While I was Busy...

The hillside grasses are greening up, although if we don't get some rain soon they'll go right back to being a silvery beige.

Lunaria, also known as Money Plant, Silver Dollar Plant and Moonwort, is blooming everywhere...

My daffodils popped up, here and lots of other places in my garden, and I nearly missed seeing the blooms.

All through the woods the Sierra Pink Currant bushes are loaded with blossoms, which means plenty of berries for the birds and chipmunks come Autumn...

A patch of dandelions emerged by my studio door. They're one of my favorite flowers. I don't care if other people call them weeds, they're just so cheerful...

A few of the violets that I transplanted from my mother's yard in 1989 are blooming. They're very late this year, but then I suppose it's because the snow just wouldn't melt. There are still a few patches in the shady part of the forest.

And the path along the ridge top beckons for me to come and walk it. So I'm going to call the dogs, and off we'll go!

Wordless Wednesday - Strength

Goodbye for Now, Precious Opie Furgus

Opie Furgus Fuzzytoes, Chieftain of the Fuzzytoes Clan, adopted me when he was about 6 months old. I say 'adopted me' because he wouldn't let anyone but me get close to him for all of his life. It took a couple of weeks for him to decide that I would be a good human mom, but once he made up his mind that was that. He was never far from my side,

or lap, although he insisted on having control of the remote! Maybe it's a guy thing...I always felt guilty when I was working in my studio because Opie would set at the far end of the kitty play yard, where he could just barely glimpse me in the studio, and yell at me. Every time I looked up, there he would be. If I had the windows open I could hear him quite clearly. He would do this until I opened the door. Then he would race at top speed through the play yard and cottage so he could meet me as I came through the cottage's back door, scold me for being gone, then leap up onto my shoulders and purr in my ear.

Opie Furgus never cared much for having his picture taken and would usually give me 'the look' as I approached him with my camera.

Or he would close his eyes as I was snapping the first one, and then he would quickly get up and walk away. I don't have as many photos of him as I would like because I hated to bother him, but sometimes I just couldn't resist.I think Christmas was his favorite time of year. He loved to hide under the tree and dart out at me and the other cats and dogs as we walked by. This is my favorite picture of Opie Furgus...waiting patiently to leap out and latch onto my ankle.

Goodbye for Now, Precious Betsy

Our darling Betsy - she loved to talk and wasn't the least bit hesitant about dispensing advice. No matter the subject, Betsy was sure to have something to say about it.

She adored her brother George and he adored her right back.

Betsy loved Christmas and was always eager to lend a 'helping' paw. Of course, her idea of 'helping' didn't always match ours!

Her favorite window perch to watch the birds from was the third floor guest room. They would have long conversations, and I have a feeling it's a good thing that I couldn't decipher what they were saying to each other. I'm pretty sure it wasn't polite...

She loved to play with her favorite catnip sockie, tossing it into the air and rolling around with it. The sockie was the one toy she wouldn't share with George. Betsy was a treasure, perfect to me in every way but one: she always had to have the last word!

Wordless Wednesday - The Sentinel

Opie and Betsy

Opie Furgus 9-4-97 -- 4-12-11

Betsy Ross 7-4-01 -- 4-14-11

Last week was horrible. Opie passed away on Tuesday, Betsy on Thursday. Both passed away peacefully at the vet's office, with their dad and myself holding them as their souls stepped from this world into the next.

I will give them each a post of their own later, its too hard to write about this now.

Wordless Wednesday - Rushing

Sunday Sunsets

Wordless Wednesday - Melting

The Owl That Ate the Butterfly

Do you see it? I took this picture back in July of 2008 because I saw the butterfly...but I didn't see the owl shape of the sky until I was going through my pictures today! Geez. And I thought I was soooo observant. Better re-think that... And, on a side note, Blogger is behaving badly...again. It won't let me put my book list in order, but just runs everything together. Grrrrr.

Winter-Spring-Winter

I took this photo up at the top of the ridge last April 8th. It looks the same today, just add about another foot of snow on top of what's there and take away the pretty sunset light since it's cloudy today.

I'm so thankful that we're getting snow and rain, but I just wish the heavy snow had come in January and February like it's supposed to do! But, if that picture from last April is any indication...well, I'd better not anticipate seeing any spring flowers until May.

Oh well. I'm going to change my blog header to something spring-like even though it still looks like the depths of winter here.

Spring? Really?

