Goshen Pass

Goshen Pass in Rockbridge County is Virginia's oldest state-maintained natural area. The pass encompasses 3.7 miles of gorge along the Maury River, which carved out the pass. The state manages a wilderness area there of about 1,000 acres.

The Pass is located about 10 miles outside of Lexington.

The Maury River from one of the overlooks.

Another shot of the river. It's a very rocky river.

Looking upstream.

My sweetie at the overlook.

About midway, where the road and river run more even, the state has a little picnic area and pavilion.

It is a nice, relaxing place to stop and eat a bite of chicken.

People swim in the river here.

This is a monument to the philantropists who donated the wilderness area.

This is a monument to Matthew Fontaine Maury, for whom

the river is named. You don't often see an anchor that large

along a riverway in the Blue Ridge.

The Maury River flows into the James. It was not officially called the Maury River until 1968. Before that it was known as a branch of the Calfpasture or the North River.

Another scenic shot to end the post!

There are many hiking trails in the area. Definitely something to see if, like me, you find a certain kind of calmness in watching the waters roll by whilst in the midst of the woods.

Deer, Meet Turkeys

Turkeys in the Field

Double Trouble

Books: Caleb's Crossing

Caleb's Crossing
By Geraldine Brooks
Copyright 2011
318 pages

Geraldine Brooks has become one of my favorite writers. Her work is erudite yet accessible. It leaves me thinking. I can't give higher praise for a book.

Caleb's Crossing is no exception. Brooks takes her penchant for historical detail and uses it to great effect here.

Bethia Mayfield is an intelligent young woman. She lives at Martha's Vineyard in the 1660s. Her father is a Puritan minister who is trying to convert the natives on the island.

He ceases her education when she is about nine years old, but she has a keen wit and she listens in on her brother's lessons. When she is 12, she meets a young man she calls Caleb, the son of one of the local chieftains. They become friends and as she watches him honor the earth and the world around him she begins to question her religion.

Caleb soon abandons his native ways, though, and comes to live with Bethia's family so that her father can teach him. Caleb, another native boy named Joel, and her brother, Makespeace, are to go to Harvard the following year.

After her father dies unexpectedly, Bethia's grandfather indentures her to a prep school to pay for her brother's schooling. There she toils in the kitchen. She catches the eye of the school master, though, who discovers her quick mind. He enjoys talking to her and eventually introduces her to his son.

Caleb becomes the first native American to graduate from Harvard. This is the truth of the story, the facts around which Brooks has created her novel. Bethia is all fiction, but Caleb's historic rise as a scholar is not.

This book left me thinking about many things - how we treat one another, how far societal thinking has come with regard to women - how lucky I am that I have the life I lead now.

Brooks won a Pulitzer for March, another of her books that I read. This one is no less worthy of the prize, in my estimation.

I highly recommend this author.

Thursday Thirteen

DirecTV and Viacom, in a bidding war, have forgotten that they have customers who might want to watch those 25 channels I've been paying for but can no longer see. (Actually I did not watch them all, but they came with the bundle).

I am not a big TV viewer anyway. My husband, however, likes to watch TV and has it on whenever he is in the house. I'm just glad that Viacom doesn't own the Discovery or History channels or he would really be raising a ruckus.

Knowing that a lot of folks are missing these channels, I thought I would offer up 13 things you could do instead of hunting for something to watch.

In other words, let's turn off that darned television set!

1. Read a book. This would be my top choice for something to do besides watch TV. With a good book in hand, I don't need a TV. A book takes me to other worlds, puts me in a soap opera, feeds me news (if it's nonfiction) and otherwise engages me.

2. Write something! You could write a poem or a story. You could write a play! If you have kids, you could have them write a play and act it out for you. You might find you have a budding screenwriter in your midst.

Take a walk!

3. Go for a walk. Enjoying the wonderful world that nature has provided for us offers loads of teaching opportunities for everyone. I always see something new on a walk, even when I am traveling paths I have trod before.

4. Talk. Gosh. Imagine that. A conversation. What a novel idea! What would you talk about? How about hopes and dreams? Goals for the future? Promises of tomorrow? Belief systems? Philosophies. The last book you read. It's wide open! Go for it.

5. Cook. Learn a new recipe. Bake a cake for an ailing neighbor. Fix a batch of brownies for day care.

6. Draw. You could paint a picture of anything you like, even things that have never been seen before. Maybe you have a latent artistic talent. Or maybe the best you can do are stick figures. Even so, give it a try. You might find it opens up a creative pathway.

7. Listen to music. The radio, CD player, or Ipod offers up interesting possibilities. What if you put on something soothing, close your eyes, and just listen for a while? How might you feel afterwards?



8. Play an instrument. Maybe, like me, you play the guitar but seldom pick it up. This would be a fine time to hone those skills. Or maybe you want to learn but have never had the time. Well, those hours of watching reruns on TV Land are gone now. Practice time!

9. Sew. This is an art that will soon be lost, I fear. But needlework is a wonderfully relaxing activity. I cross stitch sometimes when I am looking for something totally different to do with my self. You can knit, quilt, crochet, or make your own clothes.

10. Play a sport. This could be something as tame as tossing horseshoes (does anyone do that anymore?) to a team sport that involves the neighbors and lots of dirt and tackling. Get the blood pumping!

11. Take up a hobby. Maybe you want to become a stamp collector or a coin collector. I have always thought both of those would be good hobbies but have never pursued them.



12. Organize! If you're like me, every drawer and shelf could use a little sprucing up. Things accumulate and the next thing you know the junk drawer has taken on a life of its own. Go through your old files and toss what you no longer need. It will make you feel better.

13. Dance. When all else fails, get up and boogie. If you don't have music, hum a tune, and do a waltz across the garage.

Wordless Wednesday

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday for the fourth time.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I do not often do memes - you know, those question and answer things. I don't see them as much as I used to. But today, having apparently once again run out of things to say, I went in search of one. I found this one from 2009 at this link, and decided I would answer these questions.

1. How old do you look?

About 10 years younger than I am. I have noticed new lines, however, so I don't expect that to continue. Age is catching up.

2. Where do you live?

I live on a farm outside of a small town in a little corner of heaven.

3. Are you waiting for something?

Yes, yes I am. I am waiting for the sun to rise, the moon to shine, the stars to twinkle, and for day to break.

4. What’s one pet peeve of yours that is not common?

Alas, that would be the constant use of poor grammatical skills. People do not punctuate properly. Some use symbols instead of writing out words. There are so many atrocities and improprieties against the English language today. It is sad.

I also hate it when I get my feet wet.

5. Do you want/have kids?

I wanted kids but the universe had other plans. I have cows now instead.

6. Have you ever thought about converting your religion?

My religion has become rather eclectic with time. I don't know that it's a conversion, more a refinement of ideas.

7. Last shocking news you heard?

This is tough. I'm almost 50 - it takes a lot to shock me. I guess in the entertainment world, I was saddened (but not shocked) to hear Andy Griffith had died. I'm a big fan of Mayberry.

I am often shocked by inconsideration and rudeness. I expect people to be nice, but they aren't.

8. What was the last thing you drank?

Water. That is all I drink these days. Lots of H2O.

9. Who do you most look like in your family?

Some days I look in the mirror and see my mother. Other days I see my dad. Some days I see neither one and wonder where I came from.

10. If you could have something right now, anything, what would it be?

A million dollars. I hate to say that, as it sounds so materialistic, but in this world money is all that matters. That's the realistic side of me.

The unrealistic side of me says I would like to have a trip around the world, stopping at every major city, visiting every continent. What a site to see. Of course, that takes money, too.

I would also like a permanent rainbow just because I think they are lovely.

And if someone could give me the antidote to procrastination, that would be good.

11. Where does most of your family live?

Most live close by, or within an hour's drive. Others are in California and Texas.

12. Where did you grow up?

Right here. Well, six miles or so from here, on another farm at the foot of a mountain. A wonderful place where I could play in meadows, hide in forests, and dance with fairies when the sun went down.

13. Where do you want to go on vacation?

The Grand Canyon. But not when it is hot.

14. Have you ever had a panic attack?

Yes, I am afraid so. But it has been a long time since I've had one.

15. What can’t you wait for?

I can't wait for The Hobbit movie. It comes out in December and I am looking forward to it. If it is half as good as Lord of the Rings, it should be a great movie.

16. When was the last time you told someone you loved him or her and meant it?

This morning.

