wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

Pretty things...the second bouquet from the Spring flower delivery. The flowers' colors are so different from last week's. They're bold and bright, spring's way of proclaiming, "Here I am!"

We went to Cleveland for Easter. Monday's post poked fun at the differences in Todd's and my tastes in  gas station snacks. But what really opened my eyes is while looking for his Little Debbie donuts, I walked up and down three aisles packed with junk food. Gas stations with mini markets line America's highways, as do fast food restaurants, and they're everywhere. America has an obesity problem and these establishments make it easy to make unhealthy choices. Time to get off my soap box.

My son's neighborhood streets are lined with beautiful Callery Pear trees. As pretty as they are, these trees are now banned in Ohio due to their invasive nature. They grow quickly and have a prolific seed production that leads to dense thickets that crowd out native plants and disrupt  ecosystems. They do make a beautiful spring entrance.

Now for the good part. All three of my grandchildren were in one place. Such sweetness and joy. Their moms coordinated matching pajamas, which was another layer of adorable. I'm just a gushing grandma right now!

And here I am with my little ones, Owen, Hallie, and AJ. Trying to get a picture with these three took a lot of juggling between food schedules, naps and bed times, coloring Easter eggs, hunting Easter eggs, reading books, taking walks, playing, etc., etc. Finally a moment came where I had the three of them at the same time. These little people are my biggest blessings.

The dandelions are coming, the dandelions are coming! In a world full of roses, stand out like a dandelion in the middle of a green, plush lawn!

 

Trees

Today is Earth Day, so why not choose a poem about something beautiful in nature to celebrate this day.

One of my mom's favorite poems was "Trees," by Joyce Kilmer who wrote it in 1913.  Oscar Rasbach set the poem to music in 1922; this version was recorded in 1951. Mom loved this poem and recited it to her four children many, many times, and sang it to us, too. She had such a lovely voice.

For the last six years of her life, Mom was in assisted living, eventually moving to memory care. One time, after taking her for a visit to my my brother and sister-in-law's house, she commented that Pat and Patty had such a beautiful flowering tree in their yard. It is a beautiful tree, a redbud, but not they typical redbud color. It was vivid and bold. So surprise...I took a picture of it for Mom to have in her room.

She talked about that pretty tree and how she missed seeing and talking to her friends. I had recently read about April being National Poetry Month, so one day I said to her, "Mom, would you like to send some cards to your friends? I'll make some cards using this photo and put the poem "Trees" on the back of it," explaining National Poetry Month to her. She started singing the song to me. Wow...the power of music coupled with a long term memory. She was very excited to do this. She had a project and was ready to take it on. She first wrote a list of friends and family who would receive a card, then signed each card, "Love, Joan," and I addressed the envelopes.  We took a little field trip to the downtown Dayton post office to mail the letters. 

Eventually a couple friends came to visit after receiving their tree card.  She also received quite a few letters from others and she read those letters over and over.

My brother and sister-in-law no longer live in that house. I occasionally drive by to see how the tree is doing. It's grown and is beautiful as ever. "I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree..."

Trees

By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

monday's mulling: his and hers

Mini donuts and dill pickles. The cashier at the Sheetz gas station in Lodi, Ohio, laughed and commented, "That's one crazy combination!" 

With the travel coffee mugs filled, we left Friday morning to go to Cleveland to celebrate Easter with our family - all of our kids, their spouses, and our three grandbabies. The plan was to arrive by noon. Andrew was working from home, Jennifer was looking forward to going to the grocery store alone (one of the many joys of new motherhood), Didi and Grandpa would babysit. After being on the road for a couple hours, the coffee was gone and the hungries set in. Sheetz has all sorts of food offerings. Todd wanted his sweet treat, me - something not sweet - so why the sheetz not! This is us - one crazy combination.

easter blessings to all

What does Easter mean to you? For some, it's a time to reflect on faith and celebrate nature and new beginnings. Maybe it's the time of year when you gather with friends for cherished traditions like egg hunts and Easter baskets. Or perhaps it's all of the above.

