Out Came the Sun and Melted all the Snow

With apologies to the Itsy Bitsy Spider, we are on kind of a roller coaster with the weather here. This morning it rained; tomorrow will be sunny and 60s; Thursday it will rain, etc. The pictures on this blog were taken before the Sunday morning snow. The apricot pink hyacinths always surprise me. They come up next to a clump of crocus foliage and start blooming before I know they are there.

The daffodils were at the top of their game. The snow really flattened them but today the bed is dominated by yellow. The white flowers were too fragile for the cold and have all dried up. But we have more varieties coming into flower even as I write.

The goldfinches are molting and visiting the thistle feeder by the back window fairly often. I keep trying to get a good picture but so far all I have are a series of yellow blurs. The grackles took over the other feeder so we have let it stay empty. The cardinals, sparrows and other birds seem to be finding enough forage on their own. We give them all fresh water daily which seems to be a key to having birds visit the yard.

I haven't blogged as much because I've been playing with fabric. I'm finishing a baby quilt, putting the binding on a twin size quilt, and working myself up to try machine quilting with a fancy new foot I ordered for my very basic Kenmore sewing machine. I'll post pictures when I finish. Norm is doing his best to cope with spring allergies. The hardwood trees are in bloom and they seem to get to him. (I used to have an elm allergy, and then I was OK until the pine trees and locust trees released their pollen. There aren't enough elms around to bother me any more, but the first week of May, I'd better watch out for the others. Oak pollen, too, irritates both of us and guess what we have in the front yard? We'll know it's blooming when the entire asphalt driveway turns bright yellow!)

Our friend Dave, aka The Persnickety Crafter (TPC) is working his magic on some small repairs around the house this week. He has finished the ceiling in the downstairs powder room, where earlier he took out a piece of moldy drywall and stopped a slow leak coming from a vent pipe. He also has installed a handrail for the basement stairs and is getting ready to put new rubber stair treads on those stairs, since the old ones were brittle and hole-y. Then he'll install a new handrail to extend the one that is already on part of the first flight of the stairs to the second floor--there is a gap in railings and we often have to juggle and reach for the other side. Now that we are getting a little older, we like to have something to hold on to. Eventually there will be a coat of paint on the new installations and the basement steps, too. So that's what we are into right now.

Definitely an Oatmeal Morning

Well, the snow did come overnight, starting sometime after midnight and being done by 5 a.m. (I got up and peeked out the windows about then.) The photo above is our street heading south, as we drove to church this morning. Because the temperature never dropped below 34, the snow started melting as soon as it hit. We had about 3 inches, but by 2 p.m. in the sunshine, hardly a flake was left anywhere. The trees in flower--the Bradford Pears, the Saucer Magnolias (aka Tulip Trees) and some incipient redbuds--all seemed to take their snow dusting well.

This was the back yard about 9 a.m. Our lovely line of daffodils (seen on a better day last week in the photo below) were laid out flat. By 3 p.m. they had recovered a bit but they may not stand up straight again this season.


Before we go to bed at night, we have a conversation about what we'll have for breakfast the next day. Norm is usually the breakfast cook, and he likes to have something in mind before he goes to sleep. In the warm months, the choices are usually dry cereal, or waffles with fresh fruit, or eggs of some kind (usually boiled or scrambled). Winter choices are oatmeal, waffles with frozen fruit thawed out (blueberries are great), baked grits with cheese, biscuits and gravy, omelet, or baked eggs. Last night we agreed on oatmeal. With today's gloomy sky, decorative snow, and brisk north wind, it definitely WAS an oatmeal morning.

Note: I see from SiteMeter and the Comments that Our favorite Blogademic is back in Florida from the trip to Portland. Glad you made it. Sometimes a blog is just as good as one of those fancy GPS tracking chips!

The Weather Outside

For two days we have been hearing about The Big Snow that is coming. It was in Denver, then in Kansas and Oklahoma. Yesterday, I even canceled an appearance at a retreat for women in the center of Missouri because I became convinced that we would all be snowed in by this afternoon. Well, the day came and went and the snow still lingered to the west of us. Lucky for the women at the retreat who went ahead and trusted their instincts, unlike me, who believed only my fears. But the snow to the West has been amazing. Niece Debbie B in Hutchinson, KS has photos of the nearly 20 inches they received on her blog, Updates from Hutch. And Cousin Debi has posted photos of the 9 or so inches they received in Tulsa today on Debide's View. I guess tomorrow will be my turn, although we are supposed to get only 2 inches here. Right now, the wind and the rain are starting to pick up outside..... they say the snow will be here at midnight and last until about 4 a.m. I guess I'll go to bed and listen to the patter of rain on the air conditioner and the swish of tires in the street and see if I can tell what's going on by the changes in the sounds.

