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Before the Christmas holiday, and before we left on the Florida trip, I was busy trying to finish a king-sized quilt for Doug and Matt that had been in the works for a long time. At left, I'm taking the last few stitches in the label on Dec. 23, before our flight. 
The quilt, at right, is a Trip Around the World pattern that I learned in a class in 1990 or so. The top sat around for a long time until I decided in 2002 to add a border and present it to Doug when he finished his PhD. Hand quilting takes a long time, and I was still working on it when he graduated this spring. But it is now in Florida, where I hope he and Matt will enjoy it.
The week before Christmas we had amaryllis blooms upstairs and down. The plant at right was in our South window in the upstairs bedroom. The one below was in the dining room and came from the "mother plant" bulb and some bulblets. There were four stalks from three bulbs when we left. We also left behind two other pots full of plants loaded with buds that have probably bloomed while we were here. 
Tuesday and today we have helped with packing and pre-moving activities. On Wednesday we spent the entire day on Sanibel Island, an hours' drive over and two hours back, given the traffic at this popular place. I need to crop and adjust our pictures from that adventure, so I'll post about Sanibel after we return home on Saturday. Tomorrow (Friday) is Moving Day.
A blessed Christmas is our wish for all of you reading this blog today or in the future. We sent part of our cards before Christmas, and the others will be going to the post office tomorrow and Wednesday. Our Christmas tree at home glowed with holiday anticipation all last week, and Norm and I celebrated "Little Christmas Eve on the 22nd by exchanging some gifts before leaving for Florida on the 23rd.
We flew to Ft. Myers and were welcomed by Doug, Matt and Sam the poodle. On Christmas Eve morning we attended church at First Christian Church of Lehigh Acres, a community about 10 miles from where they live. It is an Open and Affirming Disciples Church and is distinguished by some unusual architecture.
As you can see, Norm and I were claimed quickly by Sam, who found a space on my lap. We got up on Christmas morning to a lovely brunch cooked by Doug and Matt. We took a long walk around the apartment complex where they live. We tried to go to a movie, the opening of The Good Shepherd, but the theater had oversold the tickets. So we had a nice drive to Naples instead...a place we will enjoy seeing more of one of these days. The rain is supposed to end tomorrow, and be sunny and a bit cooler. We will be helping pack this week for their move to the new condo on Friday, but with luck, we may get away to the beach for some shelling and bird watching, too. Stay tuned.
I'm a Christmas light addict. From toddlerhood on, my favorite holiday activity was to drive around the nicer parts of town to look at the Christmas light displays. Tulsa had some spectacular ones when I was a kid. Here in St. Louis, we often make a ritual of driving around on Christmas night to enjoy all of the neighborhood displays. But if it's mild, as it has been this week, we often just walk around our village and look at lights on foot, which gives us a chance to admire them up close. We did that last Friday night and enjoyed it. Of course, it's not fair to look without contributing. Since we lack outdoor electrical outlets, we have to settle for letting our inside tree be seen through the front porch French doors. And since we often use our back door for entry, and guests do too, Norm always drapes the fence along the driveway with swags of evergreen, white lights and red bows. At night (see below) it's an arresting sight. Even more so with snow on them. He is able to use an outlet in the garage for these lights.
We have been busy with Advent activities. A week or so ago, our church was able to reach a milestone in its accessibility campaign. Members have raised over $105,000, more than 87 percent of the goal for the project, so we should be able to begin construction early in 2007. That's one of the projects Norm and I have worked on most intensively this year and the response has been...miraculous. Our reading group discussed the memoir Mixed by Angela Nissel and it was especially poignant since one member has a mixed race grandchild, one member is in a mixed marriage, and another member has nieces who are of mixed race. And then there was the young woman with a Nigerian father and a white mother who saw our book club notice in a bookstore, called one of the members and showed up at the coffee house for our meeting, bringing many more experiences for us to share. On Saturday our pastor held an open house which we enjoyed immensely. It was so warm, many of us gathered on the patio out back around the copper fire pit...all that was missing was some marshmallows and sticks to roast them on. Sunday we had a carry-in dinner after church, with lots of visiting and informal caroling. I was knitting furiously to finish a scarf for the Tree of Warmth that benefits clients of our family crisis ministry, Isaiah 58. I managed to finish it just after dessert! I'm still not sure when the Christmas letter will be written or the cards sent. We have plans to do some traveling during the holidays, so our big party and communication season may be Epiphany this year. Whatever your holiday plans or preparations, we wish you the merriest. Please do drop us a line or comment and let us know what you are doing.