I've written about the neighbors who go all out decorating for the holidays. The Easter decorations showed up on April 1. Bunny ears on their cars, the Easter bunny sitting in his rocking chair on the front porch watching the world go by, and the now newest additions - the pink, yellow, and blue Peeps bunnies lining the front walk. 

Their enthusiasm for sharing and bringing joy to passers by reminds me of a quote by Robin Williams, "Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" There are people who see this and shake their heads at the commercialism of this important Christian holy day (it's not about the bunny, but the lamb), but this can be about both. Bringing joy and hope to people comes in many shapes and forms, including over-the-top Easter decorations.

Spring is a time of new life and new joy. Appreciate and enjoy the blessings around you.

the friday feed: cheers to george

Todd consults for a small mortgage company located outside of Indianapolis. In December he and the Capital Markets VP had a trip planned to New York to attend a seminar at JPMorgan Chase, with Jamie Dimon speaking. A few days before the seminar, George developed a cough, felt lousy, and another exec took his place to attend the event. Long story short, George had stomach cancer, a tumor on his liver,  and he died three months later at 46 years old.

George was a bourbon aficionado, he bought expensive bottles to add to his very extensive collection. As his health declined, George focused on finding a home for his bourbon bottles. He made a list of which friend would be the benefactor of a specific bottle. What a way to spend your dying days. Todd was surprised and honored to be one of the recipients.

a posthumous gift

from a friend who died too soon

mem’ries in each sip

driveway dandelion

Such beauty in the determination to grow in unexpected places.

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

Last Wednesday was a delightful day. It started off with a rhythmic, flowing yoga class focusing on strength and endurance, improving flexibility, and promoting relaxation. It was a dynamic practice that released those feel-good endorphins and after the class was over, it felt good to know that I am doing something to keep this aging body moving. Next stop - Pink Moon Goods in the Huffman Historic District to pick up my first bouquet from the Backlot Buds CSA. Two young women own these two small businesses and help each other out. Pink Moon Goods offers a drop-off spot for the Backlot Bud  flowers. The flowers bring people into shop, which of course then customers need to look around and purchase something 😊 Last week's hellebores and tulips are going strong, the daffodils were beautiful for four days and then wilted away. I pick up my next bouquet today. 

My friend and I went to an art show at The Contemporary. A talented artist son curated an exhibit highlighting his artist father's work. Zachary Armstrong celebrated  the life and work of his father George Armstrong, a long time sculpture and ceramics teacher at Fairborn High School who creativity inspired a generation of artists. Zachary secretly gathered drawings, paintings, sculptures, and ceramics from his father’s home.  It was a love letter from one artist to another, son to father. We know the Armstrong family. Our kids went to school with one another.

Life is busy at the farm. Last year, Taylor bought a hoop house to expand growing capabilities. A couple weeks ago the frame went up and just the other day, it got its covering. I'm anxious to see what his plans are for the hoop house. He and my son are the same age, are good friends, and this young man is one of my bosses during the farmers market season. He is a good one, too.

Fun at the bird feeder. The other day a mama red bellied woodpecker came to the feeder and was pecking away. You have to look close but right below her is a baby woodpecker, nibbling away on a chunk of seed that fell from the feeder. Mama teaching her baby. So sweet.

The friends we visited in Florida in February are up here visiting friends and family and staying with us. They left warmth and sunshine to come up to unpredictable spring in Ohio. Right now, it's windy, chilly, and cloudy. We definitely got the better weather deal when we visited them. 

Well typical me, I spent the weekend food shopping and cooking. She is vegetarian and tells me not to go out of the way, but that's not how I operate. I spent Sunday fixing two lasagnas: one with meat sauce and one with lots of veggies. (I hadn't made lasagna in a long time and forgot just how long it takes to make). Then, two breakfast casseroles: one with sausage and bacon, the other with vegetables. I come from a long line of women whose love language is cooking, nourishing others through food. I navigated the craziness of the Sunday crowd at Costco, felt the relief of exiting the building, and walked to the car. Whew, done with that mayhem! I took the cart to the drop-off and this colorful sticker caught my eye. "Cocinar es Amor." To cook is love.
 

Fog

 Fog

By carl sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Seeing the world through a soft focus lens...

