I'm in a hurry now, need to return library books and see if the local hardware store has a wood stove I can afford.  When I have more time, I have stories to tell about some of the images I have captured in the last few days, and some new shots of my dog to post.  For now, you can see an extra large rendering of a little mushroom here.

The way my browser does it, it shows up sized down to fit the screen.  If that happens to you, just zoom in on it.

 
Last night, around nine thirty, I noticed some color in the light outside.  My windows face east and south.  There is no window in the west end of the trailer, all we see out the north windows are trees, and we usually keep them covered for insulation anyway.  In June, when the sun sets in the north, I can step out into the road to see the sunset.  Last night, with the sun setting about NNW, I had to climb the ladder, which way too soon will be providing Doug's access to the roof for snow shoveling, to view the sunset and capture it.

The color was mostly pastels when I got up there.

The area just above the setting sun reached maximum color intensity within a few minutes.

I was moving around on the roof, trying to find places where the best color wasn't blocked by trees.

I hung out until the colors faded nearly to gray.  I don't think I was up there more than fifteen minutes.  It was worth the climb, for me.  We have had less than four days of sun in the past four week, and by "sun" I mean breaks in the cloud cover to let in an occasional sunbeam.  Most of the time, it rains.  It saves me work, watering the garden, keeps down wildfires, and has created more green in this always green place (only in summer, of course) than I have ever seen.

Overshadowing all my other childhood ambitions was the desire to grow up.  I was about three years old when I overheard my mother telling my aunt that my doctors said I would not, because of my defective immune system, live long enough to grow up.  I don't know how much influence that knowledge had on the peculiar set of ambitions I formed, but I do know that it had a profound influence on my determination to do, and not just to dream.  Knowing from the start that I was dying, as we all are from the day we are born, I took a lot more risks and attempted more challenges than I would have done otherwise.

The first childhood dream that I remember was to "be a mommie."  I have always mothered everything around, especially forlorn and defective critters and things, like the one-armed doll pictured here, Mary Lou, my favorite.  My two oldest grandkids have kids of their own, and I have mothered broken birds, bummer lambs, other people's kids, half a dozen husbands (my own, not other people's), countless abandoned or neglected houseplants, and a temperate zone garden in a subarctic environment.  Currently, I'm tending to the needs of  Teddy, a tiny runty kitten who has failed to thrive.

Check that one off.

Early on in childhood, I dreamed of being Lash Larue and a firefighter.  I crossed those off my list relatively early on, too.

The first time I saw flamenco, I decided I wanted to be a dancer.  I danced as long as I could and have not given up the desire and intention to dance again if it ever becomes feasible.  I bob around and "dance" as I sit here, whenever some catchy music comes on.  I tried flamenco, and Irish folk dance, square dance, swing, tango, waltz, charleston, frug, hokey pokey, polka, twist, dirty dog, pony, bop, hip hop, and probably more that don't immediately come to mind.  My favorite dance is a freeform floating thing like Isadora Duncan did, but with a tambourine, my instrument.

I went pro for a few years in the 1960s and 'seventies, as a go go dancer.

Check that one off.

Following some of my dreams precluded following some others.  My seventeen (so far) descendants in three generations may or may not be glad that I decided not to become a medical researcher, astronaut or mountain climber, or any other ideas I crossed off the list in favor of indulging my biological urges.  I flitted from one ambition to another, and I'm sure there are some I don't recall.  For a few years after watching the filming of a movie, I wanted to be a movie star.  I'm glad that one didn't work out.

Farming, exploring, photography, travel, cooking, writing, healing, and learning as much as I can, are some of things I dreamed of doing when I was a child, that I have accomplished or (in the case of learning up to capacity) am still working on.  Check, check, check....

This is my answer to the latest Featured Grownups Challenge, with these guidelines:  "WHAT WERE YOUR CHILDHOOD DREAMS and which ones have you lived?

If you knew you were dying - which ones WOULD you live?"

I know there are mold spores and pollen blowing around on these windy days we've been having since the rain stopped mid-week.  The soil is wet enough so that not as much dust as usual is blowing in the wind, but there is some of that, too.  Glacial silt is fine, and easy to stir up with just a little breeze.  Then there is the volcanic ash.  Millennia of volcanic activity have provided plenty of that.

Yesterday, with my eyes burning, throat tickling and lungs working hard, I thought I smelled something unusual.  It could have been an olfactory hallucination.  My sense of smell is a sometime thing, so I often can't be sure whether I'm smelling or imagining.  The only way I could describe the odor to Doug, when I asked if he smelled it, was, "like Yellowstone."  Okmok volcano, currently active, is nowhere near here, and AVO's ashfall alerts have never extended this far, but I suppose that some of the gas and ash could have gotten here on the wind.

Excuse me... basic needs:  food, water, air... are more important to me right now than blogging.  Seeya later.