Release Relief

I clearly picture in my mind's eye how my nieces would respond if I said to them.

'I'm so glad this release is done!'

Little Finnish eyebrows furrow, 'Huh?'

As you may know, I work as a technical writer and I write books and information for computer users. But the users that I write for are not the average users. These users are the brains behind things like operating equipment that enables the Internet. And in my case, the information that I write helps them secure the Internet from viruses, intruders, and so on.

Today, I turned my books in for the upcoming release of a new product.

In early April, my manager says simply, 'You might want to adjust your work-flow so that there isn't a crisis at the release.'

So we do.

Waking at sunrise, working late, and the effort pays off for the most part and I can enjoy my lunch today and write a few words on my blog.

Yeah, imagine that. I write for a living, yet I write to unwind? *laughing*

We technical writers do not have by lines. (For anyone out there who was confused by the phrase 'by line' like I was for decades, it means a reference to the author like 'By Tim Somero'.) So we labor largely anonymous to the general public.

But even then, would you really understand (or care to read?) about the inner-workings of a computer?

I worked with a seasoned and accomplished technical writer at IBM and he told me a great technical writer's story.

Dennis says in his quiet, methodical voice, 'I went to my 40th high school reunion last weekend.'

I smile, 'Sounds like fun. How was it?'

He smiles and says, 'I had a great time. People asked me what I do for work. I lied. I told them that I am a science fiction writer. People said to me, 'Is that so? I never read any of your work.''

I grin seeing where he is going with this.

'So I said, 'Oh don't worry. No one else has either.''

New Ipswich Library: Ice Cream Social

'Who does this belong to?' Mikko showed the handle of his ice cream scoop to someone. The word 'Minun!' was there on masking tape wrapped tightly around the handle.

'Mine!'

'You're right! What better than the Finnish word for 'mine' on my ice cream scoop?'



Mikko and I are Co-Presidents for the New Ipswich Library Trustees. The library hosted an Ice Cream Social last night and at one point, the library was elbow to elbow with men, women, and children.

In the children's section, youngsters were working on an art project. In the main area, adults were sitting or standing. And in the back, Mikko and I labored to scoop ice cream.

'Vanilla or strawberry?'

When my Finnish relatives walked in, Mikko and I reeled off some words like jäätelö (ice-cream) or the proper way to say hello and goodbye.

We started with 100 ice cream cups and 40 ice cream cones. We ended with less than a dozen empty cups and a dozen or so cones.

When we planned the event, our pessimistic prediction was 20, but we had more than 100 guests!

Thank you to everyone in the New Ipswich community for coming to the open house and we hope to see you return to use the library services.

Never Enough Attention for the First Fish

'Edwin.' I whispered, while I was a small child. 'Edwin. The bobber. It's jumping.'

'Not now!' He scowled. His attention consumed, focused into a ball of tangled fishing line and a problematic fishing reel.

'But there's a fish...' And there was! Despite the stress of repairing the faulty reel, I was proud to catch the fish. And even prouder when Edwin took my brother and I to the White Mountains and we caught trout.

Or when I caught a 28-inch Northern Pike in Wisconsin when I was casting idly from the dock.

Or when my cousin caught a 45+ inch Lake Trout on Lake Superior and we jumped like girls after hauling the monster into the boat.

But I caught my first fish in the swimming hole that I now own. Someone cut a sapling and tied a string and hook to it to use as a pole. The fish was a 3-inch long hornpout. My Dad helped me.

We brought the thing home and let it rest in the grass.

'Don't touch it!' I shied away after hearing Dad's warning. 'These things can sting.'

So we looked eyes-wide at the hornpout.

I take my local nieces fishing and in my opinion, there can never be enough attention given to a child who catches their first fish. Her big sisters before her, she was ready, trained, and educated by the older girls.

She was also bugging her mom, my sister, so I knew that it was time.

I ask into the handset, 'Are you free to go fishing?'

'Let me ask. Mom!? Am I free to go fishing?'

I talk to my sister and she agrees to drop her off at the Greenville Pond on their way back from shopping. I visit at my parent's house until I get the call, ready with tackle, poles, worms, and excitement.

The call arrives. I leave and get ready at the edge of the pond. My sister's family arrives in their mini-van.

My youngest niece smiles from the depths of the van. 'Hi.'

