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Here in St. Louis we face a trying climate for Roses. If it's dry, the aphids and spider mites and diseases attack. If it's humid, black spot and other fungi defoliate the delicate ones. But this year, despite having slurped up almost two feet of rain, our roses have been radiant. Go figure.
The beauty above left is the Linville Rose, given to us by a friend several years ago. It is a delicate creature. It nearly died in the ground from drought and blackspot despite frequent sprayings. So now it lives year round in a clay pot that is overwintered outside, buried in mulch. The delicate pink blush is more apparent in cooler weather.
Our hardiest specimen is this pink single rose, which looks like a wild rose. We planted it next to the front porch, where it will soon be overwhelmed by several varieties of day lilies competing for the same space. It is very hardy and needs very little care. Like the Linville rose, it blooms repeatedly.
I tried the macro setting on my camera to catch a close up of these nostalgic pink petals.
Today Norm bought a new line trimmer and then coaxed the mower to life and mowed front and back yards. It was time: the grass was getting perilously close to the 7-inch height that would have brought the Bel Nor Lawn Police to our door with a citation! It was sunny and warm today but rain is supposed to return tomorrow. I spent the afternoon at the car service place. Gracie went in for an oil change and came out not only with that but with new brake shoes as well. I'm afraid we should have named this car Imelda. But with a long drive to The Other Side of Kansas coming up, it seemed like a wise idea.
On Monday, we spent most of the day helping staff the Compton Cares booth at Gypsy Caravan, the annual craft & antiques market-meets garage sale event that has been a St. Louis Memorial Day tradition for 35 years. Admission fees benefit the St. Louis Symphony. Our church eventually made over $1,000 for our accessibility project--although when we and the first shift team arrived at 6:30 a.m. to find our tent blown down, much of our merchandise wet, and a steady rain falling that remained from a rousing electrical storm that had gone through two hours earlier, we were not sure we would make any money at all. The complete saga of the day is on my Compton Cares Update blog if you would like to read it and see more pictures.
Tuesday, Norm saw his eye surgeon for the 1-week follow up and he got a clear bill and release to drive the car, mow the lawn, lift more than 10 pounds and as Dr. Bias said, "resume normal activities." The rest of the day, we rested, since we hadn't rested on the sabbath or on the holiday! Naps are good.
Today, we did some household chores, I did some finances, and we spent the afternoon at the church folding, stapling, folding, addressing and stickering some 200 monthly newsletters, along with three other volunteers. (Our church does not have a secretary--budget cuts a couple of years ago.) After we got home this evening, Norm edged the lawn in anticipation of actually being able to mow it tomorrow. We have two dry days in a row! St. Louis is now more than 12 inches above average precipitation for the calendar year. Some of that mitigated the drought conditions of the past two or three years, but enough is enough. Our stone basement walls, circa 1922, are naturally porous and we are starting to get out the mops to take care of the slight seepage that occurs when the ground is saturated. Lots of overtime for the dehumidifier down there.
To our Colby, Garden City, Mineral Wells, Irving, Hutchinson, North Platte and other family readers, we are eagerly looking forward to seeing you at the family reunion which is coming up soon. Take care, stay healthy and don't forget to comment!
Well, we are ready for Gypsy Caravan tomorrow. This is the giant antiques, craft and flea market held on Memorial Day in St. Louis. Norm and I have been busy this week with organizing, pricing, crunching data, etc. The donations for our sale kept pouring in and after I tallied all of the price stickers we put on items, we have a total asking price for our items of over $2,300! And to think one member of our church started it all with 8 quilts! Let's all pray for decent weather (heavy thunderstorms are in the forecast) and for all of our items to sell. Four of us will be there at 6:30 in the morning to be ready for the early bird shoppers. If I have a chance, I'll have pictures and results to post tomorrow night. Happy holidays, everyone.
For more information about the Compton Cares project that this will support, visit my Compton Cares Update blog.
