I correspond with a wonderful ninety-plus year old lady in Australia, born in England, was a Land Girl during WW2, after the war married an Australian and lived the rest of her life in Australia — Daphne Murray. Her husband was governor of New South Wales for a number of years. She wrote me of her memories of D-Day a few years ago:

“I am never going to forget D-Day in June 1944. My father commented at breakfast that there were a lot of planes about and when he went outside he came back indoors shaking. He thought we were being invaded. My mother, always practical, said, ‘Don’t be silly George, they’re ours, they’re going out to sea’. I can still see that great armada heading East, NEast and South East, all at different levels, but moving slowly, a most menacing sight, and the radio was on all day. I had four brothers in the war and three brothers-in-law, we were a fighting family, lots of cousins too.”

I could quote her letters all day but this was important for today.

And as I said last year, I will put up old photos for D-Day of Germans surrendering, because that’s what it was all about.

I met Leland Melvin at the Tucson Literary Festival and he was a delight. He had done many things in his life but this was his first book. Just finished reading it.  Highly recommended.

Also this one: absolutely absorbing.

It’s been a long time since I could not wait to get back to a book. This one has many caveats as to why and how a planet could sustain life and water is only a small part of it. A planet that is ‘tidally locked’ means only one side of it faces its sun, and the consequences of that are explained in ways easy to understand. Radiation is another factor…it’s a great read.

This is kind of funny but also — acerbic.

A lot of visitors and events, at all of which I forgot to get out my cell phone and take pictures. Cousin Susan came to visit and then stepson Jim jr. and DIL Nadine. I borrowed a horse from April Baxter for Susan to ride, and we had a good ride, and then he wouldn’t load. I didn’t get any pictures. I forgot. And then we went to the St. Jo’s dinner with many friends and I forgot again. And then we tried to load that horse to return him to April and he wouldn’t load and I didn’t remember my cell phone was right there.

And then Jim jr. and Nadine and Susan and I went on an arsonists’ binge and burnt all the downed limbs etc. that Jim jr. and I had cut and it was a great interesting fire down in the pasture and again I didn’t bring my cell phone to no pictures.

Then they all went home and I tried to load that horse by myself and he went totally crazy, rearing back against his halter and striking out and I just got out of the way and finally his halter broke and he went galloping down the road, and of course I didn’t think to get a picture.

Then April came today with a helper and we finally got the maniac loaded and no pictures. I forgot.

BUT!! Susan and I visited with June Chism and Wayne and Nancy — June and Nancy had been riding but that was the day we couldn’t get Scout loaded and so we just drove out there for lunch with them — I remembered!! Because they had set a hog trap and had caught about four adults and seven or eight babies. WE went out in June’s Mule to see them. So here’s a picture!!

June and Susan looked fairly alarmed because the hogs were charging the sides of the cage when they saw us, trying to attack. Dogs: the white one is mine, Girl Dog, and June’s part-lab Jackson.

Several seconds pre-charge. Girl Dog was charging back from the other side of the fence despite the fact she just healed up from 12 stitches in her abdomen from being hooked by a wild hog. So we dragged her back into the mule and Susan kept hold of her while I (at last!) had presence of mind to take pictures.

• I am getting a new metal roof on this house and the guys are just outside the study door making noises with huge metal panels and there is thunder in the distance and they are speaking Chihuahuense Spanish of which I can understand very little
•  * They are going to make a movie of News Of The World and Tom Hanks will be the Captain. His production company Playtone had to negotiate with Fox 2000, the script writer is Hugh Davies of Lion so that’s all good.
• *If you need to laugh a lot go to the YouTube video entitled ‘Cats Who Don’t Care About Your Personal Space’, it’s a guarantee.
• My cousin Susan is coming to visit next week, April Baxter is lending me a horse, an older gelding she calls one of her babysitters. So then Susan and I can ride.
• Cats Who Don’t Care About Your Personal Space: This is my cat Grady, as an example. But nowhere near as funny as a kitten getting into a guy’s shorts.

“You will not pay attention to your Kindle. You will pay attention to me. This I command.”

Jakub Rozalski has a great website for his intriguing paintings. Always giant machines in the background, strange half-wolf beings treading through early autumn or late-spring snow, and weirdly indifferent peasants going about their business.

Look him up.

My cat Grady got one of the little wrens. I hate it but animals are animals. The wrens are so audacious and in-your-face, I guess one of them got too close and Grady got it. Little brown-and-black barred feathers on the bathroom rug was all that was left. I put up a gourd in the garage hanging high from a rafter for them, but…

My editor Jen Brehl and her husband Peter Schneider came to visit! Had a barbecue and music gathering. Lights and lightning bugs. It was great. There will be more pictures as soon as I can learn to compress a png pic. file that has too many —- pixels? Anyway photos won’t fit so far, too big, don’t know how that happens but it makes me want to SCREAM.

Jen took this picture.

There aren’t a lot around my place but some. And so the other night I looked down on the floor and there was a green light blinking on and off and I thought it was a message on my phone. It turned out to be a lightning bug, blinking away. It had a message for something somewhere but none that I could decipher.

Happy Easter!

Great service this morning, our Easter anthem went well, I did not trip over my choir robes, the church was packed to overflow which meant a long communion time and we sang our ‘background’ communion songs until we ran through the usual two, stopped in confusion as there were at least 20 more people still coming for communion so then Diane started up ‘One Bread One Body’ on the piano and so we just went right into it.

Lovely day (for me at least) meaning clouds and drizzle. I like it. It’s wet, it’s grassy, it’s moist out there. The wren couple has come back and the roadrunner/chaparral bird is making that mourning noise which means he is looking for a mate. Every year he flies up into a Spanish oak and makes mourning noises. It’s his ‘I’m lonely’ call. A hen bird will soon reply I am sure.

Next week; new sink, plumbing, fallen pumphouse shelter to be hauled off and a new one brought in, landscaping — oy, all the stuff neglected while I was traveling so much. And Buck has lost a shoe.

GOOD FRIDAY     

Take thought, man, tonight. Take thought, man, tonight when it is dark, when it is raining. Take thought of the game you have forgotten. You are the child of a great and peaceful race. You are the son of an unutterable fable. You were discovered on a mild mountain. You have come out of the godlike ocean. You are holy, disarmed, signed with a chaste emblem. Deep inside your breast you wear the number of loss. Take thought, man, tonight. Do this. Do this.

Thomas Merton; from ‘The Early Legends’

It has been years since I’ve seen this and just recently refound it. There was nothing as funny as the old National Lampoon.

Deteriorata – National Lampoon

Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss, and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

Remember The Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you –
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore, make peace with your god,
Whatever you perceive him to be – hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up!