Hometown Parade

The Town of Fincastle had its annual Christmas Parade on Saturday!

Folks gathered from near and far to watch.

Here's the start! The sheriff's car leads the way.

There were fire trucks.

And rescue vehicles . . .

The color guard from the Lord Botetourt High School Band!

The Lord Botetourt High School Marching Cavaliers! Let's go Big Red!

(I played in the band in high school; I'm partial to the band pictures, sorry!)

The Future Farmers of America. What will they grow for your plate?

Lots of folks on wagons.

I think these folks were supposed to be Peanuts from Charlie Brown, representing

a Charlie Brown Christmas, but I thought they were a little scary myself.

The James River High School Marching Knights!

This group won a lot of something!

Little baby horsies!

So cute!

My friend and former coworker, Cathy Benson.

I thought this was the best float! A gingerbread house created by the preschool.

St. Nick and his wife! Ho Ho Ho!

These Dreams

To dream is to believe in something other than the bleakness of reality.

To dream is to see the blue skies behind the clouds, the rainbow that follows a storm.

To dream is to embrace change and hold it with both hands, grasping it to your breast in an embrace so tight you nearly squeeze the life out of it.

To dream is to look too tomorrow, to know it will be coming, and to harbor great hopes that it will come rolling toward you like a truck full of ice cream.

To dream is to put forth ideas, to be brave even without true danger, to feel in spite of the risk. 

Dreams are the stuff of legend, the tigers in need of taming. To dream is to save the day.

These are Cows

 These are not OUR cows. They belong to our neighbor.

I think her cows are pretty. I like the colors of them.

They tend to eat a lot, though!

Thursday Thirteen

Today I must ask some crazy questions:

1. Why do the folks with pets on Facebook think their animals can't spell or must speak in poor English?

2. How do you know which arm rest is yours when you're at the movie theater?

3. How far does east go?

4. When the fire house burns down, is that irony, bad luck, or something else?

5. If I'm doing the driving and you pass me, then you're speeding (and maybe I call you an idiot under my breath). If I pass you, there is no problem (I certainly don't call myself an idiot). What's up with that?

6. If pro and con are opposites, is the opposite of progress ... congress?

7. Is there any difference between normal ketchup and fancy ketchup?

8. If ghosts are not solid and can go through doors and walls, why don't they fall through the floor?

9. Do fish get electrocuted when lightning strikes the ocean? (If so, then how come we still have fish?)

10. Why are some lullabies so violent? (In Rock-A-Bye Baby the kid is in a tree that crashes to the ground.)

11. What does NASA call earthquakes on Venus? Venusquakes?

12. Why are donuts, pizza, and cookies round?

13. Who figured out you could take a cotton ball from a plant,turn it into thread, turn that into material, and then turn that into a shirt?


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 270th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

If I Had a Million Dollars

So lottery fever is upon everyone as the PowerBall is at 1/2 billion dollars.

That is a lot of money.

I like to dream sometimes about the things I would do if I had that kind of money. I always want to give a lot of it away; I want to take care of family; I want to set up trust funds and things like that. Establish a scholarship at my alma mater. Help out the places that really do good things. Drop hundred dollar bills into the Salvation Army pots. Stuff like that.

Living the Life of Riley - the American dream. I wonder when it became wrong to just want enough. Because actually that's pretty much all I have ever strived for - enough.

Enough to pay the bills, keep me busy, keep me fed, keep me happy.  How much does one girl need, after all? If you have a roof over your head and someone to love you, does the rest of it matter?

Well, I suppose it does, especially if you help people. I can't imagine why you'd want to take all of that money and stick it in the bank. Sure, you'd want to set aside enough to live on if you decide to quit your job, but I live on a great deal less than $500 million at the moment. Theoretically speaking, I could set aside about $1.9 million and feel like I could spend the rest of it however I wanted.

So I don't quite understand why such a lottery couldn't be split up into 500 separate lotteries. That would help 500 people live better lives. Now theoretically, if I did all of that helping I would want to do with the sum, I might help more than 500 people, but that's just me. If someone else were to win, or if I were to have a change of heart, and that $500 million ended up in the bank, what good would it do, eh? Maybe make a few investment planners a little richer, is all.

