My June Reads, 2015

Eight books read in June - five of them rate as 4.0; two 3.0's and one 3.5. We'll start with the 4.0's:

I revisited an old classic, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" was one of the answers recently on Jeopardy. It reminded me how well I knew the first line of a book I had first read around fifty years ago. I decided to read this novel, first published in 1938, again. It was just as compelling as it was the first time. I did note during this reading that we never know the first name of the second Mrs. de Winter. Why? I enjoy pondering the significance.

Gillian Flynn's books are so edgy - riveting in their depravity. She is good. Scary good. Dark Places is the middle of her three books and the last one for me to read. Libby Day survives the massacre that took the lives of her mother and two sisters. Seven year old Libby believes, as does everyone else, that her brother was the murderer. Her testimony seals his conviction and sends him to prison. As an adult she begins to question her brother's guilt. In an attempt to find the truth of what happened that night, she confronts her past and falls victim to the real killer.

At The Water's Edge by Sara Gruen is a search of a different sort - looking for the Loch Ness monster. The time is the closing days of World War II. Three affluent Americans, Maddie, her husband and his best friend, find rooms in a pub/inn in a small village on the shore of the Loch. They are irritated that no one cares much about their comfort or even if they stay at the inn. Locals are more concerned about acquiring food and fuel than providing privileged perks for the rich Americans.
Maddie befriends some of the local women and learns to care about someone other than herself. When she discovers that her husband is using her and doesn't really love her, it is her new found friends who come to her aid.

I was looking on the shelves for a book by Amy Greene when I saw the title on the spine of Mike Greenberg's novel and pulled it down for a cursory look. The book jacket did not attract me. It was the title and the jacket blurb.
How does a male ESPN sportscaster write such a good book about three diverse women whose only commonality is breast cancer? All You Could Ask For is a fun read for the first part as we get to know the three women and their stories. It is a poignant read in the second part as we read about their cancer treatment choices and outcomes.
Even though this is a book about women and breast cancer, it was a good time for me to read it as my son begins his cancer chemo and radiation treatments. I was meant to pull this book off the shelf.

The final 4.0 this month is Colleen McCullough's Bittersweet. I loved reading all of her books set in Australia though I never read any of her Masters of Rome series. McCullough died January 29, 2015.

Set in Australia during the depression, two sets of twin girls - half sisters - come of age just when women are experiencing greater freedoms. All four join a new nursing program - one of the few occupations open to women at the time. The book explores each woman's strengths and weaknesses as well as the extraordinary bond between sisters.

I have been enjoying Jan Burke's Irene Kelly series so I decided to try one of her stand alone novels, The Messenger. It is a well written and interesting read about characters who live forever. They are not vampires. The main character has the ability to communicate by thought with dying people and then pass their final wishes on to others. This one was my 3.5 rating.

Murder On Amsterdam Avenue is Victoria Thompson's 17th Gaslight Mystery. Sarah & Frank are impatiently awaiting the finishing renovations on their new home so they can finally get married. So in the meantime they are called upon to solve another murder.
This series is set in New York in the early 1900's. I enjoy the setting as well as reading this 'light' murder mystery series. This is the first of my two 3.0 ratings.

Kazuo Ishigura's The Buried Giant is the other. Written as a fable or fantasy set in 6th Century Great Britain, it is quite a departure from Ishigura's previous novels. The writing seems simplistic to me, it does read like a fairy tale. An elderly couple is having trouble remembering things. They decide to leave their village and try to find their long lost, barely remembered son in a distant village. There be ogres and dragons and knights and monks.
About a third of the way in I thought I knew what the book was going to be about - memory loss and how it affects the lives of the devoted couple. And it is that but also about what will happen if/when 'the mist clears' and they are able to recapture all their memories, good and bad.
I felt about this book as I have about some others by award winning authors when I don't think the book is great - "I must be missing something." It is not Ishigura's best writing. It is no The Remains of the Day.

The Week in Words and Pictures 6/21-6/27

Sunday - Father's Day. This little one was born on Father's Day three years ago. (June 17) We didn't make it to her birthday party yesterday, but here is a photo of Lily Mae and her cake:

My great-granddaughter does not like having her picture taken. She turns her head or runs away, so having a photo of her smiling at the camera is a rare treat. Princess Lily with her Hello Kitty party theme. Love.

Bud enjoying one of his favorite pastimes for his Father's Day celebration. It is super easy to catch fish in our pond, but they are almost all this size. Catch and release.

While Bud was down at the pond, I went to Wally and bought some begonias for the deck planters.
Watched the final day of the US Open. Happy that Jordan Spieth won. I predict he is the next golfer to become a championship legend.

Monday - A day of rain. What else? 3/4's of an inch. Hot and humid. Did go to the Y, but not the Farmer's Market. Another shower came up just when it was time to start. There wasn't anything I needed anyway. Tornadoes in southeast Iowa tonight. Saw my first firefly of the summer this evening.

Tuesday - Cooler and less humid. Decided it was a good day to pull weeds. Had a great big black garbage bag full.

Stepping stones and some of the flower beds after I was done weeding. Oh my aching back!

Wednesday - Woke up to more rain. (20/100's) Went to the library Spotted this vanity license plate on the way back:

I'ma thinking THTGIRL should meet this guy:

YESIM HM is from Nebraska, but I have seen his vehicle at the Y many times this spring. A match made in Heaven?

Also on the way home from the library I went by a church on Adams Street that has seen a lot of remodeling work this winter and spring. Wondering if it is still going to be a church or something else as at least two decks have been added on to it.

Now I know. It has been re-imagined as two upscale condo units. I read they don't even know what asking price they should go with because there are no comparables in this area. Would be fun to go for a tour through them, wouldn't it?

Thursday - Disturbing dream about infiltrating the Hillbilly Mafia as an undercover agent. Had to wade through some really filthy water. Was I subconsciously thinking about the predicted flooding after the 5"-6"-7" rains north of us? Walnut Creek flooded again. I wonder if our old place on 4th Street was surrounded by water the way it was in '93?
No rain here, so another work day for me. The results of mulching:

As well as some more "deckorating:

Friday - Beautiful day. Looked at plants when I went to the grocery store. They were 1/2 price so of course some came home with me:

They added some color to where the Rose of Sharon bush used to be. I don't want to put anything permanent there yet because some of the green foliage on the right is sprouts from the old bush. Maybe it will make a comeback?

Such a perfect June day. I had to take some cloud pictures. No images for me in this photo, but....

Finally I see something in a cloud formation. In the middle of the photo there is a woman wafting south with her hair trailing out behind.

Saturday - Remember the end of April when I said I was keeping an eye on the corner near us - wondering what they were going to do there?

Well this is what it looks like now. They are still working on it; would probably be done if not for all the rain. This morning I had my suspicion confirmed when I saw a sign announcing there would be a storage unit facility there. There are already at least five storage places in town with another in the process of being built besides this one. Who uses these? What's being stored? Maybe we can have our own Storage Wars episode.

I went to Wally this morning to see if they had any bamboo wind chimes. They didn't. But they did have all their plants 1/2 price, too. So.....

I bought a hanging planter of geraniums and broke it into two pots of three geraniums each.

These are on the patio. No more room left on the deck. But 1/2 price? That's going to be hard to resist! I may have to go back for more if I can decide where to put them.

I began this post with a picture of Lily on her birthday. She is so cute, I'll end it with another from a couple days ago: "Lily Mae, Bubble Princess" - photo taken by her daddy.

This is the week that was.

Farming With Horses

I read Seamus Heaney's poem Follower today which brought to mind my memories of farming with horses. Rex and Dolly were the work horses I remember from my youth. Mostly I think of them pulling the hay rack bringing in loads of hay or carting sheaves of oats to the threshing machine or pulling the wagon down the corn rows as Dad picked corn by hand.

At the end of the work day, Dad would lead them into their respective stalls in the barn and unharness them, wipe them down, perhaps use the curry comb on them as they munched the oats from the manger feeding boxes.

Heaney's poem is about ploughing with a horse, which I don't have any clear memories of though I can picture the horses pulling the sickle mower through the hay field and watching the swaths of hay lay down in passing.

               Follower

My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
and fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.
              (Seamus Heaney)

This picture is from 1940, Dad with a load of corn. I think the horses are Rex and Dolly, but I'm not sure. The first picture is of them and our pony, Queenie. We had that team until 1955. I remember how sad we were knowing they were being sold to a knacker.

In Mom's diary on September 1, 1938, she wrote: "Polly, 'our horse' took sleeping sickness this p.m. On September 11 she wrote: "Polly is lots better." Then on September 30: "Old Jack is sick. Think he'll die. (He died this evening.)" In an earlier entry she had mentioned 'Old Bird' is sick. I think Jack and Bird were also horses, but whether their's or Grandpa & Grandma Lynam's, I don't know. I expect the parents helped out the newlyweds by loaning them work horses.

Our neighbors, the Reichardt brothers, farmed with horses long after ours were sold. I could harness our pony to the buggy by myself, but only 'helped' harness the work horses - a skill long forgotten.

Heaney's poems are some of my favorites. I'm happy for the memories Follower brought back to me today.

The Week in Words and Pictures 6/14-6/20

Sunday - A true 'day of rest' after yesterday's garage cleaning binge. Off and on rain all day. A picture from last evening after I had already posted last week's re-cap:

This blue heron regularly visits our pond for a bite of sushi or frog legs. His regular hang-out is across the tracks at Lake McKinley.

Monday - Woke up to what else? More rain. A total in our gauge of an inch and 40/100's.
This is what I "picked up" at my mother-in-law's former property Friday. No one lives there now, but she always said I could have more hen and chicks anytime.

This is how they look after I finally got them potted:

Tuesday - Lucky Grandpa and Grandma Fleming - they have Ayden for a couple of days.

It seems strange to refer to my son and daughter-in-law as 'grandpa and grandma'. Ayden isn't a year old yet, but he's walking all over the place - bet they had fun keeping up with him!

This beautiful ring neck dove checked out our newly painted deck this morning. Wish they would visit more often. I think they nest in the birch tree down by the pond.

Wednesday - Dreamed about my best friend from our one-room country school days. Photo is from 1955-56 school year.

Virginia was the eighth-grader (tallest) and I the seventh-grader (second tallest). We were friends all through grade school but when she started high school a year ahead of me, our friendship waned as we each had new best friends.
In the dream Virginia was back in the area and wanted to get together. She told me I was one of her first and best friends and that she had never forgotten me; wanted us to be close again. I was skeptical but she seemed so sincere.

Why do we dream of people who have been out of our lives and minds for years and years? What sub-conscious trigger brings them back to us?

It was foggy this morning and you may think that is the reason I took this picture. In reality I was trying to take a picture of the bug on the window in hopes it would be clear enough I could use it in a later identification attempt. A green lacewing?

Today is great-granddaughter Lily's third birthday. She and mommy had fun at the Children's Museum of Lacrosse.

Thursday - Is it or isn't it going to rain? Want to get the second coat on the deck. A reminder of what the deck looked like before the first coat went on:

After consulting several forecasts of which way the rain was going to track, we decided to go for it. Got the second coat on by 10 a.m. No rain. Babied my aching back the rest of the day.
Watched some of the first day of the US Open. Really like the looks of the Chambers Bay Golf Course - looks more like a European course. Should be fun to watch.

Friday - Maybe we are finally going to have a new neighbor. The same woman came back for the third time this week. She must be interested.
Got some plants and potted them. Waiting patiently for the deck to be good and dry.

Passed by the park on the way home where they were getting ready for Saturday night's Party in the Park. This is an annual fund raiser for McKinley Park. This year's tribute bands will be Shameless (Garth Brooks tribute), Double Vision (Foreigner tribute) and Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones tribute). We don't have to attend - we can hear the music from our deck.

Got some things moved onto the newly, twice painted, deck. More to go.

Saturday - Some of the 'deck-orations':

The copper crow is one Doug made for me years ago. Beginning to have a nice patina. Child of Peace is the Isabel Bloom figurine.

These flowers survived the winter. I've had pots of pinks (dianthus) before which lived through several winters just setting in the unheated garage. I've had my Isabel Bloom figures so long I've forgotten their names. I think this one might be Laura With Bird.

This is my favorite corner so far - 'Emma' with impatiens.

I have no idea what this plant is. It looks like a coleus except that it is winter hardy and grows like a weed. My neighbor had it about four years ago. This spring many small starts of this were growing out of the cracks between the sidewalk and street so I pulled them and stuck them in pots. They grew! 'Faith' is the Isabel Bloom in this photo.

A bowl of sedums and gargoyles. These also winter over in their pot.

In the final corner, a birdbath, Isabel Bloom's 'Peek' peeking around it and the planter I think of as Medusa because her 'hair' gets pretty wild as the season goes on. I have tried several different plants for her hair, but the sedum works the best and I don't have to replant it each year.

It is now evening and the tribute bands are playing. I don't even have to go out on the deck - I can hear them here in the house with the windows closed. Yes, I'm old and I like peace and quiet.

This is the week that was.

Lasting Embers

......pulling up the covers and thinking......something vaguely significant about warmth......and comfort.....and ---being loved.

Isn't it time, R, to be less concerned about being loved  - and more concerned about loving?

"I love, you love, he, she, it loves."

Yes, there is a time to forego - and "middle age" must be that time.

Warm yourself with memories -
Seer yourself with momentary pleasures -
But bank the fires with lasting embers:

The elder son who still needs you so and has given you
  .... a grandson of pure delight.

The daughter who brings sunshine into every moment of your day.

And the younger son who is still somehow a mystery
you have just begun to fathom.....and enjoy.

.....A mother of such deep understanding
  - you'll never comprehend.

And grandmothers diverse - but so important in their roles.

Aunts, uncles, cousins - outsiders --
 - neighbors, friends, lovers, enemies.

       -----Lasting embers ----

                 all.

(ril, 4/22/83 11:18 p.m.)

"Life is Old There, Older Than the Trees"

I was reading about/looking at the iPhone photography awards this morning and was struck by Ruairidh McGlynn's 1st place winner in the Trees category.

McGlynn, from Edinburgh, Scotland, was on a trip to Qatar in the desert bordering Saudi Arabia when he took this photo. I've always liked pictures of lone trees.

Mark Hirsch, a Dubuque, Iowa area photographer is another one I admire. He used his iPhone to capture a photo a day for 365 days of a bur oak tree near his home. The images are amazing. (Google That Tree)

I'll probably never have an iPhone or a good camera, nor will I likely take any photography courses. I will, however, continue taking tree pictures for my own satisfaction.

"My Three Trees" - I took many pictures of these favorites when we lived on the acreage near Urbandale.

Another photo from that same location, these trees were in our acre+ front yard.

Corner tree at Prairie Rose Cemetery - now cut down - a victim of the pine beetle.

Old Stone Cemetery in Northeast Iowa near Volga.

Sunrise through the trees and fog when we lived at 'Mrs. Eliot's' south of Fairview Church, Taylor Co.

Overlooking Crater Lake, Oregon, 2006.

February 2012 snow and ice west side of Lake McKinley, Creston. So glad I took this photo, the trees have all been cut down.

"Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky."  (Kahlil Gibran)

Mountain Ash across the street at Quiet Harbor - now also gone - but I saved a small limb to make into a walking stick.

Our weeping willow at the farm seen in the distance past the sundial and through the butterfly bush.

Sun coming up through a dead catalpa tree east of Mom's barn. I shared my memories about this catalpa grove in my blog June 18, 2013. The entire grove was dead by the early 80's. The kids and I cut the dead trees down and used them for firewood at the little house.

One of my Mother's photos of her crab apple tree, dog, Buffy, her garden and that tall, tall pine I climbed to the top of when I was a teenager.

Very old choke cherry tree on the Mauderly/Ridnour homestead under which is buried my great-grandmother's brother, Christopher Mauderly. (April 26,1864-March 20, 1881)

Some photos I didn't take - of me and trees:

Okay, so the photo is of me holding a puppy, but the tree behind me by the garage is "Betty's Tree". When she and I were preteens, Dad planted two maple trees in the front yard. Betty and I both laid claim to the same tree. It was the one south of the tree in the picture. Being older and using threats, I won the claiming of the tree I wanted and by default the other one became Betty's tree. If I remember right the reason I wanted the tree I did was because it had a branch low enough and strong enough for me to hang on and skin-the-cat.

Oh if this tree could only talk. ♫Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas with Waylon and Willie and the boys.♫

I may be smiling, but I was hot and tired and wondering if I was going to make it to the top. Mato Paha, Bear Butte near Sturgis, South Dakota.

Have I mentioned that I love trees? "It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit."  (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Mingus Mill, Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The Oconaluftee River Trail.