wiped out if any wolf was left alive. He had the wealth and social status to lure many citizens to his way of thinking. The wolf pack was removed to Yellowstone National Park. In the end, the alpha female had been whelping, hidden in a cavern, overlooked in the lethal search. Nevertheless she was later killed even as her pups were beginning to venture for the first time outside the den in full view of the wolfers.

Now you know the whole story and I dare you to analyze the way Nicholas Evans weaves the plot so the major players each are certain they won the day.

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Jan 18, 2010 by Naomi.

Maybe my feet will warm up while I tell my tale. A clear day with a warm promise got me out to McNary Headquarters early to count birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I counted thirteen species with a total of 108 individuals besides the several thousands of Canada Geese in flight and on the pond. I have yet to enter the data for Cornell. At first light I went out to look at the corner of my damaged cedar fence and planned to repair it when I returned.

Not a heavy task but I decided to take care of that before I could have lunch. Luckily I had an extra cedar fence board, although with a mean long split, that fit nicely in place of the broken one I discovered several days past. It required no more nails than an undamaged board but only time will tell if it withstands the test of time.

I found no evidence of the piece of wood originally broken off and have not the slightest idea why the board was attacked in the first place nor how the piece disappeared. The four foot span in question had simply pulled from its anchors, shrunk away in the summer’s heat. It appeared to have been pulled from the outside in hopes, perhaps, that it was would swing out as a gate for entrance. I hammered in the nails that had loosened but in no way can I assure it will stay in place. Nor keep animals out.

I went outside the fence for the repair so the gate Michael made was access for that. The weather has not warmed. The ground is cold and the layer of leaves is very wet from the daily rains, hence the pathetic temperature of my tootsies. A cup of hot coffee is in order.

Now Ashton left almost a week past. However, there are solid reminders that I can indulge in that help in the recall of her presence — stuff we shopped for when she arrived that we expected to devour, but did not: sliced ham, baloney, strawberry jam, Ovaltine, and a half finished thousand piece puzzle. Well we didn’t plan to devour the puzzle but we finished two others and hoped to conquer the last. Never mind, it is finished. I fueled my furnace with hot coffee and a sandwich so all is well.

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Jan 17, 2010 by Naomi.

Getting out to look over my backyard was a wet prospect this morning. Nevertheless I went out to check on a sixteen wheel-trailer parked by the apartments on the south side of the shelter belt. It looked like a long one. You know when states outlawed double trailer-trucks, the trucking industry simply manufactured ordinary trailers as long as two trailers. Problem solved. No double trailers. But that is not my concern. You see when I went to my back cedar fence I discovered vandalism. Right.

My fence extends four feet farther towards the shelter belt than my neighbor’s chain-link. A piece of one board was broken off, as if an outsider thought to pull the four-foot part back, thinking that it would be on hinges. Of course it is not. It is an extension of my back fence. In years past the west side of the cedar fencing stopped with a four-inch post anchored in concrete. I had to add four more feet of fencing to the edge of my back slope. It was not on hinges and therefore defied entrance. Now I have a repair to make.

My first reaction was: “Oh Bother” but it is more than a bother. I drove on the back street to see if graffiti once more adorned the south side of my boards. None. Good. Yesterday a strange man came through the neighbor’s back yard, looking back toward the fence with a strange smirk. As if he had disdain for such a mundane thing as a fence. He did not look like an ordinary high school kid taking a shortcut. He was tall and thin, dressed in black, his black baseball cap on backwards with the brim at the back of his neck. He looked older, quite out of place, both as a student and as an apartment dweller that previously cut across to visit with friends across Abbot street. I had not seen anyone like him before and many school kids walk past every school day. He did not walk toward the schools. He crossed the street and continued eastward on the sidewalk. That part is public property so I shrugged and went about my business. I wondered again about him this morning so I drove by the apartments curious to see if anything was amiss. I do not often police my backyard. Should I worry? That is not in my repertoire. I lock my doors.

