Historical Archives

Back in 2010, I wrote about all of the photos from The Fincastle Herald that were stored in plastic tubs.

At the time I was sifting through them, I and another history lover were contemplating a book together. However, I went back to college to finish up my masters degree, and she is pursuing a book on her own now, something different from what we had contemplated.

So the tubs of photos went into my barn, because I had no place else to store them. The newspaper office had no place to store them, either, and in fact the former newspaper owners had instructed the editor to throw the photos out.

But he had saved them, and until they were in my barn, they were in his.

Last spring, I was at a Botetourt Farm Bureau Women's Committee meeting when they mentioned they were eager to locate old photos of agriculture in the county. So I told them what was in the barn.

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from Gwen Ikenberry, co-president of the Women's Committee. They were ready to deal with these pictures.

So we hauled them over to the Farm Bureau office.
 

There were nine tubs of photos. About half were loose and the other half were in folders with dates on them.

We set up apple boxes, courtesy of Ikenberry's Orchards, and created 21 different categories for the photos.

This is Elizabeth, who greatly enjoyed the work of sorting the pictures.

It was rather fun, for there was no way to not run across pictures of places and people you knew.

It was like a party all week, with various people in and out, putting pictures in boxes.

This is Gwen, who arranged everything and even took time off from work to deal with the pictures.

This is Toni, who also helped a lot.

I spent about eight hours over there helping to sort photos, but felt that was all the time I could give to the project. This was mostly because the old photos have a smell to them and were causing problems with my asthma, which I could ill afford. People don't realize how sick that makes me or how long it takes me to recover. 

In any event, the photos were sorted out, and some of the boxes went out to various historic groups, towns, or other civic organizations interested in preserving the pictures. The Farm Bureau Women's Committee kept all of the agriculture-related photos for their various projects.

Those with photos have been instructed to scan them and return them to the newspaper editor, where they will join the other unused photos.

Those unused photos went back into the newspaper editor's barn, where perhaps some day they will again see the light, and other folks with history on their minds will oo and ahh over the visuals.

Thursday Thirteen

The Eclectic Thirteen!

I think this might be some sort of poem.

1. Dancing with myself, feet moving fast like a cat with paws in heated coal.

2. Heart bursting, blood rising, chest heaving as if breathing through bonds made of coarsely woven cotton.

3. Never knowing what is next not needing to know but wanting to all the same.

4. Breaking down beating up feeling sick, sorry, silly, and sad, emotions bursting out like firecrackers in flames.

5. Life never ending but ending soon nearly gone and then what who knows maybe deep darkness or luminescent light, blind either way.

6. Feeling the beat, the beat the beat the steady heady knock and rhythm, aching down into the soles of my muddy bare feet.

7. Look at the moon, see it high, sky high, feeling it ride the rhymes of the sun and the tide and the hold it has on the streams of my soul.

8.  Drinking tea and rocking, rhythmically rocking, like a rollicking rascal with roiling energy, see it bursting out as I break into song.

9. Seeing myself move like a shadow a shade the ghost of me mewling melodically as I dream in the deepness the dank and the downers.

10. Needing to feel like the world knows who I am but knowing that the world doesn't dare can't care the world too busy bustling with burgeoning beliefs we are all trying to climb from the pits of despair.

11. Feeding the senses with sunlight with sound with sensual sustenance knowing it's mine its yours its ours we're all one if we would only turn to face one another not say hello with the backs of our heads.

12. Gathering rushes making baskets opening closing finding new tomorrows when the yesterdays are in play the way of the weaver and the joy of today.

13. Knowing love is luscious lonely lurid a longing we need yet we slight its sounds, ignore its lure when it lands on the ladders that lead to our heart.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 282nd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

I Would Take Astronomy

Sunday Stealing: The Basically Obscure Meme-Part 2.5

My rose cake from my hubby.

38: How did you spend Valentines day?

A. My husband gave me a card and a cake, and I gave him a card, a little box of chocolates, and fixed him a steak dinner.



39: Do you eat enough vegetables?

A. Probably not.

40: Do you like horror movies? How about thrillers?

A. Not any more. When I was younger I enjoyed them occasionally but as I have aged they hold no attraction for me.

41: Do you like scotch?

Raisins soaking in gin.

