Dona Nobis Pacem - Praying for Peace

Sixty-three years ago, Operation Overlord took place. The Battle of Normandy began as Allied troops hit the beaches of Normandy, France hoping to allay the evil of Hitler's regime.

Now, with the members of that generation dying and giving way to the younger set, the lessons learned in the 20th century apparently need to be taught all over again.

The world is fraught with war, turmoil, personal indignities, violence, hatred, racism, hunger, poverty, and such a multitude of evils that one can scarcely recount them all.

Peace means more than just dropping guns. It means loving one another, caring for one another, and working together as a society to cure the injustices of the world. It means realizing the importance of each individual, each mind, each heart and extending hands in hopes of healing and comforting.

These days such efforts seem far and few between. This is a time of celebrity culture, when headlines are made by spoiled brats entering jail cells, not children being beaten or starved. How easy it is to forget things are not right in everyone's world when you're doing okay and ignoring the important stories on the inside of the newspapers.

My hope is that everyone stops for just a brief moment today and looks around. Say a prayer of thanksgiving for what you have and offer a prayer of help for the person you know who needs it most. Maybe today is the day we all reach out a hand and offer that healing touch.

Wake up, world! Pray for Peace.

*****

The Peace Globe movement was started by Mimi at Mimiwrites. It's an effort to remind everyone that each person can make a difference in the world. Visit her website so you can make your own Peace Globe and join us in making life better for all.

The smell of money

Manure. That’s the smell of money for farmers, but residents living next door sometimes don’t find it very pleasing.

The local zoning offices often receive complaints from folks living near farms who don’t want to deal with the smell of manure fertilizers. Since I cover local governments, I hear about this.

Farmers spread manure for a variety of reasons. Dairy farmers in particular need to get it out of the barn so they can go about their daily business of making sure Bossy donates her milk so you can have your cereal.

Government regulations governing milk production require frequent manure collection by dairy farmers.

The manure makes the fields flush with green. This natural fertilizer makes the topsoil better so grass can grow.

The cows then eat the grass. It’s a nice cycle.

Spreading manure saves money for farmers. Basically manure contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. According to one website, spreading animal waste saves a farmer about $45 an acre.

On a large farm, that’s quite a savings.

Environmental concerns do crop up with manure spreading, but a 2000 study found that most nonfarm neighbors are not worried about that. It’s the odors that spark the phone calls to county officials.

Zoning officials seldom receives calls about pollution, but people call every spring about odor.

Farmers do not fall under state law for spreading manure until their herd reaches a certain capacity – 300 head of livestock or 20,000 chickens, for example. Farmers also can, and many do, participate in the state's Best Management Practices, which has guidelines for manure spreading.

The state advocates putting manure down in the spring, not winter, so the ground can absorb the nutrients. Manure contains bacteria and chemicals that can enter the water supply, so it a spring application is desirable. That’s because manure that’s put down on frozen ground is more likely to run off instead of sinking into the soil.

Generally speaking, farmers try not to apply manure during bad weather.

Farmers have a lot to do when the weather warms; the fields and cows don’t take care of themselves. As the weather warms, farmers gear up for the season by applying herbicides and pesticides.

Herbicides might be used to kill an entire field so a new crop can be planted. Pesticides are necessary to keep the bugs away. Farmers are either licensed to apply these chemicals, or they hire someone to do it for them.

With longer days there are crops to cut, such as winter rye, which is used for feed and straw. Ground is plowed and reseeded or seeded with a no-till drill that puts the seed in the ground without turning over the dirt.

Farmers spread other things besides manure, including man-made fertilizers and lime. These items can emit odors, too, that nonfarm residents might not find pleasant.

Orchard growers are caring for their trees, pruning and spraying for bugs, depending on what the trees need. Cows are calving, chickens are laying eggs, roosters are crowing.

It’s a noisy and sometimes smelly world on a farm.

Ain't it grand?

(Note: a little different version of this appeared in The Fincastle Herald and online at ourvalley.org).

Junebugs in Summer

So my husband and I have birthdays this month. His was yesterday.

