Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
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What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)
This week is March 1st and still haven't seen a snowflake. There was a small bit of snow once during the night so I didn't see it fall, unfortunately. Officially we have had three inches of snow all winter and no moisture at all in January. It might rain tomorrow. Oh well, at least no blizzards like last year. Jim, have you had snow this year? Has anybody seen "The Iron Lady?"
The peepers are loud again tonight. We hit 60 again & had a nice ride around the place in our shirt sleeves. Spring seems to be here. I'll take it!;-)
Today I ordered a new pair of eye-glasses: tri-focals. I've never had tri-focals before. I hope they'll be helpful when I play cards. The cost will be over $400, including frames. I couldn't believe it! The glasses better be good!PS - I'm told that Medicare will not cover it because it's not after cataract surgery.
Good luck with them, Joy. Are they progressives? Marg has to wear them & had the devil's own time getting used to them. The first pair she got made her sick. A few years later another pair worked out OK, I think.
Jim, I don't think my new eye tri-focal lenses are "progressive lenses".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress...
I'm pretty sure there is a distinct line of division between the three areas.
The optician said that each area is a standard width?height. I'm accustomed to bi-focals. These new eye-glasses will have one additional area. The bottom area will be for reading (near vision). The middle area will be for mid-distance (intermediate/arm's length). The top area will be for distance.
I think anything new is hard at first; but better in the long run. Good luck, Joy. I have had to wear glasses since I was six years old. Hopefully, you had a long period without them. I am almost totally blind in one eye.I can see if it is daylight or night and objects are blurs. Yet, I have made it this far so I am fortunate that nothing has happened to my good eye. It is why I was most uneasy having cataract surgery on it. But, all was well, that ends well.
Yes, Nina, we take our eyes for granted until we start having trouble with them. Thanks for the "good luck" wishes. Good luck to you too. I'll let you know what I think of the new eye-glasses when they arrive.
I had a fun, but tough evening. I want to teach Chip how to jump, but I'm really rusty, so Marg gave me a lesson on her horse, Cutter. He's a plug with Marg, but gets fired up when James & Erin ride him & he did with me, too. We wound up doing a hand gallop up the west property line in the woods jumping the fences & through the muddy patches - on a hillside. It was fun, especially when we got up to the barn field & he wanted to go, but I wanted him to stop. Then he threw a bit of a wingding. He got to bucking & carrying on. Actually, it was a blast. I'm going to be sore tomorrow, though. Actually, I'm kind of sore now. One of my leggings slipped down & I got my calf chewed by the stirrup leather.Poor Chip seemed upset that I didn't ride him. We took a turn around the north field to warm up & when we got back up by the barn, he whinnied at me. Then he followed us into the south field where the jumps are & was pestering Marg & Topaz while Cutter & I schooled over the fences. Marg finally had to chase him off. He went kicking & bucking back to the barn where he & Speedy started playing. Just for fun, he knocked over the mounting block.
;-)
Gee, Jim, your horses sure are a lively part of the family! Hope you won't be too sore tomorrow.
Joy H. wrote: "Today I ordered a new pair of eye-glasses: tri-focals. I've never had tri-focals before. I hope they'll be helpful when I play cards. The cost will be over $400, including frames. I couldn't believ..."Well, $400 does seem to be quite enough, but how bout adding another $160 to sweeten the pot? I recently sat thru another AARP drivers course for insurance reduction, and the only thing of interest, to me, was mention in their book of coated lenses for night driving if you are bothered by the headlight glare. I do not have this problem (yet?) but some people in our Aging In Place group complain of it. I stopped by Bay Optical to ask about these lenses. I got a big sales talk on Crizal Sapphire with ScotchGuard lenses.
http://www.crizalusa.com/Pages/defaul...
I'm now trying to find someone who has actually tried these lenses and ask whether they work for them. One of our members said he's tried a version of this once, didn't see much improvement and never spent the extra money again. So, is this new technology, greatest thing since sliced bread, or another dose of snake oil?
