The way things are going we may start looking for Noah and his Big Boat. We have more rain — some of it forecast to be severe — in the forecast for today and tomorrow. Fulton — just down the river — is expecting flooding later today. So, with soggy skies we aren’t going very far or doing very much. We’ve been reading, writing, and attending to small indoor chores.
But the Good News is that I have returned to my last summer’s weight loss mark — I’m back down to 30 lbs beneath my high weight mark sometimes just short of retirement. During the winter I’d slipped a little and in the last three weeks I’ve managed to get back to my pre-Cudahy weight! Feelin’ good; lookin’ better; gettin’ as much exercise as feels good and the weather permits (Ain’t no way I’m goin’ out to walk a couple miles in a rain slicker!)
I finally finished that Peter Mayle book that has been dogging me. Usually his stuff flies by as if inhaled but this one was different. I’ve never been keen on collections of essays, and that’s what this one was. But the premise — tastes acquired because of wealth — caught my attention and in the end it turned out to be an interesting and amusing read. No way high on my recommendations list, but It’s Ok.
I have only 20 pages remaining in my re-read of The Seventh Commandment by Lawrence Sanders. That was the one I started last fall and never finished after we returned to Cudahy. I pretty much started from the beginning being unable to remember much of anything from last October. It’s not his best work, not his best leading character, but I like Sanders’ style, his books are long enough to make them worth while reading — I hate short stories. With the rain in the forecast I hope to finish that today.
On the Small Space Living front, I’m pondering how better to deal with my power supply issue. The one drawback to having committed to a short RV is finding ways to cope with how do you live with the storage issues you’ve created. I am happy with how much we’ve downsized; I’m happy with being able to stow what we have on board — but some things have yet to tell us where they want to live within Journey. I have been playing around with locations for my backup disks and my server — they are easy — they’re only 8″ x 8″ x 2″ — but this uninterruptible power supply is a bit bigger — 9″ x 15″ x 10″ and it wants to live near the server. I might end up making a little storage / stowage box for the lot of them and let the server live on top of the UPS — or something — still thinking about that. Yesterday I had pencil and paper out trying to figure a way to have Home Depot cut all the major cuts I needed for the parts out of a single handi-panel — 24″ x 24″. That didn’t look like it was going to work. So, I’m still contemplating. Of course it’s possible I’ll figure out how to do it and then 2 days after I build it I’ll find just what I want at Bed, Bath, and Beyond in La Crosse or something…. Isn’t that always the way it goes?
I should have baked bread yesterday. But I was too lazy to go down to the basement (meaning go outside in the rain) to get out my two jars of flour. I’m terrible; I know. It’s not like I’ll melt in the rain!
We saw our smallest turtle yet on the road yesterday. Most of the painted turtles we’ve seen have been 5″ – 9″ in diameter. Yesterday we saw one that was scarcely as large as a quarter. One of the students thought he might be a year old hatchling — seeing as it’s too early in the season for them to be hatching yet. But he was a teeny thing.
There are a flock of geese here raising their young and I’m developing a better sense for the expression “silly goose”! Peg has spent a good while just watching the babies and moms and dads and uncles and aunts meandering around the campground. We’re accustomed to being hissed at by now. And we do our best not to intentionally irritate them. That said — it’s still a strange life they lead! And we’re also appreciating how LONG the hatching season must be — some of this seasons chicks are quite large already with feathers and some are still quite small and dressed in only their baby fluff. When you live in the city and see maybe ONE robin’s nest and only those chicks it’s not so easy to get the sense of Spring as a season for babies — and not just a singular TIME for babies. I know that sounds stupid but I never lived on a farm, and never spent much time around baby critters. The idea that there’s enough time for them to mature for their winter flight South if they are born 2 or 3 months after the earliest broods just never crossed my mind.
Well, there you have it for today.
Tomorrow — Wednesday — is moving day. Not sure if I’ll write in the morning, or after we make the move — a lot depends on what the skies look like when I wake up. Talk to you then.
Embrace Serendipity 
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