Home Stories

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T20:16:00.003-06:00

Christmas 2011 will be remembered for its warmth (as in mild temperatures and lack of snow--at least until the dusting we received on the 27th.) It will also be warmly remembered for some good gatherings that we enjoyed as well as a few that we had to miss when we were battling the Rhinovirus from, well, you know. As I write this we are on Round 3 of the battle with no real end in sight. Norm is getting the worst of it right now but as of today we have reinforcements.... antibiotics to the rescue since he clearly has a lung infection. Nevertheless, since early December, our door has been ready to receive visitors whenever we were up to it.

The Compton Heights CC Rising Reading Book Circle held its December meeting at our house, and everyone enjoyed the potluck brunch and discussion of 84 Charing Cross Road. Clockwise, from the left: Madeline, Brenda, Chris, Marsha, Norm, Liz, Devin, Kathy and Sarah. Missing is Janice, who is still recovering from serious surgery.

Winter sun throws long shadows, making it hard to get a photo of the west side of the house. It was also to get outside photos of anything, as we had many cloudy, rainy days. The sun came out on this particular afternoon and I ran outside, camera in hand, before it could change its mind!

Norm has such a great decorating imagination. He found some older plant sprays I was planning to donate to a good cause and worked them in with our traditional greenery and red bows to create focal points on the front porch. It has looked kind of lonely on the porch since all of the houseplants moved inside, back in November.

I could not resist pansies back when Thies Farm was still selling them in October. These guys welcome us every time we drive up the driveway, and an equally sprightly contingent of them holds forth in the back. They took this morning's inch of wet snow in stride and looked about as good as this when I got home from errands today.

Before we took to ailing, we had a fabulous 3 days in Kansas City with Nancy and John Sanders. They came in from Colby to attend a madrigal dinner/concert directed in part by their daughter Jamea, and an Allegro Holiday concert that their granddaughter Katie was singing in. We ate, visited, broke speed limits to get to concerts on time, visited and ate some more, and also got to see their son Shad and son-in-law John as well. We had a great time. Two days later after we got home, the Rhinovirus struck, but we aren't blaming it on KC!

With the outside decorated, I started getting the inside ready for our book club guests and hopefully others. The entire mantel and book case is taken up with some 17 or 18 nativities, but the centerpiece is always my mother's traditional one. With a couple of nontraditional additions....

The piano showcases my dad's handmade O-gauge train year round, but at Christmas my 21 Santas invade the property as well. This 1922 Story and Clark also makes a handy display case for the many Christmas cards we received, most of them with lovely notes or long letters. And we will answer them, every one. At least by Valentine's Day!

The Santa at left, the sleigh with presents, the two white reindeer and the little cardboard house with the trees around it were my mother's pride and joy. Daddy made the sleigh and bag for the presents. Mother purchased the rest, before I was born.

The little gray house, car and outhouse are part of the scene my dad was building for his train set. It looks like Santa has left some presents here. My other Santas were gifts or else I collected them on travels or at craft shows. A few years ago I decided I should stop and savor the ones I have instead of adding more. That feels about right...they all fit in one box and any more would require a bigger box... and we all know what happens when you need a bigger box, or house, or barn.....

I think we put everything on the Christmas Tree this year. No white and gold Victorian theme....use them all! Norm did most of the decorating when I was busy getting ready for my December Circle meeting and Quilt Guild party, which came the same week as the Book Club Brunch. Do you suppose that all of that partying had anything to do with the relapses?

By night, the tree glows with white lights and takes on a whole different personality. It reflects in the French doors and the reflection also shines from the East windows in the sunroom at the other end of the house. When I was little I dreamed of living in a big house with room for a tall tree. Here we have 9-foot ceilings so I got my wish. At Christmas I am sometimes overwhelmed by remembering the love and the care that went into the Christmases of my childhood and by the realization that Norm and I are still making memories to share as we ourselves grow older. We love Christmas and always observe the traditional 12 days of Christmas, marking the arrival of the Wise Men on January 6 and holding a candlelight vigil on 12th night. So the house won't be back to "normal" until some time in January. Or February..... We hope everyone who reads this had a good Christmas and we are praying for a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year for everyone in 2012!

Harvest Home

2011-11-29T21:43:00.001-06:00

If you follow my FaceBook page, you have read a lot of references this past growing season to the "50 sqft Farm." We rented a 5x10-foot plot at a community garden about a mile from our house. It provided sunshine that our lovely shaded yard just cannot muster. We planted our first crop--radishes--in mid-April. We harvested our last crop on garden closing day Nov. 12. One of the community projects was making signs--this was ours.

Wayside is a completely organic garden, and everyone is encouraged to grow plants from seed and to try heirloom vegetables. We started these cherry tomato plants and some sweet banana pepper plants at home. Grandma Alice Linville's milk pan provided a convenient vessel to keep the seedlings together while they hardened on our porch in the cold rainy days we had in May.

Our first harvest was of radishes. These were picked on May 18. There were three rows so we had radishes for almost a month in the cool rainy weather. As the radishes came out, we sowed rows of beets. We had put out onion sets when the radishes went in. Toward the end of April we had also set out kohlrabi and chard plants purchased at from our favorite local farm market.

By the third week in May, we harvested our first kohlrabi bulb, and also found lots of chard. We liked the kohlrabi, a relative of cabbage, raw in salads and I also sliced some and cooked it as a layer in veggie-cheese pizza. The chard made delicious greens and also worked instead of spinach in quesadillas and in a different veggie-cheese pizza.

Wayside Garden also plants a "row for the hungry" to grow food to be donated to a local food pantry. We volunteered to help with this part of the mission and on a cold wet May day we mudded in 10 heirloom tomato seedlings grown by a friend. By June 17 they were sturdy and growing strong. This plot was alongside the main "row" and we took responsibility for watering and tending it all season long. In the drought and 100-degree weather of July and August Norm hauled 10 one-gallon jugs of water every other day to keep the plants alive. They survived and yielded many pounds of tomatoes for clients of the food pantry at Our Lady of Guadalupe.

On June 23 Wayside held a Summer Solstice celebration, an evening open house, potluck dessert and soft rock concert at the garden. Norm notes how far the tomatoes and beans in our little plot have managed to grow, while proudly wearing his Wayside T-shirt. By this time the kohlrabi and most onions were done. We were still getting some beets. We had started a zucchini, an cucumber and a yellow squash. All of those would eventually catch wilt and die, but nothing fazed the swiss chard. By this time we had also put the banana pepper plants in on the other side of the beans and tomatoes, and we had added a patch of celery plants just because a pack of them called my name at the farm market one day.

For some reason I thought it would be good to plant blue lake pole beans in a circle around the tomato cages for our Jet Star and cherry tomato plants. At this point in June, they were still all getting along. Eventually the beans won the race to the top, which cut into tomato production...they got too much shade, although that wasn't all bad during the heat wave.

One of our most colorful harvests: July 24. We had been traveling for two weeks in July in Tennessee and Kentucky, and this greeted us when we got home: the last of the beets, first of the banana peppers, first tomatoes, some lovely onions and one whopping zucchini that was very tender. It was to be our only zucchini--the vine died a week later.

In this picture the zucchini plant still looks healthy, but its days are numbered. Meanwhile, the beans and tomatoes are fighting it out and the plant stakes are at risk. Norm found some metal stakes later in August that he used to stabilize the cages so they wouldn't fall over. We did get many pounds of marvelous green beans from these vines that we shared with friends, donated to the food pantry, and ate ourselves several times a week. I can recommend pole blue lakes highly. They are productive and easy to pick. We plan to grow them next year, but on their own supports, to give the tomatoes a break.

We have requested a second plot for next year--it is next to this one and this year one of the garden leaders tried growing peanuts on it. So there should be lots of nitrogen fixed in the soil. Earlier this month we cleared our plot, brought home the stakes, cages and sign, and assessed what did well that we want to grow again. Definitely radishes, beets, onions, chard, and pole beans. We want to add some carrots and parsnips in the mix, and maybe some spinach and a row of snap peas. Kohlrabi was fun, but celery didn't pan out, although we didn't read the growing instructions until late in the game. We did harvest a lot of stalks and leaves that were good in soup and salads. We may skip squash and cucumbers entirely unless we can learn of a natural way to control the bugs that spread the wilt disease. We may try a different tomato variety. The Jet Stars we put in our home garden in the perennial bed did better than the Jet Starts at the farm. We don't know if it was the beans, or something else. Our plot has been put to bed with a layer of manure and a layer of mulch, waiting for opening day in March or April when it can be tilled and we can start over again. Somehow, the "100 sqft Farm" doesn't sound quite as catchy as a name, but we will be happy to give it a try. Eating food that we grew ourselves, even if only part of the time and over part of the year, was a true blessing in 2011.

Visitor 10,000

2011-10-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

For a while now, I've been dreaming of reaching 10,000 visits, but the actual milestone snuck up on me. Yesterday, someone in Huntsville, Ala., acquired that honor. He or she was searching on Google for images of Ft. Sill. That post from several summers ago still brings 'em in!

Full disclosure: I didn't put a counter on my blog until well into the first year--April of 2007. (Thank you, Randy Turner.) So there have been more than 10,000 visitors, probably. And once in a while my own browser changes settings without my knowledge and I inadvertently count myself. So maybe 10,000 is closer to the truth than I think.

Closer to family ties, visitors 9998 and 9999 were two of my dear devoted sisters-in-law, whose ISPs or hometowns I rcognize. Guess I had better get busy with some content so we can work on getting to 20,000 without taking 6 more years to do it!

2011 Travels--Florida Part IV: On the Beach

2011-09-19T00:13:00.001-05:00

On our last night in Florida, back in April, our hosts Doug and Matt took us to Captiva Beach to see the surf, walk on the sand, watch the sunset and have dinner at a legendary restaurant called The Mucky Duck. The surf was up, the tide was coming in, the breeze was brisk, and the sunset was, well, spectacular.

Palms near the restaurant waved in the wind as the setting sun painted the clouds an iconic Florida pink.

As we walked from our car toward the beach, we spied an osprey having his or her supper high in a tree. I love the zoom lens on my Canon point-and-shoot!

There was a 30-minute wait for a table, which was just fine because the changing light on the water and sand drew us to the beach with a mesmerizing, restless view that was hard to leave. We left footprints in the sand and waded in the chilly surf. But mostly we listened to the swoosh of the waves as they came ashore.

The light in the sky reflected in the pulsing water of the Gulf as it scoured the beach. As the sun got lower in the sky, the waves seemed to get taller, and the water took on the rich hue of precious metal: silver, or copper, or gold.

Perhaps the island is named Captiva for the way the play of light and the continual movement of water just captivate the visitor. It became a challenge to see if I could capture the break of a wave as it washed ashore. This was one time it worked.

I've written elsewhere about my love affair with rivers, stalking the headwaters of the Mississippi, etc. But the sea is something else entirely. River levels drop, and lakes can dry up, but the sea just keeps coming. The supply of water is endless; it ebbs and flows but it never subsides. It is the nearest metaphor for eternity that I've been able to come up with.

The air and the sand are alive with myriad creatures who depend on the gifts the sea brings...smaller bits of life...for their sustenance. Many birds were active but none more interesting than the little sandpipers that dart straight out toward the incoming surf, but run back out of harm's way before the undertow can catch them.

As this adventurous sandpiper stalked its dinner in the wet sand beyond the retreating surf, we heard our names called out to go in to the restaurant for dinner. The Mucky Duck serves good food in a jovial atmosphere and it felt good to be inside and out of the cool winds of the beach. Later, after we finished, and Norm had bought a souvenir cap and T-shirt (look for him wearing the cap in the garden or the shirt on a summer day) we went back outside and the sky was dark and full of stars. We went back to the sand but we couldn't see the water any more; it was a moonless night. But we could hear the waves, still coming ashore, although a little less urgently than before. I think the tide was going out.

And thus our 2011 Florida adventure came to a satisfying end, thanks to the ingenuity of these guys. We have many good memories to cherish and remember during the coming fall and winter, and we look forward to another visit to sunny Florida sometime in 2012.

2011 Travels--Florida Part III: Flora and Fauna

2011-08-20T22:19:00.002-05:00

Whenever we are in Florida, I am always on the lookout for birds, flowers, and wildlife. We have now made several trips, so once exotic species, such as the anhinga, or sea oats, are no longer new although I'm always thrilled to see creatures we don't see at home. By April, all of the wild swans in our area have migrated away from the refuges along the Mississippi for nests in the north. I can't find wild swans listed in my Florida bird books at all. But on Sunday after church we went to Coconut Point for lunch and shopping, and I spied a pair of graceful, tame swans on the lake in the shopping center.

While I was stalking the swan, I heard a lot of chattering and singing in a small tree next to the parking lot. This common grackle was singing to another one perched on a branch above, apparently in a courtship display. It didn't seem bothered by my camera or me in such close proximity. It had other things on its mind.

Many tropical and semi-tropical flowers grow on the beautiful grounds around the condo where Doug and Matt live. We took a sunset walk almost every evening to look for dolphins and on one evening this hibiscus was catching the last golden rays of the sun as it sank across the water.

Sea Grape is ubiquitous in Southwest Florida. It grows wild along beaches and it also is used as an ornamental hedge on residential and commercial property. Mature plants bear a grape like fruit in the fall that I read is used to make jam. Never have tried it.

The setting sun turned the trunks of the palms lining the walk along the river to a rusty gold. The fibers are not a true bark. The trunk of a palm, I have read, grows as large as it is going to be before the tree starts to grow vertically. Palms don't have true wood or bark, but the fibers look like they might be useful. I was attracted by the texture, and compared it to the trunk of the native pines, like the one in the next picture.

A contrasting texture is evident on the trunk of the slash pine, common in the Florida flatwoods. This one was growing at the Calusa Nature Center where we went one afternoon to walk a nature trail boardwalk through the woods and swamp, but the swamp was dry.. the rainy season is from around June to November, and this was April. Southwest Florida was also having a dry year. The plates of the bark are scaly and sometimes peel away, kind of like birch bark.

We had visited the Calusa Nature Center once before, in September 2006. (Here is a link to that post.) We went back to see what creatures might be stirring in April, since our previous visit had been in the wet season. It was a humid, sunny afternoon and very little was stirring, so we just enjoyed a quiet walk, just yards away from one of the very busy streets of Ft. Myers.

It was straw hat and and sunscreen weather on this afternoon, though. For some reason Norm kept taking pictures of me. Maybe it was the novelty that I could walk 1.5 miles without passing out or limping!

Despite visits to several wildlife areas in Florida, we had never seen an alligator in the wild. We still haven't, but this male 'gator and his pregnant mate were residing in a pond, behind a chain link fence, at the Calusa Nature Center. He kept on taking his nap while we got as close as possible from above on a walkway to take his picture. Or maybe he was just pretending, hoping we might fall overboard.

The only other creatures we saw moving were small lizards, or anoles, on the boardwalk. This is a brown anole, a species introduced from Cuba. The male has a very flashy orange throat pouch which we saw, but didn't capture it on camera. These reptiles are out-competing the native Florida green anole, a species that is declining. They eat insects and are not poisonous.

Despite the dryness, deep in the forest a bed of ferns was lush and green, still tapping into moisture that had once been a pond. The light plays on the leaves and creates a cool scene on a warm day.

As we left the center to go back to the condo, we saw a bush outside the front entrance covered with these bright coral blooms that were covered by the yellow butterflies. I haven't been able to find the flowers in my handbooks, so I am assuming they are a cultivated species and not a wildflower. They certainly resemble a honeysuckle. The butterflies were a vivid yellow, and insisted on resting in this posture, rather than spreading their wings. They seem to be one of the sulphur butterfly species, possibly the rather inelegantly named Southern Dogface, although they seemed as large as the Cloudless Sulfurs. Clearly I need to brush up on my Lepidoptera!

One major Florida habitat we have not explored is the Everglades. We hope that on a future trip, which will have to be in winter, we can drive down to Everglades National Park south of Naples and perhaps go on an airboat ride for a guided tour. We also are looking forward to a boat ride along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to explore the mango hammocks and other features there.

2011 Travels--Florida Part II: Exploring Downtown Ft. Myers

2011-08-17T22:23:00.005-05:00

Now that it is August in St. Louis, I'm trying to catch up on our travelogs for the year, so here is Florida, Part II. We visited Doug and Matt in Ft. Myers in early April. (Part I is here.) This was our 5th trip to the sunny Southwest Florida Coast since 2006, but except for an excursion on an earlier visit to the Ford and Edison estates, and a brief stop for lunch another year, we had not spent that much time downtown. So one day when Doug was working at the university, Matt took us to the Southwest Florida Museum of History.

Housed in the former Atlantic Coastline Railroad depot, the Museum is home to the history of Southwest Florida. Paleo Indians, the Calusa, the Seminoles, Spanish explorers, and early settlers are just a few of the people we met as we toured the exhibits. This 1929 private Pullman rail car, the Esperanza (Spanish for Hope)is also part of the tour. Since we had never been inside a private train car from the roaring '20s, we climbed aboard.

The Esperanza is an 83-foot 101-ton private rail car that was the height of luxury in its day. It features three state rooms, a lounge, a private dining car and a galley kitchen and servants quarters. One of the state rooms, outfitted with bunk beds, is shown here.

The car is filled with brass fixtures and Cuban mahog- any, and the dining room was outfitted with fine china and crystal.

Norm and Matt explored the replica on the museum grounds of an authentic "cracker" house typical of early settlers in this area. Built in the late 1800s and early 20th century, these homes were single room homes of the early cattlemen dubbed ‘crackers’ for the sound their whips would make when rustling cattle. Their features include sloped roofs (for rain), elevation (for flooding and heat circulation) and front porches. In addition, the museum also houses an extensive artifacts collection detailing early civilization, the Fort, the first settlers, the cattlemen, turn of the century, the military and agriculture, boating and fishing industries in Fort Myers. And it has a special exhibit about Charles Darwin.

After we had stuffed our heads full of local history, we met up with Doug at Daily Chocolate, a local shop downtown, for lunch. We had delicious quiche and sandwiches and, of course, handmade chocolate for dessert.

Downtown is full of quaint 1920s archi- tecture, especially along First Street, and the lovely restored buildings house many businesses and restaurants. We ate a very good dinner in a restaurant housed in this building the first evening we were there.

Palm trees, Spanish grill work, stucco, and street lights create a laid-back ambiance for the monthly downtown art walk. We strolled, window shopped, souvenir shopped, and listened to the music on a very mild evening. All while it was in the 30s back home.

Coral, salmon, and shades resembling pumpkin are part of the local color scheme as well. White trim, arches, and covered sidewalks beckon to pedestrians, both local residents and tourists. We returned to downtown a couple more times for lunch and shopping during our vacation.

This marker (you can click on the image to enlarge it) traces Ft. Myers history from its founding in 1876. The most rapid growth of the town occurred in the 1920s, and royal palms have lined First Street/Palm Beach Boulevard since 1897 in this subtropical climate.

On the fringes of the historic downtown, new construction looms, part of the boom of the first decade of the 21st Century. Office and condominium towers, however, are often only partially occupied, and property values have nosedived. If you have a good supply of cash, you could pick up a bargain in a waterfront condo with a very nice view.

Our next visit was to the Calusa Nature Center, and the next post about Florida will feature some of the flora and fauna we encountered on this visit.

How Does Our [Flower] Garden Grow? Part I

2011-08-09T22:51:00.008-05:00

All winter I dreamed of spring and summer, and what the yard would look like in shades of green instead of gray. It seemed like it would never stop snowing, never stop raining, never turn warm enough to green shoots to arise. But finally they did, although the rains continued in May and June until we thought we were sloshing our way into summer. The back yard is ofen at its most verdant in mid-May, and this photo taken on May 18 shows it off.

An early sign of spring is of course the azaleas. Ours were full of blooms this year, even though I forgot to give them Miracid last year. The hydrangea is just starting to put out a few leaves on last year's stems. We found out the hard way that it won't bloom at all the next year if we cut it down in the fall.

May also brought roses. The pink Carefree ones are not entirely carefree-- they tend to develop black spot in the humid summer, but in the spring they were lush and glowing.

The yellow rose is a re-bloomer, but the first blossoms are often the largest, and the most pest-free. This year in July, as last year, this bush became a banquet for Japanese Beetles. As I write this in August, the beetles have finished their business and we are hoping for more blooms in September.

