A Fairy in Armor

He put his acorn helmet on;
It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down;
The corslet plate that guarded his breast
Was once the wild bee's golden vest;
His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
His shield was the shell of a lady-bug green,
Studs of gold on a ground of green;
And the quivering lance which he brandished bright,
Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in a fight.
Swift he bestrode his firefly steed;
He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue;
He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,
And away like the glance of a thought he flew,
To skim the heavens, and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket star.

-Joseph Rodham Drake

Swedish is frustrating

I went to the cemetery again today. I really enjoy working there, but the computer work is driving me crazy. The inscriptions from oldest stones, there are about seven of them, are in Swedish. I am trying to translate it by using a combination of library books and the internet, but I just cannot translate several of the words. The main problem is the old stones are worn and exceptionally hard to read, so I am unsure of the spelling in many cases.

Around 1:30 the sky grew very dark, and almost a bit yellow. At first it was calm but then it started to thunder. I had visions of myself huddled in the basement as a tornado roared through town, but so far it hasn’t even rained. Just extremely dark clouds, lots of thunder and some lightning. Kind of like the Middle East. I will certainly pay attention to the situation in Israel and Lebanon. I feel sorry for Israel- they have such nasty neighbors.
And we complain about Mexico!

MSNBC’s overview of the happenings so far.

They always blame Israel.

The babies are the sad ones- there are quite a few. 

I am about 2/3 done with the cemetery.