The Little Kitchen of Horrors

This is a true story, without photos for a reason, as you will soon read.

Tuesday I was cleaning up dishes after breakfast when I saw a little blur to my right, where our stove is.  I know that means a mouse so I turned.  Right next to the stove was a mouse, staring at me.  We started at each other.  I know the mouse must have been startled and would run and hide under the stove.  But no. This mouse stared at me, not sure of what to do, ran across the floor, ran across the floor again back to the beginning and finally (running so close to me that I nearly screamed) ran into the one former bedroom (currently my library) on our ground floor. 

I am not ashamed to admit I ran out of that kitchen and left the dishes half done for about 5 minutes before I would even go back in there.

I left spouse a note, and he bought some mousetraps, put one out Tues night. (yup, when it comes to mice, I run for the husband.) Yesterday morning I saw where we had caught one and he disposed of it.

This morning, I went into the kitchen to heat up breakfast and there was a sprung trap by the stove, with a little dead mouse lying underneath the sprung trap.

So I went about my business when suddenly there was a loud clatter and a high pitched squeaking, like an "ee ee ee" but even higher pitched.  THERE WAS ANOTHER MOUSE AND THAT MOUSE WAS ATTEMPTING TO DRAG THE TRAP BEHIND THE STOVE.  But the space was too small.  It kept trying and trying.  I had to eat my breakfast hearing that pathetic "ee ee ee" and the occasional bumping of what I knew was the mouse trying to drag the trap.

And the squeaks were so loud. I never went back in to see the final, er, disposition of the matter.
I don't want to speculate if that mouse was trying to save the other mouse, or the relation of the other mouse to him/her.  Or if mice have those types of feelings.  It was creepy.

When my spouse came home from work, he saw the sprung trap and wondered why it was jammed up against the stove.

Now tonight, we have to try to get the other mouse.  How many more are there?


Stephen King would know what to do with this story. 

Do mice take revenge?

And can I ever, even indirectly, kill a mouse again after seeing that sight this morning? 

A Wildflower Wednesday Extra-Hibiscus and Morels

Late this afternoon, my spouse and I took our exercise walk through the West Side of Binghamton, NY.  Taking a different route than usual, we were treated to several front and side yard displays of huge hibiscus flowers.  Magenta ones, white ones.

They brought back memories, memories of a remarkable woman who left this earth eight years ago today. 

She loved hibiscus.  She would have been overjoyed to know I was enjoying hisbiscus on the anniversary of her death.

My friend grew up in a rural area outside of Tulsa, OK.  She was educated in a one room schoolhouse, taught by the schoolteacher-her mother.  Her brother and sister accompanied her to school.  She went to college, married a man who became a college professor, was a stay at home Mom, later went back to college and got her masters degree, taught elementary school briefly, and ended up in a full time job in Iowa that she still held when she died suddenly at age 77.  She had no plans to retire.

The day before she died she visited a farmers market, saw an orchid plant she liked and made plans with the vendor to come back on the next market day and buy it.

She also loved her morel mushrooms.

Every year, she would hunt morel mushrooms.  She never told anyone where. She had her own "secret spot".  She didn't find them every year. But one year, when my husband and I were visiting her at her home in Iowa, she found some.  She cooked them for us, rolling them in batter and frying them.  They were so good.

We've only had morels one other time.  That time, it was a military buddy of my spouse's, whose parents lived in rural Missouri.   They were cooked the same way.

Morels aren't wildflowers, but they are wild. Although, I found a website which explains how you can grow them.  (as always, read at your own risk. Especially with mushrooms.)

I'm glad I'm able to share these happy memories with you.  Happy Wildflower hunting!

Wildflower Wednesday- Here's Pye in Your Eye

This is a special Wildflower Wednesday.

I am featuring a "guest photographer" while I prepare a special Wildflower Wednesday tribute to a special woman who made a big difference in my life.

My guest photographer, whom I hope to feature more in the near future, is a woman who lives in the countryside on the border between NY and Pennsylvania.  She's lived in the countryside a lot of her life and loves the country life.  Her sister is a wildflower (well, plants in general) expert.  My guest reads my blog faithfully and I want to thank her for her support.

One of her favorite wildflowers is Joe Pye Weed.

It's in bloom so I would like to share some of her photos with you today.  Not all of these were taken this year but - that's part of the fun of wildflowers, isn't it.  (and maybe next time, I'll ask her to write the post, too.)

This is a closeup of Joe Pye weed.

Joe Pye at a church.  (and yes, there are cultivated varieties.)

A field full of Joe Pye.

A field of wildflowers, including Joe Pye.

And finally, I wanted to share one from her "archives". 

Next week will be another surprise for you. (I hope!)

The Mystery Grape Plant- I Need Your Help

Back in July, I blogged about a mystery grape like plant in my back yard. It was growing in a shady spot.  I had not noticed it when it had bloomed, only when the cluster of - whatever it was - was developing.

Every since then, I tracked it.  On August 10 I mentioned I would write about it (perhaps) the following week.  I took a picture soon after, showing the seeds were maturing.  They certainly were not grapes.  The maple seed to the left of the seed cluster gives you a point of reference in seeing how big this is.

Now we are here at the "following week" and I went out to the back yard to find -

that the seeds had fallen to the ground.

What an anti-climax.

I picked some of the seed pods off the ground.  I opened one up.  It is hard, and green inside.  I don't know if I will keep the pods or just throw them away.

I suppose I could go to the Cornell extension for help but that wouldn't be fun.


I went to the Internet.  I can't find this plant even after an hour of searching and reading some booklets, including one on wild vines of Iowa. (Yes, this isn't Iowa but some of our plants are similar).

So now, I really need to appeal to my readers.

Any guesses?

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - August 2011

It's that time again - the 15th of the month at May Dreams Garden - when bloggers post pictures of what is in bloom in their garden.

 In another couple of months, all I'll be able to post is pictures of frostbit plants and, eventually, snowdrifts.  And then we'll be done until the spring bulbs come out.

But we aren't there yet, thank heavens.

Right now we are in a rainy pattern.  We up here in upstate NY (Binghamton area) are luckier than our fellow New Yorkers downstate, who drowned yesterday. Today, it was overcast and drizzle.  But we are being watered by nature while many of our fellow gardeners are stricken by drought.

