The Fort that Defends Home Depot - A Special Civil War Friday

Today we, and many other people interested in the Civil War, gathered in Manassas, Virginia for the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of First Bull Run, or First Manassas (depending if you are from the North or the South).  (the actual anniversary was yesterday, but the commemoration continues through the weekend.) I will talk more about about this on my normal Civil War Sunday post this Sunday, but today I wanted to talk about a very serious subject:  the preservation of Civil War battlefields.

We are lucky to have a Manassas National Battlefield Park, because a lot of Civil War battlefields have been swallowed up by progress.

Time Magazine recently did an article on the Civil War.  A very important thing that they did (whether or not you agree with their analysis of "if we are still fighting the Civil War") was highlight, with the use of reinactors, various Civil War battle sites which have been swallowed up by urban neighborhoods and shopping centers.

It happens everywhere.  Last year it almost happened in Virginia, and only in January were the plans to build a Wilderness Wal-Mart on 51 acres near the site (but, beyond the boundaries of the Battlefield) of the Battle of the Wilderness.

The Civil War Trust, a preservation group, estimates that 20% of the "hallowed ground" of the Civil War has already been lost.

And with that, I wanted to mention something I experienced today on the Manassas City Tour.

One of the sites I visited today was Mayfield Fort.

The Fort (or the 11 acres that still exist in an undeveloped situation) was built (along with various other fortifications) to defend the railroad junction at Manassas.  The junction's strategic importance to both sides(and its necessity of not falling into Federal hands) triggered the Battle of First Bull Run.  A Stars and Bars  flies over the Fort. (it doesn't look that different from the Union flag of the era if the wind isn't blowing full, which was the case when I took this picture at noon today.)

In the blazing heat, it was hard to walk around, and we stayed in the shade while the reinactors on the left side did an artillery demonstration.  (What you are also seeing are historical plaques, explaining the history of the fort) In fact, while we were there, a person was taken away by ambulance due to being overcome by heat.) What you don't see is what the fort is now defending.  This is on top of a hill, and if you kept walking through the photograph to the edge, you would see beneath it ...housing developments.  And a Home Depot.

This is the other photo I took before we gave up braving the heat, and left the site.  This is a "Quaker gun" i.e. it looks like a cannon and would have been painted black. Various Quaker guns were displayed at the Fort to fool the Federals.  (They were called Quaker guns because Quakers are pacifists, and these guns could never be used to fight a war.)

If you look to the extreme right side of the photo, about 2/3 of the way up, you see one of the apartment houses built around the Fort.

I want to make it clear that I am not against progress and not against development.  What I am against is the trivialization of our history.  Without our history, we lose our identity as a nation.

And I am very glad the remains of the Fort was preserved.

And I am even happier that the Home Depot will never have to fear an attack from the Union Army.

Korean Food - A Special Civil War Thursday

We are in Centreville, VA, about 4 1/2 miles from the Bull Run battlefield.

So close and yet so far.

The temperature when we got here was 99.  It soon rose to 100 with a heat index of 110.  After over 6 hours of driving, we got to our motel and decided to go to the Manassas Battlefield National Park. There were a lot of activities there. 

Unfortunately a lot of people had the same idea.  It would have been totally impossible to make the needed left turn (with no traffice light) we needed to make in order to get to the special parking lot, with a shuttle bus that would have taken us to the visitors center. So we drove past the park, getting a quick view of  Henry Hill and a series of historical plaques.  So, there went our original plan.  Time for Plan B.  And plan B turned out to be something we never would have dreamed of.

Asian food.

If history is my first love, eating is my second.  So leave it to me to turn a visit to a Civil War battlefield into an international food opportunity. (more on that later).

With hopefully a good nights sleep refreshing us, we are going to try again tomorrow.  Tomorrow, the temperature is supposed to go up to 103.  So we will have the authentic Civil War experience - roasting in the heat.  At least, we are not wearing heavy wool uniforms.  Fortunately, some of the sites are open at 8am.  At 10am the reinactors (for the battle reenactments of Saturday and Sunday) will parade, and I can only hope the temperature isn't near 100 degrees by parade time.  Then we can figure something out that involves air conditioning.

The Civil War soldiers would not recognize present day Centreville, VA.

The area where we are staying is heavily Korean.  You pass by shopping centers with businesses which have names...well some of them are lost in the translation to English.  Way lost.  Like the store called "Spider Mart".  I thought it was a heat related hallucination on my part but my spouse saw it also.  Frankly, I would rather not know what it was selling.

Fried by the heat, we decided to check out an international food store near our motel called Grand mart.

Imagine, if you will, a large supermarket.  You walk in the door and the first thing you see is Korean melons on sale.  They are elongated, yellow with white stripes.  They actually looked familiar.  I think we tried to grow them many years ago.  Then we saw the jackfruit. And then....and then.....

And then there were the other fruits and veggies.  Winter melon, snake squash, bitter melon, Korean cucumbers.  Local peaches.  Various yams - red, purple, yellow. Sesame leaves, bitter leaves, something that looked like perilla. Banana flowers. 

Then we moved on to the fish.  All types of fish:  red snapper, sea bass, eel, live blue crab, live tiliapia swimming in a tank.  Meat consisted of pork and goat.

There was a tasting table set up with various samples of condiments.  I recognized seaweed but not much of anything else.

All the signs were bi-lingual, but none of the announcements in the store were in English.   Most of the clientele would have been people totally unfamiliar to the Civil War combatants.

Once we got past the Asian and Indian section, there was a large Hispanic food section.  We picked up a couple of bagged beans there.  We also picked up some of the yams.  And then we went to Trader Joe's and picked up dinner.  Tomorrow, when our heads have (hopefully) stopped swimming, we might eat out in an Afghan restaurant in Fairfax that we read about.  Or, we might stick (no pun intended) to Cheogajip Chicken, a Korean fast food chicken chain that has an outpost in Centreville.

Whatever comes tomorrow, I suspect it will be an interesting post.  I might even have something about the Civil War to blog about.

Wildflower Wednesday - More Mysteries of the Wildflower World

This will be a "short" Wildflower Wednesday as tonight is going to be very busy for me.

I did not take pictures on Sunday-it was already hot when I got out on the Vestal Rail Trail around 10am and I wanted to beat the heat. So I have some photos that were taken earlier.

