Saturday, November 03, 2007

Birdwatcher's Paradise

Today was clear and mild, so Norm and I avoided housework and took a drive to one of our favorite places, Riverlands Bird Sanctuary near Alton. We also went on to the Confluence, as I described in the post before this one. The Riverlands is on the Missouri side of the Clark bridge across the Mississippi at Alton. It is a Corp of Engineers project that was established when the Alton Lock and Dam on the Mississippi was relocated a few years ago.

This calm bay is on the west side of Ellis Island, separated from the main river channel. We had heard this past week that the White Pelicans had arrived, so we went to see them for ourselves. These guys breed in the northern plains up into Canada, and they winter on the Gulf coast, including Florida. This flock of about two dozen was one of three or four that we saw as we drove around the refuge. The American White Pelican is a huge bird, larger even than the Brown Pelican that is a year-round Gulf resident. They can be over 5 feet long and have a wing spread of 9 feet. We saw groups of three or four drop out of the sky, circle, and then come in to land like miniature fighter planes. Unlike the Brown Pelicans, they don't dive; they dip their bills and dine on fish while swimming. Sometimes we have seen them here as late as January if the winter is mild, in flocks of several hundred.

Along the shore we found these flowers blooming. As near as I can tell, they are some variety of daisy or aster, commonly called Sneezeweed. Except for the occasional dandelion, I haven't seen any other wildflowers in bloom in November in the Midwest before!

Ol' Man River Meets Big Muddy

Today was so beautiful, we headed out in late morning to visit the Confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, located about 20 miles from here. The confluence is in a state park that opened about 4 years ago. The spot we visited is shown in this aerial photo from a brochure about the park. We were at "the point." It's about a five mile drive down a gravel road and definitely worth it.

The road to the confluence traverses fields in a flood plain between the levees, but right at the point, the wooded area frames striking views of the water. Today the light streaming through these tall trees, still refusing to lose their green, was almost ethereal. As usual, Norm kept walking when I stopped, which was great; I got him in a picture finally.

On this side of the point, the Missouri flows swiftly and is often muddier than the Mississippi. Some river experts say that the main river is really the Missouri; the Mississippi is the secondary one. The Missouri is longer and drains more area, they say. At the confluence, the Missouri retains its agricultural look, with its banks unmarked by any kind of industry.

The Mississippi, on the other hand, is full of barges and tows on this day, and the far bank is lined with light industry and ports. It's the busy highway of commerce from Minnesota to New Orleans. By the time it reaches New Orleans, the brochure says, it will be 3 miles wide and 100 feet deep, and moving an unimaginable amount of water every minute into the Gulf. Today it looks a little less muddy than the Missouri, but not much. Having stood at the headwaters at Lake Itaska, Minn., some 7 years ago, I always marvel at what that tiny stream has become when it reaches this point north of St. Louis.

Below is the view we came to see, the meeting of the waters of two mighty rivers that between them, drain 40 percent of the land area of the nation. Sunlight dances on the ripples formed as the two currents slam into each other and begin to mingle on the way downstream, past St. Louis, past Memphis, all the way to New Orleans. Lewis and Clark camped across the water from this point the first winter of their expedition.

How Can It Be November Already?

After last week's wet trip to DC, we have enjoyed spectacular fall weather here at home. Last Sunday we visited St. John's UCC at Midway, Ill., where our friend Mike was installed as interim pastor. It's a sizable congregation in a small, rural community.

At home the fall color watch continues. This is not our backyard maple; it's the one behind us a few doors north. It has blazed for almost a week now.



Meanwhile, our maple remains mostly green. I stood beneath it this week and shot this photo straight up, where a few orange leaves are starting to appear at the very top. I hope it completely turns soon because we are supposed to have a hard freeze one night next week.

Our local garden center, Thies Farm, grows the most magnificent mums. We bought only one but this bronze beauty greets everyone who comes up the driveway.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Last Week in the Nation's Capital

October 24-27: We spent three days last week in Washing- ton, DC with 13 of my students on the college newspaper. The occasion was the national college media convention, and there were over 400 interesting sessions to choose from in the 2-1/2 days we were there.

But a convention has to include some play! On Friday afternoon, Norm and I set off in the rain on a sightseeing junket. Our hotel was on Connecticut Ave., a few blocks from Dupont Circle. We headed for the Dupont Circle Metro station on the Red Line and our adventure in the Nation's Capital. This was my 4th or 5th visit to DC and Norm's first.


The inscription over this wide mouth of a metro station entrance was simply the name of the station, although something from Dante came to mind as we got on an escalator taking us two stories down into the earth.

