Friday, March 04, 2022

I’ve been writing a magazine article early in the mornings about Lisa’s beautiful aviary populated with lively and healthy small birds. I’ve reworked various stabs, rejects that were dead-ends initially, and a narrative begins shaping. A target audience of popular magazine readers requires a logical and easy-reading piece.

Writing goals and objectives may become tangled. One scribbles, steps away, looks again and rewrites, steps away, and so on again. Soon and fortunately, Lisa also will have a say, and together we will strengthen the draft.

Whew! Writing to a specific readership has the challenge of pre-identified readers dictating everything. How people tend to read is a critical factor as a writer develops theme tones and selects words that communicate quickly.

In blogging, I write what’s on my mind for a general audience. My rule of thumb is to produce short, logical, and easy-to-read pieces. Sometimes, oops, I fail, usually from a need to say whatever was produced. Mostly, I try to improve by working carefully to structure themes and sentences.

The magazine article represents a short, energetic flight into new space. It’s hard work with goals and objectives, and also fun, excellent learning.

Dear Friends: If this blog seems a “structured oops,” call it writer’s-obsession. Diana

Thursday, March 03, 2022

I couldn’t believe that yesterday I forgot to go home although scheduled to work a half-day. After complaining of not feeling challenged at work, I received permission to take it upon myself to learn more about the organization’s needs and expand my role. Several co-workers teamed individually with me yesterday to explain the business’s inventory and stocking methods, and help me understand how to participate more.

I liked that and practiced accessing unfamiliar in-store computer sites. I spent time roaming the “back-stock” area to learn workers’ roles and locations of specific merchandise.

Meanwhile, new baby chicks were due to arrive and customers phoning about if they were in. I awaited a call from the Post Office before picking them up. Much happened yesterday to illustrate that the business of selling live animals isn’t particularly kind.

I’m facing a new challenge: balancing inner feelings opposed to boredom and unkindness against wanting to learn and work outside the home. Ironically, it’s not a brand-new condition because workplace environments always foster personal challenges.

To simplify the point, we cope in an imperfect world.

Dear Friends: Overcoming or avoiding disappointment isn’t an easy choice. Diana

Wednesday, March 02, 2022

A new moon, a new day, a short greeting. I’m due at the store an hour before it’s to open to prepare for a batch of arriving new chicks.

I’m starting to worry about myself with tiny chicks. Many are so needy and probably bring forward my own neediness. I’m worried about finding myself compelled to save passels of needy ones. That fantasy already seems to be turning into reality, for heaven’s sakes!

Peaches, a different bird that lives with me, has had a spa treatment. His flight wings are trimmed and nails shortened. We can again do something he loves, going outside together and taking walks. He’s happiest while perched on one of my shoulders or atop my head.

Dear Friends: Have a wonderful day. Diana

Tuesday, March 01, 2022

Up early to catch up on news of the war. It’s stunning to learn that Putin is spouting nuclear threats to bully a world unsupportive of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Only a madman articulates weaponry escalation in this modern age that could destroy vast swaths of humanity.

Tonight, President Biden will make this year’s State of the Union speech to both chambers of Congress and an attentive worldwide audience. I am today off from work and will be watching.

Speaking of work, I’m adopting the last two infant chicks from the store’s last batch. These are from several hundred newborns packaged and shipped by a New Mexico hatchery. Such shipments to Central Oregon usually take one day, but this package became stalled in our worst-freezing recent weather because the Post Office suffered a transportation breakdown.

The package of newborns full of chicks without food and water became lost for three days. It arrived finally with many chicks dead and many others too weak to hang on.

Today, I’ll fetch the still-tiny survivors of that incredibly rough start to life. Not wanting any more chickens, I encouraged co-workers to adopt the pair. Nobody wanted them, although days in the store’s “hospital tank” helped each gain strength.

I was opposed to selling outright these still special-needs chicks. That left me as the last best hope for their continued survival.

Dear Friends: Give a little, take a little, aiming to achieve the best outcome. Diana

Monday, February 28, 2022

This morning, I’m fiddling with the capabilities of Word Press, a powerful platform. When I try becoming more creative with images and spaces, the program’s constraints often interfere. My recent hope has been to insert images of current moon states. These days, the moon in “waning crescent” approaches its monthly transition to “new moon”.

The caption line and image don’t precisely match my vision, but the program allows and links a picture to the daily moon status. So, I’ll be satisfied.

A New Moon will appear on March 2 and be fullest on the 16th. I love the moon’s predictability and dependability. Those attributes help to guide and mollify the Earth’s inhabitants.

Those thoughts fall into a category of “stress relief” lately on my mind. I find that an interest in overhead objects, their activities, and significance, or in other words sky-watching, almost erases a person’s tensions.

Speaking of tensions, this morning I’m to help open the store. So, now it’s off with me!

Dear Friends: The pandemic years have made “stress relief” a vast topic. Diana

Sunday, February 27, 2022

^{(“Cold Moon” @ “Waning Crescent”; New Moon is “Worm Moon” @ 3/1, fullest @ 3/18.)}

Yesterday, in my part-time job in the feed store, I straightened and stacked articles of wear in the store’s upscale clothing department. The Western-themed section offers items designed for men and women, ranging from jeans, jackets, and shirts to shoes, hats, and jewelry. I enjoy being there doing work that primarily involves tidying up.

My job is re-folding jeans that customers have pulled from shelves to examine or try on. The store requires folding items in specific ways to stack neatly, to look new and inviting. I’m a rather lax housekeeper at home and had anticipated that work with clothing wouldn’t appeal. But it does. I really care about how well I’m folding, stacking, and straightening.

That activity is returning me through time and space to something I don’t recall ever giving a thought to. I happen to be the daughter of a top merchandiser and salesperson. My father owned and operated several stores, a music store, a jewelry store, and a shoe store, each in individual sections of an elongated building. He passed away while I was very young, but through the years, I’ve heard relatives who once worked for him speak of my father’s excellent managing and sales skills.

That’s been an epiphany. A sudden glimmer of what charges my motivation to work with and handle for-sale clothing compulsively and correctly.

Should I postulate boldly that folding clothing might be making me discover more of myself? That it is encouraging me to re-think myself, adjust internal assessments of my capabilities?

That’s all this morning because time’s short. I’m to help open the store.

Dear Friends: It’s all fun, kind of odd-funny, and also weirdly motivating. Diana

Saturday, February 26, 2022

^{(“Cold Moon” @ “Waning Crescent”; New Moon is “Worm Moon” @ 3/1, fullest @ 3/18.)}

Our cold snap is ending, thanks to the powers that be. Recent and very low temps blew out the GFCI that controls heaters in my horses’ water troughs. The intense cold seemed too much for me to try being on my knees to work on the GFCI, so I elected multiple times daily to chop ice in the troughs. That’s been worrisome, for thick ice chunks quickly re-freeze, denying animals access to drinkable water.

Today will initiate a welcome warming trend. Speaking to weather preferences is tricky because our area desperately needs snow and rain. Preferable weather conditions are a double-edged sword. I’d less have minded last week’s extreme cold if not for the GFCI and horse-drinking worries.

I remind myself that annual very cold weather snaps usually bring unexpected problems. I remind myself that thinking ahead would be preferable to reflecting from hindsight, as now I’m doing.

To be honest, I’ve wondered about that GFCI, if it might be on the fringe after several years of operating. I’ve changed the GFCI before but it’s not a job I’m capable of completing quickly. Besides, working with bare hands in single and double-digit temps, makes fingers start to freeze and hands become intensely painful.

Before leaving for work later in the morning, maybe I will tackle the GFCI problem. A successful outcome so the horses may drink anytime would ease my mind.

The feed store where I work is expanding my retailing experience by giving me a broader range of responsibilities. Besides selling chickens and associated merchandise, I’m now assisting with sales and merchandising in the Animal Health Department, also assisting in the Clothing Department, and am a back-up cash register operator.

Those changes are making my days more interesting. The hours away from home pass quickly, and returning home always feels good.

Plus, I was included in a year-end bonus!

Dear Friends: One thing lovely about aging is the shedding of some old worries. Diana

Friday, February 25, 2022

^{(“Cold Moon” @ “Waning Crescent”; New Moon is “Worm Moon” @ 3/1, fullest @ 3/18.)}

I’m drafting for publication the story of Lisa’s unique aviary. Yesterday, I returned to gather new images and more about how she created the beautiful place.

One of my photo objectives was related to my part-time job in a feed store. Lisa purchases from the store chicken feeders and hangs them high to feed finches and canaries. Yesterday, she staged perfect shots by not feeding birds until I arrived. That let me capture the feeders loaded with birds.

Here’s another image.

The most colorful bird, second from left, is a male. So is that bird at far right. I wished for close-ups of those guys, but they’re too quick. Soon as I spotted one perched and shifted my camera, he flew. That camera can stop action, but not that of those little quickies.

Here, he looks up at a lady friend. This capture also shows decorative perches and trees inside the aviaries.

I’ll save most of the aviary story for our article, except for this irresistible nest. Lisa lowered it yesterday, showing brand-new babies moments after hatching. They’re all-skin bundles with big eyes and have sparse baby feathers sticking up. The whole sweet group is smaller than my hand.

Look closely, and you’ll see a beautiful egg, not yet hatched.

I will make a print of a “feeder with birds” image and offer it to the feed store. It perfectly demonstrates a creative way of “putting to work” a product beyond its designated purpose.

Dear Friends: So much to write about and with many delightful images. Diana

Thursday, February 24, 2022

^{(“Cold Moon” @ “Waning Crescent”; New Moon “Worm Moon” @ 3/1, fullest @ 3/1,8.)}

As of yesterday, War! In our “age of enlightenment,” and world nations sharing one planet and knowing it’s in crisis, how does anyone in “a right mind” initiate war with another country? Wars cost money and lives, utilize modern weapons to target and kill accurately. Even very-oddball leaders, like North Korea’s front-man, sputters threats and refrains from starting a significant war.

Putin is crazy, and his game is on.

I carefully selected today’s header image. It shows my dogs beside a canal, almost as pretty as an Old Master painting. It’s a peaceful scene of living and being together, suggesting what ought to be for us all.

Today, I have a day off from the feed store. I’ll draft a magazine article featuring Lisa’s aviary. I’ll take Mitzvah, my busy little J. Russell/x, for a play date with Petey, the Gilberts’ Border Terrier. And, Dang, it! I’ll change that malfunctioning GFCI letting my trough waters freeze.

Dear Friends: And like us all, hoping it’s possible to halt a madman’s dream. Diana

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

^{(“Cold Moon” @ “Waning Gibbous”; New Moon @ 3/1, “Worm Moon” fullest @ 3/18.)}

Cold yesterday! My big hen turkeys were shivering, same as me. I was trying to string a wind barrier against their exposed area. My fingers were freezing, my hands painfully numb and nearly useless. An early temperature in the high teens was cold aplenty, but with winds from the west blowing strongly, outside was sheer misery.

I have turkeys, chickens, a couple of goats, and three equines demanding care. Equines need periodic dribbles of feed, which forces me outside to provide for them. I checked their watering troughs in that early evening and found them solidly frozen. Fortunately, I was able with a hammer to break up that ice. (In the past, I’ve faced thickly-iced trough water, with my best hammering not causing a single crack.)

Out in the cold and on my knees, I bent and peered at the GFCI, finding it off. But why? In darkness and awful cold I closed my eyes and hit the “on” button. The controller clicked in, and I double-checked. It seemed working again. I looked closely at both troughs and saw their heaters creating steam.

Right then, my best choice was to leave good enough alone, return to the house, and hope the GFCI wouldn’t click off. Regardless, the horses should be okay through the night’s remaining hours.

Maybe in this cold morning, I’ll be on my knees replacing that controller.

Dear Friends: Winter harshness tests a rancher’s intelligence, strength, patience. Diana