Is it June or July or January?

 I thought it was already July. Nope, a few more hours of June.

It has actually been quite busy. But I'm focused upon the actions that I'll be gearing up for at the end of July. Like an athlete training for a race...I'm in the final days here.

OK, goodbye June. You've been good to me. Thanks for the memories. I sure spent as much time as possible with friends this month. It was almost daily seeing someone for some reason or another. I'll miss them so much.

This is a unintented photo...as I was walking along carrying the phone, leaving the Lakeview Center's lunch program last week. I like the colors though.

Not my photo, and I am not sure where it came from... while the moon is actually just past full tonight. Last night it woke me up, shining in my eyes.

Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn't know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that's why it's called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life.

   Bruce Lee

Suzanne and I have frequently had Sunday lunch dates by the Flat Creek on Ole' Guacamole's patio. The water wasn't too high last week while there was steady rain.

I also ran into Tina, Dawn, Jeff and Tim, who have befriended me many times while living for the last 19 years here in Black Mountain. I met all of these friends through the Unitarian Universalist Congregation here. 

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I posted my experience of my friend's husband's recent death over on my other blog, Inner Workings.

What kind of oak is it? (plus Alligator Alcatraz news)

 

A friend shared her photos of a grandmother oak where she visits at Emberlight. Her husband is staying there (in Swannanoa) while Hospice cares for him. But we don't know what kind of oak this might be.

Any ideas? (my iPhone kept saying a red oak...mmmm?)

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Before

Aerial image of the site before any construction shows a “before” comparison with the newly paved area to the west of the runway. Friends of the Everglades.

I shared my feelings about Alligator Auschwitz on a Before and After blog earlier.

June 26 Facebook postings tell this...

Getting high(er)

 Only 2 more days in the month of June. It has sure been a busy month!

A compass in the sidewalk outside our local history museum surprised me, that State St. in Black Mountain flows North-east to South-west...rather than just E to W. Well, it does have a few bends that are almost unnoticeable.

And it tell us the elevation is 2,499.1 feet above sea level. I'm going to move to Durango CO at the end of July, and it's 6, 532 feet in elevation. Not sure exactly what part of town it is, since there's a big hill behind my soon-to-be-apartment building, with Fort Lewis College located up there. 

But the message to me is it's 2-1/2 times higher than where I now live. Thus all my trips up to the mountains nearby on the Blue Ridge Parkway. (You thought I just loved them, which is actually true.) What will I do when I have really high mountains to climb? OK, I'm not planning those trips until I can acclimate to the altitude where I'll be sleeping! Pulmonologists are saying I may acclimate in a few weeks. I still get to sleep with oxygen and my CPAP. And I have portable oxygen for possible need as well.

The other day I talked to scheduling in Durango and made my first doctor's appointment. A primary care provider. I'm learning to talk to the people on the ground, so to speak. The insurance folks thought another doc was taking new patients, so I called there for an appointment the month after my move. Nah, when I got the scheduler at the hospital where all the doctors are part of a network, she said that doc wasn't taking new patients, and what kind of doc did I want, an internist or general practitioner.

I honestly didn't know the difference. But I told her my major needs and she said a GP would do well. Of course he'll probably be 25 years old, and I may have to drive through awful traffic to get to him, where the first choice was 2 blocks from my soon-to-be apartment. 

There have been times in my life when I was unemployed and had no health insurance. We stayed healthier then, I think.

Wouldn't it be nice to have good healthcare that is free and no longer dependent upon profit making insurance companies?

How is it that this country has gotten into this mess?

My soon-to-be apartment building on the left, but my apartment will be on the other (west) side of the building.

I can't wait to see this boulevard covered in snow! Of course I may eat these words!

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For climate change interest:

See the new site as described in this NPR article for up to date info that's no longer available from NOAA due to the government cutbacks. climate.us

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/26/nx-s1-5869615/climate-noaa-data-trump-doge?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&fbclid=IwY2xjawSrZTNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFvcFV4MDJVTjB4b21xdURnc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHj6tvo_8YB7uXgj3HtJr8fpZQMUyFeuvqZ4qlFdBdGE3cdB9c3y01gA6w3w1_aem_nHmjFgA4B9JfVK5bHI1GnA

Intergenerational fun

 A favorite song for children and adults to join together...

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got
All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Listen to the bass, it's the one on the bottom
Where the bullfrog croaks and the hippopotamus
Moans and groans with a big t'do
And the old cow just goes moo

The dogs and the cats they take up the middle
While the honeybee hums and the cricket fiddles
The donkey brays and the pony neighs
And the old coyote howls

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Listen to the top where the little birds sing
On the melodies with the high notes ringing
The hoot owl hollers over everything
And the jaybird disagrees

Singin' in the night time, singing in the day

The little duck quacks, then he's on his way

The 'possum ain't got much to say
And the porcupine talks to himself

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Illustration for the 1917 book Christmas in the Wood by Philip Vinton Clayton

It's a simple song of living sung everywhere
By the ox and the fox and the grizzly bear
The grumpy alligator the the hawk above
The sly raccoon and the turtle dove

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wires
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now

Above photos from the Halloween critter parade in Black Mountain NC 2024

When I've been in a choir singing this, frequently children (or adults) would give the voices of the animals at the end of each line. So it was pretty fun!

