Month: July 2019

Monday Morning | 29 July ’19 #WeekendCoffeeShare

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Weekend Coffee Share is a time to take a break and catch up with old friends and new. The (virtual) teapot is hot, and there’s a new batch of Toddy coffee to share, hot or cold.

Greetings! It’s early morning, here, and I am hoping to get some sort of a post written before everyone else wakes up. The Scampers are still asleep, but they’ll wake up when my husband gets up. He’s volunteered for an extra volunteer shift, after having two 2-hour shifts on Saturday. No such luck! The Scampers woke up, demanding breakfast and an outing.

If we were having coffee together, today, I would show you some more photographs that I have taken since last weekend. The city where we live is once more on the list of Five Worst Cities for Allergy Sufferers, but I have had to quit taking my allergy medication, again, because of its interfering with my ability to concentrate. Hence, all the new photographs on my computer. Reading and writing anything coherent has become difficult.

The excess energy has gone into taking care of some of the yard work, between rain- and thunderstorms. I cleared out most of the alyssum along the south side of the house, making some of the smaller flowers more visible, including tiny flowers, smaller than a fingernail, that look to be miniature Black-eyed Susans. I also cut down the massive vines of False Virginia Creeper that grew back from roots to engulf the reachable portions of the power pole, heading to the transformer and complicating the neighborhood squirrels’ run across our backyard fence to get from one tall tree to the next. We have no trees other than the cotoneaster shrubs, but there are trees in the neighboring yards.

I am happy that you’ve stopped in, today. Looking forward to visiting your Weekend Coffee Share posts!

Hugs & best wishes for your summer,
Lizl

P.S. My thanks to our host, whose Weekend Coffee Share blog post and Link Party can be found HERE at Eclectic Alli’s blog!

Flowers & Raindrops | 20 July ’19 #WeekendCoffeeShare

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Weekend Coffee Share is a time to take a break and catch up with old friends and new. The (virtual) teapot is hot, and there’s a new batch of Toddy coffee to share, hot or cold.

Clover

 

The week has been alternating hot and cold, steamy and morning dew, or wet with thunder and rain. The dehumidifiers and air cleaners are working overtime.

If we were having coffee together, this morning, I would be showing you photos that I have not yet decided to put out on the Internet. My husband and I have been enjoying the novel captures, as we review the files together, pointing out favorites.

Impending Drop
Wednesday: Waterdrop on Edge
Friday: Suspended Water
Thursday: Blue Wild Flax
Tuesday: Birdsfoot Trefoil

 

Sleeping, Now

If we were having coffee together, this morning, I would confess that I have been tired, this week. I missed a night’s sleep, Thursday night. I went outside often for short walks in the back yard. The morning delivered heavy rain, and I could not convince the Scampers to go out before or after breakfast. Not even when I got out the umbrella and stood off the back step, offering them a dry spot to stand in! They became…emphatic, when I tried to force the issue. If our rain didn’t so often come accompanied by wind and lightning, I might consider putting up a canvas pavilion for them in the back yard. Certainly rains often enough to justify that!

I have finished rereading Robin D. Owens’ “Summoning” series (fantasy), which was an odd contrast to Wen Spencer’s “Ukiah Oregon” series. I find myself rereading each series at least once every year or two. Not so often as L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s books, but they have replaced my Pern, Valdemar, and Darkover rereads; with those series, I find myself returning to specific books, rather than reading en masse.

The college’s book club’s first selection, reading The Power of Habit, is finishing up. My conclusions are that (a) I am suspicious of habits in general, and (b) I am quite happy not listening to radio, watching television, attending movies as a form of entertainment, reading magazines or newspapers, and avoiding large groups of people (this last, because of my allergies and fragrance sensitivities). Helpful to experience that self-affirmation, but not useful for sharing in the group wrap-up posts. Their choice for the next selection is a novel, set in Moscow in the 20th century. I think I will spend those few months absorbing Francis Fukuyama’s Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, which I am finding absorbing. Fascinating stuff!

I have written a couple of poems, this week, and I have brought up from the basement bookshelves two of Julia Cameron’s books that I’ve enjoyed in the past — The Sound of Paper and The Right to Write — as my “in between” books for the next two months or so.

I tried to steal some time from the morning’s routine, hoping that the Scampers wouldn’t wake up too soon. Alas! I started this post at 7:42, and am ending it just after Noon. The Scampers have had both breakfast and their midday serving of Greek yogurt.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed your coffee or tea, &c. and the visit. Happy you’ve dropped by!

Hugs & best wishes for your week,
Lizl

P.S. My thanks to our host, whose Weekend Coffee Share blog post and Link Party can be found HERE at Eclectic Alli’s blog!

Summer Blahs | 15 July ’19 #WeekendCoffeeShare

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

Weekend Coffee Share is a time to take a break and catch up with old friends and new. The (virtual) teapot is hot, and there’s a new batch of Toddy coffee to share, hot or cold.

We’re inside with the air cleaner going full blast. I will turn it down, so we can visit more easily. Welcome to my mess! In case you hadn’t noticed, my posts are sparser at this time of year. I do not function during the summers. I am expecting that once again, now that the sun and heat are high, and stuff is in the air, I will continue in this pattern, an annual period of inactivity (seasonal affective disorder [SAD] in reverse).

It’s not that I am “sad”, as in emotionally depressed. Rather, my system does not rejoice in sun and warmth and summer growth and pollen and such. Also, the smoke from outside cooking and the toxic sprays cutting down on the insect life.

I sleep a lot, read when I care to, and try to continue with at least some exercise. I do pretty much quit writing, avoid being around people more than usual, lose track of news and current affairs and the passage of time. I have been known to make notes on poems I might want to write once winter has set in and I’m once more invigorated.

The one passion that continues throughout the year is taking photographs in the early morning and again in the evening as the sun is setting. In the spring and summer, I accumulate many hundreds of photographs of flowers and “critters” in the grass and garden plots around the house. My favorite is the wildflower garden, which I’ve let go wild, this year. the pollinators have showed up, particularly the Syrphidae (hover fly/flower fly/syrphid fly).

Hoverfly

We’ve had more thunder/rainstorms with high winds, this year, and the quackgrass has provided support for the flower stems and hiding places for the insects. This is “year two” for the hollyhocks that are still showing up, although in smaller numbers, in the south side-garden. I have promised Al that I will remove the seeds before they can scatter themselves throughout that area. Hollyhocks are frighteningly invasive and almost impossible to kill. Honeybees love the flowers and often overnight in the huge shelters created by the petals rolling up at the end of the evening.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed your coffee or tea and a visit. Happy you’ve dropped by! I am now going to take another nap before the others in the household wake up.

Hugs & best wishes for your summer,
Lizl

P.S. My thanks to our host, whose Weekend Coffee Share blog post and Link Party can be found HERE at Eclectic Alli’s blog!