The reports are coming in....Linville amaryllis (amarylli?) are indeed blooming! A few years ago, Kay sent me an email: The Amaryllis is blooming! I think hers may be the early bird of the family, although if that's not right, someone will let me know.
Tonight Kay and Don sent an e-mail with these three photos attached. Don reports that they have 4 bulbs in one pot, producing 6 stalks among them. Last year, they saved seeds from one of the blooms (how they manage to pollinate, indoors, is an untold story) and started some baby plants from seed--there are 10 in the pot below. An amaryllis nursery?
Thanks, Don and Kay, for the photos, and also for reading the blog. I wish someone in the family knew the story of how Mom Linville came to have this amaryllis in the first place. Does anyone remember?
One sure sign of the coming holidays is the appearance of stalks on the amaryllis. Our bulbs are offspring that Norm's mother gave us years ago, descended from the plant that Norm remembers blooming in winter on the farm when he was a boy. Many of us-- daughter, daughters-in-law, granddaughters and even a couple of guys-- have one of these amaryllis now. If your amaryllis is blooming, send me an e-mail and if possible, a picture. When this one blooms, which should be by the end of the week for the tallest stalk, I'll put it online. Right now, there are four bulbs in the pot (amaryllis like to be crowded) and three of them have sent up stalks, looking a bit like those processions of the Magi that appear on Christmas cards. And we have two more bulbs upstairs with buds on them, too. It promises to be a wonderful blooming holiday, thanks to Mom Linville. And if you are without an amaryllis and would like one, let us know that, too. Come summer, we'll deliver.
It has been a while since I have written, but maybe this post will explain. The end of November brought some lovely weather and we did as much as we could in the yard to clean up leaves, mulch the perennials and bulbs, and enjoy the birds. On Tuesday, November 28, the campus, and then our neighborhood was visited by a huge flock of migrating Robins. The weather service had been warning us for a week about a winter storm that would hit around the 29th or 30th, so when I saw about 200 Robins stripping the red fruit off the ornamental trees outside the gym where I exercise, I figured a weather change was near. On Wednesday the 29th, we had a high of 75 degrees. A wind blew away the plastic birdbath and this robin perched on the rim, looking at us as if to ask what we had done with his swimming pool.
Early Thursday morning, the bottom fell out of the atmosphere and everything headed South. We woke to freezing rain, which turned to sleet, which turned back to freezing rain. Norm went to volunteer at the food pantry, I went to exercise and got my hair cut, and by 2 p.m. the ground was showing white. We listened with foreboding as weather cast after weather cast warned of heavy ice accumulating on power lines and tree limbs, and possible power failures. We had gathered provisions and spare batteries, but that wouldn't be enough. On Thursday night about 11 p.m. I was checking my email when everything went dark. Our power was off, and so was our heat, since the gas boiler for our hot water system has electronic ignition and thermostat and pump. We went to bed and listened to the sleet hitting the awnings. The whole neighborhood was dark, and quiet. We awoke to a house that was at 59 degrees and falling, and to a world outside that was 22 degrees and glittering. This view (above) across our neighbor's back yard told the story. 
Even on Saturday morning, after a low of 11 degrees, the house was holding at 48 degrees inside. Outside, the world was still a Winter Wonderland. The drive beside the Normandie Golf Course was striking in its stark beauty. This frigid view is from the entrance to Bel Nor from Greendale, looking south. As you can see, street crews had been busy. The only positive thing about this storm is that we didn't get the 8 to 10 inches of snow originally forecast...the bad news was, most of that moisture came down as rain and froze instead.
We had no idea how cold the house could get with no heat, and we didn't want to test it out, so we accepted an invitation from church friends to stay with them starting on Friday night. We made daily trips to our house to see how the temperature was holding; we didn't want to drain the heating system and the pipes unless we absolutely had to!
Jan and Larry Krueger's home on Flora Place became our home away from home for the next few days.
One of their two cats, Coal, developed an affinity for us. So did their calico cat, Sneakers, but she was too shy to be captured on camera.
