skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Happy Post-Thanksgiving (I hate the term black Friday) from Ft. Myers, Fla., in plant hardiness zone 10, which is to say, the sub-tropics. Although it did get down in the 40s here last night. We arrived about 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday after an uneventful (except for a few bumps at 29,000 feet over the Florida panhandle) non-stop Southwest Airlines flight. It has been 2-1/2 years since we visited Doug and Matt, and the vegetation around their lake in the center of their community has really grown. Although it was cloudy on Thanksgiving morning, the sun came out in the afternoon and the sky cleared. This is the view, facing east, from their lanai (we midwesterners would call it a screened porch.)
This table was set in anticipation of 13 guests. Matt ironed the tablecloths. Doug printed personalized place cards. Their space is very adaptable, even if there is no dining room. An open great room makes for varied entertaining possibilities. In addition to us, the guests were all colleagues of Doug's at FGCU, from a variety of departments. On Tuesday, Doug and Anne-Marie shopped for groceries and picked up the fresh organic turkey. On Wednesday, Anne-Marie and Maggie did a lot of pre-prep for the big day. They were ready to leave as we arrived.
Thursday afternoon, the kitchen was a veritable beehive. Matt kept washing up pots as Anne-Marie (left) carved the turkey and Kathy and Nicole dealt with something on top of the stove. Doug and Anne-Marie's son Simon supervised, a lot.
The final result: a toast to friends and things to be thankful for, before heading for the sideboards to fill our plates. With turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus casserole, green beans, brussels sprouts, whole cranberry sauce, rolls, and four kinds of pie (pecan bourbon chocolate, apple, banana caramel and chocolate) everyone had plenty to eat. And the leftovers will go to Anne-Marie's house on Sanibel Island this afternoon for an after-feast from the same crew!
This is the second year that Doug's kitchen has been comman- deered ably by Anne-Marie, who loves to cook and has a kitchen too small to cook for a crowd. Although Doug is also a fabulous cook, he seemed really pleased to let four of his best friends do the Thanksgiving dinner. The meal was amazing, fresh, wholesome and above all, delicious!
Norm and I were going to have dueling cameras, but he put his down so I could take my picture of him first. He is enjoying leisurely morning walks around the condo complex with Sam as a companion. Yesterday afternoon I took a walk with him, too.
Sam and I stayed out of the kitchen, mostly, although Sam did make periodic trips through to check for crumbs and other goodies. On Wednesday night when we arrived, Sam gave a brief bark and then broke into wiggles and grins and he spent most of Wednesday evening on my lap, as though he had missed me the whole four or five months since we last saw him, in May in St. Louis. His thanksgiving scarf came from his groomer, who also wrote his name in day glo puff paint on it.
The guest room faces west and is very cozy. Norm and I have no trouble feeling at home and we sleep really well. This room is also the music room, since Matt moved the piano in here on carpet after the downstairs neighbor complained about the "noise" not long after they moved the piano in. The guest room is over the garage, so the neighbor doesn't get the vibrations while he's trying to sleep in the daytime. On Thursday afternoon Simon played Chopin for endless hours it seemed, while we were waiting for dinner. Then Matt took over and played some of his original compositions that are in his head, although he says he will write them down, someday.
We are so thankful to have some time to savor the Gulf air, relax, and have meaningful conversations. Soon enough we will be back home and busy with Advent and Christmas events, hustle and bustle. For now, we are looking forward to a field trip to Sanibel where we can walk on the beach. We brought sunscreen, hats, and beach shoes. We are ready!
My sofa-throw-sized quilt, "Let Freedom Shine," is going to be featured at the Compton Heights Christian Church first ever bazaar on Dec. 5. There will be a drawing at 4 p.m. that day, and if you are interested in tickets (only $1 each,) please e-mail me (the link is in my profile near the bottom right of the blog page.) The blocks were made by members of my quilt guild in July 2007, and I managed to get them sewn together this past winter, and it was my first large-scale machine quilting effort this summer. I did finish it in the nick of time to put it in the Guild quilt show in September. The bazaar will feature hand-made gifts and ornaments, imported fair trade gift items and fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate, some other trinkets and treasures, and baked goods. It will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Dec. 5 at Compton Heights, 2149 S. Grand Blvd. in south St. Louis. Y'all come!
As I recently wrote, I'm now trying out Facebook, the social networking site. So far I have 32 friends, who really ARE friends from different walks of life: my high school, my church, former students, and family and neighbors. It strikes me that Facebook is a modern party line--some of us are old enough to remember the distinctive rings that denoted which neighbor was getting a call. All you had to do to learn the news was pick up the phone and listen in, discreetly. With Facebook, you just log in and see who has done what since you last looked. Amazing.
As for this blog, Home Stories, it is not going away. But I am always amazed at the search terms that bring newcomers, probably for only one time. The two most popular search terms for 2009 so far are "Indian Camp" or its variant, "Indian Camp Creek" , and anything having to do with Ft. Sill. Little did I know when we visited in June that I was writing about a place that seems to draw interest all over the country. So now you know, faithful regular readers, what the outsiders are looking for. At least it's not orgies--a term I once used loosely in connection with flowers, I think, and that brought a lot of lookers for a while!
There's no way to take a picture of rain at night...but right now I'm hearing it fall. We might have 2-4 inches by Wednesday. The two weeks of sunshine and upper 60s that started November were very welcome, but it sounds like October is back!
Norm spent the week off and on vacuuming and blowing leaves around; on Saturday Raymond and a friend of his came to finish them off. Now there are about 40 soggy bags around our two houses, waiting for Wednesday pickup. And a big soggy pile out back by the compost pile, destined to become mulch! I noticed this week that daffodils are already peeking through along the driveway, so they will need that mulch pretty soon.
