Recent Posts
December 25th, 2011 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
Lately I’ve been meeting with a local writers group. They’re a lot of fun to chat with… and write with. We don’t critique our writing… we just write and then read our writing, and enjoy it.
Every week we choose a prompt. Usually it has something to do with the small town we live in. Lovely little place in the mountains. I live just outside town in a cabin in the woods… but I digress. Sorry!
Usually I write short articles, but lately I’ve been enjoying a bit of flash fiction. Some of my best flash fiction has been written in response to the group’s prompts.
For example, two weeks ago we had the prompt for rumors about our small town. Yes, rumors! I could have written about a real rumor that was going around, but instead I decided to make one up to show how silly rumors could be. My rumor piece was entitled “Green Aliens”. People are still talking about this silly little story two weeks later. It had a surprise ending and … they liked it!
When I write flash fiction it pretty much writes itself. I love writing these short stories - only about 500 words. They’re perfect for daily writing practice. Maybe one of these days I’ll create a book with all my flash fiction stories. I have quite a few now. Quick to write, and quick to read.
I’ve posted a few flash fiction stories on the web. Here are some links:
1. Not Ready to Die
2. Daisy and the Freedom Field
3. From the White Light
fiction, Writing
November 22nd, 2010 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
Dear Spammers,
I am so sorry you have nothing better to do with your time than spam other people’s blogs with unwanted, unwelcome links. There really are better ways to make money, you know. You could, for example, make your own blog and put advertising on it to make money, or you could connect with an article writing site if your writing skills are good, and write for other people. Or .. I’ll bet you could make more money working in a fast food restaurant.
What’s really sad is that in recent weeks I’ve realized that I have to close my sites to China IP numbers because the amount of spam coming from that country is outrageous. I know it comes from other places too… but I never get nice Chinese people at my sites wanting to chat and be friends. All I get is spam and when I check the IP numbers, it is usually from China. What a shame we can’t get to know Chinese people on the web who really want to spend time and be friendly. Of course, I don’t know a whole lot about conditions in that country, but I’m pretty much a world citizen who loves everyone and would love to be able to have Chinese web friends. Instead all I get is Chinese web spam. Please, Chinese spammers, don’t do this to your country!
This isn’t posted on one of my sites, but just like all my other blogs, the comments are not immediately posted to the public. Instead they go into a holding area where I can review them on my next visit to the blog. Today I had to delete about twenty spam comments. Those comments were never seen by or available to the public, so spammers, you wasted your time coming here to post something. It didn’t work. Your effort and time went down the drain. Deleting spam is a lot easier for me than it is for you to post it… you know that, don’t you?
I sincerely hope you find something better and more honorable to do with your time. Life is short; make it meaningful and beautiful!
Until next time…
spam
August 29th, 2010 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
I live so far off the beaten path we’ve got no suburbia, no fast food joints, no chain stores of any kind, no stoplights within forty miles, and no traffic congestion whatsoever.
I don’t miss it.
What we do have around here is a lot of trees.
One day after I’d been here about four years I woke up and looked outside, and inwardly groaned. Who would ever think I’d get tired of seeing trees?
I admit, since then I’ve grown fond of them again… but they’ve really got us surrounded.
“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.” — Bill Vaughan
Bloom where you’re planted.
forest, suburbia, trees
August 23rd, 2010 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
When you live in a small mountain town many miles from any city entertainment, you have to be creative in finding things to do. There are many in this town who think an evening at the saloon is worthwhile. And yes, we do have one: the Frontier Saloon. (really!) But I’ve never been into that. In fact, I’ve never been to the saloon for anything other than a Chamber of Commerce meeting (we used to have them there several years back, during the lunch hour every-other month.)
My son (age 20) enjoys Friday night LAN games at the local Community Computer Center - provided by the Karuk Tribe, which gets grants to run it. A real blessing for this community - especially for those who don’t have computers at home.
My entertainment usually takes place at home. I’m one of those people who doesn’t need a lot of social contacts. I’m good with saying ‘hi’ to people at the post office when I go get my mail. Oh, I do have a *man* here at home, so I get to talk to someone (lucky me, it is someone I love) … but for the most part, my entertainment is solitary - I use the computer and read books.
My man and I have enjoyed a lot of Netflix together. Right now we’re re-watching Battlestar Gallactica, the re-imagined series. We’re totally stuck on that and love it so much, we’re both talking about buying the pricey boxed set of DVDs. After watching this series from beginning to end, it feels like nothing else will ever come up to the standard.
Any other BSG fans out there?
Anyhow, that’s my report on what people in the mountains do for entertainment. Gotta admit, it is kind of quiet around here.
December 18th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
Good thing I love rain because we’re getting lots of it this week. It is there to clean the world of dust, provide nourishment for plants, and keep people huddled up inside their houses which are hopefully comfy-cozy and warm.
On rainy days I exercise indoors on my recumbent bike, and do some aerobic dancing… and sit at my computer typing away, and cook steamy pots of beans and/or veggies to keep myself health and happy. Alternatively I could try doing another painting. I haven’t done one in a while. Or… there’s always book reading. Or movie watching, thanks to Netflix. I don’t have TV reception… haven’t had it in years and don’t miss it.
On a rainy day a pot of tea is a welcome distraction. I have a fire going in the woodstove - that’s how I heat this cabin. The cat is curled up in front of it and in the office room, an electric heater helps warm my feet.
What could be better? The only thing I’m missing is a man who enjoys rain as much as I do. My partner is a summer guy… he doesn’t like rain.
Weather
November 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
I’m wondering how hot this topic of Climategate is with the general masses at this point. I know there are many people who have been convinced that global warming is a great danger to humankind and the planet, but now that the truth is coming out, what do people think?
I’ll bet that most people just don’t care. If the fraud hadn’t been exposed, and we had been forced to give up national sovereignty and pay these ridiculous taxes on our breathing, then maybe they would have noticed. (All that bad stuff still might happen.) But hopefully some savvy hackers who stole email from scientists and posted it to the web have headed the elitists off at the pass and will prevent the passing of the Carbon Tax.
What say you? Do you care? Are you even aware of this breaking news? Does it interest you at all? Please tell me, a simple yes or no… or whatever comes to mind.
carbon tax, climategate, global warming
November 17th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
Is anyone else getting a lot of Ugg boots spam comments? This is something that needs to be taken care of ASAP - even if it means having all comments approved before posting. I’ve just changed my settings under “reading” to force all comments to be approved - and I’ll be notified in email so I can do so immediately though I normally will be coming here only once weekly to post. I’m really sorry that today’s post has to be about spam of all things because as you can imagine, it isn’t my favorite subject.
Let’s fight the good fight and get spam comment bots off of JournalSpace!!
Perhaps unattended blogs should be deleted because they’ll just collect spam and as I understand it - that ruins the pagerank of the entire domain. Not a good thing.
Why isn’t Akismet, WordPress’ spam addon, catching all this?
JournalSpace, spam
November 11th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
Like a lot of Americans I’m looking at the condition of this country, the way the US Constitution is being set aside, the liberties lost, and I wonder why oh why are Americans allowing this to happen?
I am an aging woman living in a remote Northern California forest. I don’t feel empowered to do much to help. In my small town, what’s really happening? Not a whole lot! It isn’t like living in Sacramento where I could go keep an eye on the state legislature and tell legislators how I feel about things.
So… I do what I can online, but that’s very little, really. I get busy with other things - my writing, for example. Consequently when I saw this video, I was stunned. Here you’ll see a very young teenager doing something to educate pregnant women about swine flu vaccine dangers. I cannot tell you how much I admire this young man for speaking out and even saving a child.
This is what we all should be doing!
I honestly think the answer to the problem is state sovereignty.
courage, government
September 27th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
Still here in the mountains all these years later. Thought several times that I might leave, but no dice. I’m stuck in a cabin and can’t get out.
Well, while here I’ve been doing some reading. There are a few good memoirs of people who used to live in this mountain river valley (Klamath River Valley.) One is In the Land of the Grasshopper Song: Two Women in the Klamath River Indian Country in 1908-09
by Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed. These two women came here for the government, to help civilize the Klamath’s Karuk natives. The young women moved into a cabin in the vicinity of Orleans and discovered that their neighbor had two husbands. One Karuk husband, and one white husband.
The story continues with their efforts to provide church and education for the Karuks. Though this seems intrusive by today’s standards I think it was a lot better than hauling children off a reservation to educate them in boarding schools… a barbaric act that our nation is still paying for today. I am so totally against forcing separations of children from their parents, especially at an early age.
Another superb memoir I recently read was Dear Mad’m
by Stella Walthal Patterson. She was an eighty+ year old woman who came to the Klamath River Valley to live on a mining claim about fifteen miles downriver from Happy Camp in 1946. Her story is a remarkable triumph of woman over nature, over fear, over expectations… the expectations of others to put her into a nursing home and take care of her in her old age.
She wanted to be where people needed her, not where people felt they just needed to take care of her, and she found that kind of sweet interaction with her neighbors on the bank of the Klamath river in a very remote, rough place in the center of a forest.
People all over the country found this inspiring back when it was first published in the 1950s, and three women from the East Coast came here to Happy Camp to live on her property after she died, to take care of the gardens she’d planted there.
This posting isn’t at all what I intended to write about. I wanted to write about Bigfoot to tell you about my blog, Bigfoot Sightings, and to explain why I’m a Bigfoot believer. Well, maybe next time.
Books, klamath, memoirs, siskiyou
June 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized by Mountain Dweller
I’ve been busy since I last posted here… so very busy… so I thought I’d drop by and update this JournalSpace blog by telling you what’s up in my corner of the universe.
I made a commitment to improve my yard this year. The last few years the yard went to waste and weeds because I was working. But since I lost my job last September - I’m home free… with plenty of time for gardening. (Pictures of my garden are at the linked page.)
We live in a cabin type dwelling between two mountain meadows with pine, madrone, and fir on the property. I spent two months intense work clearing garden spaces. One space had been my garden in earlier years. It was overgrown. It had everything in it from compost to junk, and I cleared that land removing weeds, weeds, rocks, grubs, and more weeds. I also cleared a garden area right in front of our house. It was equally time consuming and full of weeds.
The two garden areas are now planted. One contains broccoli, bell peppers, jalapenos, oregano, dill, marigolds, corn, sunflowers, snow peas, spinach, beets, parsley, potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I have a separate tomato garden with larger plants - one already bearing a couple green tomatoes. Beside that there’s a strawberry garden, and my herb garden which has three varieties of sage, chives, thyme, nasturtiums, rosemary, bacopa, lobelia, three types of mint, lemon balm, yerba buena, and that’s about it. I also have a flower garden on the other side of my porch. Okay, that’s the front of the house.
The garden behind the house has zucchini, crookneck (yellow) squash, scallop squash, tomatoes (more unusual varieties) green beans, watermelon, canteloupe, and a mystery plant that came growing in one of my squash purchases. I’m hoping it is turnips or something like that - but we’ll have to wait and see. Right now I don’t recognize it at all. It is developing little purple flowers. Would be cool if eggplants started growing - or anything I could eat. In other words, I hope it isn’t just a pampered weed!
Yesterday I watched my beloved float downriver on a kayak - that was kind of fun. He’s a gold prospector and manages to do his work most of the time without any help from me - but this time I was there to drive the car from the put-in site to the take-out site downriver. On the way down there we noticed a old truck parked by the side of the road. My S.O. (significant other) was appalled to see that someone had put rocks through the windows — especially since he’d driven by earlier in the day and the windows weren’t broken then. This makes us not want to park our car next to the river anymore, while he’s prospecting. This means I’ll have to take him there, drop him off each day, and then pick him up late in the afternoon hours.
On the work-front I’m getting more organized with my online content writing. I recently made myself a schedule I think will work. I start my day with a walk around town - it takes me about an hour and contains a few semi-challenging uphill climbs. After my walk I water the gardens… I have to keep those plants happy! Then I come inside and eat, drink my morning tea (chai,) and write my three morning pages. (I’m an Artists Way devotee.)
Next I have two hours for blogging, an hour for lunch, an hour for revising novels (or critiquing them for friends,) and then two hours for Squidoo lens building. From four to eight I spend with my S.O. — we go places, or watch movies (almost a nightly occurrence here) and eat dinner. In the evening he goes to sleep and I have a few hours to work on anything I didn’t get done earlier in the day. This seems to be working out fine, so far.
I have so much more to tell you but I know this is getting long… so I’ll leave it for the next posting. I hope to connect with more friends here on JournalSpace. I’ve met wonderful people in the past and know this is a great networking site.
Gardening, mountain life, online content writing
