Iris! May 8, 2016

Iris! 

It's May! Finally it's May even if it's cool and damp, it's still May!

My "calendar year" follows the cycle of blooming flowers. Earlier spring flowers have bloomed. Crocus, snow drops, daffodils, tulips and other tiny ones have put forth their "smiley faces". They are gone now and are storing up energy in their bulbs for next year's display.

Now it's time for iris! My love for iris  goes "way back" to my childhood days on Potter Farm Lane where my folks rented a home from "The Potters" who owned many acres of farmland, woods and a pond which we called "The Lake".

Our home was bordered fences - a fence by the corn field, a fence by the orchard, a fence to keep the Herford cattle in their area and a fence alongside Potter Farm Lane. We learned how to climb through those barbed wire fences - by holding up the second wire and crawling through to the other side without getting snapped or catching our clothes on a barb.

I don't remember the front fence being made of barbed wire - but it may have been a square pattern of wire. I know that it was a perfect place to plant Iris - on "our side of the fence".

We went to Withamsville Baptist Church where we had many special friends including Grandma Gregor. Grandma Gregor was definitely "Grandma" for those of us who knew her. She lived on Nine Mile Road in a home with a huge cast iron stove and a room full of indoor plants. She wore cotton aprons. And, she raised chickens. This was a time when everyone had an outhouse, too!

Grandma Gregor would come to visit us.  I believe she was our "baby sitter, when Mama was working "outside the home". Grandma Gregor brought plants from her home to share with us. She taught me how to plant Iris along the front fence.We also planted some polyanthus! She showed me how to clean the shovel, pitchfork and hoe in the small stream that ran through the back ditch down to "The Lake". 

I remember the patch of orange road lilies that came up every year by the corner of the house. I also had my own small garden on the east side of the house with three moon flowers (Datura) that came up every year. *Note: I had these flowers in pots on the cottage porch when Mama was here during her last years. She and I enjoyed the moon flowers  "again" as memories of  Potter Farm Lane.  I learned how to make a "hot house" to raise some lettuce. And for Easter 1945, Mama gave me a small book about flowers which I still read and enjoy. I've made line drawings of  some of the flowers from that book.

Today I have many iris (at least 20 different varieties). The first to bloom this year was a yellow/rust combo followed by another white one edged in purple. For die-hard iris lovers there is  Facebook page called "Iris Friend" where pictures are posted almost every day of one incredible Iris "after another". For awhile I tried to remember the names of my iris plants. Now, I'm just happy to see them in bloom
again!

If any of you ever want some iris rhizomes, let me know. I'm glad to share!

Madeira Art Show - May Day 2016

May 1st, 2016 - May Day!

This was a very special day, indeed! Be this an essay or a diary entry, I'm happy to share this day with anyone who enjoys being "around and about".

Madeira is our local community for "togetherness". It's history begins with a railroad depot in the middle of town. The depot  survived various incarnations over the years - an ice cream parlor (twice), restaurant "Choo Choos" with walls of railroad memorabilia and an antique toy train running around a suspended track. It is now Depot Barbeque with the train tracks still intact but there is no antique toy train running around the edge of the upper walls.

I loved sitting in the bay window area of Choo Choos to see the tracks and sometimes even witness a train roar by. Going to Choo Choos meant special service by neighbor Jackie whose sister (I believe) had ownership in the place.

Today was the annual Madeira Art Show which has been in existence for many years - maybe as many as twenty-seven years (overheard someone say this) where talented people exhibit their art, jewelry, stained glass, pottery, clothing, toys, wood objects, soaps, lotions, stone oil lamps, garden decor and many other items - too many to mention.


My friend, Mary and I met at Coffee Please before we ventured down the street across the railroad tracks into the exhibit area which filled both sides of Miami Avenue between Railroad Avenue and Euclid Avenue. The weather was "perfect" at 11:00 a.m. Having a sunny, clear day was a "blessing" after having heavy storms all day and evening on Saturday, April 30th, 2016.

Tropical!

Quartz Nail File

We purchased some items, too. Especially nice is the quartz-bladed nail file - which we each purchased and probably will wish we had bought more to share with friends! I now have another square stained glass panel (my third) from the fellow whose business card is "around here, somewhere". The pottery business card holder "took my eye" - so I "just had to have it, too"! Then, I couldn't pass up the jewelry lady - who had a bracelet and earrings with a starfish and shell design - something that "matched my outfit" (and other outfits, as well).

Stained Glass Panel

So it goes - a wonderful time and my wallet emptied out of maybe $100 (haven't counted yet).

We stopped for lunch at A Tavola's outside patio. Beautiful! Wood tables, great service and delicious food - roasted cauliflower with balsamic dressing and asparagus salad (fresh) topped with a meatball (by special request by me). I only spent $12 plus $3 tip! And, I have enough leftovers for supper!

