December '23 Book List

 Eight books read this last month of the year. That's a total of 89 books read in 2023.

The Edge by David Baldacci is his newest book and a follow-up to the 6:20 Man. Both feature ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine.

Shadow Dance by Julie Garwood is the first book I've read by this author and apparently it is #6 in her Buchanan-Renaurd series of romantic suspense novels. It was good enough I may read more - going back and reading them in order.

The Never Game is by Jeffery Deaver, also a new author for me. This series features Colton Shaw an investigator who makes his living by finding missing persons and collecting the rewards offered. This is the second book in the series but my library lists it as the first and does not have the actual first book, Hunting Time.

the New Girl and The Order are #'s 19 and 20 in the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva. I am nearing the end of reading all the books the library has in the series with the latest released in July.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawton is only the second book I've read by this author and my favorite read this month. I would read all her books if the library had them. This book is the story of a midwife/healer in the territory of Maine, along the Kennebec River in 1789. It is based on the true life story of Martha Ballard and her determination to see justice done during a time when women were to be seen and not heard. I adore well crafted books based on real historical happenings.

The Goodbye Man and The Final Twist are books two and three (or three and four) in Jeffery Deaver's Colton Shaw series. I believe the latter is the last book of the series. I plan to read more of his books possibly the Lincoln Rhyme series next.

The year, as always, has been a good one for me for reading - the other thing, besides traveling, that I wanted to do the most of when I retired. I'm looking forward to more good reading in the New Year. I hope you are as well.  Happy New Year! 💝😍

January - December - 2023 Through My Photos

 

January 18 - Moisture on the bare limbs of the Oak tree.

February - A trip to the Children's Museum in West Des Moines to celebrate the 2nd birthday of my youngest great-grandson, Louis.

Pictured here with another great-grandson and cousin of his, Greyson.

What a fun day it was.

March 14 - A sun pillar during sunset.

April 14 - At one of the most beautiful and joyous weddings I've ever attended - that of my granddaughter Dominique and her husband Ian. My great-grandsons (Dominique's nephews) Greyson, left and Ayden, right, were the flower bearers. The burros were part of the owners' berry farm and celebration venue.

May - While working in my flower beds - one of the largest garter snakes I've seen here - and possibly ever.

No I wasn't afraid of it - but it's sudden motion did startle me. 😅

June 6 - A Tuesday. The first and last day I walked at Lake McKinley this year.

The picture is of Boneset amid some rocks along the shoreline. I was enjoying my first walk of the season after successful PT for vertigo. Minutes later, my accident/fall and the end of my outdoor walks for the rest of the year. 

What an experience, including a life flight to the trauma center in Des Moines.

July - Three turkeys in the back yard.  Their iridescent feathering is a delight to witness close up.

August - Rain drops and a spider's web combine and link two of my rocks. Part of a geode? on the left, petrified wood on the right.

September - A Great Blue Heron down at the pond.

This is not an unusual sight, we see them often, but I do think this was a good photo - caught as it was in the sunlight and amid the grasses.

October 20 - Not a walk in nature but a drive around town searching out and photographing the colors of Autumn.

This one, the red leaves of Virginia Creeper on the shaggy gray bark of a tree.

November was a big month for me - celebrating my 80th birthday with almost all of my family members. I could have shared a photo from that day.

Instead it is this one of a coyote trotting past our deck. I had seen it, the first one ever around here, a few days earlier in the field across the pond. But this close?! Wow!

December - It was hard to chose between this photo of the waning full Cold Moon taken this morning and one of some tracks in the fresh snow of a few days ago.  But I went with this one because just like the moon, the year is almost over.

Two things have cut down on my picture taking, one the accident in June and two, my trusty little Nikon Coolpix S7000 camera no longer takes the sharp photos it used to. So maybe there is a new camera in the offing in the new year. That would be a no brainer of the same camera was still available.

But the new year is yet to present itself and who knows what lies in store. May we all have more ups than downs and more acceptance of what is instead of worry for what might be.

Arranged By Chance

 

Some Trees By John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Such comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

(Photo taken this a.m. -- our first snow covering all this winter season.) 

