Dabnabbit!!!

Sheesh! I though we were done with this stuff. I guess mother nature has her own ideas, and has sent us that frozen pellet kinda stuff, which is going to be fun to drive on this morning, as I go to work.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now..."

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

Whenever I see buds on cherry trees, I am instantly transported back in time, to sitting at a much used, kid initialed, wooden desk, in a classroom at an old school.

I clearly see, in my minds eye, my lesson book on the desk. This book, as were all others we used to write our lessons in, were about 8 X 10 inches, lined, the pages stapled to the cover through the center page and were covered, as was required, with wallpaper or some such material. Most of the kids used wallpaper, which, besides being attractive, made it easy to spy your book in the pile left by the teacher after she/he had finished grading your work.

Back to what I was seeing in my minds eye. I can see my lesson book on the desk in front of me, the poem written on the left side of the page, in what I thought was my very best handwriting, and to the right of the poem a beautiful drawing of a cherry tree in full bloom, with very green grass, and yellow flowers growing around the base of the tree. I am sure the flowers were daffodils, as we were also learning the poem The Daffodils, by William Wordsworth. This particular teacher was really into poetry, much to the disgust of some of the students, especially the boys.

Ahhh ! memories, aren't they grand?

Masks of the Borucan Indians

On Wednesday the 18th I was fortunate to get the last seat available, on a bus trip to the Flower and Garden show in Seattle. One exhibit showed the beautiful art masks of the Borucan Indians of Costa Rica.

These brightly-painted masks are carved from a single piece of locally grown cedar or balsa wood, and represent the brilliant flora and fauna of the Costa Rican forests.

The outline of the animals or plants of the masks is drawn on a piece of balsa wood.
Each mask usually includes the face of a Borucan shaman or forest protector, surrounded by orchids, birds-of-paradise, neon-colored frogs, exotic toucans and quetzal birds, and often a jaguar. After the objects are sketched, they are roughed out and then more finely carved, with every piece rendered in 3D.

It takes about a week to make one mask.

Mask-making among the Boruca predates the Spanish Conquest. The art form evolved with mask-making to celebrate "Danza de Los Diablitos" or Dance of the Devils, representing a stylized battle against European invaders in which the Boruca emerge victorious.

The ancient craft, however, was dying until one master carver, Ismael Gonzalez Lazaro, began a program to teach the techniques to younger members. Soon, the young carvers began filling out their masks with the beautiful plants and animals thatsurround them, and thus was born the hybrid "masca ecologia" -- ecological mask

I would have bought one, two or possibly more of these beautiful works of art, but sadly the were way out of my price range. The cost for a 12 inch mask was around $450. perhaps when I win the lotto *grin*

Rocket - A tribute

Rocket- 1998- 2/17/2009

Rocket was the most extraordinary cat I have ever had the joy of knowing. He arrived here at Castle Completely, as a very young kitten, in the hands of our dear friend Lorie.

One day, back in 1998, my honey, MrC. who was still feeling very sad due to having lost another kitty, answered a knock on the door, and upon opening it, was surprised when a hand thrust a little black bundle of fur into his hands and a voice said "you need this"

Our friend Lorie, happened to see, someone dump a box of kittens behind a grocery store, she rushed to pick them up, but only managed to catch one, and knew instantly where this scared little kitten would find a loving home, even if the person she planned on giving it to, was saying they did not want another cat

When MrC saw the kitten, he said he really did not want another kitty, but Lorie decided the fate of the kitten right there, by getting into her vehicle and driving off, to leave MrC and the scared little kitten get acquainted.

Mr C says animals usually let you know what their name should be. Right from the moment the little black kitten arrived at Castle Completely, rather than walking, he ran everywhere, hence the name Rocket.

Rocket had many toys, simple things like a piece of electrical wire he would carry around in his mouth, dropping it where we would have to walk over it. Of course he usually was close by when we would step over his piece of wire, in the hope we would pick it up and toss it across the room or down the hallway, so he could chase after it. To our delight, quite often he would retrieve the wire, and bring it back to us, so we could toss it again. I told you he was an extraordinary cat.

On several occasions, MrC awoke in the middle of the night feeling hungry. The first time it happened, he went out to the kitchen to get himself a snack, and discovered Rocket sitting by his empty food dish. My honey put food in Rocket's dish, decided he wasn't hungry after all, and came back to bed. The second time it happened we thought perhaps, this kitty was telepathic, the third time it happened we knew for sure. *chuckle* From then on Rocket always had a little food in his dish when we went to bed.

I am sure Rocket looked forward to Christmas, as this was the time the Santa kitty, would bring him his favorite gift, tissue paper. Lots of tissue paper, to roll on, to shred with sharp claws and to play with, until there was nothing left but shreds which seemed to slowly disappear as the weeks went by.

When my honey was so ill last November - December, Rocket spent every day and night sleeping on the bed, close by, watching over him only leaving his side for food, water and potty breaks. This illustrates the bond which grew over the years between MrC and Rocket. They understood each other, Rocket using sounds, what MrC referred to as words, a communication between the two of them you had to see and hear to appreciate.

Rest in Peace


Please click Here to leave a message for MrC

What kind of romantic am I?

Once in a while, just for fun, and out of curiosity, I answer the questions in one of the hundreds of silly surveys out there. Most times, I think the results are way off. This time the results are fairly accurate.

You're a nurturing romantic.

To you, romance is about supporting each other -- cooking a nice meal for your beloved, laughing at his corny jokes, or pretending to like his crazy relatives. You like flowers and chocolates just fine, but would prefer hand-picked posies to an expensive florist's bouquet, and homemade cookies to anything at the Godiva shop. It's the same with anniversaries or romantic getaways: you like them, but what really brings out your romantic nature is fluffing his pillows when he's sick. Similarly, you swoon when he fixes your stuck window, or even helps you fold the laundry. Your deep understanding that true love means caring for one another is sure to bring you a rich and lasting relationship. Just be sure you don't get too cozy -- enjoy your party of two, but don't let it shut out the rest of the world.

Not much to report

I really haven't much to report on this past week's activities. I have had a busy week working and then coming home to take care of the usual chores. Our cat, Rocket is still hanging in there. We took him back to the vet, so we could be shown how to give him fluids at home, thereby saving expensive visits to the clinic every day. Fortunately, we have a friend who is a retired RN, so she stops by every day to administer the fluids.
Today, MrC and I are going to drive up to Oak Harbor for dinner. MrC has been working very long hours for several weeks, along with taking care of our sick kitty. Our stress levels have risen, so taking some time for ourselves is essential.

An Atheist in the Woods...

An atheist was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees"!
"What powerful rivers"!
"What beautiful animals"!
He said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"

Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"?
The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now , but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian"?

"Very Well," said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:

"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."

A tough week, and it is not over yet.

Blogging has been, to say the least, very light this past week. What with shuffling my work schedule around, so we could take our sick kitty to the vet a couple of times, and then coming down with a cold it has been a busy, tiring week

Our Kitty, Rocket, who is 11 years old, was acting very lethargic last Sunday, and was more so on Monday. MrC and I felt this was unusual for Rocket, so we took him to the vet. As the vet checked him over he could feel something out of the ordinary in Rocket's abdomen. After taking a blood sample and an ex-ray to determine what he had felt with his hands, the vet showed MrC. and I the ex-ray which showed a mass in Rockets abdomen. Surgery was scheduled for early Tuesday morning.
We received a call from the veterinary clinic early on Tuesday, to say that Rocket's blood work showed he had an infection, so we took him back into the clinic to have some fluids and the first of a series of antibiotics administered.
We will be taking Rocket back in to the vet, probably for another blood test, to see if the infection has been decreased by the antibiotics, so surgery can be performed. Sadly, there is still no guarantee that Rocket will survive, it all comes down to what the vet finds and what he can do about it.

Chore day

At last, a beautiful clear sunny day, but too cold to play out doors, so I will be spending my day off, catching up on all the house work, which has been let go, while I finished up a project. Yesterday I completed painting the kitchen, and I must say, I am pleased with the results. A post, with pictures will be coming up.

Thanks to my friend Linda, Dirt Roads.

Some of you, may have never experienced Dirt roads, but to us who have, this is pretty neat.

Click HERE: DIRT ROADS (scroll down to read)

Don't want to give up your SUV

but still want to save on the gas bill. You could go back to using the original SUV.

Thanks Linda

I am looking forward to Spring

Somewhere out there,the sun is trying to burn off all that cold clammy fog. The past two days started out very frosty, but with a clear blue sky, with the temperatures in the upper 40'sF. Perhaps, today, the sun will break through and give us another beautiful crisp winter day.

I have spent the last couple of days, working on putting a fresh coat of paint on the kitchen walls. MrC has been patching some of the holes, where I took down some curtain tracks, and patching some damage by one of the windows.

I have finished digging over the raised beds in my vegetable garden, and now wait for spring to arrive, before I can get busy planting the first seeds. According to the calendar, spring is still about eight weeks away. *groan*

Subject: How Government Works

Fixin' To Fix The Fence...

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at The White House. One is from Ohio , another from Tennessee , and the third, from Kentucky .

They all go...(with a White House official also present)... to examine the fence.

The Tennessee contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil...'Well', he says, 'I figure the job will run about $900 total...$400 for materials,...$400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.'

The Kentucky contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, 'I can do this job for $700 total.... $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.'

The Ohio contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, '$2,700.'...The official, incredulous, whispers back,...You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?'....The Ohio contractor whispers back, '$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire that guy from Kentucky to fix the fence.... 'Done!' replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is often how it all works.

TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING

My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken woman swigging her drink, as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asks, "Do you know her?"

"Yes," I sighed. "She's my old girlfriend. I understand she started drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.

"My God!" says my wife. "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?"

So you see there really are two ways to look at everything...