Our tuneful winter visitors, the white-crowned sparrows, are here. I heard one calling the other evening, and then came face to face with it in the vines along the garden fence on Saturday, as I was picking the rest of the tomatoes ahead of the rain. We have about a dozen that had turned color and will ripen enough to be frozen for soup or chili. I gave most of the green ones to Raymond's friend, since he likes to fry them. We kept a few greenies to try the recipes Carol and Jan suggested.
Ava stayed with us Tuesday morning through Friday night while Barb was out of town on business. She is really calming down now that she is an "adult," as she was 2 back in October.
Norm got his crown on his ailing incisor that finishes the root canal saga. So far, all is well. Thank goodness for dental insurance! (It paid about 50%).
Elaine, wife of the Linville sibs' cousin Joe, is in our prayers as her treatment will enter a new stage after Thanksgiving, or so she writes in her CarePages updates. We pray especially for her doctors, and for her peace of mind.
We also are thinking good thoughts for, and praying for our friend Nancy S from Colby. She is in a hospital in the KC area and will start rehab on Monday for a stroke she had a week ago. Nancy is the person most responsible for Norm and me getting together over 41 years ago. Get better soon, Nancy. If the weather holds out and we can clear a schedule or two, we hope to drive over to KC this week to visit her and John.
Last, but not least, I finally broke down and joined Facebook. All of my friends keep up with their grandkids this way; there is a group for our church; many of my former students are there; family members are there; much of my high school class is there; my next-door neighbor is there; so now I have another way to procrastinate from doing any real work. If you are on Facebook, look me up and if you want to be my friend, you can send me a request. Tonight I discovered some of my friends are becoming friends with each other! Will it ever end? First a blog. Then three blogs (one of which I neglect terribly.) Then twitter, which occasionally alarms me. Then a new cell phone that can send text and photo messages for a pittance compared to my old service. Now it's Facebook. What is next? Hmmmm.
Hope everyone has a good week. Stay dry (and if you are in Western Kansas, stay warm with all that snow.)
For about a week, the maple basked in the sunshine and to stand beneath it was to be surrounded by gold.
By Thursday, Nov. 5, the leafy branches were thinning, but the color was still good. I took this photo that day from two back yards away, and got barked at by my neighbor's three dogs for my trouble. As the weekend warmed, the leaves began to fall anyway.
A view from our front walk, up the neighbor's driveway, shows how huge the tree is. Since it's not on the street, it is kind of a hidden treasure. We have been working on planting bulbs in the front wall beds, and tidying up the perennials for winter.
Our mighty oak in front has lost almost all of its leaves, and Norm has composted a lot of them. Every year, a sweet gum ball sprouts in the crevasses of the oak's massive roots, and grows a little tree. This one turned a lovely shade of red, and contrasted nicely with the gray bark.
I was so amazed at how many leaves covered the driveway and yard in back, despite all the leaves still on the maple, so I took this picture on Nov. 5, too. Well, less than a week later, today almost all of the leaves are off the tree, and there are ankle- and knee-deep drifts of golden leaves all over, including our northern neighbor's yard. He likes his yard neat so he has been doing a lot of sweeping and raking. Norm is working on our pile with a new leaf blower/ vacuum we bought Saturday at Home Depot, after the old one flickered, gasped and died. By the end of the week, our friend Raymond will probably come and finish them off.
Tomorrow we will get a visit from Ava, who will stay until Friday. Barb is going to KC and Wichita. Doug and Matt went to Baltimore this weekend to see friends and celebrate Doug's birthday. One of these days, we just might go somewhere!
While our brief Indian Summer continues (it was 72F today) I thought I'd reprise some of the fall flowers that have enjoyed the extended growing season this year. Yesterday I tramped out in the sunshine to take more photos of The Maple (coming soon in a post this weekend) and I found a couple of buds on the yellow rose. This bush doesn't know when to quit.
Very little is left of our mums after the last two weeks of October offered rain almost non-stop. But on a sunny day in mid-October I took several pictures of them. These red ones were overwintered from last year and when the wall was finished, we planted them there. They spread out as though they liked the spot!
Orange seemed to be missing from our mum collection so one day Norm surprised me with two pots ot them. These flourished along the south end of the wall, and we hope they will come back up next year.
Of course, I forgot that some kind of peach-colored mums had volunteered near the front steps. They set buds kind of late, but then bloomed for a couple of weeks, before the rains beat them down.
Meanwhile, in the back garden, as I wrote a few weeks ago, the tomato plants are also still producing. This clump of 5 green tomatoes were photographed just yesterday. There are 4 plants, and each has a couple of clutches like this. The Fried Green Tomato suggestions from Carol, Maxine and Janice will come in handy. Some of them are still turning so we are ripening them on the windowsills. The larger ones will get wrapped in newspaper in the basement and as they ripen, we will enjoy them. They aren't as firm or tasty as summer tomatoes, but they still beat the offerings in our supermarkets. And the smaller ones, well, we will try frying them.
About the time the zinnias succumbed to mildew, around a month ago, we purchased some pansies at the Farmers' Market and then planted them along the wall. These blooms were from a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I see the pansies are starting to wind down for winter; they have set a lot of seed pods and look like they would like to crawl under the mulch and sleep a while. We hope, of course, to see them early in the spring. I knew Pansies were hardy in Tulsa, and was surprised to find they are usually hardy here as well. Many businesses plant beds of them in the fall and I've even seen them blooming in the snow.
