Fruit City

I went to a different grocery store today. There are only 3 left in town--there used to be 5 or 6 (well, years ago there were more than that, even). The one I go to most often is a small(ish) neighborhood grocery store; one is (*koff*) Walmart; and the other is a big employee-owned chain store out on the east side of town. That's the one I went to.

I have plenty of chicken, fish, and cheese in the house, and lots of veggies in the freezer, so what I was really looking for was some good fruit, which they had in abundance. I came home with a banana (I only buy them one at a time, since I like them just slightly green--I hate mushy bananas!), a nectarine, a Gala apple, a Fuji apple, an organic Golden Delicious that actually looks ripe (I hate unripe apples and mushy apples both), half a cantaloupe, 2 plumcots, a Bosc pear (currently my favorite kind), a French butter pear, an Asian pear, 2 tiny Seckel pears, some red seedless grapes, and a box of raspberries which I don't really expect to taste like anything, but I thought I might try them. I've never had plumcots or French butter, Asian, or Seckel pears, so that's something to look forward to.

They also had ready-cooked vacuum-packed (as opposed to canned) baby beets. I *love* beets, pickled or plain. They have a really amazing produce section, actually, and they have everything labeled with the country of origin, which is nice, though I didn't see anything that was labeled "local."

I forgot to look for alfafa sprouts and organic cottage cheese and yoghurt. I know they have the sprouts and organic yoghurt, and I know other stores in the chain have organic cottage cheese, so I'll have to go back sometime and look again.

They had frozen organic goat meat. I almost got some for Taenzer and Timber.

I thought I had bought some kind of peanut butter that had flax seeds in it--nice and crunchy, and pretty good-tasting--from them, but I couldn't find it, so I must have got it in Walmart.

They also had teeny little 4-oz. containers of Hagen-Daaz! They look like doll-house cartons. I caved and got vanilla, chocolate, and dulce de leche. I think I got them more because they're so cute than because I was really craving ice cream!

To show that I'm not totally obsessed with food: the undergrad English honor society was holding a book sale as a fund raiser, and I bought a biography of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Kind of sorry I did--the author doesn't seem to like Charles Lindbergh, thinks that AML married beneath herself, and looks down on her for it. It was written while AML was still alive, and of course both Lindberghs were fiercely protective of their privacy, so there wasn't much in the way of primary source material available; all the author could do was rehash the published letters, diaries, and other writing of Anne and Charles. She says she talked to Nigel Nicholson, whose father wrote the biography of Anne's father and was with the Lindberghs and Morrows during the trial of Bruno Hauptman, and who gave her access to some of the Nicholson/Sackville-West material. Anyhow, I wasn't much impressed. I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it. I'll probably donate it for next year's book sale.

reading, knitting, half-obscured dog pictures

Since I wasn't able to get onto the internet for several days, I've been doing some reading. Last week I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and last night I re-read Prince Caspian. I never did like the Narnia series, and I still don't like it. As I recall, Tolkein had some tart thngs to say about it as well. I was, shall we say, underwhelmed by Harry Potter, too.

I'm trying to remember what I read when I was 10 or 11--I guess that's the target audience--and I believe I was reading horse and dog stories (Lad: A Dog, Smokey the Cowhorse, things like that) and this improbable pre-Revolution pioneer series by Joseph Altsheler, the Young Trailer series that for some reason I thought was just wonderful. Also Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books (both volumes--there's another set beside the Mowgli stories).

I didn't get into sf/f until I was maybe 12 or 13--there just *wasn't* any back then. I started off with Heinlein and Asimov--much preferred Asimov, esp. I, Robot, but I really wasn't a hard sf kinda person.

Then, thank goodness, somehow I discovered Andre Norton, who really turned me on and I read everything of hers I could get my hands on. I can still quote you big chunks of the first book of hers I ever read, Star Rangers (which is now titled something else). I loved that book--there was so much imagination in it you could take it and run with it yourself--so many untold stories, so much background just hinted at, plus the vivid characters and relationships. Great book. I loved, too, that many of her characters had esper powers that enabled them to form teams with animals (Storm Over Warlock and Lord of Thunder, for instance), and that some of her characters were of American Indian descent. Some of her characters were even *girls*!

Then LOTR came out and it was a whole new ballgame.