When we came up for air, we were at the Smithsonian station on the Blue/Orange Line. The exposure- lightening features of iPhoto make this view of the Washington Monument look much brighter than the actual gloom and fog of the day. It's as I wish it had looked! The rain fell steadily as we walked toward the Lincoln Memorial and other memorials on the Mall.
We had recently watched the full series of Ken Burns' The War on PBS, so the World War II memorial held a special interest. The fountains filled the space with roaring white noise that in some ways simulated the experience of battle.

My father was drafted in 1943 but didn't see combat in North Africa, as the rest of his outfit did. A medical discharge ended his war career early. One of his brothers, Uncle George, joined the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor and survived having two ships sink underneath him in the Atlantic theater. Another uncle served in the Sea Bees in the Azores. This sculpture of eagles lifting a wreath is very moving. I would have taken more angles, but the rain kept getting in my eyes.

As historians will remind us, more than 400,000 American service personnel died in World War II and civilian casualties and the wounded were many hundreds of thousands more. These 400 Gold Stars on this wall represent their sacrifice: "Here we mark the price of freedom" says the inscription.

We found ourselves too soaked and tired to walk all the way to Lincoln's memorial; that will have to wait until another trip. As we came back around the Washington Monument, we came upon this huge, sprawling, many-trunked tree. Its leaves resembled mulberry. I would love to know its story. It was the only tree on the grounds. Somehow it made me think of the Survivor Tree in Oklahoma City after the Murrah Building bombing in 1995.

We got back on the Metro for the trip back to our hotel. This is the upper level of the Metro Center station, where the red line and the orange/blue lines cross, one floor above another. The ceiling with its striking architectural finish makes the place feel beautiful as well as utilitarian.

The escalator ride up out of the Dupont Circle station is every bit as dramatic as the ride down. Although the day was still gray and foggy, there truly was light at the end of the tunnel...and a quote from Walt Whitman that I neglected to write down. But such public art and literary connections can be found all over DC.

And yes, I really was out in the rain for three hours, and Norm was with me (he took this picture as we were about to start back from the WWII memorial.) These are not postcards! One regret I have is not getting to the Vietnam memorial. That's because my cousin Jerry, who was stationed at the Pentagon for the Air Force during that conflict, died unexpectedly of a heart attack in DC at the age of 34, in November of 1970. The last time I saw Jerry, he and his wife Pat took me around DC when I stopped there in 1967 on my way to a study trip to England. So although we grew up in Oklahoma, I somehow feel closer to Jerry in Washington than at home.

All of my students seemed to thrive on the Convention and they had adventures of their own. By Saturday night we were back in St. Louis and on Sunday they put out the 11th issue of the semester. All routines back to normal, now. It hardly seems real that we were in Washington at all.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Vanna Volunteers for Mission in the City

After 13-1/2 years and 127,700 miles, our 1994 Plymouth minivan, aka Vanna, has moved on to a new life as a servant of Isaiah 58 ministries, the anti-poverty and hunger program sponsored by a group of South St. Louis churches, including our own. Here she is at the curb outside the building this afternoon, after we turned over the title and keys to Isaiah 58's staff.

We were delighted that we could find a useful life for Vanna after we purchased our newer van, Gracie, this past summer. We have quite a history with this car, starting in that chaotic time in spring of 1994 when my mother started having health problems. Over the years, Vanna took loads of women to the Christian Women's Fellowship Quadrennial Assemblies in Purdue, ventured on vacations to Colorado, Minnesota and Canada, made innumerable trips between St. Louis and Tulsa or St. Louis and Colby quickly and safely, transported children and youth to summer camp, and on and on. Vanna was dependable and we will always remember our days of driving her fondly. Do a good job for Isaiah 58, Vanna.


Monday, October 08, 2007

Where's Autumn?

For the last week it has been hot and a little humid; today's high, before a "cold" front came through, was 90 degrees. Not unheard of in October, but most of the garden looks tired and ready for fall's cooler respite. Not so these glorious marigolds, which put out lush foliage all summer (we probably gave them too much fertilizer) but started to bloom only after the autumnal equinox. (A click should enlarge the image.) They are special flowers, a present to Norm from Doug. They arrived in a seed packet that was enclosed with a CD by Janet Paschal that Doug gave Norm earlier in the year. Norm planted the seeds in several planters and pots and now we have glorious gold and yellow marigolds to imitate the non-existent fall leaf colors. Thanks, D!

After 6 years here, it was time to do a little touching up of paint on the porch and the doors. Most of the house is brick, with weatherproof cladding around soffits, windows and the like. But a little trim remains, and it is starting to show checks and cracks. For the last couple of weeks, Norm has been scraping and cleaning and now painting.



Even though there was a 30 percent chance of rain this afternoon, he worked on the front porch. Sure enough, just enough drops fell to make the pavement damp. Less than a trace, officially. And no rain, but cooler days and nights, for the next week, so he can get a lot of painting done!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

We Have a Winner!

Back in February, I attended a weekend retreat of my quilt guild and made a table runner under the direction of our guest teacher, who also picked out the harmonious fabrics for it. Over the spring and summer, I hand-quilted it and finished it with a scalloped edge as the instructions called for, although the curved edge was a little tricky to do. It was my only finished entry for the biennial Flower Valley Quilt Show, which was held this weekend. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the show this afternoon and my friends in quilting greeted me with smiles and said, "go look at your quilt!"

As a result of the Viewer's Choice voting on Saturday, my little table runner (at lower right in this photo, with some of the competition) received the third place yellow ribbon. I was (and am) so pleased and a little humbled because the winners in all of the categories are some of the experts in our guild, whose work I have admired since I joined in 1990. To receive any prize at all is something I have never even imagined I would do.


On Saturday many friends outside of quilting visited the show, including my aerobics instructor and friends from the water exercise class. And I got another surprise when our friends Karen and Gary from Edwardsville called on a cell phone to get directions to the show. (I think they might have voted for my entry. Thanks, guys!) The quilt in the background here also got Karen's vote for full size quilts, although it didn't win a ribbon. There were over 100 quilts in that category and more than 300 quilts in the entire show. It was a full and fun weekend.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

A Trip to Cotton Country

Our latest adventure was a trip to Sikeston, Mo., in the delta country. The area is known for its cotton and rice crops, and for a restaurant whose signs decorate Interstate Highways from Colorado to Texas and beyond.


We and our friend Mike took a drive in Gracie and arrived at Lambert's Cafe (a misnomer, since it's more like a cavern or a warehouse in size) in time for supper. The decor is early American license plate, hardwood benches, and all the "throwed" rolls you can catch. I'm smiling because I actually caught two of them (and dropped none)!

We were actually on a mission to attend the area assembly of our church (hence, my T-Shirt in the photo above.) After a restful night at the local Super 8, we found the First Christian Church easily. It seemed to us, with the red brick and steeple, to have something in common architecturally with Compton Heights.
It was a glorious day--clear, cool and calm.

Contrary to rumor, this is not Norm's harem, but part of the Compton "crew" that attended the assembly, plus our former student associate pastor, who graduated from seminary last spring. Inside, the sanctuary reminded us of Compton, too, from the arrangement of the windows to the kind of wood and finish on the pews. It was a good meeting, and we saw a lot of old friends from many churches.

One unique feature we noted about Sikeston as we were driving around, trying to find the church, was a pair of cotton fields almost in the middle of town on South Main Street. The smoke in the distance in this picture is from agricultural burning, something that irritated a few sets of city lungs.

As I was taking this close-up of the cotton, I kept hearing an old melody from the Sixties run through my head:
When I was a little bitty baby, my mama would rock me in the cradle, in those old, cotton fields back home...Finally, decades later, I actually got to see a cotton field, up close and personal.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Linking

Just this week, with the help of a fellow blogger, I've figured out how to embed links in my posts, both to other web sites as well as internally to earlier posts on my own blogs. For a right-brained person, this tecchie achievement is heady, indeed. So when you are reading a post and come across some words that are a color (usually a pink but on one of the blogs it is a blue) instead of black, that's a link. Clicking on it might take you to a picture, or an earlier post, or someone else's blog or web page. As my friend said, blog on!

Hummingbird Frenzy Time

We have enjoyed ruby-throated hummingbirds at our feeders since April, and this month we are seeing some migrating birds beginning to vie with the natives for a turn at the sugar solution. This female at left seems at ease and indeed spends some time each day preening and guarding her squatting rights outside the dining room window.

Trying to sneak up on a hummer to take its picture from inside the house is harder than it sounds. As I sat in a chair right at the window, this visiting female stretched her neck and peered at me, ready to fly at a moment's notice. She was probably also watching for a diving run by another hummer, since they defend the feeding sites pretty viciously, resembling small fighter jets in a dogfight.

From the dark markings on its head, I think this one is an immature male, possibly one that was fledged around here in late July, when the adult birds were busy filling up on nectar almost constantly. He was also trying to stake out territory, but another bird chased him away.


A little bit later, this young male or another one managed to perch and drink for a long time. Soon all of the hummingbirds will be migrating south to Mexico and Central America for the winter. They react to day length, so the presence of our feeders won't keep them here until it is too cold for them. The average date for their return in this area is the last week of March. We'll be ready for them!

