Sidetracked Charley

And probably why every muscle in my body is complaining today. It is what is called a lasagna garden which is alternating layers of newspaper, grass clippings and peat moss. Bekkieann started me on this when she blogged about it on My So Called Life . It seemed like a good idea. I had started this a couple weeks ago as a way of uniting a couple plants like my peony and current bush in my little back garden and prevent me from having to mow around all of them separately. The rock garden/pond feature at the end is not completed yet. Yesterday I added another level to the garden bed and humped it up in the middle and then planted a blue and white columbine and three colors of poppies I had bought. I transplanted a purple columbine hidden in the front garden to this more airy location. I also put in a creeping rosemary I had in a pot and a start of rhubarb. I like rhubarb as a plant because of the huge green leaves and the red stalks. I have not done all the planting here I want to do but ...

This week has been dominated by the pit bull next door. He is owned by two typical pit bull owners. I am not sure people look like their dogs necessarily but we do pick dogs that fit our personalities. I love dogs but I hate pit bulls. I lived in North Carolina long enough to learn to fear them too. There are new renters in the house down the road and they own a pit bull. Pit bull owners, as a rule, never put collars on their dogs and fail to understand why they should exercise any control over them. Their pit bull attacked Magique. We got lucky and no serious damage was done. Our state has not outlawed these beast yet but the movement is a afoot or apaw as it were. Several cities require very strict licensing of them and their owners. No insurance company will provide liability coverage if you own a pit bull. As a consequence I do not allow the breed to be owned by any renter of mine, so I figured the owner to the duplex next door did not know he had a pit bull resident. I called him....

When one of my news alert services informed me of the Washington, DC Metro wreck I had to stop what I was doing on line and scope out the breaking news. I have ridden the DC Metro. I think I have stood on the platform at the very station pictured here. The wreck was in the open, however. A wreck in a tunnel would be really, really horrible. Riding the metro at rush hour is a bit of a Twilight Zone experience if I may say so. My then husband and I were staying at his brother's house in Alexandria and taking the metro in to visit our congressmen and play tourist. We got an early start most days and wound up on the train with the regulars. It was like a scene from the Clone Wars. Everyone was dressed alike in three piece black pinstripe suits (even the women) and all carrying I could swear the exact same brief case. All of them had this thousand mile stare my father used to talk about on the brink of a bombing mission in World War II. There was one woman dressed in a stark red coat on...

Mischief was afoot last night. The dogs in the neighborhood broke out into full chorus on a couple of occasions. One of the reasons, I found out this morning, was a skunk because it managed to target the neighbor's dogs I walk with in the morning. Because of the disrupted sleep patterns I was a bit more groggy than usual while sipping my first cup of coffee. I heard a thump somewhere near. It was not anything breaking. Did not sound expensive. So I continued to sip coffee and try to wake up before the morning fur kids walk. Upon returning home I noticed little white cat prints everywhere. My first thought was whether I had any paints out in my studio, but as I am packing for a fair this weekend that was not a possibility. I grab a sponge, wet it and begin wiping up the kitty tracks. They are not milk, or wet clay. I follow them back to the source and there his a spilled gallon of ceiling white latex paint in my hallway. Suddenly I remember the thump. And quite obviously both my pur...

Twice a year our little mountain community is the focus of an alien invasion of sorts. The tourists return. And the second homeowners come to enjoy some of the mountain peace before renting out their investments to those tourists. For some reason this always puts me in mind of the movie Poltergeist II and the little girl saying, "They're back." I generally look forward to seeing the second homeowners. I have friends among their numbers, and owning homes here they are not totally alien creatures from another planet. The remaining tourists can be divided into two camps not unlike spirits into good and evil. There are the visitors who I find very benign and quite charming in total. And there are the invaders. The invaders are primarily from one neighboring state and are convinced New Mexico would profit by taking their advice on everything. They have felt that way since the late 1800 range wars. Anyone remember G.W. Bush? Multiply that by 6000 and you will get the feel. I ha...

I found this wonderful early black and white photo of New York with her head in the clouds as it were. I was Googling images in black and white for use here on Sidetracked Charley. For reasons only another eccentric artist could understand I find myself wanting to stay with B&W here or monochromatic color images. I was soaring through the ether to avoid having to rein myself in and plant feet firmly to the ground and get to updating my inventory spread sheet, etc., which I blogged about on Creative Journey this morning. Mother would have said I was woolgathering , and these clouds do look like cotton wool. Well, I have always had my head in the clouds . But to get down to eart h, let me confess that I haven't a clue what this blog is about. I think I begun it just because I wanted to post this picture and not do the boring work I know I must do. That old law firm of Delay, Delay and Delay. But then once I began to type I realized the many cliques that decorate our language w...

When I first bought my house here in Black Lake I had my dining room table at the window facing east and would sit and sip my coffee while watching dawn creep over the mountains or the huge clouds build during the monsoon season. That window is now the door to my studio; a studio I designed to take advantage of all that beautiful sky. The process of building it, however, shut me up in the recesses of my house with my computers away from the dust of construction and all the windows I had so dreamed about. I have long ago moved back into all those forbidden spaces but somewhere I lost the habit of morning coffee spent before a window watching the clouds turn pink. I begin my day on the desktop computer looking at a corner and blinds down on the western view. It is still dark at that time, and if the blinds are open I feel exposed to the traffic (odd word for my little lane). Two days ago it occurred to me that I should take my morning coffee into the studio and boot up the laptop instead...

Today is my birthday. I am under the impression or delusion that this will be a lucky year because the numbers are 06/03/09. And 6 times 3 is 9. And the Chinese think years with nine are lucky. The year just finished was not lucky. Or maybe I should hold it as luck that I survived it. Age is an interesting thing. I remember as a kid I argued for the one half. Dad you say I was six (he was usually off a year or two) and I would correct him and ad the half, "No, Daddy, I am eight and a half ." Definite stress on the a half. At some point, probably the 5th grade, we learned of fractions and I started arguing for three fourths which then gave way to almost nine or ten. After reaching my teens this stress to always be older gave way for a while. I remember continuing to slip in for under 12 into movie theaters. Tickets were cheaper for kids. And I did not see anything at all sweet about 16. It was a horrid year with Mom's cancer. I admit to a certain numbness of just putting ...