Flag's up at the lodge

Some days it is just nice to fly the Loder flag. It follows the medieval pattern of color over metal (black over yellow [gold]) and displays only the crest in the center instead of a full coat-of-arms. In this case, it is the white dragon of the Lowthers and Loders. But this flag has two sides. The other side is blue over yellow with a stag's head caboosed with a silver arrow running through it following the colors and crest of the Wakehurst Loders.

Cooking with the sun

Our solar cooker finally arrived on Monday and today we got a chance to try it out. Pork roast, moist and cooked to perfection, and an apple cake, high and moist. The home-grown potatoes and Zinchini helped add a "local" touch. Sure beats using fossil fuels to bake something.

Another shed (little this time)

When we built the shed behind our house last summer, it solved a lot of problems of storage and gave me a shop for projects. But the lawn mower and the wheelbarrow were still in the rain, getting garden tools meant one walk after another, back-and-forth, and clutter was taking over. So, another shed came into being. This one is right outside our garden. It is a tiny 4 X 8 feet, with just enough room for everything we need for grounds projects. It took less than a week to build, and I did all the work myself except for finishing the roof . That I left to our capable carpenter/painter, Danny Knarr—who knows more about getting roofs just right than I will ever know.

Lovebirds in the Hemlock

Every spring and summer our hemlock tree becomes the perch of choice for our local pair of Red-tailed hawks. Usually we only see one at a time, but this morning the pair decided that being close was the best thing. They perched neck-to-neck for several minutes. Of course, by the time I had assembled and trained a long lens at them, they had moved apart. Still, the did not appear to be angry at each other. The smaller male is to the right in the picture.

New work out as Kindle ebook.

I have been watching as the ebook business continues to expand and have decided to give it a try. So, friends, you can now own Beetle: The Biography of a Virtual Girl in a Kindle edition for the price of 99¢!
Go to Amazon and look under "Beetle Loder" and you will find it quickly enough. Of course you do have to be able to read a Kindle electronic book to enjoy it…
Or link: http://www.amazon.com/Beetle-Biography-Adventures-Whitehead-ebook/dp/B00506U8WE/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
NOTE: Many people have the mistaken impression that you need a Kindle reader from Amazon to read a kindle book. This is not true. You can download the kindle reader as software for free to any modern PC, including Macintosh, Windows, or iOS devices such as the ipad or iphone. So help me out, and give this little story a try. I will post the sequel as soon as I have the right cover. [Sequel is up and available.]

Beetle is a virtual girl created by Jeff Whitehead, college senior with non-existent social skills. Only he has programmed her to look like an eleven-year-old in order to act as a babe-magnet so he can gain a suitable real girlfriend. Beetle tells the story of her successful efforts to do so, and the problems they all run into with interfering college administrators and an ex-boyfriend who won't give up. The closer Jeff and Annie get to each other, and the closer they get to graduation, the more desperate the violence-prone ex-boyfriend gets. Beetle does everything she can, but there is only so much a virtual person can do about a hammer or a gun when she can't touch anything.

There is a sequel, which I will also publish if enough people like the first book and request I do so. So, who will be the first to read? Who will be the first "friend" to give it a five-star review?
Please let me know what you think,

Sanquinaria canadensis

We planted a few bloodroot a couple of years ago. Every spring they spread a little farther, adding their brief beauty to our deer-proof garden.

The Glacier in our front yard

First came the snow, then the rain, then the ice. Now our wheat field is a hard-crusted sea of textured white. Today I noted that this ice field has begun to move as cracks appear. Gravity pulls the ice downhill, the turn of our house forces a change in direction and the field cracks. This crack is the largest and longest. It extends over halfway to our neighbor's property. By definition, a glacier is an ice field that moves, so, I guess, we have a glacier in front of our house. But not to worry. The groundhog said that "Spring is just around the corner," and soon this will be gone.
In the meantime, we are smug and comfortable in our passive-solar house on a day like this, soaking up the rays.