After a very pleasant time discussing topics that were of interest to both of us, we headed home. Mary bought some hosta plants from the local garden club ladies for twenty-five cents each! What a bargain!

I unloaded the car and have hung the stained glass panel, put the bag with the business card holder near my cart to take to my studio and am enjoying looking at the bracelet - on the kitchen counter.
The nail file has been used several times already. It's amazing!

Yes! This was a May Day to remember!

Tadpoles! 4/29/16

Froggy! (watercolor by Karen Kelly)

Tadpoles! Millions of tadpoles!

Each year the cover to the dark blue pool cover fills with water and leaf debris. As winter melts away, spring days bring sunny rays that warm the pool top pond.

I look at the calendar and realize I had not signed up to be one of the "first" customers for having the pool opened. I'm hoping I'm not "too late" - hoping that I won't experience another TADPOLE episode!

Days passed and I didn't check the pool pond, but I did call Pool Boys (Rodney Hoskins) to be put on his schedule.

Spring flowers popped up and disappeared. Spring shrubs bloomed, too. The giant oaks dropped fuzzy strings "everywhere"!

The purple finch returned and built another nest under the eaves of the cottage. Their offspring grew without my help and are now flying back and forth over the pool top pond.

With the help of Angie's List, I have Gutter Boys come out to clean the gutters and downspouts. The Gutter Boy who was here and I discussed gutters and gutter covers and . . . TADPOLES!

He said, "Looks like you have a lot of tadpoles!"

A lot of tadpoles! A LOT OF TADPOLES!

OK! I know I heard frogs croaking nearby awhile ago! But, how long ago? A month? Two months?

Whatever! It doesn't matter when! What matters is that the pool top pond had many thousands of tadpoles swimming and swimming around in the warm water. I felt remorse and guilt! These poor creatures would not live much longer - that is - just maybe if they swam their way to the neighbors' back lake they might, maybe just might make it.

Just as I came in here to my computer to write this "story", I see that Rodney has set up the drainage equipment to remove the water and the tadpoles!

As my counselor, Mr. Edgar Gibson, says "Mistakes are lessons. Problems are opportunities".

No sharing jars of tadpoles with home schoolers or NextDoor.com children. No Japanese tadpole soup (my idea). No tadpole fertilizer for my plants!

Reminder to myself: Ask Rodney to put me on his early list for 2017!

1974 Teflon Coated Minds

As I continue to sort through stacks of paper memorabilia and more "stuff" I often find something I've written and forgotten about. I wrote this "essay" for myself in a very small purse-size spiral notebook with orange pages.

Instead of saying, I "want, I want" shall I now say, "I give, I give" and keep giving until I am exhausted from doing so? I will give, but in ways that I can give best - the essence of my life, my soul - not fearing criticism of those about me for that is my greatest fear up until ow - criticism - fear of words and my son asks me "What are words?"

Words are nothing - so true - it is only by assimilating a series of words - thought - therefore - response, action - hopefully giving meaning to words.

Shall I write about fear? Fear of what? Mainly death - no not the hereafter, etc. It is fear of pain in those last moments,  but would it not be similar to being on the operating table - coherent - speaking, communicating with those preparing my body and then suddenly - instantly not here any more and surprised upon awakening finding oneself alive?

That must be death - gone - asleep and then awake in some strange new place, a new form and hopefully, amazingly - a greater intelligence to see and understand the reason for one's existance - how one fits into the total plan - the endless infinity - into the energy of it all.

Fear - of not being part of the universe. We are part of it. We are a functioning member of it all.

My only concern is looking and observing the cruelty - the primitive punishment animal behavior - for the scramble to survive at the expense of one another - those who are so afraid and always saying, "I want, I want".

I have said it, too and still I say it. I acknowledge this wanting! I want to know everything. I want to feel - to be. I want to sooth - to heal - to show how it is to be a complete force of energy.

Rainy Day! 4/11/16

BABY DEER NAPPING

What to do on a rainy day - a rainy, rainy day?

Stop! Listen! What's that sound?

Here in the cottage office are skylights which bring in much needed light and also serve as percussion instruments - for the drumming of raindrops. The rhythm changes from light to heavy with variations "in between".

Rain fills the pool cover once more. The other day I looked out to see major ripples along the edge of the "pool cover pond". It seemed, maybe, that some critter may have been struggling to get out of the water. It wasn't a critter at all! It was the wind "blowing up a storm"!

Water fills the ditch alongside my neighbor's driveway and makes its way to another neighbor's small lake. There are several major drainpipes that take water from the gutters, down spots and drainage network around my home, back to the lake.

Having plenty of rain brings water for local wildlife, too. We have deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, coyotes, groundhogs, birds and sometimes a snake or two that have made their home in our shared "green spaces".