One of our favorite perennials is this red and cream columbine. It blooms for a long time and this year lasted well into the hot weeks. We hope it reseeds and comes up again.

As summer began to take hold in June, we decided to add some vinca plants to the flower bed in the wall by the front walk. Norm carefully set each little plant in between the fading bulb foliage, using the bulb planter. At this time the scorching heat had not yet arrived, the grass was growing as fast as you could mow it, and foliage was everywhere. It was a lovely time, before insects appeared and the rain clouds dried up.

The first planters we set out on the porch had these sprightly violas, or Johnny Jump Ups as they are sometimes known. After it got hot, we replaced them with vinca in shades of rose and pink, and those are still going strong. Every year we welcome the day when the front porch can become an extension of living space. It's a place to drink morning coffee and read the paper on the shady side of the house, a spot to watch the hummingbirds divebomb each other for control of the feeder, a refuge at evening for listening at first to silence, then the cicadas in June, and the tree frogs starting around the 4th of July. All of that happened this year, and then the Big Heat arrived.

How Does Our [Flower] Garden Grow? Part II

2011-08-09T22:49:00.002-05:00

As spring turned into summer, our yard gave us many lovely vistas as we welcomed back the familiar plants that we have enjoyed for some 10 years. By the middle of June, we had received tons of rain and everything in the yard was lush and blooming abundantly. These day lilies greeted our neighbors every time they took to their driveway.

At the side of the front flower beds, these wonderful white volunteer lilies made a spectacular display this year. Various daylilies also surrounded them.

The strip by the side of our driveway was full to the brim this year with coneflowers and purple hosta blossoms. By late July and August, these became a feast for the goldfinches.

In the back yard, lilies and hostas framed the birdbath that attracted many starlings as well as sparrows, robins, grackles and the occasional squirrel.

Hostas were abundant by the front steps between Flag Day and the 4th of July!

Daylily "Judith" graced the front bed for what seemed like a very short time!

As I write this in August, these flowers are mostly a memory now, and the hot 100+ temperatures for 10 days in late July and early this month have dried out the grass, stressed the trees and remaining plants. We are carrying water to the vegetable garden and running up the water bill by running our hoses on the flower beds at home. But there is still great delight when, as I did tonight, I can go outside and sit on the porch, listen to the cicadas, eat ice cream, and feel the evening fall gently on our precious gift of home.

Missing

2011-08-08T00:56:00.000-05:00

I have missed blogging. Facebook takes a lot of time, but I am going to try to make time for blogging again. I have lots of photos and experiences to share. I will be back soon!

A new way to post

2011-04-17T01:35:00.001-05:00

I am trying out a new service called Pixel Pipe for uploading messages to this blog from my iPad. We will see if this works!

2011 Travels--Florida Part I: On the Banks of the Caloosahatchee

2011-04-09T21:53:00.014-05:00

Our spring vacation in Southwest Florida began with a flight to Ft. Myers and a drive to the new riverfront home of Doug and Matt in the Riviera tower. They live on the 11th floor and enjoy a view to the Southwest of downtown and the broad estuary of the Caloosahatchee River, which runs from Lake Okeechobee in the Everglades to the Gulf of Mexico.

The first evening the five of us (Doug, Matt, us and the poodle Sam) took a walk along the seawall about sunset, when the air had cooled and the air was fresh. We loved the views at first glimpse.

A significant archit- ectural feature is the arching twin spans of the Business 41 highway bridge from downtown to North Ft. Myers. Every morning and evening we saw a different scene as the light played on the water in various slants and hues.

One evening on our walk we actually spotted some dolphins feeding near the seawall. They were too quick, and the light was too low, to capture the images. But it was the first time either of us had seen a live dolphin outside of a TV show or a movie, and it was a thrill.

Palm trees say "Florida" or "tropics" more clearly than anything. These were part of the landscaping at the Riviera and they framed the sky well. There was more interesting vegetation and lovely flowers that I'll include in a later post.

The building boom that went bust in Florida in 2008 is evident in the many empty apart- ments, houses and condos in this area. One casualty was evident in a development just north of the Riviera, where an array of boat docks were now vacant and unused, and being reclaimed by the elements. They were picturesque, anyway.

The sunset on this particular evening turned the sky and water a color that often shows up in Florida architecture, salmon pink. This particular night, the water was calm. It was the same evening we saw the dolphins.

The view from the lanai at night of the Ft. Myers skyline was always a draw. The row of lights at left line First Street, an extension of Palm Beach Boulevard, and the lights beneath the highway bridge are reflected in the water.

Our one-week visit included an historical museum, a nature center, an art walk downtown, and a memorable trip to the beach on Captiva Island. All of that is to come in the next few days. Norm enjoyed relief from his sinus problems the whole week and he is not entirely joking when he says that would be enough to prompt him to move to Florida! That, and the 80-degree temperatures on a day when it was snowing light flurries as we left St. Louis!

Florida on our minds

2011-04-03T20:20:00.002-05:00

Southwest Florida toward the end of "the season" boasts warm sunny days, pleasant evenings, and a very mellow feeling. Unfortunately the iPad will not upload photos to Blogger, so the full report will have to wait until I find an unattended computer. But we are having a good time. Meanwhile, check out posts and pictures on Facebook if you are a friend.

March So Lovely, Part IV

2011-03-28T00:08:00.014-05:00

The annual Orchid Show at the Missouri Botanical Garden has been running for almost two months, and today was the last day. So after church, we headed for the garden, had lunch in the lovely Sassafras Cafe, and then ventured into the exhibit hall to enjoy this extraordinary collection!

This morning started out snow-covered, but with brilliant sunshine there was little of it left by 2 p.m. when we got to the garden. I was chagrined that I had left my camera at home. Then I remembered that my cell phone has a camera. Duh. I wasn't sure how good the photos would be, but many of them turned out well. A few were out of focus, like this one above.

We made three separate trips through the exhibit. On the first trip I was taking a lot of pictures and even got Norm to hold still for this one. On the second trip we looked up and down to see some plants we had missed the first time through. On the last trip, we took the route backwards to get a different perspective.

The many varieties of orchids are always amazing, and we see something new and different every year. The bright reds, yellows and oranges are always quite eye-catching.

Every variety was my instant favorite, but these beauties, that reminded me of day lilies, simply glowed. I wish my hand had been steadier or that I had a better command of the phone's zoom feature.

These creamy yellow blossoms with touches of orchid were one of Norm's favorites. Maybe my hand didn't shake. Maybe it was the light breeze blowing through the hall that made them wiggle.

Tucked in a corner was this unusual orchid variety. The spiky blooms reminded me of some types of Liatris (also known as Blazing Star or Gayfeather) that I have seen growing in gardens. These were a typical "orchid" color, though.

The plants are arranged in color families, or in contrasting colors. This nook was an oasis of cool and calm colors. The orchids are kept in a greenhouse and rotated in and out of the exhibit over a course of weeks. One year we saw a very rare "blue" orchid, but none was to be seen today.

These orchids are striking because of their upright habit and bicolor appearance. I think I have to take a picture of them every year! We finished our trip to the garden with a visit to the Garden Gate shop where we stocked up on organic plant sprays in anticipation of the coming growing season. We also got a new rain gauge to replace the old one, which was cracked.

Here is the most unusual orchid we saw today. These spiky flowers grow along a horizontal stem. They look like some kind of secret weapon. Perhaps their prickly appearance helps discourage predators. I didn't write down the variety, although the tag is visible...but a little too small print to read. We treasure our St. Louis botanical garden and bless the memory of Henry Shaw, an Englishman who made a fortune in hardware, loved plants, collected them, and willed his "country" home to the city of St. Louis over 150 years ago.

March So Cruel, Part III

2011-03-26T23:18:00.008-05:00

Today was long- awaited Scrap Quilt Club Saturday! We gathered from 9 to 3 and worked on various projects. I am off to a slow start on this year's projects, but I was able to bring this finished project to show and tell today. It will need to be quilted, and I am thinking of trying to machine quilt it myself since it is not very big. Now, on to the next challenge!

When I drove to the meeting place this morning, the streets were dry, and all of Friday's snow had melted overnight. Pear trees were in bloom along the roads. But a Winter Storm Watch was upon us. About 1 p.m. the first flake fell. By the time I was in the parking lot clearing off the car about 3:30, nearly 2 inches of very wet, sticky, heavy snow had accumulated and was coating the driveways, walks and streets. Still, I made it home without trouble. Even let Gracie show her stuff by chugging up a fairly steep hill that hadn't been treated...and she didn't slip once! Sadly, at home I discovered this daffodil from yesterday, bearing a 2-inch snow hat.

The row of bushes and daffodils along the driveway looks very different than it did three days ago, or even 24 hours ago! About 2 more inches of snow fell after I took this picture.

In the back yard, birds had started a feeding frenzy. The two feeders on the left have caps almost 4 inches high on them. This was a zoom shot, and the birds were flying about so quickly that they don't show up clearly. Norm was glad he filled the feeders Friday night when it was calm.

Meanwhile, out front, the redbud I photographed yesterday with snow frosting its buds was completely encased in white. Actually, this may not be all bad. A hard freeze is forecast tonight, with the low around 26F. The snow, however, will insulate the buds it is covering so perhaps something will survive. Certainly we have had worse snowfalls in March--I recall some 15 inches that fell in mid March one year in the late 1970s. But this is enough already! Another storm, this one with sleet, is forecast for Tuesday. Finally it will get into the 50s toward the end of the week. It's enough to make a sane person buy a plane ticket for Florida!

March So Fickle, Part II

2011-03-26T00:06:00.010-05:00

When I woke up Friday morning and looked out the window, it was raining snowballs! The radio came on and told of traffic tieups everywhere, although it was warm enough most of the streets were merely wet. I hurried downstairs before breakfast to try to get some pictures of this wet snow before it turned to rain and disappeared.
The front yard redbud wore a frosting of snow on the emerging flowers. They should be OK if it doesn't get any colder than 28 tomorrow night.

As for yesterday's daffodils nodding in the sun by the driveway-- here they are, struggling to hold up their heads as the wet stuff fell on them. The bushes wore some frosting too, for a couple of hours.

Zooming all the way to the back of the yard, I could see that the daffodils that came from my parents' house were trying to be small rays of sunshine in the bloom. At left, the yellow rose, which is all leaved out, was decorated as well. At least there are no rosebuds yet. Norm was planning to trim it back, but now he will have to wait for drier weather to tromp around in that bed.

This was the view from the back porch about 10 a.m. The total snowfall was less than an inch. Then it started to rain, which lasted until mid afternoon. After it stopped, Norm went out and broadcast grass seed in all of the thin and shaded areas, something we do several times a year, starting when the days get warm. He figured that the snow cover would provide some moisture for the seed, and also some cover to keep marauding blackbirds from eating it all before it can sprout. Then he went to Branneky Hardware and brought home a bale of straw to spread over the seed, for good measure.

This feeder is supposed to have a weighted perch that discourages larger birds from being able to get anything to eat. The grackles seem to have foiled that, as have a couple of squirrels. But in a rare moment a cardinal was able to get some lunch while the bigger birds were somewhere else.

I could hear a lot of blackbirds squawking in the trees next door so I aimed the camera up and took this picture of Jacinta's elm tree, or what is left of it after several storms. I expected to see grackles but these look more like robins, which have a very distinctive silhouette.

I guess the blackbirds were in Barb's evergreens. I never did get a good look at them but their racket overhead was pretty loud. By this afternoon, all of this finery had melted off the trees in the light rain that followed. We will have a quiet night, but the weather service on Friday afternoon issued a Winter Storm Warning for our area for today. They say we could get 2 -5 inches. I am hoping it won't disrupt our scrap quilt club meeting, or keep us from getting to church on Sunday. The ground is warm enough that the roads should be OK. But some of those delicate flower petals may find it too much to bear. It is still March, after all, and anything goes. Maybe we shouldn't have put away the heated birdbath last weekend when it was 82 degrees. Go figure.

March So Mild, Part I

2011-03-25T23:35:00.010-05:00

The month of March has been full of meetings, travels to two weekend conferences in Jefferson City, some major sorting of our library to find books to donate, various church activities, and finally, yesterday, filing the taxes for 2010! For a lot of the time I've been limping along with one sore knee, sometimes two. I think they are getting better; only the orthopedic specialist knows for sure and I'll see him next week. March came in like a lamb, sunny and warm, with the tantalizing promise of spring. On March 1, the First Crocus appeared in the front flower bed. The feeling was, the spell of winter was broken and even if there was more cold weather, we knew it wouldn't stay around for long!

All around the neighbor- hood, birds have been returning. We have had lots of customers at the feeders, including cardinals, juncos, finches, goldfinches, and the less-than-welcome starlings and grackles. Robins have been casually around since sometime in February, but on Wednesday, March 23 I was out in the yard and got these closeups of a robin prospecting for worms in the front yard. This area was undermined by a mole through the fall and winter; it was finally caught in a trap the first week of March. With all the tunnels, we thought there must have been a dozen of them, but since the trapping, no more tunnels have appeared. Nevertheless, the yard is a lumpy mess.

The robin seemed to think as much as he crossed the front walk in search of something better. You'll note that the walk is littered with acorns... the squirrels think that all of our walls and walks are a special banquet table just for them. The robin was just sizing me up when Norm came around the corner of the house and the bird decided to check something out across the street instead.

This photo is from the archive; I took it on February 27 of this year but never got around to posting shots of our surprise snow on that weekend. The euonymous bushes by the driveway looked so lacy. You can just barely see the points of daffodils peeking out of the snow.

And some three weeks or so later, here the daffodils are in bloom... another photo from the 23rd. One thing we have noticed is that the blooms are much sparser this year. I'll put in a link here that goes to the same plot this time in 2010. I don't know if they bloomed themselves out last year, or if the bulbs are too crowded (probably) and starting to decline. They were already well established 10 years ago when we moved here. Nevertheless, it was such a treat to have sunshine, and to enjoy these glowing yellow beauties.

The entire yard is starting to green up, with buds swelling on the redbud trees, the lilac, and the maple. Some blue periwinkle is blooming under the tree, and the rosebushes are leafed out. The azaleas in front are loaded with buds. As I wrote on Facebook: it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood! But cold weather arrived on Thursday and Friday morning we woke up to a very different world. But that is the subject of the next post! Clearly Miss March still has a few tricks up her sleeve!

Quilting Retreat is Relaxing, Productive

2011-02-21T21:40:00.015-06:00

My quilting guild held its annual retreat this past weekend. It's about 36 hours of sewing, eating, laughter, and a little sleep. This year we went to Mercy Center in West St. Louis County and about 40 of us had a great time!

This year there were three short projects, called Optional Blocks, in addition to the main retreat project. Each of us also had the option of "doing our own thing" which is the option I chose. The first block above is my contribution to the first optional block contest on Friday night. All of the entered blocks are shown at left. One lucky guild member won them all to take home--and it wasn't me. I really liked these blocks and the technique was easy--no cutting out triangles and wrestling with bias edges. I might try to make a whole quilt this way myself some day...I have lots of scraps!

Saturday was sunny but cool, so most of us spent the day inside the auditorium room at the center. These photos are during the morning as people got ready to start on the main project.

Every one had a table mate which made it fun to get to know someone better. And yet you could see what everyone else was doing as well. Some people brought sewing machines that could do everything except make coffee. I brought my 1970 Singer Featherweight that has two stitches, but makes incredibly accurate 1/4-inch seams.

Some members brought individual projects. I can't show what I worked on yet, because it is going to be a surprise for someone who is expecting her first child soon. So I'll show what others worked on. This butterfly project was one of the most ambitious. Many parts that had to be sewn precisely. I admire someone who has the patience to do this!

The main project, taught by a guest instructor, was a pineapple block. At left is how she charted the various stages of construction for those who were doing the bock to refer to. Some did two or four blocks; one woman was doing 20! After I saw the results, I kind of wished I had made this project, but I also needed to finish some other work that I had started some time ago.

Beautiful batiks were popular, and these made a beautiful wall hanging after they were all assembled. I admire the color sense of my quilting friends, and wish I could do half as well.

A more tradi-tional color scheme was in progress in the photo at left. There is something timeless and perennial about the use of burgundy and green.

We sewed late into the afternoon and night, with a few breaks for stretches and in one case, general hilarity. Sarah, who looks so serious here, later went out and came back wearing a grass skirt and showing off her moves in a hula dance! The theme of the weekend was "Valley Girls Go to Hawaii."

More serious stitching from Lenore at left and Norma below. There was a constant hum of machines, broken by occasional music and laughter. After our last meal together on Sunday, people began to pack up and leave one by one. The weekend goes by so fast! I came home with a set of pinwheel optional blocks that I won in the last of the three drawings. I'll post a picture of them soon, along with my mystery baby quilt.

The Amaryllis Blooms for February

2011-02-06T16:59:00.003-06:00

Earlier this week on Facebook I posted a photo of a single amaryllis blossom-- the first to come out on our gloomy, sleety Tuesday. Yesterday there were four blooms, although because of my camera angle, only three can be seen here.

The plant came from Norm's mother, who had one similar to this going all the way back to their days on the farm in Western Kansas. At least 60 years, maybe 70, by my reckoning. In the summer the pot containing it would go outside; I remember seeing it just outside the back door of their house in Colby, in the shade of the climbing rose trellis. The rest of the year it resided indoors and in the winter would send up multiple stalks, sometimes bearing 4 or 5 buds. The salmon color always struck me as unusual, because the potted amarylli you can buy in the winter in garden centers and hardware stores are usually red, rose, or white. Close to 40 years ago Mom gave me my very own bulb and over the years it has multiplied many times and I have shared it with myiad friends. I know that my sisters-in-law all have their own bulbs and we often compare notes to see whose plant is blooming first. Sometimes it has bloomed at Christmas, often in January around my birthday. This year this plant, the first of several I have, waited until Ground Hog Day. Another one is sending up a stalk that will bloom for Valentine's Day. Several others just seem to be waiting. I think they want to be repotted. It's hard for amarylli to be too crowded, but I think a actually have one pot that is. It's tricky because if you give them too much room between themselves and the side of the pot, they won't bloom at all. About an inch between the bulb and wall of the pot is the best.

This amaryllis is atypical in that all the leaves never die off at once, like most varieties do, and it never really goes into hibernation only to send up a flower in advance of new leaves. It sports shiny green leaves all year round, but when the oldest leaf starts to yellow, and then dry up, I start looking for the flower stalk. It is as though the leaf if dying and pouring all its nutrients into the flower. Two or three more leaves may do this as the flower emerges.

I have two other varieties of amaryllis. One is a gorgeous, fragrant rose and white beauty that a friend gave me years ago. It has only bloomed two years out of all the time I have had it. It probably needs something it isn't getting. Another is a creamy white/yellow variety that is very prolific...bulbs multiply like crazy and I have shared those, too. It is the kind that likes to lose all its leaves and sleep for a while in the winter before it blooms. I have some offshoots of it that have been asleep in their pots for over a year, so I'm not sure what will wake them up. Yet the bulbs are still firm so I know they are alive, in there, somewhere. A few years ago I had several of these creamy ones planted together in a plastic pot, and they expanded so much during the summer on the porch that they split it in two. Needless to say, that got my attention and I found two new pots and fresh potting soil to resettle them.

I believe the Latin name for our lovely salmon amaryllis is Hippeastrum striatum. I found a blooming specimen in the Climatron at the Missouri Botanical Garden with this name years ago. I'm not a botanist but the plant had exactly the same size, color and habit as ours. It was in bloom with several leaves on, in late January, in a ground level bed in the Garden's famed geodesic-domed greenhouse. The plant is a native of Brazil. I have no clue as to how a flowering bulb native to Brazil could have wound up on a window sill in Western Kansas sometime in the 1940s or 50s, and if anyone has a theory, please let me know. One of the color slides from the farm days shows it blooming on a kitchen window sill, and Norm remembers it being there in his childhood. Like so many stories, it raises more questions that may never be answered. But this amaryllis is a lovely reminder of my dear mother-in-law, of the ties that bind generation to generation, and the fact that some plants will probably outlive us all.

Winter Wonderland I

2011-02-05T17:20:00.006-06:00

On Thursday afternoon, the aftermath of Tuesday's Big Storm was still sparkling in the trees. A half day of sunshine, but the sparkles overhead refused to melt. We could relax inside, enjoy warm ham and bean soup and admire the show.

