Deborah Adams's Blog, page 54

Snake in the grass, or in the water, or elsewhere

I thought it was a snake. Crept up as quietly as I could to get a pic, and I was so pleased with my stealth (the snake didn't move, so I must have been very, very quiet).

For years I've kept a rubber snake in my vegetable garden, because I was told that it would scare away squirrels. (Note: nothing scares away squirrels). Every time I walked through the garden, there was a nanosecond when I thought that rubber snake was real.

The trouble with human perception is that it often causes us to...

Trail blazing in Tennessee

We didn’t actually blaze the trail; we built the trail, or rather a portion of it.
 
Taking up the offer of a free trail design course at Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary, a group of us gathered to learn and to create. Because who doesn’t want to do manual labor in the woods in Tennessee on a 95 degree day?
 
After some design theory in the classroom, Michael Meister, TSP Trails and Vistas Admin, led us out to the hiking trail where we practiced what we’d learned by re-routing a portion of it.

...

Ships passing

Lexington on the Tennessee River near Pilot Knob, March 6, 2018 When I was a child, my parents thought watching barges was great entertainment. They'd load us into the car and drive down to the foot of Broadway in Paducah, and then we'd sit. Sit. Sit. Waiting for a barge to come by, and as I remember it, sometimes there never was a barge at all. Just hours of waiting.

Do you have any idea how boring, tedious, torturous that was for a child? Well, for me, at any rate. I don't remember my...

Stormy weather

Alberto jumped the gun, bringing his sub-tropical tantrum all the way into our area a couple of days before hurricane season officially began. I'm not sure whether the cultural and political climate around the world mimics the weather --perhaps it's vice versa-- but there is far too much tempest and torment for my taste.

Turn off, tune out, drop out. Relax a little. Find three good things about the world. Find three ways we are all alike. Commit three acts of compassion. Go out and play...

Writers in their natural habitat

Writers are a sad and pathetic species. We crave isolation then brood about our lack of social lives. We live in our heads along with our characters and storylines,  but flit about in the world to avoid actually writing our tales. Eventually all this neurotic behavior catches up to us, and we are scrambling to meet deadlines or suffering from blocks or kicking ourselves for not getting that story finished.

 Recently a handful of Southern Literary Coalition members decided  that all our writing...

Taking it to the mat

123RF Stock Photo Liz from Reviews.com recently made me aware of their review of yoga mats. Here's where I confess that I am not a mat connoisseur. I've been using the same purple mat for about 15 years, and I think I paid $10 for it. And it's holding up nicely, thank you very much.

These days, however, there are as many mats as there are students of yoga. I imagine trying to find the best deal must be quite a daunting task. How many hours do you have to google before making a decision?...

Defy Big Brother -- read banned books

The last week of September is Read Banned Books Week. Of course, you don't have to wait for an official week or reason to read books that some people would like to censor Some of us are always game for committing anarchistic acts like, I dunno, thinking. Exploring new ideas. Learning about different cultures. Dangerous stuff like that.
 
If you're new to the game and wondering what kind of evil is promoted in these books and why they must be pulled from school libraries, public libraries,...

Meditation with hens

 Chickens live a simple life; they eat, they poop, they sleep. They do not have to be groomed or walked or played with or taken to the vet. Give them fresh water, some chicken feed (it really isn’t very expensive), and access to green plant life of some sort, and they’re happy.
 
In return for those few basics, chickens will give you eggs. I’m not talking about those bland things that come from the grocery store. Fresh eggs from your own chickens are an entirely different species; they ar...

Natural-born writer or a victim of fate?

Sometimes the same topic crops up-- without any obvious connecting thread-- over and over within the space of a few days. When that happens, I figure it's time to examine it more closely.

This week it's been all about whether there are natural-born writers or just people who write because somewhere along the way, they landed on the writing path. Well, here's what I think:

There’s an ancient text known as the Bhagavad Gita, which tells the story of Arjuna and his encounter with Krishna. Ar...

Happiness heard your name

I come from a long line of Grumpy Guses.  Dour-faced predictors of gloom and doom, we clomp through life as if every day is a battle that we’re bound to lose. I can hold onto a grudge until it's old enough to draw social security.
 
But eventually –thank goodness!—I realized that, as the Ferenghi say, there’s no profit in this. Being negative doesn't improve any situation, nor does it ward off trouble. No one wants to linger in the presence of a grouch, including me.  And I hope very much...