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These days I'm trying to find time to finish my own quilts for the Flower Valley Quilting Guild's biennial show, which will be Sept. 26 and 27 at Atonement Lutheran Church in Florissant, MO. Hours are 10-4 on Saturday and Noon-4 on Sunday. Visitors can vote for their favorites in several categories on Saturday (my own two wall quilts will be there....) Ribbons will be in place on Sunday. I plan to hang out there most of the time both days. Admission is only $5, children under 10 are free. The quilt shown here was pieced and quilted by guild members and it will be raffled to raise funds for our guild programs the next two years. About 300 items ranging from clothing to full size quilts will be on display, plus we have a whole passel of neat vendors. Do try to attend if you can; the next show won't be until 2011.
Right now I'm finishing machine quilting and binding my entries. Once they are ready for the camera, I'll add them to my quilt gallery at the right of the blog.
The weather has been so nice, and the mosquito population so low, that we have been able to enjoy sitting on the front porch a lot this summer. One of our three hummingbird feeders is on the porch, so we get to see a lot of the action from our tiny territorial defenders. In between sorties to engage incoming enemies, the resident "papa" bird, or alpha male, often perches in the redbud tree, just a few feet away.
One afternoon not long ago, this female or immature male, either from a local brood or perhaps a migrator, managed to get in several sips before alpha papa attacked. And for once I had the camera handy.
The humming birds often challenge us as well. Few sights are as scary as one of these miniature gunships flaunting its wings, shaking its tail, and pointing that needle sharp beak at you from less than 5 feet away! Especially if you are another hummingbird. Thank goodness, the warfare has mostly ended now. Starting around Labor Day, the alpha papas departed for Central America. (The males are always first to arrive in spring and first to leave in fall. That means the females and younguns get to travel alone, without any fighter escort. So much for hummingbird chivalry!) Lately there have been what seem to be a lot of transient birds. They slip in just before dusk, perch and drink for a long time, perhaps replenishing calories depleted by their journey. How something so small can travel so far continues to amaze us. And they manage to spot our feeders, too, from a fairly high altitude.
Last week I was sitting on the porch, filing my fingernails so I wouldn't mess up the house, and a hummingbird flew right up in front of me, displayed its full array of feathers, and then just seemed to look at me quizically. Finally he or she flew away around the side of the house. And then it dawned on me--I was wearing my St. Louis Cardinals 2006 Championship T-Shirt--which is bright red. This puzzled avian briefly mistook me for a source of lunch. Sorry, little guy!
Today I was sitting on the porch going through the mail and drinking some coffee after getting home from Water Exercise. A car from Wisconsin pulled up in the driveway and it was one of our neighbor Barb's friends and business partners. She called out to me and said she knew Barb wasn't home, which is true. Barb and Ava are in Wichita until the end of the week. But her friend was in town for a wedding and decided to stop in briefly anyway. There is something old fashioned and touching and oddly reassuring about living in a neighborhood where friends know how to find the extra key and can use your place as a rest stop whether you are home or not. I realize that people who think it's crazy to share a driveway will disagree with me, but I'm glad we have such neighbors. It makes the world less harsh and scary, and in times like these, that is a Good Thing.
Labor Day has been a Lazy Day for us so far. We could go to the Greek Festival and eat a lot of baklava, or we could go to the Japanese Festival and hear the Taiko Drummers, or we could drive up near the river and look for migrating birds. Or I could get a lot of quilting done. It's only an hour and a half until noon and we are still deciding!
Once, Labor Day meant the end of summer vacation and the start of school, but these days, school begins the middle of August for a lot of people. I know that when I still worked, summer was over the first week of August because it was time to start dusting off lesson plans and going to meetings. In the South, where stricter fashion rules apply, Labor Day means putting away your white shoes, accessories and jackets in favor of more sober colors for fall. It also means the start of the fall housecleaning season almost anywhere.
For me, although I'm still finding house plants that need to be taken out to the porch for their summer outing, Labor Day is a time to look back over what has transpired since Memorial Day, the start of the summer season. Like any school kid on summer break, I still want to tally up what I have "accomplished" on my vacation. By almost any measure, summer has been good. The weather was cooler than normal, resulting in lower electric bills. June was very wet, so we haven't had to water much until lately. Plants have grown spectacularly, and some of them were even free, like this sweet potato vine that we over wintered as a tuber in a sack in the basement. We are still enjoying our home grown tomatoes and raspberries, and sharing them with neighbors and friends. We got to see all of Norm's sibs and some of their kids, as well as one of Norm's cousins in June. My cousin and his wife visited us in July. We took a long driving trip to western Oklahoma, and a shorter one to Arkansas, something I wasn't sure I could do in the winter when my cervical stenosis and resulting radiculopathy was first diagnosed. Physical therapy did wonders for it. We read books and learned more about genealogical research. We enjoyed a bonus visit from Matt and Doug in July. We are especially thankful that three first-time mothers who had life-threatening complications either with pregnancy or delivery--Heather, Jeanne and Michelle, are now all returned to health and their babies are thriving. We give thanks for all of our friends and just yesterday enjoyed a call from John and Nancy and learned that the publication of Nan's first book is closer to reality.