I love my 10x zoom lens and the additional digital zoom on my little Canon Power Shot. As the sun was getting ready to set, I stood on the front porch in the 18-degree air and took not only the photo above but this one of the neighbor's house across the street, bathed in the glow of sunset. This is the home of the lady who feeds all the stray cats in the neighborhood--and a couple of them were sleeping on our porch chairs until Ava and Norm scared them off.

Since I posted two earlier views of this same scene, I thought I should show what it looked like at 7 a.m. this morning after about 3 or 4 inches of NEW snow fell overnight. We caught the tail end of the storm that buried Dallas and Tulsa yesterday. This snow was light, and as soon as it stopped falling, the wind scattered a lot of it off the trees.

Our backyard is still very popular with the avian community. As I focused for this picture using the zoom out one of the back upstairs windows, there was a lovely bright red cardinal on the top curve of the shepherd's crook. By the time I could trip the shutter, he was on the ground, munching on sunflower seeds!

By 2 p.m. we had clear blue sky and 34 degrees, and with a little more help from Barb, most of the driveway is clear. Norm says it looks like someone took a snow blower to the front sidewalks. That would probably be Buddy, who has been known to go all the way around the two block circle, about 7/8 of a mile, clearing a path for walkers so they won't have to exercise in the street. Barb ran some errands and brought us a dozen eggs--the only food stuff we are running low on. Now we are good until the next arctic blast in the middle of next week. We are so blessed in this village with amazing neighbors!

Groundhog Day, Digging Out

2011-02-02T15:11:00.011-06:00

Right here in the immediate St. Louis metro, the dreaded historic three-day ice, snow and wind storm was much milder than predicted, for which we are thankful and feel very fortunate. Predicting these weather events is very tricky, because when storms approach St. Louis they tend to veer one way or the other, or sometimes just part, go around, and regroup on the Illinois side of the river. Some locals are griping, as though they feel cheated we didn't get 500,000 power outages (as we did in 2006) or 14 to 20 inches of blowing snow--as did Tulsa and Columbia, respectively! Here are some pictures of our event. Above, the redbud in the front yard had about 1/10 inch of ice clinging to it as it started to get dark on Monday afternoon. It turned out that batch of freezing rain was only supposed to be the warmup for the Main Event on Tuesday.

The finch feeder toward the back of our yard wore a bonnet of icicles that I kept warily watching all afternoon as the freezing rain continued to fall. All the birds were feeding furiously Monday morning before the precipitation started. We rounded up the kerosene heater, the sterno stove, batteries, flashlights, matches, candles and long underwear in case the worst happened. The weather service at this point thought we could have 1/2 to 1 inch of ice by Tuesday night. We felt certain that if the ice reached 1/2 inch we would be in for an outage because somewhere a line would break, despite all the recent tree trimming by the utility company.

Our electric company learned some hard lessons from the two storms in 2006, one in summer, one in winter, that crippled St. Louis for days--and kept some people in the dark for a week or more. They trimmed a lot, buried some lines, upgraded poles (and raised our rates to cover the expense.) On Monday they had called in extra crews from some other states so they could be ready to respond as soon as things started to happen. At 4:30 p.m. on Monday, this is what the view from the back door across our neighbor's yard looked like. We fully expected that it would be a lot worse by morning, or at the latest, Tuesday evening.

The big surprise on Tuesday morning was that the view was much like the night before, our ice forecast had been canceled and we were now under a blizzard warning for heavy, blowing snow. I have never been so glad to be under a blizzard warning in my life. I knew that even if we did lose power, the response would probably be swift, and as the day wore on, we were less likely to. The photo at left is the same view as above, taken at 10 a.m. today (Wednesday.) We did get more ice--a total of about 2/10 inch, but what helped was the sleet that fell most of the day on Tuesday, with only a little freezing rain.

Even so, the ice could have been a problem if we had gotten 40 mph winds last night, but those didn't arrive, and neither did the 7-10 inches of snow. So I could actually appreciate the beauty in this view. As usual, our fickle weather changed course as it approached the metro. Go 20 miles south of I-255, and there is a lot of icing. Go 20 miles west on I-70 and last night the highway was closed at Wentzville all the way to Kansas City because of deep snow and whiteouts. Go 20 miles north, same thing. People are still digging out, although 70 opened this morning although it was still snowpacked. I imagine the many trucks that had to idle overnight at truck stops in St. Charles County took care of that as they rolled west.

The best thing about sleet is that it doesn't stick to tree limbs and power lines. The worst thing about sleet is that it packs itself very densely on the ground, streets, roads, and sidewalks. It looks like snow, until you try to shovel it. This morning, an ice pick would have been handy. This front walk is partly clear because all day yesterday, every time Norm took Ava out front for business, he moved the sleet along with a snow shovel before it could harden. The total depth was about three inches by this morning. It took a man from our church and two teenage helpers over 4 hours to chip out our driveway and our walks and steps--as well as Barb's.

Meanwhile, the juncos and other birds were keeping the back yard dining table filled. There are little tracks in the 1/2 inch or so of snow on top of the sleet. Yesterday they were having trouble standing upright, the footing was so slick for them.

Our street went untouched yesterday. The schools were all closed, even the University two blocks away. But early this morning the snow plow and salt truck started making passes and by 11 a.m. the sun had come out briefly and it was enough to finish melting the street down to its bare surface. Our driveway isn't perfect, but clear enough to navigate now.

After a busy morning of supervising the shoveling crew, Norm and Ava curled up for a well deserved nap after lunch. I can still hear our other neighbor's drive being scraped and shoveled outside the windows as I type. We will have a very cold night tonight but maybe not as cold as first forecast--they are saying 1 above instead of 5 below. It is supposed to stay cloudy and not clear, which will help. As if at that temperature, 6 degrees really matters!

We also will welcome Barb home tonight; she finally got a plane out of NY. In this storm, as in others, we have been reassured by the way neighbors along the street stay in contact and check on each other and offer help if needed. Patti up the street took Ava for a walk on Monday when the walks were slick. She also offered to let us sleep over if we lost power, since her furnace has a switch to let her run the fan off a generator, which she was ready to use if need be. Although we have a generator, it is of more use for warm weather outages, since our heating system is boiler and hot water radiators, and not easily converted to run on auxiliary power. We are going to look into getting a gas-log insert for our non-working fireplace. I'm also considering replacing our aging electric stove with a gas one. And we are definitely ordering some yak trax or other cleat slip-ons for our shoes so we won't be in terror (well, so I won't be--Norm is more sure on ice than I am) of slipping and falling if we need to leave the house the next time one of these storms hits. Since climate is changing and making storms in all seasons more severe (just take a look at what has happened in Australia this season) we probably should begin to expect these kinds of events as the new normal. Today we are thankful for warmth, food, light, good friends and neighbors and above all, the loan of a warm puppy.

Wrapping Up January: Storm, Birthday and Thaw

2011-01-29T23:15:00.014-06:00

This has been a really cold month--our $315 natural gas heating bill that came the other day can attest to that! On Thursday, Jan.20, the heaviest snow we have had in years began to fall. Late at night it was still coming down furiously, and I took this photo out of the study windows for a view of the back yard.

The effects of the January 20-21 storm were still visible a week later, on Jan. 28, when I took a photo of the icicles that were still clinging to the awnings outside the upstairs bedroom windows, although the depth in the yard had receded, and all the snow was off the trees. The light coming through them made them sparkle and glow from within. Later that day we heard a lot of loud crashes as icicles let go from the upper roof, hit the awnings, knocked these loose and slid on down. It felt like the January thaw had begun.

But I get ahead of myself. On Friday morning the 21st, the snow had subsided to flurries, but the result was dramatic. Our heated birdbath wore a 9-inch deep bonnet of new snow--but when Norm checked, there was an air hole on the side not visible from the house--and there was still water underneath all of that. The birds, of course, were ecstatic.

The effect of the accumulating snow and sculpting wind was really evident on our next door neighbor's back steps. Later in the day our friend Raymond and another man arrived to shovel all of this away, but until noon on Friday, we were pretty much house-bound, and had been for almost two days.

Early in the morning on the 21st, the snow still clung to the neighborhood evergreens, making a pretty winter scene. This snow was fluffy, not wet, and as soon as a light wind came up, it started to blow off of all the trees.

This particular snowy Friday was also my 68th birthday. In order to avoid a fire, Norm put one candle on the short stack of pancakes he made from scratch for our breakfast that morning! I had a wonderful birthday... after we could get out, we went to our Qigong exercise group at noon, and later went to Hill Brewing Co. in Ferguson for a tasty birthday dinner. It was pretty cold, though, and windy. The best part was getting scores of Birthday wishes via Facebook and e-mail. One of the blessings of our electronic age!

A tour of the premises on Saturday the 22nd again showed the depth of our snowfall. Safe under all that snow insulation are our spring bulbs, chrysanthemums and hostas. As well as a whole colony of moles that have been active in the front yard despite the best efforts of one of St. Louis's top pest control companies!

The house wore its mantle of snow on the roof for several days, and the afore- mentioned icicles hung on until the very end, when the temperature finally climbed above freezing on the 28th. We were able to get to church on the 23rd for services and a soup dinner after church. We also made it to two more night meetings this last week, and two more Qigong sessions. By Friday when I went to the grocery store, the temperature readout in the car said 46 degrees. It was almost shorts weather...

Birds have been busy at both feeders as well as their heated bird bath. In fact, Norm had to make a run to Wild Birds today to get them some more food. Good thing he did...the forecast for the coming week doesn't look good. This is one of several dozen juncos that call our yard the dinner table. We also have cardinals, doves, sparrows, chickadees, and the occasional woodpecker or blue jay. On Friday in the warmth I heard a robin clucking, even.

On Friday, the snow is still visible out the front bedroom windows, but the icicles are gone. And look who is thinking about blooming... the amaryllis is slower to bloom this year than usual. Maybe it knows that spring is going to be late?

In the sunny sewing room window, the geraniums have stopped blooming, but they greenly wait for spring, while the Euphorbia grows taller and sends out white blossoms. Unfortunately, earlier this evening the Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Watch for us for next week, Monday through Wednesday. Freezing drizzle, freezing rain, sleet, freezing rain, sleet, and then heavy snow. I really hope that 1/2 inch of ice they predict doesn't materialize. We had such drastic power outages in the ice storm of December 2006 that I don't want to go through anything like that again, especially with only a 25-pound goldendoodle to keep both of us warm! Thus our January winds to a close. We are still working on the 500-piece puzzle. Quilt blocks were made, but the guild meeting was canceled the night of the big snow. Genealogy research continues. Water exercise has resumed. Meetings have been attended. Plans are being made. Soup recipes have been tried. We still need to put away the Christmas decorations. I've lapsed from my two-post-a-week resolution. Weight has been gained. Muscle tone has been lost. Oh for the days when we can take long walks outside again! I am ready for Spring but Winter is still very much with us.

Remembering Haiti

2011-01-12T13:54:00.002-06:00

Just below I have posted a link to Tara Livesay's blog about how her family experienced the earthquake a year ago. The Livesays returned to Haiti on New Year's Day after 8 months in the US.

Livesay [Haiti] Weblog: Remembering

2011-01-12T13:53:00.000-06:00

Livesay [Haiti] Weblog: Remembering: "On 1/12/2010 at 4:53pm the landscape of Haiti was irrevocably changed. Despite great tribulation and loss the heart and spirit of ..."

What We Say, Play, Hear, Do and Think Does Matter

2011-01-09T21:13:00.003-06:00

One of the few photos that show my playmates from childhood is this one, taken about when I was in second grade. I'm the one kneeling on the left. Gail is the other girl, on the right. She lived next door and was 2 or three years older than me. Danny (standing) lived on the other side and was about two years younger. Danny died of Hodgkin's lymphoma the fall when he was in the second grade, and I was in the fourth, so I know this was taken a year or two earlier. We had been playing cowboys and Indians, and either Gail's mom or another neighbor took our picture. We were some tough hombres in those days with our cap pistols locked, loaded, and raised for action.

I started thinking about this picture this evening, after watching NBC Dateline's hour-long coverage of the tragic shootings in Arizona, so I found it in an old album and scanned it. Right now one of the big debates is about how much influence the sometimes violent rhetoric of politics might have had on the shooter. A lot of people, some of my family and friends included, discount the effect of violence in song lyrics, movies, video games, and television shows on how unbalanced people decide to act out. So it's not surprising that already the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and Congresswoman Giffords' opponent in the 2010 election who campaigned by inviting his supporters to fire an automatic weapon with him have all said that nothing they have said or done could possibly be responsible for the actions of the young man alleged to have committed this crime. After all, he appears to have a history of mental instability, so that's it.

I respectfully disagree. The three of us, me, Gail and Danny, were by all outward signs quite normal kids. We played with our cap guns and water pistols, and in my household at least, my father had a .38 revolver hidden in the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom (I wasn't supposed to know it was there) as well as, later in life, my grandfather's .22 squirrel rifle and a couple of other long guns. So I am not one of those people who was never around guns but is now leery of them. When I was a teenager I shot a .22 at a Boy Scout/Girl scout skeet shoot and I scored better than all but one of the guys . (I was a good shot at archery, too!) But I think things are different today. For one thing, kids aren't outside on a December day playing any kind of game; they are inside watching television, surfing the Internet or playing a video game--or possibly doing all three at once.

When we three Tulsa kids were playing cowboy, all we had as imagery were a few movies like the Westerns my grandmother like to take me to, and some radio shows like The Lone Ranger or Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers as role models. Our home didn't get TV until I was 13. We didn't actually see any blood, and we could get up after we "died" and play another day, just as the actors in the movies seemed to survive and show up in more movies, so they (and we) were immortal. We also had other things to do...like home chores and school work (yes, I had subtraction homework in the second grade!) and music lessons and Brownie Scouts. Yet, we were very capable of fantasizing ourselves into the roles we were playing. I don't have a stack of studies right here at hand to point to, just my own experience. Remember the girls who wanted to look like Barbie when they grew up, and how a few of them were willing to starve or binge and purge in order to get that figure? Remember watching Flashdance and dancing in your living room? Remember watching Esther Williams and imagining yourself a synchronized swimmer? Media of all kinds have always had an effect on the dreams and fantasies of those who watch and listen. Why then do we think that the roles our kids and young people watch today--many of them soaked and saturated with sex and violence--are not going to have any effect at all on their behavior, if only for a while?

When angry constituents took over Congressional town hall meetings in 2009, something began to snap in public life. Candidates received death threats in 2010, and so did sitting members of Congress after they voted on legislation that some people didn't like. Outbursts in classrooms are common now, sometimes from people who are disturbed and sometimes just onery. If a member of Congress can yell "liar" at the President, then why not them?

Yes, we have had violence before--I was a junior in college when JFK was assassinated, and it remains one of the defining moments of my life. I was teaching at a college in Kansas when MLK was assassinated, and remember walking arm and arm down the town's main street with other grieving people of all races, singing "we shall overcome" for two miles while men with rifles stood on rooftops ready to shoot any of us who got "out of line." So this is just the latest chapter, not the beginning, of a sad drama in American life. Like many others, I wonder how the story will end.

I am reminded that one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution was Patrick Henry's "give me liberty, or give me death." Today we hear folks saying in effect, "give me what I want, or it will be your death." And we see people claiming to be a church getting free air time holding up signs rejoicing in the deaths of not only our brave soldiers, but now, the victims this weekend in Arizona.

This is sick. We have gone from using guns for legitimate self defense, Congressionally sanctioned war (as in WW II, in which my father and two of my uncles served), or providing the famiy with food--as my grandfather did when he was between jobs and as my father did as a 12-year-old hunting rabbits for his mother to cook during a time when his father was stranded in town by a blizzard and the rest of the family was out there on the farm--we have gone from these uses to guns and explosives as entertainment. Today I saw at least 3 trailers for upcoming TV series or movies that were full of bullets, blasts, boobs, butts and blood. How can we say that any emotionally or mentally unstable person is going to watch this stuff and not be influenced in some way? Or watch the internet video that made the rounds in early 2010, that showed the Democratic leaders of Congress (Reid, Pelosi, et al) as well as a generic "Liberals" in the crosshairs of a gunsight, and not get the fact that this was meant to be a symbolic target, not a real one? If only one in a million people acts on impulse after watching, listening to, and reading such stuff, is that not one in a million too many?

Anytime there is a tragedy like this, most of us are moved, but don't feel much of a connection with those affected. Sometimes the 6 degrees of separation is much less. My husband learned tonight that the mother of Congresswoman Giffords is one of his high school classmates. We are connected, whether we know it, or not.

Eventually our little Tulsa gang broke up. Gail moved away, Danny died, and I spent more time on roller skates. Then I got interested in astronomy and bird watching, grew up and went to high school and college. But long before we stopped playing, I had put away my cap pistol. I preferred to be the Indian, and I spent many afternoons tied to the clothesline post after being captured. But secretly, I dreamed of reversing the plot of all those old technicolor movies, of being a wise Indian chief and leading my people far away from the conflict, to greener pastures, away from the men with the guns. Of saving my people. I guess I am still dreaming of that role...what can I say, what can I do, to help save my people from this madness of disrespect, frustration, mayhem and self destruction?

For 2011: Let Us Resolve

2011-01-01T23:22:00.003-06:00

Heaven knows I have an ambiguous relationship with New Year's resolutions. In recent years I have not made any, because all of those plans to lose 25 pounds, exercise more, write on the blog every day, start garden seeds in March, have all the Christmas presents bought or made by October 30--you know the kind--never come to fruition. Earlier today I posted what I thought were some modest, achievable resolutions on FB but got what amounted to rebukes from a couple of dearest family and friends. They never make resolutions, they said. The compliant me wants to take that as some kind of suggestion that I shouldn't either. But I'm taking a cue from the geraniums that are blooming in the south windows despite the conventional wisdom that they should be hibernating, or even dead. I'm going to make and publish some resolutions anyway. It's one way to try to hold myself accountable.

Last year I made two resolutions: to spend about 1/2 day two days a week working on my family history/memoir project and to spend about 1/2 a day two days a week on quilting projects. I'm the first to note that I didn't make these quotas at least half of the time. However, I did make progress that I had only dreamed about before. The writing project is still gathering steam, but over the year I visited the Special Collections room at the County Library several times in addition to taking genealogy classes there. On our summer vacation I was able to put some of that research to work and I now have field notes and photos from North Carolina. I also have a lot more questions to be chased down in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama, as well as western Oklahoma and west Texas, not to mention southwest Missouri. The quilting projects fared much better if completion was the goal. First, I finished piecing the Linville Family reunion quilt, got it to the Spanish Lake quilters and logged some 75-80 hours working with them between July and December, when it was finished. I still need to add three names to the border and bind it, but it will be ready for the guild quilt show in September 2011. I also joined the scrap quilt club and although the goal was a project a month, I concentrated on finishing two tops and making substantial progress on two more. That is a huge percentage increase in number of projects finished for me! In addition, I completed all 12 of the optional blocks of the month for the guild, something I have never done before in my 20 or so years as a member. So overall, I think having the resolutions kept me going when I was perhaps distracted by other things such as joining Facebook, church volunteering, etc.

So--what's up for 2011?

Quilting: finish the binding on the reunion quilt. Send the two completed tops from last year to long arm quilters so they will be done! Finish the two tops I have started. Start a brand new project, a baby quilt that I have pattern and fabric for, and work on it at the guild retreat in February. Learn better technique for machine quilting and do a small project of mine.
Writing: continue research but write a first draft of Emma and Jesse's story to take it out of my head and into a form others can critique for me. Move the stories of Belle, Sarah and Martha into more details from research I have already done. Outline the story of my grandparents and parents and do a better job of preserving original documents.
Blogging: Do at least one post a month on Compton Rising and on Thursday's Child, instead of letting them lie fallow like I did in 2010. That, or take them down. Blog a minimum of twice a week on Home Stories, and take more photos for the blog as well.
Technology: stop procrastinating and update my Apple OS so I can use some of the newer versions of Word, Quicken, and Family Tree Maker (it's finally out for Macs...but not those running 10.4) And then gather up the 4 or 5 dead Macs in this house and either donate them if they can be used by anyone or else take them to WITS for recycling.
DeCluttering: last, but not least--more likely foremost. We will have lived in this house 10 years come July, and the amount of stuff in it has almost doubled. My goal is to do at least 10 minutes a day on this. It's insurmountable otherwise. Today I decluttered my Yahoo inbox by unsubscribing from some 7 causes and political sites that I had acquired but am no longer interested in. Then I cleaned out the bathroom medicine cabinet and threw away outdated cosmetics and other mystery substances. I may post every time I toss or recycle some 7 items on my FB page, again, to keep me accountable.

