Winter Storm

Last night the thunder crashed, the lightning flashed, the wind roared, and the weather radio pierced our sleep every 20 minutes or so with another severe weather warning. There were even a couple of tornado warnings in our county. For three hours this went on disturbing our much needed rest. This morning we found the earth swimming. Water is everywhere, even in the chickens' feeding station, which is covered and stays dry during most storms, and the piney forest is in tatters from the wind and rain. The woods has been quiet out here for the past several days--quieter than usual with a brooding silence that got on my nerves, but was a welcome relief to my dear husband, whose ears are daily assaulted with the incessant noise pollution of the city. This morning the quiet feels like the relief after an exhausting struggle. Not a breeze blows the dripping and tattered leaves left dangling on the trees. It's warm out, warm enough to bring out the critters and creepy crawlies that will keep my chickens happily scratching all day. But this will soon change to freezing temperatures and bring "snow flurries" after midnight tonight and possibly tomorrow, too. I expect to see a flake or two floating in the air. The water in the ground and on the streets will freeze early tomorrow morning and tomorrow night, and "winter" will be back again. We'll have a cozy fire in our heating stove, and snuggle and bask in its warmth. Such is "winter" down here in the deep South--never really winter for long, because Spring can never wait her turn, but comes in snatches, loosening winter's icy grip and stealing the earth's rest as the storm steals ours.

Nighttime visitors

My husband recently bought an infrared "gamecam" that we can strap to a tree or post, program it, and let it capture photos of whatever moves in front of it until we turn it off. It's turning out to be my new toy, and I'm having a ball with it! So far we've captured photos of our cats, raccoons, and possums. At left is one of a raccoon crossing our yard. Usually the critter that trips the shutter is moving so fast that only a part of it shows in the photo. I think there must be a couple of seconds lag tme before the photo is taken. It certainly makes life interesting!

Praying

I've been thinking a lot about praying lately. I make a distinction between praying and prayer; which other, more intelligent and experienced people than I have written about. I've specifically been thinking about how hard it is to begin to pray, i.e. get up off my, umm, couch and pray, as opposed to how easy and comforting praying is once I'm actually praying. In a nutshell, the problem lies in my own self-indulgence. Now, if I could only re-assign those self-indulgent feelings to praying, perhaps I wouldn't be thinking so much about it. The quote below says it better than I can.

Amma Theodora said, "It is good to live in peace, for the wise man practices
perpetual prayer. It is truly a great thing for a virgin or a monk to live in
peace, especially the younger ones. However, you should realize that as soon as
you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul
through accidie (listlessness/ boredom/despondency), faintheartedness, and evil
thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakening of
the knees, and all the members. It dissipates the strength of soul and body, so
that one believes one is ill and no longer able to pray. But if we are
vigilant, all these temptations fall away. There was, in fact, a monk who was
seized by cold and fever every time he began to pray, and he suffered from
headaches too. In this condition, he said to himself, "I am ill, and near to
death; so now I will get up before I die and pray." By reasoning in this way,
he forced himself and prayed. When he had finished, the fever abated also. So,
by reasoning in this way, the brother resisted and prayed, and was able to
conquer his thoughts.

---------
quote archived as a blog at: http://wordfromthedesert.squarespace.com/

**UPDATE**

Non displaced fracture
Hairline crack and much soft tissue swelling
Location: Radial Head, left elbow
Blood in soft tissue, radial head fracture

continue with current OCL cast
come back in 1 week & possibly get removable splint
then begin gentle stretching to facilitate full flexibility
may lose 10% extension -- may never be able to fully extend arm
more x-rays at 3, 6, & maybe 9 weeks
suggest cold packs & elevation to decrease swelling

Need to start stretching it in ten days when I get removable splint
I tend to heal slowly, so I don't expect splint next Monday

it's official

I have a fracture in my left elbow. Actually, I don't know exactly where, but it's very near my left elbow if not in it. I got a temporary "OCL" cast on it tonight, and I have to see an orthopedic surgeon bright & early Monday morning at 7:30 to get a huge, heavy permanent cast from above my left elbow down to my hand. I guess I'll have it on for 6 weeks or so. I'm sure I'll have my "moments" during that time, but for right now at least, I see this as a time to sit back (metaphorically), reassess, rest, and in effect start over. I will have to learn how to do things with only my right hand--thank God my right arm is ok. Two summers ago when I tore my right rotator cuff, I had to do things with only my left hand. But this is different. It will be interesting.

here I go again.

