Adirondack afternoon

Trees sway in a clear breeze stripped of its humidity by the passing cold front.
The rains lift, the clouds part, and the sun spreads a golden glow.
Moisture, like tiny prisms, colorful sparkles on pine boughs.
A cheerful robin, perched in a  nearby maple, cheeps and clucks.
Deep in the woods, thrushes join in post-rain melodies.
Butterflies emerge and flit among the sweet milkweed blossoms.
A landscape alive with growth and promise.

A cold November day

January 1, 2016

The first day of the new year didn't so much dawn as it oozed into existence, the heavy cloud cover preventing anything remotely resembling a sunrise. A nearly invisible snow was falling, so fine that 24 hours of snowfall has yet to yield more than a dusting on the ground. Even the motionless trees, bare tangles of branches against the featureless sky, showed no sign of putting on a hint of sparkle for winter, for the new day, or the new year. In spite of all this, the dog stuck her cold, wet nose under the covers in a cheerful attempt to rouse me from my grumbling slumber. No sleeping in with Sadie on the job.

And so I ponder: What is a new year to a dog? For that matter, what is a new day? It seems a dog can tell time of sorts, sensing when a mealtime is past or, more dramatically, waiting for the regular arrival of a family member at the appointed hour. Even our own biological clocks have a way of waking us before the alarm goes off. But knowing it is time for something is not the same as knowing that time has past. Perhaps, to the dog, life is only periods of sleeping and waking, night time and day time, with no sense of what came before or what is to come, interspersed with periodic alarms that signal when it is time to be fed or to greet the children when the bus drops them off from school. How odd it must seem to the dog when those children head off to college and their appearance no longer fits any discernible pattern in their timeless existence.

Perhaps that is why Sadie has developed such separation anxiety. Just the slightest hint of a suitcase being packed and she will dart out of the door at the earliest possible instant, run into the garage and scamper excitedly between the cars, looking back at me to see which vehicle door will be opened to admit her wiggly bottom. It is the saddest part of leaving the Adirondacks for my job in Connecticut, that look of grief in Sadie's eyes as if to ask, "Why are you leaving me again? Haven't I loved you enough?" when I scoot her back into the house and close the front door between us. Standing on her hind legs, her front paws and nose just reach the bottom of the window as she stares mournfully out at my receding figure. Or maybe she just wants to go for a ride and I only project my own sense of loss onto her seemingly baleful expression.

But, all that is for another day. Today, at this moment, she only knows I have slept in beyond her breakfast and it is time for me to crawl out of the warm cocoon of my bed and feed her. And, I, human, am alone left to ponder my own mortality with the passage of time through the greying of my beard and aging of my offspring.

 

Posted with Blogsy

My rant: GoDaddy Junk Mail Filters Suck! (As does their customer support)

I have a hosted domain and upgraded email through GoDaddy. I've noticed that even with Spam Filters turned on, I get tons of SPAM - nothing is getting blocked. When I called GoDaddy tech support, they said if I purchased Private Domain Listing, all this would go away. However, all my email addresses hosted by GoDaddy are full of unfiltered SPAM, not just the one listed on my WhoIS domain listing.

I've been going through all my hosted email accounts on GoDaddy, even my non-public and catch-all addresses, and the inboxes are ALL full of SPAM, even with filtering turned on. Nice job, GoDaddy, for making my email addresses useless.

So, customer support didn't solve the issue. They only tried to upsell me an additional service! I guess the hundreds of dollars I've spend per year on GoDaddy services just isn't enough. And doesn't rate real customer service.They don't even have customer service via email anymore - guess they were getting too much SPAM (ha!)!.

My advice to you: use gmail and gmail business services for your email addresses. I'll be leaving GoDaddy as soon as possible.

Fuel the Fire

Life
Does not come to he who waits.
Life
Simply passes by.
 
Ninety five percent
Is not one hundred.
That special spark
Will not blaze on it's own.
 
You must fuel the fire
With your heart's desire.

Posted with Blogsy

Being a Me

It's a weird thing being a me
Wrapped up in this squishy body,
Looking out at the world.
It's interesting that the best times we have
Are those that take us out of ourselves,
Outside of the Me.
 
It leads me to believe that somewhere, outside of me,
Is a universe of life and love.
And the more we can experience here, in life,
Outside of me,
Brings us closer to the universal Us where we belong.

Posted with Blogsy

Morning wind

With new leaves sprouting
The morning wind takes on a new sound.
Gone is the clacking of bare limbs,
Replaced by the sighing of feathered branches.