He spent the day in a seminar at Greenfield. That wasn't fun. I gave him a pair of sneakers and an electric razor. He had just purchased a new tractor and a new cellphone for himself.

We haven't seen each other much since December. First there was the rental property renovations - my mother left me an old house and we had to fix it up after the people who were originally renting from her left it trashed when they moved last fall. My husband spent every spare hour working on that place.

Just as things were settling down, my father-in-law became ill, and my husband's spare time went into running the farm and his father's business, both by himself. My husband is also a professional firefighter, so he's been gone right much.

Add to that the fact that his parents have been needing almost constant attention, a lot of which which is coming from us, and most of that from my husband.

On top of that, I've been busy and am out a lot at nights attending meetings and things for my work. So we've been like two junebugs buzzing around the same rose, never landing long enough to rub feet.

Today was to be our day. We were going to do our darndest to be together and go to the movies.

The phone rang at 8:30 a.m.; the hot water heater in the rental property went phtts. Husband has been over there ever since (it's after 1 p.m. now) and it looks like an afternoon at the movies just ain't gonna happen.

The junebugs continue their dance.

Books: Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Audiobook
Magic Hour
By Kristin Hannah
2006
Read by Suzanne Toren

A defamed psychiatrist, Julia Cates, is called upon by her sister, Ellie, who was the homecoming queen and is now chief of police, to help with an abandoned child. "Alice," as they come to call the girl, seems to have been raised by wolves.

Cates is suffering from self-esteem problems because she failed to stop a client/patient from committing murder and mayhem. She was put on trial and found innocent but tried in the press. Now she has to save this little girl.

Ellie is pretty self-centered but she's redeemable.

Max is a local doctor who has traumas of his own, but he works with Julia and ultimately falls for her as they try to get the little wolf girl civilized.

There is a happy ending.

I thought I would not like this book at first, but I eventually found myself quite engrossed in the story. I was listless about the romance, but Julia's relationship with "Alice" was worth the time I spent listening to this in the car.

This is the second Hannah book I've read (or listened to); the first was Between Sisters.

3 stars

Thursday Thirteen

1. We had a storm today.

2. I stood in the doorway a long time, smelling the rain and watching it fall.

3. We have been short of rainfall this year, and I swear I could hear the ground sucking up the water as it fell.

4. I thought I could see the grass grow, too.

5. I have always liked storms.

6. As a child, I sat on the carport of my grandmother's house and watched the storms play on the mountain. Twin streaks of lightning would fly overhead. I would try to count the bolts.

7. Thunder did not seem as ominous as it does now.

8. I don't know if that is age or if storms truly have changed.

9. Thunder seems to rumble more now, and groan longer.

10. My mother used to tell me thunder was the angels at the bowling alley.

11. Lightning struck my parents' house in 1989 and set it on fire.

12. It burned almost to the ground.

13. That's a longer story for another time.

Full of Hot Air

The hot air balloon sailed over the farm early Sunday morning. I woke late - 7:30 a.m. - and I was looking out the window at the garden when I saw the balloon crossing the fields.

I think hot air balloons are pretty and I have been up in one. I took a trip in 1985, I think it was. N.H., who used to balloon around here as a hobby, took me high in the sky. I wrote an award-winning article about it. We took off in Daleville and landed in Trinity. The balloon route roughly traversed US 220 for a couple of miles.

Up in the balloon, sounds are magnified. You can easily hear people talking, dogs barking, cattle getting ready to stampede . . .

And therein lies the problem with hot air balloons and farming. They make a magnificent whooshing sound when the pilot is heating the air. This sound frightens the heck out of cattle and we have had them run through fences before, scared out of their minds.

And the hot air balloonist goes on his merry wary, heedless of the destruction his "fun" has wrought.

It costs a lot to fix a fence.

Another problem with some hot air balloonists is they tend to land wherever they want. And then the chase crew comes in with a big pick up truck and leaves deep ruts in your hay field.

We of course have had this happen. Some hot air balloonists apparently only ask permission if they get caught.

There was a story about this on WDBJ7 recently. The supervisors have decreed Greenfield a no-landing zone for the local hot air balloonist who does this as a business.

