Category: Uncategorized

This is in Bob and Sue’s yard (my brother and sister-in-law).

Red azaleas

White azaleas

Tulips

Spring in Yadkin County, where my Mama’s house is, is running about a week ahead of spring in Stokes County. Stokes has a slightly higher elevation and is closer to the mountains.

Lilacs

Dogwood

Top of frame: tulip poplar bulb not yet open. Lower frame: a dried blossom from last year

Young maple leaves and maple seed tassles

Bonnie, what is this? Response: euphorbia

Bonnie, what is this behind the violets? Response: day lilies

Conrad Road, Forsyth County, April 1, 2008

Mama’s roses, Yadkin County, April 1, 2008

Edna is funny when she’s in a snarly mood. Everyone has an April like that every now and then, I guess. I hope your April is going better than Edna’s was when she wrote this. I believe it would have been 1920…

Spring

TO what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

I hadn’t heard rain on the roof for a while, so I assumed that that was the end of the rain we had today. But I stepped outside and it was snowing! The photo is right outside my trailer door.

I guess I’m not in San Francisco anymore.

Later this afternoon I will shut down my computers in San Francisco, and I’ll pretty much be out of the loop until I get to North Carolina. I will start the drive across the country on Sunday, Jan. 27, with a one-day stop in Sacramento.

While I’m in the Jeep, I’ll be using my ham radio GPS locator. A GPS device in the Jeep is attached to a 50-watt transceiver on the 145Mhz amateur band. Every five minutes it will transmit my location, altitude, speed, and heading. If I am in range of the right kind of amateur radio relay station, then the data will be gated to an Internet database and can be found here:

Where’s David?

The link should start working when I start the trip on Jan. 27. It may not work at all times. If I’m out of radio range, I may appear to stay in the same spot for a while, then I’ll suddenly reappear several hundred miles farther on. That’s normal.

I’ll resume blogging around Feb. 7.