| Poor Hannah got a stern talking to. She had gotten to a ‘safe space’. She’s an odd cat. Runs under the bed when I come into the room But if I am sitting down reading she walks around my chair always approaching from the left as if she is mounting a horse and jumps into my lap only to climb up to my neck. She has peculiar toilette habits which is what she got the talking to about. She frustrates me to the point of my wanting to take her out into the yard and give her an airplane ride which of course I would never do. So SPCA please don’t call. She likes the idea of canned cat food but only if it is Fancy Feast and only if it is just gravy which they don’t have. Besides I am not going to pay 60 cents for a preciously small can of just gravy. Before you mention the obvious, she will not eat human food. | ||
 Poor Hannah  verbena |
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| This lovely verbena from Stillman’s hangs at my front door. I should say door because there is no back door. There is a door to the inside of the building but I don’t ever expect, if there is a fire , to run into the building. Well, maybe if the lawn is on fire… | ||
| Did you know that 70% of certain type of coal mined is used for making steel. Cars, bicycles, pots to cook your veggies in, computers and wind turbines etc. | ||
| About 42% of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas ( do I hear fracking) and oil, goes for energy which you folks with Prius cars use when you plug in to charge your battery. Only 15% is renewable energy, sun, wind, water. Now that Trump has okayed the mining of coal those numbers will change. The renewable energy so far, is not efficient and must be subsidized by you and me. | ||
| A couple of years ago Larry and I were passing through Montana and stopped in Butte for a folk music weekend. I took a tour of the mining museum. In their hayday they mined copper –big time, silver, gold, molybdenum, manganese, zinc, quartz and several other minerals. I was told bad decisions and bad investments caused the mines to close, not corporate greed. They used to refine the ore there and ship it all over the world. But Ah Ha the government said no more refining done here, you have to ship it to Japan and then they ship it back to us all neat and clean, The heck with Japan’s air and water, right? So what happened? In the 70s the smelters and refineries closed, the copper mines closed the people are out of work and the city is a dreary place with shabby buildings and people leaving to find work elsewhere. The population went from 100K to 34K. | ||
| I remember two things. A diner that served pasties, a meat hand pie made for the men who go to the mines. You don’t see that on the menu around here. The population- a high percentage from Cornwall, yep the miners. The other memorable thing, the lovely meadow where we parked our motorhome was covered with dainty bitterroot flowers. It’s the state flower of Montana and there it was growing at 5,537 ft in the mountains. | ||
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Uncategorized
New Digs
farm and brook
my place
It is quiet at this new location. View is nice out my back windows of the brook and the apple orchard and historic Foster Hill where King Philip held the settlers under siege. My front windows overlook the gazebo where I will surely sit and paint if summer ever comes. My porch is next to a garden where I have peachy, salmon and coral flowers. And 1 black petunia. Yes it is black. Not dark purple. Who would plant black flowers? They are all baby sized right now. I’ll take pix when they are showier.
Today I am going to the memorial service of my first husband, my children’s father. I was graciously invited by his wife of many years. She is a lovely woman and my children like her very much.
