Yes it was hot again yesterday morning and there were very few birds in the garden. Only a finch or two but one was unusual – a little bit bigger and a reddish head. He/she was definitely different from the slightly smaller every day song birds.

One of the categories in my postcard collection is DOGS. Yes I collect postcards of dogs. There are so many Beautiful and handsome breeds I should narrow my collecting avarice – I have tried to narrow myself to St. Bernards – but there are so many other beautiful dogs in this world …………I just keep adding to the collection.

May your Birthday hours be bright

is the wish I send you.

May every year bring new delight

And loving friends attend you.

I think the card pre-dates my husband.

This morning it was strange in the garden, There was hardly a bird in sight. Was it too hot that early? It was weird. Every other morning for weeks there have been numerous what I call “little tweeties”. This morning i had a fleeting sighting of a Stellar Jay and also only a very few “little tweeies” . Extreme heat is forecast. The birds KNOW.

Usually I see numerous small birds tweeting and darting about in the trees in the garden. All similar. Always tweeting, calling to their friends, and just darting about and drinking from the water stations I keep refilling. Are they finches? Today I saw a slightly bigger bird and he/she was a ground feeder. It was most exciting. The only other different bird sighting I have had was the Northern Flicker and the Stellar Jay. That was a few weeks ago and it was only one day.

pictures to follow

Did things ever go wrong today. I had trouble booking my transport so I got help from the front desk. So that was fine. Then I had a nice visit with some of the family – that was fine although I was surprised to learn that they were going away tomorrow AND then no sooner would they be back but then whoosh away again. More power to them!

I pottered away in my garden. Spoke with my new neighbor. No he’s not going to extend his house – just having some electrical work done. (We shall see what that means.)

My cat was in the driveway of my house but after a few meows she wandered off.

THEN it came time to arrange my ride back to Ida Culver. My problems escalated. I tried to book my ride but the APP on my phone didn’t want to do that, I went for assistance and my teacher had problems also. She fiddled with passwords etc ad tried this and that but no success until…….after about 15 minutes or so Bazooka she succeeded and a ride materialized.

Meanwhile I had phoned Ida Culver to tell them I was delayed. The aide for my husband wanted to know if it was all right to leave him out in the hallway while the carpet cleaners finished up. Yes I said.

A ride materialized and as I got in my phone rang again. This time it was the aide’s agency worried about my husband left out in the hallway. I assured them I was now on my way and would be there shortly.

I duly arrived – no husband in the hallway – empty apartment – dirty marks on the carpet. Well he was there actually and had taken matters into his own hands, so to speak, to get to the bathroom.

O.K. the phone then rang and it was the foot doctor’s secretary wanting to know if we were coming for our appointment. Yes I said we’re on our way, as I urged my husband to get into the wheelchair. He was pretty cross and didn’t know what was going on and thought we were leaving altogether.

I had a hard time negotiating the path for the wheelchair to get out of the apartment, but finally away we went and proceeded to get our feet attended to. We calmed down a bit and the trip back to the apartment went smoothly. All is well.

Years ago a large tree stood at the boundary of my sister’s farm in Milford New Hampshire. Pictured here are the remains of what once was a mighty tree. The farm itself dates back to the 1700’s.

Ima

A photo from years ago – this is the cat, Quasi, that we had in Dublin for 20 years

I was tidying things in our house today, August 6. Quite by chance I picked up a letter written to me August 6, 1967. How long ago was that? 54 years ago. A letter from my boyfriend who was on a work swan in Germany for 5 weeks.

What fun to reread this letter and it was so bizarre to find it today, quite by chance..We married 6 months later. Was it written in the stars?