She walks out and hugs everyone in her family, jumping, and smiling from ear to ear. I give her some ground rules about only being able to cast twice (for my safety more than anything). I ask her to pick out a worm and my sister, smiling also from ear to ear takes some photos with my camera.



After final, final hugs, my sister's family leaves my youngest niece and I at the fishing hole. Her bobber listing in the gentle breeze, bobbing on the incidental waves.

My line in the water: tap, tap. I set the hook. 'Ready for your first fish?'

She reels in a small perch, jumping! Her line continues to list in the pond.

I take my camera as she looks wide-eyed at the fish. Ask her to pose with the wriggling perch.

Snap.

Snap.

I take the hook from the perch and release it and we turn to her pole.

'Reel it in.' She starts working the reel and I guide the line away from the edge of the pond so it doesn't snag. The bobber travels towards the center of the pond. I smile.

'I think you got one.'

Her eyes widen. 'Really?'

'Yes.' I smile.

A little sunfish emerges from the water.

Her own fish!!!

A fisherman further down hears the whooping and hollering so he comes over to congratulate her. She's beaming from ear to ear. We talk and the fisherman says 'Great job!'

She takes the line and the sunfish is wriggling about. She poses for several photos.



The fish swallowed the hook so I cut the line explaining to her, 'The water is going to make the fishhook disappear in a few days.' She blinks a little, but doesn't seem interested, different than her sisters who needed to know everything.

We watch the fish swim away.

I reflect for a moment when I fished with my uncle, captivated by mechanical things, a forgotten line catching a sunfish like my niece did today.

After we finish, we meet her family at my parent's house. She finds mom and shyly buries her face into her mother's tummy. Unable to tell the story. So I captivate a houseful of people with the story of the first fish.

There is never enough attention given when a child catches a first fish.

Hot Property: Bird Fights and Bumblebees

I listed a property the other day.

I razed a wreck full of miscreant thugs and I put the ugliest looking house in its place overlooking my property. I waited for the right moment when the thugs were sleeping or dazed, and I wrenched their dwelling down and replace it with a homemade ramshackle birdhouse.

Edwin said weeks ago after I built the birdhouse, 'It's a little late for birds to use it. Really should go up in March.'



Learning that, I didn't secure the house to the post. I just balanced it on top.

This morning shortly after sunrise, movement catches my eye. A bird? I turn to see a small bird moving from the house to the forsythia bushes. Back and forth.

Wow.

I watch enthralled. I made a perch from a maple stick. The bird uses it. I drilled a hole for the entrance. The bird passes through in and out. I made a ventilation opening at the top, the bird uses that, too.

Wow.

A breeze kicks up. The birdhouse sways.

Nuts!

I should have secured it.

The bird flies inside the house. It wobbles. The bird emerges and preens on the roof, chirping. It is though he announces to the world: 'This is my property. Mine! You got it all you dumb birds, bees, ants, and whatever else might get some ill-fated ideas about moving in. M, I, N, E; mine!'

He flies off, the birdhouse wobbles. It could fall over!

Double nuts!

The bird flies back and forth carrying a new stick or twig with each pass.

Later around mid-day, I see other birds, bigger birds patrolling around my newly listed property. The little bird repeats his vocal performance but immediately flies off as the blue-backed birds swoop in.

Ah, I know what this is! It's an inspection! The blue-backed bird sit on the perch and peers in through the hole.

'Nuts.' I think to myself. 'I have to do something about the wobble.'

My attention changes to other tasks around the house.

If I were feeling better, I would be building a brooder for chicks, but instead I use hammer and chisel to remove a concrete block thing that my cousin built years before. The chisel isn't working. I need more.

I go inside the house to get the solid-metal, triangular splitting maul.

Crack!

The cement block cracks in its mortar.

Crack!

I see something and think of a soccer statement of all things, 'Bumblebees can't fly. They can't fly! But look at that slow kid moving his way through everyone again and again, scoring, scoring! Bumblebees can't fly!'

My knowlege of things apiary must lack, cause I swear that there's a bumblebee flying angry around me.

I ignore it.

Crack!

The heavy bee flies by again.

Crack!

My eyes narrow in a battle of wills with this winged patroller. 'Fine.' I think. 'Have what you want.'

The bumblebee calms down and hovers where I stood and finally lands, nestling in the grass.

Nuts! I stood on the entrance to its hive!

This isn't going well, so I stand up on the concrete blocks and resume my ruination.

Crack!

The bee hovers angry.

Crack! A block falls to the ground. Thump.

The bee lunges at me so I retreat over the rubble.

'Fine.' I think. 'I'll do something else.'

I walk to the shed to get the longest nails I can find and walk to the new birdhouse. I see a yellow and black striped wasp on the birdhouse roof. I knock it off with the hammer.

'Dang.' I think to myself. 'These are the wasps that took over the last birdhouse here. Who wins?' I wonder. 'The birds or the wasps?'

I hammer two long nails through the platform into the post.

'That should do it.'

I try not to touch the platform, but I test it.

It feels secure.

Eventually I work on my garden, planting and watering it. I shut the water off next to a blueberry bush in bloom and his brother, another stinking bumblebee buzzes me!

'Ok, ok. This is enough.' I retreat quickly running a little towards my uncle's house to talk with him in the garden.

I approach already forgotten the bees at my house, 'Guess what is sprouting in my lower garden?'

He shrugs.

'Beans. You keep telling me that the soil is too cold, but I surely have beans sprouting down there.'

We talk.

Eventually I hear an angry argument over my new property. The little bird again stakes his claim. Blue-back birds fly around. Back and forth.

I tell the birdhouse story to my uncle and I ask, 'Who wins between the wasps and the birds?'

'I don't know how they figure that out.' He shrugs.

He continues to tell me that the male house wren will make a variety of nests for the female to choose one. And that he doesn't see bluebirds in his birdhouses, but my cousin who preceded me here did.

Russian to Soccer

'Change of plans.' My co-worker says to me, 'The Russian brothers are going. We're riding with them and they parked in the front.'

I bound up the stairs with my bag, my spikes, and my sport goggles and I follow my British co-worker. I often tease him by using the British terms and ask, 'Would you like to play some football on the pitch?'

We walk towards the front parking lot, join one of the Russian brothers, and wander to locate his mini-van. We approach and he uses the ear-bud for his phone and starts talking in Russian.

I pile into the front seat and the Brit somehow gets the keys, 'I'm driving.'

Side door open, we circle the parking lot to find the lost brother. The Russian stands in the open doorway while we drive, looking. Laughing, we pass the receptionist and a secretary out for a walk. Everyone laughs at the sight of our slow circle, one guy standing in the open doorway.

Finally, we find him. He jumps in, 'Let's go!'

We arrive at the game, and people reacquaint themselves and someone briefly introduces me. Game on!

I worry about my hamstrings and a third of the way through, my left hamstring tightens, but I play on. A right wing crosses the ball in front of the net. I put my foot on the ball, GOALLL!!!!

Later someone says, 'Three goals to win!' So we play, tired now, until someone mercifully passes the ball through the goal to end the match.

We shake hands and walk towards the van.

One of the Russian brothers drives now, I sit in the front. He opens the windows driving swiftly, pushing buttons on his GPS map in the console. Traffic signs are suggestions and I smile to myself because I know other Russians who drive like this.

We take a circumspect way to the office and I wonder if I should suggest a shorter route. I stay quiet. Finally, we turn onto a familiar road and there's a slow car in front of us, inching along.

Now it's time to obey trafic laws and we laugh and giggle as the car takes several seconds to slowly turn right into a driveway.

I think about work. Idly wondering what I have to jump into when I return to the office.

Right blinker.

I wonder, 'Huh? Now where? The Russian's house?'

The road ends at a lake. Two mothers and their kids are playing on the beach. He parks. I look and the Russians and my British co-worker are taking their shirts off and digging out towels.

I laugh to myself and take off my sweaty t-shirt, and hobble down to the beach. I ask, 'Swimming?'

The Russian's bright eyes smile, 'Yes. Of course.'

The Russians dive right in, I wade in and plunge into the brisk water. We turn and see the Brit toeing the water. Finally he joins us as we walk out, dripping.

The mothers and children are no where to be found.

I dry off, planning to sit on my towel in the van. I look into the back and one of the Russians is changing! I blink. I look at the Brit and the other Russian and they have towels wrapped tight around their waist, changing.

Thinking to myself, 'Hmm...well...' so I wrap my towel, also and strip and put on dry clothes.

Everyone ready, the other Russian hops in the driver's seat. I blink. Odd.

