September '26 Books Read

 I managed to read ten books in thirty days this month. 

The Wedding Game, Runaway Groomsman and The Reunion are all by Meghan Quinn, a new author for me. I thought the first book was a bit lame but the other two weren't too bad.

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger was sent to me by my son Douglas. This is an author we both like. This will go back to Doug to read.

September is one of my books read long ago and pulled out to read again. British novelist Rosamund Pilcher was one of my favorite authors. 

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden was touted as "a book every woman should read even if she is happily married". 

Beach Music by Pat Conroy is another of his books I decided to read after reading his South of Broad last month. This one wasn't nearly as good, in my opinion.

Sleep No More is a collection of "six murderous tales" by English novelist P. D. James.

Border Music By Robert James Waller is another dip back into my own collection of books.

Our Noble Selves is Kate Atkinson's latest novel. She is one of my adopted authors and has been a favorite of mine. I was a bit disappointed in this one which is based on the 1951 Festival of Britain. Her Jackson Brodie books are the best, in my opinion.

With all the rain we've had this month, books were good companions.

Moody Monday

Weather wise it is a rather moody Monday morning - cloudy and overcast though the sun is supposed to come out. 

But mood wise, personally, I'm in a good mood which is one reason I took a little drive up to Lake McKinley. It is so good to see the lake full of water - but not surprising with all the rain we've had.

Water gushing and foaming over and under the spillway - headed downriver as part of the Platte.

Near the spillway, some fall color on the sumacs. Fall is my favorite time of the year even if it does usher in my least favorite season.   

About the same distance away in the other direction is this small backyard pond. Isn't it delightful? When we moved to Mom's farm and I planted my weeping willow tree with plans to construct a small pond beneath it, this was the kind of water feature I had in mind, though maybe not quite this big. Sadly, I never accomplished making it. 😞

One thing I noticed both at the lake and in this tableau (in the top right corner) were the walnuts on the trees and the ground. I wonder if this is a mast year for walnuts?

10:45 a.m. and the sun popped out. The weather forecasters got it right. 😁

The Memories We Carry

A week ago today I posted about my great-grandparents and some memories I had of them as well as comments about my own great-grandchildren.

A couple days ago I found this clip and realized how well it fits into that post and how I feel about the continuum of family connections. 💞

Don't Give Up. Don't Ever Give Up*

 

Don't Quit By Edgar A. Guest

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
when the funds are low and the debts are high,
and you want to smile but you have to sigh,
when care is pressing you down a bit - rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns.
As everyone of us sometimes learns.
And many a fellow turns about when he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow - you may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up when he might have captured the victor's cup;
and he learned too late when the night came down,
how close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out - the silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
and when you never can tell how close you are,
it may be near when it seems afar;
so stick to the fight when you're hardest hit - it's when things seem worst, you must not quit.

*Jimmy V.

1954 - The Fecund Year

In this photo are my great-grandparents Rufus and Kate Ridnour and Kate's sister Aunt Josie Gray.  The Ridnours lived on a farm NE of Nodaway, Iowa and Aunt Josie lived near Plainville, IL. The Ridnours had three children who lived to adulthood, my grandfather Joe, and great-aunts Florence Haley and Lottie Inman. Grandpa Joe and Grandma Delphia had three daughters. Aunt Evelyn Roberts had six children. Aunt Lois Mitchell also had six children. My parents had four children for a total of sixteen grandchildren for the Ridnours. The Haleys had twenty-six grandchildren and the Inman's ten for a total of fifty-two great-grandchildren.

I don't know how many of those great-grands might have been born in the same year with the exception of 1954 which stood out as the year great-grandma Kate had seven great-grandbabies! (One of which was my little brother.) Sadly, it was also the year Great-grandma died. Her's was the first funeral I had any clear memories of attending. (Great-grandpa Rufe died in 1950.)

To date, I have thirteen great-grandchildren with only two being the most born in the same years - two in 2009, two in 2014 and two in 2024. All my great-grands mean the world to me. I'm looking forward to meeting the newest of the bunch, Genevieve Irene, pictured here with her father, Travis.

The Summer Pond

Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond

      By Mary Oliver

So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings

open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks

of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed

back into itself--
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn't a miracle

but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.

