Category Archives: home

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Guide

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is latibule: a place where you feel safe and cosy. I was going to say my house, but I wrote this poem near the end of my stay in Italy. My latibule is my mind. The poem is named Guide.

Guide

I want to write a travel guide
To the interior
No matter where I am
nor who I am with
nor what the circumstance
Ok, in a disaster or crisis I act
I don’t withdraw
But barring that
What does your space look like inside?

My interior is a garden
And an ocean
And the universe
Monsters, angels, demons, daemons
Friends
Many dead
People remembered and loved
Even if they don’t love me
Even if there is no reconciliation
Flowers birds insects science sex philosophy
A universe of stars and math
Tiny atoms, shy electrons circle protons
Whirl happily at the atomic level
Nebulae and black holes
Other worlds and beings
Of course there are other beings
In this wide universe

I am riding on a train in Italy
And traveling my vast interior
At the same time.

Written September 10, 2023. The photograph is from a friend’s doll house.

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Farm tour

I realize that tractable is not about tractors, but I still am thinking about tractors and the Farm Tour. I went to five farms and it was really fun. Not many tractors at the farms I went to. Beautiful Arabian horses at one.

The pig farm is quite wonderful. Lots of piglets. This mom maybe is having a nursing break.

These were only five days old.

And there were sheep and flowers and chickens. And skulls, too.

I’m not sure what was going on with the skulls. I did not get any pictures of tractors. I don’t think the large pigs are very tractable, but they are interested in their visitors.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tractable.

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Evil squirrels falling change

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is change. Lots of that here, since I was gone for two weeks!

  1. The evil squirrel has destroyed the third bird feeder. I was not home to chase it out of the yard yelling and it shredded the latest feeder. I am going to try one of those feeders that shuts when the squirrels weight lands on it. More expensive, but nearly equal to the three I’ve had chewed up!
  2. I left in summer and return to fall. Leaves are down, colors are turning, it is cooler in the morning and evening. We had a high of 64 F yesterday. That feels cool after northern Italy.
  3. I am stronger and slimmer. Carrying a loaded pack daily or every other day really made a difference! I was not sure my right shoulder would hold out, but it did, just. I went through PT earlier this year. I am doing my exercises again.
  4. I had some wonderful time with my daughter. Not that that’s a change, but she is stronger too!

Sol Duc tongue out.

Looking big-eyed, like a Keen painting.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: change.

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Pat a bee

I patted a honey bee yesterday.

The bees were having such a lovely time on these flowers in my front yard, plants that my neighbor gave me. I worked with a zoologist right after college who was studying honey bees. With that experience in the past, I patted a bee very gently. It shrugged a little and went back to the flower, much too busy to think of stinging me.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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Student travel

I traveled around Italy for two weeks with my daughter. We had backpacks and we planned it as we went. We usually had a place to stay two days ahead or a little more and both had return tickets. Hers is changable, mine was not unless I got sick. Then the insurance should kick in.

The last time I traveled in Italy was with two cousins in 1980. We traveled from January to March, with a Eurorail pass, and tried to do $20 per day. We did not like Italy very much because we felt terribly hassled by men. They yelled things at us, invited us into their cars, felt us up on buses and in general were awful. We were dressed in jeans, hiking boots, down jackets and frame packs. This made us obviously from the US or Canada, but we certainly were NOT dressed in a “suggestive” manner. We were very relieved when we got to Greece and there was less harassment.

I did not think I would be hassled since I am 43 years older. We were not hassled and I really did not see that behavior happening. I did see some outfits that I would consider rather sexy on young women in the hostels, but mostly people were in summer clothes. Narrow tank top straps, mini skirts and short shorts were frowned on in a number of the Catholic churches, and my daughter borrowed a large scarf from me as a skirt a couple of times. I liked Italy much much more this time. Thank you!

It was interesting to travel with a backpack in Europe again. There are other grey haired people in the hostels, though the closer to the tourist areas we were, the younger the clientele. I liked my pack better than a roller bag because honestly, there were stairs everywhere. At first both my feet and my quadriceps complained about the amount of walking and walking with a backback, but I got stronger. I woke up with terribly sore quads every day the first week.

My daughter wanted an open schedule. We had the first two night’s stay set up but no more than that. We took turns finding places to stay, getting tickets for big things like the Vatican Museum, and getting bus and train tickets. Google maps is quite amazing. We could put in our destination and it would tell us which bus and which stop and trains and metros. Back in 1980 we pored over maps, so that is a big change.

When I got off my last plane, I put the pack on and thought, either it is lighter or I am stronger. Both, I think, because I had eaten all the food while on the airplanes. Food is heavy!

I want to travel again next year, though I don’t know where. I have a long list of ideas.

Here is my daughter’s neat pack:

And my messier one: