Sleepless in Seattle

The blue-ish looking house with all the blue flags behind it is the house that was in the movie Sleepless in Seattle. How do I know this? I believe everything my tour guide tells me. Plus it looked a bit familiar. I hear it's for sale.

Closed on Saturday and Sundays for the Summer

I was in Seattle for a few days last week at the annual convention of the Swedenborgian Church. The convention was on the campus of the University of Washington, which is beautiful! I thought it would be fun to visit the library while I was there but it was closed!

See that little sign on the door? It says closed on Saturdays and Sundays for the summer session.
Darn!

Linseed Road Bird Cafe

The Linseed Road Bird Cafe has been very busy lately. We've had lots of visitors along with the regulars. Recently a pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks has been stopping by for a bite to eat. That's the male on the left of the platform feeder. To the right of Mr. Grosbeak is Mourning Dove, and a LBJ (little brown jobber) and it looks like a chickadee is about to take flight.

Behaving Badly in the Library

The past two times that I've volunteered in Springfield at the Central Library it's been on a Friday when the library is closed. "The library is closed and there are people working?" Yes, there's plenty to do when the library is closed. Since the library is closed it's an opportunity to behave in ways that you normally wouldn't when it's open. Everyone is still professional but since the public won't see us it's time for a more casual wardrobe so out come the cat t-shirts and tie-dye (in my case) and sandals (it is summer after all).

It's also an opportunity to talk loudly and to shout! Libraries aren't as quiet as they used to be but in general we refrain from shouting from the main floor of Rice Hall up to the mezzanine when you're looking for someone. Although, I've seen patrons do this but not librarians. This is what Matthew did yesterday when he was looking for me. I thought it was kind of funny and if he reads this I hope he sees the humor in it too. I was searching the stacks for missing books in the 640s (that's Dewey for cookbooks) when Matthew walked into Rice Hall - a room so large you could fit 2 of my houses in it - and said, "Nancy?" I was a little surprised that he did that. I mean, just walked into the huge room and called my name. But there was NO ONE there and he knew it was okay. Except for the janitor. I knew he couldn't see me so this was my opportunity to seize the silly moment. So I called back as though I was on a mountain top, "I'm up here."

I thought Matthew was just going to tell me that he was going to lunch but then we proceeded to have a somewhat lengthy conversation about the WorldCat.org Facebook application and it's uselessness with him standing on the main floor of Rice Hall and me on the mezzanine sort like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet but not. In the middle of our conversation the janitor started vacuuming but this did not stop our conversation. After about 5 minutes, we wrapped it up and he left for lunch and I went back to the 640s to finish up my hour of searching the stacks for missing books. I actually found quite a few. By the way, Springfield has a lot of cookbooks in their collection.

Muffin Face

I made muffins this morning. I can't report on how they taste yet. I haven't tried one. They're whole wheat with dried cranberries, raisins and chocolate chips. I used a recipe from the Tassajara Bread book. We used to have a clipping from a newspaper article posted on our fridge. The title of the article was "Muffins make people Happy". I don't know where it went to. But this muffin (below), looks a little worried to me.

A worried muffin.

Garden Tour '09

The Friends of the Forbes Library hosts a garden tour in Northampton every year. It's fabulous and I go every year. This year I was fortunate to have Trevor's company. There are 8 gardens on the tour. We started at about 11AM, about an hour later than I was hoping. For some silly reason I had scheduled a 9AM conference call with other members of the Executive Committee of the National Alliance of New Church Women, of which I am Madame President. Actually, it was the only time that everyone could agree on. Anyway, we got started around 11AM, visited 3 gardens and then had a picnic lunch at the Smith College botanic gardens and then saw the rest of the gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day. I look forward to next year's tour.

Because it was a bright sunny day, I mostly took close-up photos of the plants I liked.

Spirea. We saw lots of it in different gardens on the tour.

A big showy peony.

Lion overlooking the hostas.

Clematis. I want some.

Nice place for a nap.

I love roses. I want more.

These roses are lovely.

These are so lovely that I put this photo on my desktop.

This yellow rose is quite lovely too.

This is gorgeous too. Yes, I have a thing for roses.

Jeremiah

If you were born in the '60s, like I was, you might remember a song about a bull frog. I do. We met this one today at one of the spectacular gardens on the Northampton Garden Tour.

Tobacco Barn Mural

I was taking the scenic route through Hatfield the other day when I came upon this wonderful mural painted on the side of an old tobacco barn.

Evidence

The above photo is a footprint on a window ledge on my front porch. Back in April, I bought 5 bags of cocoa shell mulch on sale at the Hadley Garden Center. I wasn't ready to spread it yet so I piled up the bags on the front porch up against the house. I thought they would be safe from hungry critters since it wasn't really food. I've learned not to leave bags of bird seed on the porch. However, cocoa shell mulch apparently smells like food and some hungry critter tried on more than one occasion to break into the bags. I found holes in the bags and mulch on the porch. It wasn't a huge mess so I didn't do anything about it.

This is what I think happened:

Hungry critter comes up on the porch and sniffs around for some something good to eat. Sniffs the cocoa shell mulch. "Chocolate! This is going to be GOOD!"

Hungry critter rips into the plastic bag and starts munching on the mulch.

"This stuff is terrible! This isn't chocolate!"

Hungry critter repeats this routine on several occasions. Remember, their brains are tiny!

Weeks later, I finally spread the mulch. Hungry critter must rely on sloppy birds leaving sunflower seeds on the porch. Didn't like the cocoa shell mulch anyway.