This first photo, is not a picture of a wildflower.  It is a picture of a plant that has set up residence in the shady part of my backyard.  The leaves resemble grapes but I know wild grapes don't grow in the shade.  The whitish thing in the middle is some kind of cluster starting to ripen.  It isn't a cluster like grapes but is tightly packed. Call this a mystery photo. Does anyone know what this is?

It doesn't seem to have changed much in the past couple of weeks.  I will continue to keep an eye on it.

In Arkansas we had a plant we ended up taking to the University of Arkansas, and they identified it as something called Canada Moonseed.  It grew at the edge of our field.  It's a good thing we didn't sample it because it was poisonous.  What gave it away was the single, large seed in the "grape".

The goldenrod are starting to bloom.  These yellow flowered plants, to me, are the start of fall.  Many people think it is goldenrod pollen aggrevating their allergies when it is really ragweed.  There are some beautiful fields of goldenrod here in the northeast United States.  They should bloom into early September so I'll have plenty of time to take a photo.

Last, but not least, is another mystery flower.  White, to me it resembles phlox but everything I read about fall phlox seems to indicate it is usually purple.  This picture was taken on the Vestal Rail Trail.

Next Wednesday I hope to have something "a little different" for you.

It's Crying Time at the Community Garden

The invasion of the critters continues, and it is not pretty.  And, the rains have (for the most part) dried up.

This is the time that tries the Otsiningo Park community gardener's soul.  July is the month of garden harvest, and garden heartbreak. And sometimes both.

The critters and insects have done their work well.  Beans delayed. Chinese greens brown and full of holes from flea beetles.  Our squashes are turning yellow.  We have harvested the grand total of one squash.  (so now you know where to send your spare zucchini.)  We can't figure out why the critters are out in full force this year.  At the house, not satisfied with petunias, they are now hitting our nasturtium.  Nasturtium!  But enough of my whining.

I've wanted, for a while, to post pictures of our community garden.  I had taken some back in June.  Now might be a good time, as we travel down Memory Lane before the invasions started.

This first photo was our hurried attempt to salvage our pole beans.  The white stuff is a row cover fabric, which has proved to be our best friend in some of the critter wars. But you can't get pollination with the row covers.  Only now are the pole beans starting to climb the poles.  We also have (bush) filet beans, which got chewed pretty good, and we've gotten a handful of those beans.  They are wonderful - and expensive to buy.  So I hope the rabbits enjoyed their gourmet treat.

This next photo isn't of our garden.  Our garden suffers from the fact that my husband (who does 99.9% of the work) just can't get there every day (the garden is about a 10 minute drive from our house.)  No, this is the lovely garden of a man of Asian descent, who is there almost every day, and his garden is a work of art.

The last two years he's given us some starts of lettuce.  We are seriously thinking of going totally over to plant starts of most vegetables, although we would have to buy most of them.  We just don't have the energy for this war.

I don't know whose garden the last two pictures are of.  I suspect it may be a BOCES garden.  Whoever is responsible for it has done one heck of a job.  The green things on posts, incidentally, are Topsy-Turveys.

And finally, another view.

Tomorrow, Wildflower Wednesday.

When Falcons Cry

Some strange things are going on with the behavior of the peregrine falcons who live in downtown Binghamton.  Since I am not a wildlife expert, or a bird expert, I am at a loss to know why-all I can do is describe from the viewpoint of someone who has worked downtown as long as these birds have lived on top of the Security Mutual Building.

I wonder if they are unhappy.  OK, I know there are people who say birds can't feel emotions.  I love being around birds, and I disagree.

I hear them crying.  A lot.  It is a haunting cry and echoes through the city streets nearly every morning.  This year they are much more vocal than they have ever been.  And this has been going on for over a month.  It is not normal behavior compared to previous years.  I may be "humanizing" their behavior but I imagine them upset about something.

The other thing I've noticed is that their choice of dining has changed.

It's hard to ignore the, uh, remains of dinner when you walk past the Security Mutual building.  Falcons, in my view, are picky eaters. They will only eat certain parts of the prey bird, and then leave the rest of their meal for some poor human to clean up for them.  (I'm glad I'm not that person.)

For years, the prey has been pigeons.

Not any more.  Dinner is now consistently small birds, maybe even songbirds.

The pigeon population started to decline when the falcons moved into Binghamton in 2001 but we still have pigeons.  I see them nearly every day.

Which brings me full circle back to the crying birds.  Could it be that they aren't finding enough prey?  I would think they would move (after all they can fly)?  Did they lose their babies this year?  Are they sensing something about the weather, perhaps the coming winter?

Is there something going on?  Or am I fussing about nothing?

I wish I knew.

Civil War Sunday - So You Think It's Hot Out?

Welcome again to Civil War Sunday, on a hot sunny day.  We broke 90 today (which isn't unusual but doesn't happen that much) and we are supposed to be in the 90's all week.

So, what does that have to do with the Civil War?

(I don't play "Civil War trivia" for trivia sake, but rather to try to open a window to the way things were.  To understand why things are, you must understand how we got there.)

And so, I am grateful for the cool house I am writing this in.  I got back earlier (much earlier!) from my exercise walk, wearing a shirt made from a modern synthetic fiber.  Gee, I sure did work hard, for that hour. And then I went to a music festival in a Binghamton park, but I didn't like the band, I forgot to bring a lawn chair and the dry grass (our rain has dried up) itched my legs.  Poor me.

Right now we are having record temperatures in the Heartland.  Even Minneapolis has a heat index of 106 as I write this.  Tomorrow it is supposed to get up to 97 (air temperature) tomorrow.   Then there is Manassas, VA.  On Thursday they commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first Battle of Manassas (1st Bull Run), the first major battle of the Civil War.  Let's see:  the weather forecast for Manassas, VA:

Thursday:  high of 100.  (38 degrees Celsius.)

Friday it is 102. (39 Celsius)

Saturday it will be back down to 100.

Now, let's use our imaginations.

You're a soldier.  You don't know it yet, but you are about to fight in the first major battle of the Civil War.  Up to now it has been just skirmishes.  People still think there will be some small fighting here and there, and then both sides will make nice, make up and the Confederates will rejoin the Union.  But that doesn't help you.

You are dressed in a heavy wool uniform.

It is probably not blue or grey.  It is whatever your militia wore, or you put together.  Colors aren't standardized yet, nor are flags.

And now you have to fight a battle.  And not only that but you are the main entertainment for the day.

People are out there watching you, in the stifling heat similar to that of what Manassas will be experiencing on Thursday.  People living in Washington, DC have grabbed picnic hampers and bottles of brandy to enjoy the day.  Some brought umbrellas to shield themselves from the heat.  One person brought sandwiches for the troops from his state.

