Spring?

The solstice was yesterday. Forsythia is in bloom, my baby walnut trees have swellings on their branches, the peepers have been peeping, and birds have been returning. So, of course, it snowed last night. Welcome to spring in Indiana.

So, I thought I’d share some photos of crepuscular rays I took last week.

I’ve been working on Letters to Esther. I’ve got nearly everything from the old blog format moved to the new website. Now, I’m in the process of scanning the original letters and adding them to the transcriptions. It’s slow going, because many of the image files need a lot of tweaking to make them legible.

I’m not even bothering to scan the rough drafts of Esther’s replies to Richard, because they’re written on pages from her exercise book, which have seriously degraded. I don’t want to handle them too much, because the paper is brittle and brown. And, because she wrote in pencil, the text is faded. In order to make scans legible, I’d have to do some serious Photoshopping acrobatics. Maybe, at a later date, I’ll scan them, but for now, I’m leaving them be.

Once I get all the currently transcribed letters scanned and images added, I’ll start transcribing new letters. Right now, I’m about half-way finished with scanning the transcribed letters. Just to give an idea of scope, that’s taken me about 50 hours of solid work, not counting time it took to do the original transcriptions.

Tangent Alert!

I’m watching bad daytime court teevee (Judge Alex) while working on the computer. I haven’t been paying close attention, but the defendant–whose off-lead Dalmatian attacked and killed the plaintiff’s on-lead Dachshund puppy–seems to be arguing that she shouldn’t be responsible for the full amount of damages because the plaintiff’s dog isn’t a purebred “Datsun.” I nearly choked on my toast. Lady, if you’re gonna try to mount that sort of defense, you really ought to get the breed name correct. Claiming that the dead puppy didn’t “look” like a purebred “Datsun” does not make you look like any kind of authority on the breed. I’m just sayin’.

Now, I’m debating the merits of digging out my car so that I can drive down to the mailbox to pick up the mail. There ought to be Netflix waiting for me. It would be nice to have something to watch besides daytime teevee, and it would be a good idea to get the car cleaned off, so I’m trying to talk myself into it.