As long as the sun shines, the geraniums are happy I took this photo yesterday, too. Still on the porch. Soon I'll have to make decisions on which plants to try to slip and root, and which ones will come inside whole, and which ones I don't really have room for. Today I washed window sills and started rounding up trays and pots. We still don't have a freeze in the forecast through another 7 days. That is unusual, since the "average" date of the first freeze in Central Missouri was two weeks ago. But we will enjoy it while it lasts.
A year or so ago, when we were combing through photo albums for anniversary album photos, we realized that we tend to take the same pictures every year: first crocus, daffodils, roses, house plants in bloom, trees in bloom, flowers and fruits of summer, MO botanical garden, forays to the rivers to watch birds, and holiday decorations. And dogs, of course. Perhaps we are in kind of a rut, but I also think that putting them in albums, even in an online journal like this one, helps us remember our stories for this year. I hope you aren't bored.
Today we enjoyed the sunshine and took a 30-mile drive to visit a church member who is in a rehab center, recovering from an amputation. We went to cheer him up but found him upbeat and determined, doing his therapy exercises on his own, and curious about how WE were. We left glad we had seen him and in a good mood, which sustained us despite the humongous traffic jam we encountered on I-270 going home!
At last, the October rains (10 inches ABOVE normal just for the MONTH) have stopped, and the sun has come out. For 5 whole days now. On Sunday afternoon I took this photo of the backyard sugar maple, pretty close to its peak for this year. It was the first chance I had to take a picture in decent light since it started turning color. All week it has been "raining" leaves in the back yard, but many remain on the tree even today. I took more photos around the yard and will post those in coming days as we are having sort of an Indian Summer, although not officially since we technically have not had a Hard Freeze yet. But this will do.
Our week has been busy. A lot of jobs we do for our church converged on this week and between meetings and mailings and figurings and editings, not that much time to just sit in the sunshine and drink coffee, visit with the neighbors or play with Ava the wonder dog. The front flower bed is drying out so we hope we can plant daffodil bulbs by the weekend. Norm turned up some of the soil and it is still pretty gummy. Norm also has been waking up at 5:30 a.m. ever since the time change, so he has been going out to rake leaves, or mow them, or stuff them in cans to be hauled away, often before breakfast. Tuesday he realized that his elbow was hurting--there must be a Raker's Elbow version of Tennis Elbow, since I can swear our tennis racquets have not been used in four decades. At least not for the purpose of playing tennis! Ice, heat and an Ace Bandage are all being deployed in succession and he says it is some better.
I'm looking forward to a meeting of the Shawl Ministry knitters tonight. One reader asked me in an e-mail about this: the idea is to give a shawl (sometimes a lap blanket--guys are shawl shy, usually) to someone who is going through a rough time physically, mentally or spiritually, as a tangible reminder that they are in your prayers. When one of us finishes a shawl it is dedicated in church and passed around for everyone to touch before we give it away. Those of us who knit (some people crochet, or quilt--there are shawl quilters, too) shawls sometimes use a special "trinity stitch" and may meditate or offer prayers for the recipient while we work. We work alone at home on our creations but once a month we get together to share our thoughts, pray for people we know who are hurting or going through a transition, dedicate finished shawls, and also to share good news. Some shawls are in celebration--a wedding, a graduation, an ordination, a baptism, a new baby, etc. Prayer shawls are always a gift--they cannot be bought and sold, only given away. I had heard about such groups for years but it took a 20-something woman who joined our church in the past year, who wanted to learn to knit, to get a group started for us. As a result, I've revived my love of knitting, first learned when I was in college and my Aunt Eadie taught me how to hold the needles right. Now I just need more hours in the day to get in all of my passions: tai chi, walking, photography, sewing, quilting, knitting and writing.
After the camera battery finishes charging, I'll take a photo of my first shawl, finally finished a week ago after several months, and post it with the quilt gallery. No promises, but I'll try to remember to do it.
The St. Louis County Council will vote tonight on the Riverview Casino project proposed by North County Development L.L.C. to rezone 377 acres of Mississippi River bottomland (part of it flood plain) that is directly adjacent to the Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area, a natural gem at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and a refuge for migratory birds. A very comprehensive op/ed piece that details all of the reasons why this project is a bad idea appeared in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and can be read, here.
The St. Louis chapter of the Audubon Society has a lot of background information about the impact of this project on is web site, starting here.
As a Missouri taxpayer, I have gladly voted every 10 years to continue the 1/10 cent sales tax for conservation, and that money has gone to develop various Conservation department tracts in the state. One of the most significant has been Columbia Bottoms, since it is within 30 minutes' drive of about half a million St. Louis area urban residents, making it convenient to visit the river, observe the unique Confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, look for rare birds and other wildlife, enjoy the biking and hiking trails and learn through programs at the visitors' center. Building a giant entertainment complex (there is a theater planned, as well as a hotel and a wind farm in addition to the casino, and its 8,000-car parking lot) less than 500 feet from the southern boundary of this natural area is bound to have some impact. Yet our county council is ready to approve this project, proposed by out-of-state investors, even though all of Missouri's gaming licenses are in use at the moment, without even asking for an environmental impact study. No matter how the vote goes tonight, this won't be the end of it, either opposition to this project or another try by the promoters. As I told my councilwoman in a letter this week, I don't gamble, but I do go to Columbia Bottoms. And in 35 years of living in this county, I have never missed voting in an election.
Frequent readers of Home Stories know that Norm and I often visit local birding and/or nature sites, including Powder Valley, the Confluence, Pere Marquette, and areas along our two great rivers, the Mississippi and the Missouri. One of our favorite sites, although I don't have many photos of it, is the Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area in far North St. Louis County. (This photo of the wetlands area at sunset was taken on August 3, 2008, by our friend John Sanders of Colby, KS.) About a year ago we visited the area with friends, and I posted some commentary and photos here.