Ultimately, it is all about accountability. In the days before blogs and social media, people like me kept diaries. I have them from age 9 on up through college and early married life, but then I stopped keeping them. For years, on January 1, I would try to start a new chapter in a diary but it would last only a few days. I think that's because a diary has an audience of one. After I became a journalist, and learned about writing for someone else than myself, diaries seemed too self-absorbed. I was also teaching and writing and didn't have time. But every time I log in to FB and see whether anyone has commented on a picture or a status, or sent me a message, or every time I check my SiteMeter stats on my blogs, I know whether or not someone is paying attention to what I say. Often these readers do serve to hold me accountable, just as the FBers today who have no use for resolutions. They forced me to think about why I do still have resolutions, and why I want someone else to know, so I can report my progress (or lack thereof) to someone else besides myself. Because an audience of one is no audience at all.

For Auld Lang Syne: Farewell 2010

2010-12-31T23:16:00.014-06:00

Well, it's time to say goodbye to 2010. Some people concen- trate on how bad the "old year" that is leaving has been, but tonight I'm thinking of things I can be thankful for. Last January's snow gave Norm and Ava a chance to show off their bright red knits. I know Norm is thankful for the warm leather jacket. (Recognize it, D?)

We were grateful for the chance to travel a lot this year as well. February and early March found us on the beaches of Ft. Myers and Sanibel, where it was cool, but not snowy. We got to eat out, visit a wildlife preserve and a research farm, play with Sam the poodle and hang out with two of our favorite guys.

The spring was spectacular this year, and just as we enjoyed the flowers we had planted, we also gave thanks for those that were planted by someone before we moved here. Thinking of these daffodils always reminds me to look for ways to leave something beautiful for those who will follow me.

Memorial Day weekend brought fun in the form of the Gypsy Caravan. After two years of staffing a booth for our church in drenching rain, we decided not to have one this year, and guess what, the sun came out! Norm posed with our two main bargains we found: a rolling shopping cart that is lightweight and versatile, and a hand painted bird house. When he went out to take it down after the fall freezes, he found a pile of sticks inside. Maybe next year there will be a real nest!

June found us heading to Colby for the High School Reunion, which always ends with a picnic in Fike Park. This year it was not too warm, not too windy, and people enjoyed lingering. Norm, Don and Walter look serious here, but they soon reverted to their jolly selves.

Maxine and Harold liked the easy chairs. Harold had to take a short trip to the local hospital after this afternoon in the park, but he got well soon and we are glad. Larry didn't come to the picnic but we surprised him with a birthday party at his house the next day. I think he knew something was up.

John and Nan Sanders enjoyed Nan's class party, and we crashed it to say hi. Nan autographed many copies of her first novel, All Stubborned Up, during the weekend. We are so impressed by this achievement, and glad that she is recovering more mobility every day.

We dashed home from Kansas in time to pack and fly to North Carolina. I was so thrilled to get to attend the Quad- rennial assembly, which was held in Greensboro. When 2000 women sing, or dance, or listen intently to a speaker, it sends shivers. Norm was one of about 80 men who also attended.

Elsewhere on the blog I've written about our trip to the Blue Ridge and Linville Falls, as well as to some of the country where our ancestors settled for a generation or so in the late 1700s. We were so thankful to be able to see these places, to walk on these rocks, smell this air, and wonder what it was like for those who came before us. We bought a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle that pictures the falls, and we have been working on it since Christmas night. I think we might have 20% of it done right now. Those gray cliffs look familiar!

The Blue Ridge Highway's Linn Cove viaduct is suspended over some of the more fragile hillsides in this national park. This picture reminds me that we still have roads to travel in 2011, and that with planning and care, Americans can both use the wilderness wisely and preserve it for the future.

As we close out 2010, I also am thankful for FaceBook, although I spend more time there than I spend blogging, I fear. Through the social network revolution, I've been able to catch up with all 15 of the editors of the student newspaper that I advised before I retired, as well as other staff members of that era. These are amazing young people, and I am still proud of them. I also am thankful for finding or being found by college friends (Jan in Maryland, and others) as well as a dear long-lost childhood friend (Ann, now in Dallas.) Many of my high school senior class friends are there too, and we look forward to seeing each other again, 50 years later!, in 2011.

So, as I get ready to pour a small glass of wine (from Kansas, sand plum to be exact) and get out the brass bells of sarna to ring on the front porch, to all my old acquaintances, and friends and family, may you enjoy the happiest of new year's in 2011. Love you!

Did You Have a Good Christmas?

2010-12-29T23:24:00.008-06:00

Going all the way back to my childhood, I remember the usual post-Christmas, pre-New Year's greeting: How was your Christmas? Or more likely, Did you have a good Christmas? The question is largely rhetorical, kind of like "hello, how are you?" as the ubiquitous greeting that no one really wants to hear a detailed answer for. The answer to "how are you" is supposed to be "fine." The answer to "did you have a good Christmas" is "oh yes," followed by a litany of fabulous gifts received, goodies consumed and perhaps relatives visited. This week I've been thinking about our Christmas, and how it was this year, and why it seemed so satisfying. For a couple without children or grandchildren, Christmas, at least the gifting part, becomes more about other people, sometimes people we have never met. It also becomes a time of remembrance of cherished family and friends we will not see again.

Every Advent, our church decorates a tree (photo above) in the sanctuary, but its ornaments are scarves, mittens and hats. By Dec. 19 it was loaded, and the next day it was "undecorated" and the warm knit items went downstairs to Isaiah 58 ministries for distribution to their clients. I like to think of a toddler wearing the cute tiny mittens I found, or a man wearing the driving gloves, or a student wearing one of the scarves knitted by a friend in our knitting group. This is one of my favorite holiday trees. Of course my other favorite holiday tree is ours, the one we put together every year, that Norm patiently strings the white lights on, that we carefully put the beaded garlands on before adding the ornaments. This year we didn't go with a theme, but put on the whole collection, from grandma Mc's german glass lanterns to the little sled my dad made to our newest item, a wooly lamb that I bought at Ten Thousand Villages during Quadrennial last summer. It came all the way from Peru! Our Christmas tree is what ties us to past generations and past holidays spent together.

Remember when you were a child and you waiting to see what Santa would bring? I was always impressed that Santa came every year, even if my dad was off to Dallas driving his bus, even though our 800-square foot tiny house lacked a chimney. Mother had a Santa set that she cherished and put out every year. I have it now, along with other Santas I've collected over the years. The little house and the short green trees in this photo are from Mother's set. The train is among the oldest I have that my dad made. Mother always said the red caboose was a car he made especially for her. He made them all by hand, from patterns in Model Railroader: no kits.

Now the 1923 Story and Clark upright that my grandfather Mc bought for mother on her 9th birthday is just the right width to display a length of track, the engine and four cars of Daddy's O-gauge masterpiece. At Christmas a lot of my Santas prefer to travel by train so they get to hang out here for a month or so. Daddy made the little gray house, too. It's a duplex, and there is a separate outhouse out back. If anyone cares, the doors do open and it's a two-holer. The sleigh from mother's Santa set was made by Daddy, too. And mother's reindeer, which are hollow and seem to be made out of some kind of hollow plastic, date from the late 1930s or early 1940s. Just like the Christmas ornaments, and the nativity sets, the Santa scene recalls those many good Christmases of childhood as well as those of my and Norm's years together.

No they aren't real. These are the porch poinsettias so they have to be of fabric to withstand our cold Missouri nights. These greet the mail carrier every day as they are just above our mailbox on a post.

I have the feeling that often "good Christmas" is a code for "did you get a lot of presents" or "did you get the presents you wanted." This year we decided not to get presents, but to give them. It feels good to know that someone in St. Louis has warm hands and head, that someone in Florida will get tutored in literacy, that a woman in a developing country will get sewing supplies or even a microloan, that children at a day care center in St. Louis that serves low income families will have new equipment to replace what was lost in a November flood, that an elderly person living in a retirement home in Tulsa will receive compassionate care, that some third-graders in a city school will get a new book for Christmas. These were our gifts to each other and others this year, and it was a very good Christmas indeed. We hope you received meaningful gifts, the gifts that you wanted, and we also hope that you had an opportunity to give good gifts-- perhaps the gift of yourself, your love or your presence to someone this Christmas. At our house we observe 12 days of Christmas, so we will be celebrating all the way to January 6, maybe longer. Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, ho ho ho Merry Christmas!

Christmas Letter from Kim & Patrick Bentrott

2010-12-26T00:08:00.003-06:00

Since the anniversary of Haiti's earthquake is a mere 3 weeks away, I'm posting this link to the long-awaited Christmas blog post from Kim and Patrick Bentrott. They were missionaries in Port-au-Prince and they had been sponsored by churches in the St. Louis area, so we had met them and were already following their adventures on Kim's blog. Because they were in the process of adopting two Hatian children at the time they evacuated to the US, they have been unable to return and resume their mission assignment. They must wait until the children receive citizenship, which is taking longer than anyone ever anticipated. But Kim fills us in on what they have been doing in this post. You can click on the title of this post, or on the link here to go to it.

Cherishing the Christmas Story, or Stories

2010-12-25T23:17:00.005-06:00

This morning, Norm and I sat in our living room in front of our Christmas tree, lit our Christmas candle and read the story of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Gospel of Luke. In this account, Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem to be enrolled on a tax list, and while they are there, Mary gives birth to the baby and cradles him in a manger, a feeding trough for animals. Angels announce good news to some nearby shepherds, and they come to see the child. The angels proclaim "peace on earth" and "goodwill" to humankind.

The figures in the nativity set above that my mother first purchased over 60 years ago at a discount store portray this version of the story. There is a donkey, a dog, a couple of sheep, a shepherd, Joseph and Mary, and an angel. There is also a cow and a second shepherd, bigger than the other figures, that were added later. The original set also came with three Wise Men, including one who appears African in origin. The set didn't have any camels, so those too were added later, and they are a little larger. I'm not sure why there are only two. Perhaps the store ran out of camels that year, or maybe two were what mother could afford out of her grocery money.

The Wise Men, or Magi, aren't mentioned in Luke's account; they come from the version in Matthew's gospel. In that story, Jesus is born in Bethlehem because that's where Joseph and Mary live, and the wise men from The East follow a star until they come to the home where the baby can be found. They present three kinds of gifts and worship the child. Because there are three gifts, we assume there were only three wise men, although scholars today seem to think there could have been more, perhaps even some wise women, on that pilgrimage. We assume they rode camels because that was the transportation system in those times, but it is tradition, because the Gospels don't say. So my mother's nativity set puts these two stories together, and this is the mental picture most of us carry with us when we think of the Christmas story. Sometimes we are suprised when we go to the Bible and read the stories anew, because what they say, and what we remember of tradition, may not always be the same. Yet some themes endure: good news, wonder, and the angels' message "do not be afraid."

The second photo above is of the first nativity set Norm and I purchased, when we were living in Denver. We went to a winter festival at Georgetown, Colo., and the simplicity of the three gilt figures--Joseph, Mary and the Babe in the manger--appealed to us because it emphasized the central characters in the Christmas drama, without the extras. A year or so later we found the simple wooden frame at another craft fair. From time to time I may add a couple of other figures, usually a folk art angel as in this scene from this year. But this nativity helps us concentrate on the baby and his parents, the very human figures in this often supernatural tale.

Neither of the remaining Gospels has a narrative of Jesus' birth, but the Gospel of John brings yet another perspective: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....And the Word became flesh and lived among us." There it is. God became flesh, like us, and lived among us. That is what led the magi across a desert to see. That is what the angels proclaimed to the shepherds, who were the untouchables of their day. The baby who grew up to be known as Jesus of Nazareth often compared himself to a shepherd. And Christians today who dedicate their lives to serving the least of humanity around them will testify that the Word lives among us, still.

Merry Christmas.

No Need to Dream--White Christmas is Here!

2010-12-24T15:54:00.006-06:00

It's a merry, snowy Christmas Eve in Bel Nor! I took all of these pictures a little before noon when Norm went out to scoop about an inch off the driveway. It's only about 30 degrees so as you can see the street is responding well to the ice melting chemicals the village provided. This photo is looking south from our front porch.

The view to the north from the front porch shows a neighbor's outdoor lights buried under a gathering blanket of snow on his evergreens. The glow at night will be awesome! We are planning to stay in tonight and have our traditional goulash supper, and listen to our Christmas music and maybe watch the Renaissance special on PBS. A spry little elf seems to have visited our Christmas tree, too. We'll have to see about that in the morning.

Out in the back yard, the birds are having a Christmas feast at two different feeders. It's amazing the quality of the zoom on my camera; this feeder is all the way at the back of the yard and I was on the back porch. We also have a bird bath heater so they have been dipping in and out of their "spa" today, too.

Norm plugged in the lights in the bushes along the driveway this morning, right before the snow started. It's kind of hard to see them right now. Our neighbor Barb and Ava have gone to be with her family in Illinois, so it's pretty quiet around here. Our neighbors on the other side have family visiting them, but for the most part, the village seems very quiet and almost deserted.

I've written before about dreaming of white Christmases as a child and not seeing one until I was 21. Our family in Oklahoma and Texas are having a rainy Christmas this year, but in some areas the rain may be welcome. Somewhere the sun is shining, surely. When it comes out here, I'll be sure to take a picture and post it! Meanwhile, stay warm and cherish the chance to be with your family and friends. Blessings to all, and a little bit later, to all a good night!

Visitor # 8700

2010-12-23T01:15:00.002-06:00

My sisters-in-law, cousin and best friend are this blog's most faithful readers, and you all check in on average once a day. Visitor #8700 Wednesday morning was s-i-l Carol Ann, down Irving TX way. On Facebook she was saying she had finished wrapping gifts and washing the crystal and was getting ready to go to the store for some items she would need for the family dinner on Christmas Eve. Gee, Carol, I wish I could channel some of that energy! And you had time to check Home Stories, too--not once, but twice! I wish I had a good prize for the #8700 milestone but in the meantime, please accept my thanks for reading--even when there is nothing new.

This is a wonderful time of year...busy...exciting...sometimes tiring. I have a lot of thoughts and I will try to find time to write and post some pictures soon. Meanwhile, I hope everyone is enjoying this season!

Advent is here, and the Poinsettia is getting ready!

2010-11-28T21:05:00.007-06:00

Advent begins today! When I was a kid, there was Thanks giving dinner, followed by the Thanks- giving parade and downtown decoration lighting on the Friday afterwards that brought Santa to town, and a month of singing Christmas Carols in church and browsing the Western Auto catalog and making out my Christmas list. I knew that out of my list of 6 to 10 wishes I would actually get three presents.... the ones that Santa had in his workshop and could fit in his sleigh. There was also the Christmas concert by the grade school choir (where I memorized all of the words to all of the verses of the carols we sang in church) and the school play, usually an adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens--I got to play Fanny, Tiny Tim's sister, one year. And a Christmas pageant at church in which I never got to play Mary--I was either a shepherd (we had a shortage of boys or else we were ahead of the times in bending gender roles) or one of the sheep. So when I first encountered Advent, during my college years, it was new to me. I was excited to learn about this tradition of preparing the heart and spirit for the coming of the Christ child.

In Denver in the 1970s Norm and I acquired an Advent wreath and a booklet with ideas for family reflection. We followed it for years, but then expanded with a bigger wreath and various Advent devotional books, including a series of them written for the three lectionary cycles by our friends the Dixons. For the past three years, our church and another Disciples church in St. Louis have jointly published a booklet of Advent devotions written by elders and other leaders of the respective congregations. (If you are interested, there are links to a PDF version and a Word version on the home page of Affton Christian Church's web site here. You are welcome to download and use them. And yes, Norm and I each wrote one of the meditations!)

So this morning our church observed Advent, and Norm and I were asked to light the first candle, the candle of Hope. How we all need to have hope in times that seem dark and threatening. One of the best signs of hope this morning was a group of eager children who gathered at the front of the sanctuary and helped set up a bare outline of a wooden stable. Then 9 of them, ranging in age from 10 years to 13 months, sat at our pastor's feet while she read them a story about the angel's visit to Mary. Three of the children had just joined the congregation as our student pastor's family had finally been able to move to St. Louis and join him at the seminary. Three were visiting their grandmother. Three were with their mom. Since our church has had a shortage of children in recent years, it was a very positive and hopeful moment in the service.

So what do geraniums and a poinsettia have to do with the first week of Advent? Well, they are in our house, in the sunny upstairs south windows after spending the summer on the porch. The two red geraniums came from the church last spring, when a whole bevy of them decorated the sanctuary on Mother's Day and then members were invited to adopt them. They are still blooming bravely in their new environment and every morning when I get up and walk into that room to do a few simple exercises and say my morning prayers, they greet me. Few things in life are more hopeful than flowers. And the poinsettia was a gift Last Christmas from our friends the Dixons. It was a lovely rich red and had decorated the church where Mike has been preaching. It spent a quiet summer on the porch and the leaves became green and lush. It has been in an upstairs closet window, and since mid-September it has been naturally getting the number of hours of darkness a poinsettia needs to start showing color. Never before have we had this happen, and so to me this, too, is a sign of hope. Maybe sometimes you can use a little darkness to bring forth something of beauty. I don't know how many leaves will turn red of if flower bracts will appear by Christmas, but even if they don't, this reddening blush brightens each day for me.

Of course, all this begs the question: but Judi, where is your Advent Wreath? Well, I am about to go get it out of the back closet and tomorrow I'll try to find some new candles. I may have to settle for semi-traditional blue if I can't find traditional purple and pink, but it will be out very soon. It has to be: the prayer shawl ministry group is meeting at our house this Thursday!

Thanksgiving Snow, Turkey and Blessings

2010-11-26T19:58:00.006-06:00

As the cold front finally swept the rain and fog out of our part of the Mississsippi River valley on Thanks- giving afternoon, the rain changed quickly over to snow. We came home last night to about 1/2 inch on the ground, and this morning in the 10 a.m. sunshine it is still visible from our back door, looking over at Barb's yard.
Driving was not a problem on our way home from Edwardsville, where we were fortunate to join in the annual Myers family feast.

Gary and Karen have a wonderful view from their deck of their woodland garden and on into some common ground. I took this as we were waiting on the turkey, while the snow was beginning to fall and coat the ground.

One blessing was getting to see Lily, who is 18 months old and talking very plainly. One of her favorite words yesterday was "Pie!" And she put away quite a bit of pumpkin pie after an all-to -brief nap. Here she is with mom Michelle, grandma Karen and great-grandma Mary Ann in the kitchen while dinner was still roasting and bubbling on the stove.

Once the turkey was pronounced perfectly done, Gary prepared to carve the bird for the buffet. This was the best tasting, most moist and succulent yet.

Reflecting on this year's Thanksgiving, we were especially mindful of how much we enjoy "face time" with our friends, even though we are also grateful for the wonderful web of electronic connections we savor with cousins, nephews, nieces, their children, far-off friends, siblings, former students and everyone else who makes up our still-expanding extended family on Facebook. In this season when we celebrate abundance, it's timely to remember that even when we are worried about scarcity, we are blessed to have more than enough of love, memories, faith, and friendship.

Doris' Holiday Cactus Blooms Early

2010-11-19T00:03:00.006-06:00

Our most venerable holiday cactus, started as a slip that Norm's Aunt Doris gave us many years ago, opened in a pink frenzy earlier this week. I didn't put it outdoors on the porch until September because the summer was so hot, and I thought maybe it would delay the blooming if it wasn't out all summer. Fat chance of that. But it has really brightened the dining room this week!

This week was less hectic than last, but still I was pushing to get some fabric cut to exchange at the Quilt Guild meeting tonight, and I have a lot to do tomorrow to get ready for the last Scrap Quilt Club meeting of the year. We will take December and January off, then start again. I hope I can take some photos of quilt blocks soon and post them. Also, I'm excited that the Linville Reunion Quilt is down to only 2-1/2 rows of blocks left. The goal of the Spanish Lake Quilters is to have it "out of the frame" before Christmas. I have enjoyed getting to know these ladies, even though we have different philosophies about some things. Quilting brings all sorts of people together.