This is a time of reflection. Not of what might have been, I was over that years ago, but of our relationship before and during our marriage. Two people definitely attracted to each other but not suited in personality. Times and mores were different back then. I would think that living together nowadays would result in less divorce but it doesn’t. I don’t know why. The roles way -back- when, were more defined. A woman might work after she got married but when a baby arrived she stayed home and took care of it. (not always possible but that was unusual). I, and most women I knew, didn’t sit around watching soaps and eating bonbons. They were crazy busy after the chores of washing, cleaning, ironing (not if I could help it) making clothes, curtains, shopping for food because women cooked in those days, ,did volunteer work, delivering kids to whatever sport, or cub scouts or taking them swimming or museum, Sunday school, cooking a-sit down at the table, not the tv, dinner. Most families had a big dinner all together on Sunday. Sunday morning was for church not sports or shopping,( stores were closed) then you came home and read the funnies until dinner was ready. Dinner was at 1 at my house growing up and after I was married. When I was first married we lived in a fifth floor walkup in Boston’s Kenmore Sq. area. Couldn’t keep the coal dust out the windows leaked so bad. It was $92 a month. Yeh, the dark ages. Studio apts downtown on Marlboro Street were asking $125! I was working downtown in the financial district and got $65. a week. You had to have a college degree with my job in the insurance company. I could have taken a job using my art degree drawing specimens from looking in a microscope but it only paid $44. a wk. I was supporting my husband and myself while he was working on his doctorate. I got a PHT degree from MIT. Pushing Hubby Through. We started a family and moved to Winchester to an apt in a 2 family. We had zip. I had my mothers old Easy washer where I hauled the clothes from the washer to the wringer to the set tub to rinse and back to the wringer and hung them out. If it was raining hung them in the kitchen or the basement. Imagine ducking under a line of diapers while you are cooking? Then our landlady redid the kitchen and put in cabinets and a stainless steel sink and a dishwasher. Then we got a dryer at a scratch and dent place. We fixed up the apt ourselves where we learned how to remove 6 layers of wallpaper with a steamer. We learned to paint and I learned to make curtains and sew kids clothes and knit booties and cook. Julia Child taught us on TV. I started watching Days of Our Lives while I was nursing my kids. I got a bike for a birthday with a child seat on the back. I could go downtown and shop. Many people only had one car. We spent the entire paycheck every two weeks on food, rent, gas, utilities, a few miscellaneous item, movies at a drive in where you took your babies and they slept in the car bed. We slowly saved a little for a downpayment for a house. The struggle may have held us together. When things got easier and I had time to breathe I took a look at the situation and wasn’t crazy about it. A simplistic answer but essential. It is not about having things. I know that. The problem is that if you think things will be better once you have a dryer or a car of your own or money to buy clothes and things, it won’t.
I went to a dating seminar once a longtime ago. The psychologist said ‘you need to be with some one who has the same principles and moral values as you. You need to think of a marriage as a corporation. You work to keep the corporation sound. A short and long term plan with annual performance review (, budget, human resources -strengths of each employee (no nitpicking without considering if that person were suddenly dead, how important in the scheme of things is the pick), dedication to the firm compared to outside job, integrity, no outside infiltration (criticism not allowed from in laws, friends), no spending of the principal from the treasury without a board meeting . This is all silly except each is important. The most important one I missed here and that is communication with honesty without fear of reprisal.
Blissfully unaware
Perhaps that’s an unfair title. One’s sphere of awareness usually revolves around work, play, family and not necessarily in that order. Unless you have a farm, know personally a farmer you may be unaware of the fine line a farmer walks regarding his very survival. You go to the store, you buy apples in a bag. You take them home and wash them and see that one has a spot on the skin. OMG. Unfit for human consumption?
Some people are like that. They want perfection and wholesomeness. If that’s about what your expectations are you might consider rethinking the importance of this in the scheme of things. This Spring a local farmer had a problem with a particular crop that had a dent in each, lets say, cucumber. He had to throw the whole crop out because he knew it wouldn’t be accepted by the public. That is incredibly sad. It was perfect fit for consumption. Expectations have been set high by the media and ordinary is nearly unacceptable. For perfection to happen the farmer would have to toss most of the apples out. The plight of the Massachusetts farmer this June and July is hanging on by the grace of God and wits. We have been in a drought for two months and the pastures and fields are dried up with no hope of a second cutting of hay never mind a third. Dairy and beef farmers are selling off their herds and closing up shop because they have had to spend the money that gets them through the winter, buying hay to feed the cattle this summer.
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| A parched field |
Farm ponds are low and any irrigation done is on the money crops like corn and tomatoes. Some farmers who offered CSA have had to reduce the variety in the weekly box or even give up if they haven’t a way to irrigate, The tree fruit crops were kaput from the late frost which occurred after the buds had formed. New England farmers don’t have a cushion to get them through a weather calamity and the government or their insurance doesn’t pay anything near what the crop was worth. It is hardly worth the effort to fill out the ridiculous number of pages to put in a claim. These farmers are not like the Midwest’s huge expansive farms measured in square miles. On the farm where I live we got 1/4″ of rain the other day. I was great but not enough. The potatoes and onions are small size. Maybe if we get more rain they will grow.
