Loose Leaf Notes

1. My husband Joe, a counselor who runs an addiction day program, is working at home.

2. Last week I went to a webinar birthday celebration for his mom, who just turned 91.

3. The birds are my entertainment. The garden is my work.

4. Last week the song Can’t Touch This was going round in my head. This week it’s THIS.

5. The new girls in town already have names. The boys named them. Big Fat and Black Jack are Jersey Giants, Mrs. Peck and Chicken Nugget are Salmon Faverolle, and Ostrich is a Turken, which is named from the word turkey and hen because it is a chicken that looks like a turkey… More from Will Work for Food HERE.

6. Speaking of homemade entertainment, along with getting new chickens and doing some social distance camping with the grandsons (before the parks were closed for camping and while their parents were working), there is also a new garage band in town that is keeping the boys busy.

7. From a window seat / you feel lucky to have found / you enjoy the scenery / that you feel distant from / You watch for landmarks / and work your way back / picking up a nuance / at every stop / Waiting for a blue streak / of original thought / you write down / everything / that happens … Read The Blue Line in its entirety HERE.

8. I’m glad poetry isn’t as scarce as toilet paper, and you can bet no one hoards it.

9. Writing: I don’t know where it comes from or what makes it start. Sometimes I start receiving dictation while I’m working on something else. It’s like watching a TV show and the newscaster breaks in with a message. I grab a pen and write it down. I don’t have to know what it means. It’s not the time to fuss about where it will be used or to complain about the lack of wages it will earn. I know who my boss is. I do my grunt work. Write it all down on anything I can find. Some writing starts in a notebook and ends on the side of a popcorn box scribbled in a dark theater.

10. “I don’t understand walking sticks. It’s just something you have to carry,” I said to Joe after passing two hikers with them on a trail wide enough that we could pass without close contact. I liked the freedom I felt with only a small camera around my shoulder. He carried water and binoculars. -More from Wild Things and Wild Flowers HERE.

11. “When the economy runs leaner as it does now, humankind generates much less greenhouse gas. We must run leaner as the rule and not as the exception by permanently altering our travel, work and consumption patterns. When COVID-19 wanes, climate disorder will rebound and worsen unless we change from business as usual… History’s pandemics have made us see clearly that all races and nations are“all one flesh” — a single susceptible and inter-dependent protoplasmic family of Life. The choices for change that we make as a species on the other side of this wide and deep crisis will be the most consequential collective decisions in human history. Might this be a wakeup call to recalibrate civilization?” – From We’ve Known  it Could Happen, Roanoke Times and Floyd Press by my Floyd friend Fred First

12. The day after hearing that our American treasure John Prine had died from complications of the coronavirus, I googled “John Prine on Trump” because I value his insight and was wondering if there was a song. I found this:  “I tried to write something about Trump – one was called Dear Mr President, but I found myself going into a rant in the first verse. I think the real reason I didn’t write a song about him was that I secretly kept hoping he’d be gone before I could get into the studio.”

13. Today’s entertainment HERE.

________Thirteen Thursday