People

Foofaraw in our area.  Proposed hog operation vs. youth camp.  People want their bacon, but somehow imagine it can be produced without the inconvenience of hog poo.  (Well, maybe it could be produced in someone else's neighborhood.)

Bacon, or a place to send the kids for the summer?  Make up your minds.

Nap Interrupted

The neighbor's windchimes

are clacking in the blowing

of the summer breeze.

Family

Timothy David,

my son, and Mary, his wife,

moved to Montana.

There they had children,

three or four, or maybe more.

I've not heard in years.

Bitterman Update

Herk walked over to the flower plot I was weeding.  I straightened up, not so much to eyeball him while we talked as to give my back some relief.  "Some nice looking flowers," he remarked.  "Thanks," I said.  "The bearded iris would be my favorite flower if only the bloom lasted longer."

"Oh, yes," Herk responded, "beauty fades quickly, doesn't she?"  I knew Herk was not talking about flowers, so I didn't make any comment.  Now, it is well-known that his wife, Tildy, was a real beauty in her youth, and she has the pictures and the clippings to prove that that fact was recognized by the County Fair committee back in nineteen-something-or-other, for she was Queen that year.  Herkimer doesn't realize it sometimes, or perhaps he is simply not as thoughtful as he might be, but Tildy has aged well, and she is, as is sometimes said of a lady of a certain age, "a fine figure of a woman."  What I am saying is, Herkimer is darned lucky, and he doesn't even know how lucky he is.  In all fairness, though, I should say I don't have to live with her, and Tildy does have a way with words.

We chatted a bit about the storms in Kansas and the flax crops in North Dakota, then Herkimer took his leave, and I bent again to the task.

Pain

Prostrate on the floor

He's fallen and can't get up.

Getting old is hell.

Lonely

    Broken derelict

Washed up on the sands of time.

Who remembers him?

Then and Now

When I was a kid, we played cops and robbers.

Today, kids are cops and robbers.

Toothpicks

On display in the museum was this model built entirely of toothpicks by someone who clearly had too much time on his hands.  Anyway, ahead of me was a cute little girl of perhaps thirteen summers who looked at the model briefly then turned to a docent and asked, "Why didn't they use colored toothpicks?"

The gentleman  had a look on his face which clearly indicated he had never before heard such a question, nor did he seem to have a ready response in his repertoire.

The placard indicated that the construction required 85,000 toothpicks.

Bigify for detail.

Back. For How Long?

I have not been able to post here since early April.  Yet as mysteriously as the "works" disappeared they have now reappeared.

There may be some elves at Blogger who enjoy messing with our heads.  You may recall that vanilla had a similar experience earlier this year.

So I am back, but there are no promises that posting will occur with any regularity.  One has to have a thought in his head before he can write, you know.