Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.
So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?
…
NOTE: The comments page will split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool, shown here with 3 pages of comments available.
…
Good “morning”, Motley Meese! The week begins …
Morning low of 63 degrees in Madison WI with an expected daytime high of 73. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast.
Have a great day, all y’alls!!
Sunday Meese. 66 going up to 86 here in Kingston NY.
Built another lasagna bed yesterday – tomorrow heading out to get plants to put in the new beds. Can’t wait to have a garden again (I miss my farm)
Puerto Rico
Dee, what do you grow in your garden? I’ve planted Early Girl and Better Boy tomatoes, Sungold and grape tomatoes, and a zucchini plant. Also parsley, mint, and basil.
We have a little farmers’ market now at The Home for the Aged, so I’ll just buy whatever he brings. He has wonderful, sun-ripened strawberries!
I’ve got a sungold growing in a planter on the sunporch. I’ve never tried that before. It seems to be growing well. We’ll see if the flowers manage to get pollinated under these circumstances and I actually get tomatoes this year. 😁😁 I still haven’t done the Farmers Market this year and am not sure I will. There’s just no way to get clear if it’s too crowded. And it tends to get too crowded. sigh.
Good morning. I went to the gym yesterday, because it kept raining every time I started to go for my walk/run, and the weather said there was a 70% chance of rain this morning (so naturally it’s not raining now). Did my 8 repeats of 90 seconds running, with 60 seconds walking in between; though I feel like “running” on the elliptical is, if not cheating, cheat-adjacent. Today: church, make dinner for next week, go to farewell for my pastor who is retiring. Right now, I’m eating breakfast & watching the news.
Sunday music
Good Sunday morning, Moosekind1 After a distinctly unpromising start—the sky was “louring” with ugly gray clouds at dawn—we are now having a nice shiny day. We’ve had to turn on the a.c. as the heat has been unbearable. At 9:15 a.m. it’s 80 F., which reminds me that I’d better get down to the garden before it gets much hotter.
This afternoon my building is having a party, our first since some time in 2019! Dearly and I will attend so we can see all the neighbors we haven’t seen forever and a day. We won’t stay the whole time, as parties tend to make me nervous, or bored, or both. I’m such an old bee-yatch.
Must get everything possible done before lunch, as I know I’ll collapse afterward. Wishing all a nice day!
Much better day – the sun is shining. It probably won’t for long but it is shining. It’s 73 heading for low 80s which is just fine by me. Rain chances are under 25% so I’ll take a walk later even if/when it clouds up. The sun didn’t exactly come out yesterday but the clouds thinned enough we generated 12.5 KWHs and closed out the day’s m-t-d with 260. Not great but at 3x Friday’s production, it’ll definitely do.
Nothing’s changed for anybody as far as I know. As of last night anyway. All anybody can do is keep on keepin’ on. And pray. And hope prayers work at least to some extent. That’s true in the larger world as well.
I’ve done almost none of my Sunday chores. I used my energy dashing out to the grocery store and getting the beef I’ve been craving the last week or so. Lucked into a 2.5-lb package of 90% lean ground beef marked down. Which is now made up into 10 patties, 8 in the freezer and 2 in the fridge. There were out of GF hamburger buns so I got a pack of GF hot dog buns instead. Just for the “treat” aspect of a hamburger even if weirdly shaped. The rest will be “hamburger steak” as we used to call them.
Gonna eat my oatmeal, drink my coffee, listen to the music on Dee’s diary, and do my twitter chores. I figure I’ll get enough energy back to at least make my bed shortly. 😁 Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 55 and mostly cloudy in Bellingham. I was asleep early last night and am slow to wake up this morning. Don’t know why I’m so tired but I am so I’m trying to pay attention. Between sorting out donations from the garage and wanting to do the same in my sewing room my mind is busy, but my body is having a hard time keeping up! Oh well, a small load of old doors and door hardware went to Restore yesterday so that’s a start.
I’m going to do some more planting in the garden today and hope to finish the book I’m reading, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, by Jacqueline Winspear. I’ve enjoyed her Massie Dobbs series and reading her memoir is just as engaging.
Best wishes to all on this quiet Sunday morning.
Monday Meese. 51 going up to 71 here in Kingston NY. Great day for gardening.
Puerto Rico
Good morning, meeses! Monday …
It is 55 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 82. The forecast calls for some sun, some clouds, no rain.
I have to decide if I should read any more “Republicans in Disarray” articles. On the one hand, the idea of the Republican Party crashing and burning is very tasty but on the other hand, I don’t want to be lulled into the false sense that voters will reject the death cult and choose democracy over ignorance and craven assholery. We have been here before – in 2016 when “everyone I know” was certain that Donald J. Trump could never be elected president and in 2020 where we came within a whisker of re-electing him even though he helped kill over half a million people by his incompetence. It is better to go into it with eyes wide open, realizing that the tribalism in American politics is hardening and that the only way we will win in 2022 and 2024 is by helping our coalitions to vote and keeping young people engaged.
Last working week of May! I am taking a vacation in the middle of June so I need to get my ducks in a row to finish May with a flourish of activity and develop a realistic project plan for next month.
See all y’all later!
Good morning. Ran into the office to get new applications. It’s still raining, but supposed to dry out by the end of the week. So I’m working on them, and watching the Smithsonian channel. Will take dance & ab breaks, at least that’s the plan.
Good Monday moaning, Moosekind. Sitting here a-moanin’ and a-groanin’, bitchin’ in the kitchen, a-rockin’ and a-mockin’ because it refuses to RAIN! Monty and I felt a few tentative drops at 5:30 this morning, which were enough to make him want to scuttle back into shelter after his fourth poop. The sky looks like rain; the air smells like rain; I heard something gurgling in the gutters a couple of hours ago; and the temperature has dropped five degrees since we got up. It’s now 65 F. and the high will be 69 F. “They” say there is a 90% chance of rain but “they” have been wrong before.
I want it to rain so I don’t have to go down and water the garden. It’s a five-minute walk, but I’m feeling lazy. Yesterday I went there and yanked out the namby-pamby, dying basil and mint and planted fresh pots thereof. I fertilized all the plants, watered all the plants, and then shoveled 20 pounds of mulch into the garden bed. I’ll say one thing for The Home, they supply the mulch, topsoil, fertilizer, and gardening implements free. There’s a shed where such things are stored.
By the time I finished doing that I ached in every limb and also smelt terrible. Some of that fish-based fertilizer must have got on me. Had to have a shower and a rest. After that, I cooked some ready-made meat balls and doused them with Stubb’s barbecue sauce for the party. I called them “meat bores” because they weren’t wildly exciting.
There were masses of food at the party, which was held in the beautiful “library” of the new club house. In my opinion a library should contain BOOKs, not furniture and objets’ d’art. Oh, well. It was fun chatting with neighbors I hadn’t really talked to in 15 months. Learned some awful news about two of the people in our building, who are very ill. It almost makes me grateful there’s nothhing more wrong with me than Overwrought Bladder.
Fun though it was, I can only tolerate large groups of people for about an hour, so Dearly and I tottered off at 5:30. We spent a quiet evening watching telly, although I was too tired to stay up for the last episode of “Atlantic Crossing.” My newly “corrected” eye is so fuzzy this morning that I’m sure I’ve committed all kinds of typos. Pray overlook them.
Wishing a good, productive day to all at the Pond!
One side benefit of word play (and sometimes word invention!) is that typos never really exist – they are merely different presentations of known words!!
It’s 72 heading for 80 (or more) and can’t decide whether it’s gonna be sunny or not. Yesterday we had enough sunshine to generate right at 17 KWHs – which would be on track if we’d averaged that daily – bringing the m-t-d to 278.6, most certainly not on track. And mostly cloudy with some rain for the rest of the month. sigh.
Jill’s pretty sure it’s them still roaming around. Now with no money. But they still have not called, texted, or emailed or responded to hers. Meanwhile, she’s got to find some transportation to get into town for groceries and cash. (& the bastids took all the masks, too.) Amelia isn’t doing anything for herself but is being emotional support for her sister who recently had ankle reconstruction surgery. I haven’t heard from Karen but she’s got a PCP appointment tomorrow. Aji’s posted early today so will probably not be online much. (Either that or didn’t sleep last night and did it to distract herself.) My DiL is doing better. Just as well. The OB-Gyn they found is a jerk. They’re looking for another. And a friend of my son’s from the gurdwara took his family home to India just before things got bad, couldn’t get out, and got COVID and died. His father and sister are still in ICU. His wife and kids (including the baby who was born there – she was pregnant when they left AR) are staying in the family home but have no income at all. The gurdwara has started a GFM that I’ll boost on twitter shortly.
I’m allergic to something in the air/some kind of pollen about a block from my house – heaven knows what it’s doing to my lungs but what it does to my hands is make them red, itchy, and swollen. So does some kinds of cleaning, which is why I seldom do it. Bugs are back. I hope I don’t have to treat the lawn. I hope. I hate putting out poison at any time and I’m just so very close to the creek. I already know I’m going to have to poison the perimeter of my house, mostly around the doors and windows. So bites on my feet, rash on my hands (gone now – washing hands thoroughly multiple times seems to have taken care of it), other warm-weather ills. I love the warmth (and the great food that comes with summer) but the rest of it can go away any old time.
Anyway, it is warmer weather so I’ve some winter stuff I need to wash and then put away. Clean out the woodstove for the season. Stuff like that. But more coffee first. And my twitter chores. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
What a terrible story! OMG. I hope the GFM will help the remaining family get back to the USA.