Last evening (Nov 20) at about 4:40 as I was up in the poultry yard putting up chickens. was walking with my walking stick on the slope that *is* the poultry yard looking for eggs because the chickens have taken to laying every where. pine straw slipped under my left foot, left hand went out reflexively to catch me, fell straight on outstretched arm. left elbow hurts. tiny twists of hand, like drying hands with towel, etc., hurts like knife going into elbow. stupid chiropractor office closed on fridays I think. I will call tomorrow morning to make sure. I immediately put on cold 30 min then hot water bottle 30 min. not sure of time, but close enough. no more than 30 min. typing is becoming painful, so I guess I should curtail that activity. can't straighten arm out completely, either. here I go again.

====================================================================

about 9 pm went to er

11:57 pm - got back from er. dr said maybe hairline fracture. radiologist will make final call. gave me lortab before I left.

Friends

What are these people we call "friends"? Who are they? How are they defined? How do we find them? How do we make and keep "friends"? How do they make us feel connected? What makes you feel 'connected' to your friends? I'm curious to know what others think about this.

Growing Pains

In the past few months I've been growing and changing more than I have in the past few years. As a result, I've spent less and less time at my old, online "haunts," and more time with myself, my home, and my children. I do have a few, new online "haunts" that for special reasons I keep up with. They are Contemporary Orthodoxy and Contemporary Orthodox Thought. I also check into a new blog, Observational Commentary.

I've just finished reading Kyriacos Markides' book The Mountain of Silence. In this book, Kyriacos records his conversations on living an Orthodox spiritual life with the Athonite elder, Fr. Maximos. I am thrilled with this book. It is written in an easy style that takes the reader along with Kyriacos on his visit to Cyprus, including wonderful descriptions of the country and the monastic life at the monastery he is visiting. I find Fr. Maximos' answers to Kyriacos' questions insightful, inspiring, and intelligent. I can't say enough about this book. I read it to my husband, and he liked it, too. We have bought a second copy to keep ourselves and have given our first copy away. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it.

I remember when....

I was born in December of 1948, so I remember a lot.