A controversy has erupted in St. Louis County over a proposal by North County Development, L.L.C., to build a casino complex in the flood plain south of Columbia Bottoms along the Mississippi River. The site is immediately north of Interstate 270, along Riverview Drive. It's called the Riverview Casino Project. Although there have been numerous objections by residents, conservation groups and churches at the various planning and zoning meetings, the measure has advanced and a bill approving the zoning change and application of the developers was perfected at the Oct. 27, 2009 St. Louis County Council meeting. It will undoubtedly be on the agenda for final passage this coming Tuesday, Nov. 3, although that meeting's agenda has not yet been posted on the Council web site.
At the Oct. 27 public forum, two speakers favored the bill. A representative of the Spanish Lake Fire Protection district believes the project will bring more tax revenue to the district, and that this will help support schools, local government, and, well, the fire district. The Greater St. Louis Labor Council also supports the project, and its spokesman noted that it could create up to 4,500 construction jobs as well as up to 3,000 service jobs once the casino is up and running.
This is not a small project, although unless a gaming license becomes available, or the legislature approves removing the present cap of 13 licenses (6 are already in the St. Louis area and within 30 minutes of the proposed Riverview complex) a new casino cannot open. Nevertheless, the developer envisions "a casino, convention center, theater, hotel, sports bar, buffet, store space, an 18-hole golf course, a wind farm and more than 8,000 parking spaces"
on a little more than 375 acres situated between the Interstate and the border of the conservation area. Conservationists are alarmed because this area has been carefully developed to attract migrating waterfowl along the Mississippi Flyway, and the fear is that they will be repelled by the noise and activity of the casino complex, and perhaps in danger of being slashed by the blades of the wind turbines in the wind farm. Residents along this quiet rural road are fearful of the traffic, and of losing their tranquil community. The Department of Conservation has noted that the proposed casino, since Missouri Law requires it to be situated no less than 1000 feet from a body of water, will not only be in the flood plain, it will be in the actual floodway of the Mississippi River. The Audubon Society, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, the Spanish Lake Improvement Association, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and St. Louis Confluence Riverkeeper Association have all called upon the St. Louis County Council to table approval of the project until a comprehensive environmental impact study (paid for by the developer) can be conducted. (The graphic above appears in this online story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)
At the Oct. 27 meeting, 19 citizens spoke against the development. The Council later voted on Bill # 297, moving it one step closer to passage. Approving it were council members O'Mara, Erby, Burkett and Stenger. Opposing it were council members Wassinger, Fraser and Quinn. Full accounts of the speakers testimony can be found in the Journal of the meeting, on the St. Louis County Council web site.
I fear I've come late to this fight. I had read about the zoning hearings that were held in August, and had seen something in the paper a few weeks ago. Then a friend sent me an e-mail last week, calling on people opposed to pack the Oct. 27 and Nov 3 meetings, sign up for a speaker's card, and speak. I had to lead another meeting on the 27th, and woke up Wednesday to hear an announcer on KMOX say the measure had been approved 4-3. Oddly, two days have gone by and nothing in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
If you live in St. Louis County, you can find the name of your council representative here and if you are interested, the Nov. 3 Council meeting begins at 6 p.m. at 41 South Central Avenue in Clayton. Coalition for the Environment members suggest arriving no later than 5:30 if you want to sign in to speak. If you cannot attend, you can also write to your council representative. The web site has a link to a message generator, or you can find out the council rep's phone number if you would prefer to call.
Although this bill seems pretty well assured of passage next week, this will probably not be the last battle to preserve a wild refuge and open space along Columbia Bottoms. And although I usually don't get political in this blog, I will be posting updates as I learn about them. We haven't been to Columbia Bottoms in several months, but it is one of the places along the rivers that we treasure. The eagles, herons, pelicans, snow geese, songbirds and other wetland residents lack the army of legal experts, financiers, and politicians who are advocating development in fragile wetlands. Ironically, the Federal Government has been encouraging farmers upstream to stop farming wetlands, to let them function as the natural buffer and flood preventer Nature designed them to be. It has bought out property so it can be removed from development along the rivers! Yet our local government sees "jobs" and "revenue" and doesn't hear the voices of the long-time residents, or the silence of the wild things. So I have decided, albeit rather late, to become a partisan in this issue. This development should never be allowed to happen. If humans continue to whittle away at habitat for wild birds and other creatures, some day we will have only ourselves to blame for silence in the skies.
This morning we awoke to brilliant sunlight, and a deep blue sky. It was a little chilly, but we had promised ourselves a field trip when the rain stopped. We had two possibilities: the Quilt National Exhibit at the Foundry in St. Charles, or the annual Calhoun County (Ill.) Country Quilt and Church Tour in Brussels and Hardin. Since Norm was still smarting a little bit from dental work on Friday, we opted for the shorter trip, to St. Charles.
As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I could hear a mocking bird scolding. I soon spied him at the very tip top of a Bradford pear tree in front of the exhibit building. The area was filled with brilliant Bradfords, and with the sun shining through them, they glowed and glistened, leaves dancing in the light breeze. We hadn't even seen a quilt yet, but the play of color and light in Nature's palette had us entranced.
Our destination, The Foundry, is a venue that rents studio space to artists and has a huge exhibit space, just right for the 80 quilts in the Quilt National 2009 collection. After it leaves our area on Oct. 29, it will be split into three smaller exhibits, so we were privileged to see the entire collection. We remember when this building WAS a vacant foundry, sort of hulking at the north end of downtown. It has been transformed into something truly a local treasure. No photos were allowed in the exhibit, but you can read about Quilt National here and about the Foundry, here. Some images of quilts in the exhibit are online here. These are not traditional quilts, but fiber art. A local organization that combats domestic violence sponsored this exhibit, and all income from the show will benefit its programs. 
