Dreamers Gotta Dream

Of a better world for man and beasts.

We all live under the same sun. 

One light, one sun... one sun lighting everyone.

One world turning...one world turning everyone.

One world, one home... one world home for everyone.

One dream, one song...one song heard by everyone.

One love, one heart... one heart warming everyone.

One hope, one joy... one love filling everyone.

One Sun, One Light -Raffi

Just One in One Thousand

Somehow we just happened to notice that this post would be the 1,000th for NDL.

We deliberated about whether that called for something significant to mark the milestone. 

And then we thought, "nah", let's just carry on as we would have. 

So here is what was next in the queue of drafts. It is a photo taken last spring of a jumble sale sign from the UK village of Temple Guiting.

Make that an Extraordinary Jumble Sale sign!

Back in the  80's we read several books by Barbara Pym*. 

Mostly what we remember about them is that the characters were perpetually preparing for church jumble sales while having tea and talking with or about the vicar.

So imagine our delight to spot the jumble sale sign outside this lovely church yard,

across from a sunny tea room,

in a charming English village

on a beautiful day in the middle of a long ramble through the countryside.

The only thing missing really was a vicar sighting.

Sometimes we feel apologetic about the number of times we have traveled to the same country when there are so many other places under the sun that we have not seen. Days like this, however are why we return again and again. Every visit holds in store a new delight.

*Very coincidentally Wikipedia tells us that Barbara Pym died on this very date in 1980. It also tells us that " A superficial reading gives the impression that they are sketches of village or suburban life, and comedies of manners, studying the social activities connected with the Anglican church. Her works are deeper than that, however. She closely examines many aspects of women's and men's relations, including unrequited feelings of women for men, based on her own experience. The dialogue is often deeply ironic. A tragic undercurrent runs through some of the later novels." 

Looks like we will be putting Barbara Pym back on our book list to see what 35 additional years of life experience brings to a rereading.

Vintage Viscol for a Waterproof Winter

Get ready.

Triple action will be needed....

to get us through the rest of winter and...

April showers.

Pumps, Brogues, Sorrels, wellies, tennies, Birkies, Mary Janes, spectators, mules.

Protect them all with Viscol.

2016 Redux

Blog - short for web log. Now a verb. "I am going to blog about day to day life and neighborhood happenings."

We're not in this for fame or fortune. Just to keep a record of things we see and do and like, but so far not the things that drive us crazy. We have tried harder than you may know to avoid "the rant" and keep this a positive place; a place of magical thinking you might even say. One day we may unleash some feelings about a few things (do not get us started on TV actors "drinking" and handling supposed hot, full cups of coffee), but that day is not today.

This month we are going back to 2016 to post some things seen (that are not sheep although we cannot promise there won't be any more sheep) with more, but probably less narrative. 

Let's start with....

Ed's Feed Service. We walked past this building in Bloomer, Wisconsin and were quite taken with it's ghostly grayness rising out of the gray day. So we took a phone photo that doesn't really do justice to its rural skyscraper architecture and history of being a place instrumental in helping Chippewa County farmers feed a lot of people and animals for a very long time.

A man named Travis Dewitz has taken some beautiful photos of this building, inside and out, front and back.

There is a story that involves the railroad tracks that run alongside Ed's Feed Service that is legend in a certain family, and probably all of the watering holes in Bloomer that may or may not have happened on exactly the piece of track that runs through the adjacent intersection, but is worth telling anyhow.

A man, let's call him Stan, drove up to the tracks just as a train was coming. As he stopped to wait for the train to pass he heard his father's voice from the past saying that it is not a good idea to put your car in Park while waiting for a train even if it looks to be a long one. Just at that moment a braking school bus coming up behind Stan's car slid on some ice and bumped it right onto the tracks as the train was bearing down. Because he had heeded his father's voice the car was still in Drive and he was able to take his foot off the brake, accelerate and clear the tracks just in the nick of time. The poor bus driver had to wait until the entire train had moved through the intersection before he could see what had happened to Stan. He was safe and sound on the other side. Whew! Small town tragedy averted.

Thank goodness for the voices in our heads. Most of them anyway.

Add this one to your collection if it is not already there and listen to it often.

 "Let's be careful out there."

And have a very good new year.