We ask aloud, 'Where did the kids go?'

'We scared them!' We all laugh imagining them running away from us.

The Brit explains, 'We often swim after soccer, but later in the season the beaches are pay to swim. But this one is best because they can park and sneak into the water.' I laugh.

While riding along, the Brit asks, 'I wonder how many meetings I missed?'

I reply, 'I missed one, but they know that I did.'

The Russian driver says as we approach the office, 'There will be more meetings. Meetings today. Meetings tomorrow.'

Pizza Bait

I write into an IM window, 'Do you have time to get a slice of pizza after work?'

My co-worker says that she does, so after wrapping things up, we go and order a large, extra-cheese, mushroom, and onion pizza.

Unfortunately, it isn't a great pizza.

So I take three slices home debating if I should reheat them or just feed the pizza to the chickens.

I park my car at home and carry the pizza down to the coop when I collect the eggs. I open the door and heave the slices in for them.

Overnight, it rains so I walk out the door and decide not to water the chickens today. By habit, I look down to the pen from my driveway.

Nuts.

I see something staring at me from the live trap.

Raccoon.

Nuts!

I walk down to acquaint myself with the critter who shies away from me, trapped.

I close my eyes and debate. Coonskin cap? Nah, but it is interesting. First the opossum, now a raccoon.

I open my eyes and look in the chicken pen, by now the chickens are walking about as they scratch the ground.

Oh man! A slice of pizza is at the edge of the chicken pen near the live trap.

Pizza bait!

I scare the coon to the far end of the trap, but he sits on the release lever. I open the door and prop it open with a long stick.

I sigh. I can't be late for work. I hope the coon doesn't return. I wonder, 'Do they learn their lesson?'

After starting my car, I look to see what the coon does and he's scurrying away from the shed and his furry belly sways as he runs down the stone wall to freedom.

Stretching the Dollah

New Ipswich produced some famous people from President Franklin Pierce's wife to a surgeon, known in New Ipswich as Doc Shaw, who was one of the first doctors to reattach a severed arm.

I talked with his son many years ago and his statement of New Hampshire is telling.

'We know how to stretch the dollah.'

And we do.

But with gas prices rising and the global economic outlook becoming more and more bleak, we're tightening more than ever.

Last summer I was laid off from a tech writing job and my buying habits quickly transitioned to buying food and gas, food, gas, gas, food, and then more gasoline.

I heard a radio report that Starbucks is losing revenue. That isn't surprising, is it? Where a bag of coffee beans covers the cost of two frilly coffees?

My friend, Derek Burnett, posted several entries to his blog regarding the ill effect of capitalism and a projection into the tough times ahead.

Here's a link to his post Economy: Great Depression, the Sequel to give you some food for thought.

The Free Pass

'I'll be at work at 7:00 to start on the release notes.'

Now I think, 'Why did I stay that?'

This morning, I am full of regret. It is 7:09 AM. I'm at home. Grr. Why do I say things like that? I have to go. Have to get the work done. Manufacturing line stopped. Need to go.

I open the door, check for my keys, and lock it behind me. I decide to not put water out for the chickens, but I look down towards the coop anyway.

A little furry guy looks back at me. Trapped!

I curse.

What is it?

So I walk down towards the coop and I live-trapped some critter last night. He has bushy, off-white fur. He seems blinded in the daylight, but his nose is active. I approach the live-trap. He's not upset.

I think so myself, 'What is it? A rat?'

Internally, I feel the clock ticking. I feel pressure to get to work.

Watching the critter, I move closer. My chickens are excited as they walk around the pen. The thing could be a rat, but I'm unsure. It looks like a rat tail, sort of damaged by time.

I don't have time to research what it is. I don't have time to shoot the thing, nor decide if I want to shoot it or not.

Slowly I move towards the cage, releasing the door, lifting it.

The critter isn't sure what's happening.

I set the trap again, door wide open and I walk towards the car.

The critter doesn't move.

He sniffs the air, stationary. I leave him inches away from his free pass.

**update**

When I got home, the animal was gone. I talked to my uncle about it, but we couldn't figure out what it was. We're thinking that it could be a possum, but that doesn't make sense.

Anyway, it's free. And I think that I need new topics to write about because I'm afraid that your patience may be wearing thin with all this bang-em-up shooting talk.