 

Posted with Blogsy

10 PM Spring Evening in the Adirondacks

Spring in the Adirondacks
Full moon washes the stars from the deep indigo blue sky
A robin flees from her nest as I walk across the deck
In the distance, spring peepers call from the bog
As a woodcock peeps from a tree then launches into it's twittering spiral
Seeking the avian equivalent of love and romance

Thanksgiving Settling In

It is really starting to feel like the holidays around here. The wood stove has been going non-stop and the house is filled with toasty, dry warmth. The landscape is coated in a white frosting of snow. Mathew is home from college.

We've stocked the house with fixings for our traditional Thanksgiving day full of appetizers and a sumptuous Turkey dinner. Things are mostly tidied up in expectation of our cooking frenzy and the arrival of our special guest, Wilbert Gamble, our new pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Saranac Lake. We were one of two families offering hospitality should the weather prevent him from heading home. So he is spending time early afternoon tomorrow with Grant and Cindy Besio and then joining us at four. How he'll manage two Turkey dinners I do not know. And he is going to miss out on our all day snacking, which he admits is a tradition in his family as well.

Wilbert started attending our church about a year ago and frequented the early Praise Service where I am music minister. He has a great interest in learning guitar. And though I have told him I am not good at giving lessons, it is a frequent topic of discussion with him, with hints dropped frequently after the Sunday service. Perhaps I'll pull our a few guitars while hemisphere and give him a few pointers. Wilbert is teaching himself a classical style of playing but he wants to learn the mix of chording and flat picking that I tend to use.

For snacks, we are planning our traditional affair of smoked oysters, olivada (sort of a black olive pâté, simply black olives, garlic and pine nuts), roasted red peppers (marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and basil) and guacamole. I may have my stuffing in a hot dog roll that my mom started me on as a hungry teenager. I used to help,her make stuffing, as we pushed celery and onions through a hand grinder to make the base. Mom has since switched to a blender, while we use the nice 7 quart Quisinart I purchased over the summer (best investment we ever made).

The holidays are a nice time of year. I get pulled out of my fall depression by loving thoughts of family and memories of holidays past. I think of my childhood holidays and wonder what memories we have instilled within the hearts and minds of our two children. I hope they are rich enough to last their lifetimes, as seem to be mine.

I wish all my friends and family a Thanksgiving holiday filled with love and the melding of wonderful new memories with those of thanksgivings past.

Father to Son

A link unbroken
Father to son
A love unspoken
Father to son

Sidney to Ray
Ray to Michael
Michael to Mathew
Father to son

Soul Insights now on sale as paperback at Amazon.com

Soul Insights is now available in paperback for $12.95 at Amazon.com (currently on sale for $12.30 and eligible for Amazon Prime)

Soul Insights is also available as a Kindle book for $6.95 • Get your free Kindle Reader App

105 people took advantage of my free Kindle copy promotion.

Visit my author page on amazon at http://amazon.com/author/cedareden  and goodreads at http://goodreads.com/cedareden

I would appreciate reviews on amazon.com and goodreads.com

Wind Carrying a Memory

The sound of the wind, blowing through bare trees
Takes me back to Gilmanton.
I see the memory now, as an observer:
A small wooden table in Nana's garage,
Painted white and pastels, handcrafted by Grampy.

We sit, two small children, in tall chairs, feet swinging.
My sister, Thia, across the table,
Bowl-cut blond hair and happy concentration,
Coloring with crayons on large sheets of paper.

Looking out through the open door
Down the driveway to the thick forest across the street
The wind deeply sighing through the pines
Frightened by small-child thoughts
Of what lies hidden in the wilderness.

Safety just a few steps away
Through a homemade screen door with its long, squeaking spring
Don't let it slam shut as you enter the narrow hallway
Filled with the smell of fried doughnuts and baking beans,
Spices and baking and clean.
The smells of love,
The smell of Nana.

Soul Insights now available as Paperback

My new book, Soul Insights, is now available in paperback for $12.95 at CreateSpace http://goo.gl/pQ7fej and will soon be available as paperback on amazon.com (it takes up to 5 days to list).

Soul Insights is also available as a Kindle book for $6.95 at http://goo.gl/OgLpIB

105 people took advantage of my free Kindle copy promotion.

Visit my author page on amazon at http://amazon.com/author/cedareden  and goodreads at http://goodreads.com/cedareden

I would appreciate reviews on amazon.com and goodreads.com

Soul Insights free for Five Days

My new book, "Soul Insights: Poems for Contemplative Meditation for Christians Bridging the New Age" will be available for the Kindle FREE for five days starting Friday Oct 18, after which it will be available for $6.95. Visit http://goo.gl/OgLpIB

Amazon Prime members can borrow the book NOW for FREE.