Hi Earl. I hadn't heard of the coating to help with headlight glare. Headlight glare was a problem for me before I had my cataract surgery. It's less of a problem now.The optician mentioned coated lenses which get darker when the sun is bright. My husband had them and had some complaints about them. He said that the biggest problem was that when he stepped from outside to indoors they took time to lighten up. He said that after a while they got very slow to change. I didn't opt for that feature. I'd rather use sun glasses or a visor when necessary.
Joy H. wrote: "Hi Earl. I hadn't heard of the coating to help with headlight glare. Headlight glare was a problem for me before I had my cataract surgery. It's less of a problem now.The optician mentioned coate..."
I have the darkening lenses in one pair of glasses. The darkening gets lighter as time(years) goes on, and they're NOT suitable (not dark enough) for sun glasses. When I wore them on bike rides I noticed I had more trouble reading fine print for a few days. I decided to wear FitOvers instead.
I use the "fit-over" type of sunglasses too. The eye doctor gave them to us as freebies.The optician told us not to use Windex to clean our eyeglasses because the ammonia removes the coatings. I wonder if that has anything to do with the dark coating getting lighter over the years.
I'm wondering if Nina is OK. Haven't heard from her here at the group for a few days. Her last post was March 2. It's now March 5. Hope everything is OK. Didn't she mention a short time ago that her husband was going in for surgery? I'm sending out good thoughts for both of them.
I had a great ride on Chip last night, although the ground was pretty slick. Mom gave me some used half chaps, Ariats. They cost over $100, so I wasn't going to buy them. She found them at a yard sale one time & got them really cheap, though. They made all the difference in the world for riding in a saddle. My shin bone is fairly pronounced so the stirrup leather really ate it up the other day with just leggings on.Chip learned to leg yield which is when you use your leg to make them step sideways without going forward or back. We practiced some cantering, trotting, & even jumped a couple of tiny jumps. He's ignorant, but so willing & learns really fast.
I had the tractor out yesterday so I could help a neighbor by pulling some posts for him. It was pretty wet for it, but I did a bit of grading & tidied up the manure pile. Chip found the tractor fascinating!
Looking at the fields where he came from, I hadn't thought they mowed very often, but his reaction to me on the tractor yesterday makes me wonder if he's ever seen one at all. He was terribly curious & half scared of it. I called to him & he looked hard, snorted, blew & then took off galloping around, then started bucking & kicking as he circled back. The other horses pretty much ignored me, so he settled down in 5 or 10 minutes, but it was quite exciting.
You somtimes wonder what animals are really thinking.I, too, would be a bit bewildered if I had never seen a tractor or a picture of one.
Jim, I'm enjoying your posts about Chip. He's having quite an adventure and so are you. :)
Thanks, Joy. Yes, we are.Nina, it's just so SAD. I am not the world's most energetic farmer, but I just can't understand how so many people around here don't believe in mowing their pastures on a regular basis - or even at all. It's so hard on the domestic, grazing animals since mowing keeps the weeds down & the grass tender.
When we first got Chip, he had sores (ulcers) in his mouth. It was from eating weeds. Horses can't eat the same things as goats, but they will try when nothing else is available. That's the way they get poisoned, too. They're hungry, so they'll eat stuff, even if they don't particularly like it. Depending on how hungry they are, they can eat some pretty awful stuff. For instance, poison hemlock is a bad invasive weed now. Yes, that's the stuff that Socrates drank a tea of & that's where it belongs, but it got loose over here & is all over the place.
I put my foot in my mouth during a party not long after we got here because of that. A bunch of us were talking about the fields & their recovery after the drought of 2007. Gary, Mark's brother who hosted the party, asked where I lived & I told him. He said I had the finest grazing he'd seen in the area. My fields looked great. I said thanks & told him how I'd had to mow 3 times already because so many weeds were heading up, having gained a foothold during the drought. Then I said, "Not like that place by the snake curves, just above the creek. Apparently they never mow. I don't understand why." Guess where Gary's farm is? Whoops! On the plus side, Gary didn't hold it against me & now mows twice a year.