The power returned late on Saturday afternoon. We moved back home after church on Sunday (the Kruegers live just a few blocks from Compton Heights) and found a warming house. Although we were cozy, comfortable and grateful at the Kruegers', our own bed felt so wonderful. At the height of the outage, 515,000 customers of our utility were without power. Tonight, Monday Dec. 4, 180,000 are still out, despite the help of 7000 electrical line crewpeople from 14 different states who have poured in to help. It's supposed to reach 45 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday before we get another cold front. We pray the crews will be successful in getting everyone back on line, and that they will all be safe.
On Thanks- giving morning, while some people were watching the Macy's parade or the St. Louis parade on TV, I was dabbling in the kitchen, making pies for our Thanksgiving feast at the Myers' house later in the day. I miscalculated and tried to take a shortcut, using frozen piecrust. The pans are always too shallow for my recipes, so I had some of each mixture left over. The pecan mix bubbled to a hard ball candy stage in the small glass dish. I tried using a thawed out frozen biscuit in place of piecrust for the small pumpkin pie. (It wasn't all that tasty when Norm and I tried it later.) Anyway, the pecan was especially a hit and not a crumb was left. The white flower in the picture is our late-blooming chrysanthemum, still going strong at the end of November. Plants can amaze you.
These blooms in my upstairs closet window like having sunny days. The geranium cuttings are struggling, even with rooting hormone, and I think they are not going to make it. Meanwhile, the plants I took the cuttings from are still alive on the front porch, even after one 28-degree night a week ago. Maybe I'll just bring them in later in the week instead! The African Violets really like this spot and have bloomed almost continuously. The three spider plant babies are almost ready for a new home...maybe someplace semi tropical?
When a freeze threatened about a month ago, we moved all of the houseplants in from the front porch, where they had spent the summer. The north light in the dining room is one of the best spots downstairs for green plants, although it's not great for bloomers. Most striking is how much the rubber plant that Doug gave us about 3 years ago has grown. This was its first summer to go outside; I had been worried about wind or insect damage, but finally gave in and sent it out with the others. It grew an additional foot tall, with huge leaves.
Also spending every summer outside are the Christmas cacti, a white one we received as a gift one Christmas, and the pink one at left that grew from a sprig Aunt Doris Linville gave us eons ago. This year, both plants had set buds by the time we brought them inside and the white one bloomed for Halloween. The pink one will still be in bloom for Thanksgiving. So much for Christmas this year. We can always hope for one of the amaryllis to mark the holidays.
This has been a busy week. Norm had his eye checkup at UMSL Optometry Clinic, and although they are still checking him for glaucoma, he doesn't need to start any drops yet. When he went to volunteer at the food bank on Thursday, he was kept busy breaking down boxes from the huge amount of food donation that was coming in prior to next week's Thanksgiving distribution. I worked at the sewing machine on Thursday to catch up with "block a month" projects for quilt guild and made it--just under the wire. I didn't get any pictures taken of them, but I'll try to remember next time. On Monday afternoon and on Wednesday evening we visited in the homes of a couple of Compton members about the accessibility fundraising campaign. Far from being a chore, these visits help us to learn more about the history of the church and of the people involved.
Last night we had a bon voyage dinner for Matt and Sam, as they left by car this morning for Florida. Matt's parents and grandma joined us for another adventure in Judi's Daredevil Cuisine--my habit of trying out new recipes on unsuspecting guests. The greek-style lasagna was a hit, along with the greek salad and some purchased baklava! We pray for safe travel for our "boys" as they finally get reunited with Doug in Ft. Myers. This morning Norm and I enjoyed meeting with Compton Heights book circle to discuss A History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Neither of us is finished with it yet, but we had a good time anyway. A total of 8 readers met at the Thurman Cafe, a neighborhood eatery at the corner of Thurman and Shenandoah in South St. Louis, not far from Missouri Botanical Garden. They have wonderful breakfasts, scones, muffins, cinnamon rolls and coffee! (No we didn't have all of that at once, but we did bring extras home for tomorrow.) We'll be back!
Yesterday noon it was 72 degrees and I sat on the porch reading the mail, knowing that the warmth wouldn't last. The weather forecasts all predicted a sharp cold front, rain and possibly even snow flurries overnight. As I came back around the house I saw a flock of sparrows at the bird feeder and then a small gray-on-top, white-underneath nervous bird landed on the garage roof, flashing white on its tail as it hopped. Yes, Virginia, the Juncos have arrived. It can freeze and snow now.