Congratulations to the Blogademic Among Us

Just a short program note: our Doug is in Portland, Ore. this weekend at the NEA Higher Education Conference, where last night he received one of their three awards for excellence. He was given complimentary registration for and transportation to the conference, as well as a nice check. It is the Young Scholar Award for his article, "Scholarly Voice and Professional Identity in the Internet Age," which appeared in the Fall 2008 journal Thought and Action. Today he gave a workshop presentation "Confessions of a Blogademic," in which he shared his experiences as a professor who also blogs about a subject he is passionate about--Southern Gospel--and how it has influenced his teaching and research, sometimes in unexpected ways. Of course we are just tickled pink about all of it. Doug's blog, averyfineline, is linked on this page under "Blogs I Read," if you are interested.

Jack T Vaughn: Pastor and Friend

The letter was postmarked Pittsburg, Kansas, and the return address was that of the daughter of a friend who lived there. I knew what was inside even before I opened it. "It is with sadness that I write," Vicki began. I thought of all of the letters like that I wrote a decade or so ago to the people in my mother's address book and on her Christmas card list--the old friends she still communicated with once a year or so, for auld lang syne as it were.

The Rev. Jack T Vaughn is the minister who performed our marriage in August of 1968. He was the campus minister for Disciples at the college where Norm and I both taught. Funny and practical, Jack impressed upon us during our pre-wedding counseling that he didn't want any do-overs. Once he married us, we were married for good, he said. Later Jack held several posts with the National Council of Christians and Jews, in Wichita and Atlanta and back in Wichita again. He was a chaplain for the Civil Air Patrol for 50 years. When a tornado damaged Wichita in the 1990s, Jack coordinated the ecumenical task force that brought aid to the victims. Jack took his faith out into the street, sidewalk, and meeting place every day. Norm and I remained "Christmas Letter Friends" with Jack and his wife Mary for almost 40 years. A couple of times we had lunch with them when traveling through Wichita or attending a church convention. We were fortunate to heed our intuition and pay them a visit in Pittsburg after Thanksgiving in 2004, a few months before Mary passed away. When we planned our 40th anniversary last summer, we contacted Jack to let him know we were thinking about him, and that we had managed to stay married at least that long. He wasn't able to make the trip to St. Louis for the party; he was nearly 84 at the time. But he challenged us to make it another 40. Vicki said Jack had died on February 15 of this year, after suffering a fall and developing pneumonia. We had received his Christmas letter and in hindsight I realize I never sent him a response or one of ours.

Jack's devotion to his family, his unwavering commitment to interfaith cooperation and service in God's name, his humor and his deep-down trust were important anchors for us when we were young and trying to develop our own faith, both in God and in each other. Jack, we hope we made you proud. The light is a little dimmer without you.

The photo with this post is of a plaque I encountered on a labyrinth walk at Mercy Center during our quilting retreat there in February. I went on the walk alone, contemplating some uncertainty about my health and some concerns about what at this point in my life I should be doing. The revelation that has stayed with me is the inscription on this plaque.

My strength
is trust;
I trust
that God
is in me.
I trust
that my work
is holy.
Out of this trust
I live.

I'm sure that Jack trusted the strength of God and from the many stories shared by his family and his friends, his work was surely holy. Rest in peace, dear mentor and friend, and thank you.

Waiting Out the Storm Forecast

This year one of the earliest flowers to show up under the backyard maple has been the periwinkle blue hardy vinca vine. I captured these about a week ago and there are more of them now, as well as clouds of daffodils. This afternoon we are supposed to get strong storms and high winds, so I hope the flowers aren't battered too badly. At least there is no freezing weather forecast in this next week.

I've spent a lot of time playing with the computer today, working on church finances and updating the Compton Heights CC web site which is now named Compton Rising Still although its URL hasn't changed. It can be reached via the link under "My Blogs" on the right sidebar. Norm and I hope to go to the Soul Care spirituality group tonight if the weather cooperates.

The Pitter Patter of Many Web Hits

Do you know the mystery plant that is blooming in the picture? It's actually a boxwood, a broad leafed evergreen, that was planted in our back yard by the previous owner. This is the first year I have noticed this small border bush blooming. Norm and I were picking up branches and clearing out flower beds a few days ago and I was struck by a seriously sweet scent. When I traced it, it was coming from these very unimportant-looking flowers.

