I Hoe I Hoe

Getting started with a pine pole perimeter

Church youth group builds plot boxes

I am a participating founder and member of the steering committee of our local non-profit Green Team.  Our mission: 

The Green Team was developed to act as a catalyst to facilitate, educate, promote, and encourage sustainable green business practices that will lead to positive, measurable business,

community, and environmental results. 
                                  

Delivering  & dumping compost  (left & below)

We began this endeavor in 2007.  Our biggest accomplishment to date,in my opinion, are the Community Gardens.  Beginning with one location last summer, we expanded to four sites this Summer in geographically separated areas.  Pretty exciting!  Each site is borrowed land and contains a certain number of salable plots to anyone with $25.  Each site has a "giving garden" which all plot owners are supposed to help maintain.

The "giving gardens" are planted with all manner of vegetables and require weeding and de-bugging.  This is all organic so no sprays or toxics.  One of our locations is a parcel on a wonderful farm with rich soil.  This was the last location to come on board and, as such, has only two plot owners.  As a result, the Green Team members are caring for the giving gardens here.  They are most substantial on this site due to the soil.

Boy Scouts spread sawdust & compost

Yesterday we hoed, raked, pitch forked & hand pulled weeds for three hours.  Only 3 of us showed up.  Thank God I've been doing weight training.  It gave me stamina and strength to do the work.  Backbreaking?  Whoa!  I haven't picked up a hoe in years!  I maintain my flower gardens but I no longer grow veggies nor would I ever let anything become as overgrown with weeds as were these.  Three people worked 3 hours & only cleared about 100 square feet.   I sure have respect for small farmers and the pioneers of old.

Hand made gate using de-barked maple

The giving garden produce will go to free food services that prepare meals for the hungry as well as to local food banks.

These photos are from our most perfect site in a tiny town nearby.  A huge variety of folks pitched in to build this garden as you can see from the photographs.  It truly embodies the spirit of "community".   

Rainwater capture barrel, pump and hose created by the town's highway dept.

 

Helen Mirren Poses Nude @ 65

Ya gotta love it.  She's sixty five and goin' for it.  I couldn't do it but I admire her resolve.  She certainly has the elan of a "women of a certain age".

Mirren, who turns 65 next month, is promoting her new movie 'Love Ranch,' in which she plays the madam of a real-life seventies Reno whorehouse. The film is directed by her husband, Taylor Hackford, who tried to take her to the Nevada ranch for some research.

When her husband tried to convince her to spend a night at the Mustang Ranch, Mirren refused. "I said, 'Read my lips: I'm not going to spend a night in a brothel.' " In the end, she dispensed with research and simply took direction. "It's amazing how quickly you get into dildos everywhere and pink-feather handcuffs. Within an hour you're completely used to it." 
The Huffington Post   June 23, 2010

Welcome Summer!!!!!

June Balloon by Cole Scott Images

Today is the first day of Summer aka summer solstice aka the longest day of the year.  Solstice only happens twice a year, summer and winter, and refers to the sun's position in the sky reaching either its northernmost or southernmost extreme as the earth's axis tilts away from or towards the sun.   That's about as technical as I can get and I stole that from Wikipedia!

Advertisements: What Were They Thinking?

After thirty years in advertising, I have a jaundiced view of many ads I hear and see.  I sometimes think the ad agencies have just run out of material, have no respect for human intelligence, have idiots for clients or are way too impressed with their own "creativity".

Then I get bitch slapped with a funny email that reminds me, they've always been this way!

Let me take you back...back to the good old days of yesteryear when products were products,  men were men and women were definitely at the mercy of men, at least in advertising.

  Did I say "men were men"?

How 'bout them soda swiggin' babies?

  Healthy and inspirational:  smokin' docs.

Even better, a smokin' Santa!!!!

Now to the trivialization of women still in the smoking category...

Nothing like a little pedophilia.

A little domination...

Some S & M...

Mixed with good old fashioned maxims like this...

 or this.

 Be sure to totally humiliate and disappoint her...

 OMG where's my wish list?

Last resort...MURDER

I've always found Pitney Bowes marketing annoying.

Remember, clients signed off on these.  Wow.

Embracing the Past

As time goes by I find myself increasingly looking backwards, wondering how people are whom I cared about as long ago as high school; wanting to see friends who still matter, missing a piece of my life that is gone forever but comes back suddenly in unexpected ways.

Yesterday, while perusing the Facebook photos of one of those California friends with whom I reconnected at my last high school reunion, this photo popped up. My breath stopped and for a moment I was transported back to my giggly 15 year old self, a determined girl with a major crush on the boy on the left.  Now, this photo was taken a few years before we met but I already knew his brother, on the right.  We'd gone through elementary school together as little kids.  His older brother became my first serious boyfriend.

We were a couple for eighteen months.  He was two years ahead of me in school, a senior to my sophomore.  We were one anothers first love.  It sounds corny but it's true.  He was a serious person, excellent in school, a fine guitarist who played in one of the many amateur rock bands so prevalent in those days.  I was mad about him. 

He's one of the only persons I remember who knew what he wanted to be in life:  a pilot.  He had it all planned out; ROTC at Loyola, then fly school in the USAF, then go commercial.  That is exactly what he did.  Oh, and he married one of my best friends.

