Nuts and Bolts of Artistry

And what did we buy at the auction? A few minor antiquish things -- and quite a lot of nuts and bolts -- pounds and pounds of them -- for use in upcoming projects. A woman nearby looked down at our pile of cardboard trays full of old hardware and said, "Are you an artist?"

To be an artist ... is that what it means, these days, to buy nuts and bolts?

I haven't weighed all this iron ... but when I piled the trays for carrying toward the car, Martha refused to lift the piles three-trays deep. When I was then loading them into the car and expecting its back end to sink down, I noticed that the hardware would be joining the weight already there.

We still had the 75-pound bag of sand in the back -- against the snowy, icy roads that we have not had for a month or more.

March came in like a lamb and it left like a lamb ... or perhaps like a toy lion.

Cheers ...

Author Shot

An Author Shot

Actually no more than portions of two hands, one of them hidden within a wrecked leather glove, are visible here of the author. In most of my previous lives I looked like what these hands hold, however; and no doubt in my next earthly cycle, having earned enough cosmic bonus points by writing the Kornbluth biography, I will return to the simple and contented state of once more looking this way.

March is not quite over and already Bufo americanus has come twice into my life, both times because of my spadework. As best I could tell, fortunately, I hurt neither one. (Last year Martha dug up two, too, around this time of year.) A few days ago I uncovered one next to the blueberries; yesterday, I spaded up some dirt to fling it deeper into another garden plot -- and saw this upside-down, pale-bellied thing with gangly limbs akimbo where I had tossed the spadeful.

I brought it inside to let it say hello to Martha; and since Martha happened to be photographing a few small items in the kitchen, I thrust the philosophic creature into digital immortality -- a little close to the camera, admittedly.

Cheers ...