Man, it took FOREVER before there started being readable fanatasy after that, although I did branch out some into H.P. Lovecraft and some of the Golden Age fantasy stuff--John Carter of Mars and Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, things like that, because my brother was reading it (I still like Lovecraft--he can scare the bejeebers out of me). There was a godawful Tolkein ripoff by the Hildebrandt brothers, Sword of Shannara, which I read maybe 10 pages of and got rid of. Then some decent juvenile fantasy came out--there was the Lloyd Alexander Welsh series and a stand-alone (not by Alexander) called Tash and the Jesters. Andre Norton started writing fantasy, too, though I didn't like it as well as her scifi--which actually teetered on the edge of fantasy (Storm Over Warlock, for instance--compare it to some of MZB's early Darkover stuff).

Anyway, I suppose my point is that, IMHO, C.S. Lewis couldn't tell a decent kids' story if his life depended on it (although I like some of his other books) and I don't see what all the fuss about Harry Potter is. Call me old, I guess.

On to knitting:

I finished the Tidal Wave socks today, yay!


Here's a close-up of the leg--I love the curving part, although as you can see from above the basic impression is of horizontals. I think Cookie A.'s Pomatamus socks might emphasize the curves more. You can get a good idea of the wonderful colors of this yarn in this picture, too.

I can't wait to wear these to work!

Some pictures of Taenzer and Timber outside this morning:

This is what she's doing with that pile of branches in the yard (and I sure wish that guy would show up and haul it off--it's been almost a week)--she drives the ball into an opening.

Then--although the ball is free here--she grabs a branch and starts tugging and pulling.

Then she wrestles with the branches a little bit before she takes off with the ball:

Meanwhile, a very young rabbit has taken to hanging out in the woodpile. This morning it was sitting right out in the middle of the grass, happily munching away, when we came out. Being a young rabbit, it panicked and ran. I had the gate open and I thought it would run past me and I could close the gate and it would be safe, but no, it doubled back and ran into the woodpile, then came out the other end. Meanwhile, Timber had seen it go in--but hadn't seen it come out (I had to go shoo it out the fence, dumb bunny)--and occupied himself for quite some time looking for the bunny in the woodpile:

"I know it went in here--"

"I can smell it..."


"Where is it??"

He's still not 100% himself--his appetite is still off, and he's developed diahrrea--probably from the antibiotics--but he's very active and seems happy, so we'll just keep working on the eating thing and I'll try to get more yoghurt down him.

Feeling virtuous

Here it is, not even noon on a Saturday morning, and I feel like I've gotten a considerable amount of stuff done. Well, by my standards, considering that by noon on Saturdays I've usually done exactly nothing. So far, I've:

• Taken care of the cat and left a note for her mom and dad, who are coming home today. She sat in my lap while I wrote it. This is the cat who, a little over 18 months ago, hissed at me when I came into the house and told me, more or less, to leave the food and get out. It's been a very pleasant chore taking care of her this time.
• Let the Ts out to play for half an hour. It's very warm and melty out, but the puppy pen was, at that time, still more snow/slush than mud, so they were only wet when they came in, not completely muddy and disgusting.
• Picked up poop out front. It wasn't quite the 3 bags full I predicted earlier, but only because some of it is still entombed in the ice. Tomorrow I'll probably be able to collect that third bag.
• Folded towels (which went into the drier, um, last weekend).
• Worked on the tube sock.

Since it is warm and melty out, I also have a couple of storm windows raised a couple of inches, to let some fresh air in and also, I hope, some of the moisture, so I can give the humidifier a rest. It was dry enough inside this morning that when I petted Taenzer before I got up we had some sparks. That's how I judge the humidity level--by whether the dogs (and previously, Annie) spark when I touch them, and also by whether Taenzer's sideburns are floaty (you know, like your hair when you rub a balloon on it). It's supposed to be in the 60s tomorrow!