Ah me. I never like to play the games by the rules. I'd much rather set my own, I think. Divvy things up differently, and always hope for the best.

Good luck if you're a player.

Yeah, we bought tickets.

This is a Stump

Local Cider

This is the best apple cider not just in the valley but in the state. Nay, maybe in the world!

Murray's has been making apple cider since the 1930s. The company is located in the Bonsack area of Botetourt. They also make apple juice, but I am a cider fan.

In fact, I am the only cider drinker in the house. None of my in-laws drink it, either. I think my brother might drink it occasionally, but I seem to be the biggest fan.

This cider is 100 percent apple, and so is the juice. That is why it tastes so good. It is also made from locally grown apples; according to their website, 95 percent of the apples come from growers in Virginia, while the rest come from neighboring West Virginia.

Virginia apples have a taste all of their own, different from what you get from Washington state (where many of the apples in the grocery store are grown).

If you want something a little different for the holidays, try this cider. You can spice it up and drink it hot or cold.

Safe From the Hunt

Last Saturday was the first day of rifle season for deer hunting. I looked up from my work at the computer and saw that one little deer had determined the best place for safety:

It stayed right outside the window for hours. As you can see, they come very close to the house.

Sometimes I joke that we're the ones living in the zoo and they come to watch us in our cage.

Thanksgiving Dinner

The golden turkey, straight out of my oven.

The table, waiting for the family.

The whole famn damily takes their seats

The golden one in from college for the weekend.

Thursday Thirteen

Things I will do today:

1. Prepare and cook a turkey.It is a 14-pound bird, which I hope will be big enough to feed seven. I use a cooking bag, which I have never had fail to produce a very juicy, sweet, tender bird.

2. Write in my journal.

3. Prepare and cook Irish spice bread. I found a recipe for this online and I am eager to try this out. It sounds yummy. I'll let you know how it turns out.

4. Drink tea. Drink water. Drink more water.

5. Eat a lot. But not until evening.

6. Watch the Macy's parade. Well, I will have it on the TV. I don't usually watch all of it.

7. Create a blog entry for a Thursday Thirteen.

8. Regret that I am not more original for the Thursday Thirteen.

9. Prepare and cook cornbread.

10. Cut up celery.

11. Take all food up to my mother-in-law's for the big Thanksgiving dinner.

12. See the in-laws and outlaws, kiss the brethren, enjoy listening to the nephews talk about their lives. Help clear the table when we're done.

13. Go to bed early!

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all of my U.S. readers; may you feel blessed on this day; I hope that all of you feel blessed each and every day of your lives. My good wishes to you all for reading. Thank you for being a part of my life!

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 269th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: Her Way

Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton
By Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr.
Copyright 2008
Audiobook 6 hours
Read by Erik Singer

I like Hillary Clinton. I preferred her as the 2008 Democratic candidate for the office of President of the United States over Barack Obama.

That said, I could not say that I know much about her as a person, much like none of us really know what any of the people who make up the public life of America are like. We know what we see and we judge on that. But we don't get to sit down and have coffee with these people.

And we still don't get to have coffee with Clinton in this book. She speaks in here only through public records.

This book came out in April 2008 as Clinton was working toward the Democratic nomination for president. I don't know if the book had any bearing on her loss. However, this unauthorized biography does not paint a flattering portrait of the former First Lady.

There is a lot of information here, along with many names an avid newshound such as myself would recognize from the 1980s and 1990s. From the perspective of taking a look back to see how things reached the point they are today, the book offers up some interesting points.

For one thing, while the book does not vilify the Clintons as the people who have corrupted the Democratic party, I certainly took that from the reading. The Clintons worked to create a more moderate, watered-down party and thus are somewhat responsible for the partisanship we have today. At least, that is one way to take in the information. It works particularly well to see it that way, I suppose, if, like me, you think the Democratic Party is no longer left, but moderate right. Realistically, there is no true "left" in government in this country anymore.

The book is also very hard on Hillary Clinton in that it portrays her as the force behind the throne at all times. She wanted to be president and had set that as her goal as early as the late 1970s. According to this book, she and Bill had determined that far back that he would be president, and then she would be president. It was a big dream.