When I was a college aged summer camp counselor in Oklahoma, one of the first botanical harbingers of fall was the purple flowers of a common plant, ironweed. Just seeing it in bloom made me more conscious of the earlier darkness and a sense that the year was starting to pick up speed and rush headlong into winter, not my favorite season. Ironweed always made me a little sad. These days, my botanical harbinger is the wild sweet autumn star clematis, which frosts the tops of many shrubs both in town and out, as in my top photo here. I saw some on our trip to Arkansas a couple of weeks ago, and now it is all over town here, including several spots in our back yard. We still have lots of zinnias, as well as phlox and even hostas in bloom, and the chrysanthemums that have gone wild are starting to bloom, too. But seeing the clematis tells me that it's time to forget about taking the remaining house plants out, and to start planning how I'll get the ones on the porch ready to move back in. Summer is still here, but its days are numbered.
Happy labor day, to all who are still working at jobs, as well as those in well deserved retirement. And for those who need a job, or a better or more fulfilling one, may you find that soon.
On the middle day of our vacation, we set off in the opposite direction, to Fulton County, and Salem, the county seat. After a fruitful visit to the county library, where we found plat maps and other interesting items, we had some lunch and then approached the courthouse. The indexing situation, in contrast to the handy computer records we found in Randolph County, was primitive. Deeds from the years we were interested in were in books "G", "H" and on through "N". The books were Very Old, fragile, and on high shelves. The oldest one didn't even have an index in the front, and searching through 500 hand written pages for one deed seemed too daunting, so we pressed on until we found volumes with indexes in the front. Norm, bless him, lifted these 10+ pound weights overhead many times in the two days we rummaged around in the courthouses.
One note: unlike St. Louis County's courthouse, where you have to pass through metal detectors and submit your briefcase and purse to a search, we were just motioned to the back room by the circuit clerks and told to "holler if you need anything." Clearly that balance and weight work in our aerobics for over 50 class has paid off.
That deeds from the 1880s and early 1900s survive at all is a testament to the quality of the paper and ink used in those days. Handwriting is very clear and stylish; good penmanship was taught in the schools and apparently was a requirement for the job of court clerk. This one was a pivotal find; it records the sale of a land grant in Fulton County that Jesse's older brother TJ and his wife sold in January of 1908. TJ had already moved to Oklahoma and one of my theories is that the brothers and their families moved to Oklahoma Territory together. This helps advance the hypothesis. The land TJ owned was next to the partial section owned by their father, Albert A. McElyea. We didn't find that sale deed but think it would have been sold by the heirs after Albert's wife died in 1907. After a while, this kind of research is addictive, or else numbingly boring if it isn't your relative!
Researchers have to eat to keep going. We saw this bakery across from the courthouse, and thought we would get coffee and something to go with it at noon. They had just brought out their baked pepperoni and cheese sandwiches so we acquired them for lunch, which we ate on a shaded bench outside the courthouse. Salem isn't as large as Pocahontas, and the courthouse is very plain, having been built in 1890 and remodeled in the 1950s. Most of Fulton county is rocky brush and pasture, with lots of hay and cattle. The place has a no-nonsense feel to it. (Randolph County, in contrast, is part hilly, but traversed by 5 scenic rivers that bring tourists. And the eastern half of the county is in the Mississippi River delta, full of large farms devoted to rice, corn, soybeans and cotton.)
One building that caught my eye as being from the early days was this one on a corner. It seems to have been remodeled; the windows are new. It appears to be vacant, though. Perhaps it was a hotel in Salem's heyday.
While we were at the library, we asked for directions to the Old Burk Cemetery, where several records I have say that Jesse's father, A. A. McElyea, is buried. He died in 1898. I wasn't sure it would be accessible, after our fruitless search in Randolph County for Emma's parents' final resting place. But you know, you can count on libraries! A woman who was working there as a clerk helped us with the genealogy resources and said, "Oh, you mean Burk's Chapel. It's right down the road from where I live." And she gave us directions to follow county roads to the spot, and then to proceed by the section where Albert had lived as well. The McElyeas didn't live at Salem, but at a little village called Camp. (They say it is short for Indian Camp. Many Native Americans were displaced and their land sold by the government to settlers in the early 1800s.) Another nearby family was the Burks, and Albert and Mary's oldest daughter, Nancy, married one of them. And this lady in the library was related to the Burks as well. So we are practically kin.
