Joy, of The Joy of Six, and I have met, through the auspices of Ronni, at Time Goes By. We haven’t actually met face to face, but that could happen. Joy and I both live in suburban Chicago.
Joy blogged today about the one year anniversary of her husband’s death, and I encourage you to go read what she had to say.
Just after reading her blog, I found the message below in my mail. It seemed serendipitous, and worth posting.

Continue reading →

On the way to exercise this morning we saw a great blue heron in the conservancy area. I thought we were past the season for herons and egrets, so it was a surprise to see him fishing.
It’s a grey day, lots of clouds and no sunshine, and it’s a bit on the chilly side.
I had intended to cut down spent plants yesterday, and I should have. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday to get into the gardens. It rained this morning, but I think the rain has moved off.
We’ve been waiting for this weekend. It’s time for the annual birdseed sale. On our way home from Indiana two weeks ago, we picked up the black oil sunflower seed. Now we’ll be looking for the seed that draws the woodpeckers, cardinals, and blue jays. We’d like to encourage the juncos, the nuthatches and the chickadees, too. Cop Car says we have an overabundance of sparrows and house finches. They are pushy at the feeder, so everyone has to fight to get to the seed.
As soon as the raccoons go into hibernation, we’ll start filling the silo feeders with chipped sunflower hearts. Until the raccoons snooze, there’s no point in putting out the silos because they climb the crook that holds the silo and bring everything down.
After the windows have been washed, I plan to put up more of the translucent “leaves” that came from the Nature Conservancy. They help the birds to realize that they are flying toward windows, rather than open space.
One of our contractors shared them with Dear Husband, and they’ve been a great gift.

The class lived through another day of my leadership at exercise. All but one of the songs that we work to went well. The cardio song is a medley of Four Seasons hits. It goes on forever, and the changes and steps are difficult. Inevitably, I get lost somewhere along the way and we march and pump our arms a lot.
Dragon Lady has a lot of faith to leave her class in my hands. I may make some changes to the routine before Wednesday to see if we can’t get through the session with fewer pauses to laugh. *G*