The best thing you can do to help farmers is to buy locally grown vegetables, meat, and dairy even if it is from a supermarket that buys local produce and they will proudly advertise that. So when you look for produce, don’t be so picky if it is just a surface blemish. Could you pass that test?
One more thought. Scientists are thinking about combining human cells with animal cells for the purpose, they say, to cure diseases. Imagine the odd creatures they could come up with? If you are a person that doesn’t like the idea of GMO vegetables, you can’t very well like the human/animal combos. Same thing. Right. This playing around with human life experimentation has been done before during the Nazi Regime and also in America on poor people in the 1920s forward until about the 50s. We viewed that with revulsion. What has changed?
Here are some pictures
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| Petunia planter |
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| Tuberous begonia |
to cleanse your thoughts.
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| Thyme blanketed patio |
“What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.” James Russell Lowell’s poem is one of my favorites. He goes on to say…”Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away
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| crystal apples |
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| A single iris plant |
Lists and plans
My epiphany came the first week of December, Yes, you can do too much, be overextended with projects and responsibilities. I missed two important appointments and began to doubt my mental acuteness age-wise. I did all the necessary things to insure I would remember the appointments and still I overlooked them. My resolution in 2016 is not to do too much. I was getting ready, making things for two Christmas Fairs, practice piano and guitar, rehearse the choir for Advent and Christmas music, I had a commissioned painting due for framing, made Christmas earrings, painting purses, my old friend Nanny and I made 55 fresh greens arrangement to sell at the local fair and I had functions to attend, Christmas shopping and I told my daughter I would help decorate her house. Stop. Something has to give. It did. Lesson learned. Fairs require a lot of lugging and it is tough on the back. That gave,too.
My resolution lists ‘Give up painting purses unless I get a request. They don’t sell very fast, they take up space. I put them on Etsy and Ebay. I never sell anything on Etsy. Etsy is a good showcase for customers to see what I do. If they see something they like they can email me and I will send it to them. Earrings are fun, don’t sell much but they are lightweight,take up little space and are lighter than paintings and purses.
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| Oil, Three Boys in a Dory |
I stopped painting for fun because I have run out of room to store the darned stuff. I like commissions. In November,I did a copy of a Winslow Homer for a present for my son’s birthday, Three Boys in a Dory. The original was a watercolor but I copied it in oil. I don’t remember ever doing a copy before. It wasn’t slavish copy because it was a different medium.
Also recently did the Varnum Funeral Home commission. An oil, 16 x 20.
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| Varnum Funeral Home |
Resolutions are great because it focuses on your goals, long term and in the year. In my diary I wrote down a quote from Zig Zigler ” If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”
I wish when I was in my teens someone had advised me to make a series of long term plans. Where do you want to be in 5, 10, 20 years. How will you get there and then plan out by working backwards to the present day. What do you need to do, to get to where you want to be.
The other thing I have learned is… don’t do or not do something out of fear. Don’t get married because you are afraid to be alone, don’t not be an actress because you are afraid to get up in front of people and speak, don’t not go to the doctor because you are afraid he (she) will say you have a disease. Take the bull by the horns not the tail. I found the best way for me was to consult the I Ching. The message you get, gets beyond your ego, which lies to you constantly, but get to the truth which you know in your brain and you can make the best decision from knowledge rather than ego. Question your motives. A wise woman once told me that I have all the information in my brain to function in this world. That is a difficult fact to grasp. The I Ching is not a replacement for The Bible.
I am happy when I think of the number of years I had the same thing on my list-to illustrate a children’s book and I was finally able to check it off. I fulfilled that goal. My 2016 list says work more on the Godfrey stories and get them published.
On the topic of cats, I have a new cat,Pierrot. Pierrot is a Christmas gift from my daughter. He is a Turkish Van, from the pound. White with black earpatches, a black tail and three spots on one side of his body. 
