I must confess I stole the following quote from Adams woman...thanks C!

Today is Marica0701's Birthday....She's an AWESOME person...Go wish her a Happy Birthday

Have a great week and Happy Forth of July in case I don't have time to tell you on Thursday!

ilym

Early every spring my husband Barry plants tomato seed, he also buys plants when they come available at the hardware and grocery store, this year I think he planted a dozen plants at the house and has given plants away, I even planted one here at the office. Then the waiting and watching begins...it's always exciting to see those first little green gems apear. Tuesday when I got home from work Barry told me we had a red tomato! I asked him if he'd picked it but he was waiting on our grandson Nash to to have the honor...You see Nash loves tomatoes, he's been our official tomato inspector since he was able to walk! Wednesday Nash and Big Moon ( Nash calls Barry Big Moon, much more creative than grandpa although we do have to explain who Big Moon is quite often) emailed me this photo:

Nash found two red beauties....sometimes being four has it's advantages, like being closer to the ground where red tomatoes like to hang out One tomatoe went into Nash's ramon noodles and Barry is saving the second one, I figure until there's another one to take it's place, but I'm thinking it might turn into a tomato sandwich this afternoon...Yummmmmm....my mouth is already watering...

I haven't called the computer dude in to look at my computer yet, but at least I can connect to the internet without embarassing myself, although occasionally the screen goes blue and everything shuts down...I'll have to do something soon. I'm also still typing blind but I can highlight (thanks Zakiah!)and read what I've written, it's kinda tricky editing this way but I'm gettin it done

Life Is Good

It's All Good!
ilym

but I'm not sure when or where! As I type this my cursor moves and I think I may be making a post but I can't see what I'm typing, I'll try to be careful in my spelling!, we'll see what happens when I hit post.

I guess I'm going to have to break down and call in a tech person to fix my problems....I'd call today but it's Friday the 13th and a full moon, the full strawberry moon I think, but without my earthsky emails I'm not for sure about that +/

I did want to wish all the Fathers out there a Happy Fathers Day! I lost my Dad to cancer 25 years ago, I sure do miss him! I was watching a PBS show about the Tetons a few days ago and was reminded of him. We were camping on a small glacier lake, Slide lake if I remember correctly, Daddy had hiked way up the small stream that fed the lake, or maybe it was a glacier stream leading out of the lake, anyway, Daddy came back to camp without a single trout, he'd had hit after hit but never could keep the fish on line, after a while he realized that the barb on the fly had been broken off...what a bummer, no trout for dinner and the trout didn't even get a fly! It worked out alright though, Momma fixed one of my favorite camp dinners, egg noodles and canned chili....the next morning we'd have the rest of the canned chili with an egg, poached I think, on the chili...maybe all camp food was a favorite, just being out in tnature with family made anything and everything great!

Have a great weekend! - ILYm

This is Mom and Dad in 1987

First of all - I sure do miss you guys!!!!

Secondly....the grandson Nash and I traveled to Texas to be with my Mom on Mothers Day, it was a great time!

Third and final thing....while I was gone my bosses helper used my computer...to death...I've been working for over a week trying to get the stinkin thing to work without porn videos and adds for erectile dysfunction meds popping up in the middle of my work....how embarrassing and quite frankly repulsive...I tried rebooting from the date I left and just let me say all those updates they add on after you log off are evidently important and  I can't add photographs without everything freezing up....

Sorry to complain...but it's been really frustrating...Hopefully I'll be back to normal, what ever normal is, soon.

In the meantime, as the Dread Pirate would say:

Sail On - Sail On

ilym

AKA:

The Day of the Battle of Puebla

Cinco de Mayo has its roots in the French occupation of Mexico, which took place in the aftermath of the Mexican American War , the Mexican Civil War and the Reform Wars. These wars left the Mexican Treasury nearly bankrupt. On July 17, 1861, Mexican President Benito Juarez issued a moratorium in which all foreign debt payments would be suspended for two years. In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, at the time ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to establish a Latin empire in Mexico that would favor French interests, the  Second Mexican Empire.

Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat.Moving on from Veracruz towards Mexico City, the French army encountered heavy resistance from the Mexicans close to Puebla, at the Mexican forts of Loreto and Guadalupe. The 8,000-strong French army attacked the much smaller and poorly equipped Mexican army of 4,500. Yet, on May 5, 1862, the Mexicans managed to decisively crush the French army, then considered "the premier army in the world"

so there ya go...

another reason to eat drink and be merry

In other news... well.... I don't have much news but I did have a visitor at work today.

This fellow was on the sign by the front door when we came in this morning.

The Cecropia Moth (Hyalophora cecropia)

 North America's largest native moth.  It is a member of the Saturniidae family, or giant silk moths. Females with a wingspan of six inches (160 mm) or more have been documented. It is found as far west as the Rocky Mountains and north into the majority of Canadian provinces. The larvae of these moths are most commonly found on maple trees, but they have been known to feed on cherry and birch trees among many others, (the sign is redwood)

Like all members of the Giant Silk Moth family, the nocturnal adult cecropia moths are designed only to reproduce, lacking functional mouthparts or digestive system. Therefore, they survive a maximum of about two weeks.   To find a mate, the female cecropia moth emits pheromones which the male's sensitive antennae can detect up to a mile away, although a male may fly up to 7 miles while searching for a female. Mating begins in the early morning hours and lasts until the evening. Afterward the female lays up to one hundred eggs, which hatch into tiny black caterpillars.

She's the largest moth I've ever seen and I think she's laid some eggs on the sign...I'll keep a watch on those and see what happens, the caterpillar looks like this:

I  believe if you step on or handle this caterpillar you may get a painful sting...

now you have had your entomology lesson for today

Have a wonderful evening.....

OH!!!

There's a meteor shower starting up tonight, or in the morning, the

Eta Aquarids

best viewing time in between 3 and dawn

For once we have clear skies....I hope my alarm is working!

You know May Day isn't really about pole dancing and baskets

The Worker's Maypole

Walter Crane

Written: April 13, 1894 for The Workers Maypole cartoon;

World Workers, whatever may bind ye,
This day let your work be undone:
Cast the clouds of the winter behind ye,
And come forth and be glad in the sun.

Now again while the green earth rejoices
In the bud and the blossom of May
Lift your hearts up again, and your voices,
And keep merry the World's Labour Day.

Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope.

It is writ on each ribbon that flies
That flutters from fair Freedom's heart:
If still far be the crown and the prize
In its winning may each take a part.

Your cause is the hope of the world,
In your strife is the life of the race,
The workers' flag Freedom unfurled
Is the veil of the bright future's face.

Be ye many or few drawn together,
Let your message be clear on this day;
Be ye birds of the spring, of one feather
In this--that ye sing on May-Day.

Of the new life that still lieth hidden,
Though its shadow is cast before;
The new birth of hope that unbidden
Surely comes, as the sea to the shore.

Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.

When the World's Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life--not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.

have a lovely day!

Rabbit

When my siblings and I were young
our father would not let us play
with kids he didn’t know

There were three of us girls
and one rotten boy
playing together was usually quite fun

We made up our own games
built forts of pine straw
found crawdads in creek beds
and then let them go

Some games were right dangerous
thinking back on those days
where was our Mother?

Good grief I can’t say!

Our favorite included
a black pellet gun
Oldest sister would aim it and say

RUN RABBIT RUN

We ran through the brambles
round bushes and trees
if we could find one
through fences we’d squeeze

Her aim was right deadly
from practice I guess
she aimed for our buttocks
and never our heads

this picture was taken in 1969, that's me on the left, oldest sister next to me, you can probably pick out the rotten brother and baby sister
Even with sore buttocks we still love each other very very much!

We all made it to adulthood in one piece, by God's Good Grace I'm sure.
Now I'm off to help set up tables at church,
The Baptist women are hosting a brunch Saturday, I'm looking forward to it.
If there's one thing I can tell you for sure about Southern Baptist women
it's they know how to cook!

Have a Great Evening

ILYM

Carpet

carpets of winter
blankets of snow

carpets of spring
wild violets grow

carpets of summer
sunflowers glow

carpets of autumn
bright leaves steal the show

I spent more time looking for the photographs than studying the form -
and as behind as I am in NPM I should quit reading every ones poems,
lest I turn into a copy cat  - but that's not happening either

This carpet poem may be a couplet

but doggone if I know for sure!