**final update**

I googled 'possum' and I learned that I trapped an opossum.

I had no clue that they lived around my house.

Fallout from Defending My Lettuce

Buddy wrote, 'I don't like the woodchuck story.'

I winced. Yeah. I didn't think that everyone would appreciate how I defended my lettuce.

After talking with my uncle that day who said, 'You should have shot two!' I went further retelling my story in person, and after my octogenarian aunts listened to my story, they cheered.

'Good job Timmy!' I struggled, is it worse to be called Timmy or that these old ladies celebrated my permanent defense?

I also heard all sorts of stories about really old people who sat watching their gardens with a .22 rifle in hand. A cousin's husband proudly said, 'My great-great grandfather shot and killed his last woodchuck when he was 94 just a few weeks before he died.'

I get the impression that old people think of shooting woodchucks as an Olympic sport?

It gets worse.

My friend listened to my inner conflict and he laughed.

'My wife has an aunt who lived to be 98 years old. She lovingly tended a garden year after year.'

'When she was 95 kneeling down in her beloved garden to pull weeds, a raccoon approached and gave her a hard time.'

'She quietly stood up, grabbed a shovel, and cracked the raccoon over the head.'

Dead.

'She dug a hole, buried the varmint and finished weeding her garden.'

What's Your Favorite Color?

During church, my youngest niece walks up to me.

'What's your favorite color?'

I whisper, 'Blue.'

She walks away. Moments later, she's back.

'What's your second favorite color?'

'Green.'

She walks away, returning later.

'What's your third favorite color?'

'Red.'

Seeing the pattern as she walks away, I decide - yellow, white, purple, and then orange if I need it.

'What's your fourth favorite color?'

'Yellow.'

Later she returns, 'What's your...' She pauses, thinking, 'What's your...what's your five favorite color?'

'White.'

Again, she goes away and returns shortly, 'What's your sixth favorite color?'

'Purple.'

Moments later she returns with this colored picture for me.

It's 4:47 AM and All Is Well

Quiet.

It's quiet.

It's also 4:47 AM.

I'm awake.

Why?

Because the dew-point is near the temperature.

Because someone from the New Hampshire Flickr group is meeting me at Dunklee Pond in an hour.

Because we're nuts!

I am fascinated currently with taking photographs of fog and there is no better time to do this than at the crack of dawn, in a nature preserve, with one or more like-minded photographers.

Quiet.

Last weekend, we scared a deer there. With a little better preparation, I could have taken a photo of it.

Wish me luck.

Update:



Mike and I met and we took photos for a couple of hours. The overcast skies didn't reveal many striking opportunity, but I did a focusing trick to create this weird image of a rusted-out LTD next to Dunklee Pond.

We also saw a couple of herons, the backbone of what appeared to be a deer, ducks, but no beaver or deer this time.

Natural Cycles

Last night, I asked our local librarian, 'How are you?'

She replied candidly, 'Tired. You?'

'Tired.'

A third person joined us for the meeting. We asked her, 'And how are you?'

'Tired.'

The spring is a wonderful time of the year for rebirth and the intensity as our natural world regenerates itself. But the jagged weather cycles always seem to drag me down. I go from wearing shorts for three days in California-like sunshine. And then waking up to a cold, frosty morning before steady rain moves in for a few days.

Yet we persist.

Our library meeting was to explore a co-operative arrangement with various local libraries for an automated library management system (LMS). Several other towns have more money to spend (apparently), but New Ipswich and several surrounding towns operate on what I call the 'zero dollar budget'. So we're forming our own club open to all, but with our full understanding that everyone doesn't need to follow the hardscrabble approach.

For example, even though our library has an annual computer budget of $500.00, we try not to spend the money because it's better if we don't.

So our new co-operative is trying to pool our resources, separate needs from wants, and present a clear case to our respective communities that we will get much more for our dollar if we go together.

The case, I hope, will be as simple as paying a fraction (say 1/5th) of the cost for a suitable, bare-necessity system that we all share. If we go alone, we bear the full cost of the same bare-necessity system.

Our meeting succeeded, I believe, because we all clearly see the concept of needs versus wants in our zero-dollar budget situations. So at our next meeting, we'll organize our respective needs versus wants lists before we solicit money for the LMS.

