migration

“Idgie lit a cigarette for Smokey, the hobo, and said,

‘… One November, a big flock of ducks, oh, about forty or more, landed right smack in the middle of that lake, and while they were sitting there, that afternoon, a fluke thing happened. The temperature dropped so fast that the whole lake froze over, as solid as a rock, in a matter of three seconds. One, two, three, just like that.’

Smokey was amazed at the thought. ‘You don’t mean it?’

‘Yep.’

‘Well, I reckon it must have killed them ducks.’

Idgie said, ‘Why, hell no. They just flew off and took the lake with ‘em. That lake’s somewhere in Georgia, to this very day…’

He turned and looked at her, and when he realized she was pulling his leg, his blue eyes crinkled up and he started laughing so hard that he started to cough at the same time, and she had to bang him on the back.”

No, I’m not in Georgia. Nor Alabama.

Pine Meadow Pond is still very much where it’s always been, and I’m right beside it.

I did, however, freeze the old Pine Meadow Pond Journal at a certain point in time; and, the trusty computer “ducks” then helped me lift and move all my old blog posts, along with the furniture, and everything else important from there to here. It isn’t called “migrating a blog” for nuthin’.

“But where is here?” you’re asking.

This, my dear readers, is The Pine Meadow Pond Journal’s new home.

Welcome. Make yourselves comfortable.

It’s pretty nice, huh?

I’ve bade good-bye to the landlord at web.me and set myself up in a new place, with a little help from my friends. Cue the Beatles. Or Joe Cocker, depending on your preference.

When I first started blogging, I had very little knowledge of desktop publishing. iWeb, which came installed on my trusty MacBook Pro, was easy. From the old days of using Microsoft Publisher, I knew how to create textboxes, place photos, and line up text. It took a little while to create a post, and the templates were kind of dull and limiting in iWeb, but that was okay.

As I went along, however, my skills in digital photography, social media, and desktop publishing grew and, not to place the entire blame on the tool, I outgrew iWeb. I can hear my grandmother’s voice in my head now, “You have to have the right tool for the job.” This was the woman who made sure I had my own toolbox when I got married. There was also the little matter of my lovely domain name, www.pinemeadowpond.com, which I’ve owned for a long time, having to forward to web.me. Ugh.

So here we are.

Feel free to poke around. There may still be a little dust in some of the corners, but, as I mentioned above, and thanks to Michael’s WordPress wizardry, all the old Pine Meadow Pond Journal pieces have been imported, more rather than less intact. New posts are in the works, being readied for posting.

Regular readers, I was able to move your comments over with only the most minor of changes. Please keep commenting. Knowing that you’re out there and thinking and responding to what I’m writing about means more to me than you can know. New readers, I encourage you to join in on the conversation.

In the interest of keeping all my posts in one place, I’ve also brought most of my “Notes from the Pond” tumblr™ posts in, as well. I’ve edited or revised some of those posts, so that they make more sense contextually and are in keeping with the rest of my posts.

I’ve finally written a real “About” page. I encourage regular and new readers to check it out, as it is intended to give you some insight into who I am, and what I’m all about, as well as some long overdue information about Pine Meadow Pond.

For those of you interested in such things, I’m using WordPress 3.0 with a customized Thesis theme.

The tall tale I’ve quoted at the top of this post is from Fannie Flagg’s 1987 novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistle Stop Café. The image of that lake being flown over the land by a flock of ducks has stayed with me since I first read the novel. I’m reminded of it each year when this pond freezes over, and the last of the Canada geese leave.

The novel tells a quirky, richly drawn story, full of idiosyncratic characters; I highly recommend it. The film is also quite good, with a stellar cast that includes Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy.

If the cooler weather we’ve been having lately persists, and we have a regular New England autumn, it won’t be that long — a couple of months, maybe — before Pine Meadow Pond does freeze. For now, though, I intend to enjoy every minute of one of my favorite times of the year.

Towanda!

Tagged as: autumn, ducks, Fried Green Tomatoes, new home, tools, WordPress