I got a gift certificate to Amazon from one of my brothers, and used part of it to get a pair of Miracle Balls (http://tinyurl.com/29t9f3 ). They're these half-inflated grapefruit-size balls that you lie on--just lie on, without doing anything but breathing--and they're supposed to help realign, ease pain, etc. Since I've had such good luck using trigger points for my shoulder, I thought I'd try these for my back and hips. Last night I crated the dogs and tried them out, and I think they'll help, but I've got a big kink over by the sciatic nerve on the left side and when that goes, it's gonna hurt. It'll feel better later, but the moment it goes is going to be a big ouch moment, which makes it kind of hard to breathe and relax. Anyway, it was cold down there on the floor, so this morning I thought I would try one on the futon, since the mattress has compacted into rock-like hardness since I got it. Well. I'd crated the Ts last night because I knew that if I was lying on the floor I'd never be able to relax because they'd be licking my face and walking on me and stuff. What I'd forgotten is that Timber is a Grade-A Certified BALL DOG, and when he came wandering into the living room to see what was going on and saw Mom lying on a brand new BALL--!!

First he tried to get his head under me (with the ball under me, it leaves maybe an inch or two between me and the floor or futon) to get the ball. Then he gave me two quick, frantic little kisses. Then he tried to get the ball again. Then he put his front feet on my chest and barked in my face. And when I got off the ball and went to put it away (safely out of his reach, I hope!), he jumped for it and barked and tried to trip me the whole way. He is such a hilarious boy sometimes, and I love him dearly.

A couple of nights ago I watched a movie a close friend introduced me to--Brotherhood of the Wolf, or, the original title, Le Pacte des Loups. It's been described as a French horror-martial arts-romance-adventure-fantasy, based (loosely) on a true story from 18th-century France. You can get the cheap American single disc version or the 3-disc Canadian version for $21 used. I've got the single-disc version but want the 3-disc one which is, of course, chock-a-block with extras. It's a really amazing movie, completely different from anything you've ever seen, beautifully beautifully filmed, bizarre and dream-like, and Mark Decascos is excellent eye candy. Even if you can only find the dubbed American version, it's worth checking out--a completely unique experience.

This morning I read a review of a book I think I want to get, Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War. (http://tinyurl.com/2faf4l) Some quotes from the book:

• "If your enemy is an unjust person, why do you think proof of that injustice will bring about a change?"
• "The wider your knowledge the milder your opinions?"
• "Recently a new serenity has touched me, a feeling of wisdom. No, this is not a proud feeling, a feeling of being in control, but an acceptance of not being in control."
• "Those who champion democracy, but also make a fetish of never accepting anything they don't agree with – what advantage do they see in democracy?"

I'm not familiar with Stafford, but it sounds like good reading to me.

I am head over heels in love

Could anyone in their right mind resist this face? Well, I certainly can't, but when it comes to Timber, I may not be in my right mind. He knocks my socks off.

I also wish to take special notice of a used bookseller on Amazon. It's Merrimead Books. I ordered Nero Wolfe books to replace the ones in my collection that have, shall we say, disappeared. Two I ordered new from Amazon, and the other three were used copies from Merrimead. The books from Merrimead arrived today--before the Amazon order, I might add--and besides the speed-of-light delivery (from California to Forgottonia), the contents were amazing. The books were carefully wrapped in a layer of bubble wrap. Inside the bubble wrap was a layer of cheerful green tissue paper. Inside that, each book had been sealed into its own cellophane envelope. The covers of each (all paperbacks) have been laminated. Since they're all Nero Wolfe books, she included a bookmark with the entire list of Nero Wolfe titles on it. AND she included a bonus book (also Nero Wolfe).

I gave her a 5-star recommendation, and I wanted to especially mention her here. If you order used books on Amazon, see if Merrimead Books has it. She's amazing.

Good Timber! and why one keeps one's own library

You may remember that Timber suddenly decided, for reasons unknown to me, to regress in his house-training, and had been peeing in the kitchen in the middle of the night. So for the past several weeks, when I go to bed, I've been barricading him into the bedroom, which is so tiny that if he were to pee in it, he'd have to sleep in it.

Well. Last night--or this morning, rather, about 5:30--he woke me up barking at me. It wasn't a great big loud "someone's there" bark (not that he uses that particular bark much, Mr. Sociability), it was more like the bark he uses when he want me to do something for him, like make Taenzer give him back his ball.

At first I was like, "Oh, Timber, give me a break" and hiding my head under the covers. Then I got conscious enough to think--wait--I bet he has to go--drag your lazy self out of bed and take him out. Which I did, and he peed a river, bless his heart; he wasn't joking one little bit. So even though I was barely awake, I did my best to praise him and tell him what a good boy he was and how proud of him I was. Maybe if we have several repeats of this, eventually I can discard the baby gate, he can have the run of the house again, and Annie can come sleep with us again. (She's too rickety to get over the baby gate any more, and I want her to be able to reach her food and her litter box, so she has to sleep by herself out in the hall. Poor kitty girl.)

