My mind still wanders the globe, even while my feet accept their failure to comply with the tingle of desire to rise and flee to horizons beyond the walls.
I'm reminded of how I snickered when I first watched the TV commercial..."I've fallen and I can't get up". The last time I tried to sit on the ground and plant some spring flowers flashes in the mind's eye...it isn't a laughable recollection.
The oldest member of the Gang of Four has gotten so infirm, her hind legs no longer hold the spring for jumping up to counter tops, laps or comfy chairs,and her meow has been reduced to small squeaks of protest at her limitations. We sit in a chair now, catching naps, musing about the rainbows and robins we followed once.
Seems like only yesterday.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Soggy Sunday
Found this tune by Neko Case...
I'm sorry to say it's better than the original Buffy Ste. Marie video I found, but delighted that Case's cover of the song is very well done. I used to sing this before I lost the range and the voice; it's still a favorite and so is the incomparable Buffy.
Neko is worthy of a music lover's ear...so I'll go find some more of her stuff. My heart's big enough for both artists.
Hope you're all getting ready for an Irish feast...
I'm sorry to say it's better than the original Buffy Ste. Marie video I found, but delighted that Case's cover of the song is very well done. I used to sing this before I lost the range and the voice; it's still a favorite and so is the incomparable Buffy.
Neko is worthy of a music lover's ear...so I'll go find some more of her stuff. My heart's big enough for both artists.
Hope you're all getting ready for an Irish feast...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Budgies for sale.
Budgies For Sale
On Saturday there was a bird cage on the counter in the pet-food shop. Inside was a budgerigar. A blue one. There was a handwritten sign. It said; Budgies For Sale £10.
I owned a budgie years ago. It was a yellow and green one. It belonged to my aunty. She died and I had it. It screeched like you wouldn’t believe.
The sign implied that there was more than one budgie for sale but there was only one in the cage. The shop is small and full of pet food smells. The walls are crowded with shelves filled with anything and everything to do with pets but they don’t ordinarily sell the actual pets. Sometimes it’s interesting to look at all the products while you wait to be served but today the blue budgerigar was something new to look at.
It was a good-sized cage. The budgie was chirping softly. It looked content. It had everything it needed inside the cage.
“I was hoping it would go by today,” the woman said.
My wife and I were admiring the budgerigar. We were buying wild bird seed to put in the garden for the sparrows.
This woman in the pet shop never smiles or says hello to us. She doesn’t usually have much to say about anything. I don’t know if this is how she is with everyone. I wasn’t listening at first and then I realised she was still talking and it was the most I’d ever heard her say.
I think another customer had asked if she planned to take the bird home with her for the weekend. Tomorrow was Sunday and the shop was closed.
“I can’t be bothered to carry it all the way round to the car park,” she said to us. “Then take it home and bring it back on Monday.”
She said she planned to put some extra water and seed in the cage and stand it by the small back window so the bird would have some sunshine. She would have to take the calendar down from the window first. The small window was set deep in the wall and guarded with thick bars. It looked out on the bare brick wall of the next property only a few feet away. I think she might have been hoping we’d feel sorry for the bird and buy it and take it off her hands. But it’s hard to know what people are thinking when they tell you things and she might not have intended that at all.
She was looking at the bird as she talked. We’d paid for the wild bird seed by then.
I said the bird would be all right as long as it had plenty of food. My wife agreed and the woman nodded.
“I might leave the radio on for company for it,” she said.
It was a nice looking bird. Looking at it made you wish you could buy it and take it home and give it a name but we couldn’t afford ten pounds for a budgie and if we hadn’t seen it there we would never have thought about buying one.
It would probably cost about fifty pounds altogether by the time you bought a cage and a water bottle to clip to the bars. You’d have to buy seed and sand sheets for the floor of the cage. I know from experience that wherever we decided to put it at home there would soon be seeds and feathers on the floor. Also, the novelty of owning a pet soon wears off. These were all things to be taken into consideration when buying a budgerigar and I considered them and mentioned them to my wife when we had left the shop.
I have a picture now in my mind of a blue budgerigar in a cage in the small window at the back of the pet-food shop. It’s Sunday and the shop is closed and still and the lights are turned off. There’s no one there. The budgie is looking out of the window but there’s nothing to see.
On Saturday there was a bird cage on the counter in the pet-food shop. Inside was a budgerigar. A blue one. There was a handwritten sign. It said; Budgies For Sale £10.
I owned a budgie years ago. It was a yellow and green one. It belonged to my aunty. She died and I had it. It screeched like you wouldn’t believe.
The sign implied that there was more than one budgie for sale but there was only one in the cage. The shop is small and full of pet food smells. The walls are crowded with shelves filled with anything and everything to do with pets but they don’t ordinarily sell the actual pets. Sometimes it’s interesting to look at all the products while you wait to be served but today the blue budgerigar was something new to look at.
It was a good-sized cage. The budgie was chirping softly. It looked content. It had everything it needed inside the cage.
“I was hoping it would go by today,” the woman said.
My wife and I were admiring the budgerigar. We were buying wild bird seed to put in the garden for the sparrows.
