Journey's End

I'm not poet, nor native English speaker. Therefore I decided to post here a part of poem I found on a web.
My mother passed away this month. This poem is in her honor.

Journey's End

REST YOUR HEAD, MY WEARY TRAVELLER

THIS EARTHLY JOURNEY IS AT END

SAY GOODBYE TO THOSE WHO’LL MOURN YOU

AQUAINTANCE, FAMILY, FRIEND


STEADFAST WIFE AND NOBLE MOTHER

ALL YOUR DUTIES ARE COMPLETE

YOUR REWARD A NEW ADVENTURE

TAKE THIS GIFT AND BE AT PEACE


LEAVE BEHIND THE TEARS OF LOVED ONES

LAY YOUR HEAVY BURDEN DOWN

CAST ASIDE YOUR WORN OUT BODY

PAIN AND SUFFERING NOW BEGONE


JUST AHEAD SOMEONE IS WAITING

WHO HAS PASSED THROUGH HEAVEN’S DOOR

ANTICIPATING YOUR ARRIVAL

A CELEBRATION IS IN STORE


PREPARE TO STEP BEYOND THE CURTAIN

SEPARATING LIFE FROM DEATH

ANSWERS TO ALL OF LIFE’S MYSTERIES

THIS AND MORE YOU SHALL POSSESS


THOUGHTS OF YOU WILL BRING US COMFORT

YOU’RE IN OUR HEARTS, YOU ARE NOT GONE

AND IN OUR TIME WE’LL COME TO JOIN YOU

ONE LAST FAREWELL AND JOURNEY ON

REST YOUR HEAD, MY WEARY TRAVELER
THIS EARTHLY JOURNEY IS AT END
SAY GOODBYE TO THOSE WHO’LL MOURN YOU
ACQUAINTANCE, FAMILY, FRIEND

STEADFAST WIFE AND NOBLE MOTHER
ALL YOUR DUTIES ARE COMPLETE
YOUR REWARD A NEW ADVENTURE
TAKE THIS GIFT AND BE AT PEACE

LEAVE BEHIND THE TEARS OF LOVED ONES
LAY YOUR HEAVY BURDEN DOWN
CAST ASIDE YOUR WORN OUT BODY
PAIN AND SUFFERING NOW BEGONE

PREPARE TO STEP BEYOND THE CURTAIN
SEPARATING LIFE FROM DEATH
ANSWERS TO ALL OF LIFE’S MYSTERIES
THIS AND MORE YOU SHALL POSSESS

THOUGHTS OF YOU WILL BRING US COMFORT
YOU’RE IN OUR HEARTS, YOU ARE NOT GONE
AND IN OUR TIME WE’LL COME TO JOIN YOU

ONE LAST FAREWELL AND JOURNEY ON - See more at: http://www.write-out-loud.com/eulogy-poem-for-mother.html#sthash.dq3s3LJT.dpuf

REST YOUR HEAD, MY WEARY TRAVELLER

THIS EARTHLY JOURNEY IS AT END

SAY GOODBYE TO THOSE WHO’LL MOURN YOU

AQUAINTANCE, FAMILY, FRIEND


STEADFAST WIFE AND NOBLE MOTHER

ALL YOUR DUTIES ARE COMPLETE

YOUR REWARD A NEW ADVENTURE

TAKE THIS GIFT AND BE AT PEACE


LEAVE BEHIND THE TEARS OF LOVED ONES

LAY YOUR HEAVY BURDEN DOWN

CAST ASIDE YOUR WORN OUT BODY

PAIN AND SUFFERING NOW BEGONE


JUST AHEAD SOMEONE IS WAITING

WHO HAS PASSED THROUGH HEAVEN’S DOOR

ANTICIPATING YOUR ARRIVAL

A CELEBRATION IS IN STORE


PREPARE TO STEP BEYOND THE CURTAIN

SEPARATING LIFE FROM DEATH

ANSWERS TO ALL OF LIFE’S MYSTERIES

THIS AND MORE YOU SHALL POSSESS


THOUGHTS OF YOU WILL BRING US COMFORT

YOU’RE IN OUR HEARTS, YOU ARE NOT GONE

AND IN OUR TIME WE’LL COME TO JOIN YOU

ONE LAST FAREWELL AND JOURNEY ON


- See more at: http://www.write-out-loud.com/eulogy-poem-for-mother.html#sthash.dq3s3LJT.TDhAnKPJ.dpuf