But there you are, fighting in the 100 degree heat.  And some 1000 of your comrades, both North and South will die, on that July 21 afternoon.

You will fight again and again and again.  And all of it in that heavy wool uniform.  In that heat.  And in that cold.  And everything inbetween.

(if you want a fuller description of this bizarre start to a bloody conflict that would end up claiming some 620,000. lives, read this Washington Post article.)

Cheese and a Taste of the Finger Lakes Wine Festival

I wanted to make a little addition to my post of yesterday, talking about what seemed to be a lack of NYS cheese at a festival that was promoting NY products (especially wine).

So if you are expecting a Civil War Sunday post:  there will be one, but it may not be until later today (depending on how much more heat I can stand.)

There was one local cheese producer at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival (including Yancey's Fancy, and I believe I also saw Helluva Good represented there) and I would be remiss if I didn't mention them. (Again, the disclaimer that I do not get paid for promoting any products on this blog.


This cheese producer is Side Hill Acres Dairy Goat Farm and Cheese, and I highly recommend their products.  I've had many of them, including their flavored goat cheese logs.  I'm not a big drinker of goats milk, but they sell that on the farm.  At one time they used to have goats milk ice cream (which, needless to say, you had to eat there.)  I've taken their tour, and go up there every October for an annual event they hold on the Saturday of the Columbus Day weekend.

At the Festival, they were sampling goats milk cheddar (dry, but tasty) and various of their goat cheese logs.

But, that was the only "smallish" cheese producer I saw there.  If there were others and I missed you, I apologize.  There were three large tents with vendors and with thousands and thousands of people jammed in there (I am not exaggerating) on a nearly 90 degree, bright sunshiny day, I couldn't visit everyone and keep my sanity.

Some people would suggest I lost my sanity a long time ago, but we won't go there.

I will write more on this festival perhaps next Saturday, (on the food aspects) because...well, there was a lot more to the festival than just sampling wine. (and I promise, I will get around to the wine part after the Ultimate Blog Challenge is over.)

A Finger Lakes Taste of Wine-But Not Cheese?

I spent today at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen, NY.

After the Ultimate Blog Challenge is over I will speak more of the wine aspect of this festival. 

For now: Since I like to talk about farmers markets and local foods on Saturdays (although it is not an official Saturday feature of this blog) I wanted to spend a little time today on something about this festival that disappointed me.

When you think of local New York food, there are several  foods you should think about.  There is sweet corn, and our grapes and our apples, our onions (we are a top grower of cooking onions and we, personally, grow fantastic cooking onions in our community garden) and our wine industry - but our state also has a thriving dairy industry.  Our state is blessed with a number of local cheese makers, and some national brands.

So, you would think, there would be a lot of local cheese being featured along with the wine. After all, is not cheese a natural to go with wine?

Well, there were flavored oils (many were very good), flavored balsamic vinegars (ditto) hot sauces, and someone featuring garlic in various forms.  But, not much in cheese, and I was disappointed.

Yancey's Fancy was one of the sponsors of the festival, and they had a number of their cheeses available for sampling, including one I haven't seen in any local market, a steakhouse onion.  And, the Yancey website offers some pairings of their cheeses and wine.

(Incidentally, I am not paid to mention any products).

But...why no other local cheeses?  There were some 130 wineries presenting their products (this is an all-you-can-taste event, by the way) along with many breweries. But why only a limited amount of cheese?

Especially as 40,000. people were expected to attend, and I think 39,000 were there by the time we left.  My head is still spinning (and not from the wine, either.)  That's a lot of people to expose your product to.

I'm puzzled.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day-July 15

Another month has come and gone.  It is again the Ides of the month, and May Dreams Garden is having its Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, where garden bloggers post photos of what is blooming in their yards on the 15th of the month.  And what a beautiful day today is, here in Binghamton NY - temperature 83, low humidity, lots of sun. Aaahhhhh! 

This month, I have some interesting plants.  Too bad I don't know what some of them are.  We have a talent for losing tags, or otherwise forgetting what we planted.  So we have anonymous herbs, hostas, daylillies and irises at our house.

This first pictures is of one of our "mystery" plants.

We've had a tiny rock garden in the sunny front of our house for about three years.  This year, one of the succulants started to bloom a couple of weeks ago.  I am pleased to report it is still in bloom.

Our daylillies are in bloom.  This is in our back yard.  These are very large, fragrant blossoms.

This is a Crocosmia, and this plant has an interesting history.

Late last spring (2010) a local store had a clearance on Crocosmia corms. We decided to try them.  We put them in a large pot, where they proceeded to send up foliage, but nothing else.  We overwintered them and then put them out this spring.  They didn't seem to do anything, and we allowed grass and mint to grow.

A couple of weeks ago - a flower stalk appeared out of the grass and mint.  And now, the surviving plant's flower is opening.

We are towards the end of hosta season. We have three varieties.  Two of them, including this one, have fragrant flowers.

And finally this herb.  I have forgotten what I planted, but I believe it is St. Johns Wort.  Too bad I didn't know it was an invasive species at the time, although (knock on wood) we've not had a problem with it.

See you again in August, when the long finger of fall starts casting its shadow.

Groundhogs and Rabbits -This Means War

We have been waging war against one or more groundhogs in our back yard, and possibly a rabbit. And they are winning.

Up to now, groundhogs have stuck to some old reliable favorites, eating any kind of brassica we try to grow (i.e. flowering cabbage/kale), parsley, cucumbers, peas.  We wage a constant war of we fence, they get in, we fence, they get in.

This year, we tried putting pots of parsley and flowering cabbage up a couple of feet.  It worked for a while.

Last night we came home to find my petunias, the "sky blue" petunias that I bought from Burpees that turned out to be lilac, defoliated.  And the plants up high, they were all defoliated too.  I'm wondering now if we are fighting rabbits and groundhogs.

Something chewed through our fence.  As in "chewed".  It's a plastic fence. So much for that.

They are after our Jacobs Ladder, our brunneria.  They were eaten too.  We've put Remay cloth over them, hoping it will discourage whatever it is.

So, what's left?  Well, so far, the same petunias that I planted in the front yard haven't been (knock on wood) touched.  I also have some in a hanging basket, so I will still have some.

So our survivors include:  day lillies.

Astilbe (with a stray day lilly tht ended up in the shade.