These Hands

Five years ago today, a writer friend of my daughter posted this photo and the accompanying paragraphs on her FB page. It made me think so much of my Grandma Delphia that I saved it. Those hands doing the crocheting could have been her hands. She rarely sat idly, always had a crochet hook or tatting shuttle working the threads.

Protection

I passed a woman crocheting by the side of the road in Calliope; the sign at her feet said, “Free Protection for Road Family”. I pulled the Biscuit Tin over very gently (it can throw rocks like a baseball hall-o’-famer) and walked back.

“Well, bless you,” the lady said (her eyes huge behind thick frames, like a wise old owl). “And bless you back!” I responded (never knowing the right thing to say when someone throws light on your day just like that). “What are you making?” “Wraps and shawls,” she explained, pointing. “This here’s a box of orphan yarn - abandoned skeins left out of however many that were needed to finish a making. And this box holds the thing they become together (something welcome and warm).” I’d never seen anything like it before; random bits of color woven into patterns that lay piled in large triangles like rainbows you could touch.

“I love this one,” I said, and touched the shawl when she nodded that I could. It was a dove gray with sparkle thread throughout - some darker gray and some rose with a bit of white here and there. It was thick but impossibly soft and I caught myself just shy of rubbing my face all over it. “It loves you, too,” the lady said. “The shawls tend to pick their people. That one’s the Old Souls Shawl and the protection looped into that is all about remembering the love that has been while not letting it trap you. It’s about taking the best of Before and being at peace with After.”

She wouldn’t let me give her anything for the shawl, so I got Nickel out of the camper and, together, we sat with her a while and shared cheese sandwiches and a couple of juice boxes. I wore the shawl proudly at the campfire that night and the goofy guy who was working the entrance gate left me alone.

(Written by Tansy Undercrypt - Part of her Lost Moon Road series.)

The Baby Blues

 

Whether because of the recent birth of my 13th great-grandchild, or, more likely, the current news coverage of a certain trial, I began recalling my own postpartum experience after the birth of my first born a little over sixty-four years ago.

His due date was the 8th but Douglas wasn't born until thirteen minutes after midnight on the 10th. His Dad was there for the birth but had to leave early the next morning for two weeks National Guard camp in Minnesota. 

When the baby and I were released from the hospital we went to my parents' home. 

I wasn't quite nineteen when Doug was born, but typical teenager I thought I knew everything. The first night I slept upstairs next to the baby bassinet and Mom slept with me to help when my little one woke up. When he did Mom changed his diaper and I nursed him back to sleep.

Things progressed well with my grandparents visiting to see their new great-grandchild - the first on Dad's side and the second on Mom's - as well as aunts, neighbors and my in-laws. In the daytime we put my sleeping baby on Mom's bed instead of taking him upstairs.  

I remember so well that it was one of those afternoons when I went in to check on him that I felt such a huge feeling of being overwhelmed. I started crying. Mom came in to see what was wrong. I didn't know what was wrong, but she did. Gently she said, "Ramona, you've got the baby blues." She went on to explain that it was natural for a new mother to feel as I was and that it would get better. I don't recall that she used the term postpartum depression, but that's what it was. Thank goodness my mother was there not only to help with my baby but to help one of her own understand that part of being a new mom. 

I don't recall having the baby blues after Kari and Preston were born. I might have felt overwhelmed because I had so much more to do with two more children and working full time but that wasn't the same as PPD.  👶💙

The Legend of Black Squirrels

 

What a surprise yesterday afternoon. I happened to look out my magic window at just the right time to see this black squirrel running through the yard. This is the first black squirrel I've seen since we left the farm. I most likely won't see it again because two of the resident red squirrels immediately let it know that it was not welcome.

I posted a photo of it on Facebook. A cousin of Bud's commented that their Uncle Orville had black squirrels in his yard in Corning.

Legend was that in the late 50's black squirrels were introduced into town by the Castello twins, Richard and Robert, classmates of mine. Allegedly they had brought them back to Corning after capturing some while visiting relatives in Council Bluffs. 

Prior to their introduction into Corning, I had always heard that the only locations in Iowa with black squirrrels was Davenport and Council Bluffs.

Here you can see why this squirrel was in the neighborhood - that acorn it is holding. There are plenty of those to go around if only the red squirrels weren't so territorial.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Perhaps the two factions can come to a détante and I'll get to see more of this little visitor and, eventually more like it. 