He wanted to get married after I graduated high school.  I was only in my Junior year and already flirting with a new boy with whom I had one date.  I couldn't see tying myself down in marriage.  Besides, I was 16 years old!  I broke up with him on my 17th birthday and it was painful.  By then I was falling for the boy who, seven years later, would become my husband.   I actually thought I could ease his pain and assuage my guilt by setting him up with a close friend who was infatuated with him.   She probably gave him everything he needed, especially devotion. They were married after he graduated college.  She couldn't wait to get out of her house.  They were both Catholic.  My dad liked him a lot but he couldn't abide my marrying a Catholic.  We're Protestants--Baptists.

I don't know if you can see the sweetness in both boys.  I suppose to anyone who didn't know them, they look like typical teenagers.  A few weeks ago I saw a current photo of him and didn't recognize him at all.  It was a shock.  I haven't seen him since 1970.  What did I expect?  I guess I didn't expect him to remind me of his father.  He's still married to the same girl, they have two grown children and he's now retired at the tender age of 61.

But I do remember the beautiful boy with whom I fell in love thanks to this photo which  brought a smile to my face and many happy memories. 

Life can be so  sweet. Tempest Fugit.

That, My Friends, Is Love

My husband and I are attending a wedding today.  It's being held outdoors as is the reception.  Since it's the bride's third marriage, it's not a formal affair but one does need something nice to wear.


Last Wednesday, returning from our trip to the coast of Maine, we stopped at a mall so I could look for a nice summer dress.  We went to The Loft, the Ann Taylor store of less expensive frocks.  My husband has great taste and he began to pick out dresses and tops he liked. I was hoping to wear a size 10 as I've been on this workout/nutrition plan since March and, per my post of  May 7th, I had lost 8 inches & 3 lbs.  Well, the 10s were still out of reach but I thought the size 12, which I've been wearing, would work.

Anyone who has ever shopped Ann Taylor knows they run small.  I say this not because I'm trying to lose weight but as a former devotee of all things Ann.  The clothes run small whether you're a 6 or a 12. I have been both.  Suffice to say, the two dresses he and I liked most did not fit my hips in a size 12.  He wanted me to go up a size.  I refused.  My sales girl, a young, sweet and quite helpful soul, thought I looked good in the 12. And I did.  But it was literally squeezed over me after she'd helped me into a body slimming piece of underwear.  Wearing dresses tight and accentuating curves is the style right now and I have curves galore.  Luckily my bosom balances out my ass.   But from the standpoint of comfort, the dress was killing me. 

An older (my age), wiser sales lady took over from mine when she went on a break.  At this point, I was sweating profusely and had to sit down in the dressing room to keep from fainting.  I think I was having an anxiety attack.  Nothing fit and I felt terrible about myself.  I mean, what was the point?  I looked in the mirror and I saw flab and fat; not the newly redesigned body I've been molding.  She sensed my despair as did my husband who took off for the sales floor to pick up a beautiful blouse for me to try.  He brought it back to me and it looked pretty.

He said, ""Wear this with a pair of black slacks and a long strand of pearls.  It'll look great."

I was mollified enough to agree and we walked towards the sales counter.  En route, he picked up a gorgeous piece of costume jewelry to compliment the top.  I agreed with him and we were suddenly enveloped by several older, well dressed, very kind sales "ladies" who wrapped and untangled and soothed me.  I walked out with my purchases, holding hands with my husband, thanking him for his kindness.

Later that day, while unpacking at home, I thanked him again for helping me out.  He turned to me and said,

"After all you went through in there, I wanted you to walk out with something.  I wanted you to feel it was worth it.  I wanted you to feel good."

You know what?  I did and I do!  Isn't he the guy?  This is what love is really about.

Artwork by Laura Trevey.

Doomsday in the Gulf

There is no making this go away.  The photos say it all and they are ugly, sad, horrific.

Our elected representatives have allowed this to happen by failing to protect the environment from those who seek to exploit it; and, by proxy, that includes us.

 I firmly believe we must put pressure on Congress and the White House to pass measures requiring all oil drilling companies to come up with fail safe plans for potential environmental disasters.  Tonight during her show,  Rachel Maddow listed the five most profitable companies in the world.  They are all oil companies and BP is #5.  Why shouldn't we require them to spend part of the billions of dollars they make on protective measures?   Why is the government allowing new drill leases to  be awarded?

Drug companies have to prove the efficacy of their new products.  They also have to go through rigorous testing for safety procedures.  Why don't the oil companies? 

These photos are flashing around the world.  They are on every television station, in every newspaper and all over the Internet .  From what I understand, what we'll see is merely a fraction of the damage taking place. 

Somehow the image of thousands of birds dying may set the wheels in motion for changes that really matter.

How we can help: http://www.tonic.com/article/how-you-can-volunteer-to-clean-up-the-gulf-coast-oil-spill/

Stirrings of Summer

Surf Cast    Ogunquit Beach

by Cole Scott

This is a just after sunrise shot of the beach where we're staying.

Ogunquit is one of the prettiest towns along the Maine seacoast.  After twelve years in N.H. and many trips to the Maine coast, it's our first one here.  

To see more photos, go here. 

We'll be back.