1. Writing with a fountain pen in high school.
3. Wrought iron school desks with the seat for the person in front of you folded up, or down. The desks had holes in them for your ink well. (We didn't have ink pens [fountain pens] at that time--the desks were old.)
4. Hoola hoops (I could spin one on my waist, each arm, neck, and one ankle all at the same time.)
5. Saturday morning westerns: Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Sky King, My Friend Flicka, Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger.
6. A coal furnace in the basement. Looking inside that thing with its white-hot heat always reminded me of the Three Holy Youths in the furnace.
7. The coal truck coming every year to put coal down a chute into our basement.
8. The ice-man bringing huge blocks of ice to our ice-box once a week.
9. The horse-drawn carts of the rag man and vegetable/fruit man who drove down the alley behind our house every once in a while.
10. An outhouse. (Yes, just a few blocks away from Churchill Downs in Lousiville, we had an outhouse my first 5 years of life before we moved.)
11. No hot water in the house--only cold running water and happy to have it.
12. A chamber pot for night-time use.
13. Washing boards for washing clothes. I had my own, child sized one to use right beside Mama.
14. Ringer Washers.
15. Hanging out the wash every Monday.
16. Mama made her own liquid starch and dipped Daddy's shirt collars in it before she ironed them.
17. Sprinklers. Not the garden hose kind, the kind that is a bottle with holes in its lid. You sprinkle your line-dried clothes and rolled/wadded them up into a ball and put them in the basket before you ironed them. You had to iron them soon, or they'd mildew and go sour.
18. Roller skates with keys. These skates attached to your shoes by a sort of vice thing that you tightened with the key. Shoes that had solid soles with a sort of "lip" (for lack of a better term) that extended around the side for the skates to get a good hold on.
19. Saddle oxfords.
20. Poodle skirts.
21. Silk scarves, small ones, of all colors to tie around your neck or pony tail as a fashion accessory.
21. Shirt-waist dresses with crinoline petticoats that made the skirts "stick out". How many you wore indicated your social status among your peers. (I loved those shirt-waist dresses!)
22. Silk stockings (one for each leg) that were held up by a garter belt that went around your waist next to your skin that had four, elasticized straps with hooks to hold up the stockings; two straps per leg--one in front, one in back.
23. Seams going up the back of my stockings.
24. Satchel bags for school books. These were fat bags you carried by a hand-handle or the fancy ones also had shoulder straps so you could carry it either way.
25. Hot school lunches that cost 25 cents for a meat, a green vegetable, a starch, a slice of bread (your choice--white or whole wheat), a pat of real butter, a carton of milk, and a dessert. All that hot and for 25 cents. I remember when the price went up to 30 and then 35 cents. My Dad made $8,000/year (considered a good salary), and had five kids. Those lunches were expensive.
26. Penny candy in the corner store. You could fill up a bag with candy for a nickel, especially if you got some of the 2 pieces for 1 cent kind.
27. What is now considered a large bar of chocolate candy for 5 cents.
28. Six ounce bottles of Coca Cola in a big, red chest cooler on the porch of the corner store. You were trusted to pay your nickel inside and go out and pull out your bottle of coke. This was a rare treat. We usually had "soft drinks" only at the Church Easter picnic and egg hunt once a year.
29. I remember when 12 oz. and then 16 oz. bottles of Coke came out. Thought they were so big, I couldn't drink it all.
30. "Ratting" my hair all over, no matter the length, spraying that with strong hair spray, then smoothing it down with a brush and molding it into shape. Using a "rat comb" to lift it up, and spraying again. My hair wouldn't move in a category 3 hurricane when I was a teenager.
31. Sleeping in hair rollers six nights out of the week. Brush rollers first, then came some pink, blue, and green plastic rollers that were much more uncomfortable, but helped your hair dry faster. The color designated the size.
32. Ironing long hair to make it smooth and straight.
33. Using small, frozen fruit juice cans to roll up long hair to make it smooth and straight.
34. White lipstick in high school. I wasn't allowed to wear make up or date until I was 16. I thought it was sooo unfair.
35. Wearing skirts or dresses with stockings to school every day.
36. Knowing what was weekday dress, casual dress, semi-casual, "Sunday best," semi-formal and formal dress.
37. White gloves for Sunday wear. (I had a pair of real kid [baby goat] skin gloves when I was in elementary school, and I thought I was the cat's meow.)
38. Hats with veils on them to come down either half way or all the way over your face. I was too young to wear them, but my Mama and every other woman wore them.
39. Foxes around your neck (there were two). The head was still on them and they had shiny glass eyes. The tail of a fox would be affixed in the mouth.
40. I remember a time before sales tax, and how it affected our buying habits.
41. A loaf of bread was 10 cents, and when it went up to 25 cents, Mama and Daddy about had fits.
42. The Donaldson Bakery man who drove down the road in his van, and you could wave him down and buy fresh bakery good. Another very rare treat for us.
43. The ice cream man and the jingling bell from his van coming down the street. We seldom had the nickel for a very large cone of soft ice cream piled high.
44. Playing "cowboys and Indians" with the neighborhood kids, and running all over the block in and out of each other's homes.
45. Getting my very own "cowgirl" outfit for a birthday. It was a skirt and vest with western tassels on it and a holster and cap gun. I always played Annie Oakley.
46. Men wore hats, doffed them when they met a lady on the street, took them off when they went into a house or church.

These are a few memories. Of course, there are jillions more, but I have to stop sometime and get my breakfast.