He has webbed feet, likes water and is smart. He has one coat which means he doesn’t have the usual guard hairs over the soft short fur. He has just the soft short fur.
My former cat, Tex, I got from a pound in Kerrville,TX. He disappeared this summer. He was street-wise, coyote and snake and eagle- wise having encountered them in Texas. So I figure a fisher-cat or lion got him here in Massachusetts. Cats cannot escape those predators in a tree. I mourned his loss as Larry had given him to me as a Valentine gift and I loved the cat.
I still mourn Larry’s passing but it isn’t painful anymore. I am not able to listen to his recordings yet, but I will. I know he would want me to.
I took up the guitar this summer because I wanted it to be played. It made so much music with Larry. Christmas Day I went to his kids’ Christmas party and I brought his Takamine guitar. I told them what I was doing and I told them to keep his music going by learning to play the guitar or some instrument or to sing. He didn’t want to teach them how to play because he felt he didn’t know the right way to do it and he didn’t want them to learn bad habits. He learned by watching others. He strummed and knew chords and copied strumming techniques from listening to pop records like Johnny Cash or Elvis etc. He played confidently and boldly but could also play sweetly.
After Christmas my daughter had a party and I invited some people in who played an instrument and I was able to jam with them a little. I am not very good yet and I can’t shift from one chord to another very fast but I am working on it. I have a teacher, John Kinear, who is so good I would like to just pay to sit and listen. He teaches at the Lashaway Music Center in East Brookfield,MA.
Happy 2016
Larry and Me
Larry and I met in 1982 at Minute Man Printing. I was hired to manage the copy division and Larry would come in and take over while I went to lunch. We were part of a small work force and we had a softball team and everyone had parties so we all knew each other. A few years later I left to work elsewhere as a commercial artist and then I got my real estate license. Our paths had crossed several times when he called me in 17 years later looking for an apartment. When my kids left home I sold my house in Lunenburg and moved in with my 96 year old mother in Southborough. Coincidently, I had recently bought an 1830s fixer-upper in Barre and I had planned to go out on slow days and work on it I told Larry about the house and I said he could live there rent free if he helped fix it up. I knew he had experience in construction as he had worked with his dad who was a contractor. He agreed with my terms. As time went on he would call with questions on a project and I would go out and work alongside him scraping paint or tearing out walls.
He treated me like I knew what I was doing and I appreciated that. . I had been through some unpleasant relationships and decided that I wasn’t very good at choosing men so I had my life planned out for the next twenty years as an unclaimed blessing.
I can tell you the time and location when Cupid shot his arrow into my heart and I made the astonishing discovery that I loved that man. He had made a tape of his favorite tunes and sent it to me. I was playing it on my way to work on that morning. The tune was Welcome To My World with Dean Martin. Now, I knew that song but I heard it again for the first time at that moment. I never before had that incredible certainty that I loved someone. But I wasn’t sure how he felt so I kept my feelings a secret. I would go out to Barre and work, we’d have supper, talk or watch TV and go to our own rooms-he at one end of the hall and I at the other. One time he filled my room with lilacs from the garden and when I went to bed the room was like a fragrant bower. I got into my antique spool bed and there was a knock on the door. He came in dressed in pajamas carrying his guitar. He sat at the end of the bed and serenaded me a while and then left. I had lovely dreams.
In August he convinced me to go to the threshing bee in MN and meet his family. Wow. Everyone had work duties. Mine was to make Saturday breakfast. I pitched right in and made breakfast for 2000, well maybe it was only 200.
His family was so warm and friendly to me. I was scooped up and hugged by Boomgaarden brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. It was there I learned about Larry’s Elvis act. He played along with his brothers’ Iron Horse Rock Band.
I watched the famous antique Case steam tractor in action powering the thresher to separate the oats from the chaff..
Anyway, on the way home, we stopped in Worcester at a nice restaurant for supper and he proposed. He said. ‘Well, my family likes you. Do you want to get married?’ I said ‘You Bet’. That’s Minnesotan for Yes.
