Friday, February 17, 2023

I spent most of yesterday wiping out my computer’s memory and then initiating a factory reset. That lengthy and tiring work consumed hours to relocate and download previously saved data. I’m still searching for photos and documents; they’re either in the Cloud or Amazon storage. I’ll find them.

The reset was necessary as my computer was continually losing its wifi connection. As a result, I couldn’t create an entire document before the system suddenly wouldn’t save my work. I went online for technical support, and experts tried to help by unloading and reloading the computer’s wifi driver. Unfortunately, that didn’t improve anything.

Frankly, what had gone wrong was my fault. I had fooled around with internet connectivity, and while clicking on keys immediately sensed having just hit what might have been the wrong one. Enlightenment came too late. I wasn’t sure what I’d done, but my wifi started failing often.

After yesterday’s reset, the system seems to be working well enough. Its wifi connection appears to be holding, making worthwhile the hefty fixing effort.

Earlier that day, I cleaned the poultry area. My pet hen turkeys like to follow me around, always making cool chattering and whistling noises. For today’s header photo, I captured one’s sweet expression.

My chickens, too, were fun to work around. Most have re-feathered and are beautiful, for wintertime is the period of reduced laying and less rooster attention.

Speaking of roosters, here’s my Cockoo Moran back when he sported a tall, proud tail. The girls keep following him around and plucking at his glorious feathers. The reason feathers are popular as snacks is that they’re pure protein.

Dear Friends: Using high technology successfully demands hesitation, caution, and courage. Diana

Thursday, February 15, 2023

My new renter, Jan, has begun moving in. Yesterday, she brought her three beloved giant chimes and hung each on different trees. She loves their sounds and understands my mixed feelings about their potential to interrupt this area’s typical quiet. I appreciate that despite my doubts, she dares to bring and hang them. She accepts that their survival in my trees depends on them being reasonably noninvasive.

Although Jan’s enormous chimes might disagreeably impact my neighbors and me, my next-door neighbor, Frank, isn’t among my worries. He’s a good guy, usually unconcerned if my dogs bark noisily or sneak onto his property and steal his dogs’ balls. Besides, Jan says that she and Frank have already become friends.

She is striking a home run with me by volunteering to train Chase, my energetic puppy. Jan is an experienced dog trainer; her breed favorites are Airedale Terriers. I’m learning about her past life, including her stint as a professional photographer for a Tulsa, Oklahoma newspaper. She also has been a licensed aircraft pilot. No doubt, there are more life adventures I’ll learn about.

Next Sunday, the floor installer will be here to finish some details. Finally, a year after I first considered changing my home’s flooring, all’s nearly done. The months have been filled with challenges: moving furniture, breathing dust, and listening to continuous sawing and nailing.

Ah, ahead, new hearing with those chimes that thankfully weren’t hanging during last Monday’s windy blizzard.

Dear Friends: A significant change with the potential to generate much good for us both. Diana

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

On Monday, Central Oregon’s winter weather was rough and resembled blizzard conditions. Fortunately, that was my off-work day, and I navigated the outdoors several times to feed my horses. For the final feeding, I wore ski goggles to help me move directly into westward-driving snow. The goggles made that feeding possible, as they’ve done at least once every winter.

Here in Central Oregon, the weather this time of the year is unpredictable. Weatherwise, February, March, and April can be ferocious, except for the brief spots that generate spring hope. Even the gentle month of May is iffy. Nevertheless, people loving to garden eagerly purchase seeds and plants. They’re willing to take their chances, but those who have greenhouses succeed best.

As this spring approaches, I’m on the garden team at Home Depot. Already, customers are buying inside potted plants. I have a steep learning curve ahead, am expected to become a subject matter expert on gardening. Nevertheless, I’m primed and understand our part of the store’s business will pop instantly when outside plants arrive. We in Garden will be busy throughout the summer.

(Fortunately, my next-door neighbor, Frank, has a large greenhouse and truly is a subject matter expert. Maybe I can tap into his knowledge occasionally to augment mine.)