A Fresh can of Coffee

My husband loves freshly ground coffee, so we have a supply of green coffee beans that he roasts and then grinds when he wants coffee, usually on the weekend. The trouble is, he likes his coffee roasted until it is so dark that it seems burnt to me. I'm too bourgeois. Just give me a nice, common can of "Good to the Last Drop" Maxwell House and I'm happy, so I keep a can of my favorite in the refrigerator just for myself. This morning after my husband had left for work and it was time for me to make my breakfast, I opened a fresh can of coffee and closed my eyes and let myself be wafted away by that glorious fragrance. Just where was I wafted, you might ask? Well, I was taken back to a nicer time; a time when the world was right, the morning sun shone brightly through the crisp, white, ruffled kitchen curtains, and I was safe and loved. It was the mid-1950's and that fragrance brought to life my 50 years younger mother on a sunny Saturday morning, bustling around the kitchen creating breakfast for her brood of five. That coffee fragrance means love to me, and warmth, and total acceptance, and a place in the cosmos that is just mine. Those happy, childhood mornings were full of Mama's voice (which always sounded to me like there was a song hiding just behind the words giving a lilting melody to them) calling us kids, Daddy singing or whistling in the bathroom while he shaved, which we kids loved to watch. We would all gather around the crowded kitchen table on those wonderful Saturday mornings, each of us in our own spot, Daddy would say "grace," and Mama would keep our plates filled with eggs and bacon and toast made under the oven broiler because we didn't have a toaster and didn't know we needed one. Daddy would take my younger brother, who was just a baby, and bounce him on his knee and call him "Gem," which I misunderstood as "Jim" and wondered why he called him that when that was not his name. It was only many years later that I realized that Daddy thought of his children, his babies, as gems. Sometimes Daddy would tell us a story, but usually Daddy and Mama would talk about what they were going to do that day. Most of the time we kids got to watch Saturday morning TV, and then outside to play. Sometimes Daddy needed us all outside to help clean up the yard. He was meticulous and relentless. He would mow, and we all had to do something to help, most of us were set to walk over every square inch of that yard and pick up every stone and twig no matter how small. We all complained and cried, but when we were finished, we could run anywhere in that velvety soft yard barefoot and never bruise our feet on sticks or stones. We didn't know that Daddy was loving us and caring for us when he had us "work like slaves." I discovered that I loved to take the shears and cut and pull the weeds out of the fences. I loved to see the fence come out of the raggedy weeds and look neat and trim again. I loved raking the cut weeds, too, to get them out of the way and make the yard look so neat. We kids, though, moaned and groaned, and gave our poor parents all kinds of grief for treating us like "slaves." I didn't dare say how much I liked cleaning the weeds from the fences and from the rose bushes Daddy grew in the side yard. That just wouldn't do when the other four kids were so adamant about being treated so badly. I particularly liked cleaning out the weeds from the fence in the side yard. We had a huge wild cherry tree there, which I loved to climb, book in hand, as high as I dared and sit there for hours and read and feel the tree sway in the wind. High in that tree was where I spent most of my summer days. We also had a large lilac bush and a large rose bush that stood side by side, and when they bloomed, usually around Mother's Day, it was glorious. These two bushes stood just behind the grapevine arbor that made a hidden cave, that was cool and sweet in those hot summer days.

Instructions for life

Instructions for life:

1. Great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson

3. Follow the three R's
-respect for self
-respect for others
-responsibility for all your actions

4. Not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.

7. Take immediate steps to correct any mistake.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

12. In disagreements, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It is the way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

17. Remember, the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds
your need for each other.

18. Judge success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

And,

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Dawn

I took this picture this morning while I was standing on my front porch. My front porch is about 15 feet off the ground since my house is built into the side of a hill.