I applaud big dreams.

The authors of this book do not appear to be Clinton fans. The book was slanted that way; it also was obviously written by men. There is an obvious "male gaze" in this book that I found eyebrow raising at times. The book took hits and made something of nothing so many times that it was apparent that this was two males observing a female, not people observing a person. And as two males observing a woman, I had the distinct impression they were hell-bent on browbeating her to death, simply because she was a woman. She didn't follow the prescribed female patterns: she didn't stay home barefoot and pregnant, and these two men appeared not to forgive her for that. How dare she put the v-jay-jay in politics!

I think the same information, put together by a woman (unless she was that Coulter creature), whether or not she was sympathetic to Hillary Clinton, would have created a very different book.

In any event, I do not think that Hillary Clinton will ever be president. I do not think she will run in 2016. I could be wrong about that, but she will be 69 years old. I think the country wants a younger president, a dynamic front person. I think that if there is a female candidate for president in 2016 from the Democrats, it will be Elizabeth Warren. But that's a long time away, plenty of time for a new star to appear on the horizon.

Hillary Clinton should be proud to have been Secretary of State, as well as a senator. She has done well for herself and helped women move forward through this molasses of the patriarchy that pervades the American way.

I give the book 3 stars because the information seemed well-documented, accurate to the public portrayal and persona of Hillary Clinton, and it was interesting to me. However, I think it works better as propaganda than biography.

29 Years

Today is our anniversary.

We're an old married couple, having spent 29 years together as of today.

We wondered this morning, both of us up early, as we are most days, where the time has gone. All of those years, passing through our hands like water, shimmering, cleansing, life-sustaining.

We have been mostly happy. There are always, of course, good times and bad. That is what life is made of, but we have been fortunate for the most part.


We'll be celebrating all day!

Rural No More

I like to think of us as living in a rural area. I suppose to city dwellers, it is quite rural.

But the truth is, we're surrounded on all sides by other homes. These are to the east of us.

These homes are to the north.

This is the side of my house.

Through the trees there you can barely see homes to the south of us.

The silo is to the west.

There are actually, many more homes visible than I show. I usually crop out my mother-in-law's house, for example, if it gets in the picture, along with others. Out my office window I can see four houses to the west; they are to the left of the silo. I seldom point the camera in that direction.

Housing growth has slowed in recent years as the economy has faltered. I don't know when, or if, it will pick back up. I don't particularly want it to pick back up. When I was young, Botetourt had about 18,000 people. Now it has 33,000. Almost double!

Even with all of these houses around, services remain elusive. We have no water and sewer. Everyone is on a well and uses a septic tank for the necessities. It takes 15 minutes to get anywhere at all, including the grocery store, post office, or gas station.

I am not complaining. I remember when trips to the grocery store meant a 30 minute drive - one way. But there were smaller stores in the area to make up for it, places where you could dash in from bread and milk. Those don't exist here any more. Now if you want bread and milk you have to stop in the large grocery store in Daleville.

Change happens every day. Sometimes it is better, sometimes worse. Sometimes it is both, depending on perspective.

Thursday Thirteen

Today I offer you up 13 songs from childhood.

1. Senor Don Gato. We sang this song in elementary school. You can see a youtube vido of it here. The words are included.

2.  Goodbye, Ol' Paint, I'm leavin' Cheyenne. I couldn't find a video of this song, but found some words similiar to what I recall here. I still say this to my husband. I say, "Goodbye, Ol' Paint," sometimes when I am leaving. It has perplexed him for nearly 30 years. "Why do you call me Ol' Paint?" he says.

3. The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I know I did not make this up but I cannot find it online anywhere. It went like this:
This is the story of the three billy goats Gruff,
and the giant who owned a bridge.
One was named Taffy, the other called Creampuff,
and the tiniest goat was called Midge.

4. Lavendar Blue. I think, but am not sure, that this was on the soundtrack to a Disney record, possibly called So Dear to My Heart. My brother loved this song for some reason, if I am remembering correctly. Here's a youtube video of it.