FYI, you can get the Kindle reader app FREE for your iPhone, iPad, Android device, PC, MAC, or Blackberry at http://goo.gl/K4XnOg

Soul Insights now available for Kindle

My new book, "Soul Insights: Poems for Contemplative Meditation" is now available for Kindle at
http://goo.gl/OgLpIB

What if 95% of your life was spiritual and 5% daily existence, instead of the other way around, as you live it now? It is a choice that takes as much diligence as any other life choice. The reward is peace, comfort, oneness with the Spirit. This book provides contemplative poetry for meditation and devotion, transcribed messages from the Holy Spirit.

The Garden

Annual cicadas buzz in the early light
Dew sparkles across the lawn
The heady smell of lilies blooming by the cabin
Corn tassels tremble in the slightest breeze
Releasing their pollen to drift across fresh pink silk

A dark and silent night

Above,
An obsidian sky,
Stars cold and steady.

Below,
Not a breeze stirs,
Not a single insect calls.

My Life's Theme Songs - age 14 to present

These are the theme songs of my life, arranged in chronological order by approximate age. Some day I may explain each one - the reasons are not as apparent as you might think.
Age 14 - The Joker, The Steve Miller Band
Age 18 - I'll Be Home, Randy Newman
Age 22 - She Blinded Me with Science, Thomas Dolby
Age 23 - The Coldest Night of the Year, Bruce Cockburn
Age 24 - The Boys of Summer, Don Henley
Age 25 - Holding Back the Years, Simply Red
Age 29 - Following, The Bangles
Age 30 - Manic Monday, The Bangles
Age 35 - You Were Mine, Dixie Chicks
Age 40 - Lord of the Starfields, Bruce Cockburn
Age 45 - All The Ways I Want You, Bruce Cockburn
Age 46 - Closer to Believing, Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
Age 46 - Lend Your Love to Me Tonight, Greg Lake (ELP)
Age 47 - Someone I Used to Love, Bruce Cockburn
Age 49 - Overkill (Acoustic), Colin Hay
Age 50 - Deepest Part of Me, Dougie MacLean
Age 51 - Beautiful World, Colin Hay
Age 52 - Waiting for My Real Life to Begin, Colin Hay

That weed is not a giant dandelion!

This summer I noticed what looked like a bunch of giant dandelion seed heads on the side of the field near our mail box. But it isn't a dandelion at all. What I was looking at we're the seed heads of Salsify or Goatsbeard. Tragopogon is a genus of flowering plants in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). Some species, such as the Purple Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) have edible taproots. The young shoots and leaves can also be eaten. According to Wikipedia, the taste of Purple Salsify root .is described as having the taste of oysters (hence the alternative common name "oyster plant" for some species in this genus), but more insipid with a touch of sweetness."

I'll have to keep a watch out next spring to see this plant in bloom so I can figure out what species we have growing along our roadside.






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Photos copyright Michael R. Martin
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragopogon for more information

The Crab Spider - expert camouflage but for what purpose?

The female crab spider is a master of camouflage, with the ability to switch its color to match the flower on which it sits over a period of several days. The one we commonly see blending into flowers is of the genus Thomisus. Now scientists are wondering why they bother.

Science News (reported by Wired Magazine) reports that "Contrary to the textbook scenario, though, a white spider on a white flower doesn’t catch more prey than a white spider moved to a yellow flower, researchers report online November 3 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Nor does a yellow spider on a yellow flower get a color-coordination bonus, says study coauthor Rolf Brechbühl of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He and his colleagues reached this conclusion after videotaping some 2,000 occasions when an insect buzzed over to a flower that held a spider. Sitting on a bloom ready to pounce on pollinators, the spider supposedly shifts to match her background by switching between white and yellow. To human eyes, she looks as if she’s becoming harder for her prey to see."

"Another possible direction — protection from the spider’s own predators — also doesn’t look encouraging in the new study. Brechbühl says that his research focused on spider prey, but he points out that all this videotaping took place in a field with plenty of birds and other possible menaces around. Even though he frequently moved spiders to flowers of the wrong color, he recorded only one predator (a bird) nabbing a spider."

So, once again, nature amazes and confounds us. But it sure is beautiful and wonderful.
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Credits: Photo copyright Michael R. Martin
Article quotes: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/spider-color-changing-mystery/