The Year of Spiders

This, it seems, is the Year of the Spiders. All Summer I've been greeted with these beautiful works of Nature as I stepped out my back door to go let out the chickens. This morning was particularly foggy and dewy so that the web showed up a bit in the picture. Look for the lacy web just to the right of the humming bird feeder. (Click on the picture to see a large version of it.) These huge, fat, brown, ugly spiders build these engineering marvels during the night; they are not there at dusk when I go to lock up my chickens, but they are there just after dawn when I go to let them out. This particular one, easily 3 or even 4 feet across, was up high enough that I could walk under it without disturbing it. Most of them are built right across my path, and I have to tear it down to go on. I don't know what kind of arachnids these things are, but some of them are big, fat, brown, and ugly; while some of them are black and orange or yellow striped and pretty. They are huge, whatever they are, and I'm glad they stay outside.

Wanted: A Mutual Admiration Society

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbdSnVOc9ew



The other day a lady on one of the several Orthodox fora I subscribe to made the comment that being Orthodox can be a very lonely thing. After thinking about this for a while, I was reminded of this song that was popular back in the mid 1950's when I was a little girl. I got to thinking about loneliness and friendship and all that stuff, and I wondered why a person feels lonely in a Church that preaches love, acceptance, and forgiveness? I mean, we're all in this together, aren't we? We're supposed to "bear one another's burdens" and encourage one another, aren't we? There doesn't seem to be much of that going around in any group of people, not just Orthodox. Oh, there are always the small groups of people who are "BFF" and who have known each other forever who form such tight cliques that no one else is really welcome into the "inner circle." People are, "of course," welcome, but they are usually and completely unintentionally relegated to the periphery and never truly accepted fully. This is natural, but it's sad.

Everyone, in my opinion (which is worth what you pay for it), is born with an innate hunger for acceptance. It's more than just "acceptance," it's a need to know that you are recognized as "special" and valued even in just a small way. There's an innate hunger for a true "Mutual Admiration Society." People vie with one another to give the prettiest, most thoughtful, most elegantly wrapped presents at birthdays, anniversaries, Namedays, Christmas, whatever; but all this competition is not exclusively aimed at pleasing the recipient, although that figures largely in it. There is a kernel of the thought that just maybe the giver will be recognized as "special." When friends, even very good and long-time friends, look at each other, there is always that tiny searching for a spark in the other's eyes that says that the friend recognizes you, the person, the special and unique person who has intrinsic value. Friends like this are rare and hard to find and beyond value. I wonder if that's because we are all searching for that spark in another's eyes and not trying to ignite that spark in our own eyes for our friends. What is it that we are afraid of? Is it that we fear that the other will not reflect our attempts at friendship? Do we fear an ultimate rejection? Whatever it is, it is pervasive and apparently incurable.

What do we think will happen if we do not see that spark of recognition and acceptance? What do we think will happen if we are ultimately rejected? Would anything change? Does our perception of our intrinsic worth depend on another person's recognition of it?

Today is my Name Day

Saint Susanna and Saint Gabinus
(martyred 293 AD)

Beneath the present floor of the church [The Church of Santa Susanna, Rome, Italy] are the ruins of a Roman house that was constructed about the year 280 AD. These were relatives of the General Gaius Aurelius Diocletian, who would become Emperor in 284 AD. Like the Emperor, they were from Dalmatia or what is now modern Croatia. The family included four brothers. Caius and Gabinus and Gabinus’s daughter, Susanna who lived here and two other brothers, Maximus and Claudius, who lived elsewhere in the city, and were a part of the Roman government. The family’s religious beliefs were divided. Caius, Gabinus and Susanna were Christians, while Maximus and Claudius remained followers of the old religion of Rome. Caius and Gabinus were not only Christians, they were priests. In December 283, Caius was elected Bishop of Rome. He would serve as Pope until his death in April, 296 AD. If the clergy of Rome elected Caius because of his relationship with his powerful cousin, Diocletian, they would be greatly disappointed. In 303 AD the Emperor Diocletian would launch the last great persecution against the Christian faith. From 280 AD when the house was completed until 293 AD this family residence served as a “domus ecclesia,” or house church. As the Christian Church was not legally recognized by the Roman state, homes and other large private buildings belonging to community members, served as the first churches.

After becoming Emperor in 284 AD, and in order to insure peace and stability, Diocletian adopted a form of government called tetrarchy, or divided rule. Diocletian ruled primarily in the east, and a joint Emperor, Maximian, another general who Diocletian had promoted, ruled in the west. In turn, each Emperor or “Augustus” was to appoint a junior ruler or “Caesar,” who had the right to succeed him. Maximian named Constantius (the father of Constantine), and Diocletian named Maxentius Galerius. In the year 293 AD in order to guarantee Maxentius’s succession, Diocletian prepared to marry this young general into his immediate family. Diocletian’s daughter, Valeria was married. The only unmarried young female in the family was Susanna, his cousin. So in the Spring of 293 AD, Diocletian announced the engagement of Maxentius Galerius to Susanna. This would lead to a family crisis and to martyrdom.

The story of what occured between members of the family comes from a 6th century account. Susanna refused the marriage proposal. Her father Gabinus and her uncle Caius supported this decision and encouraged her to keep her commitment to Christ. Her non-Christian uncles, Claudius and Maximus tried to persuade Susanna to marry Maxentius, after all this would make her Empress one day. In a conversation between the four brothers, Claudius and Maximus were converted to Christianity. The General Maxentius then came to the house, believing he could persuade Susanna to marry him. Susanna’s refusal soon led to the suspicion that she and other members of her family might be Christians. The Roman Consul Macedonius then called Susanna to Roman Forum and asked her to prove her loyalty to the state by performing an act of worship before the God Jupiter. She refused, confirming the fact that both she and other members of her family might well be Christian, There was no attempt to arrest her however, as she was a member of the Emperor’s family.

Susanna refused the marriage proposal, not only because she was a Christian but in addition, she had taken a vow of virginity. When Diocletian on the eastern frontier learned of his cousin’s refusal and the reasons why, he was deeply angered, and ordered her execution. A cohort of soldiers arrived at the house and beheaded her. Her father Gabinus was arrested and starved to death in prison. Maximus and Claudius, together with Claudius’s wife Prepedigna and their children, Alexander and Cuzia are all martyred. Ironically the only survivor was Pope Caius, who had escaped and hid in the catacombs. These murders within Diocletian’s own family would foreshadow the last great persecution against the Christian church which the Emperor began in 303 AD. Diocletian’s daughter Valeria was divorced, and in June 293 AD married Maxentius who would succeed Diocletian in 305 AD.

In the year 330 AD, a basilica was built over the site of the house of Susanna. It was first named San Caius in honor of the pope who had lived here. The bodies of Susanna and Gabinus were brought back from the catacombs and buried in the church. In the year 590 AD, Pope Saint Gregory the Great, in recognition of the cult of devotion that had grown up around the tomb of Santa Susanna, renamed the church in her honor. Saint Susanna’s feastday is August 11.

[Image credit: Theodora in the Mountains]

Trouble

Trouble Brings Friends

by Edgar A. Guest

It’s seldom trouble comes alone. I’ve noticed this: When things go wrong
An’ trouble comes a-visitin’, it always brings a friend along;
Sometimes it’s one you’ve known before, and then perhaps it’s someone new
Who stretches out a helping hand an’ stops to see what he can do.

If never trials came to us, if grief an’ sorrow passed us by,
If every day the sun came out an’ clouds were never in the sky,
We’d still have neighbors, I suppose, each one pursuin’ selfish ends,
But only neighbors they would be–we’d never know them as our friends.

Out of the troubles I have had have come my richest friendships here,
Kind hands have helped to bear my care, kind words have fallen on my ear;
An’ so I say when trouble comes I know before the storm shall end
That I shall find my bit of care has also brought to me a friend.

**************************************************************

Hard Luck

by Edgar A. Guest

Ain’t no use as I can see
In sittin’ underneath a tree
An’ growlin’ that your luck is bad,
An’ that your life is extry sad;
Your life ain’t sadder than your neighbor’s
Nor any harder are your labors;
It rains on him the same as you,
An’ he has work he hates to do;
An’ he gits tired an’ he gits cross,
An’ he has trouble with the boss;
You take his whole life, through an’ through,
Why, he’s no better off than you.