For All That Was Left Unsaid

 Mom on her 80th birthday - January 1999

For Grief By John O'Donohue

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.

Today is the 20th anniversary of my mother Ruth's death and while the raw pain of her passing has lessened over the years, missing her never goes away. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of her.

This photo was the last one ever taken of her. I am fortunate to have it. It was taken at the Christmas Tea for the residents of the Good Samaritan nursing home in Villisca nine days before she died.

I turned 80 myself this year, so I have a better idea what Mom's last years were like. 

It isn't easy getting old, but it is interesting - and a privilege many don't have.

Grandma Delphia and her VO5

 

It was while I was in the shower this morning, putting conditioner on my hair and thinking about a sitcom viewed recently where a woman lamented about how many minutes she had to wait before rinsing out the conditioner that I remembered Grandma Delphia and her devotion to Alberto VO5. I'm guilty of not waiting that long so I probably don't get the full benefits of my conditioner. But Grandma Ridnour left her conditioner in which I guess it was designed for.

And just as I once wrote about my Mom shampooing and conditioning her Dad's (Grandpa Joe's) hair https://rilynam.blogspot.com/2010/10/grandpa-joe-and-fred-fitch.html I realized she had done the same for her Mother.

I remember watching her shampoo grandma's hair as she bent over the kitchen sink; how Mom would rinse out the shampoo and then apply the VO5 except that instead of rinsing it out after a few minutes, it was left in Grandma's hair. I always thought it looked (and maybe felt) greasy. I knew it was something I would never use. But Grandma swore by it.

In the process of searching to see if VO5 was even still manufactured, I learned what the name stands for - the five vitamin oils in it: Sunflower seed oil, Mango seed oil, Sweet almond oil, Rosemary leaf oil and Chamomile flower oil. I don't remember how it smelled, but it must have been very good. The vitamins include B3, C, E, B5 and Biotin. 

I do remember Mom trying VO5 for awhile, but not always as Grandma did. And even though years later, when I began doing the same shampooing and conditioning for her as she stood over her kitchen sink and then drying and curling her hair for her.  I don't remember what shampoo and conditioner she used in those later years and I probably didn't think of it as a gift of love and care as I now realize, it was just something a daughter did for her mother. (As the mother had once done for her daughters.)

I took Mom's electric curling iron to the funeral home and did her hair for her one last time. I did it for her and for myself - the last thing I could do for her. 💔

Some New Old Photos

I don't know if others care about photographs as much as I do, but I love them. They are treasures to me. Especially ones I've never seen before. My cousin Barb Drake died recently. Yesterday her husband Larry sent me a packet of photos via his and Barb's daughter-in-law Kris. I became acquainted with Kris when her mother moved in across the street from us. 

This is the first photo I scanned and the one that truly elated me - a picture of my Grandmother Bessie Duncan  and her little brother Leslie. 

Grandma was born in July 1891 and Uncle Bus (as we knew him) was born in January 1894, so Grandma would have been around two and a half in this picture. 

I had never seen a photo of my grandma as a child. Truly precious. And I love the way she is holding her dolly.

Another pose of the two of them. Grandma was the eldest of six, two girls and four boys.

Bessie, Leslie, Lawrence, Lloyd, Agnes (Babe) and Ralph.

Back row LtoR, Agnes (Babe, as she was always referred to) holding her daughter Hazel. Ethel (Leslie's wife) with daughter Elvera (Barb's mother) standing in front. Grandma Bessie with daugher Leona (my aunt) in front. Ruby (Lloyd's wife) with Lloyd in front of her.

Front row LtoR Buelah (Lawrence's wife) and son Darwin, Edwin son of Lloyd and Ruby and my dad, Louis. 

Picture was taken at Grandpa George and Grandma Bessie's farm home in Taylor County.

Taken at same location, but in March, 1941. 

Left to right, Aunt Leona, my Mom, Ruth, holding my brother Ronald. Elvera Duncan holding her little sister Marjorie.

Grandma Bessie and Aunt Ethel standing in back.

LtoR: Edwin Duncan, my dad Louis Lynam, Ronald Figgins, Uncle Leslie Duncan, Uncle Herman Figgins (Babe's husband), Uncle Lloyd Duncan. 

