ROBIN HOBB

Today, as I got into my car, I had a couple extra sets of 'disposable' gloves with me.  I decided to store some in the car, and found the perfect place for them.  The glove box.   It struck me as mildly humorous that it was probably the first time in my life that I'd used the glove box to store actual gloves.

 

It's sort of like the cigarettle lighter plug that some cell phone chargers still have.  I remember when that was an actual cigarette lighter in that hole.  You pushed it in, the little coils heated to a glowing red, and the smoker in the car could light a cigarette with it.  And of course use the ashtray, front or back seat, that all cars had then.  

 

Inside the house, do you still 'turn on' your lights?  With a switch that actually moves up and down, right.  But our language remembers when it was a knob that you turned.  And maybe you still turn up the volume on the tv, while actually pushing a button.  

 

And when you cc someone on that email, I bet you don't make a carbon copy of the document at all!  

 

I love words.  I love how they evolve.  The space shuttle goes back and forth between the space station and the earth.  Just like the airport shuttle bus goes back and forth between the airport and your home.  And that all started with a weaver's shuttle going back and forth as she wove.

 

Our cars and motorcycles have horsepower.  Our windshields shield us from the wind.  

 

Our computers use a network that has nothing to do with a net made of line and knots.  We save our data in files and folders.  

 

Words, words, words.  My favorite toys.

 

 

It feels as if we are a tiny commune here on the little farm in Washington.  Fred and I are here, with our younger daugther.  In our guest cottage is our son and his family, for a total of six more people.  Confined to the farm, we are finally doing many of the things we intended to do 'some day' and using up a lot of those things that we thought we might need 'someday.'  The stack of odd lumber that every rural place collects is shrinking.  One of my teen grand daughters has discovered that she enjoys splitting wood, and is turning a lot of log rounds into firewood.  We don't have a fireplace, but one of Fred's judo friends does, and someday we will be able to drop off a truck load of dry split wood!

 

Our attempts at keeping up with schooling are a bit haphazard, but we have resolved that tomorrow we will do better,  In the meantime, my 6 year old grandson goes walking with me on the lower acreage and is learning the names of the plants.  Today he tried young dandelion leaves, and tomorrow we may make a very simple salad of dandelion leaves and watercress, two things growing in plenty right now.  He has already chosen seeds for the raised bed he helped me assemble today.  And he reads out loud to me for at least twenty minutes every day. So I think we can say we are covering botany and reading.  My eldest grand daughter is working on completing an online ground school course, while my younger daughter has begun her online statistics class.  

 

The more work we do on our little farm, the more work we discover to do.  I think any farming/gardening experience is like that.  Today we moved the chicken pen onto fresh grass.  The chickens are only inside it for a few hours each day.  The rest of the time they free range while hatching plots to break into my garden.  My garden is doing well. We are still getting late night frosts here, so it's mostly things like onions, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts.  But the plum trees have begun to bloom, the strawberries are putting out new foliage and there are little buds on the blueberry bushes.  So soon it will start to look like a real garden again.

 

Megan Lindholm has been doing a lot of writing.  The book I had planned and begun work on was about Bee.  But it centered around the recurrence of the blood plague, and I'm not sure anyone wants to read about a viral plague right now.  Isnt' fantasy about escaping our day to day lives?

 

So one we go.  Facemasks and gloves on the few occasions when I leave the farm.  The danger is real.  I have one friend in Olympia who is recovering, and another in Tacoma who is awaiting her test results.  I hope everyone is being careful and staying safe.