The poet asked, what is so rare as a day in June, but today was a rare day in May. Norm and I went to Forest Park to visit the Art Museum, which is free on Fridays. Our destination was the special exhibit, "Quilts in a Material World." Photography was not allowed, so I'm posting some overdue pictures of some of our spring flowers instead.
The collection of quilts was stunning, with examples from as early as the mid 1700s from the Winterthur Collection. The park was stunning too: people basking in the sun, golfing, walking dogs, paddling on the lakes. Every tree is a verdant green; it was calm and clear and the perfect temperature: 72 degrees. A day to savor for sure.
The lovely bicolor Iris, above, was already in our yard when we moved here in 2001, but it has multiplied tremendously. The purple and white hybrid columbine at right has established itself from a plant we set out three or four years ago. 
This pale lavender beauty shows up in more than one spot in the back yard. Lois, who lived here before, or her gardener, picked some lovely varieties. Since these photos were taken, more varieties of iris have appeared, including a yellow and brown one and a dark purple one, as well as the blue-and-white that we got from Norm's mom years ago. I'm always relieved when it appears. One mystery: although we used to have some yellow iris, none are blooming this year. I guess they are on sabbatical.
Much earlier in the month, our azaleas bloomed so fully it looked like they were on fire. Last year all of the buds were lost to the Easter freeze, so we have greeted every flowering plant this year with the kind of joy you reserve for survivors. The rest of this weekend we will be getting ready for and participating in a giant antique, craft and flea market known as the Gypsy Caravan. I've posted more information about it on the Compton Cares Update blog, since any proceeds our church makes from our booth will benefit the accessibility project's fund. If you are in St. Louis on Monday, stop in to our space in Lot C at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and say howdy.
The title of this post is probably going to tantalize Google searchers everywhere. My SiteMeter often registers a spike after I upload a new message, or it identifies specific search words (like party, aluminum cans, etc.) that people are looking for. So I apologize to all of these unrequited searchers, but hope regular Home Stories watchers will enjoy these pictures.
The fern at the top is a volunteer in its part of the garden. It appeared this month on the left side of the back yard, near the daylily colony. All of the other ferns are on the right side of the back yard, along the driveway. How it migrated that far, I have no clue. (Have spores, will travel?) All of these ferns were transplanted from our Ferguson garden, and ultimately from my mother's flower bed in Tulsa. Where she got them, I don't remember.
The two batches of violas are in our front bed, right below where last year's porch boxes held pansies and violas. They must have sprouted from seed that fell into the mulch below. Another front bed has a volunteer pansy, we discovered yesterday. Probably from the same distribution source. That's the fun of gardening. You never know what surprise will greet you when you go outside!
Norm's left eye is doing well, his surgeon said yesterday. No lifting more than 10 pounds or swimming or carousing allowed for a week. Eye drop regimen 4x a day. The doctor said the cataract was "really big" but Norm says sight with his new implanted lens is great. He's getting by with a $10 pair of reading glasses from the drugstore to read the newspaper until he can get a new prescription in a month or so. He's amusing himself by checking out the myriad digital music channels on Charter, part of a new money-saving bundle we got for our Internet service recently. And thanks, Carla, for identifying yourself as the mystery reader. Now, if those folks in the Netherlands would write me...I think it's Greg and Monique but I'd love to know for sure!
Just a note that Norm is resting well after having cataract surgery on his left eye this afternoon. After he visits the doctor tomorrow, there will be a fuller report. And sometime in the future, there might even be a picture: his surgeon has one taken of each patient at the end of the surgery! Stay tuned. And welcome to our new reader in North Platte, Neb., whoever you are...remember the comment feature is enabled, and a link to my e-mail is on the profile page. We'd love to hear from readers.
Cape Girardeau, MO, May 16--- To continue our adventures down river, we stopped by Abbey Road Christian Church, where the conference I'm coordinating on Saturday will be held. Two years ago, four women initiated building a labyrinth outside the building. Walking the labyrinth will be one of the activities of the conference. We wanted to walk in relative solitude, so we came by at 6 p.m. Note: Clicking on the pictures will probably enlarge them so you can see more detail.
