Volunteering Again

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My first volunteering since moving to Missouri happened last weekend – helping set up a Friends of the Library in Christian County, Missouri book sale near where I live. I was part of the first wave of the set up so the first task was setting up the long folding tables around the edges and down the middle of the large space. There was one that seemed a little rickety and we quickly realized that it was not stable enough to load with books; it went back in the storage closet with a label that it was broken.

The boxes of donated books had been stored in a shed at the library and JROTC from the local high school loaded them onto a trailer and brought them over to our building. Fortunately the boxes were labeled well enough that we could aggregate them on the tables where the contents would be displayed. None of the volunteers with older backs (me included) had to lift any book boxes!

There were a large number of donated puzzles and I started emptying boxes and making a display that spread over two long tables. It seems that there were more puzzles than last year; maybe people are donating puzzles they bought during COVID. My goal was to get at least a small picture of the puzzle and the number pieces showing for each one. Most of the puzzles ended up in towers or standing on end.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning and I hope Friends of the Library make $$ from the sale that formally begins today.

More Used Puzzles

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The county just north of where I live is more populous and their Friends of the Library sale was a lot larger – held in a building of the county fairgrounds. They filled the large building with tables loaded mostly with books but there were some CDs and a few puzzles/board games. I bought the best of the 500-piece puzzles to take to my parents – 17 boxes that contained 28 puzzles…for the bargain total of $52! I was grateful that my husband went with me to help get them into bags…through checkout…and into the car. I’ll be taking them to Carrollton in a few days….adding them to the stack I created last month (probably a little reduced with my parents finishing some of them). They enjoy having lots of puzzles to choose from!

In the 1990s, I went to used books sales…and staggered out with so many books I could hardly lift my bags. But now I am not tempted. I read eBooks…and for things like planning travel, I do searches to get the most current information rather than buy dated books. It felt a little strange to go to a large used book sale and buy nothing at all. My husband was not tempted either.

Finding Puzzles

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My parents have seemingly gotten more adept at finishing puzzles this spring. For the past decade they have been enjoying working on jigsaw puzzles on a high table in their garden room; they can work standing or sitting…and enjoy the view of their garden/birdfeeder outside the windows. There is always a partially assembled puzzle on the table. They began to get frustrated this year; the 1000-piece puzzles were taking too long so they asked that we skew the mix toward 500-piece puzzles. Now that my sisters and I have done that – they need more of puzzles! They are completing more than one per week even with their increased activity this time of year outdoors and away from the puzzles.

Last time I was in Carrollton, they were completely out of puzzles they had not assembled previously.  I bought 8 and they are still working on those but I am being proactive – buying 8 more. I happened to find them on sale at CVS and used all the coupons I had…so the price was good. And I like the pictures. One of my sisters will pick up the baton for the next round…but we must pick of the pace of our acquisitions a little. The puzzles are a great way to add some mental challenge to their daily routine!

My sister is saving a lot of the puzzles – storing them in her attic – for when she gets older. Maybe my sisters and I will enjoy them when we are in our 80s and 90s!

Wouldn’t it be great if libraries could organize to checkout puzzles just like they do books?

Alfred East’s The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour

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I happened upon a book on Internet Archive I had browsed back in 2012 – The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour by Alfred East…and enjoyed the illustrations again.

I particularly enjoyed the ‘Studies of Effect’ series. Since I’ve done a lot more thinking about light as I’ve improved my photographic skills, I probably appreciated them more now than I did 8 years ago.

These days – there are other steps I typically take when I spot something of interest in Internet Archive – either the topic of the book or the author…or maybe just a single picture. I frequently look for the biography of the author in Wikipedia (and maybe follow some of the external links or references). Since East was a British artist, I did a search on The British Museum site and found 32 items! It’s awesome to be able to follow whatever questions I develop looking at old books; perhaps I appreciate the ease more since I remember heavy reference books and card catalogs…and being frustrated when the library didn’t have what I was looking for.  It’s very easy now to find an overwhelming amount of information.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Bald Eagle. As we were driving to put flowers on my mother-in-law’s grave (she died in 1990) on Thanksgiving morning, we drove by a historical manor house set well off the road with outbuildings. I noticed a white blotch near the top of one of the trees near the house. It was almost too far away to figure out what it was but when it moved, I realized it was a bald eagle. It turned further and took off as the light turned green and we moved in the other direction. What a great contribution from the natural world to add to our Thanksgiving!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 31, 2018

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

 4 Psychology Lessons That Can Teach Us About Inspiring Climate Action | CleanTechnica – Good ideas – particularly if anticipating a lot of disagreement or people being too depressed about the prospect of the future for Earth to take action.

Top 25 Wild Raptors – National Geographic – From around the world…no bald eagle in this group of photos.

After 250 Years of Dams, Rhode Island River Restored for Migratory Fish – Cool Green Science – Maryland is also removing dams. Bloede’s Dam (see blog post about it here)

Hummingbirds Make an Incredible Journey North – Cool Green Science – This little birds make a very long journey. Hope our recent cold weather has not made is a problematic year for them.

Saving Terrapins From Drowning in Crab Traps – Cool Green Science – Hopefully this can be a success story for terrapins around Long Island…time will tell.

Elusive Deep-Sea Anglerfish Seen Mating for the First Time | Smart News | Smithsonian – I’d only see pictures of dead specimens or drawings. The 2.5 minute video shows a living fish moving slowly through the water with filaments that glow surrounding it. Still very fierce looking but also a slow moving graceful beauty.

Drug-related mortality rates are not randomly distributed across the US -- ScienceDaily – The map says it all. The hotspots for drug-related deaths in the US are not necessarily where historically high drug use happened.

The 20 most beautiful libraries in the U.S. - Curbed – I’ve only been in one of these: the reading room of the Legal Research Library at the University of Michigan; it was part of the campus tour when my daughter visited the university before she added it to her short list that she would apply to for her undergraduate studies. I remember it being very quiet even though people were walking around – cork floors are quiet floors!

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Much Larger and Chunkier Than We Thought | Smart News | Smithsonian – Ugh! It was bad even before the more precise measurements came in. There has to be a way to start cleaning it up and keeping more garbage from getting into the ocean.

Landscape Photography Series Tells “Winter’s Tale” of Snowy Forests – Hopefully we’ve had our last bought with snowy weather here in Maryland. I do enjoy the snowy forests…for a little while.