The rain last night did turn to snow flurries around 10:30 p.m. Norm and I were standing on the driveway with our huge flashlight scanning the electric lines leading to and from our pole to see if there was any clue to the power outage that had just struck, and the tiny snow crystals stung our faces. We didn't find anything amiss with our power lines, and a call to the electric company informed us via an automated voice that some 1,000 people were affected by this outage, and that crews expected to have power restored shortly after midnight. So, we went to bed, along with Sam the poodle who is visiting us for the last time before he moves to Florida. And this morning, as promised, the power was on and the house was warm. But outside it was gray and cold, and winter seems to be with us. The Juncos say so.
In Thursday's Child, the companion blog to this one, I've posted a few thoughts about yesterday's election and the genesis of my obsession with staying up late for election returns. The link to Thursday's Child is to the right, below my profile.
On additional note: I wonder if finally the fascination of political campaign planners with the negative ad will wane. It seems to me we have hit new lows in willingness to attack the other person's age, gender, religion, financial status and family members instead of vigorously critiquing a candidate's public record of accomplishments or lack thereof. We received calls that all but threatened the apocalypse if the candidate who "was wrong" for Missouri and "didn't share our values" was elected. We also received calls that warned of a complete dissolution of American democracy if the other candidate won. None of these claims were true, and all of them had one basic appeal: fear. Maybe if anything has been learned through this process, it is that the age of selling fear is over. One can only hope.
Some time back, I wrote that frost was coming, and one of our chrysanthemum plants still hadn't bloomed. This hardy little late bloomer finally opened last weekend. It looks for all the world like a shasta daisy, but it's a mum, no doubt about it. Doug gave the plant to us about three or four years ago, and it persists, if on its own schedule. Since today is Doug's birthday, this bouquet is for him.
One last autumn glory picture is of the euonymous, or burning bushes, along our fence by the driveway. Before last weekend's rains came, I caught them on a peak day. Soon, maybe Norm will haul out the garland and white lights to adorn the fence for the holidays. Last week he cleaned out the bird feeders, outfitted the poles with new squirrel guards, and filled the tubes with seed. One with a sunflower mix is in the back border, and one with thistle seed is just outside the office window. The sparrows have already found the mixed seed one. Any day now, the purple finches and the gold finches should try out the thistle. We will know that the winter season is truly here when the juncos arrive--so far, no sign of them. Last weekend we had one last migratory visitor. Two small, plump golden birds, about junco size, were flitting from branch to branch in the maple. I couldn't positively identify them, but they seemed to be warblers of some sort. It was kind of late for such visitors to be coming through, and I had never in my life seen this species before!
Our week has been pretty routine since Halloween. We spent a quiet weekend, had a man come and vacuum up leaves, watched our neighbor's house and collected her mail because she was on a business trip. We went to exercise and took some walks. Norm did some sorting in the basement, and I did some sorting in the upstairs office, unpacking boxes of files and books and "things" I brought home from my University office last spring. They sat dormant over the summer, while we concentrated on family reunion, knee rehab, and travels. We went to the grocery store and paid the November bills--more of them online than by writing checks any more. Our printer/scanner/copier quit working in the midst of a printing job for a church project, but Epson is going to repair it for free and pay the shipping--we just have to figure out how to pack the thing securely. Today I went to a meeting to see what the benefits changes for University retirees will be in 2007. I'm thankful for a pension, for health benefits, for bills to pay, possessions to repair and projects to plan. For freedom and the ballot box, which we can exercise tomorrow. For life and friendship and love.
Another Halloween has come and gone and this year we set another record--as far as we can tell (it's hard to count accurately when they are coming in groups of 19!) we had 259 Trick or Treaters between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. That far outstrips last year's record of 150. Last year it rained until about 7 p.m. and was in the 40s. This year it was dry and in the 40s. Family groups often drive up in three vans or more. The little kids, some of them carried on a parent's or sibling's shoulders, are pretty wide-eyed. The 3-8 year olds are cute and polite, usually wanting to tell a joke before receiving their treats. The pre-teens are funny and awkward. Now and then an older teen carries a pillowcase and doesn't bother with a costume. One of the cutest this year was a two-year old boy in a plush green dragon costume.