If the directions hadn't been so good, I would never have had the courage to steer Gracie over some 6 or 7 miles of graded, dusty, red rock tracks through back country. (We still had Fulton County red dirt on the back window when we got home!) But lo, the chapel (above, built in the 1920s) did appear, and the cemetery beside it. We found the Burks and McElyeas, including some we didn't expect, near the road in one of the oldest sections. This photo shows the grouping of stones that mark the family burials. At left is the grave of Joseph, TJ and Jesse's older brother, who died in 1907. In the foreground is Albert's grave. The head stone has come off its base but someone has propped it up facing the opposite side. At the right is a monument to Nancy McElyea Burk and her baby, Lois, who both died in an epidemic in 1889. Albert's wife, Mary, isn't buried here. She lived with Jesse and TJ's younger sister, Geneva Bell, until her death in 1907. She is buried in Missouri--a trip for another day.
When I started the quest a couple of years ago to visit the graves of all four of my great grandmothers, I didn't really expect to go back any farther. But standing in that quiet country cemetery on a bright, warm August afternoon, I got goosebumps (and also chiggers) when I realized I was at the burial place of a great-great grandparent. One thing about the McElyeas is that a lot of research is online about them, and published family trees trace the line back to a Scotch-Irish ancestor who immigrated from Ireland around 1749. So I could look for Albert's father, Jesse P., in Tennesee, and his father, Hugh, in North Carolina, and his father, Laughlin, in North Carolina as well. Given the ravages of time on a stone erected in 1898, though, I'm not sure what if anything I would find. Albert (A.A. on the stone) was a Mason, and the Masonic emblem is visible on his headstone. The words carved at the top are "Come Ye Blessed" which is in keeping with his status as a ruling elder of the Cumberland Presbyterian congregation he helped to found. One day after this discovery, at Words & After Words, the book store in Hardy, I found and bought a very clear and helpful guide to genealogy research. It has checklists for everything, and on visiting cemeteries it says to bring lots of large plain sheets of paper and crayons or artist's charcoal to make rubbings. Duh! Too late, so I have the photo, and a written transcription. But I'll take the rubbing supplies if I go on any more cemetery trips. That, and I'll apply the insect repellent that is always in the car.
Back at the Hardy House, I had plenty to reflect on as I relaxed in the swing on the carport. Jesse and Emma, as well as their siblings and their parents, are coming alive to me as people instead of being names on a family tree. These two young folks, raised in adjoining counties, took off for Memphis, about 100 miles away, just before Christmas in 1891 to be married by a Justice of the Peace. I have always wondered why they left the state to get married, when there were churches and ministers at home. Census research has convinced me that they went to Tennessee because that state allowed cousins to marry and Arkansas did not. No one in the family ever talked about it, but Jesse's mother, Mary Tanner, and Emma's father, W.W. Tanner, were siblings. Jesse and Emma were first cousins. So that question is answered, but many more remain. I hope I will have more opportunities to trace their life story, a journey that began when I found a love letter Emma had written to Jesse in 1891 some 11 months before their marriage. When I get organized, I'll probably post more details about this great grandmother on my Thursday's Child blog. Goodness knows that if I think I have had far to go, well, it certainly runs in the family.
The next chapter in my journey to research the saga of my great-grandparents, Jesse and Emma McElyea, took us to Randolph County, Arkansas, where Emma spent her childhood, where her parents are buried, and where Emma and Jesse lived at least part of the time between 1892 (after their son, my grandfather, was born) and 1903 (when the last record of them in Pocahontas appears.) This picture shows the historic 1872 county courthouse, which now houses city offices.
We went to Pocahontas on the second day of our vacation, and spent the morning in the excellent Genealogy Room in the bowels of the county library. There we found various helpful indexes as well as abstracts of newspaper articles, including some from 1903 that told of Jesse's election to a secret society, Emma's week-long visit with her relatives in Walnut Hill, where she grew up, and rumors that Jesse might run for sheriff. Only a few years and months of the papers are indexed and of course I wanted more. We took a break for lunch at the Green Tomato Cafe, located in a great renovated space with inexpensive, fresh sandwiches and salads. It was Norm's birthday, so we treated him to a piece of excellent carrot cake. If you are ever in Pocahontas, this is the place for breakfast or lunch. They close at 2 p.m., though.
All along, I had been wondering where Jesse and Emma lived between 1901, when a newspaper clipping told of the death of a baby daughter in Pocahontas, and 1910, when they turned up in the census at Erick, OK. And why they moved West. We did find newspaper references to local floods in 1903, and also some newspaper ads enticing people to move to then Indian Territory or Oklahoma Territory. After lunch, we went to the "new" courthouse, which had deed records in an online data base. I found several references to Emma's father, who bought and sold a lot of land in a now-defunct settlement called Walnut Hill. He was a merchant, and he and his wife are buried in Janes Cemetery near Walnut HIll. Alas, we never could find any maps or anyone who could tell us exactly where it was, although we drove through the general area on two different days. We assume the cemetery is on somebody's farm, and might not be all that accessible, anyway.
