Archive for ‘May, 2015’

Kitchen Window

While it is not the “land of the midnight sun” here at 48 North latitude, at just shy of a month until the summer solstice, we do have plenty of daylight. Sunrise is 5:44 a.m., Sunset is 9:21 p.m. – add the hours of dawn and dusk and there is light in the sky from 5:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.

From now until mid-August, I don’t see the dark of night unless I am up in the wee hours.

The view from my kitchen chair most mornings has been sunshine – beautiful and I enjoy it very much.

But, this morning, I was up shortly after 4:30 and it was still darkish when I sat in the kitchen chair. It was also cool enough for my long fleecy pants which Auggie prefers for our morning snuggle.

So, we enjoyed a bit of morning quiet time in the pre-dawn almost dark and watched the sky lighten and listened to the birds sing their morning songs.

In remembrance

It is Memorial Day here in the United States – a day to remember those that gave their lives in wars the U.S. participated in. When I was a teenager and part of my high school’s marching band, we marched in the Memorial Day parade through our little town of Perrysburg, Ohio and to the cemetery for a service honoring those that died in service. I can’t say that was my favorite band thing to do. It was often hot. Although after one particularly warm year in our regular wool uniforms, the next year we improvised cooler attire. But ultimately, that experience and the ongoing Viet Nam war with all of its angst, cemented a ritual of taking time for quiet reflection and remembrance on this day.

This week, on the cover of the King Arthur Flour catalog was a recipe for American Flag Pie.

Stars and stripes…

Red, white and blue…

An American Flag pie: in remembrance.

As always, I love seeing these two living together so companionably. Today will be spent with them in peace and quiet and reflection. And Pie :) !!

In grateful remembrance: never forgotten. (Photo from May 2010)

End of the week

It was a long … kind of hard/intense work week.

And it got warm-hot…82 F today (Friday 5/22) !!

Oh, yes…I feel just like Auggie looks.

End of the week.

Scenes from Thursday morning

So the skunk visitations continued and even at our “normal” going out time of 7:00 a.m., I kept a watchful eye. This morning I had my camera set to take some video so naturally, no skunk. But as I was waiting and watching, I caught my neighbor’s motion sensitive light go on so kind of wonder if Skunk took a slightly different route this morning.

At any rate, it was another clear and sunny morning: beautiful, but the moisture situation continues on the unusually dry side and NOAA says:

Northwest Montana, however, will likely remain drier than usual for this time of year with no significant systems on the horizon to make up for the recent precipitation deficit.

Rats!!

Still, nothing to do but enjoy what we have and so we did.

In my front yard

15 minutes ago: 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Trotted up the driveway, ate some bugs out of the grass – I’m guessing bugs because they eat bugs – got a drink of water from the front porch water bowl and then trotted around the garage and out into the woods.

I saw as much as I did with time to get the camera and set for low light…because Auggie was on a window sill watching intently so I looked to see what he was watching.

It is a beautiful skunk and they do eat pests and small rodents so we will hopefully stay out of each other’s way.