And, in our front yard, the white marigold that was pounded into submission during our hailstorm earlier this year, is finally blooming.  It looks like a dwarf plant but somehow I don't think it is.

I have other pictures to share of survivors, which I hopefully will post next week.  I'll also be taking some pictures tomorrow for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - if anything is left when I come home from work.

It's really getting discouraging.  As we age, there is less energy to go around (and seemingly less time, too.)  The one good thing is - it gives me something to write about.  Sigh....

Wildflower Wednesday- The Poisonous, the Edible and the Blue

Some of today's pictures were taken at home and others on the Vestal Rail Trail.

Before I dig in, the usual warning:  be careful if you decide to pick/eat any wild plant.   Use a guide, or better yet, be taught by an expert who knows what he/she is doing.  The life you save could be your own.

The first plant could be (in a way) considered a wildflower - since right now it is in flower.  But pokeweed  is known more for its leaves, edible in the early spring.  The mature leaves, and the berries these flowers will develop, are quite poisonous.

Many people associate pokeweed with the south, but I've seen it in various places here in Upstate NY.  It just doesn't grow as big as it does in Arkansas, where I made its acquaintance.

This plant is growing in a place in my front yard where it gets a lot of shade. It's grown there for several years.  We end up pulling it up (there isn't enough to harvest for greens) each year and somehow it keeps coming up.

The leaves, by the way-I've eaten them and they are pretty good.  But they are a lot of trouble to prepare.  In Arkansas, some people would pick them and sell huge bags:  which would cook down to almost nothing.

There are also some medicinal uses given for this plant - I certainly would not try to do this myself.

This next flower is growing right outside my front door.  It has teeny tiny blue flowers with five petals and a yellowish center.  They remind me of forget me nots but I have something I've called forget me nots come up in early spring, with slightly larger flowers.  I spent a lot of time tonight trying to google his plant and I am just not sure.

Speaking of blue, I decided to revisit the chicory.  Our chicories (blue sailor) are so prolific this year.  They are blooming their little hearts out.  These are an import, and are quite an interesting plant.  I finally got a picture showing their beautiful blue.  They are both edible and medicinal, although I'm not sure how truly edible the wild variety is.  I've never tried to find out.

Last but not least is this huge wildflower plant, the Common Mullein.

This plant is medicinal, although (again) I have never used it for this purpose.

Next week:  upstate NY starts to drift towards fall, even as we celebrate summer.

Runners and Roses and a Mystery Tree

Oh darn.

I can't report on today's big news in Binghamton, NY because this is supposed to be a PG blog (during the Ultimate Blog Challenge, anyway).  So all I can tell you, before I launch into a gardening post, is that a co worker decided to go out for lunch today.  Driving down Main Street in Binghamton, she observed a sudden pile up of traffic in front of her, and a police car, lights on, right behind her.  The object of the police car's interest came running past a few seconds later.  Dodging cars, this man was apparently trying to beat the heat.

He was wearing sneakers.  And...uh...nothing else.

I wonder if we'll ever find out "the rest of the story".

So who says Binghamton, NY isn't...well, I was going to say "exciting" but that might be a poor choice of words under the circumstances.

So, back to our regularly scheduled blog.  (and if I get kicked out of the Challenge, oh well).

I realized today that I have not been posting garden-type blog posts too much recently, and I have a backlog of photos. Also, I realize that I had promised my regular readers pictures of the roses in bloom at our local Cutler Botanic Gardens back in June.

So, not as...oh dear, exciting...as the Binghamton Noontime Runner, are:  roses.  And not your everyday roses.  A lot of the varieties are the old fashioned roses, the ones that do not bloom through the summer, but their fragrance is so heavenly you don't care.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of those because I was too busy sniffing.  And I do have other rose photos taken around Binghamton, which I may share when winter sets in and there are no more flowers blooming outdoors.

This first pictures has the name tag at the bottom, if anyone has really good eyes.

This one is one of the old fashioned varieties, perhaps a cabbage rose.  If only we had blog-o-smell....

This next one is a  multiflora rose.

And a pretty red one.

And finally, this isn't a rose.  This is a blooming tree.  And, as happens enough times when you don't process things right after taking pictures - I forgot what it was.  Except that it is Japanese.  And the flowers were not scented.  Any guesses?  No prizes if you can name this tree, but I will thank you in the comments.

It Felt So Good

July Fest is over.  This morning, downtown Binghamton was back to normal.  Where crowds had gathered the past three days, gentle breezes blew through the almost empty streets.  The vendors were gone, the sidewalks cleaned, the music stage disassembled.  The only live music was birdsong and an occasional burst of rap music from a passing car.

I ended up going to July Fest all three days. Friday because I work down there anyway, Saturday to browse the booths I couldn't get to Saturday, and Sunday to listen to a musician by the name of Gap Mangione, performing with with his New Blues Band.

Funny how we can sometimes close ourselves off to new musical experiences.  Last year, the first year of the Binghamton Jazz Festival (held with July Fest), my spouse didn't want to go at all.  He loves hard rock music - groups like Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot, Staind.    Of course, the roots of rock are complex, and include jazz.

Would we have gone if Gap wasn't Chuck Mangione's older brother?  Probably not.  But I am very glad we went.  A lot of the music was what I would consider "easy listening" but the day was sunny, and it was so nice to sit downtown and people watch.  The musicians in the band (including Gap) were excellent and we enjoyed the hour and a half or so that they played.  

I wonder how many people half expected Chuck to suddenly appear onstage and play.  He didn't, of course, but Gap did several songs written by his brother.  The last song of the set was "Feels So Good".

It did, Gap.  It did.

Here's a picture of the band.  Gap is in the white shirt.

Oh, one other thing.  Gap sure had the biggest smile I've ever seen.

Civil War Sunday - You Are All Green Alike

For Ultimate Blog Challenge readers, welcome to my Civil War Sunday posts.  I am not a "Civil War Buff" but a layperson interested in history, and the Civil War is one of my interests.  (It has been for years; this isn't just a 150th anniversary of type of thing.)  I like to think of history as living, and ongoing.  In some ways we are still fighting the Civil War today, even to how we name the battles.  So on to our story...

Since the shelling of Ft. Sumter in April of 1861, some people, both North and South, continued to feel that the war would conclude rather quickly.  The Federals, in particular, were so confident that many militias were asked only to commit to the "rebellion" for only 90 days.  Some thought there would be little bloodshed.  For others, the coming battles were promises of entertainment.

Come July, the 90 day enlistments were almost up.