My mother had a stroke and she lost ability to speak. She wasn’t able to call for help on the phone so I quit one of my jobs and stayed home with her. It was a rewarding experience for me. She was very sweet and I figured out by her gestures what she wanted. But if she fell I had a hard time getting her up. So Larry moved in with us and he was a Godsend. He entertained her on his guitar and she could sing with him and then she’d clap her hands and laugh. He was so kind to her.
Larry joined my choir at Framingham First Parish. It was with that choir of 35 that we went to England in the spring of 2000 and sang in churches including Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He recorded the music at several locations and it was made into a CD which some of you have and it was a money maker for the church. My mother passed away in February of 2000.
When we came back from England I was asked by the choir director and the minister if I would like to get married in church on a Sunday. The church usually had a choir Sunday of special music but since we had recently returned from England they felt the choir was too tired to learn more music. I agreed as long as it was a secret from the parishioners. I didn’t want them to feel they had to get us gifts. So it was, that I walked down the aisle to meet my sweetheart at the altar. The church was packed as the minister advertised that there would be a surprise. Larry said later he wished he had sung a special song but agreed that he was too emotional to have done it. When the vows were over the minister said to me ‘you may now kiss the groom” and everyone laughed.
Our next big project was renovating an 1880s house in West Brookfield into a bed and breakfast and tea room. There again his ability to do renovations paid off. Larry would entertain our guests with his guitar. After 4 years, we realized our guests were having more fun than we were and so we sold it and bought a 37 ft. Class A motor home with all the amenities. It was like a nice condo on wheels. We loved it and we were completely satisfied to live year round in it. We zigzagged across the United States for almost seven years. He had all his music stuff and I had my art stuff and two computers of course.
I had mentioned to him that I had a dream of illustrating a children’s book. After reading some of the horrible books for children today I wanted to write a nice one but I had no idea what about. He came to me one day and handed me a sheet of paper. “Here it is, an outline for your story. All you have to do is flesh it out.” I did. He was technical supervisor. I gave him first billing because if we were going to sell any they would surely be to his big family. It is called Up in Smoke. It is a great children’s book showing a loving family working together to get a job done and having fun. It will go down in history as a classic.
We became workampers traveling every 5 months to a different park around the country. He entertained with his guitar doing campfire sing-alongs. He would select a girl in the audience and sing a special song to her using her name. He also did DJing and karaoke. But mostly he worked in maintenance doing repairs, plumbing, electrical and construction and I worked in the office or store. During that time we saw pretty much all of California, Oregon the coast and the Willamette Valley, Washington state to visit my nephew’s family in Seattle and over the snow covered Cascades to Larry’s brother Allen’s family in Chelan for a month then across thru Idaho, Montana and saw his niece and nephew in Yellowstone National Park. He thought the nice thing about visiting relatives in our RV is not having to disturb the household. Larry felt connected to those that came before him. He often updated his family tree and had European connections. Our travels were from one relative to another. There would be his cousin in Corpus Christi, his cousin, Don in New Orleans, my nieces in Virginia, my daughter in Los Angeles, , a school chum in Sacramento , a sister in Hawthorne, Nevada, his cousin in Amarillo, my brother’s family in Phoenix, his family in South Dakota, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, a sister in Iowa, and a boat load of relatives in Minnesota and friends in Arkansas and Tennessee. Wherever we went he brought his guitar and played and sang for people and got them or their kids to play too. He found folks to jam with at parks and hunted down the places where there was an open mike. He wasn’t the least bit shy. He was an avid fan of steam engines and we went to every train museum. He loved his family and his friends. He called them on the phone to see how they were doing. If someone wasn’t doing well he made a special effort to keep up with them. He was immensely patriotic and proud of his service in military. He was a constitutionalist, very interested in government and politics. We visited Washington DC several times.