After two hours of looking at stimulating but often challenging art, most of it abstract, our eyeballs were ready to rest on something more definite. You can't get much more definite than the Missouri River as it flows past St. Charles. Today the river was as blue as the sky above, and moving fast. It is rather high for fall, but we have had a lot of rain upriver recently.
Although the photos look like summer, they really were taken just this afternoon, Oct. 24, 2009. St. Charles has a riverfront park that had many visitors, and this stretch of river also is bordered by the Katy Trail, a hiking and biking path that runs from east of St. Charles to central Missouri, and eventually will go all the way into Kansas City. It is so scenic, and it has improved the economies of several small river towns. We just wish our knees were young enough to make the trip on a bicycle. Days like today just underscore how rich our natural resources are, and how in need of protection from over development or pollution.
This is the Highway 370 bridge, north of St. Charles, as seen from Riverfront Park. It provides a shortcut between I-270 in north St. Louis County and I-70 west of St. Charles. It is much less heavily traveled than I-70, especially across the five-lane Blanchette Bridge, into St. Charles. The water looks calm and glassy here, but the ripples in the foreground tell a different story. The Missouri is shallow but very fast. Lewis and Clark found that out when they tried to pole their boats upstream over 200 years ago!
We felt that we had a bonus day, and thoroughly enjoyed it. This evening we met up with our friends Mike and Sandy, and went to the annual spaghetti dinner at their church. The pasta is great, but the real draw at this dinner is the home made pie. We had to choose between four kinds of fruit pie or coconut cream, chocolate, pecan or lemon meringue. Norm got strawberry rhubarb. Sandy had cherry. Not sure what Mike had. Me, I opted for the last slice of lemon meringue, and I have no regrets!
It's beginning to look a lot like fall around here, although the grass is still green, and so is the famous Arlmont backyard maple. All the rain we have had might be responsible. September and October have both been cooler than normal, although we have had about 4 "normal" days and three of those included sunshine. Our burning bushes by the driveway are redder than they ever have been before. They may like it better with the fence down.
On July 4, we planted some Zinnia seeds. Our friend Freda said to plant them that late in order to avoid mildew on the leaves. Well, one batch had mildew any way, but these turned out well. They are right next to the burning bushes, though, making a bit of a clash. In this part of the garden we also had a volunteer cantaloupe vine...the result of using home grown compost for mulch. The cold night last week zapped all the leaves and when Norm was raking yesterday, he found a small, perfect cantaloupe, about the size of a baseball, still green. You never know what is going to volunteer in the yard. On Wednesday, Norm picked a good cup full of raspberries, almost the last on the vines for this year. Raspberries in October. We are blessed! Now, we have to decide what to do about all of the green tomatoes that are still out there. No frost is due for at least a week so we hope they will mature some.
Who knew that a hosta could dress itself so royally for fall? Soon these golden leaves will fade and we can put mulch in the beds and plant some bulbs, but for now they are cool to look at.
This week has been less hectic than last, and for that we are thankful. I've been doing some knitting and today started re-organizing my sewing room. Norm has been mowing, raking, and turning the compost pile in anticipation of our coming winter. The 4 caladiums are back on the basement windowsills to hibernate until spring. I'm still debating how many geraniums to bring in, how many cuttings to take, and whether when the night comes that a freeze in unavoidable, which plants to leave. Usually I give in and bring all of them in, and we exist in a small jungle for the duration. I have this weird thing about plants: the other day I told my Tai Chi instructor that I believe plants have souls, and it's one thing for the native plants to go through their natural cycle of bloom, seed, die, and sprout again, but there's some responsibility on our part for these tender tropicals that don't get to reproduce as nature intended in this climate. Just as I wouldn't leave a dog outside on a freezing night, neither do I want to abandon a lovely plant to such a fate. I think this means that I'm eccentric.
Today we are supposed to get a soaking rain again, just what we needed....slosh, slosh. Norm gets a crown on Friday to complete the root canal he had last week. If the weather improves and we feel like it, we hope to take a day trip on Saturday to enjoy the foliage and perhaps see some nifty quilts.
Today I realized it has been almost two weeks since I have posted, and then I looked at my blog stats and there are all of you out there checking in: Colby, Irving, Mineral Wells, Garden City, Ft. Myers, Tulsa, Denver, St. Louis, and points I cannot quite figure out, although some of them belong to some of my high school classmates, I think.
We are still here. Every new month I think things are going to slow down, but they never do. On Oct. 2-3 we took part in a retreat our church held at Eden Seminary in town. Soon, I hope, I'll get photos of that posted on the Compton Rising Blog. These crab apples were part of the campus scene that weekend. On Sunday afternoon the 4th, we took in the annual Best of Missouri Market at the Botanical Garden. Many crafts and great food. Even some quilts! On Oct. 7 there was a church board meeting, on the 8th it rained three inches here but we got the church newsletter mailed and then I hosted members of the Prayer Shawl ministry here that night. We have been busy knitters lately as there have been 5 dedications of shawls or lap robes for ill church members or friends in as little as 4 weeks! Ava also came to stay with us that week.
On Friday, Oct. 9 I drove to Cape Girardeau for a women's retreat. Two long-time friends went with me. It was a good weekend and respite from all the busy-ness of the previous couple of weeks. We returned to St. Louis on the 10th, and I got ready to lead our Sunday School class the next morning. (I also did some last minute shopping for a baby shower.) Norm and I were also hosts for the coffee hour on the 11th, and Norm had gotten the items on my shopping list and baked cookies while I was away. We then attended a baby shower on Sunday afternoon, and visited with friends that evening. Whew!