So far, this July of 1861, there had only been several skirmishes.  Both sides were basically green, untrained in fighting war.

That would soon change.

On July 11, 1861, the Battle of Rich Mountain would be fought in what is now West Virginia.

Ten days later, the first "true" battle of the Civil War would be fought, near Manassas Junction in Virginia.  On July 21, 1861, both sides would realize that this wasn't going to be a 90 day war.

Before the battle, Abraham Lincoln famously said "Your men are green, it is true, but so are those of the enemy; you are all green alike."

I will be writing more about First Bull Run later in July.  Call this post a "coming attraction".  But first, this note:

You will note that I call the battle First Bull Run, thereby revealing that I am a Northerner.  So a quick word of explanation to those new to learning about the Civil War so you don't get terminally confused.

A number of battles have two names.  (And, there are some cities or towns that "hosted" more than one battle:  in fact, less than a year later, there would be a second battle at Manassas. So you may also have the first battle of, the second battle of, etc.)  Northerners tended to name battles after bodies of water:  hence, Bull Run (which is a creek) and, 14 months later, Antietam (again, a creek.)  Southerners tended to name battles after the nearest town or landmark- hence, to a Southerner, the same battles would be called  Manassas and Sharpsburg.  I note that the National Park Service calls the respective battlefields Manassas and Antietam, probably because the first is located in the former Confederacy and the second is located in Maryland, which stayed with the Union.


That's all part of the excitement of studying this war.

The Power of Music to Heal Wounded Cities

Earlier today, I blogged about Binghamton's July Fest.  But, I had something special I wanted to say about the power of music to heal.

To think that several years ago, this festival almost died in a sea of apathy (along with downtown), and today Court Street was filled with people of all ages enjoying the sunshine, is enough to give someone chills.


Music is a powerful tool.  It can even help to heal wounded cities.


Binghamton has seen more than its share of hard times.  Losing Endicott-Johnson, and later losing IBM (I am talking here about the Triple Cities, not strictly Binghamton but its two smaller neighbors to the west, Johnson City and Endicott) and the well paying jobs that left with IBM, was a very big blow.  When we moved here in the mid 1980's this area was full of decaying factory buildings - sadly this has not been fully fixed.


But now, downtown Binghamton is on the way back up.  There are a number of reasons for that, including influx from New York City-which may or may not always be a good thing. (Why?  I will blog about that another time.  And, when I say something like that, please keep in mind I am a native of New York City.)


Two major Binghamton events, July Fest and the August Chris Thater Memorial, added music last year. (Again strictly speaking, the Chris Thater Memorial does not take place in downtown, but rather on Binghamton's West Side) and - the crowds came.  And they stayed, and enjoyed, dancing and interacting, into the wee hours of the night.  There's no way this would have happened without the draw of music.

I know my spouse would never have set foot in downtown Binghamton on a sunny Saturday afternoon without the lure of music.  I suspect he is far from the only one.


Tomorrow, the special appearance will be that of Gap Mangione. 


I hope to be there.

Cherry Quest, Gimme Cookie, and Magic Paint

Just another Saturday in Binghamton, NY.

This morning I was determined to buy some local sweet cherries.  The same U-Pick farm as last week was still offering them but with our schedule, we knew we wouldn't be able to get up there in time.  Instead, we headed to the Otsiningo Park Farmers Market.  There was a vendor there selling New York sweet cherries for $2.75 a pint.  We bought a pint and....they were soft, sweet and juicy.

The cherry quest has ended, and I am happy.  With other berries I have in the house, and the start of the local blueberry season (finally!), a pint should last 2 or 3 days.

We also picked up a dozen farm fresh brown/Arucana eggs.

We finally stopped by a booth called Gimme Cookie.  This booth features naturally baked cookies, using free range eggs.  The variety changes by the season.  But besides their obvious cookies, they make handmade English muffins, and that is what we wanted.  A co-worker had offered me one of their English muffins, a (whole wheat) basil pesto.  It was heavenly.  By the time we got there (10:30 am) the booth was out of all their muffins, except for two packages of whole wheat dried cherry/dried blueberry.  Fruit in English muffins (or bagels, for that matter) do not appeal to either spouse or me, so we passed.  And because we won't be able to make the market the next two Saturdays, we'll have to wait.  Noting the English muffins are $1.00 each, they had better be good - and they are.  They bear little resemblance to store bought.

After that, we took a 2 3/4 mile exercise walk, and the highlight was this little critter on the path:

 Then we headed to July Fest in downtown Binghamton.  This is a combination jazz festival and art show, with lots of craft booths.

This picture is of something called the Magic Paint Brush project, which originated here in the Triple Cities several years ago, and is now expanding.  Their mission is to serve the community of special needs individuals and their families through art.  This was their set up, and all were welcome.

Here is an overall view of the festival, showing some of the historic buildings downtown Binghamton is blessed with, and the sunny day we were blessed with, too.  Sunny days here are not the most common occurrence.

A view down a different street. (the grey building is not historic but rather our State Office Building, the tallest building in Binghamton.)

And finally, what would a jazz festival be without jazz.  The music was added for the first time last year, and was an instant success.  For the first time ever, July Fest is three days, and the music was responsible for the expansion.

There is more I want to say about this subject, and I will do that in a separate post.

Next year - who knows?  It will be a special anniversary for this festival, and I can't wait to see what is planned.

Fly Me to the Moon....

I interrupt the normal programming of this blog to bring you this special announcement.

The United States space program ended today.

Today has left a large hole in my heart.  And perhaps one in our country's heart.

I was a child of the Space Race.  In October of 1957, Sputnik 1 was launched.  Ever hear of it? Or the Soviet Union?  Well...

The Soviet Union was a "union" of Russia and a number of other nearby countries.  Their government was "communist", committed to the destruction of the capitalist system - and our country.  Or, so we were told.  Those were scary times.  When I was a toddler, being called a Communist could be enough to cause someone to lose their job.  There were special congressional hearings.  Blacklists.

The Soviets had "The Bomb".   We and they fought what was called the "Cold War".  If they won and took us over, all would be lost.  The Soviets were totally evil- that is what I was taught, as a schoolchild growing up in the 1950's and early 60's.

When the Soviets launched the first satellite in October of 1957, our country was thrown into a panic.  We needed to get our children educated in the sciences, and quickly, so we could get into space with our satellite before the Communists took space over.   This drive accelerated even more quickly when the Soviets put the first man into space in 1961.

We as a country committed ourselves to reach the moon in a speech given by President Kennedy in May of 1961. 