Child of Depression

 

I don't remember the Depression, but I do remember hearing about it - Dad telling about working for 50 cents a day.

Mom's habits of saving, not wasting, became part of my life. She patched the holes our clothes and shopped the grocery ads for sale items as well as tending a large garden. So, that while I was not alive during the depression, I was affected by it.

For much of my life I was affected by another depression, the one of low self esteem, no energy, feeling worthless and unable to pull myself out of the doldrums. I would suffer those feelings for several days, usually every month or so, before I would feel my mood lifting. I never thought about what caused those moods and as I got older they finally ceased.

I was reading an article about Gloria Steinem, an activist for women's rights I've admired since the late 60's, in which she was quoted as saying: "Depression is an anger turned inward". Now I'm pondering that idea. Wondering if that could have been true about some of my depressions.  

The Chickens of Quiet Harbor

 

When we first moved to this retirement community, there were three concrete chickens with chipped and faded paint setting in the weeds along the fenceline. We were told that at one time there was a 3-hole golf course on the grounds with a chicken marking each hole.

The three, (Shall we name them Cluck, Penny and Peck?) remained in the weeds until a couple years ago when an enterprising maintenance man built this roost for them.

This year our next door neighbor gave them a fresh coat of paint and added those solar powered lights you can see in front of the chickens in the first picture.

It's kind of eerie to see Cluck, Penny and Peck glowing in the night - and yet, in a way, somewhat homey and cheerful.  😊🐔

They Enter Our Dreams

Forty some years ago, I discovered and became an admirer of Wendell Berry. I am sorry to learn that he died yesterday at age 92. I have shared many of his poems and quotes before but not this one:

The Loved Ones By Wendell Berry

The loved ones we call the dead

depart from us and for awhile are absent. And then as if

called back by our love, they come

near us again. They enter our dreams.

We feel they have been near us

when we have not thought of them.

They are simply here, simply waiting

while we are distracted among

our obligations. At last

it comes to us: They live now

in the permanent world.

We are the absent ones.

August '26 Books Read

 Nine books read this month; finally back in my groove. 

November 9, Maybe Someday and Maybe Now are all by Colleen Hoover, an author I had not read before.

Sandra Dallas is an author I have read and like. I thought I had read all her books and was pleasantly surprised I still had one I had not - The Persian Pickle Club.

The same is true about Sandra Brown. I was happy to discover I had missed reading Deadline.

No Rest For The Dead is unlike any book I have read - it was written collectively by twenty-six different authors with the introduction by David Baldacci.

Under The Falls is by Richard Russo, one of my favorite authors.

Strangers in Time by David Baldacci is a bit of a departure from his usual fare. It is set in London during WWII. Two teens are left homeless. They are taken in by a book shop owner where they find healing and hope in one another.

South of Broad is by Pat Conroy, an author I hadn't read since The Prince of Tides in the '80's. I had forgotten how beautiful his prose is - and happy to find the library has one more of his books I haven't read.  

What books will you find on my September reading list? 

School Days - Part II

Almost all of those notebooks I bought over the years were turned into my journals.

 

A Spiral Notebook By Ted Kooser

The bright wire rolls like a porpoise 

in and out of the calm blue sea

of the cover, or perhaps like a sleeper

twisting in and out of his dreams,

for it could hold a record of dreams

if you wanted to buy it for that,

though it seems to be meant for

more serious work, with its cover 

that states in emphatic white letters,

5 SUBJECT NOTEBOOK. It seems

a part of growing old is no longer

to have five subjects, each 

demanding an equal share of attention,

set apart by brown cardboard dividers,

but instead to stand in a drugstore

and hang on to one subject

a little too long, like this notebook

you weigh in your hands, passing

your fingers over its surfaces

as if it were some kind of wonder.

No surprise here - my 5 SUBJECT NOTEBOOK was yellow, not blue. I started it in December 8, 1972 the same way I began other journals: "Oh, how I have put off soiling this notebook for fear that I might write something that I would later wish I hadn't -- or that what I wrote wouldn't be up to par for what I want to write."