And given the foreboding economy and the welcome American return towards being frugal, I suspect that our local libraries will rise again as we spend less money to buy our own books.

The Grandmother Inventory

'My Noni always had little cans of Pepsi, juice drinks in plastic bottles that look like barrels, and Rollos in her fridge. Always.'

Ah ha! Buddy gives me another memoir to publish!

I think that everyone remembers the grandmother inventory that accumulates after years of penny pinching, yard sales, and habits formed decades ago.

When one of my grandmother died, we doled out her meager belongings. I told my mom, 'I want that cup that tastes like metal when I drink juice from it.'

My mom marveled, 'Wow! That's what your cousin Mary wanted, too, and for the same reason.' The cup was already gone, but the indelible grandmother inventory was set.

My other grandmother always had Listerine in her bathroom and when I hugged her, she smelled faintly of it. Her house always smelled of yeast as she had bread rising so when I visited, we would knead the rye bread dough together while talking.

Her inventory included a circular, wooden clothes hanger with time-worn dowels hanging from a loose metal fitting.

I don't see how the inventory can be consciously constructed. Because our own traits are often identified by the children in our lives and our legend lives on through reminiscence. From talking to Buddy, it is clear that our grandmother's each have a clear inventory, as we each daily generate our own.

The Upper Hand in Defending My Lettuce

I put a garden in on the slope at my house and I thought to myself, 'What a great place to watch for woodchucks and kill them.' After finishing a fence around the garden, I went to make lunch and from the corner of my eye through a window, I see something approaching the garden.

'A woodchuck!?!?'

I grab a powerful rifle scope and sure enough, this dumb thing is walking around near my garden and taking his sweet old time.

I mistakenly refer to it as a hedgehog, 'Jim, want to have some fun and shoot a hedgehog?'

He yells angrily from his room, 'Are you stupid? Why would you kill a hedge hog?'

Oh boy.

I call my uncle, no answer. I could swear that he kills woodchucks on sight.

So I decide to take one shot with my .22 rifle. I lift a window in the alcove and flit about, thinking. Both of my cats jump into the open window and threaten to fly 15 feet *splat* to the ground. I move them out and toss them to the floor.

I kneel at the window. 'One shot, I think. One shot.'

I line up the iron sights on the bugger.

Crack.

The thing sort of balls up, cringes, and then starts walking towards the brush.

I hit him, but didn't drop him.

So I bounce around more and I notice that my uncle is home. I walk over there, bursting through the door. 'I shot a woodchuck!'

He replies, 'Only one? You should have shot two.'

Later we go and look at the thing as it lays curled up, dead. I buried it.

So as far as I know, my garden is safe from at least one woodchuck and I have a great vantage point to crack any others if they start attacking my lettuce.

Shh....did I tell you that I am a...

It's my guilty secret, but it's time to come clean. I am a memoir thief! I listen to stories I publish them here. Shhh...

At work, I dipped into the candy dish at the receptionists desk. I call the receptionist Buddy!

Buddy hunches over and says, 'Can I tell you a family story?'

I smile delighted! I might be able to steal a memoir. I lean towards her, 'Yes...what is it?'

She smiles and says, 'My Noni, the Italian word for great-grandmother, was 93 for like six years before she died. She was like totally nuts! So my cousin visits her house and for some reason drops a Playboy on her table. She picks it up and reads it, but eventually drifts to sleep. The Playboy open on her chest as she snores away.'

We sort of look at each other, but what are we going to do? She's sleeping!

Finally, Noni starts shaking a little bit as she wakes up, startled a little bit. She asks us, 'Was I sleeping?'

'Yes, Noni. You were.'

She looks around the room a little bewildered before saying softly.

'Oh. Naked women always make me so sleepy.'

The Alien Golf Ball

The other day, I noticed a golf ball in my yard. This isn't too odd because I occasionally hit some balls around or maybe my roommate or uncle do, too.

Then today after work, I see several more.

Something's up.

Driving past my neighbor's house, I see the lady aiming a gun at something. Then a young man. It looks like a target.

Hmm. Odd. The rumor is that the lady's boyfriend left her and stopped paying on the house (in his name).

I park and walk across the field to talk with my uncle who is planting his garden. I hear the thump of a BB gun drilling a target.

I run an errand, return, and I water my garden.