Anyhow, I'm proud of my boy. He's a good problem-solver when he needs to be, and assertive when he needs to be.

I'm still reading Nero Wolfes. I think my mother had all of them, and last time I shelved them apparently I lined them up in chronological order--that is, the order they were written. So it's interesting to see things develop--various personalities and so on. Archie goes from being a bigoted and fairly obnoxious smart-ass to being a much smoother and more cosmopolitan smart-ass. Johnny Keems vanishes somewhere and Orrie Cather takes on his particular set of personality traits, like being slick and wanting Archie's job. They start out with Doc Vollmer, but have a different lawyer than Nathaniel Parker. Harry somebody.

The women are pretty much of a muchness, at least until Lily comes along. This is partly due to the shallow and callow reporting of Mr. Goodwin. Things get a little better, as I recall (I'm still in the first half dozen books, written in the 30s), after Lily makes the scene--and who can forget her necking with Nero Wolfe in a taxi!

I wish I knew more about NYC--it would be very interesting to compare the Manhattan described in the Wolfe books to the current city.

I also found a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder that I don't think I've ever read (I've never read any of the Little House books, either, though I think my sister had a set), and one of Edie Sedgewick, so I'm set for good reading for a while. Since I'm still hiding out from my troubles, this makes me happy.

I don't buy many books any more, which is a pity. I love books. But even paperbacks are expensive these days, and, believe it or not, there's only one bookstore in this university town, an independent. (Neither is there anywhere to buy magazines--just what's at the grocery store check-out, which is annoying.) I've tried to patronize it, but they don't carry books I'm interested in. They're happy to order for you, but you can get them so much cheaper and at least as fast from Amazon. But because they're so expensive, I don't often order books from Amazon because I can't browse them, and I don't want to spend money on a book I won't like. I used to buy several books a month, but it seems that as the small, independent publishers get swallowed up by the conglomerates, which care nothing about literature and only about dollars, there are fewer and fewer books I'm interested. When I look at my wish list on Amazon, most of them are books to replace books I already have that are disintegrating.

At any rate, I was going to make the point that having one's own library in one's own home means that whenever you have an urgent need to read something, you can be fairly sure of finding something on your shelves to take you away. (which is not a well-constructed sentence...) I have no objection to re-reading books--I have a few books I know practically by heart and continue to re-read anyway because the authors of those books have put their words together with such skill and care and craftsmanship that rereading them is like listening to a favorite piece of music. You can't get tired of it. Eleanor's journey to Hill House, for instance, or H.P. Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space," or Henry Mitchell's garden writing (of course!), Mary Stewart's romances, Andre Norton's Star Rangers which was the first science fiction I ever read and has as firm a hold on my imagination now as when I first read it in jr. high. Or, on a higher plane, Virginia Woolf's The Waves, which was astonishing, a total revelation. I had no idea it was possible to do things like that. I remember the first time I read it, I would read a paragraph, or maybe even just a sentence, and then have to stop and let it reverberate and sink in. It took me forever to read it because I was just so blown away. It doesn't have quite such an impact now, of course, but it's still an amazing read.

I used to wish my "rich anonymous uncle" would die and leave me $100 a month with the stipulation that it be spent on books. I couldn't get quite as much for my money these days as when I first had the idea, but I think it's still a good wish.

books

Timber hoarding toys. There's Big Mean Kitty, colored fleecy ball, new hard orange ball that makes funny noises when he chews on it and, somewhere in there, a deer antler tine (one of the greatest chew items ever). It was such a funny thing--he spends a lot of time in his crate, but he doesn't generally carry all his toys in there.

Books: Did you ever read Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter? Fascinating book, even though, as my English-major brother says, it's the hardest thing he ever read, including Ulysses and Ghormengast. But definitely worth every mental charley-horse you get reading it. Hofstadter has a new book out, I Am A Strange Loop, reviewed by Peter D. Kramer in the Washington Post Book World, a review available through Powell's here: http://www.powells.com/n/220/wpb/review/2007_05_04 Sounds like more heavy, but fascinating, lifting.