Last night we had a steady, slow rain that amounted to only 10 or 20 points as Norm's mom would have said, but it was nice to get some moisture--October and also this month so far have been extraordinarily dry. Tomorrow is leaf raking day, and grocery day. Saturday is scrap quilts for me and book club for Norm. Sunday we will have a joint worship service with the Presbyterians in the neighborhood, followed by a carry in Thanksgiving dinner, so today I started looking at my recipe box to decide what I'm going to take. It is so hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only one week away, and we all know what comes after that. I don't think we ever quite finished putting away the Christmas decorations last winter, and here it is almost time to get them out and put them up again. Time does go faster the older you get.

Fall Colors III: At Last, The Maple

2010-11-13T22:12:00.004-06:00

About a week ago, our sugar maple was getting close to its peak color, so I snapped a photo. On Friday, when you stood beneath it you were bathed in a golden glow because all of the interior leaves had turned as well. Yesterday, half of those leaves landed in the yard, and the ground glowed golden. Today was cloudy, windy and quite a bit colder, and the tree is beginning to show its branches. I imagine that by Tuesday, when the tree trimming guys arrive, only about 5% of the leaves will remain on the tree, making it an easier job for them. Of course, then it will be time to get the leaves raked! Norm has been sweeping the driveway and raking paths for Ava to use in the yard, but it still looks like the leaves are ankle deep. I wonder how much they all would weigh before they start to dry out?

Speaking of drying out, we are getting a tad dry in this neck of the woods. Several days last week it was windy and there was a Fire Danger warning posted. We were supposed to get a nice rain this weekend; then the forecast backed off to showers; last night they said we might get 1/10 of an inch, or "10 points" as Mom Linville used to say. I'm not sure we got anything except a damp spot on the driveway.

Today as I drove to and fro for our church Bazaar, it seemed to me that all of the late coloring trees were more intensely red, even almost purple, than I remember. Nature saved the best of the show for the last act, or maybe even the encore. At any rate, our Indian Summer seems to be over and it feels and looks like November now. Time to think about baking breads and looking for sweet potato casserole recipes, etc. At least I could find cans of pumpkin in the stores this year!

House Plants Showing Off

2010-11-11T23:45:00.006-06:00

Most people have Christmas Cactuses (Cacti?) although they might bloom around Thanks- giving, or maybe even close to Easter. But beginning with its second year with us, this graceful white tinged- with- orchid cactus insists on blooming within a couple of weeks after we bring it in from its summer sojourn outside. Or, as it did last year when we left it inside all summer, at Halloween. This year it is a Veterans Day Cactus. A gift from a friend many years ago, it keeps on giving.

Another friend's gift (dear DH) from 5 or 6 years ago, the rubber tree was almost as tall as I am by the time I lugged it downstairs and out to the porch in July. It threatened to outgrow the porch, so some serious trimming was in order. After I removed 4 sturdy stalks, a bevy of shorter stalks remained for a more compact plant. (Will post photos of it later.) I had read that you have to air-layer a rubber tree to get its cuttings to root since the stems are quite woody, but I didn't have the patience (or the time) to try that. And yet I couldn't throw such obviously healthy vegetation onto the compost heap. So I stuck the four stalks in some moist potting soil and waited to see what would happen. (Norm says I never met a plant I didn't want to propogate, or a cutting I didn't have to try to save.) Three of the stalks rooted, so they have become a new plant, about 2-1/2 feet tall. When I took this photo I thought I would have to use it in an advertisement: Well Behaved, Resilient Rubber Tree Needs a New Home. As much as I would LIKE having two rubber trees, there is room in the sunny upstairs window for only one. Then my plant-loving friend Lola the librarian heard about it, and today it went home with her. I hope it continues to prosper, but she has a small condo, so I also hope it doesn't completely take over her home.

Our church is having a bazaar on Saturday, and right now I'm in the process of deciding which projects I have no time to finish, so I can concentrate on the remaining ones that are doable. Watch tomorrow for some preview pictures of it. If you are in STL on Saturday, drop by Compton Heights Christian Church, 2149 S. Grand Blvd., between 10 and 4 for some great ornaments, knitted items, Gypsy bags, Fair Trade coffee, chocolate and handcrafts, plus delicious baked goods and snacks (spiced pecans, or champagne jelly, anyone?) Oh, and some fantastic chili for lunch--the day is supposed to be showery and in the low 50s, so that sounds really good!

After the bazaar: the Maple Tree. Seriously this time.

Tim's Talk: Guest Post: Trusting God

2010-11-08T11:00:00.001-06:00

This post is by the wife of Tim Graves, a seminary student we have known for many years, since he and his siblings were in the youth group at Florissant Valley Christian Church that Norm and I sponsored back in the 1970s. Tim went to college, married Maggie, and they had two children and a dog named Susie that they allowed us to adopt from them. Maggie went to seminary and was ordained first. She has been serving First CC in Wheeling, WV while Tim has being going to Lexington Theological Seminary. In this article, Maggie discusses their amazing journey to a call to a new kind of ministry, and what it means for a couple in mid life, with children grown, to set out on a major journey trusting in God.

Tim's Talk: Guest Post: Trusting God: "by Rev. Magdalyn M. Sebastian Maggie is Tim's wife. This column appeared in the Wheeling Intelligencer on November 6, 2010. Trusting the D..."

End of the Growing Season

2010-11-05T21:30:00.009-05:00

We have had several predictions of a freeze, but each one seemed to miss us, and the flowers have just kept on doing their thing. I think geraniums, especially, get more beautiful in the fall when the hottest weather is gone. This porch box contains plants that spent last winter in our basement. My plan is to move them inside and trim them back this weekend so they can rest in the basement windows again until next spring. Tonight it is supposed to be 28 degrees at the airport, which is close to us. The plants that are still outside are tucked away next to the house at the bottom of the basement stairs, out of frost's way. It is about 7 degrees warmer there than out in the yard.

This salmon beauty is about three years old. I have already brought it into the house since this photo was taken, and it is in one of the upstairs south windows. The coleus has been magnificent, but strong winds blew it over and shattered the pot after these pictures. I have some cuttings in a glass jar to see if they will root, but the plant itself is going to meet its fate either tonight, or soon.

Another multi-year geranium, this apple blossom will spend the winter downstairs. I have a cutting from it that rooted, and it is in one of the upstairs windows. I hope we will have many new plants to enjoy in spring 2011.

Of course, some summer plants in the yard don't seem to know that their days and hours are numbered, so they have been going merrily on. There is probably a lesson there someplace. This is a seedling coneflower from this summer that burst into bloom in the fall, while its parents were all sporting seed pods and feeding the local flock of goldfinches. For some reasons our coneflowers love this south facing wall by the driveway. A little butterfly found a late season snack on this one as well.

Petunias are so hardy, I think they might survive a nuclear fallout event, like cockroaches. Except they are much prettier. We grew these purple ones for their great petunia scent. Twice they were decimated and defoliated by little green caterpillars, and twice they have battled back. Usually they will survive a light freeze...these are under the euonymous bushes out back, where we moved their planter after they were attacked the second time. If they won't give up, why should I? Thoughts like that are helpful when the news is disturbing or discouraging, and I guess that is one reason I am so crazy about plants. They just do their thing and don't think about it too much.

After a summer of dis- appoint- ment in the tomato patch, our two vines finally started producing in October. These are on the cherry tomato vine we planted. We also have harvested a lot of medium Jet Stars from the other plant, and just tonight enjoyed a nice ripe one in our salad. Fresh tomatoes...in November...in the Midwest. Gotta love it.

Next up: Fall Colors III: At last, the Maple has turned!

Fall Colors II: Mums Glow with Light from Within

2010-10-24T21:44:00.009-05:00

Nothing says fall like asters and mums. For years I have looked at the gorgeous asters at our favorite garden center, and passed on getting them because, well, everyone knows they are hard to grow, they get the yellows, our soil is bad for them, etc. But this year I finally coughed up $5 on the first day of October and brought this specimen home.

Norm repotted it and placed it at the corner of the front wall in the midst of our luxuriant (and still growing, nearly 4 weeks later) sweet potato vine. Yes, that is one vine, and it's in a pot. It drinks like a sailor, though--we had to water it every day, sometimes twice a day, in the hot summer weather. One thing about a sweet potato vine, you don't have to guess when it's thirsty.

After two glorious weeks, the aster had bloomed itself out, so it is now retired and resting out back until we can find a spot to plant it. We rotated this bronze mum into its spot about a week ago and it is still going strong. So is the sweet potato vine. Our plan is to see what kind of tuber it has produced and if it looks healthy, we will keep it in the basement this winter and plant it again next spring. We did that a couple of years ago with another prolific vine. The mum will get planted in the flower bed in the wall, probably. Sometimes they survive the winter and sometimes they don't.

This is another bronze mum that has survived for about three years now. We planted it next to the front porch steps and I think this is its best year since we did that. I didn't pinch this one back this year because it stayed compact, and it also didn't set buds until sometime in August.I love these flowers because they seem to glow, even on a cloudy day!

Another hardy returning mum is this red one...I think it is an unusual red because most "reds" I see are really burgundy. this one occupies the far end of the wall next to Mr. Guy's property. For a while this spring I wasn't sure it had survived (this is its third year) but then some foliage poked through the mulch. This is such a vibrant color.

This white mum that looks like it is trying to pretend it's a Shasta daisy is actually one of two plants that we divided in their second year because they were overgrowing everything else planted on the wall. They bloom really early. They were keeping the aster company back at the end of September and early October. They are completely finished now, but they were our first harbinger of fall.

These pink mums hold the volunteer record...I think they have been out back under the lilac since at least 2006, maybe earlier. They spread out more every year; this is just one cluster of the entire sprawling group. Usually I pinch them back severely, but we were gone in June when I should have done it, and July was so hot they grew slowly. After the first fall wind, though, they really flopped over. This was a semi cloudy day with the sun wanly showing, and they still glowed. I can see them from the kitchen window and they are so cheery. They will persist until frost.

These sunny yellow flowers occupy the "welcome" spot beside our front porch steps and when they fade, they will get planted near the front door or in the wall as well. They were the third new plant I bought this fall.

Leaves are starting to fall from the oak, the maple, and all of the neighbors' trees as well, which makes it hard to keep the flowers visible, but we give it a try anyway. Soon enough the leaves will be raked, the plants will be heeled in to the ground for winter, the bird feeders will be up, and I'll be looking for where I packed my longjohns. Today it got to 75 degrees. Tonight we had thunder and the first rain in over a month...we got about an inch or more in less than an hour. Now there's a small stream flood advisory for North County. As my dad would have said, when it rains, it pours. But I'll take it.

Next up: Persistent Geraniums and other summer plants that don't know what season it is.

Fall Colors I: Trees

2010-10-23T14:41:00.006-05:00

Fall officially started a month ago, but trees in our neighborhood are just now showing color, and leaves (except for the cottonwood, which started shedding in August) are just now beginning to fall. Today it is almost 80 degrees, with showers forecast for later, and a breezy south wind that is ringing the wind chime on the front porch. The doors are open, and we haven't thought about replacing the screens with the storm windows yet. It seems like summer wants to linger longer, and we can't really object. One of the first colorful trees we can see from the house is our backyard neighbor Mark's sassafras tree. Behind our garage, it looms up with fiery glowing branches.

Across the street, our neighbor Karen has two hard maples in front of her house. This one is blazing gold right now while the one next to it is still green. We look out the front door and see this glowing golden mass of leaves that shines even on a partly cloudy day, like today.
This week has been a sickly one, with one of the season's famous "two weeks no matter what you take for it" colds that included fever for a while, and now a racking cough that sneaks up on me. So although it is a lovely day for a drive, my leaf peeking so far has been at home. If I had more ambition I would start cleaning up the house plants on the porch, since surely they will have to come inside some time. Yet our highs will be in the 80s through Monday and even at the end of next week, on Halloween, the low will be only in the 50s. So, not yet.

A couple of years ago I posted a new photo almost every day for a month as our backyard sugar maple turned colors. I won't do that this year, but will note that on this date, there is just a tad of orange showing on the tips of the outer branches, and most of the interior is still green. One exception is a group of branches high up, as in 30 to 40 feet, that are becoming yellow. This tree needs trimming and thinning every 5 years or so, and this is its year. Yesterday the company we have contracted with called to say they would be out next Tuesday. We said, not yet. It's better to trim it after the leaves have fallen, and Sugar Maple isn't going to let go of all of its ton or so of little oxygen factories for a couple of weeks, I'm betting.

Next up: Fall Color II: Mums both new and volunteer

Confluence Casino Defeated--For Now

2010-10-21T23:47:00.002-05:00

Last year just about this time, I blogged about the threat to wildlife and tranquility near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. That post can be found here. This week there is some good news. The North County Casino was one of 4 finalists being considered on Tuesday by the Gaming Commission for a license that came available this summer. The developers asked for an extension because they said they didn't have all the financing in place. The Comission said "no." So now there are three. One of them is also on the Mississippi, south of Interstate 270 at the Chain of Rocks, and it too is an environmental threat and of concern to the drinking water supply of the City of St. Louis. (The other two proposals are in Cape Girardeau, which will hold a plebiscite on Nov. 2, and near Kansas City.)

The chair of the commission has said they may not award any license this round, and that would leave the door open for the North County Casino partners to try again. The land has been rezoned, and many area cities and school districts are pressing for "jobs" and "revenue." But for now, the folks who are more interested in migratory birds, wetlands preservation and the historic significance of this Lewis and Clark exploration site are warily cautious that better times are ahead.

By the Waters We Lived, and Still Do

2010-10-15T00:31:00.012-05:00

Hyco Creek, Deep Creek, Yadkin River, Belews Creek, Janes Creek, Lynn Branch, Turkey Creek, North Fork Red River, Lake of the Ozarks, Arkansas River, Little Spring Creek, Lake Taneycomo, White River, Turnback Creek, Lake Fort Gibson, Walnut Creek, Roaring River, Platte River, Current River, Mississippi and Missouri rivers. All of these “waters” have played a role in my family heritage, going back to 1785 when Laughlin McElyea got a land grant of 200 acres “on the waters of Hyco Creek” in Caswell County, North Carolina. Both my father’s and mother’s families, as well as Norm’s, lived or played alongside the waters I have named above—and many more that I can’t think of. Photo above: North fork of Deep Creek, Yadkin County, NC.

From an early age, I was forbidden to go out our back gate and into the creek, but it fascinated me. The boy next door would go fishing for crawdads in it. One day we found an empty beer can floating in it, and I was horrified that anyone would trash my precious creek, with its rock walls that went back to the WPA that now had tall saplings growing up out of them. Once the creek flooded and came far up into our yard, causing a lot of excitement in the neighborhood. A few years later, it was covered over and buried…turned into an enclosed storm water drainage system. Further from our block, it still remained open and free, and once I was old enough to venture out on my bicycle, I would still visit it regularly. I came to respect water and the creatures that depend on it as I explored Walnut Creek. Photo above: Linville River just above Linville Falls, Blue Ridge, North Carolina.

When I think about it, most of my family has lived near a creek or river at some time. I treasure a photo of my grandparents celebrating their engagement in a park alongside the North Fork of the Red River in Oklahoma. Before oil was discovered, before agricultural runoff became commonplace, before sewers were discharged into rivers instead of septic fields….our nation’s waters were a delight. As a Girl Scout camper in Oklahoma, I enjoyed wading through Little Spring Creek and canoeing on local lakes. Norm’s mother and her siblings appear in a photo taken when they were swimming in the Smoky Hill. Photo above: the Calusahatchee River estuary at Fort Myers, Florida, just before it joins the Gulf of Mexico.

Water is basic not only to our pleasure, but to our life itself. And yet our streams and lakes are often abused, used as a dumping ground for pretty foul stuff. I remember learning in high school chemistry that water is “the universal solvent” but we are pushing our luck today. In parts of the Western U.S., aquifers are depleted, making deeper wells necessary and the rivers above them are now always dry. Elsewhere in the world, waters that fill with snow melt are shrinking with climate change, and others are swelling as severe rains drench impoverished peoples in India, Pakistan and China. In the middle east and elsewhere, wars are fought over rights to fresh water since it is so scarce. Photo above: Lakes Park in Fort Myers, FL, nature reclaimed from a quarry.

One important local issue for me is a proposal to build a large casino and entertainment complex right next to a wildlife refuge on a wetland along the Mississippi River just past its historic confluence with the Missouri River. There are more kinds of pollution that just the icky stuff in the water, but it’s also true that this project is just upstream from the intake for the city of St. Louis’ drinking water supply. Photo above: Confluence of the Missouri (left) and Mississippi (upper right) rivers north of St. Louis. There's a proposal to build a casino complex just downstream from this historic site.

DoSomething.org < http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-pollution> quotes these facts about the effects of pollution in our waters:

· 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.

· The Mississippi River – which drains the lands of nearly 40% of the continental United Sates – carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year. The resulting dead zone in the Gulf each summer is about the size of Massachusetts.

· 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually.

· Polluted drinking waters are a problem for about half of the world’s population. Each year there are about 250 million cases of water-based diseases, resulting in roughly 5 to 10 million deaths. Photo above: the Missouri River at Confluence Conservation Area north of St. Louis, August, 2008.

Now that I have spent this week thinking about water, I’m going to look at that flowing, clean, safe, abundant stream of water coming from my kitchen faucet with renewed admiration and respect. What can we do, what are we doing, to help preserve our nation’s rivers, lakes and seacoasts, and to clean up waters that have become polluted? To help less fortunate folks get access to clean and plentiful water? I realize I’m not doing nearly enough, and I will look for ways to do more. Photo: Ice closes the Mississippi River to barge traffic in January north of St. Louis.

Today is Blog Action Day, and the theme is WATER. Here is a link to the National Resources Defense Council web site, where you can find more information about how to clean up our rivers and other waters.

One final thing you can do is join me in signing a petition supporting the United Nations’ effort to bring clean, safe water to millions of people. Just click on the badge at the top of the right rail on this blog, and the widget will take you there. Photo at right: Mississippi River above flood stage at Cape Girardeau, MO.

Coming Tomorrow--Blog Action Day

2010-10-14T16:33:00.002-05:00

It's a good thing I committed to writing a blog on Oct. 15 for Blog Action Day, since I've not been posting anything else lately. Sometimes I'm not sure what I've been doing...this afternoon I went up to my sewing room and the last time I had moved the daily quilt block calendar was Sept. 23. I guess that is the last day I worked on anything...and it showed. I dusted and decluttered and finished an Optional Block for Quilt Guild next week, even though I'll have to miss the meeting.

I have my draft of my Blog Action Day post started...need to find some photos. This year's theme is water, and I'm writing about bodies of water I have known and loved. So please come back tomorrow and feel free to share your own memories of a time when a local stream behind the house was clean enough to play in!

Quilt Blocks and Sweet Charity

2010-09-28T21:59:00.006-05:00

Week before last involved a lot of quilt block making and quilt handling. The final block of the month challenge of the year at the Flower Valley Quilt Guild (October through September is the block challenge year) was to make a block using 25 charm squares from one's stash of material. The winner of the drawing for all the squares now gets to create a unique quilt. I would have loved to win them, but I didn't. I'm most fond of the center square that depicts a spider web!

Another guild project was to make 12-inch blocks using 1930s fabric or reproductions. Since I still have scads of 1930s material left over from the Linville family quilt, I created these four Churn Dash blocks. They are entered in a national drawing and I'm eligible to win a set of 12 blocks made by other quilters...but not sure when I'll hear about that. I kind of hope I don't win since the object is to use up this material, not acquire MORE of it!

Guild members have been making quilts to donate to charity all year long, and we had a "show and tell" of the completed ones at our September meeting. Since I am on the committee, I volunteered to store the finished quilts until they can be given away. Here, the 35 finished quilts (so far) occupied our dining room table while I sorted them by type. We have 10 twin-sized quilts on the left, that will go to a private, church supported home for youth with mental health issues. The stack on the right is 21 baby quilts that will go to a shelter for teenage mothers that is run by a Catholic charity. The 5 quilts stacked in front will join some others that will be donated to Project Hero which provides housing, substance abuse treatment and job training for homeless veterans. It is one program out of many sponsored through St. Louis' very effective homeless services organization, St. Patrick's Center.

