Inaugural Snowshoe

Yesterday (Jan 29) was my first snowshoe day this winter.  First, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because "my" path, Willow Creek, hadn’t frozen. 

 

It was a sunny beautiful day.  I heard a bird and thought I located it in a tall tree in our neighbor’s yard.  I’d snowshoe toward it and see it. It would go silent.  I start to go toward it hearing it above the shushing and stop and look. 

 

After several starts and stops it dawned on me the bird call was the binding of my snowshoe.

Doing Nashville

On a previous trip to Nashville we visited Andrew Jackson’s home and museum. The Hermitage.  It was great getting the story behind Old Hickory and his life.  The visit netted a picture of Andrew Jackson that Mike framed and now hangs in his office.

This trip we “did” country music with Jaclyn making suggestions, arrangements, and surprises.  Of course there were side trips to a car museum.

 

Mike's 1st car

Mike's 2nd car

 

and 3^rd row box seats to an NHL Predators game.

 

The Ryman started its life as a gospel tabernacle with money from Tom Ryman and after a short 12 years the tabernacle was “gifted” to the people of Nashville by the gospel preacher and named Ryman Auditorium. The stage was constructed to accommodate the opera Carmen touring from New York.  During the time until 1943 the Ryman was known as the Carnegie Hall of the South.  Usage included music, theater, preaching, lectures and integrated performers and audiences although Jim Crow laws were in effect.

Minnie Pearl's Hat

In 1927 George Hay the announcer on WSM announced "For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on, we will present the 'Grand Ole Opry'."   This radio show grew in such popularity that a larger venue for the studio audience was needed and in 1943 the radio show moved to the Ryman where it “lived” until 1974.

 The Grand Ole Opry then moved to a new venue called “The Grand Ole Opry” complete with church style pews in deference to its former home the Gospel Tabernacle/Ryman.  Jaclyn had tickets for us to the show and one of the performers was Loretta Lynn and of course she sang “A Coal Miner’s Daughter”.

 

 

We also walked Broadway in Nashville.  The street with many venues where “would be” singers hope to be found.  We also “found” the home of Goo Goo Clusters…a Nashville staple.

 

Quilts

The beautiful fabrics from Tanzania always seemed to call me.  After our last trip to the Southern Highlands of Tanzania I made a string quilt for a silent auction at our Synod Assembly.  (See previous post May 10, 2013))

I had many gorgeous pieces of fabric left and many were gifts.  Consequently I decided to fashion queen size quilts for each of our children.   Two years and four months later I completed this project. 

Quilt #1 (which was the one I just finished) is also a string quilt with a piano key small border. 

dog not included!

 Quilt #2 has blocks of half string and yellow triangle. 
 

 Quilt #3 is a whack and stack block with a narrow yellow border. 

 Quilt #4 is not pieced but fabric repeating a tree and blossoms with a small piping between the two halves. 

Quilt #5 is fussy cut with figures framed by the blocks in a diagonal pattern and framed with a two color border. 

Yes there are 5 quilts and 4 children…this was to ensure that everyone had a choice!

Bird Flu

Cousins Lorraine and, Jo, and I went to a Storm Lake motel to check about booking rooms for our family reunion in July, 2016.  The desk clerk started shaking her head before I’d even finished my sentence.  The motel is booked through 2016 and beyond to house workers involved with the bird flu. 

I’ve been following the results of the bird flu.  Buena Vista County, where we used to live, had 17 turkey or chicken facilities hit with bird flu.  The farms were raising turkeys and chickens and also “gathering” eggs for use in egg products.

Migratory birds seem to be the source but concern remains for transmittal.  Quarantines are in place, yellow tape, a staffed tent checking anyone coming to the farm.  Those going on the property don white coveralls, and facial covering.  Workers have lost jobs at the facilities and workers have been brought in to do clean up!  White 15 passenger rental vans ferry workers to Spencer or Storm Lake motels. My nephew talked to young men from New Orleans brought up to do clean up.

The carcasses kept mounting and initially no one seemed to know the best way to dispose of them.    Burn them, bury them, compost them? 

Friends Beth and Russ’s facility is using composting. The carcasses are windrowed with corn stalks inside the facility and the temperature is raised to kill the virus.

After the carcasses are removed the facility is disinfected.  This is a weeks’/months’ long procedure to verify that the facility is indeed virus free.  Only then is restocking possible.

Some BV county facilities are hoping to be restocked by the new year…if the wild bird migration doesn’t reinfect the facilities as they fly south this fall.

I miss my bike!  My Raleigh (teal metallic 21 speed) was purchased in Clinton in May of 1992.  I’d ridden it in Clinton, Sioux City, Storm Lake, and Mason City.  My helmet was an insurance health incentive.  Throughout our time together I’d added a bag, tire pressure gauge, drink bottle cage, a bell (with a sticker that said “I (heart)  my bike”, and a rear view mirror. And this spring I had added a computer odometer.

On May 20^th Mike called and said our bikes were gone from our garage.  The next night our neighbor had 2 bikes stolen.  Amazingly s/he/they almost had to have opened the overhead door in order to take the bikes.  The police were helpful in gathering information but held out little hope of recovery.

I’ve grieved and fumed.  I’ve felt violated.  I don’t like what theft does to me.  “Was someone watching our house?”  “Was it a random act of opportunity?”  “Could it be a neighbor?”

And so I did some “bike looking” and checked Consumer Reports and ended up not knowing much more….but I did find out how much bikes cost, that bikes from box store are hardly ever stolen, and that even a modest bike costs more than I thought.  I ended up with a Trek Verve3 24 speed (black) step-through model (aka women’s bike) in a nod to my increasing age. Believe it or not it has suspension! I also got a helmet, a bag, a computer odometer and a bell.   Alas I forgot the tire gauge and rear view mirror.  And on my first solo ride in the neighborhood I tipped over when I applied the brakes. New brakes apparently grabbed more than the old.

Life is like riding a bicycle: you don't fall off unless you stop pedaling....Claude Pepper

Play

The Swing Set

   My cousins had a sturdy swing set at their farm that Uncle Mick 'planted' in the yard…it was built from scratch and hadn’t come in a kit.  It was sturdy and never wobbled.  It had a trapeze and two swings and of course the grass was worn where feet, shod and unshod, had scuffed. 

  As Lorraine and I aged into the teens we would each take a swing and exchange the latest chatter from school, periodically yelling at our sisters if they came too close!....but before we were teens the swing set was the world and the challenge was to traverse from one side to the other without touching the ground. 

  Each of the cross bars between the legs were part of the trial. We had to grab a swing and move from that swing to the next one and then onto the trapeze and over to the cross bar.  With that as the stage the drama might be crossing a raging river without falling or treetop to treetop in the jungle in Africa. AND of course we might be circus performers flying high on the trapeze or hanging by our knees.  Another day we crossed a deep canyon without falling to the bottom. 

  And usually in the midst of this play to faraway places there were squabbles, bumps, and bruises and Aunt Lillian would call to come for some lunch ( mid-morning or mid-afternoon!) and then back to play.

 

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Robert Louis Stevenson

Obituary

http://www.fratzkejensen.com/obituaries/Melvin-Samuelson/

April 30, 1921 - May 19, 2015