28 Years

Twenty-eight years ago, on another Friday, I said my "I dos" and became a Mrs.

It's hard to believe, really. Such a long time! But it seems like just yesterday.

Here we are then!

Open wide!

Here we are now.

I can't believe we're heading on the other side of the hill now, my love and I. We've had some interesting times. He has remained a steady force in my life and a big constant.

He joined the fire department six months before we married. Prior to that he had been helping his father with his backhoe business and his farm. He continued to do both of those jobs, too, while working at the fire department.

He moved up the career ladder there and is now a Battalion Chief. I am so proud of him. And he has continued to work those three jobs all this time.

We built a home together, literally, and have enjoyed living in the same house for 24 years. I worked my way through school, first getting my BA at Hollins in 1993 and now I will have my MA next year.

Our biggest heartbreak was our inability to have children, but we have our siblings' children to love and pamper. I tried to open my heart to the world and offer up information through my writing. I think I was successful at that for a while. Maybe still, I don't know. He's been a kind of dad to the whole fire department.

It's been a good, quiet life, and I am grateful to have lived it with him.

Thanks baby!


(P.S., The last picture is actually two years old, but I don't have a more current one with both of us in it.)

Thursday Thirteen

Today I thought I'd share with you some noninvasive health tips.
Acupressure points are places on the body that you can press or massage in order to relieve symptoms. They have been used for thousands of years on Chinese Medicine and go hand in hand with acupuncture. This is the same principle that some of those wrist bands use for motion sickness; they are pushing on particular points.

To use these pressure points, you should massage the area with a firm pressure for at least a minute. It might hurt a little.

Frequently you will find that the pressure point is more tender than surrounding areas. That is a good indicator that you are massaging the right place.

Here are a few that I use:

1. To relieve leg cramps, pinch together the ridges between the end of your nose and your upper lip. Hold it for a few seconds - it might hurt just a little - but your leg cramp will instantly release.

2. To help a headache, pinch the web of skin in between the thumb and first finger.

3. You can also help a headache by pressing points on each temple.

4. The spot right in between your eyebrows just above your nose will release tension and pressure in your sinuses. It also helps with anxiety.

5. For lung issues (coughs, congestion, etc), massage the area just beneath your collar bones.

6. For sinusitus, massage the area behind each nostril.

7. Sleeping issues can be addressed by massaging the points directly beneath your skull along the backside of your spine. Massage down toward your shoulders.

8. Relieve heartburn by massaging the area halfway between your belly button and your breastbone.

9. Treat allergies by pushing on the area between the big toe and second toe. You can also treat them by pushing on the area on the outside of your arm just above your elbow joint and below the muscle.

10. Anxiety and nervousness may be treated by pushing on the inside of the arm, in between the bones, about three fingers above the wrist line.

11. For asthma, push on the center of the breastbone, midway between the breasts.

12. Earaches may be treated by massaging the area at the front of the ears.

13. For general overall health, massage the entire ear. It has points that relate to all of the body systems and stimulating it will promote well being.

I am not an acupuncturist, doctor, or medical practitioner, so try these at your own risk. I see an acupuncturist and have read up on acpressure, and as I said, I find some of these spots beneficial. But I urge you to research your condition before using them. Pregnant women probably shouldn't try any of them at all.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 216th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Outside, Looking In

Brown leaves blow against glass tap silently for entrance.
Titmice shuffle, hoard beechnuts,
eyes squinting, wary.  Inside
a summer cabin safe from snow
and ice, the rocker sways
in winter's draft, unconcerned.

Wolves whine, tails tucked,
and run from the night. 
The hearth and ashes heave
with life; the rug lies bunched
in a corner, warm as a cub
in sunshine. A lamp lights
a rolltop desk.  On its top
a book lies open, pages
smudged with damp caresses,
the back worn down with care. 

The clock chimes time
to twilight, its white face
a somber hour, safe
from outer waters
which try to rust its gears. 
At the door, the lock
clasps firmly, holds
when the knob is twisted.

In the wind, leaves
around me, my face tight
against the window,
I stand, guarding empty
havens, outside,
looking in.

****

I wrote the above poem back in the 1980s, while I was an undergraduate at Hollins. The somewhat desolate day and the oak leaves clinging to the trees made me think of it. I may have revised once since I first wrote it, but I have made no changes to it in years. On reflection, I don't think it's the best poem I ever wrote, but it isn't the worst, either. I think I liked it more when I was younger and in a different place in my life.