This woman in the pet shop never smiles or says hello to us. She doesn’t usually have much to say about anything. I don’t know if this is how she is with everyone. I wasn’t listening at first and then I realised she was still talking and it was the most I’d ever heard her say.
I think another customer had asked if she planned to take the bird home with her for the weekend. Tomorrow was Sunday and the shop was closed.
“I can’t be bothered to carry it all the way round to the car park,” she said to us. “Then take it home and bring it back on Monday.”
She said she planned to put some extra water and seed in the cage and stand it by the small back window so the bird would have some sunshine. She would have to take the calendar down from the window first. The small window was set deep in the wall and guarded with thick bars. It looked out on the bare brick wall of the next property only a few feet away. I think she might have been hoping we’d feel sorry for the bird and buy it and take it off her hands. But it’s hard to know what people are thinking when they tell you things and she might not have intended that at all.
She was looking at the bird as she talked. We’d paid for the wild bird seed by then.
I said the bird would be all right as long as it had plenty of food. My wife agreed and the woman nodded.
“I might leave the radio on for company for it,” she said.
It was a nice looking bird. Looking at it made you wish you could buy it and take it home and give it a name but we couldn’t afford ten pounds for a budgie and if we hadn’t seen it there we would never have thought about buying one.
It would probably cost about fifty pounds altogether by the time you bought a cage and a water bottle to clip to the bars. You’d have to buy seed and sand sheets for the floor of the cage. I know from experience that wherever we decided to put it at home there would soon be seeds and feathers on the floor. Also, the novelty of owning a pet soon wears off. These were all things to be taken into consideration when buying a budgerigar and I considered them and mentioned them to my wife when we had left the shop.
I have a picture now in my mind of a blue budgerigar in a cage in the small window at the back of the pet-food shop. It’s Sunday and the shop is closed and still and the lights are turned off. There’s no one there. The budgie is looking out of the window but there’s nothing to see.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
From the Great Falls Tribune...This is cool
...in my opinion. I've tried to pay attention to this project. A bunch of my rellies were pioneers round that part of the country, and slowly as I get more information I'm hoping to visit these areas some more before I kick over the traces. Wonderful country over in that part of Montana. If you want, click on the blog title for the full article.
Van Jamison, vice president of Gaelectric, stands southeast of Fort Benton at the Frenchmans Ridge site, where the company is planning to build a wind farm. Gaelectric is planning to develop three other sites, including one south of Havre.
Company eyes compressed-air energy storage
Ireland-based Gaelectric said last week that it was planning to construct a $282 million compressed-air energy storage plant in the salt caverns beneath the Antrim coast in Ireland.
In Montana, Gaelectric, which has an office in Great Falls, continues to conduct feasibility studies of building a CAES plant at two unnamed sites, Gaelectric's Van Jamison said.
At CAES plants, cheaper off-peak power is used to compress air into underground storage reservoirs, Jamison said. During times of peak demand, the stored air is released and used to generate power.
CAES facilities will give wind developers, who are beholden to an intermittent power source, a readily available supply of "firming" power when the wind isn't blowing, Jamison said.
"What storage does is allows you to stock your shelf so you actually have inventory," Jamison said.
More details
Gaelectric is working with landowners and testing the wind in preparation for four Montana wind farms. The company is considering using 3-megawatt turbines in some instances. The turbines at Judith Gap are 1.5-megawatts. The four projects are:
A 180-turbine wind farm between Judith Gap and Harlowton;
A 45-pole facility called Frenchmans Ridge southeast of Fort Benton on the northern foothills of the Highwood Mountains;
A 62-pole wind farm called Tiger Ridge near the Bear's Paw Mountains south of Havre; and
A 34-turbine Pine Ridge project between Billings and Hardin.
— Karl Puckett
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Well...geez...
It would be nice to hear from some Contributors...or even a follower...
I know the weather is total GAK nearly everywhere, and people can be busy...and all the usual n' sundry reasons that people have for not keeping in touch, but I'm runnin' on empty here too, and to never read anybody but myself is really losing my interest...y'know? I'm even running out of depressing thoughts to expand into a sentence or two.
Wild Women's Wednesday is coming up on the 11th here. Any idea what costume would work for a Mardi Gras theme? I thought I could go with a dab of ash on my forehead, my hair dishevelled and soaking wet, but I'm afraid that humor might be lost on the Valley girls. I could sing "Looking for a Home", but that might be OTT too, but the cost would be negligible
I know the weather is total GAK nearly everywhere, and people can be busy...and all the usual n' sundry reasons that people have for not keeping in touch, but I'm runnin' on empty here too, and to never read anybody but myself is really losing my interest...y'know? I'm even running out of depressing thoughts to expand into a sentence or two.
Wild Women's Wednesday is coming up on the 11th here. Any idea what costume would work for a Mardi Gras theme? I thought I could go with a dab of ash on my forehead, my hair dishevelled and soaking wet, but I'm afraid that humor might be lost on the Valley girls. I could sing "Looking for a Home", but that might be OTT too, but the cost would be negligible
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