17. Have your parents ever smoked pot?

I have no idea.

18. Want someone back in your life?

Nope. Although new folks are always welcome.

19. What do you order at the bar?

I don't go to bars.

20. When was the last time you cried really, really hard?

In mid-June.

21. Ever licked someone’s cheek?

Yuck. No.

22. What is your favorite thing to eat with peanut butter?

A Ritz cracker.

23. Where were you on July 4th, 2008?

I don't know. I was either at home or at the fireworks in Fincastle, but I don't know which.

24. What are your nicknames?

My husband calls me Pookey.

25. If you could go back in time, how far back would you go?

Are we changing things, or just visiting? If we're changing things, then I would go back to the writing of the US Constitution and make provisions for all of humanity, not just rich white guys. You know, make everybody equal. Women are people, too.

If I'm just visiting, then I would like to go back to the time of Jesus, and sit at his feet, and listen. I guess I would need to learn a new language before I do that, though.

I'm pretty sure he didn't speak to the masses in English.

How I Look in the Mornings

Something like this. Mottled and ruffled.

Have a great day!

The Melon Moon

Regular readers know I have a fascination with the moon and trying to photograph it.

During the last full moon, I found favorable conditions early one morning.

There was plenty of light and the moon was beckoning in a bright blue sky.

This is the Full Buck Moon.

It is also called a Full Thunder Moon or a Full Hay Moon.

I shot these with a Nikon Coolpix P500 using a tripod. I really like the last shot. It utilizes the digital zoom on the camera. I think that is the best photo of the moon I've ever taken. However, I am rather puzzled by the belly button on the left-hand side of the photo. It makes the moon look like a melon!

The Day I Played For The President

Last night, Barack Obama, President of the United States, came to Roanoke.

It was the first time in 35 years that a sitting president had made a stop in Roanoke. We've had a few land at the airport to be shuttled off to other venues, but not since Jimmy Carter had a president spoken directly to Roanokers.

I was at that event in 1977. It was September 23, 1977, to be exact, and President Jimmy Carter was here to stump for Henry Howell, candidate in the Virginia governor's race.

In 1977, I was 14 years old. I can't say that, as a freshman in high school, I cared very much about politics. That would have changed by the time I was a senior, but that would be in four more years. And even then it would be 1984 before I could vote in a presidential election. By then the damage was done.

For some reason, the Lord Botetourt High School band was chosen to play at this 1977 political event.

In front of the sitting president, Jimmy Carter.

President Carter spoke at the Roanoke Civic Center, which, as I recall, was packed.

I started playing in band in sixth grade. I was a flute player, and I was always either first or second chair. First chair meant you were the best, but that could change. Our band director, Mr. Lowe, tested us every six weeks, and whoever did the best took first chair. For years I rotated in and out of that seat, vying with Angie C. for the sweet spot.

First chair meant you played the most difficult parts in the music. You also played the piccolo if the music called for it. We all loved the piccolo.

We went to the Civic Center in a bus, and I remember we had to leave our instrument cases on the bus for security reasons. We also could not take in hats or pocketbooks. The bus driver assured us he would keep our things safe.

Then it was a matter of playing when the president came in. Only I don't remember what we played for him.

The Star Spangled Banner, maybe.

Here is a picture from my freshman yearbook of the band at the event:

That dour-looking girl with the yellow circle around her is me.

Apparently I was not as thrilled as the two seniors in front of me to be seeing the president.

Looking back, I am really glad that I was able to participate in this. What a fine thing to have done, eh?

To have played my flute for a sitting president.

Invisible Fawns

I have had a tough time this year taking pictures of little fawns.

I see them, but they seem to be very camera shy.

Come on out!

There you are!

(I took the last picture first, and I don't think it's the same fawn as in the first two shots. It's an older fawn, I think.)

Thursday Thirteen: Celebrating Milestones

As luck would have it, today I am posting my 250th Thursday Thirteen, as well as blog post number 1,800.

To celebrate these milestones, I thought I would point to other bloggers whose work I enjoy. Some of these you will recognize as others who play Thursday Thirteen; others you may not have heard of. Of course these are not all the blogs I follow: I read most of the Thursday Thirteen bloggers and many others.

I have been blogging since 2003; I started a blog in opposition to the Iraq War which went unnoticed and which I have long since deleted. Then I blogged on AOL Journals for a couple years. I liked that format but then switched to blogger as AOL did handstands and ultimately ridded itself of its journals.

This journal, Blue Country Magic, made its debut August 5, 2006. So in 5 years and 11 months, I have written 1800 blog posts. That means there are about 5 days out of a month when I do not post, on average.

Not bad.

1. Colleen over at Loose Leaf Notes gets the first mention because she introduced me to Thursday Thirteen. She has been playing longer than I have, and her blog is older than mine, too; I think it goes back to 2005. I found her because she was listed on the local newspaper's site as a local blogger. I enjoy her poetry, her stories, and her perspective. She lives a few counties over and I hope one day we will meet in person.

2. Diane over at Dish (formerly Blue Ridge Gal) is a blogger I have met in person. We are friends and live in the same county. She writes about her dogs (Izzy & Rowdy), fashion, decorating, and other interesting topics. She loves to take pictures and she likes to help people create interesting headers or otherwise decorate their blogs. Her sister, Denise, lives in California and has a wonderful blog about ranch living, complete with fun photography, over at Autumn Sky Ranch.

3. Tanya is another local blogger I've met in person. She posts at Around Roanoke, offering up pictures of the area. She's not from here originally, like I am, so it is interesting to me to see the community through fresh eyes. She writes about her children and her dog, Ozzy. She's been blogging since 2008.

4. Leonora over at A Journal of Days is also a local blogger. We met briefly at the Fincastle Library one day. She records three things about the day that she wants to remember; it's a lovely way to count your blessings and be thankful.

5. Beth over at Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl writes about her life in North Carolina. She has two grown children and enjoys rural living. She's a very thoughtful and thought-provoking writer whose blog goes back to 2007.

6. Becky over at Peevish Pen is another friend and local writer. I admire her work greatly. She's published and self-published a number of works and has many opinions about the writing world. She is particularly hard on spammers and others who would take advantage of writers. Her blog dates back to April 2006, so she also has been blogging longer than I.

7. Elena over at Ms. Elenaeous Rants & Raves is yet another friend and local writer. She recently published a book called Fractured Facade through Smashwords. It's available online. Her blog dates back to 2009 but I think she's been blogging longer than that.

8. Heather over at Word Trix is an avid reader and another blogger who does the Thursday Thirteen meme. I enjoy her book reviews and she is also very crafty. I like it when she shares her handiwork on her site. She's been blogging since 2005.

9. Alice Audrey is an author and another blogger who does the Thursday Thirteen meme. She writes about books, writing, vacations, and cats. She has been blogging a little longer than I have, too, as she apparently started in January 2006.

10. Grace over at News From The Hill recently moved to our area. She writes about her horses and home construction. She's been blogging since 2010.

11. Beth over at Elizard Breath Speaks lives somewhere in our area though I'm not exactly sure where. She started blogging in 2011, and posts pictures that look sort of local and familiar but I can't always place them.

12. Donna over at Just Me posts about country living. I think we read each other's AOL Journals, so I have been reading her work for a long time. Her blog archive goes back about as far as mine.

13. Lastly, I want to acknowledge you, dear reader. It is so nice to have you join me, whether that's daily, monthly, or just on occasion. I write for myself but also for you - I know you're out there, and I hope you enjoy my work. Thank you so much for reading and commenting, as I think that does keep me coming back to this blog to write. I look forward to seeing what you have to say every day.

Best wishes and thank you again!



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 250th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

And a Gentle Breeze . . .

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday for the third time ever.

Books: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1 & 2
Coyote Moon, by John Vornholt
Night of the Living Rerun, by Arthur Byron Cover
Portal Through Time, by Alice Henderson
Halloween Rain, by Christopher Golden & Nancy Holder
Bad Bargain, by Dina Gallagher
AfterImage, by Pierce Askegren

2010 edition

Sometimes I want to read something that I can simply read and not unconsciously examine for writerly things like plot, characterization, etc. Something that will just take me out of my life for a while and free up my mind.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer books filled the bill for me in the last two weeks. I picked up two anthologies, each a fat 650 pages bearing three separate books, off the bargain table at Books-A-Million and settled in each evening for some monster slaying and 1300 pages of reading.

I loved the series, so the characters, being familiar and all, are like old friends.

Simon and Schuster, the publisher, should be ashamed of itself for allowing so many typographical errors in the first text, though. What, you couldn't afford a proofreader for that first run?

None of these stories were bad; however, they also aren't especially memorable. Halloween Rain was my favorite story. I think it was the most complex. It was about a scarecrow that comes to life.

Buffy precedes the current vampire Twilight stuff and so is a grannie of the genre. The TV series sort of fizzled out at the end, as so many do, but when it was on, it was on and well worth watching.

I've read a lot of the books over the years (but didn't keep track of them) and most of them are okay. They're like TV episodes that didn't make the air. Generally the writers catch the characters well enough that it flows with what you already know.

Optimism is Overrated

A while back, one of my blogging friends, Beth over at Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl, wrote a piece about what she called "dork optimism"  - always sunny and hopeful. She took the description from a show she had been watching.

In a comment, I said, "optimism is overrated." Beth in a comment on my blog wanted to know why I thought that. She wrote:

  "I've been thinking about something you wrote in your last comment on my blog and I'm very curious about just what you meant by it.  I'm asking here because I'm not sure what your email is and I'm pretty shy anyway about writing folks directly.  You said that you thought optimism is over-rated.  So why do you think that and what do you think is the alternative to it?  I'm not asking this to put you on the spot---I sincerely want to know because I think you do think deeply about things like I do, and I'm very interested in how you came to feel this."

I don't have Beth's email, either, and this is a long answer, so this blog entry is my response.

First, I had to consider my own statement. Do I really believe optimism is overrated? Yes. I do. For many reasons.
 
Optimism has been described as seeing the glass half-full. Its opposite is pessimism, which sees the glass as half empty.
However, I think the opposite of optimism these days is not pessimism but realism. Optimism has moved so far into unreality, thanks to the media and religion, that it has become dangerous. This actually has a name, which I just learned as I thought about Beth's question (and oddly enough, it came up on AOL this morning on its front page). It's called the optimism bias.

This means that being too optimistic can keep you from seeing things clearly. It can keep you from seeking medical attention, saving money for the future, and making plans. Pessimism can do the same thing. Too much of either trait is bad, in other words.

I tend to be a realist who leans toward pessimism sometimes. I admit that freely. I do not see the glass as half full. Nor do I see it as half empty. I see it as 2 ounces of water in a 4-ounce glass. That's the reality of it, isn't it? It's just water.
 
I am not talking about a reality as something we create, as one of our former presidents (or maybe it was his secretary of defense) said. I'm talking about truth. Honest, unvarnished truth. That water is wet. Hot is hot. Red is red. One plus one equals two. What someone says is what they say. That a policy is bad or good because it's a bad or a good policy, not because someone thinks it is. These things can be figured out. But that requires thinking grounded in reality, not in hope and faith. Just because you put something in place and hope it works doesn't mean that it is actually going to.

In thinking about this, I have written wonderful words and offered great examples in my mind, but I didn't write any of it down. Now that I'm trying to write it down, I cannot think of what I was recalling. I knew this was going to happen but I was enjoying the thinking process so I didn't hunt up an ink pen. Pessimistically, I knew I would forget a lot of it. Optimistically, I knew I'd remember some of it. The reality is what I write here is going to include some of what I feared I would forget and it will include some new material, too. Three different outlooks. One blog entry.

Too much optimism is the reason why many things are wrong with this country. For example, are you one of those folks who applaud the cuts to social programs? This is likely because you think you'll never need it. You're optimistic that you'll never lose your job or ever have a medical problem that will cause you to go bankrupt. So yeah, get the deadbeats off the dole, right? And then when you do need that money - when you're one of those deadbeats - the money is not going to be there and you're going to have to sleep in your car. And you're still going to think that things will be better tomorrow.
 
That is optimism causing great social calamity and chaos. That is optimism causing problems for hundreds of thousands of people, today. That is optimism being highly overrated because people do not see the reality of the situation.
 
Because the reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of people out of work, or living on wages that are not enough for a nice life, and these folks need to be enrolled in SNAP even if they do have a car, in order to be sure they have enough to eat.
 
The reality is what needs to be changed and addressed. Making it worse for others because you believe it will never happen to you is just ... well, wrong.
 