Monday we tried to get back in the groove at our exercise class, but the teacher has upped the tempo. We had to take naps in the afternoon. Ava came back for a couple of days while Barb went to market in New York. Norm realized that a tooth that had been loose had started to hurt over the weekend, and it wasn't any better. He woke up on Tuesday with a nice lump on his gum, undoubtedly an abscess. One call to the dentist and they saw him at 1 p.m. He came home a couple of hours later with the news he had endured his first (and hopefully last) root canal. He says it is every bit as bad as advertised. He's on antibiotics for 10 days and will go back the 23rd to get his new crown. So we have put a mid-week trip to western Tennessee (more research on Emma and Jesse's families) planned for next week on hold for now until we see how that turns out. Tuesday night I went to women's circle where we stuffed toys for 5-9 year-olds into 30 stockings that will be distributed to families for Christmas. (I did some last minute shopping for that, too, on the way to the meeting!)
This week it is raining again--almost two inches more. The rivers south of here are at flood stage and the creeks are running full. On the one dry day we had, Norm managed to plant two chrysanthemums in our front wall garden. If it ever turns sunny, I'll try to get a picture of them! Ava went home tonight and tomorrow I plan to go grocery shopping while Norm is volunteering at Isaiah 58 ministries, an outreach housed at our church. Then I get my hair cut. Tomorrow night is quilt guild--but I have my block of the month ready! Friday it is supposed to quit raining, but still be 20 degrees colder than normal. I've promised a dish for a funeral dinner that afternoon. Saturday is Book Club, and maybe a quick trip to the Farmers Market.
So that's what we have been doing. The Weather Channel says next week our temperatures will be warmer (seasonal average around 68 daytime) and DRY! Although I have yet to buy Halloween candy (last year we had 218; a couple of years before we had 256!) I noticed in Kmart last night that the Christmas displays were going up. This year is winding down a lot faster than I had imagined. When I get a little more caught up I have some pictures of the retreat, and of the Best of Missouri Market to entertain you. Until then, as a certain English professor in Florida would say, please just discuss among yourselves. Comments are enabled. And thanks for checking in.
From late spring through fall, we look forward to Saturday mornings at the Ferguson Farmers Market. A few weeks ago, we realized that some of our Saturdays this month are taken up with other things, like quilt shows and retreats, so on Sept. 12, we took time to make an extended visit, that started with breakfast.
There are lots of kinds of food at the market, including baked goods, chef demon- strations by local restaurants, and free samples of fresh peaches, but week in and week out, the Omelet Man fixes a delicious hand-built omelet to your specifications and cooks it in individual cast iron skillets, carefully tending them about 4 at a time. You order your fixins and give your name and take a seat at a picnic table and wait. It's worth it.
Our breakfast on this day consisted of coffee from the market booth, individual omelets, and scones from Cosi Dolce bakery. Watching the Omelet Man, Norm decided the key to the puffy omelet was covering it with foil during the last part of cooking. So he tried it at home and by golly, it works. Our breakfast disappeared pretty quickly.
Some of the colorful veggies from Thies Farm were very tempting. We bought some sweet corn, and the last of the peach crop from Murray's orchard in Illinois, which had the sweetest peaches all summer. Other farmers had organic produce, dried beans, and various nuts and fruits. One man sells honey from the hives on his farm.
But there's more to the market than food. To borrow from the old song, we have both bread and roses... or in this case, pansies. I bought a dozen and brought them home to greet passersby from our new wall. In the spring there are many perennials, herbs and garden plants to buy as well.
There is also a community of artisans who sell their work at the market. This woodwork is exquisite and I can never decide which bread board I want--or who could use another gift of one. The gentleman who made these also created bookends for us out of the shelf brackets from grandma Williams that Norm bought at the family reunion a couple of years ago. He is wonderfully talented.
On this day, a visitor from the Weaver's Guild was demon- strating how to card and spin wool. She was very patient and explained all the steps to us. Other weeks there might be other artists demonstrating a technique of their art. So the market is also educational. Once a month there is a craft activity for children, too.
This couple from Hermann, MO come the farthest to the market. They bring fresh herbs grown without pesticides, and homemade herb vinegars (blackberry cinnamon, anyone?) and fresh cut zinnias. They also have four alpaca goats and they bring yarn made from their wool. There are four different colors: dark blue/black; brown, rusty brown, and light beige. I bought some of the dark yarn because it is so lovely. With each skein you get a photo of the goat that grew it--no dye jobs here. I'm waiting for it to get cooler so I can start a scarf.
Even whimsy finds its place. These two wooden dogs are in honor of all the real pooches who come to the market with their people. The market coordinator, Kathy N, is a friend we have met through our exercise classes. One day we were talking about all of the local markets and Kathy observed that Ferguson's is more than a farmer's market, it's a community market. People gather, eat, listen to the band, sample the wares, visit with friends, sometimes conduct business, and go home laden with healthful food, much of it organic, all harvested within 100 miles and within the last 24 hours. The market will be open through Oct. 31. Then it will be a long winter until we see the white tents sprout up next May on the Victorian Plaza again.
The quilt show is over for another 2 years; we'll be back in September 2011, if our needles hold out! I've updated my Quilt Gallery at right with the two quilts I had in this year's show. Not My Grandma's Flower Garden started as a retreat project in 2005, and I finished it this month. Let Freedom Shine is made from blocks I won in a block exchange in July 2007. I finished it just minutes before I was due to check in for Flower Valley Quilting Guild's 2009 show.