If whinin’ brushed the clouds away
I wouldn’t have a word to say;
If it made good friends out o’ foes
I’d whine a bit, too, I suppose;
But when I look around an’ see
A lot o’ men resemblin’ me,
An’ see ‘em sad, an’ see ‘em gay
With work t’ do most every day,
Some full o’ fun, some bent with care,
Some havin’ troubles hard to bear,
I reckon, as I count my woes,
They’re ’bout what everybody knows.

The day I find a man who’ll say
He’s never known a rainy day,
Who’ll raise his right hand up an’ swear
In forty years he’s had no care,
Has never had a single blow,
An’ never known one touch o’ woe,
Has never seen a loved one die,
Has never wept or heaved a sigh,
Has never had a plan go wrong,
But allus laughed his way along;
Then I’ll sit down an’ start to whine
That all the hard luck here is mine.

What I'm currently reading.

The Hunters of Kentucky: A Narrative History of America's First Far West, 1750-1792 by Ted Franklin Belue

My review

This is my second "read" of this book. I usually don't read non-fiction because I read for enjoyment and escapism--that requires the skillful telling of a good story, which is something not usually found in non-fiction books. I like history, and this book is pure history. It's well researched and documented, which impresses me because I'm so bad at researching and documenting stuff. Anyway, this book is chock full of well-told stories that are even more fascinating and exciting to me because they are *real*. It's full of obscure facts that boggle my mind. For instance, most everyone "knows "that Kentucky was not inhabited because of it was so full of game that the surrounding tribes, Cherokee and Shawnee, "shared" it as a common hunting ground. WRONG! It was inhabited "first" by the "Fort Ancient People." I'd love to know more about these mound builders. After these people left or died out, it was inhabited by Mosopeleas, Honniasontkeronons (who were these people?), and Algonqins who were called "Shanwans" by the Iroquois, "Chaouanons" by the French, and "Shawanoes or Shawnees" by the English. This uncovering of such little-known facts make this a fascinating book to read. And the book has maps! I love maps.


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Some fruiting plants in our yard right now.

Today I'm including a few pictures from the fruits and flowers in our yard right now. (Click on the pictures for a larger, more detailed view.) This year is so different from last year when the late frost and drought killed off everything that blossomed or fruited. The picture of the Zinnia is "just for pretty." Our pear trees are heavily laden with fruit, bending down the branches. Our figs are just beginning to ripen, and we're going to have so many that we won't be able to eat them all. The purple Amaranth (there is a green variety) is a "first time" experiment my husband is trying this year, so we have just a few plants to see if they thrive or not. (In the background of the picture of the Amaranth there is the gate leading to my poultry yard. You can see how stepping into my poultry yard is like stepping into a different and hidden world.) Amaranth is a grain, and is high in protein. My husband says of this plant, " Although allegedly indigenous to the New World, it is quite common in Europe and Asia. Amaranth comes from the Greek amaranthos (αμάρανθος) the "un-withering," or “fadeless” (flower). Another Greek favorite of this fruit is more colloquially known as “vlita” in Greece [Gr. βλήτα pronounced ‘VLEE-tah’]. " If we can get them to thrive, perhaps we will have an alternative source of grain if we need it. Perhaps. Finally, one of many "hands" of Pawpaws on our three Pawpaw trees. I love this fruit. I think it tastes like a cross between Pineapple Guava and Grapes, but others might not agree. It is soft and "custardy" inside and just lovely to eat. My husband says of this fruit, "This is now a rare North American fruit since it is an understory plant. When the Eastern forests' original, indigenous, old growth was cut down, the saplings of the Pawpaw could not tolerate the direct ultraviolet light from the sun and died. During the nineteenth century, the Dept. of Agriculture made very good efforts to improve the taste and varieties of this fruit. Unfortunately, they do not transport well and must be consumed within several days of becoming ripe. So, with the advent of mass transportation of fruits and vegetables in the 20th century, there was very little economic interest in the Pawpaw. It is historically interesting that during the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean there arose a circumstance in which the party was starving. They asked the Indians in the area for help, and they directed them to a grove of Pawpaws for sustenance. Thusly the success of this Expedition was directly linked to a North American fruit that is unknown to most people. The nutritional value, including protein, anti-bacterial, and anti-carcinogenic qualities are significant and are still being explored. Its scientific name is Asimina triloba, and is in the "custard apple" family. All of its relatives appear to be native to the tropics, which is evident by the fruit's appearance."


