LIS Wordle

Last week was the first week of classes. One of our assignments this week was to come up with three indexing terms for an article we were to read. After reading the article and listening to a video created by the professor, I decided to play around and create a Wordle for the chapter.

The result was interesting.

Blackberry Winter

Before I forget, Tuesday morning there was frost on the windshield and blackberries are in bloom. This should be the last cold spell. Amazing how it always seems to work.

Floods

In the 25 years that I've lived on this farm, I've never seen it flood this bad. The pond had a foot of water washing over the dam. The muddy drain at the edge of the woods was a creek 8 feet wide. Meadowbrook Road was impassable even at 10:30 last night.

At my house we had 6.99 inches in less than 24 hours. If you want to see inches across the state check out the CoCoRahs web site. Volunteers across the country record precipitation daily. Since it is volunteer not every county is represented, but there are still a lot of dots on the map.

Locust Winter

For the past several years I've been watching the cold spells to see if they really do match up with redbud, dogwood, locust and blackberries blooming and amazingly enough they do. I think it was the week before last when there was frost on my windshield and the dogwoods were in full bloom.

It didn't warm up much, but this cold, rainy spell going on right now hit when the locust trees were blooming. If it keeps holding true there is only Blackberry winter left to go. Last year there was frost on my car just after the blackberries bloomed.

Amazingly enough I had 16 hits on my blog a couple days ago using the search term Locust Winter.

I Love Chicago

Most of the time I like my quiet, little place in the country, but it is nice to be able to get out and see other places on occasion. Thanks to work, I've been able to do a lot more of that in recent years and this week it's Chicago.

Since it's 3:30 am and I can't sleep I thought I would post some of the fun things we've done. I'll do conference things later.

I've been lucky enough to be downtown for both trips I've made to Chicago, so the first thing I always do is walk on the Lakefront Trail. The first day we walked the trail down to Bilboa and then across to the loop. We were looking at the menu of a pizza place, when someone walked by and said "If you want pizza, Lou Malnati's is better." Since I haven't had both I can't say which was better, but "The Lou" was great.

Next stop was Loopy Yarn to pet yarn. I picked up a skein of Lorna's Laces, Shepherd Sock off the sale rack. It was the Pioneer colorway, which is blues and browns. Enough for a scarf or maybe a pair of anklet socks. They had a great selection and friendly staff.

Since Thursday night is their free night, we walked back down to the Art Institute after the conference reception at the Afterwords bookstore and a stop at the world's largest Jazz Store. The last time we went Edward Hopper's Nighthawks was on loan, but this time we got to see it. The rest of the time we spent in the Thorne Miniature Gallery. Amazing details in these tiny rooms completely furnished in period style.

Today, well I guess it's really yesterday, I started off the day with a walk to Ohio Beach to walk along the shore and pick up some interesting glass, shells and rocks. There is something about standing on the shore with your eyes closed listening to the waves coming in that makes everything drain out of you.

At lunch we took the Blue Line out to Division and ate at a really great Polish restaurant, Podhalanka. The owner made recommendations and fed us very well. Fresh, homemade fruit juice, cabbage soup (zupy), potato pancakes, pierogies, stuffed cabbage and bread. The soup itself would have been a meal. Fantastic recommendation from Laura.

The next stop was another yarn shop to pet more yarn at Nina's, just a couple blocks from the L. I didn't buy anything this time, but I loved all the samples and displays. It's nice to actually be able to feel and see the yarns you read about on Ravelry.

Last stop for the night was Atlas Galleries on Michigan for the opening night reception for the French artist Jaline Pol. Her work is bold, bright flowers with vivid colors and great texture created with a palette knife.

No wonder I can't sleep. My brain is on overload from trying to cram to much into a two day trip. This doesn't even include conference sessions.

Random Thoughts

A friend let me borrow his canoe last night and took me to Owsley Fork for the first canoe trip this summer. It was beautiful. The lake was calm and peaceful. The trees are starting to turn green and the redbuds are in full bloom. There just wasn't enough time to enjoy it fully. Someday I have to get a canoe, so I can go out whenever I need to.

Last day of the cold spell was March 30, redbuds started blooming April 5; I guess that was Redbud winter. Dogwood winter is right on the money though, with the cold spell starting today and the dogwoods just starting to bloom. Two winters down, locust and blackberry left to go.

Proof that cats can get down from trees without fire department assistance. I'm trying to wean Hurley from the house and he climbed this very tall tree to get away from the dogs. I couldn't coax him down, so I went inside. Melissa, texting from Florida, said call the fire department and get my cat out of the tree. The next time I went out he had gotten down and climbed another tree. At least he was not so far up and looked content. The third trip out to rescue him he was on a log and finally reachable.

New Project

I need a monster project that I can throw myself into completely and escape from other things going on that I can't change. After looking around and thrashing out ideas with T, I think I have it.

One of the things on my 20 wishes list is to build an off the grid small home, and this might be a big enough project to get me through the next few months. I've been walking through the two acres of woods behind the house looking at what's there. If there isn't enough lumber there to build a house, a small barn, a chicken coop and finish the goat shed, it will be close. What isn't already down needs to be cut down for one reason or another.

The first step will be to clean up and sort the timber there. There is pine, red cedar and white ash that will need to be cut for various purposes. The pine will be cut into 1 and 2 inch boards for framing. The ash will be 1" boards for shelving and furniture. The cedar will be barn poles, fence posts, fence rails, cordwood and if I'm really lucky there will be some that can be cut to 1 and 2 inch boards for porch swings a bench and a wood strip canoe.

I picked out the house site that has the best view and actually it will be the easiest to clear. I'm thinking the south wall will be cordwood with lots of windows to generate passive heat in the winter. Solar power, compost toilet, earthen floor.

T says clean up and saw lumber this year, build next year, but I want to build this year as well. Things I'm not sure about are moving big logs and keeping a chain saw running. I guess I'll have to learn some basic mechanics.