Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A Quiet Evening...



Last year at this time I was up in Kenai, going to OASIS school. I spent my evenings watching television in a motel room, talking with Denny on the phone, then trying to doze off while the television murmured in the curtained darkness. All the while--every day, every night--my heart longed to be home.

Tonight, the feeling of imminent Spring is in the air. The mournful calls of migrating cranes float down from the heights and the setting sun reflects off the windows of the homes up on Diamond Ridge, their feet still firmly planted in the lingering snow. Our yard is mostly bare now, the driveway coated with an inch of mud, the dead grass tossed in skeins along the verge, a few hardened drifts of icy snow lingering in the shady places.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Demi left us yesterday afternoon. It was foreseen and inevitable but sad, nonetheless. For the first time in nearly seventeen years, she wasn't here this morning. The house--so full of cats--still held a somber emptiness.

She was a good cat. I am glad that she found her way here, so many years ago. It was our gain.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Looking Forward

Well, I did it this week. I finally mailed off my Form 52--the form that informs the governement that I will be retiring as of June 9, 2008. It is the first actual piece of paper I have submitted toward retirment and of all the paperwork associated with retiring, it is the most important.

So, I walked out of the Post Office with a sense of lightness.

I am done. Only eight more days of actual work left for me--spread out over the next month or so as I am taking several weeks off next month. Eight more days and a career that began more or less by accident back in July of 1975 will have reached its conclusion.

I feel real good about that

I am excited about getting my life back. I was unemployed for eight years after we moved to Homer and enjoyed having time to spend with the cats, putter around the house, grow flowers and herbs, watch the day unfold around me.

It is going to be like having one long summer vacation. (If summer ever comes...)

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Late-Season Snow





Friday, April 25, 2008

Fresh Snow


Thursday, April 24, 2008

Evening



I pulled the car over on my way home tonight to take this picture of Kachemak Bay about nine-forty pm.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Spring Ice

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Smoke From Distant Fires



Haze from brush fires in Siberia and sand storms in Mongolia are tinting Alaskan skies.