This Cone's for You

Saturday, my Dear Professor and I met at the college for lunch. We have a regular date night. Yes, Virginia, even sixtysomethings go on dates. It is a wonderful time to get away from the distractions of every day living and speak to each other's hearts.

The college has two recently renovated dining halls, and this was my first visit since the redo. There were several different stations filled with all sorts of nutritious delicacies. I was very impressed.

On our way out, we passed by the (dun dun duh!) dessert station. Hey, it was a special occasion. We went for the ice cream cones.



As I gazed at that delicious dairy perfection, I couldn't help but think of our our eldest son, The Preacher, when he was little boy.

For our first 7 years of marriage, my Dear Professor and I lived in my hometown. His family lived almost a 5 hour drive south. My Mom and Dad (and Grandmother and Aunts)were more than happy to assume home court advantage with the grandkids.


(My Dear Professor, The Preacher, Dad)

Dad did a lot of driving in his work, and conveniently found himself in the neighborhood on a regular basis. Once The Preacher was old enough (two years), he and Dad would hang together at the nearby Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor. Dad loved to see The Preacher's head snap to attention as they turned the final corner and the ice cream store came into view. "IC, ic, ic!" the delighted two year old would squeal.

It made Dad's day. And mine too, watching an equivalent delight in my Dad's eyes as he told that story over and over again.

Dad and Mom are gone now, and that two year old is a father of three himself. My Dear Professor and I find ourselves the out of town grandparents. But that wonderful memory lingers on the mind as sweetly as the melting goodness of the ice cream lingers on my tongue.

So Dad, and my dear Son 1(aka The Preacher), this cone's for you.

Off Roadin'

Time has a way of stripping away our self imposed protective veneer to reveal who we really are. Being sixtysomething, I have had occasion to become fully acquainted with this process. I stand, er, sit before you today a different woman than I was in my twenties.

My mother tried desperately to raise two daughters conversant with culture and social graces. I even remember being trained to walk while balancing a book on my head. Oh, if Mother could see me now.

I don't know if I have "let myself go", or if I have just been worn down by the process of living in a place that has two modes of dress--dress casual (blue jeans) and casual (sweatpants). But I feel myself morphing into something . . something strange. Something involving country music, deer spotting, chewing tobacco (in our case it was gummy bears), and mud.

Ladies and gentleman, I've become a redneck. And this is how I know this to be true. Today I went off roading.

There are several requirements for off roading. The first is a four wheel drive vehicle, like a Jeep Wrangler.



My RFF(Really Fun Friend) provided this one. Note the optional equipment, a black lab pup named Kolby. Note also that the "optional equipment" is color coordinated with the Wrangler. My RFF rolls in style!



It was a beautiful pre-summer day in the Frozen North, so beautiful that we were not alone in the search for a challenging off road experience.

Breaker, Breaker, we had ourselves a convoy!



We were picking bugs out of our teeth with the big boys. *Cough*



The second important requirement for off roading is a trail of some sort wide enough for the vehicle. The trail must have "natural beauty", like ruts, puddles, and dirt. A Trifecta trail would have all three. This is the trail we chose.



The day came equipped with deep blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and the Jeep came equipped with a warning . .



. . . but the faithful optional equipment, Kolby, being both a therapy dog in training and a seasoned off roader, was not concerned.



Kolby's calm demeanor put my mind at ease. And so did his offer of a free 30 minute cuddle therapy session. Is it appropriate to call your therapist a cutie?

Driving up and down the hills was fun, but we were looking for something a little more . . . challenging. And then we saw it--the holy grail of off roading--a PUDDLE!! Woo--hoo!!



Remember how beautiful and shiny the jeep looked before we started? Well, this is how the passenger side running board looked after the puddle. That blur is the ground passing by.



We had a LOT of fun. At the end of the ride, , my RFF tucked her dependable four wheel drive friend (the Jeep Wrangler)in its comfy garage bay. This is what it looked like.



RFF and I thought there was an understated, almost Japanese quality to the mud spatters. What do you think?

Yesiree bobtail. I do believe I have been outed as a redneck.

Sorry, Mom.

May Day

Ahhhh. The fragrance of apple blossoms takes me back, back, back. . .

May Day the Spring celebration (not to be confused with Mayday the distress call which has nothing to do with a particular month but rather is from the French, venez m'aider meaning "come help me") brings to mind The Slab.

In my elementary school days we acknowledged the change of season with something called the May Fete. The May Fete was a sort of pagan ritual created by PTA mothers to accomplish two things--torture of children and fundraising. There was also some seamstressing involved--we all had to dress alike. It took place on The Slab.