As for my garden, it isn't looking all that great after the unusual heat of July (during which we were out of town!) but I still have some perennials.  In fact, much of what we have in bloom are either herbs or annuals.

This (taken from above, as my back was really stiff today - sorry) is a new astilbe we bought at a plant show in Ithaca in the Spring - and we promptly lost the label for it.  It bloomed this year and the flowers are unusual - plus, they have been blooming for a while now, longer than our other astilbes. But it looks like it is nearly finished.

This, in bloom, is pineapple mint.  The leaves are variegated but much of the white you see are the flowers - all my mints have been especially loaded with flowers this year.


This next one is lavender.

Garlic chives.

I decided to share one of my annuals - a sunflower, complete with bees.

Finally, a repeat - yellow bleeding heart - this is the Energizer Bunny of our perennials.

The shadow of fall is already falling onto my garden.  Who knows what will be blooming in September?

Civil War Sunday - Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer

 I am not an artist.  I can barely draw a stick figure.  So I have always had great admiration for those who can take those images in their mind and actually translate them into something we can recognize, and appreciate.  Or can take something they see and make us see it too.

I know a number of people who have studied art as adults and have taken lessons, especially in painting. (If I go this route of lesson taking, I will choose photography as the means of expressing myself.)  I know it is not easy.  And how much harder would it be to do this in the midst of a war?

Last week, I wrote about Civil War "image making" (what they called photography back then during the infancy of photography).  This week-well, art has been with us as long as we have been human, documenting our daily lives.

The Civil War is no exception.

I received some nice comments on a blog post I made earlier this week about the popularity of color by number pencil sets in my childhood,.  I'm not an artist, and not an art historian but I do enjoy art as an observer and respect its role in helping us understand history.  Accordingly, I decided to look into the art of the Civil War.  Not the art of today that uses the Civil War as its subject, but rather the art of the Civil War used to record it as it occurred.  I was very surprised to see the names of two artists who gained fame later in the 1800's.

From my studies of history, I know the name of Thomas Nast , who crusaded against the Tammany Hall political machine in New York City. (In fact, Thomas Nast is buried near where I grew up in the Bronx.).  If you identify the elephant with the Republican Party and the donkey with the Democratic Party, you know of the works of Thomas Nast.  If you visualize Santa Claus as the plump, jolly man with the white beard and red suit trimmed in white fur, you are visualizing Santa Claus as first drawn by Thomas Nast.  What I did not know is that Thomas Nast started his career (he was barely in his 20's when the war started) as a Civil War illustrator- very much on the side of the North.

And then there is Winslow Homer, known for his art (in various media) of hunters, farmers, women (farm women, teachers, and others) and the peaceful coast of Maine.  He, too, started out as a Civil War artist.

This site explains Civil War art in a lot more detail, should you want to learn more on the subject.  One day I might, too.  History is composed of so many things, and artistic expression is so much a part of the human experience.

I am grateful that comments from a blog post led me down this road.  Thank you.

A Day in the Life of Otsiningo Park Farmers Market and Community Garden

Today, we spent some time in the "crown jewel" of the Broome County, NY parks system:  Otsiningo Park.

Every Saturday during the summer, the park hosts a farmers market.

We bought some cheddar whole wheat and carmelized onion/whole wheat English Muffins from Gimmee Cookie.

We got some sweet corn at another booth.  Sweet corn was a very brisk seller.  We are at the peak of fruits and veggies:  we had everything from lettuce, kale, okra, onions, new potatoes, first garlic, blueberries, corn, watermelon, muskmelon, cheese, to meat ranging from veal, goat, beef, to chicken.  Other vendors had cheese (we are in a major dairy area), butter, eggs and sausage.  One vendor had Cornell nectarines and donut peaches.  (we can't grow either locally).

And many people were buying cookies and pies for dessert.

On the walking trails, a lot of wildflowers competed for our attention, along with this bunch of wild grapes hanging overhead.

We then visited our community garden.  I walked around admiring other garden plots.  Trying to "kill two birds with one stone" I took this picture of a plot through a tall wildflower.

Here is some ripening corn (again, not ours.)

From our garden, we picked beans, tomatoes, leeks, and a pattypan squash.

Of course, I'm always focused on the plants. But Otsiningo Park is so much more.

One day I may take pictures of the actual park!

Aarigaa! The Midnight Sun Lives

It's been a while since I've written about my obsession with the midnight sun.

I've always wanted to learn more about the natives of Alaska who were the people of the midnight sun, too.  I had studied them a little bit when I majored in anthropology in college, but I wanted to know more.

I just found a book, short but packed with breathtaking writing, that did just that.

Sometimes I have no idea why I pick up a book.  I like to explore the Young Adult section of the Broome County library and sometimes a title or a picture just calls to me.

Recently, that happened with a book called Blessing's Bead, by Debby Dahl Edwards.  I really don't have any idea why I picked it up.  But I literally couldn't put it down, and not just because of its depictions of the midnight sun and the darkness of winter.   I learned so much more from this book.  If I used an Inuit rating system, I would give it 5 Aarigaas (their word for "Wow").

This is a story about a young woman, almost a teenager, of the Iñupiaq people. Some would call them Eskimos, although my understanding is that the correct word is Inuit.  Blessing is taken from her Mom by Anchorage's child protective service agency and sent (with her younger brother Isaac) to live with her grandmother who lives in a remote Inuit village above the Arctic circle.  This starts out as a very rough transition but ends happily in more ways than one.

Although Blessing's knowledge of the Iñupiaq language is limited when she arrives, she is able to understand it by the time the book ends.  This is no easy task, as illustrated by these words for the lack of sun. (the pronunciations are those given by the author.)

I learned the word Nippivik (nippy-vick)-  the time when the sun sets (November) Siqiñgilaq (see-kiny-gee-lyaq) the time of no sun, and Siqiññaatchiaq (si-kin-nyaht-cheeahk)  the time of the bright new sun (January).  I don't know if I will remember it.  But what words of power they are.          