In pegging my family history and memoir on the lives of my great grandmothers, I have noted that I know for a fact that three of them--the other three besides Emma--were quilters. I don't have any evidence that Emma quilted, but Pocahontas is a hotbed of quilt lore never the less. One nice surprise on this visit was a quilt trail through the historic town square. Buildings are decorated with weather proof images of 37 quilts that relate to the county's history and heritage. It is billed as "Arkansas' Only Quilt Trail" and is worth the trip if you are within shouting distance of Pocahontas. After seeing these quilts and reading the little booklet that gives the history of each pattern and each maker, I realize that Emma probably did at least learn to quilt as a girl in the 1880s in this area, and that her mother probably quilted. But of course, I'll never really know.
When we were poring over the various deeds in the courthouse vault, there were more surprises, and also more questions that will need follow up at some point. For example, we found detailed descriptions of land that Emma's father purchased in a town site, in partnership with a Presbyterian minister who was close to the family. But I forgot to ask for a plat book, and the library was closed when I tried to look there. I'll have to find one online somehow, or write to the library for a copy. I also learned that Jesse bought a town lot in Pocahontas in January 1901, not long after the birth of their little daughter who would die in June of that year. The big surprise was that he and Emma sold the property in May 1903. That after all the publicity in the paper suggesting how active they were in the town. So, did they move to Oklahoma then? Or did they go somewhere else first? The only other clue we have is a handwritten deed we found in the Fulton County courthouse in Salem, indicating they sold their interest in property that they inherited when one of Jesse's brothers died in 1907. The deed is dated January 1908 and the it notes that they are residents of Beckham County, OK, along with Jesse's remaining brother. So, now we have only a 5-year gap, where earlier there was a 9-year one. Where were Emma and Jesse, as well as my grandfather and his two sisters, between 1903 and 1908? From family records and oral history I can think of at least two other counties where I might look. So another trip may be in the offing, after I've done some more research online. Since this move took place between census years, deeds and newspaper references are my best clues, if they weren't burned in some courthouse fire! The deed book in the photo shows one of the deeds pertaining to the McElyeas that we found in the Fulton County courthouse in Salem on the next day's trip. The thumb holding the book upright belongs to Norm, who played a pivotal part in that search... Stay tuned....
Last week we spent four days and four nights in Arkansas, at a vacation home that belongs to a good friend. We decided on Hardy as our destination because it was half way between two counties where I wanted to do some ancestor research, and it had its own attractions as well. The last day we were there, we just explored the town and also sat outside and drank in the wonderful silences and sounds of the north Arkansas woods. Twilight found us on the front deck.
At one point, the silence was shattered by a call that had to belong to a wood pecker, although it was different than those at home. In a few minutes, this fellow, a Pileated Woodpecker, flew out of the woods and started climbing up this snag across the road.
You may or may not be able to make out the red crest, but the silhouette is unmis- takable. He or she is almost as big as a crow. After a while it called again and flew off into the woods. This sighting was a first for me, although I've heard these calling in the woods before. An entry for the Birding Life List. We saw other wildlife on this trip, including four deer crossing the road to the house right at dusk one evening as we returned from visiting an internet hot spot in town.
All the comforts of home and then some were provided in the home our friends' family has had in Cherokee Village for many years. The place is well loved. Electricity, propane and running water insured that we weren't roughing it. We fixed two suppers and all of our breakfasts here. The front deck was great for sitting in the evenings, and a swing at the back of the carport was a great spot to savor morning coffee and listen to more bird songs. Thank you, thank you, Jacque and Martha!
Downtown Hardy has a main street that is also the highway, and one block is lined with very quaint art and craft shops, some places to eat and get ice cream, and this little park dedicated to a person who helped get the entire zone on the National Register of Historic Places. Hardy is situated on the Spring River (which issues forth at Mammoth Spring, some 16 miles to the north) and was an early trading center after the railroad came through. It's still a nice place to spend a spring or fall weekend.
The only thing the house lacked was Internet access, and actually that was A Good Thing. It made the time there more relaxing. As we came back each day from our various forays into county court houses or country cemeteries in search of clues about the great grandparents, we usually stopped at a place called Words & After Words, a book store, cafe and internet hot spot. Yes, we browsed the (well stocked, indie) book store and I came away with some books. One night as we had some appetizers and coffee we became part of the audience for a live streaming broadcast of an interview with two old-time mountain musicians and we heard some good local music. If you are ever in Hardy, this is the place to be. Open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and after 7 p.m. many nights for music, including a weekly open mic night.