The girls were often princesses, butterflies or angels. Boys were super heroes or dinosaurs. There were some vampires, and lots of pro football players. We were ready for them and on the porch, with the jack-o-lantern lit and Norm in his cold-weather gear. A couple of years ago we decided it was easier to sit out than have to jump up every time someone knocked on the door or rang the doorbell. It got colder as the evening wore on, so we took advantage of a lull in the crowd to turn out the porchlights, snuff out the jack-o-lantern, and steal inside. Three big bags of candy were reduced to a small pile of sweet-tarts and jawbreakers. Not all that tempting, which is good for our diets.
Early this morning, our sister in law, Carol, wrote to tell us that there had been some lovely pictures of St. Louis and fall foliage on TV. I took this photo Sunday afternoon of the hard maple in our back yard. It should get a few more red highlights, but that depends on the weather. All day today, it has been dropping leaves and the yard is covered with this annual golden carpet.
Last year, I took the "maple picture" on Nov. 11. So color is peaking a little early this year. After our long, dry spring and summer, we really didn't expect much in the way of fall color, but Saturday and Sunday were just spectacular all over town. We drove to church yesterday down back streets instead of interstate highways, and just enjoyed the view. Today Norm was out digging in the flower beds, moving a stray daylily or two and planting bulbs--we ordered some Red Carpet lilies, some daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinths and English bluebells. Our very moldy thistle feeder was visited by some sparrows and finches who were practically knocking on the window as if to say, "when are you going to clean this out and fill it? We're hungry." So I took it down and it's soaking in the basement tonight. Soon the juncos will arrive from Southern Canada, fall will transition into winter and we will start feeding the birds and heating their birdbath. But today was warm, sunny, breezy--a perfect day to rejoice in the rites of fall and start dreaming of another spring.
Yesterday I wrote about the national student journalism conference in St. Louis, and mentioned that the paper that I advise, The Current, had entered the Best of Show competition. This morning while I was in Sunday School, the editors called my cell phone with the news that the paper took 2nd place in its division, 4-year school weekly broadsheet publications. About 9 years ago, they won 4th in this category. About 2600 student journalists attended this conference, with some 600 publications represented. This award has all of the editors quite excited, and their Old Adviser is really proud of them! If you would like to know more about what today's college journalists are up to, The Current publishes weekly on Mondays, and the web edition can be found at http://www.thecurrentonline.com
THAT's A WINNER! It's impossible to live in St. Louis very long and not be a Cardinal baseball team fan...or as they say around here, to catch Cardinal Fever. Well, my fan temperature has certainly been elevated this past week. After the disappointing 4-game sweep by the Red Sox in 2004, most of us were cautiously optimistic this year. The excitement of having a new stadium (although I still miss the old one) and of having another chance this year had the town buzzing. And although we didn't have tickets to the games, we watched intensely on TV and celebrated the victory last night at home. What a difference a day makes! The photo at left is from this morning, taken from the 4th floor of the Adams Mark hotel downtown of the north leg of the Gateway Arch. The bleary one below is the view yesterday...rain, mist, drizzle, fog...all of it cleared out last night just about the time Wainwright got the last strikeout. We plan to get new T-Shirts in honor of this year's season.
This downtown hotel was the location for the annual fall convention of the College Media Advisers and the Associated Collegiate Press, the largest national organization for student journalists. The paper I advise, The Current, sent some 8 delegates and although they would have preferred to party in another city (in past years we have been in Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans, Kansas City, Washington and Orlando) in the end, once the World Series came to town, they were just as happy to be on home turf.
Unfortunately, our paths diverged through most of the convention, and I never got all of my students together for a photo. One of the jobs I did was to staff a book exhibit that the advisers hold each year as a benefit for the non-profit Student Press Law Center. People get really serious about these books! About a half hour before the silent auction was to end, students and advisers kept circling the tables, guarding their spots as the high bidder. Since I am a bit averse to bloodshed, I left before the auction ended. Since SPLC has helped our staff with legal issues several times, this is one of my favorite parts of the convention. Another favorite part is giving critiques to newspaper staffs from around the country. During this convention I had a chance to meet with eager young journalists from Farmers Branch, Texas; Boston, Mass.; and Whitewater, Wis.