However, the story did not begin with the story of Blessing (which takes place in 1989).  Rather, it started as the story of her great-grandmother Nutaaq, which starts in 1917 and continues into 1918.  Nutaaq's older sister Aaluk marries a Siberian Inuit that summer and travels back to his village to live.  Normally she would come back to visit annually during a trading fair.  But then, the Spanish flu epidemic arrives.  Nutaaq's mother, father, "nearly all the babies, and all the old ones, with the old knowledge we never yet learned" and basically most of the village, die.   Her descrition of the "Ones We Lost" is so beautiful it makes you cry.  A culture left adrift, so depressed they would not even care for their reindeer herds.  What would happen to them?

The survivors are called to a meeting and forced by a missionary to pick a new spouse. (This, and the flu epidemic, were historic events.) The survivors are married on the spot in a mass ceremony and adopt the young orphans.  Nutaaq, (one of the young women forced to marry) meantime, never sees Aaluk again.  Nutaaq has no idea if Aaluk, in Siberia, was taken by the great sickness.  What was called the "Ice Curtain" has come down, and the Siberian Inuit can not visit their Alaskan relatives, and vice versa.  They are separated by politics none of them understand.

When we skip ahead to 1989, the Alaskan Inuit of Blessing's adopted village speak a dialect called Village English, use snowmobiles, gather clams from the beach in plastic grocery bags and have managed to blend their traditional culture with the European culture around them.   They are Christian. They eat both Sailor Boy crackers and whale meat.  What would Tupaaq had thought? (this part was especially fascinating to me).

When the Iron Curtain came down in Europe, the Ice Curtain came down also, and Blessing is there when the first Siberian Inuit flight arrives at her village.  There is an old man with them.   He is Aaluk's son.

I normally don't do "book reviews" but this is a must read for all lovers of the midnight sun, and the land where it shines in the summer.  Even if we love it from afar.

And the bead?  Well, you'll just have to read the book yourself.

QR Codes - Good or Bad?

It's funny how things reach a critical mass and suddenly they are everywhere.

You know what QR codes are even if you don't know their name. (The QR means "quick response". )  Six months ago I don't think I had seen one.  Now they are everywhere.   Everywhere...in ads, on product tags in stores such as Home Depot, and even in books.

They have actually been around for a while - since the 1990's.  I understand they originated in Japan.

So what are they?

You will see this square black and white thing with black squares and white spaces.  If you have the app on your phone, you snap a picture and...well, you are supposed to get video, or extra information, or whatever, on your phone.  It's optional right now ("additional content")  but I can see a time where t won't be optional.

And if you can't afford to access these codes, you will be marginalized.

I never knew what QR codes were called, until I read portions of a book called "I live in the future and here's how it works" by Nick Bilton.  It's fascinating:  to someone in her late 50's, both scary and exciting.

What I don't like about QR codes is that they may force me and others to get a smart phone.  I don't want to get a smart phone, as seductive as they can be.   I don't want to be tied down.  I want to be in control.

I like to live a somewhat simple lifestyle.   I don't want to be locked into a cell phone contract, be it one year or two year.  Nice prepayment penalties, right?  So instead, I use something called Trac Fone, which allows you to have month to month service, and doesn't require a contract.  Also, its phones are simple.  They basically make phone calls.  The newer ones have keyboards so you can text. (I don't text:  horrors! Well, my son thinks so.)

I will make this clear:  I don't think the Internet is frying our brains.  I welcome other forms of getting information besides the frozen print page. (Nick Bilton writes quite a bit about this).  But:   I want to be able to control my access to information.

And if I have to tie myself down to a contract (noting I do not have a contract for my Internet service-I can quit without a penalty - try that with a smart phone contract!) just to use QR codes:  well, no thank you.

But:  not so fast.  Recently I read a magazine article about something called Safety Tats.   If you have children, you may want to check this out.

So....I remind myself that technology is like fire.  Fire is neutral, neither good nor bad.  It's how you choose to use it:  cooking food (good), arson (bad).

So let's not be afraid "just because".

But I still don't think I will get a smart phone soon.

Wildflower Wednesday - Urban Neighborhood Wildflowers

Can you find wildflowers in an urban neighborhood?
Yes!

Where I live is not true urban (i.e. downtown Binghamton, or neighborhoods in NYC) but that wasn't going to stop me.  My mission:  just walk around my neighborhood in the Binghamton, NY area and see what I could find.

This is what I found today in a three block radius of my house.  This is nightshade.

Bindweed.

In my herb garden I found a Queen Anne's Lace, both a flower, and the "fruit" (to the left of the flower).  That ferny stuff, by the way, is Southernwood, which the Queen Anne's Lace is growing right in the middle of.

And finally, pokeweed.  I found this in several neighborhood yards here.  Who says pokeweed is for the south only?

There are other plants blooming right now, including plantain, another urban favorite.  And, there were patches of chicory here and there with their lovely blue flowers.  And a few mystery plants.

Remember, earlier this summer, I wrote about a vining plant in my back yard, in a very shady spot, with grape like leaves and a cluster of something developing?  Well, I decided to track it this since there must have been a flower involved at some time - and it is wild.  If I don't have a different subject for next Wednesday, I may right about what is still a mystery plant.

What wildflowers are growing on your property?

Color By Number - Memories of Paradise

Yesterday evening, coming home from my water aerobics class, the sky reminded me of the sky of a color by number painting.  All those shades of blue and light purple.

Do you remember color by number?  It was really popular in the 1950's and early 1960's, when I was growing up.   You can still find color by number in paint today.  But what my family loved was the Venus Paradise sets.  They were color pencil color by numbers.  They had sets geared to all ages - from children old enough to color to adults.

The pencils were numbered, and you got the pencils you needed for your set with the set.  My favorite was #7, Peacock Blue. You can even find the list of colors online (except for two "mystery colors").  It would seem that some older artists miss them, too - they were high quality but as a child, I just took them for granted.

My Dad and I would color together.  I would have my child's set and he an adult set.  I remember one in particular, set with famous buildings.  I remember him in particular working on a Taj Mahal picture.  I looked at him color with great concentration.  He put wax paper on top of the part of the picture he had completed so it would not smear.

His picture had so much detail.  You could barely make out some of the numbers in the small portions.  But I would grow up one day and be able to do complicated pictures just like my Dad!

Except I lost interest, until my son was born.

I went to all the stores (when he was old enough to color) and no one had them.  In fact, I couldn't find any kind of color by number pencil art set, period.