I hear the familiar thump of a golf ball on a white pine tree on my property (I know this sound all too well from my own golfing exploits). I see from the corner of my eye, a young man at my neighbor's house swinging a golf club aiming towards my woods.

So I finish watering my gardens and I collect a bunch of the golf balls from my lawn. I decide to walk down there and give them back, simple as that.



I walk the property line and down the hill to a collection of people. I smile, they wave, we talk. I hand the golf balls to one of the guys milling about and the younger guy says, 'Oh no. I won't hit any more golf balls towards your place again!' His expression is sincere. I believe him.

I laughed a little and said, 'Yeah, I would rather you didn't because they landed within twenty feet from my chicken coop and close enough to my house that I'd hate to have to come down here and report a broken window.'

So we all talked for a while about the house (my grandfather built it from material from an abandoned church building) and their current plan. They're moving at the end of June (and who 'they' is confused me - I'm not sure who was the mom, son, grandchildren, etc.). What they say about how they spend money puzzles me. But I compliment them on what they have done to improve the house and the property.

We talked about chickens for a long time, too, and I got a sense of who they are and I shared my regret that things didn't work out better for them to stay.

The Brook Is Magical Today

We have snow in the yard, heavy now under the intense early spring sun. The gentle wind is warm. The forest is noisy as the sun warms snowy branches and releases heavy snow to the woodland floor.

I walked twice to the brook with only boots, jeans, t-shirt and sweatshirt on.

I captured magic.

Friendship with Sumedha

At some point over ten years ago which is not clear to either of us, I met Sumedha on the Internet. We chatted, talked on the phone, and wrote endless letters on paper. She lived with her family in India and I was living in Minnesota at the time.

Sumedha said, 'The Internet allows us to learn about each other from the inside out.'

I had the pleasure of meeting her yesterday, over ten years since we first communicated.



We had a marvelous time and she even fell in love with the beauty of New Ipswich and my little property.

Perhaps after she earns her teaching degree, she'll return?

Through the Winter in a Family Fable

disclaimer Thank you for stopping by, and please consider this particular post a work in progress. I have something clearer to say, but this is a first draft during which I was interrupted. I suspect that the concept will expand when I return to this at some point. disclaimer

Someone at my new job helped me unravel more of the mystery of my family dynamics. In lively conversation, I am learning probable reasons for our quirky behavior that were only explained previously by what I call our family fable.

Before I explain further, many of these thoughts congealed on a foggy winter morning. The fog rose surprisingly over my family property and I wandered around the house near sunrise taking photos. My sister immediately requested an 8 x 10 printout of this one:



The temperatures fell from a balmy, snow packing temperature to frigid below zero wind chills. And while the weather violently changed, thoughts assembled gently and I snapped puzzle pieces together as I correlate my newfound knowledge into the fabric of my family fable.

As you might guess, I am part of a story telling family. I remember fondly watching my grandmother's work-worn hands move while she retold stories of our family lore. As a child in Worcester, she made dolls from corn cobs. She giggled with friends while nestled safely in the coat closet at church. And from the cozy coat closet, her heart surged with foretold delight when she first saw my grandfather enter the church.

And just yesterday, our family fable continued itself in subtle ways as my niece sat in rapt attention listening to my story of when I changed her diaper while I talked on the phone with my aunt. For me I simply had to multi-task, but for my aunt the event was noteworthy and is repeated again as it works its way into our family fable.

The purpose of the family fable is to celebrate, and educate, and rationalize, and tie us closely together in a sense of family. Why does our crazy Uncle act that way? The family fable offers a common explanation built on a haphazard retelling history. The family fable explains most everything.

And now when I go to work and talk daily with my dear friend, I learn more about family dynamics and I learn plausible scientific reasons for what was only explained by fable before.

I second-guess myself and wonder why the term 'fable' seems so right in this post. Remember our history lessons where cutting-edge science believed that the world was flat? Or in my family, we have rationales for why old crazy Uncle acts this way or that?

Fable fits because as time slides ever onwards, our understanding and perspective changes and our comfortable knowledge today may become amusing fodder in years to come.

However, the universal truth of love continues eternal so we may as well weave our own threads tightly into our respective family fables.

Slipping away from 2007

My neighboring uncle's garden produced Swiss chard and other vegetables a calendar year ago, but now a year later our properties are buried under up to 20 inches of snow. 2007 arrived hot and is waning cold.

