May isn’t over yet, but since tomorrow is Friday during Mineral King season, May’s learnings are a little early.
Actually, I learned the first item in April, but since April’s Learned List was FOURTEEN ITEMS, I pushed it over onto May. May is a little lighter on learning than normal. Guess I read too many novels or slept late too often. . . Yes, May still has several days left for learning, so it is possible a few things will spill over onto June.
1.Gopher Hawk is the name of a tool that catches gophers. It is easier to set than the old Macabees traps, which I have only successfully set one time. It is expensive, but seems to be effective. I first tried a borrowed one without the tools to get it in place; when I read more about it, I ordered the whole trapping set (BEFORE I learned that our local hardware store sells it). Like everything, it takes a little practice and a lot of patience. I might need to order a second one, because the cats are catching squirrels instead of gophers this year so far. Gardening is war.
2. A stained glass window from a childhood memory is a story that I will tell you more about when it is closer to being finished. Here is a peek at this lovely artifact hanging behind that chandelier on someone else’s deck.
3. Waymo is something I heard about from a friend who traveled with an elderly couple in a city. She and the woman needed to get somewhere when their car wasn’t available, so my friend used Waymo. What is that? It is basically a driverless taxi. Yep, you get into a car that has no driver and it takes you where you ordered it to go, using your phone, of course. This blew my mind, and I blurted out, “NO DRIVER! I can’t even stand driving an automatic!” For me that is NO WAYmo.
4. Small town living: in reading an article from This Evergreen Home by Mike and Mollie Donghia, I realized that living in Three Rivers still has many of the benefits of “the good old days”. You might enjoy the article.
5. This quote on happiness from economist and philosopher Adam Smith caught and held my attention:
“What can be added to the happiness of a person who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?” Source: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) (with thanks to James Clear’s newsletter)
4 Comments
I love stained glass windows. Such intricate beauty and detail. And when the sun shines through, beautiul!
NO WAYmo. I’ll have to remember that (and I agree)!
“What can be added to the happiness of a person who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?” Right now I am 2 out of 3. Does that count?
Sharon, that worries me. I’ll email you.
Interesting that we both read Mike and Mollie and James Clear.
I like to be reminded of simple life which Evergreen Home talks about.
I am not alone in my obsession of dealing with all “the stuff” so my sons don’t have to. I had to clean out my parent’s home, which was daunting. I won’t do that to my sons.
It’s true this generation doesn’t want any of the things we inherited. So I’m doing my best to recycle and re-home as much as I can…. And hope they don’t trash the art I’ve collected through the years! Ha!
Anne, it doesn’t surprise me that we like to read the same things—thought-provoking, sensible, logical, simple wisdom.
We are at an awkward age where we still enjoy our stuff, still enjoy finding and refining our “collections”, but know if we don’t start now, we’ll lose the motivation and energy to do so.
Most of us also are in partnerships where one wants to downsize and the other isn’t interested. Sigh.