I do not know if the balloon that crossed the farm on Sunday was this person or not. It may have been a hobbyist.

Many farmers have informed the hot air ballooners that they are not welcome to land in their fields, including us. Some people, of course, have granted permission. I imagine it all depends on what you use the land for. If you're not making hay on it and it doesn't matter about ruts then it's not a problem, but all of our land is used for agriculture purposes.

Anyway, when I saw the hot air balloon on Sunday, I knew right away that the first chore on the list was check the cows.

My Favorite Font

I ran across an article on Slate today that asked writers what their favorite font was.

The only author they talked to with whom I was familiar was Andrew Vachss, and his work scares me so I don't read much of it.

He uses Courier.

I am partial to Times New Roman 12 pitch. This is not the blogger default.

This is Times New Roman.

This is Arial.

This is Courier.

This is Georgia.

This is Lucida Grande. I can't tell much difference between this and Georgia. One of these must be the blogger default.

This is Trebuchet.

This is Verdana.

This is a webdig. (These are webdings, which I didn't even know existed until just now.)

Mostly I just want what I am working on to be legible and "pretty" when it's printed. Sometimes when I am working on the screen, particularly at night when my eyes are tired, I might switch the pitch up to 14 or larger so I can see. But I don't do that very often.

I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard and this is actually as important to me, if not more so, than the font. I need to be able to feel comfortable when I type for long stretches and a regular keyboard cramps my hand. I haven't typed on a regular keyboard in so long that I find it difficult to go back to one when I have to.

Personal Update

For those who have asked, things are little calmer here.

My father-in-law is no longer critical and seems to have turned a corner. He may get to come home soon.

My grandmother remains very ill. I am quite saddened to see her so sick. She has been declining over the last six months. She is in a lot of pain and unable to articulate what she needs. She seems to recognize people occasionally.

My husband is still working very hard but we are adjusting to the new routines.

A quarter inch of rain fell earlier and hopefully that will help the fields. The first hay cutting was a little disappointing.

Nature's Magic

Remember these pictures of the view out my window?
We went from this during our "first spring":



To this after a hard April freeze:



And now we're at this! Hurray!

Book Club Reads Poetry

My book club - the Blue Katt Book Club - met Thursday night at the Fincastle library. We used to meet at Blue Katt Art Gallery, but unfortunately it closed earlier this year. I am sad about that, as the building had great atmosphere.

This month when we met, we brought poetry, which we read aloud.

Only four of us showed, but we had a great time. Our book club has no rules and often turns into a nice hen party, and I really like that.

I brought Satan Says, by Sharon Olds. I read a number of her poems aloud. You can find some of her poems to read for yourself here.

Another member brought a book of poems by John somebody; unfortunately I didn't catch his last name except to note that it was not something I would be able to spell. He is a Minnosota professor and was featured on NPR. I liked his work and will have to try to get his name.

Our member who swore she did not like poetry was enthralled by the free verse that we shared. Apparently her efforts to appreciate poems was stalled in school, when she was forced to study iambic pentameter or something. She said she thought she might like to study a little poetry now.

This woman shared the only poem she liked, which was Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allen Poe. (This is a link to an obituary of Poe, quite an interesting read).

During the second to last stanza, my bookmate burst into tears as she read Poe's poem, and could not finish. I sat there, stunned, at the power of a poem to bring such emotion to someone who professed no love of the genre.

Thursday Thirteen

Bad Habits

1. Nail Biting

2. Chewing on plastic toothpicks

3. Eating at 3 p.m. when I'm not really hungry but "need something."

4. Eating too much and clearing my plate

5. Reading while I'm eating

6. Interrupting someone while they talk

7. Cursing (usually only when I am upset)

8. Putting off until tomorrow what I really should be doing today.

9. Procrastinating (wait, isn't that the same as number 8?)

10. Repeating myself

11. Checking to make sure the curling iron/computer/TV etc. is cut off - after I've left the house and must turn around and come back

12. Piling instead of filing

13. Talking too much

Yikes

My posts have been a little sporadic, but for a reason.

My husband's father went into the hospital over a week ago; he remains there. Not sure of the prognosis.

Last night my grandmother had a stroke and they took her from the nursing home to the hospital.