5. The Big Rock Candy Mountain. This is actually a song about drinking and being a hobo, but I learned it as a child. Here are the lyrics.* This is not the same version as you hear on O Brother Where Art Thou.

6. 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. Okay, so apparently I learned a lot about alcohol when I was small. But I have been singing this for as long as I can recall. 99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall. 98 bottles of beer on the wall . . . all the way to "no more bottles of beer on the wall." And yes, I have sang it to the end.

7. I've been Working on the Railroad! All the live-long day. Here's a rather interesting kid's video of this song.

8. She'll be comin' round the mountain . . . when she comes! (when she comes). One of the verses says "and we'll all have figgy pudding when she comes" and I never did know what that meant. At least that is what I thought it said. Anyway, here's a video, though I can't say I've ever actually heard it sung this way before. It doesn't have the figgy pudding line, though.

9. Daisy, Daisy, or A Bicycle Built For Two. My grandmother used to sing this song to us to shush us when we were crying or needed a nap or something. I can still see her rocking my brother and singing it to him to put him to sleep. Here's a Nat King Cole version of the song.

10. Down in the valley. The valley so low. I loved this song, still play it sometimes on my guitar. It's rather melancholy, though. Here's a version from the Andy Griffith show. Hear the wind blow, dear.

11. Froggie Went a Courtin'. Here's a funny version from Tom and Jerry (remember that cartoon?). And here's a Burl Ives version.


12. Jimmie Crack Corn. I always thought this song was about moonshine for some reason. Back to that alcoholic drinking theme, I guess. Here's Bugs Bunny singing it.

13. On Top of Old Smokey. This song was mutilated many times to have something more to do with spaghetti than losing a love. Even so, it's worth a mention. The only video I could find of it was of Hank Williams and I just didn't want to link to that. But here are the words to the mutilated version, as I recall them:

On top of ol' sghetti, all covered with cheese!
I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed!
It rolled off the table, and onto the floor,
and then my poor meatball, rolled on out the door.
It went down the sidewalk, and under a bush
and now my poor meatball, is nothing but mush.

Have a Happy Thursday!


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 268th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

*Corrected, thanks Alice!

Mid Autumn Sighs

Saturday, before the latest cold front, I took a walk.

Even though it was growing late in the season, the trees still harbored a bit of color.

In spring, this redbud blooms out with brilliant beauty. But leafless, I see a special beauty in the shape and trunk of the tree.

There is no such thing as bad light for photography in Autumn.

I love capturing the shimmer of light on leaves.

Is there anything more magnificent than the leaf canopy reaching toward the sky?

Orange, gold, and rust colors. Praise for a beautiful day!

Why Way is North?

Legend has it that moss grows on the north side of trees.

So if you're lost in the woods, and you can't see the sun, you should check out the bottoms of the oaks.

On a recent walk I noted that this tree would not serve that purpose.

It has moss growing on every side.

All the way around.

I have long been somewhat directionally challenged. I am easily turned around when driving or walking. When Valley View Mall first opened, I had to visit it about five times before I could figure out where I was. That mall is not that big. Now I don't have any problem but I remember how much it troubled me at first.

I have lived here long enough to know that Roanoke is somewhat south of me. Craig County lies to my west; far beyond, the great Mississippi River. Rockbridge County and the Shenandoah Valley is to my north. Bedford is east, and beyond that, eventually, (hundreds of miles), is the Atlantic.

Sometimes I feel like geography is not my best subject, but I can, usually, find what I need on a map without expending great effort.

But I would be lost if I depended on that tree.

Life has many directions, doesn't it? Ups and downs, ins and outs, good and bad. Win some, lose some, give some, take some. Happy days, sad days, friend-filled days and lonesome ones.

Sometimes bad stuff just happens. Sometimes good stuff just happens. There is a bit of  the roll of the die in the day. You work and work and still, despite your best efforts, plans don't come together. The stars do not align, and the world is not your oyster.

The squirrels are busily stuffing their mouths with acorns. The trees are shedding their leaves. The grass is growing browner by the day. The seasons, so far, we can count on (though maybe a little earlier this year). Winter is not far off.