Too much optimism leads to stagnation. If you believe that things will be better tomorrow, always, and never address the reasons why things are not quite what you want today, how will you ever be moved to change? Let's say you need more money. Maybe you need a different job. But if you're always hoping for a raise tomorrow, to address that need, when will you start looking for a new position, or upgrading your skills? Maybe never.
 
Being grounded in reality is what causes forward movement, not optimism. I'm not saying optimism is a bad thing. Of course it isn't. It's good to hope, to dream, to expect better things. But if you do not address the realities - if you don't take an umbrella with you because you're sure it's not going to rain - at some point, you're going to get wet.
 
Isn't it better to take the umbrella along, just in case? (I always carry one in my car.)
 
The other side of this current climate of optimism that I find dismaying is that it is yet another way we set ourselves apart. We're constantly creating "others" - that person is too sad to be around, or too pessimistic. Too unlike me. Wrong religion, wrong car, wrong clothes, too fat, too skinny. When a society is constantly uplifting one trait over another, then it is negating those people.
 
Who wants to be negated all the time? And why would we do that? What is morally right about that kind of attitude?
 
I think being optimistic is being pushed as "good" in the same way that being extroverted is lauded as being the best way to be. Our society reveres extroversion and eschews introversion. Well, we would be lost without introverts (and yes, I am one), whether they're optimistic introverts or not. Einstein and Bill Gates are introverts, just to name two who have influenced our society. As a society we act like there is something wrong with introverts (just like we now act like there is something wrong with pessimists and realists). None of these - introversion, pessimism, realism - are personality disorders or anything to be ashamed of. They're just the differences that people have, and to hold one up over the other, to proclaim one better than the other, is just wrong.
 
I also see this optimism thing as a part of the Law of Attraction hoopla that is being touted in religions - well-established and otherwise. This came to the fore with that terrible book The Secret and it continues on. This type of thinking was around in the early 20th century, too, but fell out of favor as people came to their senses and began living in reality again (though it apparently took a great depression and a world war to knock people back to their senses). However, we've grown very ignorant once more and so this type of wishcraft is now front and center.
 
In the Law of Attraction, if you have enough faith, it will come to you. While Jesus says people with money will not get to heaven (Mark 10:25), these days religions tout the opposite: it is the most righteous who are rich - because they have great faith and God wants them to be wealthy as their just reward. They're simply trying to cover their own butts while they turn away from their societal obligations to take care of the poor and destitute. And if they can make you think the same thing, so much the better.
 
In other words, if you're poor, it's because you don't have enough faith. Do you really believe that? I sure don't. If a car runs through your house and injures you while you're asleep in your bed, you somehow wished that upon yourself. How do you like that kind of thinking? Think that's grounded in reality? Do you really think you wish the bad things in your life upon yourself?
 
Of course you don't. Life is full of strange events, unfortunate happenings. Sometimes things just are. Sometimes you get sick. Sometimes you are happy. Sometimes someone falls asleep at the wheel. Sometimes things really do turn out like you hope and your optimism is rewarded. Sometimes things turn out badly, too, and your optimism is blown to bits.
 
We just went through a bad week here locally with major power outages. Being a realist, I am always prepared for such an event. We have a generator, gasoline on hand, and enough food to last us for 10 days, even if that means we'll be eating Vienna Sausages on that last day. This is not a survivalist mentality; this is the reality of life in a rural area where the lights go out sometimes for long periods. But a lot of people do not prepare.
 
Last week when the power was out, even when the electric company was saying it would be a week before power would be restored, people didn't believe what the power company said. They were sure the lights would be back on. Just another hour, and everything would be fine.
 
Only it wasn't. Their optimism was not rewarded, and I saw a lot of people starting to freak out after about four days without power. They were unprepared. Reality hit them upside the head. Hard.
 
So yeah, I think optimism is overrated. Expect tomorrow to be a beautiful day, but buy a raincoat. Otherwise you're going to catch a cold and go into pneumonia. Then you'll lose your job because you can't work. Then you'll lose your house, and you'll end up living under a bridge.
 
Live in the real world. Open your eyes, please. See the good and the bad and plan your life accordingly. That is the alternative to omnipresent optimism that can cause stagnation. Be realistic, but hope.
 
Thank you for reading.

Daisy, Daisy

A Green Bean Day

So in the midst of 99 degree days and clean up from demon winds that wiped out 10 trees in the yard, the green beans decided that was the time they were at their perfect size for picking.

So I picked green beans.

Some of the green beans.

I must say, as green beans go, these were pretty fine. They had no green bean rust and no bug holes. They were not too big or too small. They were just right.

I had to snap them (although I use a knife) and prep them for cooking and processing.

I threw some in the pot on the stove along with some fat back to cook. This is the southern way to cook green beans. They have to simmer on the stove for HOURS. My husband likes them best when they are fixed like this. We had these for dinner.

Other green beans I decided to put in the freezer. I had to blanch them (put them in hot water) for three minutes.

I forgot to take a picture of that part.

After they cooked for three minutes, I put them on ice to keep them from cooking even more.

Next I put them on a cookie sheet, and then I took a paper towel to them to rid them of excess water.

These are some of the finished beans, ready for the freezer. They will taste good this winter.

The Bird Nest

When I was picking up sticks in recent days following the demon wind storm known as a derecho, I came across a bird's nest.

I picked it up and placed it gently on my boxwood.

It fit into the palm of my hand. As you can see, it is very small.

Such a delicate creation! It is soft inside, lined with brown, black, and gray hairs.

I hope the baby birds had all grown up and flown away before the winds came.

Thursday Thirteen

*Note to Thursday Thirteen players*

Please, I'm begging you, get rid of the captcha codes. It takes me three tries to log in and I'm about ready to stop responding on any blog that uses these things. The new codes that blogger is using is just horrid and terribly hard to read.

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The Library of Congress this week released a list of books that shaped the United States of America.

It is a different sort of collection of titles than one might expect.

Here are 13 of them that I have read:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884) (Read it online for free here)

2. Beloved, by Toni Morrison (1987)

3. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903)(download and read for free here)

4. The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Suess (1957)

5. Charlotte's Webb, by E.B. White (1952)

6. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (1953)

7. Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown (1947) (Hollins alumna!)

8. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

9. Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1855) (read online for free here)

10. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (1868)(read it online for free here (I think))

11. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (1960)

12. Walden, or Life in the Woods, by Henry David Thoreau (1854)(read it online for free here)

13. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (1900)(read it online for free here)


I have read a great many more on the list than what I have listed here: 32 of the 88 listed. Not quite half, but then I wasn't born in the 1800s, either. Many of the books on the list are very old.

I suspect if you want to know how a nation is what it is - how the national myths grew and twisted, how the country as a whole sees itself, how it vilifies or applies sainthood to various sections of entire people - reading the books that people read as they grow up and otherwise might be a good place to start.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 249th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Unpopular Poplars

We planted a row of poplars to the side of the house in 1988. The nursery we ordered them from said they had a 20 year life span.

In 1988 that seemed like a long time.

But by 2012, the trees were dead, lifeless sentinels standing guard over the property.

My husband has, for a couple of years now, said he would cut them down.

The wind storm of June 29 took care of a lot that for him.

Let the clean up begin!

My husband, man of many talents and very busy guy,

has a business installing septic tanks as well as being

a fire chief and running the farm.

The equipment came in handy during this derecho event.

He picked up the bigger pieces with his skid steer.

He dumped them over the fence, and later he shoved

them into an existing brush pile to the right.

He cut down what was left of the poplars.

It didn't take long but it was messy.

It was hot and tiring work.

Afterward, we had to pick up all of these sticks by hand.

We finished that chore last night.

All in all, we have removed many skid steer loads, 12 garden cart loads and 2 farm trailer loads of wood and debris from the yard since Saturday morning.

In 90-100 degree heat.

Hoping now for calmer weather!

Books: The Last Promise

The Last Promise
By Richard Paul Evans
Audiobook
Read by Jonathan Davis
8 hrs 55 min
Copyright 2002

Richard Paul Evans gives us yet another love story in this nice tale set in Italy.

Eliana (Ellen), an American from Utah, has married a count and now lives at his vineyard with their young son. The boy is asthmatic, and his father is seldom around. He travels a great deal and has several mistresses to keep up, to boot.