The Slab was, simply, a slab. Our brand spanking new elementary school built to handle the booming baby numbers was fully equipped with cutting edge technology of the day--windows that opened, big fans, chalkboards that wrapped around two sides of the room, and in the midst of the play ground (open grassy areas), a 30 by 50 foot concrete slab. The Slab was used for recess when rainy season turned the grassy areas to mud, and for the grande promenade and terpsichorean feats of May Fete, accompanied by a scratchy record playing "It's a Treat to Beat Your Feet on the Mississippi Mud" over the pa system.

All I remember is that the girls were required to wear silly costumes sewn frantically by their mothers from lots of specific cloth that had been purchased in bulk from the local fabric store, and the boys always got away with wearing jeans and a white shirt.

Dance was a foreign and forbidden activity to me. My strict Southern Baptist raising did not allow certain activities and dance was at the top of the list. But my parents had no problem at all with dressing me up in some absurd costume and watching me prance painfully across The Slab, holding my partner's hand. This was before the days of sex education in Preschool, when boys and girls held a healthy disdain for each other and found nothing in common until about the 7th grade.

The greatest fear of the time was that your partner(we were divided up into couples, eewww!) would not make the Dancing with the Stars cut and you would have a second level of humiliation piled upon you. The first level was having to wear that stupid costume, the second, having to touch the opposite sex. (Eewwww!)

I wish I could provide you with some highly hilarious disaster that happened, but the combined trauma of wearing flouncy skirts held in place by elastic, holding an icky boy's hand and praying he wouldn't step on my toes has caused temporary amnesia. My therapist is working on it, though.

(Perhaps May Day the celebration and Mayday the distress call do have more in common than I thought.)

Ugly As Homemade Sin

Today I feel the need to clarify my statement yesterday about there being nothing cuter than baby birds. I had geese, chickens, and ducks in mind. Yellow fluffiness.

The official goose family portrait is a prime example. Note the patient Momma, the protective Dad, and the cuddly baby.



This morning I checked on Mama Robin again and noticed something different. She was sitting a little higher in the nest than before. See how much fluffier her feathers are?



She flew off the nest when I unwittingly violated her personal birdy space, and revealed this:



It looked like a flamingo had, ahem, "hurled" in her nest. If ever there was a candidate for the "ugly as homemade sin" category, this surely must be it.

Bless its naked little fuzzy heart. I never, in all my born days(southern expression for a long period of time) would have expected that beautiful blue egg to produce something like this. Maybe the patience of a mother's love, lots of nutritious bugs, and a thigh master will turn her into Suzanne Somers.

Or not.

You can yearbook yourself here.

Heartwarming Wednesday and a Recipe

There aren't many things on a farm cuter than baby birds. Mama Robin is still sitting on her nest in the lilac tree, but the geese are beginning to hatch out babies. Here is the little one I discovered this morning.



Mama Goose took offense at someone handling her baby. Did you know that a goose is capable of producing a nickel size bruise?

I decided today would be a good day to do something nice for my humans, and since the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, I made my Dear Professor and Son 2 some fudge brownies from a great new recipe I discovered visiting one of those food blogs over on the right side of the page.

Since our ability to accessorize is what distinguishes us from the animals, I added chocolate chips and coconut. This is what it looked like all gussied up for its picture with a sprig of some chocolate mint I just purchased to grow in the garden. (yes, I ate the mint with the brownie and loved every bite.)



Is that brownie calling?

You can find the recipe here. Just tell them I sent ya.

Have a wonderful Wednesday.

I'd Rather Live in the Country

As I have said before, red water, mice, and septic tanks aside, I love living in the country. In the dark recesses of my mind are faint memories of life in the suburbs--deed restrictions, lawn chemical trucks, and neighbors in your hip pockets.

Not so in the country. Here, just about anything goes. The chemical trucks are replaced with tractors plowing, planting, and harvesting. And distance to the neighbor's house is measured in miles, not feet.

A manicured city lawn would never appreciate or allow this. It would be plucked out immediately--what would the neighbors think? But in the country they are a welcome sign of spring, and a wonderful delicacy for the bunnies and chickens in the yard.



Every spring I look forward to these fragrant pastel jewels hiding in the grass.



One year the neighbors planted sunflowers in the adjoining field. Every morning I would open the blinds to view their beautiful, cheery faces staring back at me in expectation.



Could the view from Queen Elizabeth's balcony be any more humbling?

My Dear Professor and I entertain his students now and then. They love my fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies and watching the sunset. Last week they were over, and we spent part of the evening on the lawn marveling at the changing colors as the sun slipped behind the trees.



The city is a nice place to visit. But I'd rather live in the country.

