Jana’s blog

Well it's that time of year again!! Time for hockey to Officially start today and the Red Wings have a lot of new faces and some come-backs on the roster. It will be an interesting year indeed and hopefully a fruitful one too! BACK TO THE CUP!!! Funny thing about this image-- Chris Chelios-on the left side- is not playing hockey at all right now and is no longer with the Wings. Bummer in a way but his leaving made cap room for some much needed younger blood. I think the other image is Hasek and he is also retired. It was an old image, what can I say?

Sylvia's Wish:

"I wish you would use all means at your disposal -- films! expeditions! the web! more! -- to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet."

I implore you to pass this one to everyone you know. People we need to wake up.. 

Giving thanks

I told you that I would tell you what I am thankful for today.
I got up feeling great today and I had a free 12 lb turkey defrosting in my fridge. I started it around noon and made some stuffing and other goodies. I finished it all around 5 pm and sat down by myself for turkey, mashed taters, homemade gravy, cranberries and homemade sweet potato pie.

It was great but I am used to feeding a lot of people and there were none.

Anyway, I am still grateful to Lonnie and his wife Alison for giving me the turkey. And here is my list of other things I am grateful for not just today, but always:

1. My kids and family. Even if they are not around, I know I am loved by someone out there at least and that is worth everything.

2. My friends. I don't have many but some of them really do care about me. The ones that don't are drifting away anyway.

3. My work and my health. I know that is two things but I wouldn't have one if not for the other. My back is shot and my health isn't great but what I do have I am very grateful for.

4. My humble abode. I live in a mobile home but I own it and my land and I have a roof over my head that I can still afford. The poor thing is falling apart as it is 35 yrs old and its not the kind that was built to last that long. Its a 3 bdrm, 1 1/2 bath that I raised both of my kids in so that they could go all through one school and not move all over that place like I had to do.
My yard is awesome and the neighborhood here is quiet most of the time. We all have a minimum of 2 acres so no one is sitting on top of each other.

5. The earth and all of it's natural beauty and inspiration. I am a child of nature and even as I age I need to feel connected to the ground, the earth and all that is around me in it.

6. I am grateful I live in this beautiful county in a free country. I am grateful that this country is waking up.

7. The career I had for over 25 yrs and still practice to a point. I loved being a Vet Tech and it took me many years of hard work to specialize in all the things I did. I was certificated 5 times over for Small Animal Nutrition and Small Animal Dentistry. I miss it everyday.My career that is!

8. The internet. Without it I wouldn't have a living now. I am grateful to Tim Berners-Lee for that. Not Al Gore.

9. The wonderful people in the Computer Science Dept that I work with. They have inspired, supported, and encouraged me to get my three associate degrees as well as my bachelor's degree. With that I will be able to teach part time and make enough money to live on with out disability.

10. To be alive still, everyday. To be awake, aware and enlightened. To be able to read and learn, to seek knowledge, wisdom and have hope and faith. To be conscious and to BE.
To have loved deeply and strongly.

I am grateful for being.

What are you grateful for today?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well after my last diatribe about no one reading my entry I sort of fell of the planet again. I have just been swamped between work, this database site I am still building, homework and trying to get some sleep. I have been reading everyone's blogs, however, then am too tired to post myself.

Well tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am very, very thankful for so many things. Tomorrow I will post what they are. I took half a day off today and slept two whole hours when I got home. I was given a free turkey so I can actually cook myself a dinner now. I wish I had some people to feed but I don't. My daughter is still up in Humboldt and I haven't heard a word from my son even though he lives here somewhere.

I was invited to my nieces but it's a two hour windy drive and I don't have the gas money to get over there and I have way too much work to do. So it's just me and the dog and cats.

I found this on Libertine's blog and took the test for giggles and was surprised how accurate this came out. The funny thing about it that all my life I have been drawn to the moon. My name from the Cherokee tribe that adopted me is Moon Dove. My business name (coined in 1983) is Indigo Moon Arts. And now, this silly quiz says I am the Moon!!
So enjoy and I left the links on so you can take the quizy yourself.