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Jan 16, 2010 by Naomi.

My first cup of coffee is sipped while I look out my kitchen window. It looks out upon my neighbor’s front yard and several houses beyond. Today I was saddened to see the old man, my age, angrily snap open his walker as he stepped from the back seat of the red car that just pulled in. This is the first time he appeared in the past several days. I wondered if and/or where he was. He was obviously toothless, so I assumed he had recently had his teeth pulled. All of them? Mind boggling. I self-consciously gritted my enameled set — grateful I still had most of my own. Why would he not? Lifestyle? Habits? I never smoked. I imbibe alcohol occasionally. I brush sometimes with Pepsodent (you wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent) or Clean Mint Crest (eliminates plaque).

Well his appearance settled a bleakness over the day. I made toast and poured another cup of coffee. I hoped for better things. Then the impossible happened. I am dreaming, I thought. A pair of robins flew past my window into the hazel tree and continued across the yard. Robins! January 16. How can that be? The ground is thawed so I suppose they can find insects, worms, under the grass. They won’t eat seeds, bird feeders they will not visit ever. So they must find insects in the soil. I hope their instincts have not abandoned them. But at this early date, will they make known their territory and scope out a nest site? I cut off the long Hazel branch they nested on in years past.

I watched the disbelief of red squirrels when they came to reach heights above the Hazel branch and found it missing. They still have a habit of leaping to a young English Walnut tree, then over to a Red Maple and cautiously move down to the ground and dig for nuts they buried long ago. I am encouraged that the soil is warm and loose for insects that are still comatose in the barely-above freezing temperatures of the past week. Well perhaps they are not so unmoving. How could a bird detect the worm if it was as still as roots or twigs? Birds cannot smell. They only breathe through those holes we think of as nostrils. I did not linger to see if this pair found food. My knowledge of birds tells me that they are here to stay. What a happy day! Spring may not hang in there every day but the poem about birds fluffing up and finding food is encouraging. They will not leave for the south until next fall.

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Jan 9, 2010 by Naomi.

I forgot I could not override a JAM by adding to and uploading the same article so here is an update for today. I washed the small rugs, on which I spilled syrup, in the bath tub in Pine Sol, no less. Of course being soaked in warm water it will take some time to drain the foam backing and then dry although I put them outdoors to drip dry over the railing. They look so nice and clean! Nevertheless the deed is done. The kitchen floor was wiped and the clean throw rugs are dripping, for however long it takes to dry before I return them to the kitchen floor.

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Jan 9, 2010 by Naomi.

Another rainy day, I noticed when I stuck my hand out the back door at 0630 this morning. I began to write on my laptop now back in the computer room. Ashton occupied the room for the past weeks and she visited friends in town, the Lettau’s, a family her mother had been friends with since second grade. I found an email for a kid in my second grade and in his return email asked for my phone number. A call from McNary NWR reminded me that this was Second Saturday and why wasn’t I at the Refuge? So off I went. There was no activity on the frozen pond. Wise birds would only arrive after there would be promise of food.

Bird brains might be small but that doesn’t mean birds don’t know anything. They know when to migrate. I made a note and took pictures of the bird feeders installed at which people would record species next month for the worldwide Great Backyard Bird Count. However, nobody came today except Debbie and a short haired black dog so we left at noon. Back home at my own computer a call came from my real second grader. Was I surprised. And pleased to hear from him. Yes I assured him a we were the same age and doing as well as could be expected for those years. We chatted for a half hour about genealogy, his travels and his present whereabouts.

Turns out that in his good health he is lone caregiver for his wife long suffering with Parkinson’s disease. He had been to Sweden several times and found many first and second cousins. He has three sons and a daughter who live fairly close by in the Hastings area where he now resides. And he admitted at losing count of their offspring. He was happy to receive the black and white snapshots I sent and will welcome others I might have. Past memories aside, clouds outside my window are not dripping. I think of work ahead when I must get out to load wet soggy leaves into my yard waste can.

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