Since there were about 300 items on exhibit, I've just included photos of a few here. The variety of styles is always evident at our shows. The quilt at right is made of counted cross stitch panels depicting lighthouses. Our only male quilter, Marty, made this quilt from cross stitch to quilting and label. It won the Viewer's Choice award as well as 2nd place in bed size quilts.
My two quilts were in the Wall Quilt division. The blue ribbon wall quilt was this one, made by a 10-year old girl who is a neighbor of one of our most experienced and creative members. Many people who have seen the photo, as well as those at the show, remarked that it reminded them of the strippy patterns used by the Gees Bend quilters. The young girl picked her colors, arranged the blocks, sewed them on Barb's machine, and then even did some of the machine quilting learning to "drive" Barb's long-arm quilting machine. Quite a lot of talent for the first decade of life!
All of our more recent shows have included a showcase by a featured quilter. This collection of work drew many admiring visitors, because Wanetha (seated at left) has perfected various techniques of piecing, applique and embroidery, and she is a sought after teacher as well.
Wanetha's traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden with its unique appliqued border highlights its owner's commitment to perfection, and it earned a blue ribbon for bed-sized quilt.
This quilt by Jane S. greeted show visitors with some light hearted whimsy. "It's in the Bag" is its title, and it has won honors at other shows for its maker.
Miniatures are exact scale replicas of full sized patterns. This little Storm at Sea was a prize winner in that division and again, precision counts. And Theresa does have a great eye for color!
Back in the wall quilts, the white ribbon went to this marvelous diary of a retired teacher's family and career. Using licensed prints from the Dick and Jane series, as well as photo transfers of her family, Judy K has created an album in textile form that will be cherished forever.
Soon we hope to learn how many visitors our show had, and how much money we made on our raffle quilt. (No, I didn't win it....) Thanks to many friends, including Marty H., Barb F., and Gary and Karen M., for coming. On Sunday at show closing I stayed, as did many others, to help take down and sort the quilts for pickup, as well as to break down the exhibit poles and drapes and return them to containers for the exhibit company to pick up. The school gym was completely transformed in about two hours, with many willing bodies there to do the work. Outside of aching feet and one blood blister on my right hand, I was no worse for the weekend.
Now, it's time to go through my stash and pile of UFOs in my "fabric aging room" and see what to work on next. Also I'm co-chairing our Charity Quilts Committee for next year and it's time to start deciding on what to make for that, as well. But first, I think I need to clean and reorganize the sewing room before it's time to move the plants inside, since many of them live in that south window in the winter. And it's blowing colder outside!
Well, I got my two quilts finished and turned in for the show about 5:30 last night. Today I'll be spending most of the day at the show, either staffing the admission table or showing people around. Plus voting on my favorites and visiting the interesting vendors. And bringing some of the church's men's club's delicious barbecue home for supper. I'll take photos of my quilts and others and hopefully post some this evening.
The show particulars:
More than 300 quilted items made by members of the Flower Valley Quilting Guild
Saturday, Sept. 26, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 27, noon - 4 p.m.
Atonement Lutheran Church School Gym, 1285 New Florissant Road (at Parker Road)
Florissant, MO.
Hope to see many friends there!
I apologize for not having a picture of this thing, but we got a new trash can this week. Actually it's a huge (to us) dumpster on wheels. Our waste management company dropped one at every home in the village yesterday with instructions on how to place them at the curb on Trash Day, which is Wednesday around here. The dumpster has to be placed just so, three feet away from trees, other cans, or posts, in order for a robot arm operated by the truck driver to pick it up, tip it and place it back on the ground. Thus it requires only one operator (the driver) to pick up the trash, allowing the company to be more profitable. (Translation: there goes another job eliminated in the recession.)
The amazing thing is that every home received a 95-gallon dumpster. It is larger than our 65-gallon recycle dumpster by far. Ever since single-stream recycling came to our village we have had, at most, one kraft grocery sack of trash a week that wouldn't even take up much room in our old 30-gallon can. (All of our vegetable garbage and egg shells go into the compost heap...) Why we need a receptacle three times larger, especially with recycling taking most of the cardboard, paper, metal, plastic and glass, is a mystery. Even if we had a family of 6, we wouldn't fill the thing more often than every three weeks! Usually we put the recycle can out only every other week, and it's never full, either. We solved the can congestion at the back of the house problem by going together with Barb, our driveway-sharing neighbor. We'll both use her trash can, and our recycling can. We stored the extras under her carport, and we'll probably use them to store summer lawn furniture cushions and other outdoor gear this winter. (Each household pays almost $20 a month for these lovely receptacles and the once a week pickup.)
So far no special dumpster for the lawn waste (grass, leaves, small limbs) pickup. We can still use a plain waste can or paper bags (no plastic!) for those. That truck still has a crew of three--two riders and a driver. At least for now.....
On a planet that needs less consumption and less trash, it seems a shame that we now have these plastic behemoths lining the streets each week, begging people to throw out more stuff they didn't need in the first place! OK, end of rant; I'm climbing off the soap box now. Although I wonder where these things were made...if we imported them, there's some more American jobs headed for the landfill.
Last night I was reviewing my 200+ posts on Twitter, and realized that I had let an anniversary slip by. I started tweeting on Sept. 13 of last year, and soon was sending updates about our heavy rains following Tropical Depression Ike as it drifted northward and got hung up right over St. Louis. I joined Twitter so I could follow a friend who was sending updates from an event. He has since dropped out of Twitter, but I have managed to find a use for the 140-character brevity in these little messages. Today I learned (from Old Media, like Radio Station KMOX) that the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, is a St. Louis native. He grew up not far from the church we now attend in the Compton neighborhood. On TV tonight, he looks so YOUNG.