Jim wrote: "Thanks, Joy. Yes, we are.Nina, it's just so SAD. I am not the world's most energetic farmer, but I just can't understand how so many people around here don't believe in mowing their pastures on..."
Yes, it is sad when animals suffer for the shortcomings of human beings.
Speaking of eating grass, today Romeo was like a crazy dog. He whined and whined until I let him out in the yard. He did this several times. While he was out in the yard he went around like a starving dog, eating stuff off the grass, in different areas. He ignored my calls for him to stop and come in. Later, I found that he had thrown up in his usual spot for that sort of thing (on a porch chair which I keep covered with towels). He threw up thick white liquid mixed with grass.
I don't understand this behavior. As I said, he's like a crazy dog when he acts like this. It's like manic behavior. Any ideas on what this type of syndrome is all about?
Our dogs eat some grass regularly without throwing up. Other times they eat enough to do so. Nope, don't have a clue. If their beliies gurgle a lot & they won't eat a meal, we give them pepto bismal with a syringe & don't feed them that meal. Often just missing a meal is all it takes to settle their stomach.
Jim wrote: "Our dogs eat some grass regularly without throwing up. Other times they eat enough to do so. Nope, don't have a clue. If their beliies gurgle a lot & they won't eat a meal, we give them pepto bi..."Jim, when Romeo goes out into the yard, we never know what he's putting into his stomach. Sometimes I don't want to know. When he was younger he was coprophagous* but he seems to have grown out of that, thank goodness.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagia
I have to laugh at the Pepto-Bismol. Never heard of that. :)
I wondered how it got its name. So I googled and found:
================================================
"Pepto is derived from the word Peptic, an adjective that refers to any part of the body that normally has an acidic lumen*, for instance, the stomach.
The Bismol bit comes from the name of the active ingredient: Bismuth subsalicylate."
FROM: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_does_...
*lumen: a cavity or passage in a tubular organ
("The lumen of the intestine")
=================================================
Funny how names catch on.
Eating poop is usually a deficiency of something, I've heard. The Boss is out shopping, so I can't ask her right now. Interesting on the Pepto Bismal. I never thought about it.
The following web page gives many reasons for Coprophagia (aka coprophagy):http://www.dog-obedience-training-rev...
I had to laugh at the "tabasco sauce" solution. :) Yuk!
Joy, speaking of the elderly and the connotation we are given I am thinking back when I was staying in France. When you dined out the waiter always poured wine into the glass in front of the oldest member of the group as a sign of respect. I liked it.
Nina, I would like that too. :)
It was gorgeous out today. Way up in the 60's with the sun shining. It's actually drying out, too. It's a shame I'm tired from staying up late reading & DST. I hate DST. It was finally getting light out at a decent time of the morning & staying light out until almost 7. Now we've pushed that up an hour so the mornings are black again for hours.I rode Chip last night & got him jumping more. He didn't want to actually jump - we've been barely hopping over the foot high jumps - so tried lots of ducking & weaving. We zigged & zagged into the 18" fence each time. Twice he refused because we wound up almost running into the standards which are plastic 55 gallon drums on that jump.
Tonight I rode him bareback & we went through the woods. He decided he wanted to jump & we took an entire stream crossing in a huge, arcing leap. He left me behind some, so I wound up yanking on the reins, but we got over it OK. We jumped a few other places, too. It was pretty interesting, but completely unplanned. Since he's not really in jumping shape, we didn't want to push him & I couldn't ride in the saddle again tonight, anyway. My left foot, that sesimoid bone, is giving me hell since I need to keep the stirrup right under the ball of the foot. I guess it is chronically broken or something. I've sure felt it all day today, anyway.