A. I don't think I've ever had it. I do not drink, unless one counts the raisins soaked in gin that I use for arthritis.



42: Who is someone you would never swear in front of?

A. I think this is the second question about swearing on this particular meme. I tend to not discriminate in my colorful language and use it wherever, much to my dismay sometimes.

43: Coolest thing you've ever seen on Halloween?

A. I went to a great haunted house when I was 17. I guess that would have to be it.

The ol' grey head ain't what she used to be.

44: If you could change your natural hair color, would you? To what?

A. No. I used to highlight it but now it has its own natural grey highlights.



45: What subject would you take if you were forced to take a free class?

A. Astronomy. I would love to know more about the solar system and the stars.

46: Do you use a reusable grocery bags?

A. Yes, most of the time.

47: City or nature person?

This is rural.

A. Nature person. I stay out of the city as much as possible. I do have to go buy things there occasionally.




48: Have you ever used something other than "makeup" as makeup? (Like paint? Markers?)

A. No.

49: Do heights bother you? Can you look out the window on the top floor of a skyscraper?

A. I have a problem with elevators, but I can look out windows of tall buildings so long as I am not standing right at them.

50: Post 5 awesome things about your blog. BRAG AWAY!

A. It has made me some friends, it has pretty pictures, it has good writing in it, it sometimes has useful information, it keeps me writing something nearly every day.

Hold Your Breath

Yesterday I glanced out the window and saw a huge line of smoke.

It was rolling down the valley towards Fincastle.

At first I thought it was a forest fire!

But upon closer inspection, I saw that the black dust was billowing from the area of a smoke stack.

Sometimes the smoke rolls out of this local industry.

That black line of dust stretched for miles.

*These photos were taken February 18, 2013.

The Sunshine Girl

Meet Botetourt County resident Lee Minnix!

She is The Sunshine Girl. She offers "Sunshine Services" which is assistance for seniors, new mothers, stressed families - pretty much anyone who needs a helping hand with anything.

She's about the happiest person I have ever met. She is always smiling and always ready to lend a hand.

\

Last week she held an open house for her new little office in Fincastle.

It's a tiny little building on Roanoke Street located across from the bank and the Commonwealth's Attorney's office, beside Valley Classic Acupuncture.

Lee also owned Happy Time Balloons and she had an ice cream truck!

She is the original entrepreneur.

The woman who can do it all!

Give her a call if you need help with pretty much anything!

Even if all you need is someone to make you smile!

More Q & A

Sunday Stealing: The Basically Obscure Meme-Part 2

21: Would you swear in front of your parents?

A. I did that one time when I was teenager and got decked for it. But once I married I did.

22: Which continents have you been on?

A. North America and Europe.

23: Do you get motion sickness? Any horror stories?

A. Yes. When I was a little girl I threw up blueberry pancakes all over the car when we went traveling down dizzying back roads in the West Virginia mountains.

24: Why did you name your blog whatever you named your blog?

A. I named it Blue for the Blue Ridge Mountains, which I love, Country becaue I live on a farm, and Magic because magic is what life should be, don't you think?

25: Would you wear a rainbow jacket? A neon yellow sweater? Checkered pants?

A. I would wear a rainbow jacket. I think I would like to have a coat of many colors. However, I would not wear a neon yellow sweater or checkered pants, unless I were going to a Halloween Party as geek bumblebee.

26: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Post a picture if you can.

A. I didn't have a favorite cartoon, but I loved H. R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost.

H.R. Pufnstuf! He's your friend when things get rough! H. R. Pufnstuf! Can't do a little 'cause he can't do enough.

Or something like that.


27: In a past life I must have been a...

A. A skullery maid in the service of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the year 1563. I lived in the castle and took long walks through a graveyard during my very rare time away from my duties. At night I crept from my dusty bed down to the stables for trysts with the young stable boy.

28: If you had to look at one city skyline for the rest of your life, which would it be?

A. Paris. Because if I were looking at Paris, I would be there, and what an interesting change that would be for me.

29: Longest plane ride you've ever been on?

A. From New York to London, England, where we changed planes to continue our journey to Madrid, Spain. That was in 1979, and I was on a school trip with my high school Spanish teacher. The return trip was just as long.

30: The longest you've ever slept?

A. One evening I was sick, so I took some cold medicine and went to bed around 6 p.m. I woke the next morning around 8 a.m. to discover that during the evening my husband had tried to wake me because some friends of ours had come visiting, and they had gone for a walk. The woman had climbed up in a tree and then fell, breaking her leg. The rescue squad had to hike into the trees on the farm in the dark to rescue her. I missed the whole thing. My husband said he was unable to wake me and for a while he thought I might need to go to the hospital myself. I hope I never sleep like that again.

31: Would you buy a sweater covered in kitten pictures? Would you wear it if someone gave it you for free?

A. No, and no. I am so not a cat person.

32: Do you pluck your eyebrows?

A. No.

33: Favorite kind of bean? Kidney? Black? Pinto?

A. String. Also known as a green bean.

34: How far can you throw a baseball?

A. As far as it will go, given the momentum I can give it when I try to make the pitch.

35: If you had to move to another country, where would you move?

A. Scotland.

36: Have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Vietnamese? Korean? Nepalese? How was it?

A. No, I haven't. My diet is rather boring.

37: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

A. Well, take the weight of the woodchuck, multiply by the number of woodchuck teeth, add in the length of the woodchuck tail, divide that number by the width of the tree, then subtract the length of the logs, and then square that by the weight of the wood, and you will have your answer.

Books: Sabriel

Sabriel
By Garth Nix
Copyright 1995
311 pages

This fantasy novel deals with a lot with death: that's because Sabriel, the title character, is a necromancer. However, she is not just any necromancer: she is a necromancer who puts the dead back where they belong.

It's a family thing that gets passed along through the bloodline.

Sabriel is sent to school in a neighboring kingdom, one where magic is not the norm. She grows up with some knowledge of her powers, but she is not quite ready when her father goes missing and the duties of the Abhorsen, as this binder of the dead is called, fall to her.

She must return to the Old Kingdom to find her father and set things right - a huge task, since they have been array for 200 years.

Her adventures make up the heart of the book. In the end ... will she be able to beat the necromancer who has been the cause of trouble for the last two centuries, or will he take her life as well?

Good read, hard to put down. Since it deals with walking dead and such, I'm surprised this novel hasn't had a resurgence in popularity.

Many thanks to my pal in England for sending this book to me as a special New Year's present. She had read it long ago and during a discussion we were having online about necromancy (courtesy of its mention in The Hobbit movie), and decided to send me the gift.

I'm so glad she thought to send me this.

Wedding Gowns and Zombies

Last night I dreamed that I was young again. I was getting married! There was much ado and fuss about my wedding gown, I remember. And then we had the nuptials, which were not the nuptials of my memory but rather some sort of fanciful affair. My husband looked so young and strong, though! And handsome.

After we married, we left and went to a cabin by a lake for our honeymoon. The lake had an island in the middle of it. During the night, there was a massive shaking of earth and multiple explosions! The power went down by half; there were emergency lights on only. We couldn't get water from the well.

We found a battery-powered radio and it said the world was in chaos; there were zombies! I looked outside to see fire raining down from the sky. I saw something huge and red and realized that there was fire racing through the tree tops on the far side of the lake.

Embers flew through the air and landed on the island, which was only separated from the cabin by a small ankle-deep eddy, and I raced out in my wedding gown to cover burning embers with dirt. James grabbed a bucket and began drawing water from the lake to keep the flames from burning down the cabin.

And that's when I woke up.

It's an odd dream to have had on the morning we wake to find that a meteorite has terrorized a community in Russia, eh?

I suspect the wedding gown came from Valentine's Day, the zombies from a book I am reading. I hadn't thought much about the asteroid that is approaching earth today, but perhaps my subconscious registered it.

Thursday Thirteen #281 and Post 2000

Happy Valentine's Day! What could be more appropriate than my 2,000 post in this blog on a day celebrating love? Because I obviously love my blog. I also love my dear readers, whomever you are. Thank you for spending time with me. I always humbled and honored to know that you are sharing a few moments of your time with me.

So without further ado, some thoughts on love . . .


1. Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all of the time, made new. ~Ursula K. Le Guin

2. If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life. ~Cher

3.   Take away love and our earth is a tomb. ~Robert Browning

4.  Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. ~Robert Frost

5.   You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. ~Dr. Seuss

6.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. ~Emily Brontë

7.  Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

8.  True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked. ~Erich Segal

9.  What "love" is I don't know if it's not the response of our deepest natures to one another. ~William Carlos Williams

10.  At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. ~Plato

11. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. ~Tom Robbins

12.  Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold. ~Zelda Fitzgerald

13.  We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. ~W. Somerset Maugham


A Love Story

The young man met the young woman beneath the goal post of the high school football team. They stood with their circle of friends, each eyeing the other. Finally, they moved closer. They spoke of their friends, and how they had both attended the same high school but were now moving on with their lives. She asked a few questions about the game.

He asked her out on a date. She declined, citing other commitments. Nonplussed, he asked for the next night. She declined again for the same reason.

That same evening, they ran into one another again hours later. By then both had left their friends. They spent hours talking.

Thirty years later, they are still together. They've weathered good times and bad, for that is the stuff of life. He has stood by her during illness and heartache, and she has done the same.

That is my love story. It is not much on its surface.

In my experience, love is not something that burns white-hot for years and ages. It ebbs, flows, blazes anew. Sometimes the embers seem nearly gone and you might wonder what all the fuss is about. But then along comes a little breeze . . . and the red glow returns. Love also takes work, and courage. Without effort, it fails. But with that small little wind, it sparks.

My wish for you on this Valentine's Day is a long-lasting love, one with banked embers that will last a lifetime.





Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 281st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Meme Questions

Sunday Stealing: The Basically Obscure Meme


1: Do you notice a persons eye color?

A. Sometimes. But not always on the first meeting.
 
2: White, milk, or dark chocolate mocha?

A. None of the above.I don't drink coffee and I don't use milk products.

3: If you could get a tattoo free, would you do it? what would it be?

A. No, I wouldn't do it. So there is no point in answering the second half of the question.

4: Did you grow up in a small or big town? Did you like it?

A. I grew up on a farm. I enjoyed it for the most part but it was lonely sometimes.

5: Your favorite adult as a child? (and not your parents, if they were your favorite).

A. It's a tie: whoever was my teacher at the time, as I tended to be the teacher's pet in most of my classes. Or my maternal grandmother.

6: What kind of smoothie sounds really good right now?

A. How about a blue raspberry icee instead. Or a cup of hot chocolate.

7: Most embarrassing moment from your elementary school years?

A. I think I have more than one. But in the 4th grade, my mother decided to create this interesting hair-do out of my hair, which had something to do with pigtails and no observable part. In the middle of class, while we were reading along with the teacher, Mrs. Lanning stopped, looked straight at me, and said, "Anita, what has happened to your hair? Who did that to you?" and I slunk down in my chair and said, "My mother did it." The class laughed. I cried. I never allowed my mother to touch my hair again. From then on, and even today, it's brush and go.

8: Most embarrassing moment from your middle school years?

A. Probably the time I had on white pants and started my ... well, you know. I ended up having to borrow some other girl's shawl.

9: Most embarrassing moment from your high school years?

A. I can think of quite a few but I am not going to repeat a single one of them here.

10: Have you ever fired anyone?

A. No.

11: Have you ever climbed a tree more than twenty feet off the ground?

A. Yes. My father's farm had a huge beech tree on it tha we would climb.

12: Did you like swinging as a child? Do you still get excited when you see a swing set?

A. I did not much like the swings after wasps built a nest in the swingset at my grandmother's, and I was stung in the ear. So no, I do not get excited when I see a swing set. I tend to avoid them.

13: If you could have any pet in the world, illegal or not, what would you get?

A. Some kind of very small hypoallergenic dog that never sheds hair of any kind.

14: What's your favorite place to relax?

A. I don't relax. That is why I have high blood pressure.

15: What's your most favorite part of your personality?

A. My introversion.

16: Madonna or Lady Gaga? Neither? Both? Who cares?

A. Who cares? Besides, I prefer Melissa Etheridge or Sheryl Crowe. Or Stevie Nicks. Or Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders). Or Ann and Nancy Wilson (Heart).

17: Have you ever watched the Superbowl all the way through?

A. No.

18: Have you ever watched any major sporting event live?

A. No. Wait. Does NASCAR count? If NASCAR counts, then yes. I've been to several races.

19: What's the most delicious food you've ever eaten in your life?

A. Chocolate. It is the food of the gods.
 
20: Margarine or butter? Which did you grow up with? 