Today Norm went to Book Club but I spent about 6 hours with some women from my Quilt Guild working on charity quilts. I forgot to take the camera but I'll try to get some photos of them up after the April guild meeting, when we hope to show some of them off. This evening we went for a walk around our block just at twilight. The elm, maple and sweet gum trees all have tiny flowers on them. The more showy star magnolias are blooming, right on time. They almost always blossom right with the equinox! The air was full of clucks and peeps from a host of robins, all trying to set up their territories for the spring nesting season.

As for the title of this piece: I am always amused and enthralled when I get one of those "next blog" Google runs, just after posting a new entry on the blog. Yesterday after I put up the "Officially Spring" post, about 30 people from all around the world (including India, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Israel and Saudi Arabia) clicked on Home Stories in the space of 15 minutes. Then the run stopped. But it's nice for the visitor count, and several of them looked at more than one page before clicking off. So, Home Stories has an international readership. Kind of like the sound of that!

Officially Spring

Well, we did it. We survived another winter! For the first time in many years, Spring has arrived on a sunny, calm day. It's cold this morning but should approach 60 by the afternoon. The daffodils by the driveway continue their show of sunny, nodding heads. Out back this morning, a wren is singing to mark his territory. Some grackles are fighting over our feeder, which is supposed to be rigged so they can't get seed out of it. From here, I see green leaves budding on the lilac, so flowers will follow soon. On Wednesday, Norm seeded the entire yard with Arch Grounds mixture and slow-release fertilizer. That night we got a gentle, 30-point rain and everything already looks greener. We find new buds and emerging plants each day, and the lettuce seed Norm planted a couple of weeks ago is sprouting, too. Over at the University, students will be on spring break next week, and I hear on the grapevine that the newspaper students I formerly advised are once again plotting a satire issue for April Fools Day. Garden centers are starting to open. We are looking forward to the opening of Ferguson Farmers Market on the first Saturday of May. I have added the market's link to my Favorite Web Sites at right. It is updated regularly so check it frequently. (We are lucky enough to be in the same exercise classes as Kathy the market manager, so we often get the inside scoop!) Although the market isn't open yet, I saw some pansies for sale the other day at Branneky Hardware. I just may have to go get some. Welcome to Spring. We hope your day is beautiful, wherever you are!

Field Trip to The Butterfly House

Friday, March 13: Finally! After a couple of weeks of trying, we managed to find a time when we could go with Mike and Sandy to the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, which opened in 1998. It became part of the Missouri Botanical Garden in 2001. Some 80 tropical butterfly and 150 plant species are exhibited. It is located in Faust Park in Chesterfield, one of the western suburbs of St. Louis. The park also contains historic buildings and a working carousel.

Update on 3/18/09: Today I got a letter from The Butterfly House. They returned my MBG membership card, which I apparently lost while I was there. What class and customer service!

The Butterfly House contains many interpretive exhibits, a theatre, and a gift shop but the most distinctive feature is the spacious conservatory that exhibits tropical butterflies. Norm and Mike posed for me after we had basked in 80-degree warmth on a 40-degree day.


You have to enter the conserv- atory through double doors that are designed to keep the two thousand or so fluttering residents inside. The moist warmth immediately fogged our camera lenses, just as Mike, Norm and I all tried to focus on a specimen of the featured Blue Morpho species that was resting on an orchid blossom just inside the entrance. Norm got this shot with the "old" Olympus. Mike's Nikon D40 was fogged for about 10 minutes and all I got with the Canon SX110 was a closeup of a blue blur, but my lens did clear up pretty fast. Meanwhile, we listened to the squeals of some 60 grade school children who arrived on a field trip!

Lens cleared up and this is one of the interior views inside the conservatory. Winding paths take you past all kinds of vegetation and flowers attractive to butterflies, and feeding stations with slices of fruit were everywhere. Every few steps there was a bench or a rock wall where one could just sit and enjoy the blur of wings. Imagine what a great place it would be to meditate on some other day than field trip day!

One thing that surprised us was how unafraid of humans the butterflies were, and also how curious they were. This black and white Paper Kite butterfly became fascinated with Norm's camera. Later it explored his hand and his fingers--something must have seemed tasty. "It tickles!" Norm said just before I took this picture.

Mike's camera also attracted this fast flying fellow that I think is a Clipper from Southeast Asia although it never would light completely still so we could get a clear photo of all of its wings.






It was common to feel butterflies brush against our hair, and they frequently lit on our shirts and arms as well. One of the Blue Morphos is resting with its wings folded on a branch just behind and to the right of Sandy's head. Most of the children we saw in the greenhouse with their teachers and parents seemed curious and respectful of the butterflies, although one or two seemed terrified and screamed each time a "bug' fluttered near them--which in this place happens often!

