What's more lovely than a day in June

Today was triple A. Weather sunny, low humidity, in the 70s.  Neighbor ran over early, toast in hand, to tell me he was in heaven with the plum jam. "I'm LOADING  it on the muffin, look!" Evidently he liked it. 

Then I listed on Freecycle an HP inkjet printer in its original box, my unused backup, worked last time I tried it. Complete with cables, installation instructions etc. 

Picked up by afternoon by a lady for her special needs students to use. Everybody happy. I fervently hope it works for them. 

Then off for  ice cream at the local hand dipped place, first in two years. Butter pecan. Single scoop. Sugar cone.

Served at the window, benches outside to sit and enjoy.

Off to the park

And a stroll by the lake, hundreds of darners ( brilliant blue slender dragonflies), mating joyfully in flight, attending to what I think is a nursery, clear jellylike material floating at the surface, they're prodding at it, l have to learn about this. Also beautiful ginger colored tiny dragonflies. We are blessed with many species.

Here's how it was today. The bench is where Handsome Partner and I used to come and sit while he could still manage a few steps, and where much later I came after making arrangements for his cremation, at the funeral home a short distance from here. 

I've also come here to draw and paint with an artist friend now gone. But it's not a sad place, just a quiet one, with good memories. I also did a couple of hilarious photo shoots with the Dollivers here modeling little black dresses while hugging trees. Speaking of trees

 if you love woodland fairy tales and fantasy, this might be a habitat for gnomes.

Home to chat with neighbors and read Persuasion. Waiting on a couple of library DVD productions of it. Yes, of course the Ciaran Hinds version is one of them. Obligatory.

In the middle of the reading and chatting, a hefty man with a ladder showed up asking if I would let him clear the gutters. Another big guy doing good work around here.

Evidently they're clear, good. I wasn't aware of a problem anyway. He put back my furniture and departed with the ladder, and I continued with the history of the Elliots and their impending move to Bath. 

Captain Wentworth (Ciaran Hinds in my mind, hush up) hasn't made an appearance yet but Anne's all of a doodah already about the prospect.

She might not be the only one..

House Cleaner day adventures

The house cleaners were back today, so it was once more time for me to figure out an adventure to have so as to leave the house to them, without being underfoot while they go through the place like a family of whirlwinds.

Bitterly cold, also windy, not conducive to nice strolls, and it was grey out when I was making plans, not conducive to feeling like going out at all.  But still she persisted.  And I realized I still had not done the Annual Witchhazel Hunt.

Ah, here's a good thing to do, I thought. Usually I walk there, since it's on the edge of a local park, where the bus shelter is, which structure may account for its survival after a lot of severe weather.

But nowadays in extreme cold, that's a bit too far to walk. But why not drive there on my way to other destinations, self, I asked myself.  Parking lot right there.  And I did, and found that I was not quite too late to catch some of it in bloom.  I was a bit late to the party, since usually the first or second week of January is the best time.  But, as you see, I did score a couple of twigs, and scurried back to the car to get warm again.

I noticed that I'd got two species. Witchhazel grows a bit like forsythia, masses of branches coming up from the ground in parallel, so this may be two species that are just growing as close neighbors.  I picked the twigs off what appeared to be one bush.

And you'll see one set of yellowish flowers, one of the classic red wild starburst design.  You'll see how tiny these are, imperceptible if you don't know they're there. And you can see further down the stem, the bell-like shapes that appear after the flowers have blossomed and gone.  The flowers will smell interesting once they get warmed through in the house. It's always such a treat to find flowering shrubs in the depths of the winter, and this winter definitely has its depths, what with one thing and another.

Then came a couple of dull errands, dvd back to the library, Target for a couple of vital things I forgot to ask Handsome Son to pick up, including paper tape, that invention that people are now using to tape the top of the face mask so as to avoid fogging up your glasses.  This is very important right now, since as soon as I leave the house, the glasses, warm from the house, fog over instantly, and it's not just fog.  It's almost instantly ice, which is a different thing to get rid of.  Not good for driving.

Anyway, after that, off to find new views, and I decided to go up to Cranbury, since I was halfway there already, left Target by the back way, headed up a country road, to the old village of Cranbury where half the houses are Revolutionary period, complete with plaques to prove it, and the graveyard holds locals for three centuries. Including the person who was the first traffic fatality in the region.  Fell out of his carriage after a very good day's trading and celebrating in Philadelphia, a real own goal if ever there was one, he probably thought as the wheels passed over his helpless form.  Poor guy.

Anyway, that's for another time when the weather's nice enough to stroll about and take pictures for your viewing pleasure.  Today I thought it would be good to watch moving water with sun sparkling on it.

So I went here, the park on the banks of Brainerd Lake, moving water, complete with all kinds of ducks and fishing birds.  Many diving ducks today, too far for good pictures, but the very good part about this place is that you can sit in your car with a perfect view. There are benches near the water, where I like to go to and read in good weather.  

Handsome Partner, after he had lost a lot of mobility, loved to come here, and I could help him do just the few yards from car to bench where he could enjoy being out of the house, and with plenty to see on and around the water.

And this is where I came to sit after I'd made the arrangements after his death, at the funeral home just a few yards from the park.  It was a calming and helpful place that day, as well as many others.

I hadn't planned on birds today, so I didn't have my binoculars with me, so I'll have to look up the waterbirds by memory.  I think there were coots and some other species, all swimming together.

I came home to a clean house, feeling much better about everything.  Amazing what a bit of sunshine and fresh air, however frigid, will do for a person.