A lull? How?

[altivo]

On a Wednesday? During Summer Reading Club? I think it's the weather. Severe thunderstorm watch, and that yellow-gray sky that makes one wonder just what is coming, combined with heat, humidity, and almost no breeze.

Turns out that earlier there were two severe thunderstorm warnings for the county, but the weather radio didn't go off. Both storms passed south of the library, perhaps right over my house.

I did get tomato plants and a few peppers set out this morning before the bugs managed to eat me. They were getting too spindly under the artificial lights. Hopefully it didn't hail on top of them this afternoon.

Tess was out in the pasture while I was gardening, and she was eager to go back in long before I was ready to take her. Bugs. I sprayed her, of course, and put roll-on stuff on her face, plus a fly mask (which she really doesn't like, but tolerates.) The mosquitos were still at her the moment we got out there. When we finished the tomatoes I took her back in, it was just too cruel. I had two kinds of repellent on myself, which seemed to work for the mosquito breed but not for those little striped flies that bite like the dickens, right through your clothes sometimes. I hope the tomatoes and peppers are worth it.

Summer Reading has boosted the library's turnaround on books to the point that we can't keep up with shelving them and there is a large backlog waiting to go back onto the shelf. The problem is those children's books. You know, the skinny ones. Since they have to read a certain number of books each week in order to claim their "prize," many pick the skinniest books they can find. Honestly, the whole process is a sham. Another hour till closing, I hope it stays quiet till then...

Comments

[hgryphon.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with a quota on number of books read. Maybe you should suggest it be the number of pages read instead?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

They actually set their own quota and sign a little contract to that effect. They can state it in pages, or books, or hours of reading per week. This is really a parent-supervised program. We don't get involved in enforcement.

[hgryphon.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's different then...

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Its great your creaking at the seams trying to keep up with books,
no matter what they are. Especially kids books, thats a wonderful
thing if you gotta work to keep the kids in books.

Tess and spray and roll on and a mask for 'sqitos.
Somehow that part of horses escaped me, though it makes a lot
of sense that they get bit up and annoyed with the little nasties
as much as we do.

And storms! I love storms...I don't like cleaning up after a really
bad one, but there is a certain feeling you get, safe and snug in
your house, your bed, and wild wind and thunder outside.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I don't mind thunderbooms and lightning flashes, though I want all my radio equipment disconnected when they hit.

On the other paw, it's haying time, and we need more hay. Rain ruins it. And I don't want hail on my tomato plants either.

Bug bites are a big problem for horses in the heat of the summer. Mosquitos and flies both. Nothing that is safe is really effective, but I won't use the nasty chemicals. Tess likes to be sprayed with the hose when it gets really hot, but this week we've only been around 80F with humidity.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Yeah, unfortunetly the stuff that really kills off
the bugs is, at best, slightly toxic.

But the hose sounds good to me too, I'll ride
Tess and you can spray us both.

*Tess shakes her head*

Oh okay.

^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, she'll let you ride, but no spurs allowed.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

If there is a level less than Zero for ability to
ride horses, I'm at that level.

Spurs are for kinky bedtime stuff, not horses.

XD

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

you know, those programs annoy the shit out of me. i'd join them every year, and i'm reading 200-300 page books, and i'd never win, because other kids would read 50 page books. i could have down two or three a day if i did those as a kid, and it annoyed the hell out of me that they got away with it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It annoys me too, and I'd just dump the whole thing if it were up to me but it's not. There's no competition in our program though. No scoring, no prizes for "reading the most" or anything like that. Everyone gets the same thing as long as they meet the contract they wrote for themselves. Sometimes there are prizes given out on a random drawing, but that's all.

I'm generally opposed to the idea of bribing kids to read. I don't think it works well, and in some cases it just encourages them to cheat.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

What is the reading week like at the moment? What are the public reading at the moment. I am wanting to track down a copy of Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We". Partly as research material for my own dystopian story.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

At the moment? It's dead quiet. (The library is closed on Thursday mornings, yay.) Summer reading is producing record turnouts, however, that's just the primary school kids for the most part, fighting over copies of Captain Underpants and other such crap. Tomorrow we are closed for Independence Day, thank goodness.

As for what the public are reading, it's not much better than that. Cheap mysteries and romance novels, political diatribe, Stephen King and James Patterson.

I never heard of Zamyatin before, but it looks like he should be easy to find. Worldcat.org shows nearly 2000 copies in libraries, mostly in the US. There have been at least 25 editions or reprints of the English language translation.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Captain Underpants

Sounds like literary dynamite. :D

As for Zamyatin; he's not famous, but is like a Russian Orwell. "We" is set ni a city made entirely out of glass. They have abolished the concept of privacy.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Literary dynamite?

No, that would be Walter the Farting Dog (also excessively popular with that age group.)

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

You're having me on now. :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I wish I were. It's real enough.