2007 brought me great turbulence, change, excitement, freedom, and opportunity. My varied employment fueled the fun where I started working on a world-class writing team only to be laid off mid-year that released me to an unstructured lifestyle. The constants were unchanged - faith, family, love of writing, photography, and New Hampshire.

Freedom allowed me to immerse myself into New York City to experience the city from ground-level. And I met and walked briefly with a wonderful woman and her family until time and circumstances gently set us on a separate course.

My soccer team delighted me when they were not exasperating. My niece and several other players graduated from daisy-pickers and cart-wheelers into soccer players with drive, vision, and a shared passion for the game. The player's character grew in my mind's eye only to be corrected at the pizza party when things were right-sized when they stood next to video games and pool tables in the cramped game room of a local pizza house.

As you might suspect, girls and their motives often confuse me, but I knew that unity and a feeling of togetherness were key. So we played a season long name game eternally deciding whether we were the 'Purple Grapes', 'Purple Fighting Fish', Purple Doritos', or 'Purple Pumpernickel Breads'. (The last entry was mine - serving to motivate creativity and passion.)

The name game exceeded soccer in some ways because weeks after the season one of my younger players approached me with all seriousness, 'Coach Tim. Really, next year I don't want to be the Purple Fighting Fish. Really, we need to be the Purple Tigers because that's a superior name.'

I am so lucky to have the privilege to coach our youth.

Through my contacts in the soccer program, I found a job in the office of a high-end indoor pool construction and service company. I learned how to use a CAD application and I tried my hand at designing indoor pools. A sketch of an Oforu, or a Japanese soaking tub, may become reality someday.

While I worked this job, we had a family get-together at my house - mostly to introduce my girlfriend (at the time) and her children to my family. She and her daughter joined my nieces and my dad on a walk to the brook. My eldest and youngest nieces returned first - crying. Bees somehow stung them and we quickly scurried to soothe their wounds.

The others returned. My middle niece started screaming as a bee nestled in her clothing suddenly stung. And finally, my girlfriend's daughter started shrieking as a bee moved up inside her shirt and stung her. So the sobbing, sniffling girls assembled neatly into rows of pairs in my kitchen. Their striking blond hair framing tear reddened eyes and sniffling noses. Their mothers clucked like mother hens over their stings - doling out ice packs and empathy.

I watched devoid of my camera and soaked in the Rockwell moment in my very kitchen.

As the year closes, I heeded the call of tech writing opportunity and I agreed to work for a computer hardware company starting on January 2, 2008. I have read so often that a layoff is a wonderful reset for one's life and profession. The mind-numbing silence of sitting around for days and weeks unemployed lets us determine what our true loves are.

And for myself, I always find that writing is central and core to me. Tech writing fits and I look forward to returning to my first love.

So to close my last post of the year, I'll throw some tidbits out.

I earned $75 for a photo sold to a publisher of a NH Travel book.

I edited a friend's published work and I started editing Laura Bloch-Bourque's memoir to fulfill a long-standing dream of starting a small editing business.

I saw 11 deer while hunting - a record for one season of hunting NH. I shot at a doe, but missed.

Unintentionally, I killed four turkeys with one shot. The State of NH fined me and I lost my hunting privilege for a year (possibly reduced to 8 months, I hope).

I raised 18 broiler chicks. 12 for my friend and 6 for my freezer.

I raised 7 laying chickens - 6 laying hens and a rooster - to go with a pair of older roosters. In the last couple of days, a predator killed four layers and the old rooster. (One older rooster was gone long ago.) Three left.

My roommate found employment in Worcester and his presence helped quell the solitude of living alone. His heart is in Minnesota and will happily return next year - hopefully richer for his experience here.

I am continuing to date for no other reason than I feel secure and emotionally ready. Who knew that I would be in my early to mid 30s before I arrived at this juncture in life?

Outside my window, I see snow covering the hill between my uncle's house and mine. The beauty is not well captured in a photo - the even grey tones bleed into the faintest green hue of the evergreen. The overcast skies strain to blush blue. The weathered split rail fence leads to a maple tree that is budding unseen from my vantage point.

The staid beauty here makes me reflect on Brooklyn and the scintillating sense of freedom that I felt there. I wonder that with a companion, could I live a vagabond life and let the wind toss me away on my easy tether to New Hampshire?