One of my students entered an on-site photo contest, and we also entered our paper in a Best of Show competition. We won't know the results of either until tomorrow, when the convention closes. Next year it will be in Washington, DC. I'm not sure if I'll still be advising, but if I am, I look forward to my third trip to the nation's capital with this group, and my first trip there post 9/11.
What's with the red fountains? Part of the celebration in Kiener Plaza, near the stadium and also home to a sizeable community of folks without permanent addresses. One of them greeted me happily this morning as I paused to take the photo on my way from the MetroLink stop to the hotel, a four-block walk that was much more pleasant today than it was in yesterday's drizzle.
Our Metro system is handy for going downtown or to the airport from where we live. I can park at the campus and hop on the train and not have to worry about traffic or parking fees. The system is clean and safe. Some of the tracks downtown go through ancient underground railroad tunnels such as this one, with century-old stone and brickwork on display. Both the convention and the World Series are over, so maybe this coming week I can get caught up on my e-mail, some writing, and other projects--like quilting--as well.
This weekend we are graced by a visit from Sam, who is staying with us while the Myers family celebrates a milestone birthday in Florida. Sam has always loved our yard, possibly because he has spent most of his first three years living four stories up in downtown St. Louis as a "city" dog. Actually, Sam is a lot like St. Paul; he manages to adapt and be happy and fit in wherever he is. By the middle of next month, he'll be relocated to Florida, where he will need to learn NOT to play with alligators. (See page 80 of the Oct. 23 New Yorker for a cartoon that illustrates what I mean.) We know that Doug and Matt are both looking forward to the three of them being in the same time zone again. So for now, we are spoiling Sam and letting him enjoy what was a perfect October day in Missouri today.
It's been a while since I've written for this page, but I've written plenty this week. First there was a critique for the student newspaper, which I do each week by Wednesday. They are doing such a good job this year. Then Norm and I have both been working on some material for our church, which is getting ready to start a remodeling project that will make our building more accessible. When I was working, it was my job to write most of the time. In retirement, I get to choose most of my projects, but I'm still a procrastinator and they can pile up!
A week ago tonight, Norm and I and some other members of our church were about to freeze to death at an outdoor worship service on the Missouri River bank in St. Charles, Mo. I'm sure it was a good idea when the planners of the Regional Assembly for our denomination thought of it, but a cold snap had us shivering, even though I had five layers on. The entire weekend was very good, however, with lots of positive energy, renewing old acquaintances and friendships, and sharing stories of the Spirit's working in our respective churches. In the picture, Norm and I have just finished setting up a display in the exhibit room. It explained Open and Affirming ministries and provided lots of resources. We had some interesting conversations and a few inquiries. Our church is one of only two stated Open and Affirming congregations in Missouri, although many churches may feel they don't need to make the declaration.
Other excitement this week included the National League championship series. When we moved to St. Louis in 1973, neither of us had a particular allegiance to any major league baseball team. But this is A Baseball Town. It's impossible not to catch Cardinal fever and we were as thrilled as anyone when the team won last night and headed to Detroit for the World Series. Norm is not an addict, but I have become one. A team in the playoffs and in the Series in October cuts the severity of baseball withdrawal when the season ends and we addicts start counting the weeks, days and hours until the pitchers and catchers report to Florida in February for spring training. My dad taught me to love baseball when I was a kid, and he passed away right after an earthquake derailed the first game of the Series in 1989. He would know what I'm talking about. GO CARDS!
Tonight we are supposed to get our first hard freeze of the fall season. One station says 32F, another says it might not get quite that low. Last night we had a cold wind and about 38--that was enough to finish off our moonflower vine, and the cardinal flowers look a bit peaked as well. On Monday I wrote about seeing the yellow butterflies on the cardinal flowers. That apparently was their farewell before taking off for wherever they spend the winter--they haven't been back. 
This was how the front of the house looked about a week ago. Yesterday I took the picture of our backyard neighbor's sassafras tree (left) which is starting to turn its usual brilliant orange. The freeze may cause all of these to just fall off, unfortunately.
Almost every fall we buy mums at Thies Farm, our local produce market and garden center. After frost we plant them in the back yard perennial border and wait to see what survives. This collection spans some recent years, but one variety--the white daisy mums Doug gave us a few years back--are still in bud and haven't join the bloom yet. We'll see how hardy these late bloomers prove to be! I cut some of these mums this afternoon and brought them in for bouquets, along with the last of the pinks and zinnias.