Many people walk as a spiritual practice. At the center of this labyrinth is this stone sculpture bearing a verse from 2 Corinthinans: We walk by faith and not by sight. All I could think of as I walked the path was that to me, faith IS sight. I'm a lot like the apostle Thomas who had to see and feel for himself. 
This labyrinth comprises 11 concentric rings and is modeled after one from the 12th century on the floor of Chartres Cathedral. The paths are crushed stone and are delineated with river rock. I kept wanting to examine the rocks. One was shaped like a foot; another had crystals inside. Someone donated these golden iris plants that were in glorious bloom. All kinds of perennials surround the circle. Last year, one of the women told me, a killdeer had a nest in the rocks across the way. As we finished the walk, a killdeer flew in, landed, and ran across several rings. Robins and redbirds and blackbirds called nearby. It was an unusual experience and the highlight of our day. After the walk, we went to dinner and later to bed. The conference on Saturday went very well with 42 women from 15 churches attending. It was good to get home to our own bed on Saturday night, but we will long remember this trip.
It's been a week since I've blogged, and I can tell that the viewers in Garden City, Colby, Tulsa and Florida are getting antsy. So here is proof we are up and around. Today we drove about 110 miles south of home to Cape Girardeau, a college town on the Mississippi River across from Cairo, Ill. After stowing our gear, we took off for the Trail of Tears State Park, which commemorates the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia to Oklahoma. And many of them crossed the Mississippi very near this spot in the winter of 1838.
We saw an enormous variety of trees and birds in the park, but the highlight was the Mississippi River overlook. A local farmer was at the same spot, looking at the river which is 4 feet over flood (but falling) and trying to estimate when he might be able to get to his farmland on the Illinois side. His land is clear, but the road is under water. We enjoyed talking to him and he offered to take our picture.
This is one of many breath taking views of the river we saw today. This is looking north from the overlook in Trail of Tears State Park, about 10 miles north of Cape Girardeau. This is the clearest, bluest sky we have seen in a long time.
After the winter, the many days inside fighting respiratory ailments, and Norm's recovery period from the cataract surgery, this trip was a breath of fresh air, and then some. We'll long treasure this weekend and this view of the Mighty Miss looking south. The turbulence of the water can be seen even from this height. I'm here to attend a conference of Disciples Women that I coordinated. After I checked in at the host church today, and saw that all is ready for tomorrow's meeting, I realized I had done all I can do. It felt odd, after a week of stress, to need to do Nothing. So instead of doing Nothing, we went to visit our heartland river at the farthest point south we have been on it. It's a lot wider than it was at its origin in Lake Itasca , Minn., when we waded across it, back in 2000!
Last Sunday night the staff of The Current held their end of year party at our house. Since I'm retiring, this will probably be the last time we host a bunch of 20-somethings who live on pizza, Jimmy Johns and brownies under our roof. Part of the evening's tradition is certificates for everyone. Even Norm got an award, for being The Unsung Hero. (At least they didn't try to sing to him!)
Also traditional is passing the silver engraved mug from outgoing to incoming editor, so Paul presented it to Melissa at the conclusion of the serious business. Then everyone adjourned to the dining room table for a 2-hour game of Apples to Apples, which is a matching game involving nouns and adjectives. Go figure. They are a newspaper staff, after all!
This week Norm and I are back to exercise and Norm even mowed the lawn, feeling recovered from his cataract surgery. In the past 36 hours we have had 2-1/2 inches of rain so we haven't had much of a chance to work in the garden, which we had hoped to do this week. I've been busy working on my conference for later this month. Tomorrow we go to a special graduation for Heather, daughter of our friends Mike and Sandy, who is ready to start a career in respiratory therapy. And on Saturday, between showers, we have a work day at our church. So we are keeping busy despite the fact that the month of May and the Mother's Day celebrations bring some bittersweet memories of 10 years ago when both of our mothers passed away.