A. I use butter now but grew up with margarine.

Books: This Year You Write Your Novel

This Year You Write Your Novel
By Walter Mosley
Copyright 2007
115 pages

Walter Mosley is the author of nearly 40 books, most of them mysteries of some sort. He is most famous for Devil in the Blue Dress, which was made into a movie. He writes the Easy Rawlins series.

This book on writing is a slim little volume packed with information. As a primer on writing, I don't know that I have read any better. I think I will read this book at least annually if only to remind me of what I am supposed to be doing.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book was Mosley's emphasis on poetry and the music of language. "Poetry is the fount of all writing. Without a deep understanding of poetry and its practices, any power the writer might have is greatly diminished," he writes (62).

The other thing Mosley advocates is rewriting. And rewriting. And rewriting again. He suggests going through your novel about 25 times (!) before you even think of it as done. The rewriting process comes across as a sacred modality to this author, and I appreciated this honesty about process. It's something you see but it is not encouraged to this degree.

To rewrite, he suggests sitting down and reading through the novel, then reading it again to rewrite it. You should also read the entire thing aloud, preferably into a recorder, and then play it all back and listen to it. This is the hard work of writing.

Definitely a keeper.

Through the Curtain

I shot this photo last week. The white is the shears on my window; the picture was taken through a narrow gap.

Blast from the Past

Yesterday I had the honor and privilege of running into an old high school teacher. Her name is Tina, and she taught me Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Trig. I was an A student and yes, teacher's pet.

She was a hard teacher, with the reputation to match it. I loved her and thought she was the best math teacher ever.

We have kept in touch all of these years, sending annual Christmas cards. In the last card, I noted that I wrote this blog, and Tina told me yesterday that she'd been reading it every day!

I was so surprised. What a wonderful compliment. She also told me to get off my butt and write my book. I wonder if that will be the nudge I need?

Below is a column I wrote in 2009 for The Fincastle Herald about my favorite teacher. I never put it on my blog but I will do so today, except I will leave out last names, since I don't want to post them on the Internet.

******

 

Students who attended Lord Botetourt from 1972 to 1984 might remember Tina F., one of the math teachers. I studied under her for three years, taking Algebra and Trigonometry.

Mrs. F. was either the dragon lady or one of the best teachers ever, depending upon your point of view.

I know quite a few students tend to recall her as the former while I always have thought of her as the latter.

She was a strict teacher and her subject matter was difficult. She expected and demanded the very best from her students. If you didn’t give it, she would know why. If you were capable of “A” work then you’d better darn well get that grade.

She was also very interested in her students and spent mornings, lunch and time after school helping me and others to learn the intricacies of X+Y-Z=3 or other unintelligible equations.

Mrs. F. had a strong voice and an even stronger personality. You knew when she was in the room. You didn’t dare misbehave for her wrath was real and fearsome.

I thought she was wonderful.

I was a teacher’s pet, I admit. I did my homework, I studied and I made good grades. Other kids called me names like “computer head” (or brainiac, as a cousin recently reminded me when I thoroughly trounced her in a word game on Facebook).

Teachers praised my work ethic and I lapped it up. Mrs. F. was judicious with her words and thus praise from her meant a great deal. I had earned it.

I turned to her for guidance for important and upsetting national events, like the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of President Ronald Reagan. I also went to her with personal issues, like a dating.

“You are one of the few that has spent 3 years with me and is still alive!” she wrote in my senior album.

She even took me out for a steak dinner to celebrate my graduation when the time came. She was the least surprised of all of my teachers when I chose not to go straight to college but instead decided to work a year. She didn’t blink when just a few months later I let her know I was getting married.

She knew me well.

As for Mrs. F., she remarried, becoming Tina W. It took me a long time to get used to her new name.

We stayed in touch with Christmas cards. She left LB to go to Roanoke City Schools, where she eventually worked her way up to assistant principle at Lucy Addision.

Her father for a time was head of the Roanoke City Fire Department where my husband worked. It was another bond between my old teacher and me. When he passed away in 1995 I went with my spouse to the funeral.

Tina told me later that when she’d given her father’s eulogy, she had been pleased to look out at a sea of firemen in uniform and see me amongst them, a favorite student from the past honoring her loss.

