olympics are fun, but don’t forget

None of us are free until all of us are free.

Don’t forget.

Weed ‘em and Weep

Only if it is a sad book, of course.

I have finally hit on a means of encouraging myself in the never ending weeding required in my yard.

Audio books. I have always been a compulsive reader, nose buried in a book. As a child, my mother would call me from some other part of the house to see if I were doing the chore assigned to me. I’d answer, and without even laying eyes on me, she would respond – “Put down the book, and get to work.” At last, I can get to work and not put down the book.

Although I have knitted to audio books, I never thought of using them in this way. I generally enjoy being alone with my thoughts while walking or weeding. These thoughts must not be all that interesting, though, since I have studiously avoiding their company as my weeds flourished, in spite of mulch. The other morning, I kept thinking, well, one more chapter.  I’ll just do the leeks.

Some of my weeding was for naught, however, since a wretched varmint has devoured my broccoli and some of the brussels sprouts.

I’m trying out Librivox, free downloads of books in the public domain, read by volunteers. Miss BlackSheep warned me that the volunteer readers could be spotty. My first download is The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. I have always meant to read it, so it seemed worth a shot. Some of the readers are quite good. Some bring out the 4th grade prig in me.  You know, the smarty little girl that enjoyed reading aloud, but lost patience with other students who struggled a bit, or didn’t notice the punctuation in time. One reader has a very heavy foreign accent, and mispronounces many words, which is really hard to follow. For these chapters, I ended up going to the Gutenberg Project to read them as an ebook. (After the weeding.)

I really did enjoy The Moonstone.  It was originally published in serial form back in the late 1860’s, so it worked fine to listen to it in fits and starts.

I received a lovely pile of yarn for my birthday from some friends who just came back from Oaxaca, Mexico.  The met the spinner and dyer of the yarn, too, which is all done with natural dyes.

My non-fiber friend was so taken with it all she wants to skip learning to knit and move right to spinning!

MLE