Our adventure in the conservatory lasted about an hour, and then we decided we had had enough tropical warmth for the day. Afterwards we went to lunch at First Watch in Chesterfield and came home the back way through Maryland Heights, driving past the Missouri American water purification plant where our drinking water, extracted from the Missouri River, comes from. The post immediately below has more views of some of the exotic winged creatures that we enjoyed.

Beautiful Visitors from the Tropics

Friday, March 13--The Tropical Conservatory at the Butterfly House was filled with thousands of fluttering wings. The main attraction was the release of Blue Morphos (a resting one is above) that are native to Costa Rica. Most of the Blue Morphos were too excited to light, since they had emerged just that day. But some finally rested.

What do you feed a captive butterfly? Well, if you have a greenhouse full of Blue Morphos, you can offer them banana slices. Dishes like this were scattered throughout. The underside of the wings are spotted in a distinctive pattern.

Now I am really grateful for the new camera, as it was possible to get closeups like this one of a Blue Morpho feeding.




The second most common species in the conserv- atory on Friday were the Paper Kites from Malaysia and the Philippines. These butterflies are the same on top and bottom, unusual for most of the species here. This is the same one that is exploring Norm's hand in the first post.







Somehow I messed up and loaded several pictures on the right side instead of alternating them. These black and white beauties were found resting throughout the conservatory. The identification guide says this is a Sailor that also hails from Malaysia. Seeing them made me think of zebras.


Two different species rested side by side near one of the educational stations for children to check their worksheets. Neither of them appears on my identification guide and I have no idea what they are. But they are so lovely!

Norm caught this bright visitor at rest with our old Olympus and it looks pretty good! This is another species that doesn't appear in the identification guide, unfortunately. This is the only one like it that either of us saw during the hour we were inside.





Only one moth, the Atlas Moth from Malaysia, resides at The Butterfly House. The guide doesn't explain why. But I had to try a closeup using my macro of one wing, which was bathed in sunlight while the other one was in shadow. We loved our time in the tropics, short as it was.

Norm Gets a Waggy Welcome

I had just gotten the batteries and memory card into my new camera this afternoon, and figured out how to turn it on in Auto mode when Norm came home from some errands. So I went outside and took some quick, unedited photos of him walking toward the house.








Next thing we knew, Barb and Ava came home from a walk and Ava rushed up to greet her favorite neighbor. She even sat, briefly, on command for the picture. Ava is recovered from her upset last weekend and actually will stay with us on Saturday while Barb helps out with a benefit for her cousin, who is in treatment for leukemia. Never a dull moment around here.

A Tale of Two Cameras

Two different days, two different cameras. The photo at right was taken on Tuesday when the little daffodils beside the house basked in the 80-degree weather. It was taken with the trusty Olympus we have had for 5 or more years, our first digital. (Full disclosure: I had already tweaked this in iPhoto for sharpness and exposure.)

Today I found a Canon SX110 on sale at a good price and snapped it up for its long zoom (10x optical) and image stabilization (which I haven't yet found out how to turn on.) A few more of these hardy flowers were blooming despite the high of 36 degrees today. (This image is as taken without any iPhoto embellishments, so the comparison is not exactly fair.) I'm looking forward to learning how to use my new toy and improving my photos.

Wall Story: On Time, On Budget, Done

Well, the Wall Project is finished. Although we had hard rain last night, the crew had covered everything with tarps. They arrived early and had finished everything, including new sod above the top of the wall, by 12:30 p.m. today.

So far we have received several compli- ments from neighbors. We will plant a shade garden in the lower beds as soon as it warms up a bit. It was 25 degrees this morning, after a high of 80 yesterday! We will gladly recommend the builder, John Baker of Metro Retaining Walls, if you need such work for your landscape. They use quality materials and conduct themselves very professionally. John said the job would take 2-1/2 days and his crew delivered, even with overnight rains. The project was definitely an investment but at this point, we are pleased with the performance.

Under Construction

Yesterday morning a crew of four or five hearty young guys arrived with shovels, picks, pallets of stone and a pile of gravel to start transforming the space formerly occupied by a crumbling railroad tie wall. While they were on lunch break today I snapped these photos. The first one shows an almost complete terrace wall by the driveway. The yard at top will be leveled and the terrace planter will let us re-plant a bulb and shade garden for passers by to enjoy.

This is intensive physical hand labor and I can't imagine how these guys' backs feel at night. Each block weighs between 25 and 75 pounds. The north end of the terrace should be finished before the storms roll in this afternoon, they say. The tarps will cover everything over night.