On the first of those brown cardboard dividers, I had stylishly written "Le Cahier Jaune" - "The Yellow Notebook". I had been reading Jennie - The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill about Jennie Jerome Churchill (Winston Churchill's mother) and read that she kept a yellow journal referred to as 'Le Cahier Jaune'. How could I not name mine the same?

The first section was a record of the end of '72 and the year of '73 - when I turned 30 in November. The second cardboard divider did not have a name and only five entries - three in January and two in April.

Section three was labeled "Thoughts" and had only one half page entry. It began: "Sometimes I think there is nothing better than the honesty of a cup of hot tea."

Section four, "Poems" contained five poems I had written, one of which was:

The Art of Being

Be still.

Quiet. Stop the racing mind and

Pacing feet. 

Don't think for moments.

Give yourself back to you.

Troubling it out

Won't help, 

Just confuse.

Let peace and quiet

Creep back in.

Then, then you will

Be able to understand

What it is. What to do.

Quiet, peace, 

Being, Transcend.

Section five was labeled "Affairs" and had one line: "Preserving herself in the amber of solitude."

There are pleasant memories in this journal but also two very sad entries. The first in December when my brother Ron and his wife had their first child. Jennifer Lynn lived only three days. The following October our sister Betty died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 28. There are only two entries in '74 and one in '77 when I put the yellow notebook aside and began a new journal - a pattern I would continue over the years. 

A quick count shows at least ten incomplete notebooks laying around including the one I took with me to Ireland and one designated as my Spiritual Journey Journal. If I combined them all one or two of those five subjects notebooks would probably have held everything I wrote during those thirty some years.

School Days - Part I

The last time I was at Walmart, about ten days before the start of the new school year, as I walked past the aisle of school supplies I paused because I felt the pull of all those notebooks, pencils, pens, crayons, etc. just waiting for me to lovingly fondle; to pick up and put in my cart.

It was hard, but I resisted. I already have more notebooks, pens and pencils, etc. than I will ever use. My addiction is twofold, first the memories from my own grade school days when I was outfitted with a big chief tablet, two pencils and a box of eight crayons, second the memories of school supply shopping with my own children.

In addition to all those new supplies I purchased in the past, I also have things from our Saturday morning garage sale quests.

Some of which have never been used, by the person selling them, or by me! 

A Box of Pastels By Ted Kooser

I once held on my knees a simple wooden box

in which a rainbow lay dusty and broken.

It was a set of pastels that had years before

belonged to the painter Mary Cassatt,

and all the colors she'd used in her work

lay open before me. Those hues she'd most used,

the peaches and pinks, were worn down to stubs,

while the cool colors -- violet, ultramarine --

had been set, scarcely touched, to one side.

She'd had little patience with darkness, and her heart

held only a measure of shadow. I touched

the warm dust of those colors, her tools,

and left there with light on the tips of my fingers.

Cassatt is one of the artists I have long admired. She often painted pictures of mothers and children.

When Kari was in third grade, her teacher was a Miss Cassatt who said she was related to the artist. 

The Earth Laughs in Flowers

At the end of May I posted that at the beginning of the month I hadn't even decided whether or not I would plant flowers this year, but by the end of the month I had filled all my pots and planted zinnia seeds in the ground.

This sign, a gift from one of my daughters-in-law, is a perfect saying of how I feel about flowers.

Not just laughing but delighting in flowers. They just make me feel good - and happy, very happy. 

Time to share the latest blooms.....

Beginning with the one sunflower plant that I allowed to grow. This one is a giant - at least ten feet tall. 

The first bloom appeared two days ago. I counted close to 40 buds so I'm looking forward to seeing what the plant looks like when they are all in bloom.

I've already promised to share that photo on Facebook. I may or may not do another blog post of it.

The Black-eyed Susans are blooming at the bottom of the photo.

I took this enlarged photo of the front of our house this morning mainly to highlight the two Rose of Sharon bushes. The white one has been so full of blooms this year. The pink one is a little later to bloom and at first I didn't think it was going to flower at all but it wasn't long before it was also blooming like mad. They are both gorgeous, but I'm a tad partial to the pink one. 

Beyond them, on the left you can see the Autumn Joy sedum's flower heads taking shape. The tiny dot of yellow is one of the roses. If you can make out the pink above it, those are the Surprise Lilies, or, as I call them: "the Nekkid Ladies".

