Wet

Yes, this a picture of nothing but wet pavement and grass, but that's a good thing.  It's our first real rain of the summer.  Not a downpour.  Not for long.  It's drying up already.  But it's RAIN!!!

The "Orchard"

I picked our five peaches last week (really, four, one was on the ground, pecked by birds).  I'd guess that having only five peaches on the tree, enabled them to get big.  I was as proud as if I had something to do with it.  When you've spent most of your life NOT growing edibles, every little bit is a thrill.

Learning that Stuck

Sometimes we look back and wonder what we learned in our school years and of what use it is to us.  There are skills we've acquired that can't be attributed to one time or place- math skills, reading and writing skills-- those that have been built upon (and eroded).  And then there's a body of knowledge- most of it lost, I would think, and relatively useless.  Knowing Akhenaten was married to Nefertiti, has never really served me well, although I enjoy knowing this. My familiarity with Greek and Roman mythology helps me understand literary references.

One thing that I am guessing has stuck with many people, is the ability to name the clouds- nimbus, cumulus, cumulonimbus. cirrus, stratus.  I don't know why.  Perhaps because we look at them every day-because the sky and weather affect us, because we all are weather forecasters.  Perhaps because the names are fun to say.  We feel very "scientific" being able to identify clouds.  Cloud gazing inspires the creative part of us as well as the scientific.  I've been thinking about clouds the past few days because I keep hoping they're going to give us much awaited rain.  So I'm going to keep on watching them, and naming...

School Memories- Pinon Canyon Camp

Today I went to an Assistance League training session at the YWCA Pinon Canyon Camp in Tijeras.  It brought back memories of Kevin and me taking our classes there a couple of times for a beginning of the year activity.  I think we spent 2 or 3 nights there, learning about the environment from their trainers, enjoying the area, learning to work together. 

I especially remember the bunk rooms- decidedly uncomfortable, cooking and cleaning up in the kitchen with a group of kids, the parent pot luck dinner, singing along with Jeff Burrows, learning to use a compass, and bringing home a tub of earthworms each year for our own mini-composter.  Those worms lasted a year, until I stored them in the garage one hot summer, and the worms crawled out and died.

It makes me want to sort through my pictures, where I know I have pictures of at least one of our trips, so I guess I'll do that now...Voila!