I remember how athletic he was. His high school games were legendary. He was singled out in the newspaper sports columns for some outstanding play saving the day for the team be it football, baseball or basketball. He helped win some of the trophies in the Ellsworth High School foyer. What may not have been well known was that he tried out for a baseball major league. When he first came to live in Southborough we went next door to my brother’s pool. I asked him if he could swim. He said no. I said well, I’ll keep an eye on you and if you get into trouble I’ll save you. He went to the edge of the pool and dove in swimming under water the entire length. I felt like a fool. I yelled at him ‘How come you said you couldn’t swim!’ He said ‘well, I am not good at the crawl but I can swim under water’. The next time he conned me was when we played golf. I lived adjacent to Stony Brook Golf Course which my father had designed and built after he retired. Larry said he couldn’t play golf very well. He whacked the first ball onto the green. Again I yelled at him for conning me. He just laughed and thought it a big joke. He was also good at tennis.
He was great about keeping things in repair and took care of problems right away. He was often thinking of better ways to do something, a better sign, a better display.
If someone was tentative he gave encouragement. He was not awed by a person’s fame or fortune. They were his equal. He said marriage was work. He showed me how to be a better person, to understand what is important in a relationship and to overlook petty details of little worth in the larger picture. I did all the cooking but when I broke my leg last year he did everything-he learned to cook, did the laundry, cleaning, shopping and worked my hours as well as his.
He wished he had studied music when he was young. No one taught him to play. He watched other guitarists play chords and learned from observation. He never felt he should teach anyone how because it might be wrong. He admired anyone who could pick a tune on the guitar. He admired his father’s ability to play any instrument. His father had an orchestra and after the Second World War ended his father played for wedding dances 364 nights of the year. He also regretted he didn’t spend more time with his father and talked with him more. He left home soon after he finished high school and joined the Air Force.
In Texas a couple years ago he got a deal from a professional studio for us to cut a disc with them. That was pure fun. We only could afford one take, so any mistakes that are in it, we know about. At each park campfire I handed out rhythm instruments and sing along sheets, we did duets and we entertained at parties in people’s homes. We made a lot of sweet memories. We said ‘I love you’ every day.
We finally landed jobs doing just what we wanted. I was teaching art and some crafts and Larry was doing music-live, DJing and karaoke at this really beautiful park in Fredericksburg, TX called Texas Wine Country RV Park.
Two weeks into that gig, it ended. God called Larry home. Remember the good times and every day; tell your sweethearts how much you love them.
Oktoberfest in Fredericksburg,Texas
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| 5 10 25 cent store |
Noble immigrants arrived here in the Hill Country of Texas from Germany in the early 1800s. This area is west of Austin and includes such towns as San Antonio to the south, Comfort, Stonewall, Banderas, Dripping Springs, Luckenbach (of Willie fame) New Braunfels, Fredericksburg and many more wonderful names. Fredericksburg ,hereafter aka Fred., is a prosperous town of 10,000 + with a main street packed with stores, hofbraus, (brewpubs) and eateries with menus that list schnitzels and wursts of all kinds. Naturally there are shops displaying ‘scootin’ boots, leather goods, homemade ice creams, pastries and chocolate shops and shops representing the local wineries. There is a 5,10 and 25 cent store, a great visitors center, a half dozen B&Bs plus motels for a bustling tourist trade. About 20,000 are expected this weekend. Replete throughout the hill country are vineyards and, I am told, are second only to Napa Valley in wine production. Larry and I are working for our keep at Texas Wine Country RV Park a few miles outside of Town. We are directly across from Grape Creek Vineyards with it’s Tuscan style villa. They have received gold, silver and bronze awards in national competitions for their Viognier, Syrah, cab, merlot, Riesling, Pinot Grigio and more. They want $20 each to tour and $12 for tasting. A little steep for me. I’ll stick with Ste. Genevieve wines, another Texas vineyard, they’re quite good, sold in the grocery and easy on the wallet.
The November issue(out now) of Artist Magazine has an article on page 8 entitled Art & Common Gound. It is about and artist that started a workshop business called art and vino that has become very popular. I was delighted to read about the thriving art interest be it galleries or hands on artists here where I am living at this time.
I am looking forward to attending an event called First Friday Art Walk, Fredericksburg.
I am off to work now to paint faces and help with pumpkin painting. I teach art and do crafts with adults and children.
