Kate's old friend, Tina, came to visit and took this picture of Kate and me in the kitchen. Tina used to live here when Kate had the School of Fish, and she painted Caleb's room white and tan. I might paint my kitchen new colors this summer. Last summer Jake refinished the floor. It's now gleaming hardwood but doesn't show in this picture.

STINKY AND BAILEY

Here are Stinky and Bailey, left and right, in Oregon, where they live with Zack and Rachel and Cassius. Stinky is kind of old and lame, but Bailey is a big strong boy. Stinky is a GOOD DOG. Bailey is a GOOD DOG. Both Stinky and Bailey are GOOD dogs. Tomorrow I'm going to fly out to see them.

My first daffodils bloomed before the end of February. On the 26th I picked seven to bring indoors for the dinner table. We ate roast lamb and potatoes with garlic and rosemary, and green beans. Also blooming are crocus and now, March 4, tiny daffodils and a miniature iris, and lovely varied pansies. The forsythia is beginning, too, and the winter honeysuckle, that which I haven't hacked off, is in bloom

Here's my dispan. Summer plastics make me happy.

NATURE COMMUTE

NATURE COMMUTE


I commute to work eight miles or so down a fairly lovely two lane road that passes under the Blue Ridge Parkway, so close over head that you could almost touch it, as it looks from a car. The roadside is being developed with more condos, small plazas, views of new office buildings.  But to the west are intermittent views of the Blue Ridge as it heads off southeast.  On clear days you can see Mt. Pisgah being nibbled by the Rat.
When you drive the same route every day, you can go on auto-pilot and listen to npr while your subconscious driver “George” watches out for lights, schoolbuses and tailgaters.  You can  glance at the views or ignore them.  But there’s more nature to see at closer hand if you keep your eyes open.  The other day I noticed three things  on my commute.
At the Rock Hill Rd. intersection two large flocks of birds were lifting off from the overhead wires, swirling in their Escher-like ballet, one from the leftside, one from the right, each flock shifting, turning in Moebius twists and changing shades of grey, then resettling on another pole.  All of this happened as I slowed down for the cars at the changing light.
On the long slope up to the Parkway, the parallel lines of electric wires were bejeweled with spider webs, ballooning and swaying in the air, made visible by droplets of fog on every strand of every web.  As I drove I passed miles of  spider webs above the commuters.
Coming down the slope I looked out past the clearing made for the new office building, the gap where you can look at the stores and traffic of the U.S. highway that parallels your road, or you can look beyond, to the Blue Ridge.  This morning the Ridge was invisible, and a dark ribbon of a tree topped lower and nearer ridge was the only mountain view, lying atop a landscape of white fog that had settled over the French Broad River Valley.