This December Tina sent me her cell phone number with my Christmas card. “I’m retired now. Let’s have lunch,” she wrote.

We met recently at Shakers for a reunion. She looked exactly like she did in high school, with her hair cut short and very few wrinkles. She pulled in the parking lot driving a hot little two-seater and I recalled she drove something similar when she taught at LB.

I could scarcely believe it had been over 25 years since I was her student. I can hardly find the words to say how grateful I am for her interest in me, then and now.

She has never been a dragon lady to me.

 

Snow, Then 55 Degrees

It was snowing when we went to bed Thursday night, though the forecast was for rain and sleet.

We woke to find nearly 4 inches of snow on the ground.

In the early morning, a little freezing rain fell. I couldn't see the mountains.

The rain stopped, and the sound of songbirds drew me out on the front porch. I found finches in the top of the blue spruce.

The snow was lovely.

It is hard to take a bad picture when the world is covered with a delicate white.

This is my neighbor's shed.

The fence out the back door.

Everything is beautiful, in its own way.

By 2 p.m., the temperature had climbed. The thermometer at the kitchen window read 55 degrees.

I noticed a deer had been in the backyard, searching for a little snack.

The scene out the front as the snow melted and the winds began to blow.

Gifts That Keep On Giving

I read recently a query from a bride-to-be who wanted to know from a professional advice columnist how to word her wedding invitation so that she received cash instead of gifts. She didn't want any of the items her friends or relatives might pick out for her; she wanted to buy her own things.

Perhaps there are good reasons to make such a tacky request; maybe you and your soon-to-be have been on your own a long time, and you don't need another blender. But a gift is a gift, and sometimes people give you things you aren't expecting and would never think of yourself.

My home is decorated with a number of items I received as a bride - a very long time ago indeed.

This clock hangs in my kitchen. It was a wedding present from long-time friends of my parents. As long as I keep the battery fresh, it keeps perfect time.

A friend of mine created this little fellow from a mold and gave it to me in honor of the fellow I was marrying.

A friend of my mother's gave me this lead-crystal squirrel. I keep it on my dresser; it's a handy holding place for pins or other small items.

I received this from a friend of mine from the place I worked; she was also the mother of someone I went to high school with. It's a small community; you know people. This sits on my husband's dresser. It's the same candle it came with 30 years ago.

My mother sent me off to be an adult with this pair of scissors, which originally belonged to my great-grandmother. According to family legend, my great-grandmother was sewing by the window during a storm when a bolt of lightning hit. The scissors flew from her hand. They have never needed sharpening.

This well-used crock pot was the wedding gift of one of my closest friends, who was also a coworker at the time. I keep thinking I should replace it but it still works in spite of the cooked-on stains, so I continue to use it.

These are the things I could quickly grab to photograph. I'm sure there are other items in my home that were given to me with thoughtfulness and love on the day I said my "I dos."

Such items mean much more to me than cash ever could. They may not be the most expensive, unique, or prettiest items, but they certainly are important to me.

Thursday Thirteen

In the news . . .


1. Rally Against Apathy Draws Small Crowd

2. Citizens: Move Deer Crossing to Area with Less Traffic

3. Hunter Attacked by Unarmed Bear

4. Winners of Drunk Driving Contest Announced

5. Lead-Lined Coffins Called Health Risk

6. More Janes, Less Dicks Needed in Politics

7. Troutt Named to Salmon Board

8. City Unsure Why the Sewer Smells

9. Truck Carrying Flame Retardant Catches Fire

10. Alleged Strip Search Prompts Proposal

11. Laid-Off Workers Recalled to Fill Diapers

12. Hackers Hack Online Anti-Hacking Session

13. Camouflaged Army Vehicle Disappears





Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 280th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Cows in Snow

Last weekend we had a little skiff of snow that brought us about an inch or so of the white stuff. The air was very cold.

When I woke, I saw that the momma cows had huddled over here in the sheltered glen in front of the house instead of by the barns. Maybe it was less windy here?

  Their babies were not in sight.

The cows had snow on their backs.

Not long after I took this picture, my husband went outside and started his pickup truck so the ice could melt off the windshield. The cows all stood up in unison, and the mothers went into the cedars to fetch their little ones. Not long after I watched them all, mothers and babies, move in single file toward the area where my husband feeds them hay.