Dear Friends: If my work history is any indication, I’ll start to create a greenhouse. Diana

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I read in the Washington Post that today one in six Americans is over sixty. That can explain much about what’s evolving socially and economically. Of course, recent medical advances and the focus on geriatrics enable longer lives. But, not surprisingly, the age shift brings real-time and striking changes to the economy.

When I was very young, people often died while in their mid-sixties. A popular theory was “death by forced retirement.” Retiring at sixty-five seemed to leave too little to keep individuals thriving, and so, around that age, the elderly kind of fell off like flies. Back then, I couldn’t have anticipated living well into my seventies or Beyond!

Healthy older populations are altering the entire world. Not long ago, few American organizations hired workers in their late sixties or beyond. Nowadays, workplaces are combining the young and elderly to produce and sell. Interestingly, young workers are undaunted by elderly co-employees, while the elderly struggle to comprehend the younger and more casual attitudes toward working or even driving a car.

Dear Friends: The significant impact of one in six helps to clarify much. Diana

Monday, February 13, 2023

He’s neither a special breed nor gorgeous, and mostly, still is a clumsy fellow. Why he’s remarkable is his easy-to-read face, with expressions clearly quizzical or humorous, and always friendly. In a couple of weeks, he’ll be one year old.

I adopted Chase on the spur of the moment while working at a feed store. A rescuer from Warm Springs brought him into the store. He was eight weeks old, very quiet, and barely bigger than her hand. Right away, I was on it. She said he’d grow into a tiny dog because she’d seen both parents. So I bit, and Chase came home with me that afternoon.

After eating and sleeping, he became very active, and I guessed that rescuer might have exhausted him. Warm Springs is about fifty miles away; maybe she had been dragging him around for hours. Well, at last he had a real home and would grow into a cute little boy.

Within a week or so, my neighbor, Julia, strolled past with her sweet Lexie, a doodle-type dog. To my surprise, Chase immediately charged at full speed after Lexie, wanting to play, refusing to give up, and barely reaching Lexie’s hocks. She tried avoiding the puppy, but he was unstoppable until I could leash him. Afterward, I began wondering how Chase’s temperament might develop. After all, he’d transitioned from super-quiet at first glance to a courageous and seemingly fearless little package.

Chase started growing without slowing until he reached the size of my fifty-pound hound, Ranger. A visit to the veterinarian confirmed Chase’s weight as fifty pounds. We decided that primarily he’s a Rottweiler-Shepherd mix and also has other genes.

Like his rapidly increasing size and weight, his early puppy energy with Lexie was no one-off. While growing up, he’s always been very busy, is a speed runner, and leaps higher than I want to see. He could clear the fencing with only slightly more effort.

Dear Friends: A quick summary of my first year with this fun and challenging mutt puppy. Diana

Sunday, February 12, 2023

Happy Super Bowl Day!

Yesterday, that upcoming game bounced around in Home Depot, a hot topic among employees and store customers. What struck me was that, like the customers there to socialize their dogs, others seemed focused on wanting to discuss the game. Well, loosely “discuss” because one’s favorite team should win.

Speaking of dogs, I met a couple of wing-dings there. Yesterday, a fellow with Tibetan Terrier in his cart stopped and chatted with me. I’d never in person met a TT, an adorable breed that always scores high in major dog shows.

That gentleman used his phone to introduce an associated giant breed, the Tibetan Mastiff. A total “Wow!

An hour later, a woman showed up with a mature Newfoundland, gorgeous and beautifully groomed.

My work at Home Depot offers the best parts of my former Wilco job. I can meet pets, talk with owners and learn about breeds. I can hand out treats and enjoy myself–and adopting isn’t an option!

Four hours daily are absolutely perfect. Like today, I’ll be able to get home with enough time to feed my outside gang before the Super Bowl starts. Go, Chiefs!

Dear Friends: No surprise, I’m still adopting by bringing home various plants. Diana

Saturday, February 11, 2023

At last, after months away for repairs, my old Jeep is home again. It was built in 1988, has nearly a half-million miles on the original engine, and runs like a top. Its demonstrated toughness makes my Jeep model a favorite of aficionados. Unfortunately, Jeep gradually stopped making new parts for it. As a result, old Jeeps like mine, but discarded, are plundered for repair parts. My mechanic has trouble finding the correct replacement parts, used but okay. So, repairs can turn into lengthy, expensive, and sometimes iffy projects.