Venus Paradise is out of business.  And, I couldn't even find a set on eBay (I did find a couple of auctions for the pencils.)



The good news is that there is a pencil color by number set out there now. Better yet, the people who own the business remember Venus Paradise.  So perhaps a new generation of children will remember pencil by number sets fondly.

In writing this post, I find my spouse remembers the sets too.  He thinks when he retires, it might be fun to buy one.  But sadly, this is something I'm not sure will ever return to favor for the general population.
So....do you remember Venus Paradise?

A Woman with Autism Fights Breast Cancer

From time to time I follow the blog of a woman with autism by the name of Donna Williams. She is an accomplished blogger, and artist.  She has autism. 

 Donna Williams has breast cancer.

Any blog written by a woman fighting breast cancer would be of interest.  But so many people with autism have major difficulties with communication (such as my brother in law) that being able to read of Ms. Williams' experience is even more amazing. And sobering, as she has to make the decision of whether she should subject herself to chemo.  All of us, we would struggle with chemo.

This speaks to me too, as my mother in law's family has a history of breast cancer.

Some of her recent entries are long.  But take a few minutes and enter her world.  It is a different world, but a world that too many of us will have to enter at one time in our lives.

Be scared. And be amazed.

Civil War Sunday-Image Making

Not all the reinactors at the Manassas Battlefield and Old Town Manassas during the 150th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of First Bull Run/First Manassas were soldiers.  The soldier reinactors get a lot of attention, but there are many dedicated people who take civilian roles.

At Manassas, some were members of Lee's Lieutenants Army of Northern Virginia, a reinactor's group.

Wayne Ritchie, of Rocky Mount, NC is a Mathew Brady reinactor who is a member of Lee's Lieutenants.  We met him at Old Town Manassas, at the living history area on the Manassas Museum grounds.  Sweat running down our faces, we listened with great interest as Mr. Brady, the famous Civil War image maker (there were no "photographers" in that day) showed us some of his most famous pictures, and the glass plates used to take the pictures.

Since I've loved to take photos since I was a little girl, this was fascinating.  I started out with a brownie-like camera and black and white film, progressed to an Instamatic, but this was another world of photography entirely.

The glass plates could only be used once.

This is his camera. 

Mr. Brady - er, Richie, told us about visiting Robert E. Lee shortly after the war ended and how he took one of the most famous images of his career.  

Mr Brady spent some time with us describing the process of image making.   It was a very involved process.  Way different than our point and shoot cameras with auto focus, various settings, optical zooms, red eye removal, video, and memory cards.

Mr. Ritchie loved to speak to children.  We saw him talk to a couple of different groups of children.  That's the great thing about interacting with the reinactors, how they love to share their love of Civil War lore with others.  They must be asked the same questions over and over, but speak to people with the greatest patience.

If someone wanted to take his picture (with a modern digital camera, of course) he patiently explained that there were no pictures to be taken, but rather images.

Some of Brady's images served, for the first time, to bring the horrors of war to the American people. Indeed, the process of photography, in a way, was invented just in time for the Civil War.  And, that portrait he took of Robert E. Lee is an icon now, so to speak.

As far as the real Mathew Brady, his life had a sad end.  He ended up going bankrupt because, after the war was over, no one wanted his pictures.  And yet, our knowledge of the Civil War would have been way different without the photos taken by Brady and his assistants.

We owe him a huge debt every time we discuss the Civil War, because the images we have of that war in our minds are his images - or those of his assistants.

Dreaming of Tasty Tropical Fruit Trees At Home (!)

I live in a zone 5 gardening area of upstate NY.  There is no way i am going to grow coffee, figs, lemons, lives, cinnamon, avocado or any other tropical plant outdoors here.  (I can't even grow...sigh....crepe myrtles or camillas.)

However, I recently ran across a book called "Growing Tasty Tropical Plants * 
*in any home, anywhere" by Laurelynn G. Martin and Byron E. Martin.

Sounds great, doesn't it.

But not so fast.

It's a very enjoyable book, and some of these plants will be in my daydreams.  I don't know how many will be actually in my house, which (alas) does not have much in the way of full sun windows.

Nor does it have, in the winter, high humidity.

And, from a couple of experiences, my plants (I learned the hard way with kalanchoes) can very easily get mealybugs.

Now true, I have the obligatory avocado tree growing in a pot in my back yard, started some years ago from a pit buried in peat, and put in the refrigerator (I read this was an alternate way of germination.)  And, from time to time, I've kept a pineapple top alive - of course, I've never gotten a pineapple out of the experience.

But, a local nursery sells coffee plants - and they are attractive.  And, according to this book "Coffee plants adapt well to the low light and low humidity typical of home environments.  Flowers and fruits appear when the plant is young...Under ideal growing conditions, this can happen in less than a year."

Not that I am going to get a supply of coffee from a plant, but it does sound like something I would want to see in the winter.

And, my spouse is eager to have a supply of Meyer Lemons.

So...should I make this into a new project?
Have any of my readers grown these tropical fruiting plants?  If so, I would love to hear about your experiences.

Burpee Customer Service Shoutout

After several years of buying herb and flower plants from Burpee with great success, I was very disappointed this year.

It took me a while to email them (guess I was too busy trying to stretch myself in blogging "contests") with the sad story of how most of their plants were so wet when I got them that they died soon after, but I did, last weekend.  I also mentioned my sky blue petunias that weren't, just as a point of interest.

It took a couple of days, but I got an email from Burpees...with a credit to my charge card:  and I am taking the liberty of quoting from the email:

Thank you for informing me of the problem with the shipment of your plants.  I am sorry that they arrived in poor condition.  Our plants are healthy when they are packaged, but sometime they do get damaged while in route.  I will notify the nursery, as they do like to keep on top of any issues with our packaging and shipping procedures.

We have issued you a refund back to your card for the plants that have died and the sky blue petunias.

(You'll remember the sky blue petunias that came were not blue but rather a definite purple, as per the photo I posted on this blog.)

The petunia credit was a pleasant surprise - after all I did get 11 plants and they are thriving - yes, even the ones that were decimated by some animal are blooming again (surrounded by fencing this time)

So, Burpees - thank you - and I look forward to that credit.  It will go, hopefully, to fixing my front stairs.