Happy Earth Day

I'm off to plant rosemary bushes

because all seven of mine died over the winter  =(((

ilym

p.s....

I woke up at 4:15am this morning to check out the meteors, there was one patch of clear sky around the moon, I watched  unsuccessfully until the cloud cover overtook us...then went back to bed.  I see a little blue sky out right now so maybe tonights the night!

Covered Bridges

There are fifteen Covered Bridges
in the state that I call home
One King and Three Queen Post
Eleven are Town Latticed

Piles driven in stream beds
connect them with beams
Cover the rafters
they'll last quite awhile

Looking quite barnish
fooled horses will go
cross troubled water
steal a kiss and go home

The Euharlee Covered Bridge, a wooden Town Lattaced bridge crossing Euharlee Creek in Euharlee, Georgia. The bridge was built after the raging creek swept away an old bridge on the property of Daniel Lowry. The collapse of the bridge killed one man. A new bridge was built in 1886 by Horace King's son Washington King and Johnathan H. Burke, it spans 138 feet. The lattice trusses consist of planks crisscrossing at 45- to 60-degree angles and are fastened with wooden pegs, or trunnels, at each intersection.  Vehicle traffic finally stopped across the bridge in 1980 when a new two-lane bridge was built.  The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open to foot traffic seven days a week.  It's the closest Covered Bridge to our home, they have a great BBQ festival there each year in June.

EARTH DAY AND THE LYRIDS ARE COMING!!! 

The 2014 Lyrid meteor shower will pepper  the night on the evening of April 21 until before dawn April 22. The predawn hours are typically best – and  April 22, Earth Day morning, is the peak this year. You might also want to try the evening hours this year though, because the light of the last quarter moon, rising at midnight may interfere.

Clouded out tonight? Or too much moonlight for your taste? You might see some Lyrid meteors on the night of April 22-23, too, especially since a thinner waning moon will be rising later on the morning of April 23, leaving more darkness for meteor watching.

Tonight will be my best chance, I think seeing a single meteor shooting across a moonlit sky is miraculous, so keep looking up, and if your up in the wee hours before dawn you can see Venus, turned Morning Star on the eastern horizon and Mars and Saturn on the western edge.

Thanks EarthSky News!

have a heavenly evening!

ILYM

Celestial Jerusalem

Seven Stars
Seven Spirits
Seven bowls with seven plagues

Twelve jeweled foundations
Twelve Apostles
Twelve Pearly Gates

Flowing east a river
clean and clear like a crystal
bearing life to our souls and a sea once thought barren

no death, no tears, no fear and no sorrow
no sun and no moon
the lambs light we will follow

Cast off your baggage
pure hearts will come in
The Celestial City
God’s Grace You will Win

I'm not doing very well writing a poem a day for the National Poetry month, when it came to Celestial Jerusalem, ashamedly ( as I told DanishDoll), I had to google  to get a true understanding, to my dismay the information that came up was from Revelations. I've not read very much in Revelations for the same reason I don’t watch scary movies…anyway I got over my scaredy self and started reading…I want to live in the New Jerusalem…and Revelations ain't that scary (yet =)  I may even watch Cape Fear or something Hitchcock...or maybe not.

In other news:

Braylon is doing very well! He and our Granddaughter Jacklyn went to Ft. Benning, Georgia for our Grandson Reeces Turning Blue Ceremony.

Barry and I plan to go to the Graduation Ceremony in the morning, after graduation the kids will come home for 10 days, they'll pack their belongings and head to Ft. Carson, Colorado.  We are So Proud of them!

Nash is proving to be a Great Big Brother, Nova Rae makes that easy.

Our Granddaughter Mara has one week of finals left...then she'll be finished with her freshman year at West Georgia,  she's done very well, she's a a science major...We're really proud of her too!

that's her in the middle of her sorority sisters, I think their Tri-Deltas, they do good work for St. Judes Childrens Foundation

Our roof still isn't finished, but it's a lot closer than it was...I think they'll be done in a another 3 days...or so =/

that is if the rain will hold off for awhile...

We've had a lot of rain...

  the dogs love

"When streams are ripe and swelled with rain"

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and a joyous Easter

ilym