Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Little things for this little mind!

I'm struggling a bit at the moment, what with the family events and the auto collision, and having to get the car in to the body shop tomorrow and drive a rental, arhrhrh, for a few days.

So I decided that I needed to do simple undemanding things so as not to add to the stress level around here.  Today was farmshare day, so that meant the afternoon was devoted largely to pickup and then processing all the veggies and sharing the ones I can't deal with.  Nothing like chopping and organizing and shoveling into freezer bags and deciding which to eat right away, which to cook later, for occupying your mind  harmlessly.

I delivered eggplant to my neighbors who love it, since I can't seem to learn to digest it, and they fell on it with joy, then sent me home with tonight's dinner -- spicy curry in a container, with several flatbreads, newly cooked as I chatted with them!

Then my evening DVD viewing required something very very low key, no tension nor anguish at all.  Those who've been reading here will realize that this is about a year since HP started to come to the end of his life.  At this time he was in hospice care and our lives were changing forever.  So there are a lot of flashbacks about that, as well as current affairs.  And the sadness of knowing that he would have known just what to say to me right now.

Soooooo, I watched a wonderful children's video "Mouse and Mole" very simple, very funny animation, officially for children, but wonderful for stressed out adults, too. 
Voiced over by Alan Bennett and another Brit actor, equally brilliant.  With Bennett, you can't go wrong, really.  I highly recommend this.  It's as sweet and funny as Wallace and Gromit with fewer special effects.  And it left me in a much calmer frame of mind.

Then I looked out and there were crowds and crowds of tree swallows, barn swallows and many kinds of dragonflies, zooming about over the house.  Which told me there was a great crop of insects to be caught, and I wonder if we will have a storm as promised, if they're flying this low. Wonderful to just watch them.

Speaking of dragonflies, I saw this feller at the Preserve lake the other day, and all my researches have not yielded his species. 
Seems to be a dragonfly (my picture shows the orange dragonfly plus his reflection in the water, a bit confusing at first), judging by the biplane wings and their blunt shape,and if any blogista knows better than I what he is, please let us know.  We have many types of dragonflies in this region, but this is the first bright orange one I've seen, with a black body.


So that's me.

3 comments:

  1. Love the kids' movies. They are hard to beat.

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  2. You sent me off hunting for orange dragonflies! I then remembered how I loved the little blue damselflies when I was a kid spending entire days in the creek below our cabin, and how dragonflies with their 'squishier' bodies were somewhat less adorable. Thank you for the reminder of those lovely summer days!

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  3. Sorry I can't help with the dragonfly identification, but I would think that perhaps - just perhaps - it might be HP coming for a visit. I know, I'm weird, but I would take comfort in it.

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