On the lighter side: Our elementary school librarian, Miss Evans, who had been terrorizing children for 30 years, loved me, because I loved books. I always checked out as many as I could carry and I always brought them back on time. I often renewed books I loved. While boys my age were reading about baseball and cars, and other girls were reading nurse stories and summer camp romances, I was reading books like Lad, A Dog and Smokey the Cowhorse and Howard Pyle's Robin Hood (I was the only kid in my class who knew that "a score," like "five-score and ten," was 20). And, for some reason, over and over, a set of books by Joseph Altsheler called The Young Trailers. Written between 1907 and 1917 (I think), they're the adventures of 5 pioneers of "Kain-tuck-ee" at the outbreak of the American Revolution. I'm not quite sure why I was so fascinated--partly because they were so unlike typical Western adventures, perhaps. And I loved the images of the primeval American forest and its inhabitants. I must have liked the characters, as well, since many years later I put two of them into a story.

For years I wanted to re-read those books (what happened to them after the Lab School was closed? Were they, horrors, simply thrown away?) to see if they were as good as I remembered them to be. I discovered the first book in the series, The Young Trailers, at Amazon, and ordered a copy. Then I found that book and the next two in the series online at the Gutenberg project, so I downloaded the two I didn't have. Last night I read all three of them.

Did they live up to my memory? Well--yeah, kinda. Henry Ware, the main character, is sort of like Tarzan in Appalachia--I don't think I ever did really like him, he was just too perfect, everything came too easily to him--there was never any doubt that Henry Ware would save the not just the day but the world. Altsheler wobbles between violent racism about the native tribes and a certain kind of luke-warm sympathy for them being forced off their lands. He has the pre WWI conviction that Western European ways and values are the best ways and values--even Henry, who can't be confined by cabin or fort and prefers living in the forest, works to further the safety and goals of the group of settlers his family belongs to. The white villain, Braxton Wyatt, is given absolutely no motivation at all for becoming a traitor who goes to live with the Indians and helps them in their attacks on the settlers. The Indians are merciless savages (except for a band of Shawnees who are so overawed by the god-like young Henry that they adopt him); even when an elderly pair wishes to adopt Henry's friend Paul as a replacement for their dead son, they're described with a mixture of sympathy (for their loss) and revulsion (for their race). It makes me want to smack somebody.

(And what is it, btw, with the name "Paul" as a synonym for dreamy, sensitive, artistic temperament? Paul Cotter in The Young Trailers series and Paul in the Anne of Green Gables series are virtually interchangeable, except one is an 18th century pioneer boy and other is a 19th century Canadian boy.)

(Also, from this vantage point, the whole thing fairly screams "slash!!"--Henry and Paul, Jim and Sol--as someone said about Frazer and RayK, "they are so doing it." I hear Joseph Altsheler rolling over in his grave, and wish him peace; I mean no harm. The age I live in is not such an innocent one.)

So, you may be thinking, it doesn't sound like these books have any redeeming qualities. Well--they do. The secondary characters of Paul, Tom, Sol, and Jim are fairly two-dimensional, but likeable and interesting, as is the schoolmaster, Mr. Pennypacker. The tempo moves right along, it's never boring. I don't know how historically accurate the details are, although Altsheler wasn't too far removed from the time; he was born in 1862 and probably heard stories about what the first pioneers had to face when they came over the mountains from their children and grandchildren. The writing is typical for the period in which it was written, journeyman writing, just very slightly over-the-top ("...the ferocious whine burst into a long, terrible howl, and the dusky forms, running low, gaunt and ghostly in the shadow, shot from the forest...") ("Then an extraordinary thrill ran through him; it was an emotion partaking in its nature of joy and anticipation; he was about to be confronted by some danger, perhaps a crisis, and the physical faculties, handed down by a far-off ancestor, expanded to meet it. He knew that he would conquer..."). Yes, almost all of the sentences are like that, not too many simpe declarative sentences, but there's nothing wrong with that. Please note, too, that these were written as children's books. Imagine a children's book written with long, complex sentences like that these days.