At long last it is Dogwood Week. Usually the third weekend in April is the highlight of dogwood bloom, but both in the city and the country, the lacy white and glowing pink dogwoods are sensibly late this year. This one is on the university campus, near Bugg Lake.
Monday night was the Student Life awards ceremony. Current staffers Paul, Angie and Sofie attended, and cheered when I was given an award for 16 years of advising the student newspaper. (Administrators hastily organized that when I told them I was retiring!)
One of the joys of a long teaching and advising career is running into former students and seeing their success. At the awards ceremony, two Current alums greeted me. Fred graduated in the early 1990s, and Michelle is a former editor, graduating in 1992.
On Tuesday, Norm got the all-clear from his eye surgeon. So Wednesday found us on the road to Cape Girardeau, where I needed to meet with women at Abbey Road Christian Church. I'm coordinating a conference there later this month, and we hope to include their lovely labyrinth in the program.
It was a beautiful day to be outside. We enjoyed the sun and had a nice lunch before heading home with a strong tailwind. I-55 south of St. Louis is a beautiful drive. Gas in Cape was only $3.45 compared to $3.59 in North St. Louis County. We filled Gracie up.
Thursday was exercise day. That evening we went to a trivia fund-raiser for a couple we have known since Maplewood Days. Their daughter suffered multiple seizures and needs a lot of care. Almost 200 people attended, in addition to volunteers. I donated this little quilt, which I titled "Star Spangled Sunbonnets" to the silent auction. The blocks were appliqued by members of my guild, and I hand quilted it. A member of our church bought it! I'm glad it will stay in the "family."
Friday, with Norm behind the wheel, we went to church to fold and prepare the news letters for mailing, and then we took them to the Bulk Mailing Center in the bowels of the downtown St. Louis post office! We must have done it correctly, because our newsletter arrived in our mail today. After all that work we had a late lunch at a south St. Louis landmark we had never patronized, Uncle Bill's Pancake House. Of course we had the special: 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, 2 slices bacon and 2 sausage. Plus the bottomless cup of coffee. The lovely server gave us the senior discount. We gave her a 20% tip. We bought gas for the Mazda at only $3.53 a gallon. Eeek. Then we came home and took a nap. After supper, we enjoyed receiving a long phone call from our boys in Florida, who announced they were sitting out on their lanai, enjoying the evening. Wish we could see them soon. All in all, it was quite a week.
Norm's follow up visit to his eye surgeon today brought a very good report. He can now see well enough with his right eye to not need glasses for driving! The doctor gave him a card to prove it. He still has three more weeks of eye drops, but no signs of inflammation and the visual corrections are very good, almost perfect. Norm does still have a bothersome floater that he is trying to get used to. We'd appreciate everyone's "floater diminisher" thoughts. Norm will have another checkup on May 13, and if all is in order, cataract surgery on his left eye on May 19. We expect him to be in good seeing form for the Linville reunion in Colby in June!
Speaking of the reunion, we made our reservations at the hotel we usually stay at in Colby last night. When we checked on our accumulated points, we found out we have enough to cover all four nights of our stay! That news just about made our week. We can't wait to see everyone. Thanks, family, for checking in and hopefully we are giving you something worth reading.
Two of the blogs in my list on the right side rail have recently been updated. Norm's niece Debbie B has redesigned her blog, Updates from Debbie and it has gorgeous photos taken at the nature center in her town. Check it out. Meanwhile, my cousin's wife, Debi B., writes hilariously about her adventures in cooking an egg casserole for Secretary's Day while trying to keep her sanity as a teacher of high school seniors. Debide's View is where you'll find her.
This spring has been a feast for flowering tree lovers! First the Bradford Pears, then the star magnolias (or tulip trees) and now the redbuds and also the dogwoods. It's not so great for those of us with spring pollen allergies, but the sight almost makes up for it.