Annoyed

Well, today I tried to reply on the comment left on my previous post.
UGH! it is like some bloody black hole developed and decided to swallow each and every of my attempts. In total I tried to reply on Fresca's comment 3 times, and leave independent comment another 3 times. Each and every one of them disappeared!
Since I'm not someone who gives up easily:
So Fresca, here is your answer.

Aye, the cat toy probably does influence their hunting instinct. What was amazing for me is that is actually the first cat toy that really does what they advertized. In the shops you can find all bunch of toys that claim the same, and they work sometimes, but not better than that silly little wire you can find when you unpack something tied into bag. That wee wire is an ultimate cat toy. They entertain themselves with it for hours. Way more than with 'official' toys.

Cat delight

We have now two cats. And they fight. So we started watching 'Cat whisperer' to learn what the heck to do.
Advices did not help in stopping fights, but bloke was using some cat toy that seems simply magical. It is called 'Da bird' and absolutely works.
You just need to wave it a bit around cat and cat will start playing. I do not know why, but works every time!

Tor

This holiday season I received enormous amount of the catalogs. Almost half of them was from the companies from which I never got anything.
I mean, I know that my internet use is tracked, collected and sold, but having these obvious and annoying proves that my internet use is sold to any fracking buyer is bit too much.
So I decided to give a try to that Tor software package. I'll even blog now in this blog from the Tor browser.
Part of me is a bit worried. I've grown up in dictatorship where privacy was no option. You had to have artificial image of yourself that fits expectations or you're automatically bad person. That lesson was what was stopping me in using encrypting software of any kind. Usage of such software makes me target. Then I read that NSA can penetrate Tor. Fine. Problem solved. I do not have to fret of being declared suspicion person and at the same time I can stop giving my internet usage data to various companies to earn money.
If they wish to have those they should pay me!

So now, I'm giving this TorBrowser the try. It really works. At the moment Blogger thinks I'm somewhere in Scandinavia.
I'll try to use other services through TorBrowser too, because I'm really annoyed by this onslaught of the bloody adds and catalogs. 

Consequence of being bored

I'm still recovering from the accident related injuries, but I started working remotely. You know,  I reached the stage where I'm good enough to be bored, but not fully recovered to continue as normal.
So, first, pets love the fact that now there is someone all the time with them.  Here you can see Schroedy seeking extra attention by jumping on the chair where I set up my 'home office'.





I also got a crazy tomato plant to take care off. Our neighbor who is heavily into gardening  decided to show me how plants can be grown from cuts. So she gave me a cut from tomato plant. I did what she advised me to do, and wee cut developed roots, so I put it in a pot. And lo and behold, it started to grow fruit!
I still cannot believe. In a way I really do not know what to do, for tomato to properly grow fruit one needs to make sure that temperatures do not go below freezing, and here it freezes already. I'll try to keep it inside, but then, what about wee fruit?
Actually this photo is wee bit older, in it, wee tomatoes are size of raisins, while today they are more size of Maltezers, or for non-UK people,  larger grapes. Now I really wonder what will happen with  wee tomato-fruits.

The third photo is my attempt on making a decorative wreath from burlap. It is something that did not task my health, and it ended up looking rather nice. I'm proud of myself. :-)
Although the design is actually a 'remix' of something I've seen at Joann website that costs whole 40-50 dollars. Mine cost me around  $10 and one hour of work. :-)

Strawberries

 

So, strawberries arrived, and planting needed to commence. This is a location where we choose to plant them. It is quite shady place, partly shaded by the bush from east and a tree from west. We picked shady location because strawberries love loads of moisture, and we hoped that  in shady location the strawberries will be a wee bit happier.