The Sun Rises Over the Shed

Sunrise, Monday, November 14, 2011 6:50 a.m.

Closeup of Sunrise, Monday, November 14, 2011 6:50 a.m.

Thesis Dreams

I dreamed about my thesis last night. Or rather, about not writing my thesis.

For those who may not know, I have to write a thesis in order to obtain my masters of arts in liberal studies degree at Hollins University. It is the last thing I have to do. It must be at least 50 pages long and it must be completed in March.

It has been haunting me since I returned to school in February. So it is no wonder that now I dream about it.

In my dream, I visited someone named Mary Prophet, and she told me to go see Dr. Charles Fuller, the pastor at the chapel, because he would help me. (Local folks who have lived here for a while will recognize the name. A pastor at one of the churches in downtown Roanoke had that name; he used to do God's Minute or something like that on the radio. I have no idea why the name came to me in this dream.)

For the longest time I wandered around the Hollins campus trying to find the chapel, and along the way I realized the problem wasn't that I couldn't write, but that I was fearful of writing things that would bother other people, like if I wrote about something terrible I did as a teenager it would tip off my mother that I had done that bad thing, or what-have-you, and as I pondered this new revelation, I finally found the chapel.

A big burly man stopped me and asked me if I had an appointment to see Dr. Fuller. I said no, but Mary Prophet sent me. He bade me sit in the entryway on a very hard bench, and he disappeared and then came back. I told him he looked like a Gestapo policeman, and he folded his arms and said, "Hmmph."

Then a very small man tossing flowers behind his back came in, and the Gestapo man nodded and said there he is. And I was surprised because Dr. Fuller was absolutely crazy; he was like a nice version of Gollum (from Lord of the Rings), with a bit of Yoda (from Star Wars)thrown in for good measure, and he talked about his daffodils. A small child was also with him, a young boy about 9. The man prodded me forward, and Dr. Fuller looked at me expectantly, and I finally told him I was having trouble with my thesis.

"Smell the flowers!" Dr. Fuller cried, and he ran away. The small boy took my hand and led me toward the gate.

"Why doesn't anyone know about this? This isn't right," I asked the boy as he led me away. I was distressed that this man who was supposed to be helping me and other people was, for all intents and purposes, a lunatic.

"We have to keep our secrets," he said.

"But this isn't a good secret," I cried. "This hurts people."

And the boy nodded, shut the gate behind me, and I stood facing a daffodil-covered meadow at the edge of a forest.

Books: Long Time No See

Long Time No See
By Susan Isaacs
Copyright 2004
Audiobook 6 hours
Abridged

Judith Singer is a Doctor of History with a penchant for solving crimes. When we catch up with her, it has been 20 years since she last solved a crime.

I love that this heroine is 54 years old. She is widowed and lives alone. She has an old love affair in her background. She serves on the local library board.

In this mystery, she decides to try to figure out what happened to a missing woman. Courtney Logan disappears on Halloween. Her body turns up in the family swimming pool in April. The police are sure the husband did it, mostly because his father is a local mafia dude. Fancy Phil, the mafia dad, decides to ask Judith for help after he learns of her interest.

She follows the clues and eventually figures out the crime. Along the way she rekindles an old love.

A nice, smooth novel with an intriguing character!

Thursday Thirteen

On Sunday, we took the utility vehicle and drove around the farm. While we were riding, I held up my little Nikon pocket camera and my Canon with the zoom and snapped all kinds of pictures. So I thought I'd share with you photos of the farm as it looked on 11/6/2011.

1. My husband's hunting stand.

2. The power lines that bisect the farm. I am not sure when they went in; probably in the 1940s or 1950s. Mostly they cross fields used for pasture. They attract a lot of lightning in the summer, though.

3. Our house taken from the other side of the farm with the Canon. I have been surprised at how long the color has stayed on the trees this year.

4. The farm in the foreground. My house is hidden in the woods to the right of the house on the left.

5. The farm from the northern side. The buildings are the old chicken coop and barn sheds. My husband's grandfather raised thousands of chickens in the 1950s.

6. One of the barns as seen from the northern field.

7. A view of the Botetourt County Sports Complex from the highest point on the farm. Those are our cows in the foreground. They look like little ants!

8. A shot of some color still on the trees.

9. The pond in the foreground, Tinker Mountain to the left. You remember that book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? Well, this pond is the start of one of the tributaries that marks its headwaters.

10. I love the way the trees look in this picture.

11. This is a sycamore tree.

12. More color.

13. A lonely little pile of firewood.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 216th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The Geology of Botetourt County

A very long time ago, I thought about being a geologist. When I was around 10, I collected rocks, mostly quartz, and hoarded them in a little crevice in a rock shelf along the creek of my father's farm. For all I know, they are still there.

That career has gone on by me, but I am still fascinated by rocks. Unfortunately, I do not know all of the geological time periods or the proper language to speak about such things. It has been a long time since I had any kind of Earth Science class.

Botetourt County is surrounded by and includes mountains. I look out my windows every day at Tinker Mountain, North Mountain, Stone Coal Gap, and Caldwell Mountain.

The mountains are rugged and heavily forested. In our area, we have a lot of limestone and something called "karst" topography.

It looks like this:

Karst topography is characterized by sinkholes and caves. The rock is usually limestone. Groundwater carves out the caverns. Water aquifers beneath the rocks often contribute to sinkholes.

The Bucks Stop Here

Saturday was the opening day of black powder season in the world of deer hunting.

My nephew and my husband both took eight-point bucks. Those who are aversive to dead deer photos, please avert your eyes. However, do check out the video below the photo if you want to see the deer on the right as he was when he was alive.

The deer are both in freezers and will be eaten. We don't waste them.

I prefer to shoot deer with my Nikon or the video camera. The deer James shot has been wandering around the farm since August. I have video of the deer in velvet as well as the following video that I shot in October one evening when the buck found its way into the front yard. It's a little long, for which I apologize, but he was fascinating to watch.

Open Studios, Botetourt, Part IV

For my last installment of the Open Studios, Botetourt, series, I present to you Willie Simmons.

Willie is a personal friend and a woodmaker of note. He lives in Fincastle.

The following is a revision of an article I wrote about him that appeared in the October 26, 2011 edition of The Fincastle Herald.

It's almost a lost art, the idea of taking a piece of wood and turning it to create the leg of a stool or an intricate architectural piece. But Botetourt native Willie Simmons has kept this craft alive and in the public eye.



Bottle stoppers made by Willie Simmons

Simmons' wood creations include stools, pepper mills, bottle stoppers, wooden bowls, and Christmas ornaments, to name just a few.The woodworker's pieces are well known to those who follow the arts and crafts shows in the Roanoke valley and beyond. He spends his autumn weekends at these events where he sells the creations he has painstakingly made at his shop.

He has spent 31 years working with wood, and 25 of those as a wood turner. He started out helping his father, Bill Simmons, at the same location when it was Castle Crafts, a furniture and antique repair shop that opened in the mid-1970s. When his father needed a piece of oak turned into a chair rung, for example, he asked his son to make it. And Simmons obliged.



Pepper mills made by Willie Simmons

"I worked for him a while, and then went back to teaching," Simmons, a graduate of Virginia Tech, said. He later returned to open up his own woodworking studio in the same building as his father. For the last 15 years, he has also worked as a county magistrate, having long ago given up the classroom.

While all of Simmons' work is functional, some of it is so beautiful that it might be found on display in someone's home instead of hidden in a cabinet. His bowls in particular convey an elegance of design that draws out the wood grain and conveys a since of the majesty of the native hardwood from which it came.

Most of his wood is local. He likes to work in walnut, cherry, oak, and maple. He also works with pine, but has found it to be less durable than hardwoods. "I do use some exotic woods, but it's not as much fun as a native wood," he said.

Handcrafted bowls made by Willie Simmons

He also likes to use old wood and has in the past turned wood from barns or someone's old home place into keepsake ink pens. Those pens tend to be cherished by their owners. One person told him that a Simmons pen was the one pen he would never lend out, Simmons said.

Kurt Hertzog is a wood turner in Henrietta, NY who serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Woodturners. That group oversees most of the woodturning organizations in the country, and Simmons is a member.

"He's very skilled," Hertzog said of Simmons. "As a wood turner he excels at peppermills and spindle turning. I have taken classes from Willie, and he's a superb teacher. He shares his skills."

He likened Simmons' work to the ancient arts found in the Foxfire books, which harbor ancestral secrets such as how to weave a chair seat, another skill Simmons has mastered.



Willie Simmons, woodturner extraordinnaire

"I still have the stool I made in his class," Hertzog said. Those footstools are of a kind seldom found commercially, with woven tops and spindle legs.

Simmons is the program director for the Blue Ridge Woodturners, a local wood turning organization. He brings in expert turners for demonstrations. At the end of October, Richard Raffan, whom Simmons called "one of the top five turners in the country," demonstrated for the group. "It's a good coup for me and the club," Simmons said. "He's in demand worldwide."