This year the flowering shrubs and trees "made it out" before the snow returned. The daffodils survived, too. It's been a "Celebration of Spring"!

To see buttercups and red bud trees blooming in the wooded areas beside our "country roads"  has made "just going to the store" a special trip. For fun, I put the car windows down to hear the birds chirping in the trees!

I'm glad it's Spring! I'm so glad it's Spring!

Opening Day!

Here it is again! Opening Day! Parades, music, food, people everywhere - people dressed in red - all for The Cincinnati Reds Opening Day! Play ball!

I'm wearing my red sweater and viewing all the happiness and happening on my iphone via Twitter and Facebook and also by watching updates on our local TV stations.

All this excitement has triggered another "can't believe I did that" memory!

Time: back when Jerry Ford was president

Place: Cincinnati, Ohio

Characters: 3 (attractive) female friends, dressed "to the nines", big hats

Vehicle: Blue Lady - a '72 blue Rolls Corniche convertible

Deems (thinking that was her name) had been friendly with Butch Knowlton who I believe was invested somehow with the Cincinnati Reds. She was a decorator and he was her client. (There's probably a lot more to that relationship but I do not have anything here to share.)

Martha was a beautiful blond lady who had been a mistress to a fellow over in Highland Towers (thinking now that they both may be deceased).

Karen, just me, was without supervision by husband Bill who was a "travelin' man" to the West Indies and Lake Tahoe - one or the other place - every three weeks.

I will not place any blame on any one of us for our behavior on that particular Opening
Day!

We decided we wanted to go to the ball game. We had no tickets. We had no invitation from Mr. Knowlton who had a box atop the stadium! The "no this, no that" didn't matter to us!

I drove Blue Lady down to the entry gate of the stadium. The guy at the gate didn't question us when we told him we were the wives of the players (or was it the owners?). He ushered Blue Lady and us right on through into the stadium underground parking area.

We found our way into a secured area with Ford's secret service people. Again, somehow we were
allowed to proceed to the top level of the stadium where we located Butch Knowlton's luxury suite (box). We were welcomed with food and drink and friendship! And, we watched the Opening Day Game! 

Writer's Accountability Group! Many thanks to Meetup.com

I may have mentioned that I am an organizer of five Meetup.com groups and I belong to several other Meetup.com groups, too. The latest group is "Writer's Accountability Group" which can be found listed under the main group "Women Over Fifty" which is me and "then some"!

I've attended two Meetups with other women writers and am learning what it means to be "accountable" as a writer. I do believe it means hitting the keyboard more than three times a month! It's not that I lack ideas for what I want to write and share, it's the "other stuff" that beckons my attention and energy. I'm thinking maybe if I would write "first thing" in the morning - before I start my daily "to-do's" ticking them off my list and reporting into Facebook's "Homemaker's Encouragement" group.

By the time I've completed my morning routine, I'm ready for lunch and a nap! Then, what energy is left is enough to propel me into the creative cosmos!

Today! Yes! Today will be different... After one more tall glass of cool Kukicha (brewed fresh) and a bit of fun pulling away fall/winter leaf debris around the herb pots, I finally am here with "pooter" listening to a lighter version of clicks (missing the sound of my old IBM Selectric keys).

I considered using Dragon Speak (relearning it all over again) to make this typing stuff easier, but thin I remember all the correcting of weird misspelled words. I do speak into my Iphone to save time, but I still get ridiculous words that need to be replaced by typing tiny keys!

Having mentioned my Meetup.com groups at the beginning of this post, I am particularly pleased with my Wheat Belly Lifestyle group (listed under the main group - Cincinnati Cuisine Club). We meet at my home on the first Monday at noon. For now, it's a small group of four. I set the table keeping a "theme" in mind. Yesterday, I chose green place mats, green napkins, green glasses and a Rosemary plant in a cobalt plastic pot for the centerpiece.

We enjoyed a fresh salad with avocado, green lettuce leaves, walnuts, pistachios, olive oil and balsamic vinegar topped with fresh black pepper & sea salt. One of the ladies brought fresh vegetable beef soup. She brought some grated cheese as a topping for the soup. For dessert we had a bit of Faye Greek yogurt with homemade peanut butter cookies (sugar and wheat free) from the Wheat Belly 30 Minute Cookbook.

 I had the tea bar set up with hot water in the "punch the button on top" thermos. And, I provided ice water in an antique - keep it cold - carafe.

We shared. We experienced a wheat free (really grain free), sugar free meal together. We discussed the improvements we feel when we follow WB Lifestyle and the consequences of being "wheated".

I will continue with my Meetup.com groups and continue to be inspired by the incredible opportunities Meetup.com offers to its community of active participants! Many thanks Meetup.com!
Many thanks, "Writers Accountability Group", too!