Larry is the DJ and tonight he is having ‘Stump the DJ” at the pool. He also does karaoke on another night, organizes jam sessions, and mans the pool tables. I know, but somebody ‘s got to do it. We are given black polo shirts and a name tag for our uniform. First time we’ve had black. Sensible color. In the past we ‘ve had green, bright blue, yellow and light blue and they all get dirty half way thru the day especially if your cleaning out firepits or painting.
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| No Madison Ave art dept here |
Add Fredericksburg to your list of places to visit. It’s October and days are warm and nights are cold. As winter progresses it will get colder during the day but not parka and mittens weather.
Midsummer in Minnesota
We’ll be celebrating Midsummer Fest amongst Norwegians-Uff-Da to you. Oddly they think Uffda is Norwegian when in fact it is upper MidWest specifically Minnesotan.
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| Dutchmen’s Breeches |
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| Rose Breasted Grosbeak |
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| Baltimore Oriole |
I am residing in a lovely area of southern MN in a tiny secluded valley thru which the Zumbro River winds. It is edged by old growth woods and is a haven for golden eagles, turkey vultures, Baltimore Orioles, Rose breasted grosbeaks, cardinals and many other lovely birds. A gravel road runs from Rt 52 circuitously to other farm and county roads-gravel as well. Someone took a T-square and right triangle to southern MN except for our particular road which oddly enough has a name-Sherwood Trail. Roads have numbers. Farms have 6 plus digit numbers. Like 69825 324th Rd SW.
We have a hill in our valley. Actually two hills. The one across from our park was a clay mine. Until the 40s there was a factory and kiln where pottery and tiles were made, there was a railroad to load the barrels to ship out to the world. There is only a rail bed now. Nothing else remains. Strikes me as odd that the clay bed is on top of a hill. I haven’t mentioned the wildflowers. Drooping trillium, Dutchman’s breeches,rue, huge red columbine, angelica, tall vivid blue something-that I can’t find in my book,wild honeysuckle and more.
One day snow came down. The sun was shining and it was warm with a light wind. Yet everywhere was a whirl of snow. The cottonwood trees decided the weather was advantageous to their propagation and the fluffy down with a tiny seed attached falls like snowflakes and covers the ground and drifts in piles. Everything is about a month late here due to the cold and rain. Farmers in many cases have given up planting as the fields have been too wet. They have an opportunity to plant alfalfa later. If they want to collect crop insurance they can’t plant anything for a while. The main crop in this area is corn-for ethanol Farms are measured in sections. It is amazing for a native of Massachusetts to see fields as far as the eye can see–in fact the curve of the earth, of rich dark soil free of stones and instead of growing something beautiful on it they grow fuel. Ah, but that’s where the money is. It is all highly mechanized even to planting with a GPS.
So I am nestled in this lovely situation with painting opportunities everywhere. I plan to paint the river,of course, with the tubers floating down bobbing and turning. Tubers are adults and kids in special inner tubes that bob and turn down the river. Fun.
I have to work in the store 5 days and take reservations as well. Larry works outside,collecting tubers in a tractor and wagon, does karaoke parties, bundles split wood and delivers to campers, See http://www.shadesofsherwood.com . On Sunday we work the pancake breakfast at the Rec Hall and sing for the folks at the church service beforehand.
We are working and enjoying Shades of Sherwood Campground in Zumbrota, MN for our summer occupation.
Last week 3 tiny kittens appeared on our doorstep yeowing at 7 AM. Larry said they came from the barn on the hill above us. Something must have happened to their mother. Two were very spookish, one was calm and sweet. One of the spookers was very much like a lilac Himalayan the other two were yellow tigers. We fed them and hugged them and with kindness they responded and became tame but still full of spunk.
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| Two kitties and a teddy bear buddy |
They all have homes now. We will miss them and so will our adult cat,Tex. He had grown tolerant and even friendly to the last one remaining. I enjoy your input. Comment please.