One is in Lewis Gale; the other at RMH.

On top of that, my husband has been running the farm single-handedly, as well as his father's other business.

Just a difficult month all around.

What price for "peace of mind"?

I was horrified recently by an article I read in the current edition of the Blue Ridge Business Journal. The article is not online that I could find.

Entitled "GPS will help you track lost socks, cheating spouses," the article/column advocates this new technology in all things. This is so someone will know where you are and what you're doing 24/7.

Never mind that some of us would like to take a mental health day from work and spend it beneath a tree reading a book without worrying if the spy satellite is going to inform the boss.

Most scary was this:

"Politicians are suggesting that high school students be chipped to prevent truancy."

I think skipping school a few times was one of the better things I did growing up, and I was a straight-A student.

The idea of being watched all the time seems to be OK with a great number of people, but I am not one of them. I like my privacy. I liked skipping school once in a while. I like taking the car for a drive and having no one know exactly where I am. Sometimes I like to not know where I am.

Why must we all be locatable at any given time? Will there one day be a moratorium on the number of times you can go to the bathroom in the future, and if you exceed that you'll be penalized?

How far will this go?

Not to mention nobody has any clue if this electronic embedding in people's skin will cause problems. Our bodies emit electric frequencies; that is why acupuncture and biofeedback and many health technologies, like sonograms, work. They take advantage of the electrical energy in the body.

These chips certainly could throw that off and make people sick. There is concern that cellphones cause brain cancer; what about this?

It's one thing to voluntarily put on a GPS device while you're out hiking so that if you get lost you can be found; it's another to advocate tracking so school kids won't skip school.

We are slowly eroding away our individuality. Things like this surely will turn us all into little robots, thinking and feeling and doing the exact same thing. Creativity will be weeded out like it's some kind of dandelion in the rose garden.

Nobody will skip school. Or take a mental health day. Or drive without knowing where they're bound.

What a dull world it will be.

Green Beans

I love my veggies. Green beans, peas, all of those legumes. Yum.

My favorite way to eat green beans is directly off the vine, washed and snapped and placed in my salad. Crisp and full of flavor!

Baring that, then I like them just barely cooked. Still a little crisp.

That is not the southern way to eat green beans.

We haven't had green beans in ages because I don't "cook them right" according to my husband. (Which is okay; I have never professed to be a cook.)

Green beans to him are supposed to be put in a big pot with a huge wad of fatback, and possibly new potatoes, and brought to a boil and then left to simmer on the stove for about five hours.

What you get is mess of soppy soggy beans that are slippery and which taste like boiled ham.

Husband has been having a difficult time; his dad is in the hospital, things at work not so great. So I am fixing him pot roast, green beans and rice for dinner.

He loves his beef, and he likes green beans "cooked the right way."

This has required some planning, particularly with the green beans, because they have to simmer on the stove forever if I want him to eat them. So I have a pot of green beans simmering. I had no fatback; I threw in a slice of bacon instead.

That will do.

It kind of makes the house smell like my Aunt Neva's. She always seemed to have a pot of green beans in fatback simmering when I visited her aging house in Salem. Aunt Neva was old for as long as I can remember, although she was only in her 80s when she died several years ago. However, I tend to associate the smell of long-cooked green beans with old age and elderly people.

Which may be why I don't like to cook them "the right way" very often. Old age isn't where I want to go.

One Word

I think the best word in marketing is this:

Repeat.

Imagine how much the body care business has made because of that one simple little word. Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.

That's what marketing is made up of, getting consumers to repeat their purchases. Grab a chip, dip it, eat it. Repeat.

Watch one program on TV. Repeat.

Buy one computer, get addicted. Repeat.

Which brings me to my mother's favorite joke:

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off. Who was left?

Repeat.

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence ...

Instead of Working

I answered these questions. They were sent to me.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Nope. But my uncle stole my name and his daughter, who is two years younger than I, has the same first name and middle initial as I do. My mother really did not like that.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Sometime earlier this year.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? No. It is nearly illegible, very tiny and cramped. It is getting worse as I age.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Vienna Sausages.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Nope.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Probably. I don't know anyone else like me, though. Which probably says a lot, I'm just not sure what.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Moi? Be sarcastic? Never!

