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. 😊

July Books, Rocks and Sunflowers

This has to be a first - only three books read in the month of July and I did not go to the library at all this month!

What I did do was re-read Charles Frazier's thirteen moons, a book from my own book shelf. 

Under A Desert Sky by DiAnn Mills is one I borrowed from our club house book shelves and which will go back there. It was the first time I had been in the club house since it was remodeled. It is really much nicer.

The Wheeling Year is a book of Ted Kooser's sent to me by our friend Becky. It is a monthly journal of his thoughts and activities for an entire year. In the preface he writes that in his field book he included sketches and landscape studies which were not included in this printed copy. It reminded me of my daughter Kari's journals, how she included artwork along with her writings.

I shared three of Mr. Kooser's entries in my blog titled The Wheeling Year on July 22.

Earlier this month I read about all the sunflower fields in Iowa, two of which are in Union County, one at Three Mile Lake and one at Twelve Mile Lake. Since they are so close, we set off yesterday morning to see them. First stop, 12 Mile Lake. We drove up the west side to the boat ramp but found no sunflower field.

What we did find was an old dirt road with lots of rocks. We haven't been rock hunting since 2022. Bud's three on the left, my four on the right. It felt good to be picking rocks again.

As we didn't see any sunflower field at 12 Mile, we decided to look for one at 3 Mile. Again, no luck seeing any sunflower field(s) there. On the way back toward Creston I suggested looking on the east side of 12 Mile Lake. Once again, I thought "no luck here either" but as we turned around to go back, suddenly, "I see the sunflowers!"

I also realized why I didn't spot them at first - their heads were drooping with the weight of the seeds. With only a bit of yellow showing they weren't the bright yellow field we were looking for. Still, we did find this one and get to see one of the purported sunflower fields in Union County. And it was a nice morning for a little jaunt out into the countryside.

Tomorrow, another new month, one with a number of family birthdays and the addition of a new great-grandchild. I can hardly wait! 💚

A Lover, Not A Fighter

Kari, Douglas, Me, Preston - February, 1985

I consider myself ---
 A lover, not a fighter
  A romanticist not a realist
    A liberal in politics
       A conservative with resources

A mother who believed that giving her children wings
was more important than giving them restrictions

A grandmother who didn't bake cookies
but tried to give her grandchildren adventures

A great-grandmother who hopes at least a few
great-grands will have memories of her

A woman who values her independence
and ability to take care of herself

I consider myself ---
  A lover of the great outdoors
    As well as a warm bed at night
      A lover of poetry
        But not a poet

I consider myself---
  A mother, daughter, wife
     Who could have done better

          Yet gives herself grace

             For what she has done

Me with Granddaughter, Kathryn and Great-grandson Henri

Sunset by Rainer Maria Rilke

Sunset

by Rainer Maria Rilke

 Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs--

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

More Than One Middle Name

Most of us have only one middle name though once in a while I see instances of two middle names. How about five? René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, Austrian poet and author, was best know as Rainer Maria Rilke.

Tomorow I'll share one of his poems. Today, this quote:

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky."

A New Poet for Me & A New Poem

 

Grandmother of the Bride

 

My niece Lorrie, pictured here with me in the backyard of her home in Arizona in 2010, was married to her husband Kevin on New Year's Eve, 1994.

Of course we were invited to the wedding which was in Kansas but we decided not to go - why I don't remember now. It might have been worries about the weather. I think the forecast was for snow. Or maybe the distance had something to do with it. 

But Mom went with her son Ron and wife, Ruth - Lorrie's parents. I recall seeing some of the wedding photos one of them a very good picture of Mom in her grandmother of the bride outfit.

I also remember buying a Mikasa vase at Younkers in Valley West Mall as a wedding gift.

It may not have been this exact design, but it was one of modern design and heavy lead crystal.

Mostly I remember helping Mom choose a new outfit to wear to the wedding. I brought her to Des Moines to shop for it. As a young woman who had lived through the great depression, she had always been careful about her spending - a trait which passed on to me. There was a consignment shop I liked to go to on Ingersoll Avenue which is where we went.

The style at the time was longer skirt lengths which I loved. Mom wasn't a big fan of shin length dresses, preferring them just below the knees, but I convinced her that longer was the current fashion. And when I found a two-piece soft pink in 'like new' condition, I got her to try it on - and then buy it - $16.00 if my memory is right.

In my opinion, my mother looked beautiful in this ensemble. This is a photo I took in her living room of her wearing it.  

When she died in December, 2003, there was a different dress picked for her to be buried in but it didn't work out.

So this is what I chose instead. It has bothered me some over the years to know she would have chosen something else.

But she looked so pretty in pink. 💗

Alone But Never Lonely

 

Another calls you lonely

I disagree

Lone you may be

But not lonely

I see you as content

In your own little 

Pond and life

Alone, as I can be

But never lonely

Silence. Leaves rustling

Water trickling into a pool

Natural noise making one 

Feel alone to revel in nature

Alone but never lonely

In tune 

Inquisitive

The Randomness of Facebook

I often wish Facebook was like it used to be - only seeing posts from your friends and not all the ads and posts from strangers. But every once in awhile I can be surprised and happy about a stray post, even delighted when it is someone I know.

This week was the 53rd year of RAGBRAI's week long trek across Iowa. On Tuesday, the 21st, thousands of those bike riders went through Perry on their way to the overnight stop in Boone. This was one of the photos shared by Century Farm Books and Brews.com  The post began Wow. My response seeing this photo was Wait. Isn't that?? So, yes, it is Peter Hedges, author of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but it wasn't him I recognized. It was my great-grandson Jack and his mother, my former granddaugher-in-law, Paullina. 

The book Jack is holding in the above photo inscribed by Mr. Hedges.

"To Jack who is on his way to living his best and most glorious (?) life. I hope we meet again one day."

I think how happy he was is expressed in his smile. 

I remember watching the 1993 movie and being enthralled by it.

One of the pages advertising some of her hot tea brews.

Her creativeness going on here. I would try the Anne of Green Gables for sure and some of the others, too.

Paullina says: "Books and Brews is my literal dream come true."

Shouldn't every bookstore have a resident cat or two?

Here are her's adopted from Raccoon River Pet Rescue.

"Ophelia, a big beautiful calico, is quite vocal when she wants attention, but prefers to sit on her sofa judging everyone."

"Mortimer, the sweet ginger boy, makes himself comfortable on anyones lap or in a sunny spot in front of the windows."

They look quite at home in their Perry, Iowa bookstore.

From her Events Calendar I can see she is hosting a weekly writers' workshop, a trivia night, at least three different book club meetings, a crafts night and more.

I'm so glad I happened upon this RAGBRAI post on Facebook and super happy that Paullina is making her dreams come true.  💖