New Life

The old lilac trees behind the garage managed to make it through one more winter, although each one does a little more damage.  The branches are beginning to swell with promises of leaves, that means clusters of  fragrant flowers won't be too far behind.  I love lilacs.

But what is this?



A few days ago, Son 2 reported that he had noted a flurry of activity around one particular lilac tree.



That is one stoic robin.  I wonder why he didn't fly away.  Wait a minute, is that a. . .nest?



"I've got my eye on you.  Don't you dare come any closer!"
Oh, he's a family man.  And by his menacing looks, a really protective Dad.



I just love the color of robin's eggs.  They are so dainty and. . .blue.



Don't worry, Mr Robin.  I won't bother your babies. But can I chronicle your blessed event?

Please?

Saturday Science--Al Gore and Flatulent Cows

I was minding my own business researching Far Side cartoons the other day when I ran across this. Who would have thunk it? Al Gore was wrong. It's not the US's gazillion gallon fossil fueled hummers causing global warming. It's India's population of 283 million flatulent cows, the largest bovine population in the world.

But before you start sending care packages of Gas-X to India, please note that their best scientists are hard at work, even as I type, looking for solutions.



One is to recycle all that methane gas for use in farm kitchens. I kid you not. Fossil fuel has nothing on backing up ole Bessie to the kitchen window, plugging her backside into your kitchen range burner and waiting for. . .the inevitable. Voila! Instant omelet, or hot water for your chai.

Actually, it is a little more complicated, but not much. And the idea of cheaply storing the gas in inner tubes (yes, I said inner tubes, you can find some plans here.) makes it low tech enough to be practical and adds another layer to the recycling process.

US scientists have done their own research, which you can read about here.

Of course, it goes without saying that we owe a word of apology to all those teenage boys (you know who you are) who have boldly gone where no scientist has gone before, toiling alone to create a better world with such primitive tools as a bean dinner and a box of matches.

Your burns were not in vain. We salute you.

(I can't believe I actually wrote this.)

What is it about Flamingoes?

Name a bird that is at once awkward, funny, elegant, colorful, much aligned, associated with kitsch, and a minor character in Alice in Wonderland.

I'll give you a few to reflect. (cue waiting music from "Jeopardy")

Time's up! Did the post title give you a clue? That's right! I'm talking 'bout flamingoes. (flamingos? flamingi? flamingouses?)



Why did the lawn ornament people single out the flamingo? And what is it about Florida that makes us associate them with that particular state? Why not armadilloes (armadillos, armadilli, armadilouses?) Or hippopotamuses (hippopatamus, hippopotami, hippopotamouses?).

All I know is I'd rather see a faded plastic flamingo on someone's front lawn than one of those wooden cutouts of a fluffy lady bending over and flashing her bloomers.

Have a wonderful weekend.

On the Beach

How fast can you say, "she sells sea shells by the seashore" without getting your tangue all tongled?

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (and below the Mason Dixon line), our three children, my Dear Professor and all his books, and I lived in a huge city about 2 hours drive from the beach. My Dear Professor's sister, The Counselor, her spouse, The Wild Cajun, and their three children lived several hundred miles south of us, also located about a 2 hour drive from the beach.

Our visits to south Texas always included wonderful family meals (MeMom, my Dear Professor's mother, was an incredbile cook), family stories and jokes from Uncle Bern, going to the movies with Aunt Mellie, a trip to the ranch, and a day when The Wild Cajun and My Dear Professor would find something important and manly to do while The Counselor, our combined six kids, and I would pack a picnic lunch and drive to the beach. We built sand castles, chased waves, went swimming and all other sorts of beachy things.

(4 of our 6 combined kids and The Counselor, my sister-in-law)

But the high point of the trip was always wading out to a shallow sand bar and looking for sand dollars.

Sand dollars come in all sizes. The souvenir stores had some gigantic ones. But the sand dollars native to this stretch of the Texas coast were less than a half dollar in circumference (there was a time, my dears, after crossing the prairie in covered wagons but before the psychedelic 70s, when US currency included 50 cent coins which were larger than the familiar 25 cent ones). The waves tossed and battered these fragile treasures, so it was a treat to find them intact.

When we had plundered the sand bar of all the sand dollars we could find, our attention turned to the various shells on the water's edge, or an occasional crab claw or hermit crab desperatedly trying to get back to the gulf. A few times we discovered tiny star fish, and created special little pools near our castles to scientifically examine them in a "natural" environment.

As the day wore on, and we wore out, we visited the public showers to remove the sand and grit which now covered everything, and to rinse off our booty. Now, by booty I mean treasure or plunder, as in pirate, not a body part. (although I am sure that pirates possessed that body part.). We brought our shells home and enshrined them in glass jars.