Then I spent last weekend quilting, too, at the scrap quilt club. It was a wonderful day and I made progress on two lovely projects that are not quite yet ready for prime time, but stay tuned!

Summer Just Dropped into Fall

2010-09-26T23:24:00.004-05:00

It seems like just last week I was putting up the last of the Illinois peaches... but now it is totally apple season. On Sept. 11, a group of us from our church went to Eckert's farm in Belleville to pick our own apples. It was a little early, but that meant we got to pick Jonathons! They make great applesauce and pies, but they are even better as a lunch box treat.

Our group of intrepid apple pickers included, Mary, Madeline, Marty, Norm, Kim, DebE, Darrell, and little Annabelle. That's over 100 pounds of apples in those sacks!

Our warm weather persisted through most of the month, and even last Sunday, it was a challenge to keep everyone in the church sanctuary cool enough without air conditioning. (Thieves stole the copper from two of the church's outdoor units...and we are still replacing them, or rather the improved fence to protect the new ones.) Today we were hoping everyone would be warm enough. It's supposed to get to 47 tonight and although I'm not worried about the houseplants on the porch freezing, I know I have to start getting them sprayed and washed and moved into the house.

More signs that summer is over and fall is really here:

Robins were flocking on the golf course this evening. Scores of them.
Hummingbirds are still coming through, but the combative males are gone, and the remaining ones often linger a while and tank up before moving on. This morning I realized a feeder in the dining room window was empty after a hummingbird sat there and stared inside the house at Norm and me while we ate our breakfast. (Yes, we filled the feeder.)
Buds on the chrysanthemums are showing lots of color.
The tree frogs have finally fallen silent. Only the crickets give a night concert now.
Spiders are starting to reappear around the house.
Moles are very active, as are squirrels building winter nests.
The furnace, which is set at 72 degrees, came on for the first time this afternoon.
I wore socks with my sandals today for the first time since sometime last May.

October is coming soon, and the challenge is going to be fitting everything in. Church board and elders, knitting group, Regional assembly, book club, quilt guild, morning water exercise, Tai Chi 24 form class, Prime Timers, farewell to Orchard Crest camp, Norm's college class 50th reunion in Kansas, twice a week hand quilting sessions--and that's just the stuff we know about, now. Hope we make time to make some mores, drive up river to watch bird migrations, write some family history, read, declutter, start to plan for the holiday celebrations, write more letters and blogs, and savor the crisp fall skies.

Been Reading Again

2010-09-21T00:38:00.003-05:00

This month I'm guilty of reading more than writing. Reading other blogs. Reading e-mail. Reading the morning paper. Reading a fascinating draft of a forthcoming book. Reading the tea leaves. Reading FaceBook. When I'm not reading, I have been cooking, or piecing patchwork, or quilting, or knitting, or sitting on the porch staring at the hummingbirds who are still coming to the feeders as they migrate. But I will write again, I promise. And post pictures. They are right there in the camera, waiting to be uploaded. I just need to commit the time to writing, instead of reading, instead of day dreaming.

A Summer's Labor, Summed Up

2010-09-06T23:41:00.007-05:00

On this day, the official end of Summer, here's a reflection on what our summer has brought. On this blog I have chronicled some of our travels, to Kansas and North Carolina. There will be more to be shared in coming months, especially about family history research. But for us the essence of summer here at home is defined in part by the view from our front porch. One afternoon the sunlight sparkled on the oak leaves in just such a way that reminded me of the huge oxygen factories that trees are. We owe our breath to them!

We still try to garden, although our main crops in our sun-starved back yard are limited these days to a few tomato plants, and the ever-expanding raspberry patch. This was not a good tomato year in St. Louis. This is the full sum of our crop so far, sitting on the kitchen window sill. Two Jet Stars and a cherry tomato. There were a couple of others, but between heavy rain and scorching heat, they rotted on the vine. The vines are still living, and with cooler nights have started setting fruit again. They might ripen before frost, or they might not. These tomatoes were, by the way, delicious. We would have loved more just like them.

Back in the spring, some 20 women in my quilting guild started a scrap quilt club that meets on the 4th Saturday. I've posted a couple of completed quilts from that group before. This block is my first completed one for a large quilt called Cathedral Stars that is a club project. It is supposed to be finished by the end of October. Right.The goal of the club is to use up the scraps and leftovers in our stash. So far, so good. I haven't had to buy anything new except some Christmas border fabric so far.

My quilt guild also has a monthly block challenge. We all receive the same pattern, with general instructions about type of fabric to use, etc. Then at the meeting the completed ones are displayed and one person is drawn from a hat to receive the whole bunch to make into a quilt. This is my block for August. I'm working on the September one, now. A year ago, I promised myself that I would do all 12 blocks...and it looks like I'm going to make it. The reward will be a quarter yard of new fabric...something I really need!

Another promise I made at the beginning of 2010 was to finish the family reunion quilt top. I did that in June, and in late July the Spanish Lake quilters put it on the frame and started quilting. I get to join them on Tuesdays, and I really enjoy hand quilting, especially on this project. Here are Christine, Judy and Fran at work last week in Judy's bright and cheery bonus room. At this point, I think there is the equivalent of 20 blocks done, 44 to go. Or something like that.

On this Labor Day, we shared a leisurely dinner with our dear friends the Dixons, with conversation going well into the evening, and raspberry sundaes enjoyed by all. After they left, Norm and I repaired to our front porch to enjoy a cool breeze and listen to the tree frogs and crickets singing in the dark. For once, no mosquitoes were biting. If we had screens on the porch, it would be perfect for sleeping. The evening chorus still says summer, but the cool nip in the air says....fall is coming.

So what about fall. What's on the schedule? Well, water exercise resumes on Tuesday. Norm and I are both trying to learn Tai Chi 24 long form, also on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. After a month of sabbatical from meetings, our church is making up for lost time. The knitting group will start up in October. I've got several projects to finish for the church bazaar, which will be on Nov. 13 this year. Norm and I plan to go to Kansas for his college class 50th reunion in October, and we also have a church regional assembly coming up that month, too. There's a manuscript I want to read. A couple of them, actually. I think I might just blink and wake up tomorrow and find out it is already Thanksgiving, or even Christmas. We really are living that cliche about not knowing how we ever found time to work!

Crickets, Tree Frogs and Clematis

2010-09-04T00:20:00.002-05:00

On the weather cast the other night, the meteorologist announced that summer is over--as far as the weather stats are concerned. The end of summer always stirs up a sadness in me. Just in time, a cool front arrived Friday morning, and it is supposed to get down into the 50s tonight, as if to rub it in. So I'm listening to the crickets outside...they always are more numerous in late summer and early fall. There is one lone tree frog a few houses South of here...back in July their chorus was loud and late into the night. The white frost of fall-flowering wild clematis is adorning fences, another sign of the changing season. School has been in session for two weeks now. Newly hatched caterpillars of some swallowtail species are finishing off my potted parsley. There are more signs of fall than I can shake a stick at. And I still haven't re-potted all of the houseplants! Labor Day Weekend is here and there's no denying that even though warm days are still to come, fall is in the air. Guess it's time to call the people who inspect the furnace.

Visitor #8000 Was---Myself!

2010-08-28T00:08:00.002-05:00

I got all excited this evening to see that the 8000th visitor had been to this blog....and then I realized when I looked at SiteMeter that it was me, on my iPad!. I have the counting software set to ignore the IP address of this computer, so my visits to read the site or to post something don't count. But apparently the iPad, although it is accessing the web through my home wireless setup, has a different IP address than the computer. Anyway, now I will need to take into account the views of the blog I make remotely when I'm marking viewing milestones. So, #8001, you will be the special one today. (Unless you are the GoogleBot...) Hmmm...I know what the problem is, I'm using a different browser (Safari) on the iPad than the one I use (Firefox) on this computer. I think hiding Safari from this IP can be fixed if I can remember how I managed to get it to ignore Firefox....Technology can get complicated. I think I'll devote most of today (Saturday) to quilting instead--it's Scrap Quilt Club meeting day: 6 hours of sewing with about 20 dear friends. Wheeeee!

I Have Joined the iPad Revolution!

2010-08-26T21:14:00.004-05:00

A few days ago, Norm said, let's get that iPad you have been talking about for our anniversary! So this afternoon we went to the Apple store at the Galleria and had quite an experience learning how to use it. Then we went to Cheese-ology in the Loop for Norm's birthday dinner. Now we are home and I am trying to type on this strange little touch pad. At this point I know I can enter text for my blog using a trick that the Apple Genius named Andrew figured out to bypass an issue Blogger seems to have with the iPad version of Safari. Once I upload some photos from my camera to this, I'll see if I can post them as well!

Rembering Will Rogers

2010-08-16T22:29:00.003-05:00

The Tulsa World newspaper today has a wonderful package of photos, videos, stories and quotes online in memory of Will Rogers, the entertainer, humorist, world traveler and journalist who died in a plane crash at Point Barrow, Alaska, 75 years ago yesterday. As a native Tulsan, growing up I knew his story well, having visited the Will Rogers Memorial at Claremore and being fortunate enough to attend the high school named for him, Will Rogers High School, which was built as a WPA project in the Great Depression and opened in 1939. The opening page of the coverage can be found by clicking here: Will Rogers Remembered. I was thinking of writing my own tribute but the World has a plethora of material.

One of the thoughts that has kept coming back to me over the past few years is "Where is Will Rogers When We Need Him?" By this I mean that public discourse and disagreement has gotten so nasty that we could use a dose of his humor, his gentle jabbing at all parties, to perhaps cool the rhetoric and help reframe the argument. At least I hope we aren't too far gone as a nation to appreciate quotes like these, all from his writing prior to his untimely death in 1935:

The truth can hurt you worse in an election than about anything that could happen to you.
Republicans want a man that can lend dignity to the office. Democrats want a man that will lend some money.
When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on lower taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter, just like fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by children.
It's a great country, but you can't live in it for nothing.
Wars will never be a success until you have a referee and until they announce before they start just what it's for.
When ignorance gets started, it knows no bounds.
There is nothing that keeps poor people poor as much as paying doctor bills.
I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.
As bad as we sometimes think our country is run, it is the best run I ever saw.

And then there is the all-time favorite Will Rogers quote:

"I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like."

Visitor #7900 Hello, Tulsa!

2010-08-15T23:21:00.002-05:00

Cousins Debi and Mike in Tulsa are visitor #7900. Debi, I know you are busy with the first week of school and I hope you have a great year. You are my closest relatives, and you look at the blog almost every day. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything new this week; thought I would but it turned busier than I had expected after I found out two guys from Florida were coming for dinner tonight. Plus, I think the FB addiction is cutting into my blogging time. More soon, I promise. Love you both!

Thursday's Child Writes Again

2010-08-08T22:05:00.004-05:00

Once again I'm trying out some ideas on Thursday's Child, my other blog that gets an occasional post. I'm a little more opinionated over there....so be forewarned. Here's the link:

The Myth of Self-Reliance

A Cool Trip to the Farmers Market

2010-08-07T23:08:00.004-05:00

Today was the end of our two-day cool spell. Yesterday and today Norm and I sat on the front porch at mid-day and enjoyed a cool breeze while we drank blueberry-peach smoothies for lunch. Probably will be hugging the AC for the coming week! This morning I went to the Ferguson Farmers Market; above is some of my loot: Calhoun (IL) County peaches from Kamp's Orchard, a humongous cantaloupe from Hahn's organic farm, plus tomatoes, a (hidden) cucumber and interesting summer squash from various other small organic farms. Not pictured: the delicious blonde brownies, dog biscuits (for Ava's visit this week) and cranberry-orange scone from Cosi Dolce, nor the basil/garlic linguine and the sweet potato linguine from Pappardelle's Pasta. We hope to fix the basil/garlic for a company dinner soon. The guy from Kamp's expects to have peaches for at least another month. Looking forward to next Saturday! The freezer will be groaning.

When last week's triple digit temps arrived, the lovely stand of surprise lilies went crispy before I could even take their picture. The native phlox that the previous owner planted, however, appears to like it hot. This grows under our maple tree and the late afternoon sun spotlighted it. Yesterday I trimmed a beloved rubber tree that was almost as tall as I was...very ungainly for a house plant that spends 8 months of the year upstairs in the sewing room, the only room with enough light for it. I repotted it too...I think the jury is still out whether the rubber plant is happy with its new look. While I was at it I neatened the other house plants on the porch and trimmed the geraniums; then I swept up a lot of debris that blew in from earlier storms. The outside front of the house actually looks decent and welcoming now. Until the next round of storms, we can enjoy it.

Norm spent part of the day cleaning our guest room (we might have guests, you never know) while I tackled 4 loads of laundry. Tonight we uncovered an occasional table between our recliners that was buried in 4 months worth of magazines, half-solved sudoku puzzles, and notes. It's amazing what you can find that you thought was lost, like an invitation to a birthday party that happened back in July....oops.

Tomorrow I'm going to present a video from the Quadrennial for our Sunday School class, and I hope it goes over OK. It's hard to believe that happened 6 weeks ago!

Ava in Pink Walking Attire

2010-08-06T23:58:00.004-05:00

Ava, the golden doodle next door, has a new harness for walks, and also a new short haircut after a visit to the groomer today. Training Ava not to pull on her leash while being walked around the block has been a challenge, and both Barb and Norm have worked persistently on this. But Barb says that by the second day, Ava had stopped pulling and just prances along now on their daily tour of our block. We'll get to try it out next week when Ava comes to our house for a short visit. Ava posed for this photo and showed off her new accomplishment: sit and stay without her leash....in the safety of our back yard! (Actually that look of concentration is really straining to see if there is going to be a treat involved, I think.)

CONASPEH UPDATE August 5, 2010 from the Bentrotts

2010-08-05T20:14:00.002-05:00

Kim and Patrick Bentrott have published the latest update on CONASPEH in Haiti on their blog, Adventures in Life. The update comes from Global Ministries. You can read it here: http://kimandpatrick.blogspot.com/2010/08/conaspeh-update.html

If you scroll down past this post, you'll find two more recent ones from Kim about their relocation to Evergreen, Colorado, and her mixed feelings as she interviews for a job as a physician with a local clinic. The kids are fine and she has great photos of them, too.

Visitor 7800 Came All the Way from Texas!

2010-07-31T23:54:00.002-05:00

Visitor # 7800 is.....my sister-in-law Maxine, in Texas. Maxine, I know you love bird houses, so I'm posting this photo of the one we bought at this year's Gypsy Caravan just for you. It graces our back yard perennial border. I wish you and Roy could come to visit us when everything is growing, so we could trade notes on gardening and cooking. Glad you stopped by tonight!

Today was cooler--high 80s--we went to the store, and Norm barbecued hamburgers and chicken tonight so we have some meals in the freezer now. Yesterday I worked on charity quilts with some guild friends--we have 16 more quilts sandwiched and ready to tie or machine quilt. It was a productive day. Tonight I made some brownies for church coffee hour tomorrow. They will go with the melons we got at the store. It is August tomorrow. If I were still teaching at the university, I would feel like summer is over. I still get those pangs sometimes. We have only one more week of water exercise, and then we are off until after Labor Day. This week I've hit the specials on school supplies because we are collecting donations for our church's local mission, Isaiah 58 ministries. I'm looking at all the plants I still haven't taken outside for the summer, or repotted, and shaking my head. But the truth is, the weather forecast for Tuesday is 99 degrees, so we still have some summer left. I'm going to do my best to enjoy it.

More Blue Ridge: Moses Cone Park

2010-07-30T21:48:00.015-05:00

One of the attractions we enjoyed in our time on the Blue Ridge in June was the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, just outside the town of Blowing Rock. An intact 3500 acres that was the mountain home of one of North Carolina's textile industry founders (Cone Mills may be familiar if you ever bought fabric or paid attention to hang tags on clothing in the 1960s or earlier) it preserves a beautiful chunk of land along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The veranda of the 20-room Flat Top mansion where Cone and his wife lived and entertained is an inviting, shady spot on a summer afternoon.

Moses Cone made his fortune in Greens- boro, and in his life time he donated a lot of money to charities there; a hospital is named for him. He supported education in Blowing Rock by offering a challenge of $4 for every $1 the locals could raise for schools. Cone died in 1908 and his wife, Bertha, kept the estate going until her death in 1947. The entire estate was willed to the hospital and the hospital transferred it to the United States Government to be used for the pleasure of the public.

The side approach to the manor from the parking lot gives little hint of the expanse of the place. But this view illustrates the tall trees, many benches, and laid back aura of the place. The manor's upstairs is open for tours on weekends. The lower floor houses several rooms of crafts produced by members of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild. We looked at wonderful weavings, pottery, baskets, stained glass, jewelry....like Thoreau, we owned everything we saw, but since we were going to be flying home, we weren't able to purchase what we admired. Norm said it was a treat just to see so much art in one place...photos were not allowed in the galleries, unfortunately.

This retaining wall, probably built or perhaps re-built in the 1950s, caught our eye. It is made of the typical gray rocks of the region, and stacked without mortar. The manor is built into a south-facing hillside and terraces and retaining walls like this abound on the grounds. The whole thing was anchored by a huge boulder at the right that eluded the picture.

The view from the veranda includes this one of a lake, one of three that Cone built on the property and stocked with bass or trout. This is Bass Lake, and it can also be accessed from a street on the edge of the town of Blowing Rock, which is down there somewhere in all those trees. One reason Cone moved to the mountains and left his brother in Greensboro to run the business was his fragile health. He built 25 miles of carriage roads on this property, and a 20-minute loop walking trail. He was 40 when he began acquiring the land, and he was 51 when he died.

One writer notes that Cone allowed the 30 or so small farmers whose land he purchased to stay on, and he hired them as tenants to help run the estate. This rail fence is an outstanding example of the rail fences used throughout this region. Most of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a two-lane highway that is also a national park, is marked along its right-of-way with fences just like this.

These roses blooming on the terrace below the manor are a remnant of the vast plantings that Cone estab- lished. One writer on this web site notes:

"An avid orchardist, he supervised the planting of apple varieties that matured from June through November. He replaced any tree that was cut. He obtained the help and advice of his friend Gifford Pinchot, governor of Pennsylvania and a noted conservationist, in planting extensive white pine forests and hemlock hedges. His tenants grazed his sheep and took care of his nearly 20 milk cows.... Rose gardens, vegetable plots, boulders, mosses, and ferns surrounded Flat Top Mance. Miles of carriage roads, smoothed out to a point of flawlessness, invited the pleasures of an early morning walk or an afternoon ride. Within a short time, 10,000 apple trees produced 40,000 bushels of fruit in a favorable season."

This carriage house is a short walk from the manor. Today it houses some farm implements and carriages, as well as the public restrooms for visitors. The trails are used by equestrians...we sat in the shade of some trees nearby and noticed the evidence of recent horse travel.

Here the Blue Ridge Parkway crosses the Moses Cone Park on the north side, and a carriage trail goes under it. These stone arches are a signature of the Parkway--instantly recognizable wherever the Parkway crosses another road or thoroughfare. The arches really are works of architectural art, built painstakingly by workers in the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps programs that provided life-saving employment for thousands of Americans in the 1930s.

As we left the park and headed back to Blowing Rock, we paused to take a photo of this bicyclist who was studying the signs and consulting with someone on his cell phone. People ride bicycles up and down the parkway and the climb seems grueling enough to help one train for the Tour de France!

There are many better known and advertised attractions in the Blue Ridge, but we enjoyed this gem of a park that provides a window into how the rich lived in the latter half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th, while at the same time conserving and preserving part of the natural and cultural heritage of the region.

The Reunion Quilt is in the Frame!

2010-07-21T23:50:00.003-05:00

Yesterday the family reunion quilt was put into the quilting frame by the group that is quilting it--and letting me quilt with them. Today I worked for two hours and finished one block--some of the quilting on it is visible near the bottom of the picture. The others have been working on quilting the border and wanted me to finish a block so it could be the example--saves having to mark the whole quilt ahead of time. From this angle, no way can I get the whole quilt in the photo. The finished size will be 97 inches square! I hope we can be finished before snow is on the ground---meanwhile, as of today, 1 block down, 63 to go!