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? No. I had them removed in 1994. I was supposed to be off from work for one day; I ended up being out sick for two weeks. There were complications.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Not now. Maybe when I was young. Back then I went up in a small plane. I've also been in a hot air balloon.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Frosted Flakes. They're gre...at!

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?Depends on the shoe.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I am strong mentally but not physically.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? I don't eat ice cream but I like Chocolate Obsession Soy dessert

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their eyes.

15. RED OR PINK? Pink.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I'm overweight.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? The people whom I never had.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?No.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Jeans and white sneakers.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Raisins.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Silence. Well, the air purifier. Plus the bell on the microwave keeps dinging to let me know the rice is done.

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Blue.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? Breakfast cooking.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? A person I was interviewing for an article.

25. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Women's tennis.

26. HAIR COLOR? Brown with lots of white coming in.

27. EYE COLOR? Hazel

28. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Glasses.

29. FAVORITE FOOD? Strawberry shortcake.

30. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings.

31. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, for about the umpteenth time. I haven't been to the theater in so long I can't remember what I last saw.

32. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? White with a logo on it.

33. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer

34. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs

35. FAVORITE DESSERT? Chocolate anything.

36. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I'm in between books.

37. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Go blog yourself. rosie.com.

38. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? I didn't watch TV last night.

39. FAVORITE SOUND? Nature noises. The wind whistling, the frogs chirping, the birds singing.

40. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Stones

41. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Spain and France. I guess that means France, I think it is further away.

42. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I make my friends laugh.

43. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a hospital.

More Harry Potter

J. K. Rowling, on her official site, is pleading with folks who might get a sneak peek at the book to stay mum about who lives and dies.

She wants her readers to embark on this last adventure without knowing where they are going, she writes.

Rowling has already said she kills off two main characters. But that probably includes evil guys, too. For all I know, she might mean Snape and Voldemort. They're pretty central to the story, after all.

I also read today that she might pen an eighth book, which would not be more adventures but instead some kind of Harry Potter encyclopedia culled from her extensive notes on Potter's world.

My anticipation for this last book is growing; I am like a kid. I am actually rather surprised at myself.

Books: The Quilter's Homecoming

The Quilter's Homecoming
By Jennifer Chiaverini

On Amazon (From Publishers Weekly):

Chiaverini's latest Elm Creek Quilts installment suffers at the hands of its lackluster hero and heroine. . . . When the couple arrive in the picturesque valley, they discover they have been swindled into the poorhouse by an unscrupulous land broker who sold them a fake deed. Determined not to crawl back to their families, Henry works as a hired hand, while Elizabeth cooks for the Jorgenson family, the ranch's true owners. . . .

2.5 stars

Books:Creatively Self-Employed

Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs
By Kristen Fischer

First, a disclaimer: I am quoted in this book. The author took "interviews" as questionnaires on a writer's bulletin board two years ago and I liked the questions and submitted my answers. Some of the answers I gave are in this book.

This book is self-published by iUniverse. There is nothing wrong with self-publishing, but I have yet to read a self-published book that did not need an editor. This book had only one typo that I found, though I confess I didn't read it carefully. I thought some of it was repetitive and some tightening up would have been useful.

Essentially she quoted about 30 different people (there are 70 listed in the back - I don't know if they were all mentioned). We all essentially say the same thing - working for yourself is hard but worth it. There are a few gems of advice in the book, ways to make things easier or reframe your thinking. Readers might benefit from those.

2.5 stars

The Ol' Gray Head

Absolutely none of that white hair you see on the side of my head was visible six weeks ago.

Over the last two months, the white hair has grown steadily. Every morning I wake up fearful that this will be the day I am completely white-headed. And I'm not even 44 years old yet.

First the right side began turning, then the left. My hair stylist is urging me to go for coloring, but I am so chemical sensitive that the last time I colored my hair it made me ill.

So far the white is looking ... interesting. From a distance (and maybe if I squint) it looks like highlighting as opposed to gray.

At least it is coming in almost white and soft.