I got the last of the alfalfa hay out of the big barn put it into the horse barn. Looks like we're going to end up just about perfect on that. We still have about 150 bales of grass hay, too. After getting it done & the feed out of Marg's truck, I got out some more jump standards & we set them up along a fence, so we've created a chute. So long as I can keep Chip going forward, we shouldn't have any more problems. With the rails on the ground, I walked him back & forth through it several times tonight. He never blinked.
I put away all the snow stuff today & got out the riding lawn mower, too. It's still spotty, but there are definitely areas that are getting high & it's warm enough to mow, too. There's no place colder than sitting on a tractor. It was warm enough that my butt & legs left sweat marks on Chip tonight, though. Loving it! Yay, spring!!!
Jim wrote: "It was gorgeous out today. Way up in the 60's with the sun shining. It's actually drying out, too. It's a shame I'm tired from staying up late reading & DST. I hate DST. It was finally getting ligh..."We had mild weather here today too. Right now it's 55 degrees. I heard a song on the radio the other day. I liked the title: "You Can Never Hold Back Spring".
Any pics of Chip doing the jumps?
I sort of wish spring hadn't arrived here so early. When everything blooms at once it is spectacular but right now the tulip trees are in bloom even though not many leaves on the regular type trees. So is the forthsyia blooming and daffies are up. Hey, it is still officially winter. But the temps next week are in the seventies and one might hit eighty...in March. Oh well. Just hope we don't get a late freeze.
Nina, we won't see forsythia and daffodils for a while yet here in northern NY.Enjoy your flowers!
There's a stand of daffodils blooming on the BC campus, next to the steps of our administration building. Like Nina, I'm hoping we don't get a late freeze (which will kill them, and a lot of other prematurely-blooming plants), but I'm not optimistic. (Sigh!)
No pictures, Joy. Marg was too busy trying to keep Speedy under control. He got all stirred up, too. Our daffodils have been out for a couple of weeks now, I guess. At least 1.5. No forsythia yet, although everything is budding out. We were below freezing again last night, but this week we're supposed to stay in the 50's at night & hit upper 60's, even the 70's during the day, so I'm sure everything will really pop. We're going to get some showers, too.
Can you believe it is officially winter? I can't. NOt dark until 8:99 PM and in the eigthies for the next two days and then down to the seventies. Look what is headed your way...
'til when, Nina? 8? Yes, it's staying light late here, too. We're supposed to be well into the 70's all week & might hit 80. That's so weird, still we're not getting close to any records except on St. Paddy's day. Then the record high is a low 76 & we might hit that. I'm not sure I like hitting record highs on my birthday, though. That's too hot.It was miserable today. It did hit 60, but it was cold, wet & dark this morning after such a nice weekend. It drizzled most of the day. We might have gotten an 1/8" of rain, but that was it. Just enough to keep everything wet & yucky.
Yes, looks like an early spring for us all. It's currently 67.6F here in Glens Falls. Yesterday was lovely too. There's been so much sunshine that my string of solar Christmas lights outside light up brightly each night. They're still draped on one of our evergreens. I love them and probably will keep them up year round. The colors are so pretty. (They're in the backyard; so no one else can see them. I look at them from my kitchen window.)
Another gorgeous night tonight. Got up to the mid 70's & the ponies were sweaty before we got on them & it was a pretty slick ride by the time we were done. The horses are all shedding like mad, but the heat came too fast. Our pears started blooming today, 3 weeks earlier than last year, & the fields are shades greener than they were just yesterday. Peepers are about deafening & we had burgers out on the grill tonight. Love it!
I'm going to take Friday off & make a 3 day weekend of it. I thought we might go ride at the Shaker Village or Taylorsville Lake, but then I started listing the chores that I should be doing. Guess we won't.
Eighty two today. Even the Bradford pear trees are in full bloom. But, it is too early for all of this.Don't they know it's winter? I haven't even got my summer clothes in order Good news. I passed the eye exam at the dr's office so I have a temp license and the real one comes in two weeks. crisis passed, for now...next four years. And I watched The Long Shot and liked it very much. Thanks for suggesting it.
Glad you liked The Long Shot, Nina. And congratulations on passing that eye exam; that is good news!
Congrats, Nina!Wow, that is too hot. I was in shorts yesterday, too.
Walking home from my daughter's house this morning, I saw that the dogwood and redbud trees here are budding. Our daytime temperatures today and yesterday have reached the 70s.
This one might be for you Joy. Today we had a discussion at my Book club on the book, "Cutting For Stone." There was a disagreement among the members about a certain part in the letter toward the ending. Finally, they asked if I could post the problem among my Goodread friends and ask their opinion. How do I do that without giving away an important part of the book's ending?
You guys are all making me jealous with your spring and summer-like weather! As Nina mentioned, one of the problems is switching wardrobes. I forget each year where I packed away my clothes. I even forget what they were like. It's like starting all over again. Winter clothing is easier. Just a turtle-neck and slacks covered over with a coat. Spring clothes are a bit more hard to get ready, mostly because they don't hide any of the excess weight. :)
Nina wrote: "This one might be for you Joy. Today we had a discussion at my Book club on the book, "Cutting For Stone." There was a disagreement among the members about a certain part in the letter toward the e..."Nina, I LOVED Verghese's Cutting for Stone! Gave it 5 GR stars. Here's my review:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
As far as your question which you sent in email, I will reply by email.
We got more rain today, so I'm in enforced lazy mode. I did get the south field road side trees trimmed this morning & filled up the pickup, but I don't want to drive on the fields to unload it. I'll just tear up the grass. My daughter sent me a great new guide, Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky. My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
I have never ever seen the entire metro area full of blossoms in winter, before this. yes, it truly is winter. The Bradfors pears are almost through blooming. But, glad I don't like in Anchorage where they had 11 ft of snow this winter. count our blessings.
Jim, I took a look inside the Wildflower book at Amazon. Quite a detailed book! The layout is good, as you said.Yes, Nina. We have to count our blessings when it comes to the weather, especially this year. We had another springlike day here. It was so welcome! As soon as it gets a little warmer, I plan to spread Holly-tone plant food under our evergreens. They need it!
BTW, hope everyone enjoyed St. Patti's Day today. I went shopping in Ace's Hardware store. They have EVERYTHING! Their plaques and sayings-on-pillows are fun to read. One said:
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"Advice from a lake: Take time to reflect."
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I've been wanting that wild flower guide for a while now, Joy. That's why it's nice having Amazon wish lists. I told the kids to pick off that for my birthday. I'm getting a couple more books & all the seasons of the original Outer Limits, too.
Joy H. wrote: "Jim, I took a look inside the Wildflower book at Amazon. Quite a detailed book! The layout is good, as you said.Yes, Nina. We have to count our blessings when it comes to the weather, especially ..."I love that quote.From Ace Hardware. We had a great picture in our paper this morning. If my husband can find it on the web and scan it in I will send it to you. It is the Irish dancers from the St. Pat's parade here in front of our one hundred year old church.
Jim wrote: "I've been wanting that wild flower guide for a while now, Joy. That's why it's nice having Amazon wish lists. I told the kids to pick off that for my birthday. I'm getting a couple more books & ..."Good idea about wish lists, Jim. I might start a few wish lists myself.
Nina, speaking of dancers, I recently went to a show which featured the Tamburitzans.http://www.duq.edu/tamburitzans/show-...
http://www.duq.edu/tamburitzans/index...
"America's longest-running multicultural song and dance company, the Duquesne University Tamburitzans is a unique ensemble of talented young folk artists dedicated to the performance and preservation of the music, songs, and dances of Eastern Europe and neighboring folk cultures."
The music, the dancing, and the folk costumes are dazzling! Those kids have so much energy. Here's a YouTube video of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQpwyU...
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
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It wasn't very picturesque, so I didn't take any. There are a lot of nice old trees & some really interesting jumps, but every scene has houses or something in the background. There's a Federal prison right next to it, too. It's pretty amazing how close it is to Lexington. The city is starts just after it, but driving in from our direction is a nice rural drive.