50 years ago, we decided to go to the moon.  We would beat the Soviets there.  We knew they were trying to get there, too.

Competition is the heart of the capitalist system.

I saw some of the various launches in school.  Others, on our black and white TV at home.  First, we blasted one man into sub-orbit.  Then, one man into orbit.  Then, into many orbits.

And then, the Soviets took a walk in space. So we had to also.

To make a long story short, we made it to the moon first.  Several more missions got to the moon and then in the 1970's we totally changed direction.  We decided to have a program with partially disposable space crafts.  We haven't been to the moon since that decision and, in fact, no one else has been, either.

In the middle of all this, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.  Probably a lot of the urgency disappeared with the Soviets.  We no longer had an enemy to compete with.

And then we realized it was way too expensive for the government to keep up the space program.  Private industry would have to take over, and that is part of the reason for what happened today.  The entire story is complicated, and this is a very shallow telling of the tale.

Today, several generations know of the space program mainly for Tang, and freeze dried ice cream.  But, in reality, it enriched our lives in so many ways we can't even imagine - everything from MRI technology to cell phones (have you ever seen the first Star Trek series?) to - well, there is an entire NASA Spinoff website that explains this.

Think about this.  We won the space race, right?  And now -we won't have a way to get into space on our own, for now.  We will have to depend on....

The Russians.

Now, that's irony.

We can ask  "so who cares?  Why is it important to keep exploring space?  (No, the answer isn't going to be to fight the space aliens traveling right now to our planet to conquer us....but who knows, maybe they are.)  No, the answer is not about being able to resist our future space overlords.  (Or...just think of this nightmarish thought - terrorists launch a satellite....)

It has a lot to do with the human spirit.  Humans are explorers.  The drive is built into us.  In every generation are born people without fear (or maybe, people without common sense).  The wider our horizons, the wider our thinking.  Our acceptance of new ideas, our flexibility, our ability to roll with change, depends on this. 

Will we lose our spirit?  If we do, our country is lost.

I fear this has already happened to our country, and we must fight it.

I rarely write serious blog posts, but this is one of them.

Be it by government, or be it by private industry, we can't give up space.

LATE BREAKING ADDITION:  After posting this, I read an awesome post on the subject.  I am linking to it, so you can read it too.

Pretty in Purple and a Bonus Critter

We are getting into the heart of summer now, here in upstate NY.  There is so much in bloom right now I could wear myself out trying to identify it all.  Since I'm on a mission to learn more about wildflowers (and share the results with my readers) I decided that one Wildflower Wednesday wouldn't be enough this week.

So today....still more wildflowers.

Today, I wanted to share some pretty (mostly) purple wildflowers now in bloom.  And a little surprise visitor to the Vestal Rail Trail, where I took some of these pictures.

When my spouse saw this first one, he exclaimed, "Look at the maple like leaves!"  I'm glad he did, because those leaves made this first wildflower very easy to identify.  The first two photos are different specimens of the same flower....

Rubus odoratus (Purple-flowering Raspberry, Flowering Raspberry, or Virginia raspberry) 

It's funny that (to me) the leaves look different in the two different plants but I think they are the same species.

These are not raspberries, despite their name (true raspberries are ripe for the picking right now.).  Reading up on these, I think the reason they are called purple flowering raspberries is that the fruit looks like raspberries.  I'm not sure they are edible, and I am not going to try them out.  I will have to visit this patch again in a month or so, though, and see what the berry looks like.


For the next two, I will have to appeal to my readers.  This first one, I thought, was Joe-Pye weed.  However, it appears to be too dark in color.  So could it be ironweed? I wasn't able to get close to this patch and I hope someone can make the ID.

Then, this next one is small and low growing.  My wildflower expert and I disagree.  I thought it looked like a phlox but my friend totally disagrees, and in doing further research I have to agree with her.  The flowers are not in clusters.  Because of my back and knee, I didn't get down to the ground to look at this one closely.  I will probably need to do that.  Unfortunately, there is no scale here.

This next one is Calystegia sepium, or Hedge Bindweed.  It is a type of wild morningglory.  Some of the wild morning glories do have light purpleish flowers but this one was white.

Last but not least, I had to share this little bunny photo with you.  I couldn't resist although rabbits are apparently eating up all of my bean plants.  That isn't very cute at all.  But this little one was munching on weeds along the Rail Trail, and I hope that is where he/she stays.

So....now what?  Do you want to see still more wildflowers?  Do you want to help me identify any?

Or, do you want to see pictures of the Binghamton Community Garden?  Or pictures of roses?

I'll let my readers decide!

Wildflower Wednesday-Edible Plants

 I am not an edible foods expert - I have a little knowledge from back years ago when I lived on acreage in Northwest Arkansas - and I wanted to share some edible wildflowres now in bloom with you.  Actually, a couple of these are not wildflowers at present, but rather the post-flowering flowering parts.  Now, that's a mouthful!

But first, a tiny tribute.  The first picture isn't of wildflowers, but rather are day lillies belonging to my neighbor who passed away on July 4th. But, I did want to talk about naturalized day lillies.

One variety, tiger lillies, have naturalized in this area and are in bloom now.  There is a patch right next to the flowers in the next photo below.  Did you know that most parts of this plant (not just the flowers) are edible?

I have eaten the flowers of the day lilies in our yard, which are only now coming into bloom.   Mine aren't orange but I suppose the taste doesn't differ that much.  My neighbor's lillies remind me of tiger lillies.   This is a nice article about tiger lillies, discussing (a little) how they can be used for food.

Next, chicory. These blue wildflowers, on almost bare stems, are everywhere this time of year in full sun areas of upstate NY, especially on roadsides.  I took this picture next to a place where my spouse and I like to breakfast.  (To the left, outside the range of my camera, were some tiger lillies.).   It came out a bit faded because it was taken at noontime on a very sunny day but these flowers are quite blue.

Sumac - I've posted pictures of sumac along our local rail trail, the Vestal Rail Trail, the last two weeks.  Now, the berries are reddening up.  As I mentioned in a previous post, red sumac berries are edible.  My spouse and I used to make sumac tea (very tart) and also used to mix it in with fruit juice when we made certain jellies.

 Cattails.  (the brown upright "things" in this photo.) 

Not only are cattails edible but have many other uses.  I have not personally eaten cattails.  The swampy part of our land ( a small pond) was almost impossible to get to through the gumbo muck that surrounded it although when I was younger I would have wished for another way to get hold of some.