More Flora of North Carolina

2010-07-17T23:38:00.011-05:00

Before our North Carolina trip fades into the recesses of memory, I thought I'd post more photos. This set is about wild flowers and domestic crops we encountered. The next set will look at the marvelous garden plants we found in Blowing Rock. Everywhere we went, the roads and lanes were lined with mountain laurel and rhododendrons. I'm not an expert at telling them apart, but I think this may be the rosebay or "great" rhododendron. Or maybe not. But they are all spectacular.

This little composite, maybe some kind of black-eyed susan, was growing literally out of a rocky side of a mountain. The Blue Ridge is comprised of granite--not the reddish granite we know in Oklahoma or even in Colorado, but a slate gray granite that lurks beneath the very thin soils in these mountains.

At one scenic overlook masses of these cheerful yellow flowers were growing next to a thicket of blackberries. They appear to be St. John's Wort, which is an herb some people use for depression, so no wonder they looked cheery.

At another overlook on the Blue Ridge parkway we found these giant specimens of common milkweed. No butterflies yet, though.

As we moved into Yadkin County farm country in search of ancestral places, I saw my first field of tobacco growing. At first I though they were tall, skinny cabbages but then I looked at the big leaves and decided it had to be tobacco. What we noted was the sheer number of small tobacco fields in this area as farmers made the most use of the clearings in the forest--clearings that undoubtedly go back to the original settlers of the Carolinas in the 1700s.

Another common crop in this area was field corn, and we also saw many small wheat fields and even some alfalfa as well as lots of pasture. But we also saw a lot of this, which we think is some kind of cane, either molasses or sugar.

There were many fields like these, too. We aren't sure what this crop is. It grows low and is leafy like soybeans, but it doesn't quite look like soybeans. Since North Carolina is a major peanut growing state, we wondered if this was a peanut field. Still another crop we noted was Christmas trees. There were a lot of Christmas tree farms in the mountains and even in the Brushy Mountain area of Yadkin County. But all of the photos I tried to take of them are just a blur.
As we left the Yadkin area (then known as Surry County) where the McElyeas lived from 1787-1793 or so, as well as some of the Boones and Linvilles, we stopped at Belews Creek, now a lake, or a series of lakes, betweeb Stokes and Rockingham counties. Linville genealogy states that Thomas Linville, an ancestor of Norm's family, settled on Belews Creek for a time. We were able to find a boat ramp area to pull off and enjoy the shade and the sparkling water. This tree had littered the ground with these little black fruits. I think it is a wild black cherry.
After leaving Belews Creek, we ventured on into Caswell County, where the McElyeas acquired land grants as early as 1779. I'll elaborate on that more when I write another post.

New Post from Kim & Patrick From Colorado!

2010-07-16T00:13:00.002-05:00

If you have been following the story of Kim and Patrick Bentrott, missionaries in Haiti who survived the earthquake, the latest blog by Kim has finally shown up in the feed although she wrote it a few days ago. The Bentrotts have resigned from Global Missions because they could not get the appropriate paperwork from our government to let them and their adopted children travel back and forth between the U.S. and Haiti as would be necessary if they were to continue their service there. They are looking for jobs in Colorado, and a place to live. Prayers for them as they seek a new, domestic mission, are welcome. Here's the link to her post: it is also on my blog roll at the right of this page.

New Mountains

The Dog Days Have Arrived

2010-07-14T01:03:00.002-05:00

Nothing but hot, hot, hot and dry weather is in the forecast for at least the next week. It is pure July in St. Louis and it feels like what used to be called the "dog days," supposedly because the Dog Star (Sirius, to us amateur astronomers) was at the highest point in the daytime sky. (Please don't ask me how people know where a star is in the daytime. It involves mathematics, something I was not ever good at.)

Anyway, we are having our own Dog Days celebration as Miss Ava came across the driveway for the rest of the week to keep us company and help guard our place against baby bunnies and feral kittens. She looks much too solemn in this photo, but then, she doesn't like to pose for pictures, either. Before I could snap another one, she became a blur heading for the kitchen to see if it was time for supper yet.

North Carolina Sampler

2010-07-02T20:37:00.013-05:00

Some quick highlights of our last week...hopefully there will be more to come soon. I thought about titling this photo, they don't call it the Blue Ridge for nothing! This view is from one of the many dramatic overlooks along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, where we stayed.

Grandfather Mountain is the biggest attraction in these parts, next to Linville Falls. We didn't go to the top and try the mile high swinging suspension foot bridge. We are brave, but not that brave.

One place we did visit at length was the Moses Cone estate just out of Blowing Rock. A textile magnate, Cone donated over 3000 acres to the state to preserve its 19th century character. There is a Southern Highlands Craft Guild gallery on this site, as well as miles of trails and wonderful views. Very peaceful.

This inn, which is NOT the one where we stayed, was the garden showplace of Blowing Rock. The Inn at Ragged Gardens, it is called. When I have time to sort them, I will post an album of all the gorgeous flowers that were in bloom on these grounds.

The time came for us to leave the Blue Ridge and head for the Piedmont, which is the central part of the state where both our families have 18th century roots. I took a quick photo from the moving car of this creek, which I think is the south fork of Deep Creek in Surry County, where both Laughlin McElyea and later his son Hugh McElyea owned property between 1787 and 1809. When I get all of my family history story sorted out, I'm going to post it with pictures on Thursday's Child, my other blog.

This trek was also involved in tracing Linvilles. Part of Norm's family settled on Belews Creek in the Stokes/Forsyth County area in the 18th century. The creek has been dammed to create electricity and recreation, and this lovely lake on the middle arm could be near that original family site.

Toward the end of our long day on Thursday, we arrived in Caswell county, where Laughlin McElyea brought his family from Pennsylvania around 1777. He first filed for a land grant in 1779. At the commons in Yanceyville, the county seat, this preserved log cabin is one example of the square log structures that dot the entire county. They look old enough to have been built by these early pioneers.

Our last stop was at the grounds of the historic Griers Presby -terian Church, established in 1753 a mile or so from the present site. It is located on North Hyco Creek, the site of Laughlin's land grant. I can never know where on the many branches his land actually lay, since the deeds talk about measuring from one black oak to a hickory bush to somebody's line, to a pine, etc. But we stopped at the church and walked around, savoring the peace of the graveyard behind it. Suddenly there was a loud squawk and Norm discovered he had nearly stepped on this kildeer who was guarding her clutch of 4 speckled eggs. She didn't move a feather while I took the photo with my zoom lens.

This view from the church shows how much of the land was cleared by early settlers and has remained farmland. The crops include tobacco, cane, corn, alfalfa and soybeans. Much of the land in this part of the state is pasture and we saw a couple of large cattle operations. Not many hogs, which surprised me. While we were here a woman who was raised at the farm across the road and her husband stopped by the church yard. They are in their 70s. She could tell us a little bit about the area but didn't know the past history that well. We still enjoyed talking with her.

After meandering across 6 or 7 counties on Thursday, we arrived hungry at our hotel in Raleigh and settled in for our trip to the State Archives on Friday. That trip was fruitful, too, and we'll post more about it later. For now, these photos will have to stand as a teasing sampler of the whole story we have to tell.

Linville Falls, NC

2010-06-29T22:47:00.011-05:00

Monday, June 28, 2010--Yes, we made it to Linville Falls! We started out from Blowing Rock on NC 221...our first miscalculation. We thought it would be a wider, straighter road than the Blue Ridge Parkway. NOT! It took almost an hour to go 25 miles at a maximum speed of 35 mph, even less on the 90-degree turns around the base of Grandfather Mountain. But we did arrive at the Visitor's Center (which is on the Blue Ridge Parkway, after all) about straight up noon. It was a little warm...unseasonable, the ranger said.

This mile marker was close to the end of our journey to the upper falls overlook. We had hoped to climb on to the next overlook so we could see the famous view of the entire falls coming out of the gorge...but heat, lack of water and recent medication wore us down. We did head down hill to the overlook that was a mere 500 feet away--the whole walk was one mile round trip.

But to start at the beginning. From the visitor's center, a bridge takes you across the Linville River, which is fairly wide at this point.

It is also very muddy here. Norm said he was expecting a sparkling mountain stream, but high meadows must produce muddy runoff during those afternoon showers!

A little farther along, some rapids appear and the forest crowds right to the edge of the water. It is so impene- trable, we wondered how the early explorers, hunters, and trappers (like the William Linville who was killed near here by Indians in 1766 according to legend) ever made it through the brush.

We were thankful for a cool and mostly shaded trail through the woods. It went up hill and then down...we saw lots of rhododendron and mountain laurel along the way, some still in bloom. I'll include those in a separate post about the flowers we have seen in North Carolina. There was poison ivy here, too, but mostly it was trimmed back.

I have gotten a little out of order, but here we are, sitting on a wall above the rapids as the river enters the gorge to head for the lower falls (the ones in most of the postcard pictures.)

This abyss is what was behind us in the picture. The gray granite is worn in amazing patterns here and the water, once wide, is now constricted in this narrow gorge, where it flows with very rapid force.

This photo should have come along a little earlier...it is the path leading to the overlook. It is right beside the signposts that I posted near the top. It was full of roots and small boulders... we told ourselves to be careful because the ace bandage I had in my bag probably wasn't enough to treat a sprained ankle and neither of us could have been easily carried out! Amazingly, we met a lot of people with dogs on leash during this hike. Some had as many as three. The dogs seemed to be enjoying it.

On our return trip I realized this view from the trail was toward the overlook. If you click to enlarge the photo, you can see tiny people in the distance. So this is what the "back side" of the upper falls (the first photo at the top of this post) looks like.

We rested, got water, and then drove back toward Blowing Rock on the Parkway, stopping at almost every overlook to take more photos of the Blue Ridge mountains. I'll put those up next time.

Hello, Blue Ridge

2010-06-27T21:32:00.011-05:00

Well, the Quad- rennial, which I haven't yet blogged about, ended today and Norm and I set out on the next leg of our vacation. As we drove west on Highway 421, a very pleasant parkway, we came to a brand new visitor's center with this sign.

Some of the ground were planted in native wildflowers. I think this is a type of bergamont...saw something like it at Indian Creek Camp Park in St. Charles last year. The wildflower plot is just getting established as the center has been open less than a year.

These look like a relative of black-eyed susans but I didn't bring my flower book with me (trying to keep from lugging so much weight through the airport) so I can't be sure. Maybe the picture will help with identification when we are home.

After about 2 hours out of Greensboro we arrived at the famous Blue Ridge Parkway. It's a national park in itself, and it's 75 years old this year. Several overlooks give drivers a chance to stop and admire the scenery. If I'm not mistaken, this elevation is about the same as the elevation in Colby, where we were a week ago.

This was the view toward the east from the above over look. All the vegetation was very green and the distant hills were, well, blue. The forest comes right up to the road, and there are signs of a pretty bad ice storm in recent years...lots of broken branches and downed trees all along it.

This overlook faced west, not east, so the smoky effect is even stronger. I guess there is a reason they call this the Blue Ridge. We enjoyed lots of views like this, including high meadows with baled hay. Private property comes right up to the road right of way so there are lots of farms and other buildings, and sometimes a state highway runs parallel to the parkway for a while.

We arrived at our inn in Blowing Rock and enjoyed a cheese and cracker snack in the breakfast room. Then we went to dinner at a nice restaurant just across the street. We started out dining on the patio, but after thunder and lightning got uncomfortably close, moved inside. Soon there was a shower...we walked back to the inn after the rain stopped and sat on the porch in rocking chairs..and this rainbow appeared. Good omen for our trip, we hope!

Report from the land of lilies.

2010-06-26T22:16:00.003-05:00

The Quadrennial has been wonderful; saw old friends and made some new acquaintances. Just happened to sit next to a woman at lunch from Ash Grove who knew one of my family members who had belonged to that church. The world just gets smaller. But there has not been time to just think and compose, or even upload pictures...and I'm really sleepy tonight. Tomorrow is the last session and then we are off in search of all things Linville in NC. With luck, I'll rest up and get some photos posted and also some updates. Whenever!

One thing about North Carolina roads...at least on U.S. Highways and Interstates, all the exchanges are planted with masses of day lilies in yellow, gold, orange and multiple mixtures. It is a spectacular sight that's hard to capture when one is keeping her eye on the road at 60 m.p.h. but if I get a chance, I'll try to get a shot of them.

Visitor 7500

2010-06-23T08:24:00.003-05:00

Visitor #7500 this morning was sister-in-law Carol Ann in Texas, and she left a comment, as did sister-in-law Kay in Garden City (aka Hutchinson) who looked in at her usual early hour. Thanks for all of your support and encouragement! I have five wonderful sisters, thanks to Norm!

on the fly

2010-06-22T23:36:00.001-05:00

The latest from the Livesay family as two of them return to Haiti tomorrow.

on the fly

Linville Reunion III

2010-06-22T23:13:00.007-05:00

Well, here I am, blogging about the Colby High School Reunion and the Linville mini- reunion in backwards order. That is, I'm starting with the gathering at Larry's on Sunday. It was a surprise early 70th birthday party for him. Here are 5 of the 6 sibs. Harold was in the hospital with breathing problems on Sunday and Monday, but we are happy to report he is home as of today. Stay well, Harold! Standing are Don, Norm and Larry, with Walt and Maxine seated.

Every get- together brings out a different batch of cousins. The 2010 cousins/ grandkids picture rounded up these 6. Doug and Carla are seated; Paula, Debbie, Dina and Judy are standing. This is the first reunion Judy has been able to attend and we were thrilled to see her. I will have more photos of other family when I get around to posting again.

And then there is The Quilt. It was first unveiled at the picnic in the park on Saturday, but at Larry's I had enough tall people to hold it almost vertical for a better shot. This weekend I learned there are at least 12 more great-great-grandkids whom I will need to add to the borders, so I'm not quite done, but it will be ready when the Spanish Lake quilters are!

Kim and Patrick Bentrott: Adoption Day for Solomon and Valancia

2010-06-16T23:30:00.002-05:00

The Bentrotts have been silent for a while but yesterday Kim posted the good news on their blog: read it here: http://kimandpatrick.blogspot.com/2010/06/adoption-day.html

For those in St. Louis who helped raise the funds for the first year of Patrick's mission in Haiti, Patrick will visit and give 4 or 5 presentations between June 24 and 30 about his work with CONASPEH and his and Kim's family situation now. For more information contact the Southeast Gateway Area Disciples Office at www.segadisciples.org

A Bill to Help Hatian Missionaries and their adopted children

2010-06-16T23:21:00.003-05:00

This new post from Kim Bentrott explains the limbo that many American parents who adopted Haitian children before the earthquake are in...they were able to leave Haiti under humanitarian parole in January, but now that their adoptions are final in the U.S., they still cannot become citizens because of a provision in the humanitarian parole legislation. Bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate to remedy this...a situation that is keeping the Bentrotts and other missionaries like the Livesays from returning to Haiti with their now legally adopted children and continuing their work. (Until the children are citizens, they cannot get visas, for one thing.) So, if you are interested (even mildly so), please visit this link below or click on the link to Adventures in Life on the right rail of this blog, and read how you might urge your own representative or senators to cosponsor this bill. Right now it has been in a committee for a month....

http://kimandpatrick.blogspot.com/2010/06/legislative-hope.html

Sam the Grand Dog on his birthday

2010-06-15T00:12:00.003-05:00

This little guy was 7 years old on June 12! It's hard to believe that so much time has gone by since he was just a small handful of puppy learning to live 4 stories up in downtown St. Louis. Even though he now lives in Florida and we get to see him at most once or twice a year, he is always excited and eagerly greets us like his long lost best friends. Sam just makes you smile--he's a natural therapy dog...good mood therapy that is... Doug posted this photo on his FB page on Sunday and I just had to steal it. Miss you, little guy. Hope you got a special treat.

Soon, Really

2010-06-13T00:13:00.005-05:00

You can tell how behind I am in blogging because this photo of our cheerful pansies was taken on May 9. They are still blooming, but they have been replaced in this spot on the wall by a pot of purple petunias that I need to photograph. I am blaming this delay on Facebook and my genealogy addiction, plus preparations for some upcoming travels.

Saturday we spent 2 hours in the Special Collections room of the St. Louis County Public Library, looking for traces of bygone Linvilles and McElyeas and other family strains in far off North Carolina, where we will be visiting at the end of this month. Then we had a great lunch at Mi Ranchito with our friends the Dixons, whom we have been trying to get together with since before I posted the last blog! Then we went shopping for a shower gift and a massive thunderstorm moved in while we were in a nearby Target store. After we got home I wrapped the gift and did some paper work while Norm worked on de-linting the exhaust fan in the upstairs bathroom. It has a moisture sensor and it has not been shutting off as soon as it should. We decided all the lint was holding in the moisture...hope that works. More rain tonight. I critiqued a college paper for a church friend. We ate a fresh salad for supper, with baby lettuce from Thies Farm. Norm also picked our first raspberries--a handful--of the season on Friday. Sunday morning cereal with fresh berries. Can't wait, but I should go to bed first, I guess.

The title refers, of course, to when I hope to post a proper blog, not just this brief update. Meanwhile, I appreciate the faithful daily readers who still check in despite my virtual absence: Debi and or Mike; Maxine, Carol, Kay (did you know you had moved to Hutchinson?), Jan, Sandy, Doug, and a few mystery folks. Thank you all.

In Celebration of Neighborliness

2010-05-29T19:20:00.004-05:00

We are so happy to have Barb as our next door neighbor. We share a love of flowers, the outdoors, and we also share Ava the golden doodle. About three weeks ago, during our cold rainy spell, Barb took advantage of a rare clear and semi-warm afternoon to work on her laptop out in her front garden.

At that time, Barb's clematis vines were at their peak of glorious bloom. We have never been able to grow these flowers but they really like whatever she is feeding them! And we are not the least bit jealous!

Ava has been staying with us this week while Barb does some business travel and enjoys a friend's wedding. If Ava looks a little sad, I think it's because she misses Barb. Or she could just be trying to get another treat out of sympathy!

I have some other posts to publish over this weekend, as I finally uploaded recent pictures from the camera. So far this Memorial Day weekend we have gone to the Ferguson Farmers' market, grilled hamburgers for supper, and just enjoyed a couple of cooler, drier days after a week of 90s and thundershowers. Norm got the lawn mowed and edged yesterday and we are still planting flowers and trying to acclimate houseplants to the front porch.

Waiting for the Rain to Stop!

2010-05-18T00:15:00.003-05:00

Norm has been busy researching places to visit in North Carolina later this summer, as well as places we might stay on our trip. I've been trying to organize my family history charts and sporadically do some quilting. I'm still dealing with a respiratory infection of some sort that wants to hang on, but it seems better today. On Monday we took our Dodge Caravan in to be prepped for the drive to Kansas in June. She needed a lot of things done, but we hope we are now closer to being ready for the travels. Meanwhile, the showers just keep coming...14 of the first 16 days of May had rain. All of the area rivers are above flood stage and it is cooler than normal. So I'm itching to get outside and plant, and move the houseplants to the front porch. Maybe I'll get my wish later this week; it's supposed to hit the high '80s. Whee. From one extreme to the other but a change from this Irish weather will be nice.

Farmer's Market, Iris, and Storms

2010-05-05T19:38:00.009-05:00

Last week was so stormy here, although definitely not as stormy as it was in The South, that there was some question as to whether the Ferguson Farmers' Market would have its season opening on Saturday. But the rain ended over night and held off until later on Saturday night, so some 31 vendors were present and stocked. Many of the early vendors sell plants, flowers, and crafts, but there were radishes, green onions and various lettuces on hand. We came home with two bronze coleus plants, a parsley plant, some pecans (we finally ran out of the Texas ones), some local honey, and a big tasty bunch of organically grown green onions. Salad time!

Before the rains, we staked as many of the tall iris stalks as we could. They held up to the inch or so we received over two nights pretty well. This lavender ruffly beauty was already in the yard when we moved.

This red bi color was already here, too. It didn't bloom between 2001 and last year, but this year we had 5 or 6 plants. I guess they just needed time.

Light blue ruffles are so delicate. We really enjoy this one that graces the back of the border.

This was one of mom LInville's and we are always relieved when it blooms. We have about 5 plants blooming since I took the picture.

We have stayed busy with church, exercise, storm warnings, and playing with Ava part of the time. Barb gets home tomorrow and swears she will be here the rest of May! I've been working on genealogy lines that go back to North Carolina, and Norm has been re-reading the Linville books for NC connections as well, in preparation for our trip in June. I also have some quilt tops that I need to photograph and put on the blog soon. And there are more flower pictures and GREEN pictures. I hoped to put them up on Earth Day, but something distracted me. Right now I'm trying to fight off a cold/fever and so far the score is cold 1, Judi 0. More soon.

A Week of Quilting, Meetings, Ava and Weather

2010-04-28T23:31:00.006-05:00

One of my goals for this year is to make more quilts, and a second goal related to it is to use up more of the fabric in my stash, or "fabric aging room" as my guild friend Jane S. calls it. So earlier this year I joined a scrap quilting club that is coordinated by another guild friend, Teajuana M. Our first project, begun the last Saturday of March, was a simple arrangement of 5-inch squares. I already had lots of 5-inch squares in Christmas prints that I got in a guild exchange, and had no idea what I would ever make of them, so they seemed perfect for this project. By mid April I had my squares joined according to the directions. It was time to lay the quilt out on the dining room table and slash diagonally through the plain squares. I gritted my teeth and pressed on. After slashing, I sewed new seams, again according to the directions. The pattern is called Twist and Shout.
It was a limited time free pattern by Lyn Brown on her blog.

Here is my finished top, as photo- graphed by Teajuana at our meeting last Saturday, and first published on her blog. By slashing and turning the sections, you get a quilt top "on point" that is more interesting to look at. The green border came from my stash, too. The only new fabric is the cream border with holly leaf print that I bought on sale at the store where we had our March workshop! I am looking forward to quilting this and having my very own Christmas Quilt after all these years! Then we set to work on our next project, Bento Blocks, which I hope to get joined in the next week or so. Both of these projects involved exchanges, which expanded the number of fabrics available without having to buy anything new. I really enjoy this new club and I'm also making more progress on some other long-standing projects as well.

After I left the scrap quilt workshop on Saturday, I drove home under a menacing sky. On the car radio I heard we were under a tornado watch. Suddenly they issued a tornado warning for an area two counties south west of us. Not long after I got home, our county warning sirens went off. We stayed near the TV and the computer, watching radar, until it started to hail. Then we headed for our basement, with Ava in tow. This was the first time she had ever been down there. We heard a little wind and a lot of rain. About 5 p.m. we came back upstairs and the worst part of the storm had passed. There was a lot of damage in southwest St. Louis--Des Peres, Kirkwood, Webster especially. The Weather Service confirmed a small tornado touchdown. We were very fortunate here, with just little branches scattered about and only about 1/2 inch of rain. This was the same day the huge tornado cut an 80-mile path across Mississippi and killed a dozen people.

On Sunday evening we went to a surprise birthday party for DebE, a young woman we have known for a while. She and her sister Kim joined our church over a year ago, and their energy has been a real inspiration. About 15 people gathered in her kitchen and yelled "surprise" when she arrived home from a cake decorating class. Her husband grilled brats and hamburgers and the rest of us brought side dishes or beverages. Dessert was angel food cake and berries. And the evening ended with a fire in the back yard fire pit and adults sitting around, getting smoke in their eyes and toasting marshmallows for s'mores. It was a fun evening, as the kids would say.

Monday Ava went home, but on Tuesday morning she was back as Barb headed out on a long road trip. Ava will be our dog until May 6, unless she spends part of the time with one of Barb's other friends. Tuesday I went to the spring assembly for our area Disciples Women. As study chair, I had arranged the program and it went very well. Brenda B., who is executive director of Isaiah 58 ministries (an anti poverty ministry supported by our church, among others) gave the program and it was well received. I was grateful to have planned 3 programs this year and had them all be successful! Tuesday night, Norm and I went to Soul Care, a spiritual nurture group at our church. It was the last meeting until fall.

Today Norm attacked both our yard and Barb's, using our respective lawn mowers that were both recently repaired. Our two yards look much better now. With the recent rain, everything is SO GREEN! I put out sugar water in feeders for the hummingbirds, who are supposed to arrive any day. And I spent an hour or so this afternoon tuning up two of my three sewing machines. They are all in working order now. Last week our friend Dave B., who is handy with almost any kind of repair, fixed the frayed power cord on my 1950s Featherweight I had inherited from mother. It is now installed in the sewing cabinet my father custom made for it. No other machine sews as quietly and perfectly as this one. It is great for patchwork because it is so accurate. I also cleaned and oiled my 1968 white Featherweight and figured out why it wasn't sewing; I had the bobbin case in wrong and the needle was backwards. It's now in its travel case and ready to go to the next workshop. And the fancy stitching Kenmore, which had pitched a fit as I was trying to finish my Bento Blocks to swap last Saturday, calmed down when I put a different bobbin in it and got it a new spool of thread. So with luck I may get to sew some tomorrow and Friday. Norm has been doing more research about North Carolina in anticipation of our trip. I've been watching rental car prices. Eventually it will all come together. We are starting to get excited!

Visitor # 7001 and beyond

2010-04-21T11:32:00.003-05:00

In a post last week, I noted that today, April, 21, is the second anniversary of when I started counting visitors to the blog. I was wondering if I could get 7000 by today, and actually we reached that round number yesterday afternoon. I'm not so much interested in how MANY hits I get (although that is nice enough) but WHO is reading. And my stats show me some of that.

Visitor #7000 turned out to be the Google bot taking a look to see if anything I had posted was worth indexing, I guess. From California, the bot visited at 12:58 p.m. yesterday.

Visitor #7001 was a real person, in New Hampshire, who was looking for news about the Bentrotts at 5:48 p.m..

Visitor #7002 was cousin Debi in Tulsa at 7:53 p.m. Sorry I didn't have anything new up, cous!

Visitor #7003 was using Google at 9:27 p.m. from Washington state to find an obituary of the Rev. Arla Elston, whose passing I mentioned in a previous post. This is kind of amazing because the reference to Arla is buried in the middle of the text, actually text I had copied (with attribution) from Norm's FaceBook page. Those search engines can go deep. I'm impressed.

Visitor #7004 WINS THE PRIZE (to be named later) for being the first to visit on April 21. Doug in Ft. Myers logged in at 3:17 a.m. on his iPod Touch. (Some people will do anything, including going without sleep, just to be first in line!) Seriously, hope your insomnia was not brought on by the e-mail I sent you earlier. g-p-l.

Visitor #7005 was bro in law Don in Garden City at 5:50 a.m. He is always up early.

Visitor #7006 was sister in law Kay in Garden City at 7:05 a.m. These two are daily readers and I love you both!

Visitor #7007 was S-I-L Carol in Texas at 9:25 a.m.. Another Mac user and also one who checks every day. See you on FB, too. Love you!

Visitor #7008 is a frequent visitor from Georgia but I don't know who you are. You looked at 10:30 a.m. today. Maybe if you see this, you'll drop me a line at my e-mail (link on my profile) and let me know if you are who I think you might be.

Visitor #7009 at 11:50 hails from Kansas City and was Googling for Haiti blogs and CONASPEH, the ministry there that I've posted about before. Always glad to help such folks find something that they may be looking for. This visitor is intriguing because he/she is running WinNT on a Mac and browsing with Safari. Didn't know one could do that simultaneously!

Visitor #7010 is the Google bot from California again. It went to my link about our Book Club discussing the book Infidel. Hope it's not being driven by that malicious hacker I've been reading about....

Well that's the round up so far of today's visitors. I won't bore readers by listing any more, but just wanted to observe that being in the blogosphere for going on four years (we started in August of 2006) has been eye-opening for me as I have learned how fabulously interconnected friends and family can be through the Internet. As well as how visible our words and pictures can be to people we don't know. I prefer to think of the latter as friends we have not yet met. As I have become more active on FaceBook (where sometimes it seems one can get almost Too Much Information) I realize that a social networking site is easier to use for quick posts about daily activities. But for a long-winded writer like me, the occasional blog post is still very satisfying, and it's much easier to upload and display favorite photos here as well.

Bottom line: Thanks to all who have stopped by with peaceful purposes in mind, and also thanks to the minuscule few who have commented. (In two years I have deleted only 2 unwelcome comments. Both of them were from trolls who wanted to sell something.) Your feedback, whether it's in the comments or in the direct e-mails you send to me, is always welcome.

A Great Spring Weekend

2010-04-19T00:01:00.005-05:00

Temperatures are finally more seasonable, and the air seems just right for the many emerging ferns like this one. They all come from one or two lifted from my mother's garden 15 years ago when we sold her house.

Guest blogger: I'm pasting below an account of our weekend that Norm wrote in a note on Sunday for his FaceBook page. It covers most of the highlights:

Yesterday was a beautiful Spring Saturday. At book club, the discussion with friends of the book "3 Cups of Tea" was as lively and wide-ranging as previous monthly gatherings. In the afternoon, home to snack, nap, then waken to wonderful Spring sunlight. At 3 I [Norm] saw the beginning of the Cards/Mets game, and checked in on the game from time to time over the next couple of hours. The newly repaired lawn mower arrived from the repair shop about 5, so I drove to the gas station for mower gas, mowed ½ of the yard, then followed that by eating a wonderful Judi-prepared dinner, and followed that with mowing the remainder of the yard, still checking in on the baseball game. Finally settled down to watch the game around 7 p.m. And it went on and oooonnnn, and ooooooonnnnn. 3 hours later, close to 10pm the game ended with the Cards losing. 7 hours of baseball; 20 innings, almost as long as it takes for us to drive to Tulsa from St. Louis.

Today, Sunday, was just as beautiful, refreshingly cool. The grass and the new leaves outdo themselves in greenness. The church class discussion this morning centered on how our faith informs and changes the judgments we make about people whose judgments and life styles differ from our own. Thought-provoking and faith-provoking. Worship gave us moments to sing, celebrate the presence of our Lord, recognize the influence of people who have gone on before us--including the Rev. Arla Elston, pastor of our church back in the 1980's and before that Judi's campus minister, in the 1960's, at the University of Arkansas. [Note from Judi: we believe Arla's memorial service will be this coming Thursday in Pomona, Calif. More to come.] The sermon, preached by our seminarian student pastor forced us to recognize how the religion of consumerism in our society often betrays our Christian faith. Following worship there was time to share stories and faith with Rev. Melissa, a Mennonite pastor in Colorado who had spent time worshiping with us a few years ago. On vacation, she returned to worship at our church so that her cup of faith could be refilled. Thank God for the lively faith of Melissa. This evening Judi and I spent a long time discussing and telling stories out of our family histories, in part because she has this project to write a narrative about her four great grandmothers. I am remembering that my parents would have been married 83 years this past week! It has been a good weekend, a weekend when I have felt more energy than I have felt since my surgery more than two weeks ago. Thank God for this weekend!

I'll add that the Cardinal-Mets game tonight was much more satisfactory, and all we watched were innings 5 -9. This week we have several events coming up: Elders' Circle at our church on Wednesday, knitting circle here on Thursday, and I have a scrap quilt club workshop on Saturday. Plus I hope to move the geraniums outside. The oak pollen has ended, the oak trash is about through falling. Indeed, we are getting maple keys in the back yard now. We are also getting excited about our summer vacation trip. We now have registration and hotel reservations for Quadrennial, plus our air reservations. We are still working on the rest of the itinerary to visit Linville and McElyea sites in NC, plus finding the best deal on a rental car. As for June 16-20, we have our hotel reservation and our registration made for the Colby High School reunion as well. If you will be in Colby for that, we can't wait to see you!

Suddenly Everything is Green, Even the Driveway!

2010-04-13T18:39:00.006-05:00

This week is redbud week, crabapple week, and lilac week. It is also a preview of next week, which will be dogwood week and azalea week. Norm said he even saw an iris in bloom up the street this morning while walking Ava.

It feels like most of the flowering bushes and trees are about a week early. Even though the winter seemed cold and unending I guess it wasn't that cold over all. And when it warmed up, it went from the 40s to the 80s in about a week, and it has stayed there. We are supposed to get a cool down this weekend, but only to the upper 60s and still no night freezes. I think it might be safe to move the geraniums outside.

We have been pleasantly surprised that our "color magic" tulips we bought a few years ago have continued to bloom each year. Usually tulips just fade away after a couple of seasons, unless they are known to be "perennial" tulips. I saw some in the Breck's catalog today and may order more to plant next fall.

The big story here is the POLLEN. Those tracks you see in the driveway aren't in the dust; that is pollen out there. Most is from our 85-year old oak tree but almost all the trees bloomed at once this year. The oak is a little early, too. The squirrels don't mind; they have been digging in all the flower pots looking for acorns and the tree can't produce soon enough to suit them.
Miraculously, neither of our allergies have kicked in yet. Usually the pines (not yet producing) or the locust trees get me--the latter almost always bloom the first weekend of May, but they will probably be early, too.

Today Norm was able to get back to our water exercise class, and he has been busy taking Ava out on walks, too. Suddenly everything is getting dry and he has been stringing soaker hoses. We hope to see our repaired lawnmower return home from the shop by this Friday; the clumps of grass are getting kind of high out back. Yesterday we had something of an adventure when Norm discovered what appeared to be a young opossum lodged in a neighbor's trash can. We tipped the can and left it where the critter could crawl out at nightfall, which apparently it did. We seem to have seen a lot of wildlife around here over the years..a fox, hawk in the garage, turkey in the yard, and now opossums two years in a row, in addition to moles, voles, rabbits, squirrels and tons of birds, including some very noisy grackles with fledglings where we hear them squawk for more food all day.

Visitor # 6900

2010-04-10T22:12:00.002-05:00

Visitor #6900 comes from Mineral Wells, Texas. Hi, Maxine and Roy! Glad I finally got something new posted for you to read. Home Stories is first and foremost for our family and far-flung friends and it always makes me smile when I can tell that one of them has been checking in! Hope all is well down there in Texas!

Now, it is only 11 days until April 21, the 2nd anniversary of when I started counting, not when I started blogging. But can we get to an even 7000? Or more? Time and persistence will tell. Certainly an average of 3500 "hits" a year, or 9.6 a day, is pretty small potatoes in the blogging world, but all of those views give me a reason to keep writing. And, I know that if I want more people dropping in, I need to post more frequently. And about news that is worth reading.

Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee Chief

2010-04-10T14:12:00.002-05:00

Back home in Oklahoma, there is a memorial service today honoring Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief (the first and so far only woman to hold that office) of the Cherokee Nation. Her books have been in my library for a while and since she was just a tad younger than me, we shared a generation of consciousness about justice and action to make the lives of ordinary people better. May she rest forever in peace and may her family be comforted by the memory of all the good she accomplished. The Tulsa World has an article about the memorial service here, and a comprehensive multimedia package about her life, here.

DOC and UCC visit CONASPEH in Haiti

2010-04-10T09:38:00.003-05:00

This post from April 6 provides details of a visit by the general ministers of both the UCC and Disciples of Christ to the Global Mission partners in Haiti, House of Hope and CONASPEH. I'm posting it because I still get hits from people searching for news about these missions. Click here for the post Hope for Haiti.

The slide show on this report doesn't seem to be working, but you can follow this link to an album of photographs one of the Global Ministries executives took on the trip.

Easter Just Flew By

2010-04-09T19:56:00.011-05:00

It seemed like Easter came early this year, without a lot of warning, and left just as quickly. Kind of like the flowers in our garden. I have an album of photos I took just before Palm Sunday and all of those flowers, except the pansies, have dropped their petals now. A week ago there were no buds on the oak tree, and today the asphalt driveway is covered with so much yellow pollen it looks green! These daffodils and grape hyacinths greeted us on Easter. Blue and yellow is one of my favorite color combinations in the garden.

I set the dining table for four although it looked like we would have only ourselves here for Easter dinner. Then a day or two before, our friends Mike and Sandy found themselves free, so we did a joint feast and had a wonderful time. I keep Easter chicks and rabbits that are handmade and use them over every year, in a traditional basket. We used to dye hard-boiled eggs as well, but this year, with Norm's outpatient procedure on the Thursday before, we just didn't have time. (Norm is just fine, not to worry.) Norm observes that I seem to really enjoy my Easter rituals, and that's true. It is a holiday I remember being celebrated with my grandparents...my grandfather hiding eggs in tufts of grass in the yard for me to find; getting dressed up for church although it was cold and I had to put a coat over my spring dress; eating deviled eggs and potato salad with either ham or fried chicken, and a dessert of strawberry shortcake. We did have Florida strawberries, and the lemon jello cake that Sandy made. Yum. The place mats are Norm's craft--he has been weaving on a lap loom this winter and these are the marvelous result. They didn't start out to be place mats, but I kidnapped them.

It got to almost 80 degrees on Easter, which was a little too warm, but some warmth is welcome after a March that was cooler than average. This is the first spring for bulbs in the planter by the new wall out front. This area is still emerging and I will have more pictures soon. We planted the pansies and violas on March 31 and they were promptly joined by that many more that had over- wintered or re- seeded from last year. On the day we planted, we were not too sure where all of the hostas were, because they hadn't emerged. Two days later, they were obvious!

Grape Hyacinths, it turns out, are some of Norm's favorites. We bought a mixture of dark and light blue and white. Looks like the middle tones are missing here, but they may come up in a day or two. We thought they would do well next to the rock wall that Matt built, and they have.

Last summer we planted some perennial pinks out back by the driveway and enjoyed their cheerful flowers. Well, the hardy little souls survived the winter, even having a big mound of snow from the driveway dumped on them a couple of times. On April 1, a blossom had already opened. Guess I won't have to look for anything for that spot this year!

I am always trying to push my camera farther than it can really go, but I had to try to capture these emerging hosta blades with drops of moisture still clinging to them from a rain we had the night before. I love being retired because that means (usually) that I can take a few extra minutes to just prowl around the yard and look for something different to photograph. (You can try clicking on the photo to enlarge it.)

A tour of the spring garden is in many ways like a visit from old friends. I have no idea how long this purple hyacinth has been in the perennial border out back that Bob and Lois planted many years ago. I've planted other colors of hyacinths out front and they last a couple of years at most. But Old Purple is the Old Faithful of the plant world. Glad to see you again!

These jonquils are the ones I mentioned in an earlier post, that we trans- planted from my parents' yard in Tulsa over 20 years ago. (My dad was there to supervise the digging, and he died in '89, so.....) We had a big stand of them at our Ferguson house and we dug some bulbs for our move to Bel Nor in 2001. They are among the last to bloom, but I find it cheering and comforting to see them brightening their corner near the raspberry patch. Like the Easter story, they offer a hint of the everlasting while recalling some of the best memories of yesterday.

A Wild Turkey in Our Yard!

2010-04-05T11:34:00.005-05:00

We were eating our cereal this morning when neighbor Barb called, all excited. "There's a wild turkey walking down your driveway! Ava is going crazy!" We went out, but saw no sign of it so we thought it must have flown away. A few minutes later, Barb called again. "It's in your front yard!" Sure enough, right there near the tulips, a turkey in the grass. I ran to get the camera and tried to silently open the front door. The turkey hopped over the wall and started walking south on the parking strip next to the street. It went about three houses down, then turned and went through another neighbor's back yard, heading east. Quite the excitement.

Last year we saw a wild turkey in the spring when driving with our friends Mike and Sandy in nearby St. Vincent county park. We think this is a hen, and we wonder why she was scouting through our neighborhood today. Is she looking for a nest site? I read in Birds of Missouri by Stan Tekiela that these turkeys were almost extinct in Missouri by the 1930s and bringing them back has been a conservation success story. Domestic turkeys are descended from them. They eat insects, seeds and fruit. This one was walking very deliberately, but Tekiela says they are strong fliers that can approach 60 mph and also fly straight up. They have excellent hearing and eyesight that is 3x better than humans. "At night, they roost in trees." Guess we should look up in the early mornings from now on! Gobble, gobble!

A Blessed Easter

2010-04-04T23:19:00.002-05:00

A quick note to wish everyone a Happy Easter! We had an incredible worship service at church today, which followed a very tasty pot luck breakfast. Then this afternoon we joined forces with our good friends Mike and Sandy for a quiet Easter dinner here. With thunder in the background, I think I'll pull the plug on MCKBK for now but will try to get some photos of our spring posted soon. We are concerned about Norm's brother Harold, who was airlifted to Denver this afternoon for treatment that wasn't available in NW KS. Praying for you to get well soon!