The old fashioned lilac in the back border (above) is way taller than I am now. It was a mere two feet tall and a collection of sprigs when Norm dug it up in the spring of 2001 so we could transplant it to this yard. It has bloomed the past 3 years, but this year, it is covered with light, lilac flowers that smell so sweet. Lilacs always remind me of Walt Whitman's poem in tribute to president Abraham Lincoln, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. PBS aired a wonderful portrait of Whitman on The American Experience about a week ago.
I don't think there are any famous poems about redbud trees. I just know they have always been a part of my life. One graced the yard of the house in Tulsa where I grew up, and my parents' yard after they moved when I was grown. The house Norm and I had in Ferguson was eventually shaded by a transplanted redbud we named Muriel, after the wife of the man who gave it to us. When we moved to our Bel Nor house, there was already a redbud in the front yard (above, right) that Lois' children had given her for Mother's day a few years back. It is glorious this year. We brought with us a tiny sprig, a sprout of Muriel, and planted it on the other side of the front walk. (Above, left) Too young to bloom, Little Muriel suffered a blow a year after our move when a dead branch fell out of the mighty oak above and broke off its leader. We staked the tree and started training a side branch to become the leader. This year, Little Muriel bloomed for the first time! We treasure this because the people who bought our Ferguson house chopped the original Muriel down.
Norm and I are still feeling the effects of recent bouts of respiratory illness. We take turns with coughing fits...but we don't have fevers or any other symptoms so we assume this is part of the healing process. It's just inconvenient when we want to be outside weeding the garden or taking a walk and we have bronchial spasms instead. Norm is following his eyedrop regimen and is still working on eye coordination between the "new" one and the one that awaits surgery. He is still reporting a fairly large floater in the eye that had surgery, and we just hope it fades in time. Today was cool and sunny, and we went to the opening of the Ferguson Farmer's Market, about which I wrote last year. We came home with some local Missouri honey (hopefully to desensitize my spring allergies), some whole grain bread, and a cilantro plant. The market will be our regular Saturday foray from now until late October. We are glad it is open. It's another sign of spring, and of hope. Even if we are supposed to get a late frost tomorrow night.
Today was one of those days when nothing on the to-do list got done. When managing the interruptions was the accomplishment. But as the night falls, the lilac perfumes the back yard and the mockingbird sings in my neighbor's holly tree, all seems well.
Norm is noting improved vision every hour, almost. But yesterday and today, he has been bothered by a "floater" that seemed a little too large, so we made an unscheduled visit to his doctor in the middle of the afternoon. No sign of retinal damage, which is reassuring. But we'll just have to be watchful for a while. Tonight Norm thinks the floater is receding somewhat.
Sorry to disappoint our Garden City and other faithful readers by posting this so late, but thanks for looking in on us often, anyway. At one point this afternoon I though my new computer had died. I'm still not sure why it started up tonight after staring blankly at me two times in a row this afternoon. But hey, I'll take it. Tomorrow I'll have photos and updates on Home Stories from Bel Nor. That is God willing, the creek don't rise and the earth don't shake.
At last it has stopped raining, and I can take a few pictures of flowers before they shatter or fade. Yesterday was Earth Day, and I had plans to write about it. But we had an appointment with Norm's eye surgeon and then I spent 4 hours last night and early this morning marking a quilt top that will go to a quilting group, the Spanish Lake Quilters, for hand quilting today.
Norm is doing well. His doctor checked his vision in the operated eye and with the new implant he was reading the chart at 20/30, very good progress for one day after surgery. We will go back for another checkup in a week. Part of Norm's wonder and delight is seeing colors with his "new" eye. The tulips above are color-changing; they start out yellow or pink or white and then additional colors appear in the petals. They practically glow from within. The little "butter and egg" jonquils were transplanted in the 1980s from my parents' garden in Tulsa to our yard in Ferguson. We brought some with us to this yard when we moved. Seeing them provides a precious link to the past and joy in the present. Thanks to friends and family who check the blog and who have been saying prayers for Norm's healing from the surgery.
