Just Call Me "Nature Girl." Yeah, Really!

I bet you think I'm joking about the nature girl thing, right? I'm not. It was a seriously cool moment yesterday evening.

I went out around 7pm to water the flowers in my tree ring. I'm just standing there, not moving at all, and letting the water spray onto the plants when I see something to my side. I move my eyes since my head was already turned that direction and what do I see? A tiny little hummingbird hovering no more than five feet away from me!

That really surprised me. First of all, I'd never seen a hummingbird in real life before. And the second thing was how close he was. That was amazing. I kept expecting him to notice me and fly away, but he stayed there for a long time before landing on a tree branch. He was maybe there twenty seconds before he took off, but wow!

The only thing I can think is that he was attracted by the lilies since I've never seen one anywhere around the area before this.

Speaking of the flowers, my Sumatra Lily is about 3/4 open, but I didn't take a picture of it. Not only is it not open all the way, but it's droopy. The only thing I can think of is that the storm did that. The other storm damage I noticed was that a lot of soil was eroded and the tops of the bulbs and/or the roots of my lilies were showing. That means a trip to the store for more dirt to put down.

Adventures in Lawn Sprinklers

Yesterday, my dad decided to bring over the tractor lawn sprinkler for my yard. We haven't had much rain all spring and my grass is looking pretty crunchy right now. I don't know if y'all know what a tractor sprinkler is, but it looks like a miniature tractor and what it does is follow the hose so you don't have to keep moving it. Very nice, but we couldn't use it on my yard last year because it had just been sodded.

He arranged the hose over much of the south side of my yard and then couldn't understand why it wasn't moving. At one point, he hollers through the window into my house that it's sitting in one place, but by the time I put down the laptop and got to the window, I couldn't find him anywhere. I shrugged and went back to work.

A while later, I saw him and went outside to see what was going on and he's still complaining that the sprinkler won't move and he doesn't understand why. He's got the directions open and it's talking about how to position the arms and he's been fiddling with that. I asked, "what do you have it set on?" Normal, he tells me. Uh, Dad, there is no normal. It's hi, lo or neutral which means it remains stationary. I turned to page 2 of the direction book and showed it to him.

Do I need to mention that he wasn't the happiest person on planet Earth at that moment? He'd spent an hour messing with the arms, thinking that was the problem. At least part of my lawn got a good soaking, though. :-)

I also had to shoot another wasp yesterday. Good thing I keep the spray handy. I don't know what it is about that one window on my south side, but this is like the third of fourth time I've sprayed out of it and I haven't had to do it with any of my others. I guess this is a good thing because only the one window is streaked with crap, but it's also a PITA because I don't dare take the screen out to clean it. They can get in the gap between my house and the window edge, and with my luck, I'd end up with a wasp in the house. I've already been through that and I'm not doing it again. Gah!

And in writing news, I'm halfway through my final read through of the WIP and on track to mail this thing tomorrow as planned. Yea! Tomorrow morning I'll be able to post my dancing Hobbes which signifies the end of the book! I can't wait!

Interesting Items in the News

I read a really interesting article this morning about solar power in the Telegraph. I'm pretty sure it's the London Telegraph, but since it doesn't specify the city, I'm erring on the side of caution. The part I found particularly fascinating was that new technology is emerging in this area so quickly, that the people interviewed believe solar power will be cheap enough within five years to compete with our current modes of energy.

Someone in the article is even quoted as saying that they don't need subsidies, that all they need is for the governments around the world to do "no harm." Which of course, got my brain swirling with potential story ideas. :-) What can I say? It's the hazard of being a writer. Anything and everything can spark the imagination.

I also saw a report on the TV about organic fruits and vegetables. I watched it on the web. (Have I mentioned I love having a high-speed connection?) This story talked about how expensive organic produce ran and what you should buy organic and what was okay to buy "regular."

There are some fruits and vegetables that have pesticide residue even after repeated washings, and according to the report, these are the "dirty dozen" that you'd be better off buying organic:

Apples, bell peppers, celery, imported grapes, peaches, nectarines, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, cherries and strawberries.

Merely buying organic for these items can cut your pesticide intake by 90%. Now, isn't that reassuring? Gah! After reading this, I shudder when I think of all the apples I've eaten.

Here's the list of produce that are the most consistently clean:

Asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, kiwi, onion, pineapple, and sweet peas.

No new story ideas from this, however, I did find it interesting. Pesticides, genetic engineering, hormones, and other crap like this in the food supply worries me, but with organics so expensive, it's nice to know what I can skip spending extra on.

I think I'll quit here because the other item that interests me is the snowstorm from hell that's supposed to hit the Twin Cities today. And while I'm from Minnesota and there's nothing we love better than to talk about the weather, I know it bores people from other states. Y'all don't know what you're missing, though. :-) We can have twenty minute conversations with complete strangers and there's never an awkwardness as we search for a topic. ;-)

All Kinds of Stuff

I'm going to be all over the map on topics, I can see it already. First, I mentioned here that I received Midwest Fiction Writers' Rising Star Award. I finally have a picture of it to share with y'all. Please, bear with me. This is like one of the coolest things ever for me. :-)



I took a variety of angles and lighting to get the shot as clear as possible. The acrylic made it difficult because of the way light reflected off of it.

While I'm showing pictures, here's the picture of the hawk I saw while I was writing a couple of weekends ago. I love hawks; they're so majestic and focused.



This is the fence at the back of my house. He sat there for a really long time, I guess watching for rodents. That was the same day that I saw a herd of deer go through my backyard. Way cool day!

The big news from the weekend is that I have cable internet now! Yea! I finally joined the 21st century. I'll probably have a stroke when I get my cable bill, but for now, I'm loving the hell out of it. I was able to download updates for Windows in a flash and I found the Puma ninja commercials on You Tube! OMG! I was able to watch them on my computer!

After I had my haircut on Saturday, I swung by Circuit City and picked up the modem and the Comcast install kit. I had it hooked up pretty quick too. There were a couple of minor difficulties, like screwing the cable into the cable outlet. I was turning the thing the wrong way, but once I figured that out, it went faster. I think the longest time I spent on anything was on hold with the cable company to make sure I was activated. The guy at the store said to call, but the woman I talked to was like, huh? So that was an unnecessary step, I guess. But I'm up and running now. Yea! Yea! Yea!

I hooked the cable modem up to my desktop computer. Or should I refer to it as the relic? I've been talking about replacing it for at least a year, but I've been trying to wait for the new OS, Windows Vista, to be loaded on the computers and for the bugs to be worked out of it--most of them anyway--before buying one. However, the high speed internet connection makes the computer churn as it tries to keep up. So next step, I guess, is to cave in and buy the new system and then I need to network my house so that I can access the high speed connection on the laptop--which is what I use 99% of the time. I hate the chair in the computer room. It leaves me in pain if I sit in it too long, so I'm not having much opportunity to take advantage of the high speed connection.

Tremendous Day

I had to share the wonderful things I've experienced today. I've been working on edits all day, head down over the computer, but earlier, from the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I looked up and discovered I had about half a dozen deer in my backyard. I raced for the camera, but by the time I returned, they were gone.

Just a few minutes ago, I again caught motion in my peripheral vision and discovered a hawk atop the fence along my backyard. I'm not sure why, but I love hawks. He sat on the fence post, watching the field for a long time before he disappeared.

Sometimes when I'm working, I forget there's life outside my computer, but today, I've been reminded. Mother nature wanted to share some of her beauty with me.