And finally...a surprise on the Vestal Rail Trail - a daylily flower.  This is definitely a cultivated variety, so how it got there is a tiny mystery.

And now, a special treat for my readers.  We have so much in bloom right now, I hope to put up a second, "bonus" wildflower post later this week.  Stay tuned.  (this isn't an absolute promise, but I will try my best.)

Not the Blog Post I Would Have Wanted to Write

This is not going to be a happy post.  I was going to write today about why I blog (for the benefit of my new readers from the Ultimate Blog Challenge).  But sometimes plans change.

Today at work, I heard that the mother of a co-worker had passed away.  When I went to the local online obituary, I saw a name I knew well.  Not her, but a different obituary.

It was my next door neighbor of over 20 years.

She had passed away yesterday.

I immediately called my spouse.  He already knew, and, in fact, had just come from their house, where he visited with family for 40 minutes.  (I visited tonight, as out of town family started to arrive.)

Her husband....her widower....seemed to be taking it well.   He said to my husband "She died on the 4th of July.  She went out with a bang."

They had celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary less than a week ago.  In the last stages of dementia, she never knew it.

 I don't care what they say about old age.  It stinks.  It robs us of the essence of what we are.  Don't talk to me about the "golden years".  There is nothing golden about those years.  Those years took the mind and then the life of a wonderful woman, who was loved by everyone who knew her.  She was a deacon of her church (and one of her daughter in laws is a minister.)  She was an elementary school librarian.   She did a lot of charity work.  She raised 6 children and at least, tonight, her husband is surrounded by their very large family. (Her husband was an only child and wanted a large family very much.  He got it, thanks to her.)

She loved romance novels.  She had hundreds of them, and she kept trying to give some to me.  She was an avid reader. She loved to have her grandchildren over.

She spent so much of the last couple of years of her life a prisoner of her living room chair.  Her husband, once a telephone lineman, aged at her side.  He told me, tonight, that "I am happy".  We talked to their youngest son, and he talked about her death.  It was a good death.  About two weeks ago, her voice became very slurred. Then she stopped eating. Then she stopped drinking.  She drifted away, asleep almost all of the time.

She died surrounded by the ones she loved, at home.

Her husband has also has a lot of health problems.    I don't want to say it out loud, but I fear for him now.

They were so much younger and full of energy and love of life when I first met them.  So was my mother in law, and my spouse's aunt who is 99, and my good friend's mother, who is 92, and....

Like all of us, I must come to terms with my aging.  I turn 60 next year.  I may be looking at my eventual fate.  And perhaps that is what is affecting me now, as much as the passing of a woman great in her own way.

As Bette Davis said "Old age is no place for sissies."

Baseball, Apple Pie, and Exhaustion

Happy Independence Day to all of my United States readers.

I tend to do things a little backwards, so I saw my 4th of July fireworks yesterday, at a minor league baseball game.  But first, I managed to get myself totally exhausted doing a 4 mile exercise walk in the humidity (we had some on and off rain yesterday).  It wasn't the most humid it's been, and it was only in the 80's but it somehow got to me.  So I was pretty tired by the time I got to the stadium.

In case you have only been to a MLB (Major League Baseball) game, you have a real treat coming and owe it to yourself to visit your nearest minor league stadium.  Minor league baseball is NOT major league baseball. Thank heavens.

I grew up in the Bronx, New York City and my parents were not baseball fans, so how I managed to become interested in baseball (in the early 1960's, when girls "didn't do that") is beyond me. My first couple of games, with friends were Ladies Day games.  Am I ever dating myself!  And then I met my future spouse.

The only baseball either of us ever knew was large stadium baseball. As older teens, the only seats we could afford were what we called the "nosebleed seats" and if you didn't have binoculars you vaguely knew there was a game going on down there below.  So years later, when we started going to B-Mets (Binghamton Mets, double A baseball) games when our son was younger, we were pleasantly surprised.

The stadium only holds some 6000 people and almost every seat is a good seat. 

When my son was young, the players freely gave autographs.  My son would wiggle up to the fence with the other children, when warm ups were going on, with his baseball.  Keep in mind, some of these players end up going to the major leagues (such as, Jose Reyes).  I didn't notice any autographing going on last night, and that is disappointing.

Between innings, there is hokey but fun entertainment. Over the years this entertainment has included musical commodes (don't ask), beanbag tosses for free restaurant tickets, and races between costumed characters dressed as the products of that year's sponsor.  Last night, a young man dressed up in an Uncle Sam costume threw T-shirts into the audience.  Later on, another costumed character tossed wrapped hot dogs into the audience.

The B-Mets wore "flag" uniforms that will be auctioned off after tonight's game.

The fireworks were about 10 minutes long, and the crowd enjoyed them.  Tonight there will be fireworks at a local park but the traffic is horrible and the parking limited.  We did it once and after that decided we would go to the B-Mets games for our fireworks.

And what about that apple pie?  We never have any.  Instead, my spouse (the family cook) will cook clams, hamburgers, corn on the cob.  But it's still a good ending to a very sunny day and some yard work and blogging. Later, we'll watch some of the 4th of July celebration in Washington DC on PBS.  And then we go to sleep early, to wake up for tomorrow's work day.

Civil War Sunday - The City that Refused to Celebrate the 4th of July

July 4, Independence Day for the United States, is tomorrow.  Civil War Sunday is today.  The  obvious thing to do would be to work the significance of the 4th of July into Civil War Sunday. 

The obvious thing to do would be to blog about the Battle of Gettysburg, which ended 148 years ago today.   It was the day the South lost, although the war lasted for almost two more years.  But, the the purpose of this blog is to write (mainly) about lesser known events and people of the Civil War.  So, I'd like to write about a little nugget of information I picked up while listening recently to a rerun of Ken Burn's classic TV mini series on the United States Civil War.  (As I write, keep in mind that I am a native of New York State.)

Vicksburg, Mississippi has an online listing of community events.  Listed in here, along with the Farmers Market, Faith Fest and the Old Court House Flea Market, is the "Red, White and Blue" Fourth of July weekend, and the 4th of July fireworks.  Nothing special, here.  Nothing different than what thousands of other cities and towns in the United States offer in celebrating our nation's Independence Day.

Or is it?

Several generations of citizens of Vicksburg, Mississippi didn't know what a hometown 4th of July celebration was like-because they didn't have one. Stores remained open.  People went about their business.  And stories were told, dark stories, about the Siege of Vicksburg and its surrender to the Union Army on July 4, 1863.  It is said that General Pemberton, the commanding general of the Confederate States of America forces at Vicksburg,chose to surrender Vicksburg to the Federals on Independence Day as he thought they would get more favorable terms of surrender.