An informative site about the migration of hummingbirds is run by a local bird bander in nearby Fenton, Mo. Check out Hummingbirds.net at this link.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Introducing Gracie

Here's our newest set of wheels, a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan that had about 21,5000 miles on it when we bought it on August 14 from Enterprise Leasing. After trying out various rentals this summer, we came back to a Chrysler Corp. minivan because it was the most comfortable and had the most room for the money. This one follows our two previous vans and keeps up our unbroken string of minivan ownership since 1986.

We took our new GC on its first road trip to Tulsa last month, and it performed extremely well. It has power features only dreamed of when we got our first Voyager: adjustable drivers' seat, rear vent openers, side door and liftgate power opener, etc. We can teach it to open our garage door, and it has a nifty "miles to empty" gauge that is extremely accurate! Both sets of rear seats fold down into the floor for cargo room. The middle seats are bucket style and comfortable. We feel fortunate to have 21st century wheels!

So, why and how did we name this van Gracie? Coming back from Tulsa, we tried all kinds of combinations. Since the car is silver, there were suggestions from friends such as Silver Fox, Hi Ho, etc. But then we realized that both of our burgundy vans had names unaffiliated with their color: Minnie and Vanna. So we asked, what can we do with Grand Caravan? We tried some "G" names: Gertrude, Griselda, etc. Then we tried "C" names: Charisse, Clarissa, etc. We tried wordplay: Caravanna. The we thought: GC. Gracie. And it stuck. So say hello to Gracie. We hope she'll be around, transporting us far and wide across the U.S. in comfort, for a long time to come!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

A Turn of Season


One sure sign of September in these parts is the blooming of the wild star clematis vine that covers almost everything in sight. A few years ago we realized that the 'weed' sprouting out front on our slope was actually clematis, so we let it grow. It also drapes fences and bushes all through the village. Birds will eat the seeds in winter, and the frosty appearance of the blooms reminds us that snow might be only a few months away.



A summer bloomer that got a second wind around labor day is this plumbago, growing in a pot near the back porch. In August we thought it had finished its season, but it has surprised us with new buds and glorious, pure blue flowers. It's an annual, but we will look for more of this plant next year.



The lack of variety in this layout is due to my trying a shortcut and uploading all of my photos at once. Even though I specified "right, left, right" for the placement, I got this lineup. Lesson learned. But just before we took our quick trip to Tulsa, the goldfinch clan, which had been busy with nesting responsibilities, started bringing some of the new brood to the feeder outside our study window. On the left side, a youngster bends down to see if dad will get some thistle for him. Dad refused, and junior had to feed himself!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Tulsa Trip

The last week of August, we made an un- scheduled trip to Tulsa because of a death in the family. Debi's mom, Mary Jane, passed on to the next life after a difficult 15 years with Alzheimer's disease. Norm led a service of celebration for Mary Jane's life, but the Raburn family really supplied the content in memorable ways. Here Mike, Debi, Norm and I are savoring this chance to be together, even if it was a sad occasion.


The clan of Raburns were all present to remember their mother, grand- mother and great- grand- mother. After a dinner at Cari's house, everyone gathered on the patio for a group photo. My cousin Mike has a big family now! Debi has written about her mother's life and their family on her blog, Debide's View.

During our time in Tulsa, we visited the Gilcrease Museum, founded on the collection of an early oilman who also was a native American. His home (left) is on the museum grounds and serves as an education center. The museum features mostly Western and Native American art, although we also saw an exhibit of drawings by Andrew Wyeth while we were there.

A stroll through the grounds revealed several lovely theme gardens. In the colonial garden, purple phlox were blooming and this tiger swallow butterfly was enjoying the food supply.





In some galleries, taking photos is forbidden, but items in the museum collection can be photographed. This gallery looks out on the Osage Hills and features the bronze sculpture, "End of the Trail." (The bronze belongs to the museum. Norm is merely visiting!)

On Sunday, August 26, we attended the final service at Rogers Heights Christian Church, Judi's home church in Tulsa. After 62 years, the congregation had dwindled to the point it could no longer continue, so the remaining members decided to give the property to the Oklahoma Christian Foundation. Judi's parents were charter members of this church and Judi was 3 when they started attending. There are more photos and memories on Thursday's Child. Clicking on this link will take you there. I've figured out how to add permalinks to my posts! Hooray!

On this trip we also had somewhat subdued celebrations of our 39th wedding anniversary and Norm's 69th birthday. Time does march on, and things do change.