A video gives the melody, in case you want to sing along!

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From the internet

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Sharing with Saturday's Critters

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Yesterday was Pearl Buck's birthday, the author of The Good Earth. Here's a quote from her, which really means a lot to me.

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (26 Jun 1892-1973)

FYI:

 Pearl Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, in 1892 to two Presbyterian missionaries, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstriker. The family moved to China when Buck was three months old, and she lived there for most of the next 40 years. As a child, she was homeschooled by her mother in the mornings. In the afternoon, she was taught classical Chinese by a scholar named Mr. Kung.

Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, (1930) sold well, but it was her second novel, The Good Earth (1931), about a clan of Chinese peasants struggling to survive during a drought, that became an international best-seller and won Buck the Pulitzer Prize. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938, one of only two American women to do so (the second was Toni Morrison).

Sepia photos with wood

Unknown 1911 location. I remember my parents having one of those sling chairs like the man is lounging in....a canvas strip adhered at a top and bottom bar, with wood struts which collapsed so it could easily be carried around.

Madison County NC shows another wood frame hanging from the ceiling with fabric attached, this time to be quilted with the cotton batting which is shown around  the edges. 1936

More use of wood and ropes on a derelict dock, with industrial gravel piled in the distance waiting to be shipped somewhere. Tampa Bay Florida in the 2000s.

Daughter of white tobacco sharecropper at country store in Person County, North Carolina, circa 1939.

 

Women having tea, New Zealand, 1890.

Sharing with  Sepia Saturday.

Nature in a pot

 No nothing about pot, not even really about pottery either!

Just what is growing in my pots. Here all the other buds but one have fallen off, and this is what the cactus is putting out.

I don't know if Ms Spider came inside with her web or not. 

Tiny but mighty succulents.

I gave away the other big square planter, but plan to take this with me when I move...as well as these happy Kalanchoes.

My Spirit House to invite good vibes to visit!

These succulents are getting more sun. I should take the others outside to the porch railing too.

Unfold your own myth.

Rumi

Very strange, this Kalanchoe is not doing well, and then I just stuck a flower from the other one into the pot, and it's still blooming after 2 weeks. I think this is one of the pots which got the fungus in it a couple of years ago.

Sharing with Thankful Thursday!

Being present lets us experience each moment in our lives in a way that cannot be fully lived through memory or fantasy.

Just a month left

 

I wonder why I'm not drawn to go to the beach one more time this summer before I move out west. I could certainly do so. I've sat in the sand and enjoyed the interaction with salty waves many times, enjoying the connection with all the waters that flow around our earth.

But no, I can let the rest of humanity have their sunburns, sandy toes, and damp bathing suits. I am happy enough with drinking lots of water. That's become my connection with all the earth's many-times-recycled waters. You can remind me I said this today if I ever complain about the dryness of Colorado!

Making blueberry pancakes the other day...with frozen blueberries. I'd drop a few onto each pancake after the batter was poured in the pan. So I got lovely blueberry stains on my fingernails!

I do prefer the smaller ones to the great big grandmother size pancakes.

A view of the cooking layout for my new apartment in Durango. It's not much different than the one I now have, though a bit older and smaller. Which actually is close to describing myself, except I'm not much smaller!

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Reminder: Drop over to see Art in Bloom - Alchemy of Clay blog which has some photos each day for this year's display of art with floral arrangements at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts 

Oldest ceramic, not just a goddess

 The Venus of Dolní Věstonice is a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE. It was found in 1925 at the Paleolithic site Dolní Věstonice in the Moravian basin south of Brno / Czech 

It is considered the oldest known ceramic article in the world, crafted from fired clay mixed with bone ash.

@Moravian Museum in Brno.

One may also have a thought or two whether the artist who modeled and carved this figure in clay, then burned it in the firepit was a man or woman.

Thanks for hosting Tuesday's Treasures, Tom the Backroads Traveller!

I've posted lots of other ancient goddesses. Here are a few of them.

Happy 2026

Peace on Earth

Maybe the Angry Women -4

Celebrations of Light

Maybe the Angry Women - 2

Well, there are a lot more, but these came up first in my search!

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Some more ancient wonders:

Built before the pyramids, Newgrange is aligned with the winter solar solstice. This civilization included minds which remembered a year to year event, engineers and artists who could build forms to show how the sun would shine down a passageway at that yearly event, and a group of people who could mound up all that earth and move those stones without metal tools or wheels. Whenever a civilization can build monuments, it means there is enough sustenance and wealth that people don't all have to be focused on survival issues, raising food and families and protecting themselves against the elements and possible enemies. I'm always in  awe of these ancient skilled peoples.

Dawn shines down the passageway at Newgrange on Winter Solstice

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Art in Bloom - Alchemy of Clay blog has some photos each day for this year's display of art with floral arrangements at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts