My oldest brother sent me this.

Lost words from those of us lucky enough to have lived in the 1950s

Mergatroyd! Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Mergatroyd? Heavens to Mergatroyd!

The other day a not so elderly, (I say 75), lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; and he looked at her, quizzically and said, "What the heck is a Jalopy?" He had never heard of the word jalopy! She knew she was old!

Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory  after you read this and chuckle.

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included: Don't touch that dial, Carbon copy, You sound like a broken record, and Hung out to dry.

Back in the olden days, we had a lot of moxie.  We'd put on our best bib and tucker , to  straighten up and fly right.

Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping jehoshaphat, Holy moley!

We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley ; and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the Duck's Ass; or spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers.

Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Or, "This is a fine kettle of fish!" We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent - as oxygen - have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blinked, and they're gone. Where have all those great phrases gone?

Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses!

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! (Carter's Little Liver Pills are gone too!)

Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth... See ya later, alligator! or  AFTER WHILE CROCODILE.


Okidoki. You'll notice they left out "Monkey Business"!!!

WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 50'S ... NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN .. WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS: LIVING IN THE PEACEFUL AND COMFORTABLE TIMES, CREATED FOR US BY THE "GREATEST GENERATION!"

New Garden Art

 We have a lot of rocks in our soil as we have discovered with the grading work we had done last year. It's the nature of this land and why stone walls are so prevalent.

I've always wanted to make a First Man  or Inukshuk [Wikipedia] after we saw them in Glacier National Park and in Banff in 1999.

Here's a magnet from Canada as a small example.

On our 1999 trip we hiked the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park and there were these statues all over the place. I made this one while I sat and enjoyed the scenery.

Sunday I finally made one for the garden. Sorry there's no sense of scale but it's over two feet tall.

I wanted to build it before I planted a wide variety of Hosta in this bed. I didn't have cement and hope it stays up.  It fell multiple times as I attempted to get it all balanced. The largest stones were very weighty.

My Garden Room

 

This clump of daffodils is tucked in a corner near the deck planted by former residents. There were irises in this space too that I transplanted.

Two different peonies that were in a very shaded garden 

and also in the midst of weeds at the edge of the field behind us have made their appearance this spring in a new flower bed where I moved them to last summer. Daughter Emily doesn't think they'll bloom for me this year because of how poorly they were doing in their former locations. 

The barn will be painted this summer but that doesn't prevent us from using it now.  The door on the left opens to what I've named the Garden Room. The doors leaning there outside are giveaways.  When we had a fence I thought I'd mount one on the fence after painting it. The other was going to be made into a headboard by son in law Matt. They have a headboard coming to them from his grandmother instead.

This was once an animal stall, likely for horses.

Dan built a potting bench for me and mounted a shelf.

My order from FedCo Seeds of perennials came on Friday last week and since we are not past our frost date, as instructed, I've temporarily planted the hosta, day lily and bleeding heart plants in potting soil.

Here's the door to an interior room with the steps that lead up to our rec room where the ping pong table is. See my blue bird bath on the floor on the right.  It's too soon to put that out too.

Love these daffodils - first color besides green and brown in the yard.

Windows and Birds

 One day last week we heard a loud thump and saw a bird on the steps to the deck.  It had flown into the sliding glass door and broken its neck.  This was a first for us here.

I noted it's demise in the front of my Peterson Field Guide to Birds:

2022 - A Hairy Woodpecker.

The entry was preceded by these birds who met their deaths flying into windows at The Lodge (the house we built and lived in from 2005-2016 in Baltimore County, Maryland)

2005 - Cedar Waxwing

2006 - Falcon, Cardinal, Blue Grosbeak, and an unknown gray bird

2007, 2008, 2009 - a Thrush each year. (Funny thing is I never saw these birds alive but would hear their beautiful call in the evening)

2010 - White Throated Sparrow.

[There was a hummingbird that died but not from hitting the window.  It was hanging from a plant support. I did rescue lots of hummingbirds from the screen porch.  They would fly into the screen and get their beaks stuck.]

I shoveled up this woodpecker and placed it behind the barn.  The next day the carcass was gone.

I hope there won't be more bird deaths by window in our future.

***

Shutterfly sent me a photos from 6 years ago on this date - we were madly in the midst of downsizing and all the family was visiting to decide what they wanted of the stuff we were parting with. The Lodge had sold the first weekend in April and we'd signed the papers to move to the continuing care retirement community (Vantage House) in Columbia, MD. Boy has our life changed since then!

Two photos from 2016

Reflecting back we are so glad we said good bye to Vantage House and hello to New Hampshire.