there are two doors now

and this is the mudroom/entryway

a large garden shed

built with trusses salvaged

from the house re-build

and roofing from his old milk house

we've found turtle alley

a place where the road

skirts a large marsh

and turtles use this spot

to lay eggs

all patterning thanks to turtles

some of these turtles are quite large

and there is some record of agitation

and annihilation

i saw one huge raccoon

happily feeding at the end of the strip.

not too bothered by me, but it did

eventually

slip off.

the juneberry is shedding

a few leaves

and is producing the first bird food

at the new place;

also strawberries,

the amish have them coming on.

out the window by the beaver dam

a whitetail nibbles

new water plants

a fertile crescent

these drifts of pale yellow

are pollen

so many trees are flowering

and the northern forest

is rich.

this was my desk thursday

royalty visited,

or was it lori

the best teacher assistant in the world

who brought me a little bit of spring

for joy and then for printing.

monday after school

i leave for a workshop

with dorothy caldwell.

i am so happy!

you may have caught on to my passion for books (ha!) but maybe not to my passion for field guides and natural history books. old ones, especially. the dedication of natural historians amazes me. they take their time. they look. they listen. they look and listen more. they record with pencil and paints.

at school we take the students to job sites three times a week. one of our sites is a library. each year we help with the friends of the library book sale, we sort, arrange, and after it's over box potentially salable books and throw away many, many others. it's painful to throw books out. i retrieve a few that the library is happy to donate to us. and i'm happy any time a student wants a book. (maybe they'll read it.)