Unfortunately, I tend to be a follower and not an early adopter of technology. (The lone exception was computing itself; our office at the University was among the first to get PCs in the mid 1980s, but at first all we did was use them as infinitely correctable typewriters. I was suspicious of the Mac interface (having started on CPM and graduated to DOS by taking free courses) at first, but when I had the chance to teach in a Mac lab, I jumped in and haven't looked back. I loved having students submit work as e-mail attachments so I could add comments electronically and send them back for revision instead of going through red or green ink.
But the pioneering spirit stopped there. By the time I really went for e-mail, younger people were into chat instead. (I've resisted IM so far.) I finally got into blogging after I saw what a niece could do with pictures and what a former student could do with words. That was in 2006, about the time that cell phones started having text and every young person developed sore thumb joints. No text for me....I want my phone to just be a phone. Although when my 2-year agreement with my way too expensive carrier expires in November, I won't be renewing it. I'm going to get something like a Jitterbug for plain old calls and then...well..I must confess that I would like an iPod Touch. I didn't realize you could surf the 'net for free and check your email on one at free wifi hot spots, until this spring when a computer savvy 30-something friend showed me. That would save me having to pack the laptop when I travel! Of course, I don't have any kind of iPod now, and by the time I get one, they will be Old, too, I guess.
Geting back to Twitter, at first I wasn't sure how useful it could be, but in my review tonight I find it makes a perfect online diary that gives me the dates the first hummingbird showed up, when the first tree frog croaked, when the raspberries were ripe, how many sleet storms we had last winter, etc. As well as departures and arrivals on trips, various ailments and other things that I posted to update the family. I think I'll just print the tweets for this year out and paste them in that dead tree journal I never have time to write in anymore.
A number of former students have also found me on Twitter and I enjoy following them and reading their updates. (Well, most of the time. I don't really need to know that your lunch gave you indigestion...) But even Twitter has lost some of its allure for the tech savvy. Everyone is on FaceBook now.
One of my close friends follows the exploits of her grandbaby on her daughter's FaceBook page. But she and I are the same age and if she can figure out FaceBook, well, I don't want to be behind. I keep getting requests to be friends with people and so far I have ignored them, but I think I'm going to have to give in. I have resisted so far because if I join FaceBook, something else will have to give--blogging? Twitter? Sleep? There aren't enough hours in the day! (Or Night.) But I'm also aware that as soon as I finally sign in to FaceBook, I'll read an article the next morning in the New York Times (online, of course--another nail in the coffin of print) telling me that sites like FaceBook are now passe too, and the Next New Thing is what I need. Sigh.
Just in case, I still have my Royal manual portable typewriter in its case in a closet upstairs, and last time I checked, the ribbon still had ink in it. You never know: the entire electrical grid we take for granted could crash and I want to be prepared. Someday paper and ink could once again be the Next New Thing. Meanwhile, feel free to follow me on Twitter, or read this blog, or whatever suits your level of techhie comfort. And when I do find the time and energy to debut on FaceBook, my loyal readers here will be among The First To Know. Thank you, and good night!
Happy Post-Thanksgiving (I hate the term black Friday) from Ft. Myers, Fla., in plant hardiness zone 10, which is to say, the sub-tropics. Although it did get down in the 40s here last night. We arrived about 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday after an uneventful (except for a few bumps at 29,000 feet over the Florida panhandle) non-stop Southwest Airlines flight. It has been 2-1/2 years since we visited Doug and Matt, and the vegetation around their lake in the center of their community has really grown. Although it was cloudy on Thanksgiving morning, the sun came out in the afternoon and the sky cleared. This is the view, facing east, from their lanai (we midwesterners would call it a screened porch.)
Thursday afternoon, the kitchen was a veritable beehive. Matt kept washing up pots as Anne-Marie (left) carved the turkey and Kathy and Nicole dealt with something on top of the stove. Doug and Anne-Marie's son Simon supervised, a lot.
The final result: a toast to friends and things to be thankful for, before heading for the sideboards to fill our plates. With turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus casserole, green beans, brussels sprouts, whole cranberry sauce, rolls, and four kinds of pie (pecan bourbon chocolate, apple, banana caramel and chocolate) everyone had plenty to eat. And the leftovers will go to Anne-Marie's house on Sanibel Island this afternoon for an after-feast from the same crew!
This is the second year that Doug's kitchen has been comman- deered ably by Anne-Marie, who loves to cook and has a kitchen too small to cook for a crowd. Although Doug is also a fabulous cook, he seemed really pleased to let four of his best friends do the Thanksgiving dinner. The meal was amazing, fresh, wholesome and above all, delicious!
Norm and I were going to have dueling cameras, but he put his down so I could take my picture of him first. He is enjoying leisurely morning walks around the condo complex with Sam as a companion. Yesterday afternoon I took a walk with him, too.
Sam and I stayed out of the kitchen, mostly, although Sam did make periodic trips through to check for crumbs and other goodies. On Wednesday night when we arrived, Sam gave a brief bark and then broke into wiggles and grins and he spent most of Wednesday evening on my lap, as though he had missed me the whole four or five months since we last saw him, in May in St. Louis. His thanksgiving scarf came from his groomer, who also wrote his name in day glo puff paint on it.
The guest room faces west and is very cozy. Norm and I have no trouble feeling at home and we sleep really well. This room is also the music room, since Matt moved the piano in here on carpet after the downstairs neighbor complained about the "noise" not long after they moved the piano in. The guest room is over the garage, so the neighbor doesn't get the vibrations while he's trying to sleep in the daytime. On Thursday afternoon Simon played Chopin for endless hours it seemed, while we were waiting for dinner. Then Matt took over and played some of his original compositions that are in his head, although he says he will write them down, someday.