Come to Binghamton, NY to Escape the Heat!

We were watching the Weather Channel last night when a statistic brought both my spouse and I to full attention.

Ft. Smith, Arkansas reached 115 degrees yesterday.

We lived in Arkansas some 30 years ago (back when Bill Clinton was governor-yes, we had the chance to vote for him.  And had drivers licenses with his signature, perhaps.  In fact, we lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas for a brief time, and maybe not that far from where Bill Clinton lived in the 1970's.

I've wanted to go back for a long time.  But not right now.

Arkansas gets hot.  It can get humid.  But it doesn't go over 100 in the Fayetteville area all that much.

On Tuesday, Fayetteville reached 108, breaking their previous record for August. (Their all time record was in July of 1954-and don't be surprised if it doesn't get broken soon.)

Meanwhile, for us, it was cloudy, rainy - with a high of 78 at our house.

Aren't things just slightly unbalanced?  Not just for us - we got close to 100 two weeks ago - but for the entire country.  We get rain and weather in the 70's and almost everyone else is baking.

I think, while we lived in Arkansas, it reached over 100 a couple of times.  In 1985, I seem to recall a September when we had a heat wave.  We sat under a tree near the chicken coop with some iced tea and watched the chickens try to keep cool.

Remembering how the farmers market vendors sweltered two Fridays ago in that parking lot in Centreville, VA makes me feel for all the people in the affected hot/drought areas.  I thought we had it bad in Wichita, Kansas (without air conditioning) when we lived there in 1980 and we ended up with....well, they may exceed those records this year, too.

Right now I am grateful for living here in Binghamton, New York.  In fact....why don't we give our little city a tourism boost?  Escape the Heat!  Experience the Forgotten Feelings of Rain.  We could make a fortune.

But, just wait for winter.

Wildflower Wednesday-Our Local Rail-Trail

I've featured wildflowers from the Vestal Rail Trail (where I do a lot of my exercise walks) in Vestal, NY in many of my Wildflower Wednesday posts.  It turns out this rail trail is a rich source for wildflowers.  A lot of it is in full sun but increasingly there are shady areas.  There are dry areas and wetlands, so we get a good mix of habitats.

This is a little history of the Rails-to-Trails movement, which explains this movement is over 40 years old.  We've had our rail trail some 20 years, I believe - and spouse and I have done a lot of walking on it.

It measures 2.1 miles and there is a plan to expand it - money permitting, of course.

This is the 'head' of the trail.  On the bottom right, you can see Queen Anne's Lace in bloom.

Here is a wild grape plant, with its small cluster.

I was thinking this was purple loosestrife but I wonder if this may be fireweed instead.  These plants aren't in a place which I can get to easily to look at leaves, etc.

This is my mystery flower of the week. This came out blurry, and I apologize.  There are a lot of these flowers.  The stalks are top heavy and they are dragging on the ground.  They looked white in the wild, but in this photo have a little purple in them.

Finally, white asters.  Blame my bad back (which has been stiff lately) for the focus, which could be better.

Have a happy August, all.  May my fellow bloggers in drought areas get rain soon.

Angry Blueberry Birds

Saturday, we made our annual U-Pick blueberry journey to a local U-Pick farm called Castleberries, in Port Crane, NY (near Binghamton).  Both spouse and I love blueberries, and they keep a long time in the refrigerator.   We always pick once a year, and sometimes twice.

There's nothing like freshly picked blueberries (or any other fruit, for that matter): fresh, sweet, and warmed by the sun.  I don't put sugar nor cream on them.  I have always eaten them au naturel.

One interesting feature of this orchard is the way they scare birds away.  Birds are the bane of blueberry farmers.  On our way to Virginia a couple of weeks ago, we saw an orchard with nets draped over the bushes.  We sympathize.  Castleberries may do this, but they also have a special system in place, one they have used for years. We call it the Angry Birds system.  (long before the game of the same name.....)

Loudspeakers blare out what are probably bird distress calls.  Or maybe, in bird language, the recording is saying "horrible tasting berries!  Poison!  Stay away!"  At any rate, it is fun standing out there in the sun, enjoying the outdoors, and periodically hearing these frenzied birdcalls.  My son, when he was younger, used to get a kick out of it.  Which, I guess, shows how long this orchard has used this system because youngster is an adult now. 

It must work, because they have never updated it.

The variety of blueberries being picked was a new one to us.  I don't know its name but the bushes had an unusual habit - the branches drooped, almost weeping.  It wasn't the best set up for someone with a bad back (me) because I don't like to sit on the ground.  Sitting on the ground would be the best way to pick.  I decided not to do that.

Another strategy is to go to the back of the rows, because most people don't want to bother to walk all the way out to the far end of the picking area.

It was hard going between the rows and I got frustrated wading through blueberry branches - which, fortunately, do not have thorns.  But finally I found a bush loaded with berries, and I settled down to picking, sweat streaming down my suntan-lotion protected face. (Wegmans Dry SPF-55:  works great.)

We picked about 6 pounds, and will be sharing some with family when they come up in a few days.

The berries really are sweet, too:  so much better than the blueberries I sampled two weeks ago at a Virginia farmers market. 

I guess blueberries make August worthwhile.

Happy Cricket Day

Saturday, July 30 was "C" day this year.

"C" day is the annual Cricket Day where I hear crickets for the first time.  Goldenrod is in full bloom when their song begins, and the cricket chirps sing that fall is coming soon.

Fall isn't here yet  Not just yet.  The dog days of August have only started, with their heat and humidity.  Sweet blueberries await picking, tomatoes are rushed from the vine to the waiting bread with mayonnaise (ok, I only do that once or twice in a summer because tomatoes and me don't always get along, but it is a summer pleasure) and corn...well, it isn't easy to overdose on fresh area bicolor corn with butter.  Or Smart Balance, since we must watch our cholesterol.

For us in Binghamton, August is also time for the Spiedie Fest, the Chris Thater Memorial bicycle race, and University Fest.

But August also brings us one month closer to fall.  And hence, the song of the crickets can be bittersweet.

I usually hear the first song when walking in the neighborhood.  This year, I heard it from my next door neighbor's porch.  The neighbor who lost his wife on the 4th of July.  So C day was especially bittersweet.  My neighbor, 86 years old, unable to walk without a walker, riddled with arthritis, in the fall/winter of his life. 

How many more C days will he hear?

Civil War Sunday-He Couldn't Run from History

On U.S. Route 28 near Manassas, Virginia (near the parking lot of a CVS pharmacy) is a historical marker.
We passed that intersection a couple of times last Sunday, and who knows how many people pass by it every day.  But that marker "marks the spot" of a piece of history.  The Civil War is full of these types of stories, but to me this is one of the most interesting.

The marker marks the spot of the Yorkshire Plantation, owned by a wholesale grocer by the name of Wilmer McLean. He was a slave owner. He was never anyone "important" to history, but he is know to all lovers of Civil War trivia because he tried to escape history - but history wouldn't let him.

Wilmer McLean's house was used by the "hero of Ft. Sumter", Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard as Beauregard, commanding Confederate troops, prepared for what because the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas).  A cannonball dropped through the chimney and destroyed Beauregard's dinner.


The Civil War did not begin in McLean's house but the first large battle basically did begin on his property.

That area of Virginia suffered greatly from the war, and finally, in 1863, Wilmer McLean decided he had had enough and moved his family about 120 miles away to where he thought the Civil War would never reach him again.

He was wrong.

In April of 1865, a messenger knocked on McLean's door.  It seemed that Robert E. Lee was preparing to surrender to the Union's General Grant.  His house was needed as a meeting place.  Could they use it?

They did use it, and the Civil War ended (well, actually it didn't, but that's a story for another time) in McLean's parlor.

After the surrender was signed, everyone wanted a souvenir.  So the Union troops started to walk off with McLean's furniture.  As the troops hauled McLean's furnishings out the door, they handed the protesting McLean money.  Concerning the desk where the surrender was signed, I have read two stories of its fate. One is that General George Armstrong Custer (yes, he was a Civil War general) was asked by another Union General (Sheridan) to haul off the desk where the surrender was signed. I've also read that Custer actually took the desk himself.

History does not record (to my knowledge) what furnishings McLean was left with.

As for the pen which was used by the surrender, there is an interesting story about that too.

To add further insult, the money McLean made during the Civil War (in sugar smuggling) was in Confederate money, which now was worthless because of the surrender signed in his house.

Finally, bankrupt, he had to sell the house in 1867.

Sometimes you can run...but you just can't hide.

Does Marriott Know Something I Don't Know?

 I've done it!  31 posts in July - so I have met the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

My 32nd post for July is going to be an interesting one.  I am going to be turning off commenting if I start getting the wrong kind of comments - for someone who majored in cultural anthropology this is "PG" but I don't know who this may attract.  I'm taking the chance, though, because this is too funny not to share.

Or maybe it isn't funny at all, depending on your beliefs.

Companies, when designing online surveys, really need to take care to only ask the questions they intend to ask.

As we speak, I am taking a Marriott Guest Satisfaction Survey for the property we recently stayed at during our trip to the Manassas, VA area for their Civil War activities.

One of the questions is, and I quote:

"Excluding yourself, please indicate how many people from each category selected were staying with you in the room(s) that you paid for during your most recent stay at the [name of property]:  spouse or significant other?"

So, ummm.....Marriott wants to know how many spouses I was traveling with?  Or, significant others?


Now, I want to mention here again that I majored in cultural anthropology in college.  So I am well aware that a number of countries legally recognize this practice- mainly, the practice of polygyny, or one male married to more than one female at a time.  Polyandry, the practice of one woman married to more than one man at a time, is a lot rarer but does exist (legally) in a handful of countries.

Neither practice, however, is legal in the United States.

So why does Marriott want to know this?

Or do they know something I don't know?

Or did someone make a big goof?

I paused there for a couple of minutes.  What should I say?  Should I tell them "one", which is the truth?  Or should I spice it up a bit?  And what would happen if I did answer with some other number than "one"?

Don't you just love our electronic world?

More Adventures with Autism

Regular readers of my blog know that I have a brother in law with a developmental disability called autism.  My brother in law is in his 50's and lives with his elderly mother (her choice).  We live about 150 miles away. As anyone who has ever done long distance caretaking knows....it can be an adventure.

One thing is for certain when you have a loved one with a developmental disability.  Life is never dull. There is a constant learning process, a constant advocacy process.  And you learn a lot of things:  patience, the need to be assertive without being aggressive, the need to network and make contacts. And, to keep on top of things.  We don't always do so well on the latter.

I had reported a month or so ago that there were some changes in my brother in law's "service coordination" which we needed to check into.  Here, I have to explain that my brother in law receives service coordination under something called a Medicaid Waiver.  In NY State the particular waiver is called the Home and Community Based Waiver.

Medicaid has a very bad "name" with the general public but in reality it is a lifeline for many families with disabled members.  Of course, keep in mind that what I am writing about is happening in New York.  Each state has its own Medicaid program.

At the same time, when you deal with government bureaucracy, there is the "Catch-22" factor.

To set the stage for this: disabled people on this particular Waiver receive "Medicaid service coordination" from an agency.  For my brother in law, it is his local "ARC".  And, NY is cutting budgets, as are many states.  On top of this, my brother in law's service coordinator was retiring due to health reasons.  My mother in law requested we contact the new coordinator.  So we're sort of in a Perfect Storm situation.

We made contact (after several phone calls, which is typical) with her supervisor back around the 19th but with our Civil War trip the blog post I wanted to write got swallowed up.  But I really need to talk about this now.

The supervisor told us that there have been changes in NY service coordination rules. For example, the service coordinator used to have to visit with the client (also called the "consumer") one a month.  Now it is 3 times a year.  But then came the bombshell...

My brother in law was losing his Home and Community Based Waiver.  Why?  Because he hadn't used any services in the past year.

And why wasn't he receiving services?  Because the ARC was never able to find someone to provide the services our brother in law needed. (this has been ongoing for several years, incidentally.  It's complicated why - I'm sure the wages they are able to pay in what is basically a very high cost of living area has something to do with it.)

Gotcha!  Catch-22!

Well, my spouse (who made this phone call) wasn't about to take this lying down, which is where the assertiveness and advocacy part come in.  And basically, the supervisor ended up agreeing that it was a lack of provider, not a lack of bro-in-law using the services, that was the concern. And that he really needed these services (training to help him become more independent, which would help his aging mother out tremendously, too.) So they are going to keep trying.  But then:  "if we find a provider it will be no problem to get him back on the Waiver."  Which is....well, there is another rule when dealing with government.

Don't believe it, ever, when they say anything will be "easy".

It was hard enough getting him onto this waiver.   And now it is going to be easy to get him back on if they ever find someone to provide these services?  Forgive me for taking this one with a few bags of salt.

So anyway, they sent us some paperwork to review, which we got the other day.

And now, the new service coordinator has called us, so we will start on another round of missed phone calls and phone tag.

Isn't it fun and exciting? 

Catoctin Mountain Orchard

When traveling, one of our pleasures is to sample local food.  We will visit farmers markets in season.  More rarely, we visit orchards.  I was excited when I found that our route to Virginia last week would bring us right past an orchard we had visited online, but never in person.

I recently read (in a travelers guide) about this special orchard in rural Maryland, along Highway 15 (the path Lee took his troops on when they invaded the North and ended up at Gettysburg at the beginning of July, 1863).  We are in the heart of fruit season, and while our area excels in apples and blueberries, there are some fruits that just don't grow here.

Like peaches.

Like (commercial) blackberries.

Like plums.

And guess who had them all.

The first thing you see upon your arrival is a variety of cut flowers for sale.  Over on the side of the building are fields of pick-your-own flowers. There is nothing like that in our area.

If the weather had been more temperate I would have taken a nice long break there, but it was so hot in that sun.  So, instead we went indoors.  Greeting us were pints of freshly picked blackberries, assorted white and yellow peaches, and several varieties of plums.  They were offering samples - entire fruits! - of one of the plums, called Methley.  They were so sweet.

We purchased some apple/cherry cider made locally in nearby Frederick, MD and decided we would return on our way back to upstate NY to pick up some fruit.

This time, they were sampling something called a Cameo apple.  Supposedly a natural cross between a Red and Golden Delicious, it does resemble a Red Delicious in shape and color.  However, unlike a Red Delicious, it is so crisp.    We didn't buy any, but we did pick up some plums.  (we had already bought so much produce at Grand mart in Centreville, VA, that our car was in serious danger of bursting.)

On the way out we treated ourselves to one more view of the lovely flowers.

What a beautiful location this is in.

One day, I hope to return. 

Wildflower Wednesday-Civil War Site Plants

Would a blogger be so dedicated to bring you new content for Wildflower Wednesday that she would brave 104 degree weather to take pictures of plants on Civil War sites in  NorthernVirginia?

Yes.

I only have one picture of flowers for you. Maybe all the flowers were hiding from the heat.  But, undaunted, I decided to take pictures of plants I normally don't see in the two places I take wildflower photos.  So now, for your viewing pleasure:  plants of Civil War sites.

This plant, growing on the roadside at Mayfield Fort near Manassas, is growing something that looks like young pears. But I almost wonder if this is a hardy kiwi.  Call this one a mystery plant.  Does anyone know?

This next plant is no mystery to me.  When we lived in Arkansas, we had several of these on our property.  This is a sassafras tree.

This plant has sumac like leaves but white flowers.  It's not poison ivy and I feel like I should know what this plant is.  But I don't. 

Another one of these plants, more close up.  It's hard to see with all that green, but I wasn't going to stand out there in the 114 heat index heat and try to get something better.

Finally, two old favorites in one photo.  Queen Anne's Lace on the left and the beginnings of goldenrod on the right. (These are blooming here in Upstate NY, too.)  They were in the shade.

 I've read accounts of the battle of Bull Run talking about pink wildflowers in bloom.  Whatever they were, I never saw any.  I was disappointed that I didn't see anything that looked like pink wildflowers on the Manassas battlefield but then again, I really wasn't looking.

It was nice to have a change of scenery.  Next week, back to upstate NY.

Dreams of Zone 5 Crepe Myrtle

People like me who live in gardening zone 5 (Binghamton, NY area) dream of being able to grow some of the really beautiful flowering plants. True, we have lilacs, and various flowering trees (apple, cherry, etc.). But there are several 'queens of the flowering plants' that would die after just one of our winters.

One of these is a shrub I miss from living, years ago, in more temperate climates.  When I went down to Virginia last week, I knew they would be in bloom.  It had been years since I had seen them, and they did not disappoint.

Crepe myrtles.

I was not inclined to go on a picture taking spree in the 104 degree heat, but I did get a couple of pictures I wanted to share with you - in case you have not ever seen these beauties in blooming action.  I know these are everyday plants to some of my readers in - for example, Texas - but they aren't for us of the snow belt.

Back years ago, when I made my acquaintance with the crepe myrtle, the main colors were pink or purple.  Now, some 30 years later, we have white, red, pink, purple and I understand there is even a weeping variety.

These plants tend to have a number of disease and insect problems but I've read this is being worked on, too.

Thanks to the fact that no one has yet invented smell-o-blog, I can not bring you the fragrance.  It is a light fragrance-it would never compete with a lilac, for example - but it is definitely there.

(I was also hoping the magnolias would be in bloom, speaking of fragrance, but it appeared we were just a little too early.)

This is the Henry Hill Visitors Center at the Manassas Battlefield outside of Manassas, VA.  The shrubs blooming in the right of the picture are crepe myrtles.  

This is a stand of crepe myrtles in a shopping center in Fairfax, VA.

There is one stand of crepe myrtle I wish I could have gotten a picture of, given the number of times we passed it.  It was in a Centreville, VA shopping center up against the wall of a gym. These were huge specimens, I would guess at least 9 feet tall, growing up against a wall of the gym.  But I just didn't want to get out of the air conditioning of our car to take their picture.

I wonder if anyone will ever be able to breed a variety that will be hardy down to zone 5.  I'll be your first customer.

After that, someone needs to work on hardy camelias.....

The Mystery of The Binghamton Dinosaurs - A Year Later

This post is the "all time" favorite on my blog.  So I thought it would be interesting to do a "sequel" but I ran into some problems.  But first, a note of explanation.

