I have a personal epiphany. When I was younger, I thought that I would investigate the world in all of its details: understanding even small things thoroughly. I would understand everything in a "materialistic but spiritual" way. This program was vague, but that is one of the reasons I couldn't finish a degree -- I got distracted by Steve Vogel's biology books, by social network theory, by everything that my actual very narrow dissertation couldn't remotely encompass.

So  here I am: now I am seeing the world through the lens of world languages instead: will this take me to the same place?

I can travel (virtually) through video logs on youTube, I can learn to speak and (especially) read foreign novels - I am free to spend all day working on this -- GO FOR IT!

Finally, a day without rain (I think)

It's been raining here every day for weeks. Looking out my window, it looks like there is no rain today. We'll see.

Home from Charleston.

The Long Winter

Snow, two weeks of almost no school, I just want to see some Birds and Blooms, like the magazine title says.

Long summer, now autumn

The summer is gone now, without any post from me!, and we are back in the fall. So: fall garden, pumpkins, bright sourwood leaves, the smell of smoke from neighbor's chimneys. And we can live outside without mosquitoes and other bugs...

February

Hot and cold; some neighbors have daffodils blooming. We have a plan for the Spring, growing fig trees on one side, maybe a Japanese persimmon, and a hedge of some kind along the back border.

Warm January

It's been oscillating between hot and cold this January; I assume February will be colder, but it's hard to believe it's not Spring. We have a bluebird occasionally; I need to get a bird feeder, squirrel proof, and put out seed.

A new day starts

Listening to Brahms Piano Quartet No. 2, and looking out the window at the woods. Everything that arrives today will make me happy.

Spring will be here tomorrow

Spring is starting with thunderstorms and birdsongs.

Fall is Here

And now I know what the bright tree in our backyard is: a "sourwood" tree, also known as a sour gum.

On using vinyl

Against my better judgement, we *did* use vinyl flooring in our addition, and it was a big mistake: ignoring just the damage to the environment in manufacturing, it has a strong plastic smell that still hasn't dissipated, although I'm assured by the builder that it will, eventually.

House enviornment

By sheer persistence, I've got most of the nutsedge out of the front lawn. Now I need to take care of the back lawn, lots of bamboo grass and other invasive weeds. In the end I need to buy a lot of topsoil and maybe organic fertilizer, and break up the hard surfaces a bit.

On not using vinyl

I want to be sure not to use vinyl in our house addition, as its manufacture creates horrible environmental problems.

Blowing off the leaves

It's probably not very Green, especially since our electricity comes from a nuclear power plant, but I used a leaf blower to clear leaves and debris off our moss today, so that the rain would reach it more easily.

Is it the same fox?

On Halloween night, my younger son and I saw a fox, red at its head and extremities but with a gray body. I don't if it is the same one we saw before.

Hot

It is very hot, in the upper 90's F. And summer has just started. Sigh.

Fox

A red fox is patrolling the area behind our yard; we've seen it several days in a row, once with something in its mouth.

Mulching blower

Got a new leaf mulching mower to try out!

Birds and squirrels

We haven't seen much of small birds and squirrels this winter. I've seen predators like foxes and hawks pretty regularly, so that may be why.

The Moss Garden

The moss gardening continues in the back yard, largely by leaf blower. I took some moss out of the woods (where it would have perished under leaf litter) and made a couple of "container" moss gardens on the front porch.

Earlier in the week, I saw someone digging up some moss on the mossy bank near the woods. I was driving past but should have stopped and asked him whether he was a gardener or botanist.