Loose Leaf Notes

1. Only in Floyd can you fill up your gas tank in the same place where corn grows.

2. I ordered loaded fries at the Fat Bean food truck for one meal at Yoga Jam and had potatoes with another.  “You like potatoes. Are you grain free?” a friend asked. “No, I’m Irish, I answered.

3. Self-portrait or seeing double?

4. Recent solved Wordle words: Leech, wheel, skiff, filet, skate, lithe, mulch, delay.

5. I needed my head examined. So I got some cranial sacrum massage at the Oasis Healing Tent from a dear friend at Yoga Jam. They were piping in Creedence Clearwater songs, or at least we thought, until we realized it was a live CC tribute band playing live on the nearby main stage.

6. Earth Is Spinning Faster (and not only in Floyd) Now Than It Was 50 Years Ago – Compensating for the lost time may prove challenging for scientists. – Ever feel like there’s just not enough time in the day? Turns out, you might be onto something. Earth is rotating faster than it has in the last half-century, resulting in our days being ever-so-slightly shorter than we’re used to. And while it’s an infinitesimally small difference, it’s become a big headache for physicists, computer programmers and even stockbrokers. More HERE.

7. THIS wave is taken.

8. This appeals to the survivalist in me – A woodpecker preparing for winter starts by finding a dead tree and meticulously making holes to store acorns. Each hole is carefully crafted; if it’s too large, other birds can easily steal the acorns, and if it’s too small, the acorns can break and spoil. By the end of summer, the woodpecker’s precise work is complete. The ripened acorns are placed in the holes, with a single large tree trunk capable of holding around 50,000 acorns.

9. I know it’s nearly September / by the sound of acorns dropping / on the woodshed’s tin roof / I don’t know if the nuts / are slipping from the paws of squirrels / or if they are being strategically thrown

10. After Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, Kaine starting referring to himself as “an electoral college drop-out.  Via his book, Walk Ride Paddle.

11. It’s sometimes hard to read audience expressions, and poetry isn’t an easy sell, especially when our topic is depth psychology into aging and, as poet David Whyte says, “apprenticing ourselves to our own disappearance.” But there’s always a few who lean in, whose faces light up, who listen intently, and I focus on them. I finally relaxed when I read Wendy Wants a Bigger Island and the group of about twenty all laughed. – More from I Hope We Took You Somewhere HERE.

12. Floyd Living Traditions demonstrations included woodworking, blacksmith forging, basketry, chair canning, soap making, quilting, chain saw carving, pottery wheel demonstrations and more… Activities were inviting for all ages and interests. They included storytelling, flat foot and contra dancing, shape note singing, a scavenger hunt, making corn husk dolls and barn quilts. – More from Celebrating Floyd’s Living Traditions HERE. 

13. I never liked the black and white / true or false questions / or the memorized answers / in someone else’s words / It’s too cold to crack open a window / but the woodpecker at the feeder / reminds me to wear red / It knows when to fly in / and when to retreat / It doesn’t care / what the other birds think…

_________Thirteen Thursday