The Hell of Windows 10

Here's a truly awful blog posting for you to mull over! No pictures, no access to any of our personal files and we seem to have been transported to a specific ring of Hell reserved for those who attempt to install and run Windows 10!
We downloaded Windows 10 a while ago, and while we weren't thrilled (some programs seem to not work, we could only upload one picture at a time from the camera etc etc) we were able to function somewhat normally. But yesterday morning, a very strange thing happened: we turned on the computer and it took a million years to come on and when it did, our desktop was all re-arranged and half of our icons were gone. When I tried to access files- like for documents or photos, they weren't there. All of our book marks and passwords and saved information was gone, too, when we tried to sign onto the Internet, as if our identities and profiles had all been lost.
So last night, after I got home form work, I sat on the phone for a couple of hours while a Microsoft technician rearranged our lives. (That's what it felt like. Remember the movie, "Being John Malkovich"? Where a portal allowed people to walk around inside his head? Very odd!) This technician was moving our cursor and opening things remotely... and she found all of our stuff! But she couldn't/didn't explain WHERE it all had gone. But she re-made desk top icons and re-populated our programs and seemed to do a great job. It took several hours overnight, when we were instructed to simply leave the computer to do its internal work. I woke up at 2:00 am and checked on the computer and it worked fine. I was excited. But you know as well as I do that that was not to be...
This morning, I turned the computer on and it had reverted to the weird world of Microsoft dominion. I was told (in a message that appeared and disappeared so quickly that I couldn't read all of it) that we were "granted a temporary ID" and I still cannot access any files! What a nightmare!
My sister Beatrice will recognize this; she told me a similar story the other day. Somehow, her computer downloaded this disaster while they were off dancing and stuff had just vanished. For some unknown reason, ours didn't vanish all at once. There's good news for my sister: if the download happened less than 30 days ago, they'll allow you to reload Windows 8. Our lives are made trickier by the fact that some part of the Windows 10 monster downloaded a month and a half ago, and the rest only yesterday. Which puts us in Windows 8 limbo...
Do I really want to spend another half a day on the phone with a Microsoft technician??!?!!?!?!? As I told her, all I want is my computer to be my computer. It's a tool. I don't need- or care!- how it all operates. I just need it to work!

Sleep Deprived

I now join the ranks of those people- like CIA black site prisoners and new parents- who lust after a good, long old fashioned eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I guess we are "new parents" of a sort (although I constantly maintain that I am not a "fur mother" and that our puppy is a chosen friend, not a child. I think the bond between dog and "owner" is a powerful one expressly because we are different species and speak a different language and think in different band widths. On the other hand, the case could be made that children are a very different species...) In any event, our dog is delighted to awaken us a 5:00 am or even 4:45 am. I am nostalgic for the ringing of the alarm clock.
Not that Bob and I were ever in danger of being accused of being slug-a-beds. Our alarm is typically set for six and we often wake up several minutes before it goes off. But lil' Robin the Good's internal timer is hard wired to be alert as soon as the sun starts to offer even the palest glow in the eastern sky. I calculated the other day (no mean feat for me at the best of times, but doing math when exhausted is really hard for me!) that Bob and I are surviving on about 6 hours of sleep a night... not nearly enough! It's ironic that when Jules died, I couldn't sleep and even if I did fall asleep, I'd wake up at 1:00, unable to return to sleep. At least I fall asleep just fine now, but certainly I still need more.
Robin, conversely, has her own rather attractive schedule. Wake Rita and Bob up- HELLOO!! and immediately begin prancing around, chewing socks and shoes and jumping on the bed in an enthusiastic embrace of being alive. She dances outside (with me as her foggy half dead retinue) where she enjoys a lengthy pee and a giant poop. Then she gallops inside to devour a hearty bowl of gourmet dog crunchies, plays hard with her various enormous collection of "toys" (some are primitive and some are partially deconstructed) and then collapses with her head on my stomach to sleep off the mornings excitement. I have just now managed to swallow a half a cup of coffee and she's already back to REM sleep. Bob and I have debated selecting a very pointy stick with which to poke and prod Mistress Mutt as she drifts off to sleep and keeping her awake, much as she does to us. You have to admire the zeal of the young. Every thing is new and thrilling.
Entirely unrelated is the picture of Maggie grazing, wearing her fly mask. I had promised Maggie that she'd appear in my next post and despite being an exhausted person not firing on all cylinders, I remembered to snap her picture. But it was a pleasant day!

