Signs of fall: departure: seeding of warm-season grasses: the yellow spear-heads of Indiangrass, the color shift of the seedheads of Big Bluestem, the graceful dangling seeds of sideoats grama, the rich purple and silver of Eryngo, the spikes of gayfeather suddenly showing up, with faint color before they open to their own shade of purple, Read More…
Author: Elizabeth
Writer, photographer, married, mother. Also native plants, wildlife, music, horses, curiosity unlimited, time limited. Pronouns she, her
80-Acres: Another New Species
This is a grass that either hasn’t been here before or we just didn’t notice it and get it keyed out. It really took off in this wet year. It’s in both the East Grass, up near the top of the Near Meadow, and across the creek in the area never cropped that we know Read More…
Mistakes & Corrections
My mother the engineer taught me the value of mistakes (also the value of avoiding them, but since she was bringing up someone with WriterBrain, not EngineerBrain, she finally realized that more mistakes would be part of my life than hers.) “You have to notice a mistake before you can fix it,” she said. “Admit Read More…
Encouraging Spikes in WriterBrain and Other Oddities
Weight continues to drop, though as is typical, not as fast as I want it to. 23 pounds down, in total. My morning walks are longer and faster, but I have acquired a sore toe that demanded I skip two days or else. Was back out with the circuit that includes something around or slightly Read More…
Checking Boxes
Scene revisions completes in past week: three. Scene revisions still to be done…???? All so far have been more complicated than just weed-whacking away excess. I read it, re-read it, re-read it again, finally realize that it’s a multiple-layer problem, and devise ways to fix it. What kinds of things are complex problems? Characters not Read More…
Day by Day by…o look, squirrel!!!
Yes, it’s been like that. And tonight, after a somewhat unusual day, in which things did not go to plan At All, I failed to check before my last meal how many calories I had left…and promptly overshot the limit. The milk, which I need for calcium (dairy culture background; I absorb it better from Read More…
Computers, Etc.
“Many are the world’s wonders, and none more wonderful than….” Man, in the original Greek poem*, but this is about Computers. Wonderful indeed, but among their “wonders” in the sense of oddnesses, is their propensity for working wonderfully and then not working, with no explanation whatever, and then, after snarling, turning them off, turning them Read More…
The Plot Thickens and the Writer Thins
Somewhere, somewhen, a philosopher or other authoritative person said that if you’ve learned something (was it something new? Anything?) you’re obliged to pass on that knowledge to someone else. The process is of course unequal and therefore stressful to the recipient of the knowledge/skill being passed on, so the good news is that reciprocal exchange Read More…
Scorpions In The Dark: Calories In The Day
There is no real joy in knowing there’s a scorpion in the room at 2:45 am. You can hear it scuffling through papers. You know it’s a scorp, because it doesn’t sound like a cockroach (another unwanted night visitor) but when it’s not in the papers, you have no idea where it is, or how Read More…
The Joys of Post-Midnight Character Intrusions
Sometime last night between 3:30 and 4 am, or maybe it was three….I woke up. There’s the usual “Do I have to get to the bathroom right now or can I have another bit of sleep first” but that issue didn’t seem urgent…what did was being wide awake. WIDE awake. I tried my usual “drift Read More…