The occasion was during WWII when Edwin and Ronald were home on leave.

Grandma with her brothers, July, 1972: Lloyd, Leslie, Bessie and Ralph.

Also in 1972 in Grove Park (Play park) near Grandma's house: Uncle Lloyd, Grandma, Uncle Bus.

Lastly, a picture taken in Grandma Lynam's back yard in 1957 of Uncle Bus, Grandma and Uncle Ralph. 

This one I remember. Uncle Ralph and his daughter Shirley were visiting from the west coast. First time I met them, at least that I remember.

I am so grateful to have these photos - especially the ones from 1894 of Grandma and Uncle Bus. 💟

The Teapot I Purchased Twice

I once had a large collection of teapots but when we decided to downsize, retire, and move I sold almost all of them at the time of our farm sale - including this one. I changed my mind after the auctioning of the teapots began. My grandson, Zachary, was nearby and had an auction number, so I asked him to bid on the teapots. As I recall the price of 'first bid' was $3.50 which he got. I pointed out the teapot I wanted and he bought it for me - the second time I had purchased it at an auction.

The first time I had the winning bid for this 'Gibson Staffordshire England Teapot' was at the household auction for Grace Dory in the early 90's. As I recall I paid between $11 and $12 for it the first time. Grace was a woman I had known and liked for a number of years. I wanted something of her's as a memento of our friendship and the teapot was perfect.

It was one of those 'it's a small world' coincidences that led to my friendship with Grace. It happened via my employment at Lariam House recording studio in the mid '70's. One of our voice-over talents was Billy Cole - a radio personality at WHO in Des Moines. Bill had one of the most melodic voices I'd ever heard. He hosted 'The Country Call-In' show in addition to being a singer and songwriter. During one of our conversations he asked me where I was from and I told him Corning. That was when he told me one of his regular callers was from Corning and that they had become friends. When I moved back to my hometown and had occasion to talk with Grace I told her about working with Billy at the studio. When Bill and his wife came to town to visit Grace, she told me about it.

Some of the clients Billy voiced commercials for were, John Deere, Pioneer Seed and Massey-Ferguson. 

Bill Kelsey was director of public relations for M-F at that time which led to another of those 'small world' coincidences in the 80's when my daughter and his son were good friends at Valley High School.

Billy was inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in 2002. He ended his shows with "The best way to have friends is to be one." 

Billy and Bill were two of the nicest guys you could ever meet.

Back to the first time I bought that Gibson tea pot at Grace's sale - one of my high school friends and classmate, Linda Miller, was also there. I hadn't seen her for several years. She was in town visiting her parents. We were talking, looking through items for sale when she picked up something I did not recognize and then bid on and bought. 

I don't remember exactly what she called it - a sap, I think, though it might have been cosh or blackjack. When I asked what it was for she told me it was a weapon, a small, weighted, hand held weapon that could be used defensively. I don't know why she wanted it, nor why Grace would have owned one, but I was impressed on both counts.

 A teapot and a cosh - two very disparate items to link in a blog post. Ah, memories. 

Now Is The Season

 

Wolf Moon By Mary Oliver

Now is the season

of hungry mice,

cold rabbits, 

lean owls

hunkering with their lamp-eyes

in the leafless lanes

in the needled dark;

now is the season 

when the kittle fox

comes to town

in the blue valley

of early morning;

now is the season

of iron rivers,

bloody crossings,

flaring winds,

birds frozen

in their tents of weeds,

their music spent

and blown like smoke

to the stone of the sky;

now is the season 

of the hunter Death;

with his belt of knives, 

his black snowshoes,

he means to cleanse

the earth of fat;

his gray shadows

are out and running -- under

the moon, the pines, 

down snow-filled trails they carry 

the red whips of their music,

their footfalls quick as hammers,

from cabin to cabin,

from bed to bed,

from dreamer to dreamer.

The photo is one I took yesterday morning not of a wolf, but a coyote as it loped through the back yard very near our deck. It obviously is not going hungry - looking very healthy and well fed. I saw it at a distance a few days ago hunting in the field on the other side of the pond. I hope everyone is keeping a close watch on their pets. I doubt this creature is surviving, thriving on mice and rabbits only.