The first step in preparation of the bed is to take out layer of the dirt so that chicken wire can be put in. Unfortunately that is necessary because we're plagued by ground squirrels, and putting the chicken wire inside the dirt is the best long term solution. It is important not to bury it deeper than 10 cm, less is preferable. If you bury it deeper the buggers will just dig tunnels above the wire. We removed approximately 5 cm of the dirt, because we planed to enrich the soil.




 So here it is dirt back on top of the wire, enriched with the 'top soil' we got from one of the chain hardware stores (it was cheep, around $3 per bag). You can see darker colour of the dirt. That indicates a soil with the loads of goodies in it for plants.
I also learned that woodchips that I had on top of the bed are bad for soil because if you dig them in they tend to rob a ground of the nitrogen.





So, to combact the fact that there is a lot of wood-chips inside the ground I put alpha-alpha as a mulch. This plant is a nitrogen gatherer, so by spring, when this hay is decomposed, my strawberries will get enough nitrogen.
The reason for mulching is to help ground retain moisture and prevent weeds from poping up.
Here the average moisture during the summer is around 20 to 30%  in the best case scenarios, which means, that naked ground gets dry withing the hour. Mulch is necessary to prevent that.



 However, although the alpha-alpha was great choice for mulch, it is a great attractant for rabbits we have in neighborhood. So, my husband insisted that some kind of barrier is put on top of the strawberries bed. At the moment, it is improvised, because my hubby is rather busy and has to deal with the other stuff, so as an additional deterrent I used the recipe I found on the net, water in which I soaked jalapeno and garlic. I put that deterrent just in case little buggers manage to get inside.
We plan later to put the wired fence around this bed, but that has to wait a bit, either for me to heal, or for my hubby to finish his pressing project.

New direction in blogging

I made a break in blogging mostly because loads of obligations at work, and partly because I reached point where I would like to use blog for sharing something useful, and not to write just another rant-blog about another human with an access to the internet.

It took long time to find appropriate topic. Surprisingly,  my recent car accident helped me to find satisfying topic. Under influence of painkillers I ended up buying a bunch of perennial plants for garden. So, I decided to learn how to care for them so that money is not wasted.

We have rather big yard, front and back that is at the moment full of weeds, ground squirrels mounds, dog poop, and wild bunnies which one of my neighbor feeds.  So my gardening will face a loads of challenges.
Plus to make thing worse, we live in mountains, 7000 feet, in the area that has high desert climate. Last frost date is June 15, and first frost date is September 17th. Tough.

My gardening knowledge is limited. I've grown up in mountains, but the ones that are wet and fertile. So dealing with constant drought like conditions and way more pest than I ever encountered is new for me.
Anyway, I'm still recovering from accident and I am reading bunch of gardening books. Each of them says that the most important thing is to plan your garden. Before ordering plants.
I guess I have to improvise and plan garden before my plants arrive....

Anyway, I learned yesterday that my strawberries are on a way, so things got serious. I ordered 12 plants of 3 different wild strawberries variety. Even under those blasted painkillers, I was thinking that wild strawberries should be fine here since I've seen them grow in mountains, and our neighbors have ordinary kind that is quite happy....

  I mentioned dog poop earlier, well, the source of that poop is our dog, who loves to dig. So we decided to put no poisons, no chemicals in our gardening. Of course, that makes the whole issue way more complicated.

Anyway, I started reading books on organic gardening, and learned first time in my life that you can combine different plants to achieve role reserved for pesticides, and that kitchen scraps combined with wee bit of paper can make a nice fertilizer.

So for now, we started composting. At the moment, that is a heap of kitchen scraps with a improvisation on dry material. Apparently, you have to combine 2:1 for dry and wet material (carbon : nitrogen) to achieve proper decomposition that does not stink. 
And non stinky compost is important. We have very dangerous combination of neighbors. Bears and weekend dwellers.  People who have here only weekend houses are ignorant about bears, thinking that those are just big pets or Disney movie characters. So they feed them, or if they do not feed them, then they leave trash laying around even for a week at the time. This attracts bears, especially in the late summer and autumn, when bears eat a lot to prepare for winter. Of course, those same eejits that leave food for bears also think it is cute when bear appears and starts eating trash. So they usually get out with camera and aww around it. And bear learns that people are not dangerous, and that people means food. Later that same bear starts breaking into houses, cars, or even attacking people who have attractive smells on them (think about fruit based shampoo). In the best case scenario only one bear ends up killed. Punished for human stupidity. In the worse case (when human is attacked), any bear in vicinity will be killed.
So, that is danger we have, and since I do not wish to have a bear in my yard, smelly compost is big no-no. Because, yeah, bears would come and eat the kitchen scraps from compost. And then decide to get into the house to snack on my pets, food from cupboards and fridge. Definitely situation to avoid.
At the moment we are succeeding, our compost is not smelly, but my husband is tending it, and mixing it almost every day.

 So, back to the strawberries. We picked location for them, in a front yard.  Apparently strawberries are perennial so they cannot go to the location we decided to put our vegetable garden. Now, I'm trying to find out which companion plants go with strawberries and what kind of soil, mulch, and rest of goodies they need. At the moment I'm happy because it seems like that thyme which I already have in location goes well with strawberries, so I do not have to remove it.
According to the books I read, I will need to enrich the soil, which I plan to do with pot soil, since we do not have compost ready, and put alfalfa straw as a mulch around strawberries. Of course I need to put chicken wire inside the designated bed because of ground squirrels.  I have all of that. So, hopefully everything will go fine when my strawberries arrive.

Global warming

Last evening I listened to a science talk about the modeling of the global warming.
The bloke actually said that the fact that current models cannot explain the "plato" of the last 15 years is might be because we did not include all factors in modeling of the atmosphere.
A situation that should not be surprising considering the complexity of the atmospheric system. It is quite possible that not even the model of this bloke is full and correct, although he seems to be able to get a better fit of his model data and past records.

This new model gives us a bit of hope. A new factor that this scientist included into his model is behavior of the ocean, specifically the established oscillation in the amount of the transferred heat from the equatorial to the polar regions of the planet. The catch is that this oscillatory behavior reached last maximum 15 years ago and now is in downward trend. Scientist hopes, that if his prediction is correct, and downward trend continues, we'll have 50-60 more years to do something about carbon production. Since I'm studying the Sun, I also know that there are indications that Sun itself is getting into the lul of the its activity. Some of my colleagues actually think that Sun will get into the same behavior as it exhibited during the last "little ice age". Anyway, this means two indicators for a bit of hope, a chance that we do something.

The audience had the cluster of the old white men siting quite close to me, who were not shy about their support of the petrol industry. One of them brought to the talk the book that had "Chevron" written on it. The rest of the audience were students, postdocs and faculty members of the local university. They were diverse crowd, and younger person it was you could see more worry in the eyes. Not surprising, we, younger ones will live through the hell caused by the consequences of the global warming. It is not an attractive prospect. Yes, I belong to the younger crowd. And honestly, I would not mind to have a child. But to bring a child into the world that is doomed?

Anyway, reaction of the audience to the talk was quite interesting. Old white men got into the huddle discussing what they heard, and apparently upset that scientist did not say that human influence is not contributing. Younger persons were trying to figure out how exact this model would be in predictions of the future, because if it is, we have a bit more time.
I have to admit, that when I heard that we'll have a bit more time, my first thought was, good, these old men will die, so we'll have less opposition and finally we'll be able to really do something about the pollution.  Honestly, that was my thought. Because I know that is impossible to talk with those people. I know, I tried several times. They do not care about facts, about complexity of the atmosphere. No. They still live in the bubble of the frozen time from 50-th of the last century. And, especially when they talk with a woman about subject like this, it is disgusting. Patronizing, then aggressive and full of dismissal. The sad point is that many of such men actually still hold enough power and influence over events today to be a significant brake for a change.

I know as another scientist that there are several others functioning alternatives for energy production. And with every year there is stronger push for it. Interestedly enough, the push is happening outside US, so seems like that these old white men who are so hanged up on US supremacy are actually the ones that will cost US future technological supremacy just because they cannot accept existence of the differences in solutions, in life, in opinions, in ideas.