Through the garden gate....part one

During my visit to New Zealand a couple of years go, I did quite a lot of walking around different neighborhoods of Palmerston North, the city where I grew up.
It is evident that Kiwis still like to take care of
their properties, and many, or most people have very nice gardens.



As I wandered along the streets I would stop and stand at the entrance of many of the homes, gazing at the gardens, lovingly tended by the hands of someone who lived in the house at the end of the driveway.

Not a leaf out of place on this neatly trimmed boxwood hedge.

This Pohutukawa , gracing the side garden of someone's home,was in full bloom.

The Pohutukawa, is sometimes called the Bottlebrush tree, for obvious reasons.

What a nice shady place to spend a warm summer's afternoon or evening.








I wonder who lives in the home behind this attractive gate.












Another little oasis of green.









Everything is so beautifully taken care of.

It is no surprise that I have a passion for gardening, after being born and raised in a country where gardening is so enjoyed, and it didn't hurt, to have grandparents and a mother who were avid gardeners, and taught me much of what I know about plants and gardening.

Before and after

In a previous post, I mentioned I was painting over the kinda' pumpkin shade of the laundry/mudroom, in preparation to install the new freezer we had on order.

This picture does not show the true sickly shade of pumpkin the walls are.

And now, they are a nice shade of White, Casa Blanca, One of many, there are to choose from.

After a quick run up to Oak Harbor to get our freezer, it has been wrestled out of the cardboard box, pushed into the small alcove, plugged in and cooling enough to receive the colored baskets filled with frozen foods from the fridge in the kitchen. I am using the colored baskets, one color each, for meats, vegetables, fruits, and other miscellaneous foods. This is my method of an easy way to find something in a hurry.

A New Year blessing.

I thought this Maori blessing appropriate for this coming year 2009


Kia hora te manno

Kia whakapapa paumamu te moana

Kia tere te karohirohi


May the calm be widespread

May the sea glisten like the greenstone

And may the glimmer of summer dance across your pathways.

Merry Christmas to me Hrrumph!!

I bought myself a new water pump for my car. *grin*

At least I can count my blessings, that the offending part made noise before breaking, and I was able to get my car into the mechanis so he could check out the noise, to determine what was pakarued.( kiwi for, broken, worn out) I would have been really, really brassed off,(annoyed) if the water pump had broken when I was way out in the wop wops with no way to let anyone know of my distress. I do not have a cell phone, but am thinking that now I have a job, which requires being out on back roads, it may be a good idea to have one. Perhaps a prepaid phone would be useful to use if I should be in an emergency situation. Although on this island, there are dead zones, so this is also a consideration - just how useful would a cell phone be? Sighhhh!! there is always something to make one ponder the remedy.

All our snow had melted away, leaving the outside world dirty looking. I am not a huge fan of snow, except for the fact that everything it covers, looks so clean and fresh, and the muffled sounds of daily outdoors life is quite pleasant to the ear. I must admit that it is enjoyable driving on roads which are now just wet instead of slick with ice.

I am working five days a week, 4 to 6 hours daily, which is just fine with me. This semi-retirement is nice as I am able to get more done at home. I have been working on getting some painting done in the laundry/mud room before we put our new freezer in there. I considered for a while, doing the painting later on, but decided how foolish that would be to have to move a heavy freezer, full of frozen foods, just to paint the walls surrounding it, in the small alcove. Nothing quite like making life for yourself easier, in the first place. Is this called growing wiser/smarter with age?

Come back to Keewee's Classroom, to learn more Kiwi slang, in future posts.

I love surprises

This morning as I went out the door to take some garbage out to the dumpster, I noticed two boxes which had obviously been delivered earlier. I called to MrC and said "there are a couple of boxes out here, thinking they were filled with computer parts he had been waiting for. I continued on out to dump the garbage, and when I came back into the house, MrC said " you gotta come and see this." He had opened one of the boxes and to my delight it was not computer parts, instead a lovely gift basket from Wine Country gift Baskets.

This beautiful basket of Pear Blossom products was for me.

The card read, A little something for Keewee.
Thank you for taking care of Mr Completely!
From the Gun Bloggers.

My honey then proceeded to open the other box and there was a very nice gift in it for him.

A Get Well gift basket for MrC.

In this gift basket was a fabulous collection of goodies and games, sent by several of our Gun Blogger friends. Not a round of ammo or gun related merchandise in sight *grin*

Thank you to our Gun Blogger friends for the very thoughtful gifts.
I was about to go and buy some more lotions as I was almost out, so the basket of Pear Blossom products arrived just at the right time. I am sure Mr Completely is going to enjoy all the goodies in his basket and I will have to teach him to play dominoes, *chuckle* which is one of the games in the basket.

HERE is MrC'S telling of the story.

Merry Christmas

To all my readers. I wish you a very happy Christmas, and prosperous New Year.

A Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.


"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.


I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

A poem which touched my heart.

Please remember our service men and women, who will not be spending Christmas with their families.