Something to think about:

If you are praised, be silent. If you are scolded, be silent.
If you incur losses, be silent. If you receive profit, be silent.
If you are satiated, be silent. If you are hungry, also be silent.
And do not be afraid that there will be no fruit when all dies
down; there will be! Not everything will die down. Energy will
appear; and what energy!

--St. Feofil, the Fool for Christ

My Forest Chair

Occasionally when I get so frazzled I want to scream, I go up onto the hill behind the house where I have placed a chair inside my poultry yard. It's quiet and seemingly isolated. During the summer, I can't see the house less than 50 yards behind me, and no one can see me, unless they know where and how to look. I look over the top of the hill, through the trees, and up into the sky. There is absolutely nothing to remind me that I live in an industrial world full of hurrying and scurrying to meet artificial deadlines. My chickens sometimes come and look at me as if to say, "Why are you up here? This is our yard." I love my chickens, even though they prohibit my husband and me from taking overnight trips together. Someone has to stay home to let them out at dawn and lock them up at dusk. This is necessary because these woods are full of Opossums and raccoons that would dearly love a nice, chicken dinner. Once, last spring, we were visiting some friends and stayed until a couple of hours after dark. I thought my chickens would be safe because their roost in their henhouse is over 6' high and I was sure that any predators would be so used to them being locked up that they wouldn't pay any attention to them. Wrong. When we got home, I immediately went up to my chickens to lock them in. I was met just inside the gate by a couple of the hens cowering under the bushes. Chickens cannot see well at night, so they are virtually helpless if they are left outside. Several other chickens were scattered across the poultry yard hiding behind trees and bushes. My husband and I, using spotlights, went lumbering through the bushes in the pitch dark looking for them and capturing them to put back in their henhouse. I was sure that I was going to find several corpses, but I didn't. I was lucky that night. Very lucky. I have no idea why whatever predator was up there that evening didn't kill at least one of my chickens, but they were all safe.

But I digress, and my husband has come in and has started reading to me about pawpaws, so I'm going to have to save this and come back to it when I can concentrate. Be sure to come back in a couple of days to see what I've added. NUTS!

A visit with my daughters

This past weekend, I and my eldest daughter and her 3 year old son drove down to Mobile to visit with my other daughter and her 3 year old daughter. This was the first time all of "us girls" had been together since my son's wedding. (Who, by the way, has grown into a wonderful young man.) So much has happened to all of us during those years. We went to the Botanical Garden early one morning and it was beautiful. Then, when we were all tired and the kids were ready for a change, we got them milkshakes and took them to the kiddie park. I was hot and tired, so I sat at a table in a pavilion to keep out of the sun while my daughters supervised their children.

I watched my children push their children on the swings and remembered when it was I pushing them both on other swings. Then, not for the first time this weekend, I realize how superfluous I am. I married, bore children, raised them, and sent them off as young adults to navigate as best they can the rough waters of this river of life; and I hoped I had given them all the tools they needed.

I am so proud of these young women whom I hardly know. It feels so odd to be the one on the sidelines basically taking up space. I'm used to being the one in charge and responsible for all the mundane details that are so necessary. Now I watch my daughters performing the tasks I had always considered my own particular responsibility. And I feel superfluous. Nature is finished with me, and I am a hanger-on whose purpose and usefulness is over. This is such a strange stage of life; but I am tired--emotionally and physically tired--and I am ready, even grateful, for this superfluity.