These days, while my Jeep is running well, I ought to sell it. The red paint has faded, and the worn body is bruised, but the model remains desirable, at least for parts. I hesitate because its a good size for my older, arthritic dogs to climb into independently, and it has the cargo space to carry all my dogs at once. That’s not all; I’ve driven this Jeep for nearly twenty years, and silly as it is, love the faithful old beast.

Too soon, a parts scarcity problem will grow beyond that of trying to keep old Jeeps in running condition. More electric cars are on the roads and are precursors to an onslaught of highly automated, electrified vehicles. As a result, we are about to be forced to change our decently-running combustion engine models for new plug-in and battery-powered types. The quickness, completeness, and inevitability of this are astonishing to consider.

Dear Friends: We’ll have to learn to be aware of cars coming toward us silently. Diana

Friday, February 10, 2023

Recently, I wrote about a famous Japanese novel, Masks, written by Fumiko Enchi, a woman. That novel (1958) is a highly regarded classic. Japan. Few women in the fifties were recognized women authors; Enchi’s accomplishments were rare among them.

I looked into Enchi’s life (1905-1986). She was born into an affluent, highly cultured family. She was a sickly child, home-schooled by educated elders. She learned foreign languages and world classic literature. When she became a mature writer, Enchi was recognized for exploring the ideas of sexuality, gender, human identity, and spirituality.

In preparing to read Masks, I learned its many themes were based on an early masterpiece of Japanese literature, The Tale of the Jengi, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady of the Japanese Court, early in the 11^th Century. Since then, Jengi has been considered the world’s first novel. It’s a work of imaginative fiction, written in Japanese and containing both Japanese and Chinese poetry. At first, the work went ignored, because Japan’s official Court language was Chinese. Japanese was considered only a “woman’s language.”

I learned that before reading Masks, a must is to know The Tale of the Jengi. That ancient story reveals underlying themes in Masks that otherwise won’t be recognizable. I ordered the old story and on arrival its size surprised me. I thought a title containing the word “tale” suggested a short work, an assumption is from my childhood with Grimm and such. But Jengi, a hefty thousand pages, will take a long reading effort.

Yet again, another seemingly “short road” is transitioning into a long journey. Yet, this introduction to literature new to me will be a rich source of historical and cultural enlightenment.

Dear Friends: We explore with intrigue and often are delighted by where it leads. Diana

Thursday, February 09, 2023

I’m in tears from videos of humanitarian efforts to rescue victims of the
huge shocks that crushed populated areas in Turkey and Syria. Videos bring
alive that situation’s incredible horror, and emphasize the awful realization
that three days post-earthquake having passed means discovering fewer people
still alive.

Those countries are known for having many political and social injustices
relative to social status and structural quality. But criticisms of oversight
aren’t reserved for non-Americans. Here in Florida, a tall building
spontaneously collapsed recently (non-earthquake related) killing its many
residents.

Of course, many such examples exist from time immemorial. Constructing
buildings in earthquake prone areas or too close to waterways invites an eventual
inevitable. The world population has grown so with people just about everywhere
that we’re all vulnerable to natural disasters.

One worries about a newborn baby girl who has become the face of earthquake
disaster and rescue. Her life will start in an orphanage, and her future may be
politically determined. It’s a situation a clever author could pick up and spin
into a novel.

Dear Friends: No too-distant lands and politics exist, all is personal for
everybody. Diana

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Well, we made it through another State of the Union. Ahead an increasing “domestic biggie” is getting rid of George Santos. Americans love theater!

The header of my Border Collie mix, Osix, shows how she accompanied me through our television journey.

Today, having enjoyed some time off from work, I will resume learning to navigate the Home Depot’s Garden Department. I aim to know shelved products, their availability, and their locations. I’m reminded of how important it is to respond quickly to customer queries. Last week, although beginning to understand products and places, I wasn’t fast enough. While shopping myself, I’m also impatient with inefficiency.

Dear Friends: I’m armed with rest and insight to tackle this day. Diana