This little Lesser Goldfinch has such a questioning look on her face. I'm sure she must be wondering what happened to Spring.

This kind of weather isn't unusual for us here in the San Bernardino Mountain range, but the amount of snow that we got is rather unusual this late in the season. A little over two and a half feet of heavy, wet snow caused power lines all over the mountains to fail and closed the schools.

We're supposed to get more snow tomorrow and Friday. I just hope we don't have any more power outages. And it would be great if the snow would turn into lovely spring rain.

Faeries Friday - Bellalucia

(photo taken last summer)

This is Bellalucia. I think, perhaps, she is in charge of the faeries book club. I don't think it's because she has her own reading light. I mean, everyone knows that faeries can see pretty well in the dark.

I'm guessing she might be in charge because this is where I usually find most of my misplaced (maybe 'borrowed' might be a better word) books, placed just so across her lap. The faeries are careful with my books; they never leave them out in bad weather.

Last summer the book that was borrowed the most was 'The Wind in the Willows' by Kenneth Grahame. I think the faeries were reading it to the skunks and raccoons. Can't you just see it...Bellalucia, who quits pretending that she's a statue when no humans are about, surrounded by an attentive circle of raccoons and skunks sitting quietly on their haunches, paws folded properly in front of their tummies, little faces filled with wonder as they listened to tales of animals from a faraway land?

Wordless Wednesday - Weeping

A Tiny Sign of Spring

When the catkins come out on the alders, it's a sure sign that spring is on the way, even though we're supposed to get more snow this weekend.


I can't wrap my mind around all the disasters that have happened around the world in the past several months. I've sent money, care packages, lit candles and said prayers. None of that seems like enough.

If only some enormous miracle could restore all the lost lives, both human and animal, lost and damaged property and land, renewing all the way Spring renews the earth each year...that would be enough.

Sunday Sunsets

Taken at Lake Gregory, CA, November 4, 2010.

Wordless Wednesday - Leaving

Amazon's Kindle

I've had this Kindle for several weeks, but I didn't want to post about it until I was sure I liked it. Well...

It's very easy to use as it comes with a really simple,

easy to understand user's guide.

The one I got is not only Wi-Fi enabled, but also has 3G. I don't actually know what 3G does, beyond that I had to wait until the latest version of Kindle was equipped with it to be included in their coverage area.

You can see at a glance what books you have by going to the home page. I'm not sure yet how many titles it will store on the home pages; so far, I have two pages to access when I click the 'home' button.

Pressing the 'menu' button enables you to turn the Wi-Fi on (I've found the battery charge lasts for 10 to 12 days if I only have the Wi-Fi on when I'm shopping for new books).

You can get free samples of a book to read before you purchase it. There are also many, many books that cost only 99 cents or are totally free! Some books are 'text to speech' enabled, which means that the book will be read to you. That's very handy if I have a migraine, but the quality of the reading is very poor and almost sounds, at times, like it is an electronically generated voice. That's something Amazon could definitely improve.

One feature that I really like is the ability to change the size of the font. You can go from teeny-tiny to huge, with many sizes in between those two to choose from.

The cover has a cool little reading light that pulls up out of the upper right corner. It has two tabs on the inside that slide into two ports on the left side of the Kindle, thus enabling the light to be powered by the Kindle battery. However, I've found that the battery will need recharging much more quickly if I use the reading light.

The screen isn't back-lit and is really easy on the eyes. It's not anti-glare though, so you do have to adjust the way you're holding it if you're reading in a bright, direct light to avoid glare.

When you're not reading, you slide a button on the bottom of the Kindle to put it in 'sleep mode' and this helps extend the battery life also. There are a lot of different pictures of various authors and things that it cycles through each time you put it to sleep.

What I like best about the Kindle is the extremely light weight. I have some medical conditions that are starting to make it very painful for me to hold large, heavy books for more than a very brief time. Kindle solves that problem for me.

But will it ever replace 'real' books for me completely? NEVER. I just love books too much; the scent of them, the texture, the covers (on some), the feeling I get when I open a book that I'm actually stepping into another world. I have no doubt that I'll buy a book in hardcover after I've read it on Kindle just so I can have all those experiences if it's a book that I really love and is available in hardcover. (There are quite a few books that I love that were never released in hardcover. Stupid publishers!)

Of course, good writing will transport me into the world of the book I'm reading, whether it is a 'real' book or a book on Kindle...it's just that the transition is a little easier for me with a 'real' book.