Separate posts will be dedicated to our adventures in Randolph and Fulton counties, and the triumphs and frustrations of genealogy research on the ground (or as Norm will say, on a ladder.)
This afternoon we were sitting on the front porch, basking in the unseason- ably cool breeze (it was 72 for a high and it could be 50 or a little below tonight) when the lawn chair I was sitting in broke. Rather, a pin that held the legs and arms to the frame did. I'm not sure how old the chair is--we bought them the summer after we moved here in 2001, I think. Plain old metal fatigue. It must be some kind of omen when the lawn chair breaks, like summer is ending. Cool weather kind of reinforces that idea, so before August is just a memory, here are some photos of other flowers that we enjoyed in the back yard.
These pom-shaped composites bear seeds that the gold finches like, and I think that's why Lois and Bob planted them. Most of the garden we inherited from them was old-fashioned, or prairie plants, or varieties that would attract butterflies or birds. Speaking of butterflies, the Monarchs seem to be either hatching or arriving. We have seen several floating lazily around the neighborhood lately, and one followed me home at noon when I returned from Tai Chi practice on campus.
The phlox we inherited is very old fashioned, and unfor- tunately it seems to be host to some kind of virus that stunts a lot of the plants before they can bloom. We have pulled up the affected ones, and a few, such as these in the side border, have continued to bloom.
Just before the chair broke this afternoon, I was wondering where August had gone. The days, weeks, months and years seem to be speeding up on me, and yet when I look at what I've accomplished, I don't see a whole lot. Perhaps I've spent too much time "wool-gathering" as my mother used to call my day dreaming habit. But it's hard not to stop and savor these waning days of summer. Soon enough it will be time to rake the leaves and check the supply of snow melt. I can wait for that.
The blogging silence this week is because we are spending a few days in Arkansas, looking up some family history and just enjoying a slower paced atmosphere. We have been to an internet hotspot for lunch so we could check our e-mail, and we have also used a library computer for that purpose, so we have been somewhat in touch back home. This is our anniversary and birthday week for Norm, so we are just unplugging for the time being. Will have a trip diary and lots of photos to post after we get back home.
Here is the answer to the question, why do we bother to garden? Raspberries (the ever bearing, or spring- and -fall kind) are now at their peak in the back yard. A ripe raspberry from the yard has a taste like no other. And we owe these to a dear elder of the Maplewood church who gave us four plants from his patch maybe 20 years ago. For a few weeks we can feast on vanilla ice cream topped with raspberries and Missouri peaches, or breakfast waffles topped with raspberries. We will share them and also freeze a few so we can savor the taste of summer when the days grow short and the winds turn cold.
If raspberries are our perennial crop, tomatoes are the annual crop. We get 4 plants from Thies Farm every spring and place them somewhere in the back border where they will get at least a few hours of sun a day. Jet Star is the variety we have raised for years: they are medium in size, very solid and flavorful. They also resist several wilts and diseases. They are no match for squirrels, though, and we usually find half eaten ones around the base of the trees. This year we think we have found a squirrel solution. Ever since Norm moved the hummingbird feeder to the middle of the tomato patch, the tomatoes have stayed on the vine and ripened without blemish. The hummers are starting to migrate now--lots of aerial skirmishes over territory. We just hope a few stay around until we have picked most of our crop!
We take our extra tomatoes to church and let anyone who doesn't have access to home grown goodness take what they would like. Often the older people will take just one, and their faces light up with anticipation, remembering the taste from the days when they, too, were blessed to have a garden.
In addition to playing with baby Korey on Saturday, we also got custody of Ava the golden doodle for this week, while Barb is in New York on business. This photo actually dates to July, when Matt and Doug were in town for a short visit. Matt got Ava to pose for him while he tried out his new digital SLR. (Click on the photo to enlarge it. I uploaded it small to save MB in my photo account.) This week we are coaching Ava on some obedience skills that Barb has started, and we are also hoping to surprise Barb with a new trick or two when she comes home on Friday. Clue: Ava appears to be a southpaw, but I think most dogs are.
Yesterday we had a lot of rain, 1.3 inches and counting in two cloudbursts. I drove around one in the morning for a routine medical checkup, and we just sat sullenly at home during the second one, although it finally let up so we could go to...wait for it...WATER Exercise! Today was Car Day. We had a diagnostics, oil change, and required safety and emissions inspections done on Gracie the Van. We bought Gracie two years ago, on August 14, 2007. Doesn't seem that long ago. Anyway, Gracie passed and after I stood in line for a while at the License Office, we have new plates good until 2011. We have a couple of driving trips planned, so it was good to get this done before the old ones expired at the end of the month. (My checkup went fine, too. I have better bone density than a 25-year-old. Maybe I should forget about dieting and keep on eating cheese, drinking milk and snacking on ice cream after all! But exercise, especially walking, gets a lot of the credit, too.)
Tomorrow I have a computer class at St. Louis County Library HQ in using Footnote and HeritageQuest, two programs that help you trace your ancestors. Last Thursday I went to one about Ancestry's library edition. All of these programs are available through the county library for free (our tax dollars at work, and we approve), so I'm taking the classes so I can use them more effectively. Last week I was surprised to find out that my paternal grandfather doesn't show up in the 1930 census! That was a shock, since I already have an idea of where he and his wife, as well as my father and his siblings, were living at the time. But the teacher explained that if no one was home when the census taker came, sometimes they weren't counted as there wasn't a coordinated plan to go back. I found my maternal grandparents and my mother, though, just where I thought they would be. Now my challenge is to find people in earlier years, and track their migrations from state to state, starting with 1790.
Tomorrow we are supposed to have another Big Rain, but we'll see. I'll check in with a storm and library update, as well as some new yard pictures. Signs of early fall are starting to appear!
This past weekend, our friends Mike and Sandy enjoyed a visit from their daughter Heather and grandson #3, little Korey, who was born a month early back in May. Now three months old, he seems to have caught up pretty well! His main task, as Sandy said, on this visit was learning to laugh. His aunt, cousins, and grandparents saw to it that he got plenty of things to laugh at as well as lots of TLC.
We were lucky enough to be invited to join in the general hilarity on Saturday afternoon. Norm got to play with Korey after he took a little nap. Korey seems to have discovered what a camera is for, and someone has also told him he is photogenic!
I got the honor of giving Korey his bottle, and as soon as he finished it he snuggled into my shoulder for a nap. Even with all of the attention and being passed hand to hand by so many new people, he didn't fuss at all. He's a real people person. Maybe he has a career in public life ahead of him?
It's a rare day when these sisters can get together; even rarer when the picture includes all of Mike and Sandy's grandsons. Heather holds Korey, and Wayne and Joe pose with mom Jennie. As honorary aunt and uncle, we enjoyed seeing everyone for a couple of hours that afternoon. Heather and Korey went home to Chicago today, and we are all counting the days until we can see this charming little guy again.
For a while I had a link to a site where you could vote for your favorite Farmers Market, but the results are in, so I've removed it. My market (Ferguson Farmers Market) finished just out of the top 20. If you'd like to see the winners' page, it can be found here: http://action.farmland.org/site/PageNavigator/Americas-Favorite-Farmers-Markets/top_farmers_markets
Look for other interactive features that strike my fancy in the future! In the meantime, consider visiting The Hunger Site and its associated sites: Breast Cancer, Literacy, Child Health, Animal Rescue, Rainforest--you can access them through the button for The Hunger Site in the right-hand column. I try to click every day. Please join me!
When mid-August rolls around, I tell myself, the Home Stories anniversary is probably about now. Well, I finally got around to checking and this blog turned three years old either on August 11 (the calendar date) or yesterday, the second Friday of the month (the weekly date.) So, for those who started reading on Friday, August 11, 2006 and are still around, Thank You. Here's a link to the post that started it all: http://judiandnorm.blogspot.com/2006/08/just-little-late.html
Sometimes I wonder if the blog has run its course, and then I get an e-mail from a friend whom I haven't seen in 48 years although we shared some significant time in junior high hallways or at church or at Girl Scout Camp. She has followed a link to the blog after finding my profile on my high school class reunion page, or LinkedIn, or somewhere. And so I guess I'll try to keep it up a while longer, as long as readers are out there. If any of you regulars have suggestions for topics or questions about what I've written (or not written), feel free to post them in the comments or send them privately to my email address. It's in my blogger profile.
It's been a while since I singled out a milestone visitor from my SiteMeter report. Often it's someone across the ocean just searching for some term like "dog stories" or something like that. Tonight's visitor #4500 is from St. Charles, Missouri, runs WinXP and uses IE 8.0 as a browser. The visitor knows the blog address and wasn't surfing. And I have No Idea who you are. But thanks for stopping by!
At last report (Wednesday night), Joe wrote on their Care Pages site that Elaine had come through her surgery well and the doctors were optimistic about the outcome. We know they were worried about side effects from anesthesia, so we continue to pray for her recovery.
No, not the zinnias. They are doing just fine since we brought them home and planted them in the wall garden out front to fill in, now that other flowers have faded in the heat. But some family are definitely in our prayers:
- Kay and Don have become (as of July 27) foster parents of 4 young people in their community, on rather short notice. As everyone scrambles to get ready for school, we are thinking very good thoughts and praying for a good start for Theresia, Christine, Kimberly and Christopher. The three girls are teens; Christopher is 9. Kay and Don are, well, not as young as they used to be. We admire their faith and courage, and are humbled by their generosity. Even more amazing, I'm impressed that with all of this domestic adjustment going on, Don and Kay both still check this blog almost every morning as they always do, and Kay takes time to leave comments.
- Elaine, wife of the Linville sibs' cousin, Joe, will have cancer surgery in Tulsa tomorrow. She has completed chemotherapy and the hope is that this surgery will remove the remaining cancer. Our prayers are for the wisdom and skill of her surgeons and medical personnel, and for a successful outcome.
July is lily month, and before we forget the coolness of that stretch of time, here are some of our amazing lilies this year. And I have to add that we didn't plant any of them, although we have moved them around the yard the last couple of years. This gold lily above started out in one place by the drive. Now we have some back by the lilac, out in front, and in the side yard lily bed as well. Do the birds carry the seeds? No telling, but these last a long time, over a month from when they start to their final bud. Right now this one has two or three flowers left.
A day lily type that is taller than usual, and yellow with an orange blush, was found growing behind the garage after we moved here in 2001. We thought it deserved a better view so we put some in the "new" lily bed next to our neighbor's driveway on the north side of the house. These guys last a long time, too. They start blooming in July after the plain orange day lilies are finished, and they just keep on.
Old fashioned tiger lilies are always striking, and ours just multiply like rabbits. (Come to think of it, we have seen rabbits on that side of the yard.) When we moved in, a few stalks leaned on the fence next to the neighbor's driveway. They must thrive in shade, the deep shade of the maple. We haven't moved them and now the patch is about 5 feet long and a couple of feet wide.
The tigers insist on peeking over the fence into Mr. Guy's yard, but they also help frame a view of ours that we don't often see: from the outside looking in. Bob and Lois, who lived here before us, probably planted all of these flowers. Because lilies live a long time, they are here for us to enjoy and maybe even for whoever follows us here to enjoy as well. Everyone who gardens hopes the next occupant will cherish the plants, although we know they may be moved or sited differently. Everyone has preferences. Sadly, sometimes a long-tended garden is destroyed; the people who bought our old house in Ferguson seemed to like the plants when they bought it, but I can't even bring myself to drive by there any more: the redbud tree is cut down; the roses are gone, the iris are gone, the japonica I transplanted from my parents' yard is gone... the loss is endless. I know I had a similar feeling of loss when I saw that the people who bought my mother's house in Tulsa had removed the three Paul Scarlet climbing rose bushes Norm and I had found in a catalog and planted especially for her. Certainly as gardeners we always hope some of our planting will survive us, but it helps to have a thick skin and not depend on mere landscape for our immortality.
This evening I fixed supper that included potato salad and fresh green beans, both made from ingredients from our local farmers market. I few nights ago I froze some contents for peach pies, made with wonderful Calhoun County peaches bought at the farmers market. To one I added blueberries (which are plentiful and inexpensive at the supermarkets right now) and to the other I added some raspberries (these are store bought but ours are starting to bear—Norm picked 4 berries this morning, and two small tomatoes!
The pies are simple; for each pie, to 3 large sliced peaches and 1 cup of other fruit (blue berries, rasp- berries, etc.) you add 1Tb of lemon juice, ¼ cup of cornstarch, ¾ cup of sugar (or sucralose if you want it to be sugar free) plus ¼ tsp of cinnamon and ½ tsp of nutmeg. Mix it all together and pour it into a pie pan that you have lined with plastic wrap. Fold the plastic wrap over and freeze; then slide the “pie fillings” into zipper freezer bags. When it’s cool enough to light the oven to bake a pie, make a 2-crust recipe (or buy your favorite prepared kind), plop in the frozen filling, cut steam slits in the top crust and crimp the edges, and bake the pie at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, then at 375 F for an additional 30 to 35 minutes. Like all fruit pies, it is done when the juice starts to boil out of the slits, so make sure you have a cookie sheet on the rack below the pie to catch the drip. This recipe can be used for any fruit pie and its so handy, when company comes or the need for a carry-in dinner arises, to have the ingredients waiting in the freezer. I’ve kept frozen pie fixings for a year and they were delicious.
Tomorrow we will have corn on the cob, and tomato salad, both--you guessed it--from the farmers market. Most of the food is organic and all of it is grown within 100 miles and harvested within 24 hours of sale. It is delicious, and it is inexpensive. Right now there is a contest sponsored by the American Farmland Trust to choose a favorite farmers' market. I voted for ours, the Ferguson Farmers Market. You can vote too, for your favorite market (and if you don't have a favorite, you might vote for Ferguson....) by clicking on the button at the top of the rail to the right. For a while, it will be there, just above the quilt gallery. Meanwhile, bon apetit and all that.