It takes all of our effort some days just to get out of bed, but other days we bound forth like mighty gods or goddesses, eager to rule the world. What a conundrum humanity seems to be.

Apparently I'm seeking a little direction this morning, for I ramble. So I shall bid you, dear reader, a fond farewell, and thank you kindly for reading.

Bad Hair Day

This has absolutely nothing to do with the pictures, really. I subscribe to this thing that sends me a platitude daily, "hang in there, Anita" kind of stuff. They are called Notes from the Universe. I usually read them, make a mental note of them if they seem relevant, and move on.

However, this morning, I really liked what came in my email so I thought I'd share it here. It's a Note from the Universe that I think everyone could benefit from.

Here 'tis.

The Top 10 things about time and space that most people seem to forget . . .

10. You chose to be here and you knew what you were doing.

9. There are no "tests" and you're not being judged.

8. Everyone's doing their best with what they know.

7. You already have whatever you're looking for.

6. You are of the Divine, pure God, and so is everyone else.

5. Religion needs spirituality; spirituality does not need religion.

4. You're naturally inclined to succeed - at everything you do.

3. You happen to life, life does not happen to you.

2. Order, healing, and love belie every moment of chaos, pain, and fear.

1. Following your heart is the best way to help others.


I actually don't necessarily agree with #10 but it is a nice thought. I need to think on that one a little more.

Have a nice day, folks! No bad hair Mondays, please!

On a Clear Day

You really can see forever . . .

The view out the back.

A closer look at the Blue Ridge Mountains.

View out the side.

I could look at this all day.

Here's Looking at You

A Fable - by me

The moles and the voles lived together in a very big yard. They tunneled to create homes, hunted for food, and raised their young.

Then the moles decided that they wanted more space. They tunneled and tunneled and made great big living areas for themselves. However, in doing this, they took space from the voles. The voles had to leave the yard, where the soil was nice and soft.

The voles now had to tunnel under the woods. This was a lot of work because the woods were full of roots and rocks that made it hard to maneuver. While the mole could move freely about, the voles were expending lots of energy in a much smaller space.

Eventually, the voles complained.

"Your tunnels are too big," the voles told the moles.

"So what?" said the moles. "You have all of the forest."

"But you took the best dirt," said the voles. "You left us with the roots."

"Not our problem," said the moles.

"You should share," said the voles. "We were here at the same time you were. You pushed us out."

"Ha!" said the moles. "We did all of this work. We made all of these tunnels. Why should you get any of the yard?"

The voles decided they couldn't really argue with that, so they went back to the forest, where they continued to work hard to make their meager, root-filled tunnels and feed their families. They often worked much longer hours than the moles had to in order to find the things that voles and moles eat.

The moles, meanwhile, had plenty of food and did not have to work so hard for it, so they grew rather fat and lazy.

Animosity became quite common and it was not unusual for moles and voles to turn their noses up at each other or show their teeth if they happened to accidentally stumble upon one another near the edge of the yard. Even though both were blind and you couldn't really tell a mole from a vole, each knew that their ideas were better than the others. And so they snarled at one another.

It looked like there would be a big fight. The moles, feeling superior, were sure they would win. They were fatter and had eaten better. The voles, though, were lean and trim, and had strong muscles from tunneling around the roots.

The day before the war, the moles and voles heard a loud noise. A great big machine came bearing down on the yard. To the horror of everyone, the machine was so heavy and the soil so soft that it smashed in all of the great big tunnels. The earth tumbled in on the moles, who were crushed by the soil and the machine.

The voles raced into their tunnels in the forest, fearful of what would come next. The machine rumbled into the woods, too, but the ground was much firmer and harder, and the trees were in the way, so they were safe.

And when the machine left, after a month or so, the voles slowly began to tunnel into the soft dirt in the yard, because they had forgotten the plight of the moles.

"We will live here," said some of the voles,"and we will make our homes very large." And they chased away other voles who also wanted to dig in the soft dirt.

And indeed, in a few months, those voles in the yard were so well-fed that they no longer looked like the voles in the forest. So the voles called them moles.

And the moon went through her phases and the sun danced around the earth, and the world continued on.