Weather is more like summer, cool mornings followed by warmer late mornings followed by heat, and followed by wind not hard but too much sun to get on the kneeler in order to weed. Somehow I’ll figure out how to do that.
Am able to water the east side of the drive … asparagus, the basil, the rhubarb, and the wisteria start on one of the carport uprights, and sometimes the porch roses and tomatoes before the morning begins to get too hot.
Hummers have come back to the feeder seen out the north window in the living room … one bully and two others.
None of the small birds are coming to the feeder outside the kitchen window after Blue Jays chased them away before I chased the Jays away.
Wait and they will come …
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My copy of “finding Arthur” by Adam Ardrey has arrived. As I said when I first opened it, the reviews said it is extensively footnoted.
That certainly is true although I haven’t counted all of them. Ardrey seems to include Signe Pike as one of the authors among those who name Uther as Arthur’s father and affirm him as the Red Pendragon, the leader of the warriors who defended the southeast borderland of the Scots circa the 5th century AD.
I don’t know how I’ll read Pike’s books, treating them as continuations of the Ardrey book or as stand-alone novels based in part on Ardrey’s book.
The Lost Queen arrived last Wednesday.
I’ll continue to look for an affordable (for me) copy of “finding Merlin” and report on my decision whether to pay the current price or wait until the price comes down. I’d like to find the Merlin book to fill out the “King Arthur” collection, (although not all by the same Author).
Before I moved I felt I needed to find new homes for all of my books, including my Jeffery Ashe collection, not knowing where I would wind up living. Of course, now I wish I’d kept at least those books.
Oh well …
All I can do now is wonder what Jeffery (who was the primary expert on “King Arthur ” when I was at Glastonbury in the early 1990s) would think of Ardrey’s new research and Pike’s fictional take on Arthur.
It could certainly make for an interesting tea with Jeffrey.
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Atara came to visit last Friday and brought me a menorah from Israel small enough to set in my north window. She has a friend who got a similar one for his Mother and plans to add small electric lights to use instead of candles.
I’m going to check with Atara about the lights since I’m getting anxious about any lit candles in my house.
We had a good visit cut short due to the high temps but she’ll be back after the holidays and a family wedding.
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Everywhere around us the pines are dying of pine beetle infestations. It is very sad. But the forest is changing due to climate change.
Pine beetles cause the trees to die beginning in the top and the tree dies from the top down.
We had an infestation several years ago and the place where we lived at the time controlled it by topping the trees and/or dropping the infected tree and quickly burning it.
I’m seeing the same pattern all around here now.
Probably after I’m gone the forest of evergreens … mainly pines, cedars, and firs … will have been replaced by deciduous hardwoods.
In a few years I’ll bet I won’t recognize the “forest” any more.
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Once when George and I were on a road trip the first leg of which was across the California/Arizona border at Yuma Arizona before there was a border crossing station there and I was sweating so profusely that salt was beginning to coat my skin. There was a gas station with a restroom across the road so while George got gas, I went into the restroom to wash off the salt and cool down a little.
Instead I nearly fainted and grabbed the door. Both the station owner and George started running toward me.
I said “I’m fine. Just a bit of heat exhaustion.” but the station owner said “NO it’s a heat stroke and I live just across the street. We have to get her over there. My wife’ll know what to do.”
From then on all I remember is being nearly carried into the house and put on a couch and someone wiping my face and wrists with a cold cloth and someone else trying to make me drink tepid salt water and something about “Not exhaustion … Heat Stroke”.
That’s when I learned the difference between feeling sick and being on the verge of something much more dangerous. Information which later became useful when I was an RN working in the Emergency Department, riding as an ASL responder with the Ambulance, and teaching a First Responder class at the local Community College.
Lessons come in strange places so don’t ignore what seems to be trivial, you never know when it can be life saving.
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Another memory from the past is the classical pianist named Victor Borge who could always make me laugh.
He’ll really turn you on to (or off of) Classical music. You can hear him or see him on You Tube, or you can check on him at 5 hilarious videos from the funniest man in classical music
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And here’s a Sad story …
Thurgood Marshall was the first “Negro” on the US Supreme Court appointed by Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and who died in1993 after retiring from the Court.
He sought to attend his hometown law school, the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, but was told he would not be accepted because of the school’s segregation policy.
Later, as a civil rights lawyer, Justice Marshal sued the school in 1935 over this policy and won.
Once when waiting to catch a train, the Justice had to stand in the section of the station waiting area to enter the “Black Section” of the train and because there was a sign on the toilet’s door saying “No Blacks allowed”, the Justice was forced to stand there and pee in his pants.
On 3 1964 July President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited segregation in public places.
Learning more about that Brave and Honorable man is well worth the time spent to learn from him.
Too bad one of the current Justices doesn’t copy Justice Marshall …
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I don’t think I shared this which I received from Mark, my younger son, but here is a sharing …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPs1Jw8EKZc&ab_channel=CBSEveningNews
Cal Worthington’s commercials were almost more than just selling cars. They were entertainment worth watching, even if you weren’t in the market for buying a car, just to see what kind of pet he would have with him next time.
Have you ever been kissed by a camel?
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To close the week …
Words of wisdom from Chiricahua, a notorious Apache leader 1812-1874
“ I was going around the world with the clouds when God spoke to my thoughts and told me to .. be at peace with all.”
Taken from the entry on 2 July from “365 Days walking the Red Road”
By Terri Jean
And so ‘til next week …