When we moved to the Frozen North, I brought with me a few jars of the gifts from the sea that the children (yes, and me too---especially me too!) had kept as souvenirs of those sunny days on the beach with their cousins. The intricate shell patterns and varying sizes and colors still fascinate me.




Holding them in my hands, I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and hear the waves crashing on the beach behind the delighted squeal of children's voices announcing their discoveries. Those were wonderful days. Those are wonderful memories.

Anyone out there game for a picnic on the beach?

Heartwarming Wednesday and a Question

I declare today to be Heartwarming Wednesday. (It is Wednesday, isn't it?)

If you are like me, and information challenged, then you may not have discovered this yet. If you already know about it, I'm sure you won't mind seeing it again.

It's the story of an underdog, an average 47 year old Scottish woman from a wee village who has a huge voice (the woman, not the village). A story of heart, determination, drama, surprise, good music, and something we can all identify with, the fairy tale of the ordinary proving extraordinary.

It also has a villain, Simon Cowell, but every good story needs a nasty villain. Although, in this case, even Simon's nastiness is tempered. Take a look here.

The cynics have said there was some staging going on--the panel was aware of what was to come (that has been denied in an interview), that a voice like that doesn't come out of nowhere. Well, if it was only good theatre, it is still something that touches our hearts in a deep place.

Did it touch you? Why? Let's talk about it.

(You can hear more music from Les Miserables here.)

My Big Screen TV

Across the room from my computer is my big screen tv. It was a real bargain--it came with the house.  It is environmentally friendly, energy frugal, and has an endless list of channels.  My favorites are:

the Weather channel,
 

the Bird channel,
 

the Traffic channel,


the History channel,


and the Home channel.
 


I may put my digital converter up for grabs-- the analogue reception seems to be just fine.

Principessa

Principessa is our middle child, the sandwich filling between our two sons, and the owner of our two grandkitties, Chester and CC.  She is as incredibly sweet as she is incredibly beautiful.  I can say that in all honesty because other more objective people have said so.  Complete strangers have stopped me on the street and made that very comment, much to my delight. 

All right, maybe not complete strangers, but at least other family members and friends.  Do they count?

Here are a few pictures of Principessa in various stages of her life.  (The cute little boy in some of the photos is her big brother.)



I think sailor outfits increase a child's cuteness factor by at least 20x.



Principessa led a long and successful campaign to add a cat to an historically pro dog family.  My Dear Professor was concerned that we would be stuck holding the bag, or the kitty, once Principessa went off to college.  He was right.



Mittens the Destroyer was the bane of our existence for 15 years.  And we all miss him terribly now that he is gone.

I could tell you some pretty embarrassing facts about Principessa, how she thought for the longest that an area rug was an Ariel rug, and that others couldn't hear her when she hummed.  But I won't.

Because today is Principessa's birthday.  (cue party horns and confetti!!)

Won't you join me in wishing our Principessa a Happy Birthday?

And to help celebrate, here is our darling daughter caught in a reflective mood more recently.



Hehehe.  Get it?  Reflective mood?  Reflection in her glasses?  Oh, never mind.

Happy Birthday, Principessa!

Loveyalots, Mommo.

Good Stories

I took the back way home from town yesterday. It's a tad longer, but I had no pressing appointments and my camera was begging for some action.

I am continually amazed by the surprises that can be found in a viewfinder. I had stopped to take a quick picture of a round bale of last year's hay and found mister goose patrolling the area. His significant other must be setting on a nearby nest.

As I looked to the left, I found this reflection in an otherwise nondescript swampy area. We have quite a few swamps in these parts. I'm wondering what kind of summer it will be for pesky mosquitoes. One rainy summer they were out in droves in the middle of the day!

The shadows were lengthening and these weathered bales from last year stood sentry like ancient ceremonial stones in a field showing new growth.

There is usually one lone tree in every field. This one looked both stately and mournful.

But even more mournful was the shape of this once prosperous barn. Elderly barns and elderly people have a lot in common. Both are composed of equal portions of grace and frailty.

When we moved to Iron Acres seventeen years ago, we hired George, a neighbor and handyman, to help us put up some fencing and add a little onto our tiny barn. George packed a lot of gumption and grit on an old frame much like the barn above. He was a prisoner of war held by the Japanese near where the nuclear bombs fell that ended World War II. He lived in this rental property that belonged to Miss Alice, our neighbor across the street.

Oh the stories old George and that house could tell---the history they both have seen.

George and Miss Alice are gone now. Perhaps someone with vision and love will befriend that old house. It would be a shame not to. I know it has some good stories left.