Read In March 2019

Twelve books read this month.

The Golden Tresses of the Dead is Alan Bradley's tenth book in his Flavia de Luce series.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill is a new author for me, read upon the recommendation of my daughter.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult is another great read, as is....

Leaving Time .... The book that gave me a new appreciation for elephants.

Rocket Boys is a memoir by Homer H. Hickam, Jr. is a book I bought. It made me think so much of my older brother's time and adventures, I am sending it to him to read as he recuperates from knee surgery.

What The Dead Leave Behind by Rosemary Simpson is the first in her Gilded Age Mystery series, this one set during in New York City during the great blizzard of 1888.

The Victory Garden is Rhys Bowen's is set during one of my favorite time periods, WWI, as well as about one of my favorite subjects, healing with herbs.

The Black Ascot is Charles Todd's latest novel in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series. I love this protagonist and this series set during the years after WWI.

City of Secrets is Victoria Thompson's second book of her A Counterfeit Lady series. Con artist Elizabeth Miles helps one of the suffragists she met in the previous novel.

The Burglar is the first novel I've read by Thomas Perry. Happily I have found a new author and will be reading my way through the books in Gibson Memorial and then head to Corning Library for the ones they have.

We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet is set in England during and after WWII. A very young girl is separated from her mother during an evacuation and taken in by a childless couple.

Tony's Wife by Adriana Trigiani. This author has been one of my favorites for many years, but this book has probably been my least favorite of her's.


All good books read this month. April will feature more Picoult and Perry for sure. Maybe some more new authors?  It will also feature more yard work so maybe fewer books read?

The Loss Of A Mate

Tho' not a mourning dove
Does not she look like
A dove in mourning?

A predator took her mate
As he, unaware,
Simply filled his crop.

Now she sits above
Wondering what to do
Without his bill and coo.

In Spring, A Young Woman's Fancy Turns To......

Now, in Spring, my fancy might still return to love, but it also returns to gratefulness that I am  experiencing the return to warm weather and another planting season, even if  I am only thinking about which flowers I'm going to put in which pots on the deck and patio.

A few years ago I was still receiving at least four or five seed catalogs. I had been introduced at an early age by my mother to the pleasures of planning the year's garden and ordering seeds in February when there was snow on the ground.

Earl May Nursery and Seed Catalog was one of the ones Mom always perused and ordered from, along with their Shenandoah rival company, Henry Field's. Gurney's, in Indiana, was another favorite. I think their prices were a little lower that May's and Field's.

For many years, Earl May Nursery and Seed operated a large test field which was open to the public. One of my Grandma Ridnour's favorite jaunts every spring was to Shenandoah to tour the plots and choose some new varieties for her garden.

One of the neighborhood clubs Grandma belonged to was the Kil-Kare-Klub. The Earl May trial gardens were often one of their 'skip day' destinations. Grandma is on the right above with another club member and friend, Myra Jackson.

An even older picture (circa 1936) from Earl May's Flower Center is this one of my mother, Ruth, right, with friends and neighbors, Roy and Evelyn Kapple. The couple has a boutonniere and a small bouquet which makes me think they may have just gotten married. Many couples of that era did get married in KMA's Mayfair Auditorium where the ceremonies were broadcast live to radio listeners.

I don't remember Mom telling me if she and dad were Roy and Evelyn's attendants, but I do know Roy and Evelyn were Mom and Dad's witnesses the following year when they wed in the Methodist Church Parsonage in Bedford.

Roy and his brother, Art were childhood friends of Dad's in Taylor County. Mom and Evelyn (Naven) were also childhood neighbors. Roy and family and Art and family were later Dad and Mom's closest neighbors to the west; Roy on the south side of the road, Art on the north.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Earl May Nursery and Seed Company. Their annual seed catalog was discontinued in 1991. The company operates garden centers in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska.

Where The Wood Drake Rests

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of the wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

Photo by Ramona Lynam taken 22 March 2019

It Is March

It Is March

It is March and black dust falls out of the books
Soon I will be gone
The tall spirit who lodged here has
Left already
On the avenues the colorless thread lies under
Old prices

When you look back there is always the past
Even when it has vanished
But when you look forward
With your dirty knuckles and the wingless
Bird on your shoulder
What can you write

The bitterness is still rising in the old mines
The fist is coming out of the egg
The thermometers out of the mouths of corpses

At a certain height
The tails of the kites for a moment are
Covered with footsteps

Whatever I have to do has not yet begun

W. S. Merwin, US Poet Laureate
September 30, 1927 - March 15, 2018

It's A Strange World Master Jack

"It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
You taught me all I know and I'll never look back
It's a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack"

In 1968, Four Jacks and A Jill, a South African folk rock group had a hit song in the United States, Master Jack.

"You took a colored ribbon from out of the sky
And taught me how to use it as the years went by
To tie up all your problems and make them look neat
And then to sell them to the people in the street"

When I married Denny in 1968 and moved to Des Moines, I got to know some of his friends. One of his good friends was Jack Porter, pictured above in the black sweater.  I don't remember how they became friends in West Des Moines where Denny taught, but I do remember Jack's dad was a Des Moines fireman and when the city passed a rule that their fire department members had to live within the Des Moines city limits, the family moved from West Des Moines to Des Moines' South side.

These pictures were taken after we moved to the acreage the day before Kari was born. That is Denny in the white shirt and my son, Doug, in between them. At the time Jack was working for the Des Moines Planning and Zoning Department. His boss rented the farm house just down the road from us. I remember going to one of their New Year's Eve parties - a very fun time.
Later Jack became a DM city council member. He and his wife moved into the childhood home of famed pianist, Roger Williams, in the Sherman Hills neighborhood.

I do not remember the name of Jack's friend who came with him, only that he was Hawaiian. Nor can I remember why we were sitting on the living room floor eating fondue instead of sitting at the dining room table.

But I do remember how we referred to Jack as Master Jack because of the song. Doug might remember Master Jack, but I don't know if Kari and Preston do.

"You taught me all the things the way you'd like them to be
But I'd like to see if other people agree
It's all very interesting the way you disguise
But I'd like to see the world through my own eyes

It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack"