A visitor in the tree outside my window

Just for fun, I googled "black squirrel." One of the top results was a link to a site claiming that there is a Choctaw legend that solar eclipses were caused by a black squirrel trying to consume the sun. 

No idea of whether this is actual lore or just something someone online invented.

But, by strange coincidence, tomorrow (March 20) the only total solar eclipse of the year will take place.

Freaky Friday: Solar eclipse, Supermoon, spring equinox

Chicken Vegetable Soup

Chicken Fatteh

Easter Dinner 2014

Pork tenderloin; Ginger-lemon honey-glazed carrots; Roasted asparagus; Popovers

Citrus salad with fennel over arugula and spring greens

Arranging books

I spent time Friday trying to organize some of my books on shelves in my room, office and elsewhere. I've been thinking about how to do it for a while -- how to categorize books, where to locate the books in various categories, and then, within the categories, how to organize them -- Topically? Alphabetically by author and then title? Alphabetically by author and then chronologically? Or by connecting characters? Or maybe a completely chronological approach?

I wound up using the alphabetical/alphabetical approach for the most part for fiction (the "comfort" books in my room are the exception) and a topical approach for the non-fiction categories. I imagined the fiction books being able to talk to each other this way -- books from different times and places able to enter into conversation -- who knows what new form of story might emerge? It may not be much of a benefit to the newer books -- they've been able to absorb and be in conversation with those that came before them already. But for the older books it may be a wonderful revelation. Imagine Grendel from Beowulf wandering through the various dimensional worlds of Flatland and then emerging in Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Or Hurston's Janie sharing her story with James's The Ambassadors. Edith Wharton and Virginia Woof can compare and contrast the lives of women before and after the Great War.

Since finishing, I've been wrestling with the urge to go get all the other books I have in storage -- in boxes and bins under beds, in closets, and in various spaces -- out and on shelves so they, too, can take part. I am resisting, and I need to resist -- there's no room for them all. But I hear them calling "Let me out! Set me free" . . . they want to be a part of the conversation as well.

And what is so rare as a day in June ...

A YOUTUBE video I posted today -- it records a walk from my front porch down to the chicken coop. This is what the Edge of New England looks like on June 18, 2007.



"And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ..."

-James Russell Lowell