Simmons also builds furniture on commission, but he is choosy about his work and the assignments he accepts. He will have a few select large pieces for sale during the Open Studios event, including a jelly cupboard and a 30-year-old baker's cabinet, one of his early works. That piece was in his home but he recently built a new house and has decided to let the cabinet go.

His work is never finished, he said. He is always striving for better, a new way to improve a technique, a different and better cut. He works with four or five tools, but his shop is filled with an array of metal and wood, some of it stacked, some not. Clamps, hammers, and chisels line the walls. A big pile of sawdust rests at his feet.

During a recent interview, he looked rested and content even though he had spent the previous three days working at an arts and crafts show at the Roanoke Civic Center. He is honored to know that his work graces the homes of not just his friends, but friends of friends, some of whom live in other countries. His work is in England, Australia, and other nations. "A few times I have gone in and seen something in people's homes and realized I made it," he said, adding that he found it gratifying to know that his work is enjoyed.

Reflecting on his career, Simmons smiled and summed it up this way: "I'm better than those people who are cheaper, and cheaper than those people who are better." His work is always for sale; if you can't make the Open Studios event, stop in when his lights are on, and check him out.

Open Studios, Botetourt, Part III

Dreama Kattenbraker is another Fincastle artist who is a personal friend. She creates what I call "whimsical" art, in that it is not realistic paintings. Her work appeals to the heart and the mind. It makes you think and gives you a different point of view.

She works in mixed media of all kinds. I think her work is very "Alice in Wonderland."

Some of Dreama Kattenbraker's work.

A cabinet and a statue. The cabinet reminds me of Punch & Judy shows.

From left, artist Dreama Kattenbraker, her aunt, and her sister, Donna.

A Dreama Kattenbraker statue.

My favorite Dreama Kattenbraker picture. I have a print of this one.

Open Studios, Botetourt, Part II

You can read about artist Ed Bordett here.

Nancy Dahlstrom is another Fincastle artist.

She is also a professor at Hollins University. I took a couple of art classes from her when I was working on my undergraduate degree.

That's me on the left and Professor Nancy Dahlstrom on the right.

Nancy does printmaking, drawing, and painting. I remember when I was one of her students how kind she was. I cannot draw worth a damn but she was always encouraging. "That's a great line on that leg," she would say. Nevermind that the rest of the piece looked like child's scribbles.

Some of Nancy Dahlstrom's more delicate artwork.

She won the 2011 Perry F. Kendig Award, which is a prestigious honor.

A lovely flower painted by Nancy Dahlstrom.

I overheard Nancy telling another Open Studios visitor that she was having a hard time showing the above painting, because "beauty and loveliness" is not in vogue at the moment. Everybody wants to see darkness and angst, she said. I thought that was pretty sad.

My favorite of Nancy Dahlstrom's artwork at the Open Studios event.

For some reason, the above piece just calls out to me. I think it's a lovely piece of art.

Thursday Thirteen #215

It is the first Thursday in November, and as such I will go back over October and list 13 things I am really grateful for or happy about or just want to remember.

Snow in the mountain,
golden leaves on the trees.

1. We had snow on October 28. This was not the first time I've seen snow in October; I remember one year on October 10 we had a crack of thunder and snow began to fall. Thundersnow, they called it. But I don't remember it snowing just to snow.

2. I read (or listened to) these books: Promise Me, by Richard Paul Evans, A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton, One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich, and a lot of detective short stories for my class.

3. The leaves on the trees turned and created a wonderful patchwork quilt of beauty for all to enjoy and clasp close their hearts.

Moo!

4. We purchased another herd of cows to add to our existing herd. Almost all of them had babies by their side.





Li'l Miss Deer comes to visit often.

5. The turkeys and deer have been plentiful around the house, and I have enjoyed watching them. The turkeys strut and bob and the deer look in the windows.

6. I went to Fincastle to watch my nephew run in the Bank of Fincastle 10K. Go nephew!

7. My thesis finally took on a voice and I moved it forward a little bit. I only need about, um, 50 more pages and I can graduate with that masters degree.

8. My pounds lost numbers continued to climb and I have now lost over 20 pounds. I lost about 7 pounds in October alone. I'm going to have to clean out my closet again!