This is the season when all the Farmers Markets are bursting with local goodies, but we are eagerly watching the only two crops we are growing this year (with the exception of some herbs). The raspberries are starting to be laden with clusters of berries while the bees stay busy pollinating more and more flowers. Soon we hope to have some ripe ones to photograph (and eat!)
Our four tomato plants (Jet Star, tried and true and virus resistant) had a slow start in the cool, wet spring, but they all have many clusters of expanding green fruit. Any day now, one of them might start to turn and we can pick it before the squirrels do. Meanwhile, everyone at the Ferguson Market on Saturday had plenty of tomatoes so I stocked up to make fresh salsa as well as Greek salad.
Today was the last day of our low impact aerobics class until after Labor Day. This group has been together for several years although newcomers are always welcomed and made to feel at home. It's a community, really, of people with few other connections to each other, but who extend sympathy with loss and think good thoughts for health concerns and celebrate milestones. We are inspired by our 61-year old leader who some time back set a goal of running a marathon in every state and she now has only 5 left to go, including Maine, New Hampshire, California, and the grand finale next summer in Fairbanks, Alaska. Would you believe, some of the group is talking about making a road trip to cheer her on! Thanks, Rae, for your example and instruction. Go, Girl!
Speaking of connections, today I got an e-mail from a long-lost friend from Junior High and Girl Scout days. She saw my address in a group e-mail to our Will Rogers High School Class of 1961 about a pre-reunion meeting. Jan lives in the Hill Country of Texas now and I am so excited to think that we may get to meet again in 2011. Meanwhile, as she says, e-mail does make the world go 'round. That and blogging. She says she already has checked Home Stories out. Here's looking at ya, found friend!
Back in July, I noted that the color of one of our Caladiums reminded me of the Surprise Lilies, and I noted that they should be appearing any day. A couple of days after that post on July 18, the first few bare stalks appeared in the border by our north fence! They have been in glorious bloom now for about a week. Some creature stepped on a couple of stalks, breaking them off at the base, so I brought them in and they are still blooming in a vase on the windowsill that has the hummingbird feeder. I don't know if the lilies attract more hummingbirds or not, but the little winged jet fighters are defending their territory more fiercely than ever.
We had a busy week as Norm was preparing his sermon for today, and I finally got back into the sewing room and started to work on some more Gypsy bags and a small quilt I'm going to try to finish for the Flower Valley Quilt Guild's biennial show in September. On Friday we helped prepare the church newsletter for mailing (we hope it shows up in mailboxes soon) and that night we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant with our friends the Dixons, and then plotted how many of our hostas we could move to their front flower bed, since they have embarked on a modest landscaping project. Saturday morning I spent an hour volunteering at the Ferguson Farmers Market, counting the number of shoppers arriving. Click, click, click... it was the least I could do, take a shift, since doing a count was my suggestion when market director Kathy and I were talking about the market's attendance while we were exercising in the pool last week. When my shift was over we had counted almost 900 people, and there was still an hour to go. I had a great time and saw lots of folks I knew from UMSL, exercise, quilt guild and other connections.
We continue to enjoy our cooler summer (July had only 3 days above 90 degrees! Unheard of!) and our amazing flowers. What a gift this season has been. The dazzling blue flowers by our back door (photo above) are Plumbago, one of my new favorites. We got the last planter that Thies Farm had. This is also Peach Time. Every Saturday I bring another bag of them home from the Farmers Market. Tonight we had fresh peaches and vanilla ice cream. Yum. My goal is to freeze contents for several peach pies this week. Soon our garden raspberries will be ripe enough to pick, too. And our tomatoes are getting bigger. Norm moved one of the hummingbird feeders to the middle of the tomato patch. We thought we would see if the hummers would see an invading squirrel as a threat to their nectar supply (since they challenge all humans, cats and dogs who come into their sight) and see if the warrior threatening pose of the adult male ruby throats is enough to keep the squirrels away! We will report on this experiment later.....
These days I'm trying to find time to finish my own quilts for the Flower Valley Quilting Guild's biennial show, which will be Sept. 26 and 27 at Atonement Lutheran Church in Florissant, MO. Hours are 10-4 on Saturday and Noon-4 on Sunday. Visitors can vote for their favorites in several categories on Saturday (my own two wall quilts will be there....) Ribbons will be in place on Sunday. I plan to hang out there most of the time both days. Admission is only $5, children under 10 are free. The quilt shown here was pieced and quilted by guild members and it will be raffled to raise funds for our guild programs the next two years. About 300 items ranging from clothing to full size quilts will be on display, plus we have a whole passel of neat vendors. Do try to attend if you can; the next show won't be until 2011.