Some plants just go all out to bloom right before their growing season ends. We planted two geraniums in a pot back in August to perk up an area where something else had succumbed to the July heat. They looked so winsome that I have brought them in for the winter, along with two smaller rose geraniums and a huge hanging ivy leaf. These will probably go into a decline, but I hope I can get cuttings from them rooted and be ready for some spring color before it's time to go to the garden center again.
Today I spent far too much money on plant stands so that I'd have spots to place some of the larger plants and hanging plants. Would anyone like a magnificent spider plant? We have two eligible for adoption. I also took cuttings of the coleus (right) and a good thing I did it yesterday. They didn't look this well this morning after the nip in the air last night. So, we are surrounded, in fact overrun, by reminders of summer, while the furnace boiler roars away to keep our radiators warm. All snug and thankful, we wait for the next stage of fall's progression.
Signs of the big change are starting to appear on the block, and one of the first trees in the yard to turn is this redbud, which has been full of seed pods all summer after its first really showy spring blooming season. The tree was given to the former owners of our house, the Chambless' by their daughter. I hope they access my blog from their new home in Kansas City and see what Nature hath wrought!
A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of the cardinal vine blooming on our back fence. It has since gotten more glorious, and it has
also attracted a species of yellow butterfly that I can't quite identify. These guys are quick movers...they drink nectar with their wings folded, and then really jump faster than the camera can catch them when they flutter to the next flower. However, at one point today, two of these winged wonders fluttered away at each other and rose in a spiral, higher and higher over the driveway, until one gave up the chase and dived back to the cardinal vines for another round of feasting.
On our rounds of the neighborhood a few years ago we discovered that a gardener down the street has this bunch of autumn crocus tucked into a bed of creeping phlox beside her driveway. These bulbs are like surprise lilies...they have foliage in the spring that dies down. Then at some point in October, flower buds emerge and produce these lovely purple flowers with bright yellow stamens. The prized spice saffron is harvested from a certain species of autumn crocus, although probably not this one. We haven't gone sneaking down the street after dark with a popsicle stick and plastic bag to try sampling the golden stuff, not yet.
Saturday morning was bright and crisp, a great day for a walk. Norm and I decided to walk around part of the university campus, since we hadn't 'seen' it on foot for a while. The annual and perennial beds are still magnificent, and only a few of the trees are beginning to show any color at all.
As we passed the science complex, we came upon one of two pairs of Canada geese that we would see feeding lazily on the grass. UMSL is home to several nesting pairs, but the university uses various "humane" control measures to minimize the number of goslings that hatch every year. Before they started to do this, pedestrians were often confronted by territorial ganders challenging their right to enter buildings, not to mention the problem of having to watch carefully where one stepped! No such issues today.
The legendary wind storm we had on July 19 took a heavy toll on many of the oldest trees near the entrance to campus. Some were completely sheared off about 20 feet above ground level. This venerable oak in Founders' Circle lost about half its crown in the storm.
As we walked, I kept hoping we would find a wooly bear caterpillar, but we didn't see any. Folklorists swear by the coloration of woolly bears as a predictor of how severe the coming winter will be. Light coat equals a warm winter; dark coat a cold one. Dark stripes at either end and light in the middle means early and late cold snaps but a mild December and January. But we are still clueless. The meteorologist on a local TV channel is saying that our '70s weather will last through Tuesday, then a cold front will arrive and we should have the first hard freeze of the season on Friday morning. Time to get the rest of the plants into the house from their summer home on the porch.
Almost two years ago (actually, the last Sunday of October) Norm and I became members of Compton Heights Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the South City area of St. Louis. After he retired from ministry in November 2003, we spent an entire year visiting other congregations of various denominations to get a sense of the various styles of worship out there, and how the Spirit is moving in various places. And we needed to take our own spiritual pulse as well, after 18 years in one place. We appreciated being invited to share communion with the Lutheran and Methodist worshippers in our own neighborhood--literally within walking distance. We renewed long-ago friendships with people in several Disciples congregations in the St. Louis area, and we visited the UCC congregations in Illinois where our friend Mike Dixon was serving as an interim pastor. But we kept coming back to Compton, although it's a 12-mile, 30-minute drive from where we live. This is a small but incredibly alive spiritual community with a strong sense of local mission and outreach and a welcome to everyone, regardless of station in life. I took this picture this morning, before worship, on a warm and sunny World Communion Sunday.