Dogs Jumping Over the Moon and Other Subjects

Yes, Robin the Good jumps over the moon in her dreams! Impossible to actually photograph the lil' dickens in action as she moves waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast, so I opt for the Photoshop version when she sleeps. A baseball made a fine moon. But I promised Maggie that she will star in her own blog post soon as lil' Robin has been hogging the limelight! (Remember Maggie? The Mexican Pony? See? I have been neglecting her!)
So this blog posting will simply serve to get us all up to speed. Spring is relentlessly a busy time here at the BobnRita Ranch (aka The BauHaus Chicken Coop) as there's art shows and spring planting and  friends visiting and it all seems to happen at once.
Bob's been super busy since the New York Botanical Garden bought a slew of his peony rings. They're carrying them in their gift shop and discerning customers are driving up from New Jersey and elsewhere to purchase them. He even shipped peony rings to Minnesota! Maybe they'll start buying his sculpture. I keep telling Bob: that's how it happens. Get well known for one thing and your art work will follow.

Here's another fun project. If you recall the story about seeded Concord grapes, you will know that I abandoned the search. But my intrepid sister Beatrice went searching far and wide for the elusive Concord with seeds and scored one for Bob's birthday. Kudos for her tenacity!  The little cutting is happily ensconced near a window, warm and moist, and producing diminutive grape clusters that Bob is diligently plucking off. A stick and a leaf and it wants to produce grapes! (The will to live and reproduce... more on that subject later. Dangerous topics ahead!)
Anyway, we persist and spring is springing.

And okay: as a preview to a future dogcentric posting, I present Robin upside down flying through space (again). I kid her that we've had so many boy dogs that come equipped with "balls and bat" (ie: testicles and penis) that when Robin is belly up, it looks like "something is missing". There's like... blank space. She thinks we're weird. (Probably right.)

Welcome to New Members!

 

A hearty welcome to new members of the plant kingdom who will now reside in our garden! Yes, it's the time of year that has me drooling and slobbering over all the pretty leafy, scaly, flowering and otherwise exciting plant offerings to be had at nurseries, garden centers and giant box stores. As Bob carefully punned yesterday, "Whore-to-culture". That's me! Just call me a plant slut!
So above, we have a Salix Helvetica (sounds like a typeface to me). That's a lousy picture because you can't see how truly silvery and delightful the foliage is (but it's been rainy and overcast for days so I'm surprise anything is showing up.) It's a "demure selection" (their words, not mine) topping out ultimately at about three feet high and wide.
Next on our list is a shrub that I could not for the life of me figure whether it was lovely and interesting or just an awful color:

Well, I bought one so I guess I came down on the side of interesting and it will provide a jolt of color to a kind of monotonous area. (But it is a bit garish). It's Thuja plicata "Forever Goldy" and was a real deal at Home Depot.
Probably somehow related is the next beast to follow me home:

Yes, I do love a good Dr. Suess tree! This is a Cupressocyparus leylandii "David's Blue" (which I'm pretty sure is synonymous with "Naylor's Blue"). Look at the contrapposto on that baby! Going one way and another a swaying to it's own internal rhythm! He's going to live next door to the Blue Garden, acting as an important punctuation mark across the mosaic walkway from the Blue Atlas Cedar. The Blue Garden is getting quite blue! But it needs weeding...
And to top off our tour, here's my favorite garden twizzle:

Robin the Good's tail! Developing a modest fringe and the end of her tail still sports that dynamic and endearing twizzle. Fits right in with the rest of the garden denizens, all adorned with volutes, curlicues and arabesques!