I'm still not making my case, am I? Okay, what can I say? They're silly and have that Meet-Me-In-St.-Louis, Anne of Green Gables quality of High Romance and nature worship. And I still love his picture of the Forest Primeval, with gigantic trees and pure cold water and wood buffalo and thousands of birds. I like the Robinson Crusoe quality of making a hut out of slabs of tree bark lying around (!) and fishing with a thread and a bent pin. There's a remote kinship to Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, living free in the greenwood and feasting on venison.

Okay, so I can't explain it. I just like them, even though now the non-PC attitudes make me uncomfortable.

And you know what? Those copies the Lab School threw away would be worth a very small fortune today--only 4 of the 8 are currently in print, and of the other 4, I saw one used volume offered at $1200. That's Twelve Hundred Dollars. The hardback version of another runs around $120.

Question of the Day

Why is it that I can more or less keep my head when I meet a new, larger-size dog and remember to try to copy dog manners, with a non-frontal approach, no direct eye-contact, some blinking, maybe a yawn, letting the dog make the approach--but when somebody comes in with a little dog I completely lose my head and just grab? Geez, louise. Someone came into the office with an adorable little poodle/schnauzer cross, and I took her and held her on my lap. Poor little thing obviously hasn't been out much--she's a year and a half old and was shaking like a leaf. At least I didn't stick my face right into hers like someone else did, but man, I didn't even think of trying any calming signals with her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Um, for those of you who may have had trouble opening the pictures in last night's post, you might try hitting "refresh" several times. I don't know what the deal is. Everything looks fine on this computer, but I had trouble with the site from my work computer (showing pictures to folks at work), and several people told me they couldn't get the pics to load--but hitting "refresh" does seem to help; you can get most of them to load.

I subscribe to Review A Day from Powells (the famous gigantic Portland OR bookstore), and the review today was very good. It was a review of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, by Ali A. Allawi; the review is by Fuoad Ajami and appeared in The New Republic. You can find it at http://www.powells.com/review I'm not sure I want to read the entire book, but the review is an intelligent, articulate summary of both the book and the historical and political background that has brought Iraq to the state it finds itself in. I found the review itself very informative, not to mention sad.

The Bayerische sock is coming along. I'm a lot more relaxed about it now that I have the stitch pattern set and can see what I'm doing, and it's fun. I'm not really far enough along for any of the goodnesses to show, but maybe once I reach the 16th and last row of Chart D (when the other 3 charts will have been repeated twice) I'll have enough to photograph. (Or not. I just discovered a stitch I dropped FIVE ROWS AGO. Can I fix it? After the monumental battle I just had with this Dell piece of junk computer, I don't think I can face it tonight.)

My shoulder is still waking me up. I'm taking MSM (anti-inflammatory) during the day and aspirin before bed at night, but about 2:30 my shoulder wakes me up. I do some trigger point massage and sometimes massage the neck muscles just under the skull, and after about 5 or 10 minutes it lets up enough for me to go back to sleep, and it's fine until 2:30 the next morning. I see that the guy who wrote the original Trigger Point Therapy book now has one specifically for frozen shoulder--not exactly separated shoulder, but I bet a lot of the trigger points are the same. I think I'm going to have to get it; Amazon has a bunch of used copies.

It rained pretty hard last night and today. I was out looking at the grass in the puppy pen. It's not complete coverage, but I think it's about the best I can do this year. I think I'll have it mowed--and tell them to set the deck HIGH so their blades don't get caught in that netting--then put out the tunnels and maybe get the Ts back out there last next week--just about on schedule, actually. If I have it mowed, I'll be cutting back daffodil leaves, but nothing bloomed this year, despite my having gone around on my hands and knees last spring with a buck of bulb fertilizer and a tablespoon and carefully annointing each bulb with a tablespoon of bulb fertilizer. I think the pounding of puppy paws may be too much for them.

Two hundred daffodils down the drain. Oh well. They were Stella's--the fall I planted the first hundred, I still had her, and on one sunny afternoon she lay out in the grass while I planted bulbs, and stopped from time to time to rest and sit beside her. I originally envisioned that space thick with naturalized daffodils in the spring, but that was before it was fenced. Stella and I did a lot of walking the last two or three years of her life. I ordered the other 100 the spring of the year she died. I didn't really have the heart to plant them, and they didn't get into the ground until about February, if I remember correctly. Taenzer, then about 4 months old, "helped." "Taenzer, put that bulb down! Taenzer, stay out of the fertilizer. Taenzer, come back with my trowel! Taenzer!"