Another view of the terrace on the north half of the yard. The blocks standing on end are cap stones that will be put in place with cement when the second tier is in place.

A project like this also involves neighbors, since the tie wall abutted Mr. Guy's driveway on the north. They have been very understanding and said they didn't mind; they have had their cars on the street every morning. This morning, Norm said the first truck arrived while it was still dark outside and he had to scramble to get OUR cars on the street!


Lunch break ended and the crew was back at work, starting to fill in the slope behind the new wall. So far there have been no surprises from their digging, but I think a few thousand ground-dwelling hornets that used to live in this hill have been terribly inconvenienced. The man in the black shirt is the senior member of this crew, and he thinks they will finish the north wall, and the rest of the job, tomorrow.

A Little Bit of Spring

It's not yet spring but the sunshine and warmer weather over the weekend has brought up the crocus in the front flower beds. The purples were almost smothered under some mulch but Norm uncovered them last Wednesday and yesterday, they were all busy sun worshipping.

These yellow crocus are from the terrace above the "wall" by the front walk. Norm dug them up Thursday when we got a call that the crew from Metro Retaining Walls would be here Friday to begin removing the old rotted railroad ties. We hope we can re-set all of the bulbs after the construction is done this coming week. We also dug up the hostas from that area last fall and have over-wintered them in the back border. With luck, we can re-set them before they start to sprout. We will be curious to see how the wall progresses. It's a major investment so we are keeping our fingers crossed.

This past week was busy. I had physical therapy for my shoulder, then got the results of an MRI I had a couple of weeks ago on my neck. Looks like neck therapy is next. Here's hoping it can help mitigate the effects of arthritis and, well, generally getting older. We also kept Ava the neighbor dog this past week and she had a setback of intestinal illness that Barb thought she was over. We eventually took her to her vet when blood showed up where it shouldn't be. After a shot to calm her insides, an infusion to hydrate her, and a new bland food, she was much better. Barb came home Friday night and by today, Ava is bouncing like she was never sick.

I also attended the third baby shower in 5 weeks on Saturday. I am so happy for all of these young women. DebE's baby girl arrived on Feb. 21; Jeanne's is due April 12 and MIchelle's is due April 10. My knitting fingers and quilt stitching fingers are getting a workout, and the therapy schedule leaves me with less time than I would like to devote to these projects!

Norm is finally feeling over his bronchial/sinus infection that plagued him for about 5 weeks. Of course, now the maple trees are in bloom so he is sneezing and has an itchy throat. We are keeping Elaine B. in our prayers this week as she goes back to Tulsa for another chemo treatment. We know several others in this situation and we have thoughts and prayers for them as well.

Orchid Show 2009

On Sunday after church we took our annual winter trip to the Missouri Botanical Garden while the Orchid Show was still on display. The Garden owns thousands of orchids in its collection, which began in the middle of the 19th century, not long after Henry Shaw established the Garden. And no, that's not a lady slipper; it's an orchid.

The Garden's airy Ridgeway Center is the perfect showcase for the annual show. This year the central feature was a fountain, surrounded by benches where you could just sit and soak in the beauty if you got tired of standing. We made three circuits of the displays and also sat a while.

We could say, these are not your mother's orchids.. or mine, for that matter. Most of us pre-boomers think of the huge purple or white cattaleya orchids that were the prom corsage of our youth. But there are so many species, so many colors, so many sizes. Some, like these at right, have a large lower petal or pouty lip.



These could be corsage orchids, from their frilly form. I love those contrasting yellow throats.




Back to the lady slipper type. These were most unusual for their top petal, which forms a funnel into the rest of the bloom, and then gradually unfurls to be flat. I can imagine these dining on insects in the jungle somewhere.

Spots defined this unusual form. I forgot to take down its particulars. But the top, side and lower petals are all flat, not frilly, and I wish my hands hadn't shook the camera and blurred it.


The warm colors of some species always intrigues me, since I grew up with cool colored orchids as the norm. Orange, yellow, bronze orchids seem even more exotic, and they glow like sunbeams in the display.

On the other hand, lavender and white have a purity that's hard to ignore. These blooms are of the "big cheek" type with larger side petals. Norm said these made him think of nuns peeking out of the foliage to see what all the fuss was about.

The staff does a tremendous job of displaying hundreds of orchids in a setting that includes other tropical greens and Spanish moss. We had a lovely lunch in the garden cafe, enjoyed the orchids, bought some things at the garden shop, and came home happily for a delayed Sunday afternoon nap as the sun was about to set. The Missouri Botanical Garden is a must-see for visitors as well as locals. We have been members for years, and enjoy the garden in all seasons.