Winding up the Mississippi
We left Florida mid-April to go to our next assignment in Minnesota but traveling slowly so as not to get there before the snow melts and it warms up sufficiently. Our first stop was Pensacola and the old village which was settled in 1540 by the Spanish from Spain. It then changed hands several times. The French, the British, the Americans, the Confederates and finally the Union. Can you see the various flags running up and down the pole? If you go be sure and see the Naval Air Museum. A freebie and well worth it even for folks who have a limited knowledge of airplanes. Next stop, New Orleans. We have been there several times but there is so much to see. Most importantly, we met with Larry’s cousin, Don Boomgaarden and his lovely wife Paula. Don is Dean of Music at Loyola and a concert pianist as well as having a Bluegrass band etc. Check out ‘You Tube’ of Donald Boomgaarden. We ate at Commander’s Palace, an old and fine eatery-courtesy of Don and Paula.
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| Dean Donald Boomgaarden |
Next morning Larry and I had cafe au lait and beignets at The French Market.
We have been toting around Flat Stanley’s girlfriend,Flat Halley.
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| Cafe au lait, beignets and Flat Halley |
We strolled around the square enjoying the perfect weather and listening to the jazz musicians and the artists displaying their paintings and
The Cathedral St Louis
at the head of the square.
Later we went to the wonderful museum complex towards the outskirts of the city where there is a fine arts museum. A river winds through the park ,a walkway for walkers and bikers and an incredible area for kids with an old time merry-go-round, a little village to play in and a choochoo for rides around in and out the trees and gardens.I went into the museum because Don had told me about the collection of French paintings that had been locally collected when New Orleans belonged to the French. They had a huge painting of Marie Antoinette, and one of Louis XVI and other landscapes and portraits by French artists. While I was meandering thru the collection I listened to four women softly sing wonderful 30’s and 40’s music, kind of like The Andrews Sisters.-close harmony and terrific blend.
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| Natchez Indian home |
Natchez,Mississippi. One of the few towns that wasn’t burned by the Union. Lots of antebellum homes to see and the beginning of The Natchez Trace. The plantation owners kept their plantations in Louisiana as the soil is fertile from annual flooding but the living conditions–cooler air, fewer annoying insects, and drier conditions were better in the higher elevation across the Miss. Think back to the days of yellow fever,cholera, malaria,dysentary, tuberculosis-you name it. Better chance of survival in Natchez. We also visited the Grande Mounds. Native Americans,(I’ll call them Indians as I am not PC), all up the Mississippi River, built mounds. Some for the chief’s home, some as burial tombs and some for ceremony. In Natchez, the Indians lived in permanent homes built of mud and thatch on their own individual farms. There are several mound areas in Mississippi along The Trace and all the way up to Illinois where we found the largest mounds that had been about the size of The Great Pyramids of Giza. Is there a connection?
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| William Faulkner |
We had two days in Oxford,MI to check out Ole Miss and the nice little friendly town. Good hamburgers at Handy Andy’s. Writer William Faulkner hometown-see statue. Also John Grishom lives there.
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| One of Cape Girardeau’s murals |
Stopped at the old French towns of Cape Girardeau,Missouri (Rush’s hometown) where lovely old cathedral St Vincent’s has three reliquaries, St Vincent, a Pope and Ste Louise de Marillac who started the Sisters of Charity. The tiny congregation saved the church from demolishion in spite of Cardinal Law’s recommendation. Proud people.
Stunning paintings and statuary inside. Outside along the wall keeping the Mississippi from flooding the town, are a series of incredible murals depicting the history and people who lived along the Miss. I would say they were trompe l’oeil as they appear to be coming out of the wall and straight for you. Also fun is the village of Ste Genevieve where they have saved some of the oldest french architecture-very different construction that our English. We stopped at Chester, IL to visit Popeye, Olive Oyl et al. Cartoonist,Elzie Segar lived there. We did much more -Lincoln’s home, Stillman Valley, German Valley, the tulip fest in Pella, IA,but I’ll save that for later.
Well blah blah bah, we have arrived at our destination on the Zumbrota River, MN at Shades of Sherwood RV park and our new jobs. Larry-maintenance man and yours truly, taking reservations on the computer and doing odd help- out jobs. Plenty of time to paint in this lovely setting for the summer season.
Kallander Art Gallery 