Good morning, 51 and raining in Bellingham. I planted 3 pots around the upper patio yesterday so I felt justified to then take a bath, then a nap, and then to finish my book. I should focus on my desk today but I’ll see what happens. My to do list is downstairs and unmotivated me is still upstairs. I may linger awhile!
Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Tuesday …
It is 72 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 81. A front moves through this afternoon bringing thunderstorms and cooler weather for a few days. Tomorrow it will be 72 degrees and sunny – perfect weather – for one day.
“Labor shortages end when wages rise, say some local businesses” reads the headline. Well, duh!! Most people want to work but not for low wages that don’t pay for childcare. Businesses need to understand that you have to pay the prevailing rate for labor just like you do for materials; if they want to join the Republicans in denouncing “people wanting to get paid fairly” as tyranny, frankly I hope their businesses go belly up and they have to look for a family supporting job. Grievance is the hallmark of the Republican base, white grievance, male grievance, anger at The Other for soiling their “beautiful lives.” Wallow in self-absorption and bitterness, MAGAts, the rest of us have lives to live.
Busy morning here – I have a training session planned and need to get it set up.
See all y’all later!
Tuesday Meese. 54 going up to 79 here in Kingston NY.
Today marks the one year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.
That poor man! And OMG, think of all the myriad other deaths that have followed and preceded that of George Floyd. This is the most racist country that has ever existed, and if white supremacy persists in dominating all our institutions, we’ll descend into chaos or at the very least, separate collections of states.
Puerto Rico
Nellie Gorbea
Good Tuesday morning, Meese. The sky is cloudy and likely to remain so all day. Yikes, the sight in my “corrected” eye is so fuzzy today I can hardly type. Somehow I can tell this is not going to be a good day.
Anyway, right now in Ashburn it’s 58 F., on its way up to 80 F. Yesterday, mind you, starting at 1 p.m. we had three hours of highly satisfactory steady rain, measuring .49 of an inch in all. One of the worst parts of being almost deaf without my hearing aids in place is not being able to hear rain falling at night. I used to love that. I needed a nap after lunch yesterday because of my awful 5 a.m. wakeup time, so I kept my hearing aids in and just lay on my back during the nap. I opened the window so I could hear the rain falling. It was wonderful.
We’re still three and a half inches under for the year, though. This morning’s Post carried the interesting news that teleworking may become permanent for the federal government. Younger Son’s wife, whom I mentally call “Tiger Mom,” is coming up to her ninth anniversary of working for the government. She dotes on teleworking, although slightly less so with having to keep two children in order. Anyway, with Younger Son’s new 40-minute commute each way to his new job, teleworking is really good for her.
This fuzzy sight is going to make life very difficult for me today. Moan, moan. Wishing a good day to all at the Pond!
Despite a really bad night’s sleep, I got up and did my walk/run. It is much easier on the elliptical. Of course, it’s hot & humid so that adds to the difficulty. I managed 3 segments of 90 seconds running, with 1 minute between. The rest were 60 seconds running, and longer than a minute between. So, this step is going to take at least 2 weeks. Today: work. Try very hard to stay awake. I need to go into the office in the afternoon, either today or tomorrow; if I manage to actually wake up, may go today.
It’s 70 heading for 74 and, although the day started sunny, cloudy. Whether or not the rain actually shows up I may or may not get a walk in. At least I’ve gotten walks the last two days. (Need to sort of detour around the area where the spirea is – that seems to be at least part of what I’m allergic to. Figures anyway. Anything with a scent that strong does tend to give me trouble.) The sun was more off than on yesterday – we generated 11.6 KWHs (about half what’s possible this time of year) and 290 is where the m-t-d is at the moment. So we might, maybe, manage to reach 300 today. And might, maybe, reach 370 to beat out May ’20 by the end of the month. But unless an abrupt totally out of nowhere change in the weather happens giving us 6 bright sunny days for the rest of May, we aren’t going to reach April’s production. Which “just ain’t right” even when it’s correct.
Thanks to the nasal decongestant (that I can take one more time then not again until the last week of June) I got some decent sleep. Healing Energy to the Meeses who didn’t, for whatever reason. Amelia’s still putting what energy she has into moral support for her sister. Fineena’s got a doctor appointment today. Hopefully her PCP will pay attention and start looking into her continual nausea. Jill hasn’t posted anything in 21 hours and it’s scaring the hell out of me. Aji’s not going to have full results of the tests for 2 weeks but the preliminary results say either 1) minor, treat with drugs or 2) major, 40% chance of being alive 5 years from now. No in betweens. It’s add it & the new drugs to the list of stuff she’s already dealing with or start making exit plans. We did get one more donation for Ranjit’s family. I’ll boost the GFM for a while and see if I can bring in any more.
I was going to do laundry today but I checked the weather widget again and Thursday looks to be a better day for it. More coffee & heading for twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 54 and partly sunny in Bellingham. I did most of what needed to be done with my messy desk work yesterday so today can be more fun if I can motivate myself to do something. Nice to have choices. Best wishes to all.