9. I did not get sicker and finally toward the end of the month I began feeling better. I've had a terrible infection but I think I am over it now (fingers crossed). I also found out on Halloween that I have a stress fracture in my foot. But hey, it could have been worse!

10. My oral project for my Detectives in Fiction class went well. I talked about the TV show Hunter which was on in the 1980s.

11. I went to the Roanoke Arts & Crafts show at the Roanoke Civic Center and had a nice time walking around and getting out of the house.

12. My aunt came down for a visit. She lives in Salem, which is not so far away, but still a long drive.

13. I went to a meeting of the Roanoke Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, where I am the secretary, and had a good time.





Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 215th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Open Studios: Botetourt, Part I

Botetourt County held its first "Open Studios" event over the Halloween weekend. Sixteen artists opened up their studios and homes to the public so that art lovers could get a glimpse of their workspace and purchase their wares.

My husband and I were able to take in a few of the artists' studios on Sunday. I feel sure if you're interested in the artwork, these artists would love to sell you something.

Ed Bordett is a Fincastle artist. The following information is an updated revision of an article I wrote about him for The Fincastle Herald in 2005.

Ed Bordett, a folksy Fincastle town councilman, has his studio in the back of his own gallery, Art Images.

Ed Bordett's artwork.

His shop on Main Street was the town’s first art gallery, if you don’t count woodworking shops and other non-painting creative endeavors scattered about the area. He took over an old garage about ten years ago, giving him lots of space in which to paint and collect antiques and curiosities, which he is fond of doing.

Bordett’s been a member of the Fincastle community for about 25 years. He paints scenes from the locality and from his native New York.

Fincastle sculpturer Joyce Hilliou says Fincastle is lucky to have artists of Bordett’s caliber in the area. “Ed’s work is great,” she says. “I think Ed is indisputably a master of serigraph paintings.”
Serigraph paintings are original works of art that are similar yet unique. They are created with a silk-screen process that separates colors and transfers them onto a screen. When the screen contacts paper, the color is forced through a stencil. The process is repeated up to 40 times for color.

That’s just one of the things Bordett does. He also creates oil paintings, etchings, monotypes, and some commercial artwork. He has won many awards and honors for his work and businesses commission paintings from him.

My husband really liked Ed Bordett's version of a cow.

He has always been an artist. Bordett attended the National Academy of Fine Arts in New York City and graduated from the Ringling School of Art. He’s been in the area since 1975; he moved to Fincastle in the mid-1980s. He’s been on town council since 1997. He’s chaired the Fincastle Festival’s art show, served on the board of Alleghany Highlands Art Center, has been a member of the grant review board for the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and co-president of Market Gallery & Studios cooperative in Roanoke.

He takes his artwork on the road 12-15 times a year, showing at juried shows on the east coast. He’s also husband to wife Becky and father of two.

His artwork focuses on color and light, what he calls a visual mix of the activity around him. He attempts to convey his emotions and feelings toward his subject when he paints.

Ed Bordett's image of Fincastle at Christmas.

Fincastle, he says, doesn’t have the same high energy as New York, but he sees a lot of similar geometric shapes and patterns. This comes through in his use of light across the surface of his art.

He paints from photos and sketches, depending on the subject and the way the subject matter caught his fancy. He sometimes creates small studies of a subject before moving onto a larger painting.

He works among a jumble of antiques, with the cracks in the walls of the old building as a backdrop and a partially-played chess game near an old sofa. The room is littered with easels, large and small, and half-finished canvases. He doesn’t keep regular hours, though that could change if the town begins to have a cultural climate change that indicates an interest in local arts.

"Buying isn’t the only thing,” he says of the arts and their work. He wants folks to look, too, and contemplate the artist’s vision.

That vision has sustained him well for a very long time, and he has no plans to give it up.

“I’ve just always been lucky enough to pursue what I want to do,” Bordett says as he cradles an ancient yet beautifully painted box he picked up at auction. “I’m extremely fortunate.”

Another Ed Bordett view of Fincastle at Christmas.

New Footwear

My foot had been bothering me for quite some time, and yesterday I went to the podiatrist about it.

She gave me new footwear for my right foot:

Ain't it lovely?

Definitely the next thing in designer wear.

The verdict was that an arthritic big toe forced my second toe to move into major support mode. This resulted in a tiny little stress fracture and something called metatarsalgia.

I'll be in the funny little shoe for a few weeks.

If I'm out and you see me in sneakers and not this thing, don't be surprised. I am not too keen on wearing it outside of the house. I guess it will depend on how much walking I have to do wherever I am going.

Booo!