Ross Story is an American from Minnesota, a somewhat melacholy fellow who becomes a tenant at the vineyard.

As you might be able to predict, Eliana and Ross fall in love.

The story then revolves around whether or not their love will be unrequited.

This is a straight character story with a basic love affair plot, and I enjoyed listening to it. Evans' tales require very little of the reader; he has a nice style and the stories flow well. They are somewhat predicable but when I'm killing time in the car and driving, I really don't want to have to concentrate hard on what I'm listening to. So these are perfect for those half-hour trips back and forth to the city.

Aftermath: The Derecho

When I woke this morning, the clock said 6:40. I glanced out the window in time to see a red streak in the yard. I reached for my glasses and hopped up.

The fox was beautiful and majestic as it pranced through the yard. It passed through quickly, and I was unable to grab my camera.

I wiped the sleep from my eyes, drank a glass of water, and hurried into old clothes. I walked outside. To one side of me, I heard the far-off roar of a generator, while behind me I heard the distant whirr of a chainsaw.

Someone was already up and cutting down felled trees.

The siren or alarm that has been sounding for two days continued to wail, too. I haven't been able to place it, but have concluded it must be someone's house alarm. Perhaps they are out of town and the power outage set it off. Or maybe they had a tree limb go through a window. In any event, it is a strange backdrop for the surreal disaster area that the Virginia Derecho of June 29 left in its wake.

As I did yesterday, I set out early to pick up limbs and sticks. Yesterday I filled up my garden cart five times with limbs and sticks. It took me about 10 minutes to fill the cart, and an hour of this work out in the intense heat and humidity is all I can manage. Between my asthma and my high blood pressure, not to mention back problems, the work leaves me feeling weak and light-headed.

I have decided that I will do this for an hour every morning until I have done all I can. The large limbs I will have to leave for my husband, as I cannot lift them, but he has his hands full and it will be a while before he can turn his attention to our yard.

So I stoop and bend, pick up a limb, rise, toss it into the cart. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This morning I did this for an hour, and filled my cart five times once more.

I am glistening with sweat when my husband comes home from work.

Yesterday he was in the city. As a battalion chief with the Roanoke City Fire-EMS, he had a big job. With so many trees down, and people in need of help, the first responders had a lot going on.

On the farm, we have trees across fences, and that must be the first priority since the house is okay. Cattle will roam, and they must be fenced in. So he came home and changed from his fireman's gear to his farmer's gear, and he is off working on fence.

Fortunately, yesterday while he was at work one of his cousins came out and fixed up the worst holes so that the cattle could not get out into the road. But the fence must be in good repair at all times. It is one of the important parts of raising cattle.

We have also been fortunate to keep our electricity. The lights went out for a brief period during the height of the storm, but they have stayed on. The internet has been spotty but basically reliable, considering the state of emergency, and I have been pleased with it.

I have checked on friends and neighbors; all that I have spoken to are fine and making out. I am worried about one elderly friend but so far she is all right. Most of my friends and family have electricity and I am grateful for that.

The loss of electricity is a big deal. People are very power-dependent and this should serve as warning. I hope folks buy generators and keep gasoline on hand.

The upcoming week is looking like one that will be quite different for many people. Some folks will not be able to go to work because their offices will not have electricity. Many people are irritable because of the heat. I imagine some folks are starting to get a little stinky, too, because they cannot take a shower.

Food businesses that lost power worry me, because I fear many will not do the right thing and throw the food out but instead sell it anyway. I will not be anxious to eat out for a while, I think.

I see on Facebook that people without power are tossing their food from their refrigerators and freezers now. I imagine what was in the fridge was bad as of Saturday since most power went out around 9 p.m. Friday night; the freezers, if unopened, might last for three or four days but beyond that, certainly not.

Some places are not expected to be reconnected to the power grid until next Saturday - a full week away.

I am so grateful that I have come through this with what seems to me to be relatively minor damage. We were lucky the house was unhurt, that only fences are down, and that the electricity has stayed on all of this time. I feel for the folks who are without power.

The county has set up a cooling center at Lord Botetourt; I assume it is in place again today but I am not certain. Also, they have asked folks who are on public water to conserve water. If their pumping stations are not functioning, they may be having trouble keeping water in the tanks.

This weather event will be one for the record books. I hope I never experience it again.