The post in question (and a couple of other posts during that time period on my blog) tell the story of Mason Mastroianni, the grandson of Johnny Hart, the cartoonist from this area who did the B.C. and Wizard of Id strips for many years.  Upon Johnny Hart'sdeath, Mason took over the B.C. strip.

It's almost spooky.  Mason almost does Johnny Hart drawing better than Johnny Hart did.

Mason also came up with a wonderful idea called hART of BC, which involved having various local artists do their "impressions"of the dinosaur Gronk from the B.C. strip. These decorated Styrofoam dinosaurs would then decorate downtown Binghamton and other parts of the Triple Cities before they were auctioned off or otherwise purchased by companies or people who had sponsored the artists.


It was a great plan.  There was only one problem.

Vandals.

The dinosaurs had to be taken off the streets prematurely, but it wasn't soon enough for some of them.  At least one was severely damaged. 

They were displayed for a while at the Oakdale Mall, Johnson City's indoor shopping mall.

Now, the hART of BC Facebook page exists, forelorn, its wall not having been updated since last year.

I'm assuming the auction idea went ahead as planned. I tried to do a Google search and there just doesn't seem to be much information about the fate of the dinosaurs. I do know where one of them is.  It is in a local dentist's office (not mine.)  It is visible from a window but I'm not sure they would want to have me lurking and trying to take a picture from outside.  But what happened to the others?  Did the auction raise the amount of money they wanted?  Where are the dinosaurs?  Does anyone care?

How sad that I just came from a part of the country that treasures its heritage - some of it more than 400 years old - and yet Binghamton has trouble with something from last year.

It isn't the first time this area has tried to promote a good idea, only to have it turn to dust  It probably won't be the last.

This isn't the sequel I wanted to write.

Civil War Sunday-He Stood Like a Stone Wall

The commemoration of the 150th anniversary of First Bull Run/Manassas is over, for us.  This morning we must pack up and leave.

My "Civil War Cap" is off to so many people.  To the reinactors who braved the incredible heat to bring us living history.  To the City of Manassas, VA and the National Park Service for wonderful organization.  (I have a suspicion that the City is going to lose a lot of money-I hope I am wrong.)  To the many volunteers who, again, braved the heat and made it all possible.  To the people I spoke to:  the citizen of Manassas who explained about the Amtrak service and shared his memories of train travel to California, the reinactor who shared his memories of Shiloh and how he "woke up in the morning frozen to the ground and had a sunburn by noon", and the Marines who did a fantastic narration of what life was like for a new, green recruit and how the Civil War experience made this country great.

These are some memories of the living historians.  The man who was reinacting Mathew Brady, the photographer, and shared his collection with us. (we were going to buy one, but never returned due to the heat.  I am so sorry.)  The stamp collector at the Battlefield who shared his collection with us.  I saw Confederate stamps for the first time.  He also showed us some of the first day cancellations at Charleston, on the 150th anniversary of the day shots were fired at Fort Sumter.

I hope to return to this area (Prince William County one day, as it is so rich in history. (and good food.)

And now, I'd like to share some of my photographic memories with you.

From the reinactors parade in Old Town Manassas on Friday:

As the Marines at the Manassas battleground explained (and I have mentioned in a previous post) the uniforms were not standardized in this first battle.  North and South wore blue and grey. And red.  And brown.  Below is an example of that.

In this next photo, women of the era.  We rode a shuttle bus with some of the ladies.

A view of the Manassas battlefield, with artillery in place.  One nice thing about the battlefield is that there was so much of it. This battlefield is a lot better preserved than some.

 Where Judith Carter (the owner of some of the land (Henry Hill) the battle was fought on - an 85 year old widowed invalid who could not leave her home - shells demolished her home) is buried, on the battlefield.   Not the last civilian to die in the Civil War by far.

,

And finally, what battlefield would be complete without a monument.  Here, Thomas Jackson "stood like a Stone Wall" and got his nickname.

And now, back to "real life".  

A Northern Virginia Residential Farmers Market

The motel we are staying at in Centreville, VA is in a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood off a main road.  To our delight, when we entered the short road our motel is located on (along with a number of apartment complexes) a sign announced a Friday evening farmers market from 3:30 to 6:30 pm.

We had to go and see how it differed from the farmers markets in the Binghamton, NY area that we live in.  Northern Virginia is  two gardening zones "ahead" of us (zone 7a for Centreville vs. 5b for Binghamton), which would make a difference in what was ready.  We couldn't wait to see the local food that awaited us.

One stand featured produce from nearby West Virginia:  early white and yellow peaches, Mountain Pride tomatoes, white nectarines, cantalope, Shiro and Methley plums and okra.  The farmer was sampling many of his varieties- the delicious sweetness of almost everything sold us.  We purchased a quart of plums and a couple of huge Mountain Pride tomatoes.  We can get excellent Amish cantalope where we live, so we passed.  As for okra....no thanks.  I don't miss the fact that it doesn't grow well where we live (it isn't hot enough for long enough) although it is an ornamental plant.

He also had blueberries.  We are in blueberry picking season where we live, so we also passed.  (I tried one and it was very tart.  I think ours are better.)

Another booth had what looked like Striped German tomatoes along with corn and melons.

And then, there was the prepared food.  One booth offered crab cakes and steamed crab, another booth BBQ'd chickens (huge chickens) and southern style potato salad and a third booth a wonderful honey wheat bread.  Obviously, they were set up to offer meals to go for hungry commuters.  Alas, the prices (from the viewpoint of people who live in a lower cost of living area) were a bit much.  $7.00 for a loaf of bread?  $8.00 for a dozen ears of corn? (our going rate would be around $4.50 a dozen).

Have you every noticed regional differences in corn?  Some areas of the country will only eat all yellow, some only white, and some only bicolor.  In our area, almost all the corn is bicolored.  In this market, the corn was all yellow.

At 4:30 pm, the heat was absolutely brutal.  The peach vendor had a wet towel draped on his head.  The market was set up in a paved parking lot and I felt so sorry for the vendors-especially the BBQ man.  The air temperature, at that point, was 104 with around a 114 heat index. As commuters arrived home, sales became brisk despite the heat.


Tomorrow, we head home with our purchases and with memories of wonderful Civil War commemorations.