After that surrender, Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day until 1945.

We must try to understand why Vicksburg  felt that way.   Vicksburg is located on the Mississippi River, one of the most important waterways in our nation.  It was just as important, if not more so, in the 1860's.  It was vital for the Federals to take control of the Mississippi in order to win the war.

Vicksburg stood in the way.  So, basically, it was put under siege by Union forces commanded by General Grant and starved into submission.  As a young girl growing up in the Bronx, I remember drawings in a textbook showing how the residents ended up taking refuge in caves dug into hillsides, and what they used for food as the siege progressed.


For Vicksburg, July 4th didn't stand for our country's birthday but rather for what its fellow citizens did to it back in 1863.  I can only think that its citizens going overseas and fighting World War II side by side with the descendents of its former enemies of 80 years before, to fight a strong evil threatening to overtake the world, is what finally started to heal those wounds. 


As William Tecumseh Sherman said, "War is Hell".  The wounds of that war are still there, right underneath our collective skin, not fully healed.  They may not fully heal even in my lifetime.

U-Pick Raspberries or Sweet Cherries? Decisions, Decisions

We are fortunate in the upstate NY (Binghamton) area to have both some nice local farmers markets (although not as awesome as the ones in Ithaca, NY, an hour from us) and some U-Pick options.

Yesterday, we had called one large U-Pick operations, Apple Hills, and were delighted to find out that not only were the raspberries ready but - they also had U-Pick sweet cherries.

This is the first time, that I know of, that U-Pick sweet cherries are available in the Triple Cities.  You can get them here, but normally you have to drive to the Finger Lakes.  Sweet cherries (my guess, due to our climate) haven't been reliable enough to justify U-Pick production.  The Finger Lakes moderate the climate up around Ithaca, which is why they can grow various things we really can't do well here to their south.

So this morning we called, got the message that both sweet cherries and raspberries were available for picking until noon, and (after some delays for various reasons including needing to do our exercise walk early due to heat) off we went, getting there about 10:30.

The raspberries and sweet cherries were in different directions.  Our decision was sweet cherries.  I love them.

We got to the sweet cherries parking lot, and it was packed.  There was a tractor-driven shuttle waiting and loading.  Apparently it wasn't in walking distance.

We walked up to the stand and discovered the cherries were $2.99 a lb.  Now we had a snap decision to make.

There are those who will buy local food and support their local farmer at any cost.  I am not that person.  I want to support my local family farmer, BUT - it also has to be a reasonable buy.  Yesterday, at the Binghamton farmers market, freshly picked sweet cherries were being sold by a vendor for $3.25 a pint.  Spouse, who has worked in this industry, told me that pint was about 12 oz.  In other words, our time would be better spent picking the raspberries, which were being sold U-Pick for $2.99 a lb. (Just try pricing raspberries in the supermarket.  If you don't faint.)  Financially, raspberries were a much better choice.  We could both support a local family farm and, financially, come out ahead.

We picked a little over 3 lb before we felt we had run out of good berries in our row.  There were a lot of people out there, including a lot of families.  It was a good outing for a sunny Saturday.  And, they really tasted good.  Our rains are temporarily on hold, and there wasn't much mold visible. (a risk, with raspberries.)

(If you are wondering - these are thornless raspberries.  And, I pick with a sunhat on and herbal insect repellent).  I wish there were U-Pick blackberries, but I guess they haven't come up with thornless blackberries that will grow here in our zone 5 climate).

So what will we do next?  We'll eat some fresh, and a lot of it will be made into raspberry vinegar (I'll post a recipe if my readers request.) by my handy spouse.

Meanwhile, when we went to the supermarket - the sweet cherries were $4.99 a lb.  Sigh.

Welcome Ultimate Blog Challengers- Let's Celebrate with Some Cake!

Today starts the Ultimate Blog Challenge, and I welcome any new readers coming my way.  I look forward to visiting some new blogs, although it will have to wait for this weekend.

I live in upstate New York, about a 3 1/2 hour drive south of the Canadian border, about an hour south of Syracuse, NY, near the NY/Pennsylvania border.

This is a "miscellaneous" blog, by way of a short introduction.  On Wednesdays I blog about wildflowers, and on Sundays I blog about the American Civil War.  (Sunday, I'll talk about the Civil War and the 4th of July).  On any other day, I blog about anything that strikes my fancy.  Lately, I've done a lot of gardening-type blogging, with occasional postings of pictures.  I don't consider myself a true gardening blogger although I may evolve into one.  For instance today I am going to blog about....cake.  And not just any cake.

Today is Canada Day, the day Canadians celebrate the July 1, 1867 enactment of the Constitution Act.
I have visited Canada several times, and have always had a lovely time.

One thing I've never done, though, is to be in Canada on Canada Day.  I have been in Canada on the 4th of July, our Independence Day, because...well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  On that 4th of July visit, a bit homesick, I watched postponed Canada Day fireworks in Saint John, New Brunswick. It's really strange watching another country celebrate its birthday.  It's also a learning experience.  I found out some of the things that weren't held due to the weather, which I missed.

It's too bad I wasn't there on Canada Day itself, because I probably missed a slice of birthday cake.

Birthday cake? Yes.  In the United States we do many things on our Independence Day.  We have parades.  We listen to patriotic speeches.  We have picnics.  We have municipal celebrations.  We enjoy fireworks.  We drink beer.  We go to baseball games. But we don't have municipal birthday cake.  Not in any place I've lived in anyway, and I've lived in New York, Florida, Kansas, Arkansas and Iowa.

Canadians know that a birthday celebration should include cake. And that includes your country's birthday.

 I learned that 4th of July about Canada Day Cake.  A white cake with whipped cream frosting, topped with strawberries, is one way the Canadians celebrate their national birthday. The strawberries should be arranged in a maple leaf pattern on the cake.  This may be served at a large outdoor festival.  Coffee served might be Tim Horton's.


We Americans make flag cake for the 4th of July, but it isn't institutionalized in the same way.  It's more of a novelty, something to serve to family and friends.   Ours, also, is topped with something white.  The cake is normally decorated with blueberries for the field of stars and strawberries for the stripes.  However, I've never seen an actual Independence Day birthday cake served at a festival.


Are you a Canadian who would like to share your Canada cake recipe?  Let us eat cake!