One day the ground is bare and the next morning these lovely pink blossoms are present.

Surprise!

I set my camera to 'macro' in order to get a good photo of the rain drops in the petals.

During the early a.m. hours I could hear the thunder and rain.

There was only a tenth of an inch in the guage, though.

A close up of one of the pink Rose of Sharon blossoms - also taken on the macro setting. 

As was this Zinnia. You can see more of the Zinnias in the full photo of the front of the yard/house.

I'm so glad I planted zinnias again.

Final flower photo before moving on to some of the baby wren.

Other than "tall white phlox" I don't know what to call these. 

They are next to the mailbox and were here when we moved in. I'm always happy to see them every year.

While I was out taking photos, I could hear a mama wren chattering like mad. My first thought was that there was a cat nearby. But I didn't see one and she just kept scolding.

Then I spotted this little one on the sunflower. Mama wasn't scolding, she was coaxing her offspring to trust its wings and fly to her in the tree.

Of course I had to interfere and take a picture. Just after I snapped this one, the baby flew up by the bloom at the top of the sunflower. 

A great photo-op except it flew again just as I was pointing the camera.

And landed here on the gas pipe from the meter to the neighbor's house.

Mama was still sending encouragement. Eventually the baby made it up into the tree with her.

I didn't see the mother well enough to tell if she is a House wren or Carolina wren, nor did I see any more than this one juvenile.

 

I took this picture of the last quarter of July's full moon Friday morning just as the day was beginning to dawn.

There is much comfort and pleasure to be found in nature.

P.S. Today is National Book Lovers' Day  - reading is another place/way I find comfort and pleasure. 📖

An English Romantic Poet

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on this date in 1792 and died in a boating accident in Italy at the age of 29, July 8, 1822.  

Romantic that I am, I'm surprised I have not used any of his poems before though I've liked them since I was a teen.

Percy's second wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was the author of Frankenstein.

  

Love’s Philosophy

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

   And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

   With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

   All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

   Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven

   And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

   If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

   If thou kiss not me?

 

Turn: Washington's Spies

 

We've been watching Turn: Washington's Spies - a drama first aired from April, 2014 to August 2017 on AMC. It is a period piece about the American Revolution from 1776 to 1781. Have you seen it?

First, let me tell you I am a big fan of history - one of my favorite school subjects - and second, I am also interested in the histories of wars fought in our country and by our citizens fighting in other countries.

There are 40 episodes. We have watched two a night for most evenings. Tonight we will watch our last two episodes. I am really going to miss watching this series. It is so good with characters you care about and ones you hate - one in particular for me. If you watch it, you'll probably figure out who that is. 

The series is based on Alexander Rose's book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, a history of the Culper Ring. From what I've read online about the spy ring, the series runs pretty true to the facts which makes it all the more interesting to me. TV worth watching in my opinion. 💂😊

Two Family Members With B'days Today

 

Our youngest great-granddaughter, Everly, at her birthday party yesterday.

The theme was chickens. She was the Birthday Chic.

So cute.

We weren't able to attend her party yesterday so she and her family came to see us today.

Two years old and quite the pistol. Don't those eyes and that smile tell you so?

Similar photo, this time wearing her Daddy's hat and holding on to his thumb.

It has been awhile since we last saw her, but it didn't take long for her to warm up to us.

I think it helped that big brother Oakley was along. 

This was the first time he had been to our house. 

He's such a smart and well-spoken youngster - a third-grader this coming year.

Grandson Devin with both the kids.

He is a devoted Dad.

The other birthday today is that of my son Preston.

I found this 40-year old photo to share on FB. As he is 55 years old today, I captioned the picture "Drive to arrive alive".  

Do you remember that campaign? I don't think Iowa uses it any more.

This is a more recent photo of Preston and his wife Shalea at the Grand Canyon in March.

It may have been fifty-five years ago, but I still remember everything about his birth that night. I missed my 10-yr. class reunion the night before.

Two weeks later I took him with me to his father's M.Ed graduation in Kirksville, MO. I took a whole roll of film there and turned it in for development when we got back to Des Moines. Of all the rolls of film to have lost, that one was. I still wish I had those photos.

More family birthdays to come in the weeks ahead, along with the birth of our 13th great-grandchild. Much to look forward to. 😊