Playing Hooky

The weather was so nice and there were several projects involving gardening and I confess: I played hooky from studio work and spent the better part of the afternoon outside. I said to Bob before he departed for a railing installation job, "I feel guilty, but I really want to be out of doors." I realize- and Bob reaffirmed- that there was no reason to feel badly. Sometimes, you just need to listen to those internal voices that beckon you out into nature...
Blooming plants, like the Sand Cherry above (Prunus pumila) are a good a reason as any to want to be outside! The long border that the Sand Cherry resides in needs a partial make over and today was a good day to start. I lifted and removed a whole slew of periwinkle that was running amuck through my phlox and Siberian iris (and everything else). I replanted that along the side of the Blue Garden. In itself, it was a major undertaking because those spreading ground cover things tend to multiply like crazy and when you lift a seemingly small area, there are seven million plants to be re-planted. But it was worth the effort because the border looks better, the periwinkle (Vinca major) is useful at the perimeter of the Blue Garden and I had a space to plant the Arborvitae "Forever Goldy" (Thuja plicata) we got on sale at Home Depot looks great there... gotta love Home Depot. They may not always water their plants, but they're affordable and they actually have some interesting specimens!
And an additional benefit was that Robin the Good ran around like a possessed demon and got all tired out and didn't even protest when I sent her back into the house to rest when I went "outside the fence" to plant that Vinca. Robin was very helpful and made sure to eat my sunglasses (granted: the crummy, scratched lenses around the house pair...) and run straight through my newly watered, freshly dug area and generally cause havoc.
And later in the afternoon, post reviving shower and clothing change, I did manage to get into my studio and get a start on assembling a copy of my latest artist's book. A good day!

Wholesome Outdoor Projects and Dog Harnesses

Bob and I spent several really nice days recently enlarging Maggie's horse field to include a few random corners of property (like down by the pond) that actually give her more grazing. As the fence is electric, it's pretty easy to move the posts and restring the three lines of wire; you just have to remember to disconnect the electricity first. Maggie seemed happy to have an expanded world view and more square footage to explore and chew down. We are looking at re-seeding the horse field with pasture grass, as there is a lot of moss and the grass has been eaten down.
And this certainly reinforces how lucky we are to have such a nice piece of earth to wander on and call our own. Happy Earth Day!

Strangely, there was a hawk sitting on the grass down by the new area two days ago. I just hope the hawk wasn't scoping out our mallard duck, who likes to hang out on our pond. We also have a visiting Blue Heron that enjoys the amenities of our swampy little pond. Sometimes I wish the pond wasn't there and that corner was solid ground, but then I remember how birds (and other things) call the pond home... like bull frogs and peepers and little fish.

A view back up through the trees towards our BauHaus Chicken Coop. I am admiring the slanting rays of a Spring day- a full moon and spring fever to boot! I think even our little dog (who's not such a small puppy- I call her "The Big Puppy") is experiencing spring fever...
And a new harness! Robin (somehow... don't ask!) makes me think of an astronaut, ready for adventure, when she has her new harness on. My generous sibling and her partner (aka Beatrice and John) gave Robin the Good a gift certificate to an pet store. I suspect that lil' Robin would have liked a toy (to destroy and dismember in the space of three minutes!) but I thought a harness with which to introduce her to the delights of walking together was a better investment. (Probably made her think like we would of socks for Christmas!) But it's been a hit and she doesn't strangle and choke when pulling on the leash.

(Quite the tongue!) But here's Robin the Good modeling the harness. Here's another shot:

(No, she hadn't collapsed from exhaustion; she was merely fidgeting as I tried to fit her harness on her.) Another possible use for the harness arose the other morning at breakfast when I told Bob that if Robin was very bad while I went to work, he could attach a leash to Robin's harness and hang her from a hook on the ceiling. Hahahahhaaha. Only kidding Robin!

Stair Master!

Congratulations to Robin the Good! She finally mastered descending the stairs! Robin was ace on running up the stairs but going down had eluded her. It was that first top step that was a killer. She'd dangle her paws over the edge and make frustrated moaning sounds. It was imperative that she learn to go down the stairs as she's getting bigger and heavier: Lil' Robin has gained 10 pounds since she came to live with us. I was at my absolute upper weight limit for picking her up as she is heavy AND squirmy. (30 pounds and growing at her last vet appointment.)
Bob worked very diligently at assisting Robin in mastering the stairs. He began by carrying her down the stairs and putting her down, then carrying her down except putting her down on the third lowest stair and then half way down... until finally she just did it. It was such a conceptual leap; you could see the gears grinding in her head. But she committed and the next thing I knew, she was halfway down. You have to imagine that her legs are very long and still ungainly- her back end tends to overtake her front end. But she did it!
Now, of course, the stairs are a great source of fun and entertainment. Up and down and up and down; great exercise and great help for her coordination. (Sometimes, she can't find her brakes in time and over shoots and crashes into things like trees and glass doors. Ouch.) Thank god for carpets (even ugly, stained carpet) as it makes for better traction that wood.
Today, we're having a puppy play date so we're expecting utter exhaustion come this evening.