Norm had cataract surgery on his right eye today. He is home and comfortable and we are doing the eyedrops drill. He will have a post-op visit with his surgeon tomorrow. Thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts. I'll update more soon.
Earthquake update: still getting aftershocks. One at 12:40 a.m. (I was still awake) shook the bed again. I went to sleep. Figured the house has been dealing with these longer than I have--87 years. Found out this morning it was a 4.0. There were some smaller aftershocks, too. I think I felt one ripple through the floor earlier this evening when I was surfing the web. That little Wabash Fault is getting frisky. Hope its big brother the New Madrid doesn't follow suit.
HTML update: I'm proud of myself. I signed up for SiteMeter to see how many visits this blog gets, since people e-mail me all the time saying "I read your blog but didn't have time to comment." Don't worry, I didn't get the deluxe version that tells me who you are. Just that someone (Kilroy, maybe?) was here. And I added the JavaScript HTML code to the sidebar all by myself. (Well, it was a copy and paste operation, but I did have to figure out WHERE to paste it in a forest of the template's HTML. And I got it right the first time!) Hooray for that Summer 1990 basic html course. Who knew I would still be able to use it? The logo is below the Archives in the Sidebar if you want to look at it.
Yes, I realize that is hardly an original title. But what else can I say about the shaking of the bed in the second floor bedroom in a full brick house that woke us up at 4:38 a.m.? Although earthquakes are felt periodically in this area, this was the first one we have noticed since moving to this house in 2001. We quickly realized that yes, it WAS an earthquake. One that had the house swaying. After 30 seconds or so it stopped and I jumped out of bed and turned on trusty KMOX-AM. Yes, callers were calling in. In about 10 minutes they had the preliminary magnitude: 5.4 centered in southeastern Illinois.
As the morning progressed, we learned it was a 5.2 and centered just a few miles from where friends Amos and LInda live. I emailed them and they are in Virginia this week, grandchild sitting, but relatives were checking on their house. As I was reading Amos' e-mail reply about 10:15 a.m., the house swayed again: windows rattled and all of the plants in the dining room were dancing. This aftershock was a 4.6, we heard later. It was a reminder that yes, we do live in an earthquake zone; the New Madrid fault is "overdue" for a magnitude 6.0 or greater, the geologists say. And as we lay in bed this morning in the dark, after it stopped rocking, we vowed to upgrade our preparedness plan and gave thanks that our homeowners policy does include earthquake insurance, which is becoming hard to get in these parts.
Frankly I prefer our Midwest storms, even tornadoes, I think. At least you have some forecast or warning. Californians may get used to this unannounced shaking, but it's uncommon enough in the Midwest. By the way, as I was writing that last sentence, I think I felt another little tremor, one that just rippled through the floor and the seat of my chair.
Wednesday, April 16--The annual Mirthday carnival at the university was today, and for the first time in several years, students enjoyed warm, sunny weather. Student organizations have booths and offer games for prizes. The Current staff had several giveaways, including movie passes and gear related to various entertainment venues. They also had staff T-shirts for everyone. Here, former staffer Sarah joins photographers Matt (in staff T-shirt) and Danny (in green Stagnant parody edition shirt) in heckling staff members trying to hold down the booth, literally. The wind was gusting over 30 mph. I got free popcorn, a free snow cone, took photos of some former students and talked to colleagues with whom I used to work. A very nice spring day, one that required sunscreen and a hat!
Here in St. Louis we face a trying climate for Roses. If it's dry, the aphids and spider mites and diseases attack. If it's humid, black spot and other fungi defoliate the delicate ones. But this year, despite having slurped up almost two feet of rain, our roses have been radiant. Go figure.
Our hardiest specimen is this pink single rose, which looks like a wild rose. We planted it next to the front porch, where it will soon be overwhelmed by several varieties of day lilies competing for the same space. It is very hardy and needs very little care. Like the Linville rose, it blooms repeatedly.
I tried the macro setting on my camera to catch a close up of these nostalgic pink petals.