You are from the Moon!

Take What Planet are You From? Test atHelloQuizzy"

I would like to add that I don't really have mood cycles like that-never have. I never had them when I was younger either. Oh well, the rest of it is spot on. Very interesting to say the least. I will return tomorrow with a list of things I am very thankful for. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

So here is a new one!!
I haven't had much to post about and have been so busy with work and contemplating the upcoming semester at the college that there just haven't been enough hours in the day!

Well since pictures speak louder than words, I will now bore you with images of my little funny garden area where I sit and work somedays.

 A deer paid it a visit and ate half my tomato plants down and my eggplant, petunias and the begonia flowers.

I didn't take any 'after deer' pictures, it was too depressing.
So here are the ones I have from July and August:
 This is my little garden looking toward the table I sit at and work on my laptop. There is a great breeze that blows through in the afternoon. This was before the deer struck. Right now half of those tomatoes are gone.

Close up of my little garden.

My lemon colored begonia and petunia-both munched by the deer...

My Crouton-Age 14 last month.

pansies last hurrah!

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Nasturtium blossom

Red vine plant and a clay snail I brought back from my Mom's house:

Isn't it cute?

I bought a bird feeder this spring and was hoping to attract lots of different types of birds. So far all I have gotten are every Plain Titmouse in Blue Bell Valley, some male and female grosbeaks and a white-bellied nuthatch that runs up and down my pine trees most of the time.
Here are the grosbeaks:
Male and female. He is the brighter colored one on the right:

The males

Female in tree- a little easier to see:

Male closer

I also have a lot of ground feeding birds but mostly brown or peach towhees. I have scrub jays,mouring doves and California quail too. The quail come at dusk usually and clean up.

This is a Moma bird feeding her full grown baby a bite to eat after she pecked a few, he pecked a few...on and on. They show up every day and evening to glean from the fallen seed out of the feeder.

Mom and baby

Plain titmouse

I also have a few squirrels that come back or at least their progeny do. This is a nice looking female and she is here daily. She rips through these cones like no tomorrow.
Here she has a scale in her mouth and in the next one she is flinging it away. It took me about 30 shots with the drive going on my camera to get this picture since she was pretty fast!

Flinging it-it's in the air!

So she entertains me and often another one comes to join her but the dog scared her away.

This is what the bottom of all our pines looks like in this county. This is called kitchen middens, which is German for kitchen garbage basically. It is the kitchen, as it were, of the squirrels and what is left over from devouring all these pine cones.I have two huge Coulter pines in my yard that were bred and planted by John Coulter in the 1800s (not my trees but the species itself). Coulterville, a little town south of me, was named after him. He was your typical Western rancher dude who liked trees. So these two trees are now about 80 ft tall. I have lived here for almost 30 yrs so you can image how much shorter they were then!  I am grateful, actually,that they do this  because they knock all these cones out of the tree and they are so huge that if they landed on you they would kill you. They have scales that are sharper and stronger than most knives and the cones weigh about 10 lbs apiece or more.  When they land on the roof, however, it sounds like a bomb going off. I am not joking. It scares me and the animals too! Here is what I get left with.

Then a downy woodpecker comes around (I think it's a downy) and crawls all over the trees looking for bugs. It's hilarious the way the bend their necks to get into some of the hole they find.

As does the nuthatch:

But some of the most gorgeous ones are the goldfinches. I took most of these from my chair at the table but then one day I got in my hammock which is attached at one end to the tree the feeders are on. It took a while for them to forget I was there but they started coming back so I was able to get some nice close ups. At the end is one of my toe for spacial comparison about how close I was! You can see the green of the hammock in some of the shots because I would forget to move it with my foot.
So here are the goldfinches:

This is my toe at the end of the hammock. I was pretty close to the birds-about 10 ft. Not bad.

Here is what my buddies all look like when it's hot.
Crouton sacked out:

Mouse sacked out

Zinny thinking the birds will fall into her mouth:

Then giving up:

Silly cat.. so how has your summer been?
Have a good one!!