Compton is an Open and Affirming congregation, one of only two in Missouri. Recently we did a church-wide study of the topic of hospitality, how to extend God's gracious welcome to all who come to our doors, and we realized that our building presents many barriers for anyone with limited mobility. [Certainly my brief experience this summer with the aftermath of arthroscopic knee surgery illustrated the difficulty that faces a lot of people who don't use wheelchairs or crutches, but still have problems getting around.] So, a couple of weeks ago the congregation voted unanimously to start an accessibility project. The brickwork and the steps at the front of the church are cracked and crumbling enough to be hazardous, and they will be replaced with an attractive ramp that will get people from street level into the front doors with much less effort than is required now. Sometime in the future we hope to be able to provide full access to the lower and upper levels as well. Inside the church, we will have two new accessible restrooms to replace two cramped water closets now in use. We'll also get an updated kitchenette, important because almost every Compton gathering in our library/parlor on the sanctuary level seems to call for coffee and munchies to go with it!
All of this has a price, and we are all taking a big leap of faith and going on a wing and a prayer, as the old saying goes. Next month, we'll formally start a campaign to underwrite the approximate $124,000 cost for this project. Given the enthusiasm everyone has shown, there's every reason to believe we will succeed, but for this tiny congregation, about 50 worshipping on any given Sunday out of some 80 active members, it is a challenge nevertheless. Norm was a co-chair of the committee that selected the architect and recommended the plans, and he is also co-chair of the campaign committee. So we will welcome your thoughts and your prayers. And I'll post updates on the project as it goes along.
Fall arrived almost a week ago, but we haven't needed to turn on our radiators yet--although tonight it will be tempting. We had the boiler checked out on Monday and the man said it's good to go. This has been a week of checkups--yesterday we had the van serviced and the mysterious "Airbag" light tracked down--it was a blown fuse, which also was keeping the rear wipers from working. Next time I'll check the fuse box myself before having to pay the dealer's hourly labor fees!
We think all of the hummingbirds have left for warmer gardens. The last visitor we had to a feeder was on Saturday morning. Also, this morning a humongous flock of grackles, at least 200, landed in our yard and the neighbors' on each side. Usually hummers keep other birds, even those much larger, at bay. After digesting maple seeds and draining the birdbath, all of a sudden the entire flock rose and flapped away to the north in unison. Maybe it's global warming? The turtle last week was going the "wrong" way, too. Meanwhile, our Cardinal Flower vines on the back fence (above) have finally decided to bloom, after twining all over themselves for most of the summer. The flowers are much smaller than we expected, but en masse they are striking. Of course, we planted them to attract more hummingbirds, not realizing they would bloom so late.
Our geraniums are also glorious right now. Every year I vow that I won't bring any of them in or take cuttings to root, and every year I wind up cramming them into the upstairs south window in the sewing room. This ivy geranium (right) is the deepest red I think I've ever seen. Yesterday I just sat on the front porch and read for two hours because it was warm and calm. Those days will come to an end soon, but I'll take advantage of each one that comes along.
Before the Christmas holiday, and before we left on the Florida trip, I was busy trying to finish a king-sized quilt for Doug and Matt that had been in the works for a long time. At left, I'm taking the last few stitches in the label on Dec. 23, before our flight. 
The quilt, at right, is a Trip Around the World pattern that I learned in a class in 1990 or so. The top sat around for a long time until I decided in 2002 to add a border and present it to Doug when he finished his PhD. Hand quilting takes a long time, and I was still working on it when he graduated this spring. But it is now in Florida, where I hope he and Matt will enjoy it.
The week before Christmas we had amaryllis blooms upstairs and down. The plant at right was in our South window in the upstairs bedroom. The one below was in the dining room and came from the "mother plant" bulb and some bulblets. There were four stalks from three bulbs when we left. We also left behind two other pots full of plants loaded with buds that have probably bloomed while we were here. 
Tuesday and today we have helped with packing and pre-moving activities. On Wednesday we spent the entire day on Sanibel Island, an hours' drive over and two hours back, given the traffic at this popular place. I need to crop and adjust our pictures from that adventure, so I'll post about Sanibel after we return home on Saturday. Tomorrow (Friday) is Moving Day.