My big dog on a lazy, hazy, morning walk - he was shrouded in mist-ery.

monday's mulling: fact checking

Good ole social media strikes again. 

This is the kind of fun fact social media users just can’t resist retweeting or reposting: So many travelers who intend to visit Australia are accidentally buying tickets to Austria that the country’s second-largest airport has had to set up a special counter to redirect misguided tourists to the correct continent.

Really? 

The notion of a help desk for planeloads of absent-minded holiday makers who set out for Sydney but wound up thousands of miles away in Salzburg just wouldn't happen. Even if someone made that initial mistake, once he or she got to the airport the gate agent would correct the error. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? 

The answer, as Australians would say, is “nah.” Or “nein” if you happen to have found yourself in Austria.

Know your facts and know a little world geography.

old habits are hard to break

Our new dishwasher has three shelves, the top one used for cutlery and utensils. It's very convenient for washing knives and other long kitchen gadgets. This is the first time I've had this feature in a dishwasher and it took some getting used to. Early on with this new feature and after doing a lot of cooking, I took that little knife rack out and filled the top shelf with lots of dirty utensils, the bottom parts filled with all the dirty glasses and dishes, and ran the dishwasher cycle. Later on Todd emptied the dishwasher (I was so appreciative that he did that! 😁) but he forgot about the top shelf. It was new to his routine, too. A few days later, I searched high and low for a knife and a pair of kitchen scissors and was at a total loss as to where they could be, never thinking about the new top rack. Luckily there were other knives to use so no big deal. A few days later it was time to run a load of dirty dishes and when I pulled out the top shelf to put the knife rack back in, all those knives and spatulas and carrot peelers greeted me with their clean sparkle. 

 

more flood photos

I volunteer once or twice a week with the MetroParks for mainly garden maintenance. The parks have so many pretty gardens but as we all know, gardens need regular maintenance or the weeds win out. Last Thursday I signed up to work at Island MetroPark which, typical to its name, is a small island in the Stillwater River. Tuesday and Wednesday the rain came down in buckets and the Stillwater flooded the park.

Thursday, the lead horticulturist sent and early morning email to inform the volunteers that our shift was cancelled. I had no idea how bad the flooding was until pictures on social media were posted.

The photos below are not my photos and I am not sure who to credit. These are some powerful photos. I drove to Island Park a couple days ago to see if I could get in to take some pictures but the entrances were blocked. The water had receded and park employees were there working hard to clear out the mud and other debris. It was obvious that a lot of work had been done but there was still a long way to go. The boss sent an email posting where we would work for this coming week. The water is gone, the clean up is mostly done, and volunteers can now go back to do whatever we're assigned to do. But wow. Mother Nature sure sent a big reminder that she really is the one in charge.

the friday feed: chocolate chip cookies

Close your eyes. Now tell me what comes to mind when you first think of chocolate chip cookies.

Is it waiting for a taste of the cookie dough? When you open the oven is it the intoxicating smell of caramelized butter, sugar, and vanilla? Or the warm feel of holding it in your hand, waiting to take a bite? What about chocolate chip cookies that make them so good that one is never enough, and we reach for another batch?

Many say that our deep attachment to chocolate chip cookies has to do more with our emotional attachment to them. When I think of cookies, I always think of my mom and home, A warm and comfy environment. And then I think of making batch after batch of chocolate chip cookies for my kids and their friends. During their summer breaks we must have made CCCs twice a week. What makes these cookies so great is how it makes us nostalgic for childhood memories and even ones from our adult memories.

Plate of fresh cookies

Can it get any better?

Add a glass of milk!

flowers

Last year I discovered a CSA (community supported agriculture) for flowers. A young woman and her husband acquired a 1/4 acre lot behind their home in the Historic Inner East neighborhood through a City of Dayton tax foreclosure program. With this backlot, their dream of having a small-scale flower farm was born. From April to September their garden yields new and heirloom varieties of flowers cultivated from seeds, bulbs, and tubers. 

Yesterday was the first delivery of the spring CSA season and what a beautiful bouquet to start: hellebores, two varieties of tulips, and fancy daffodils. 

So what makes flowers so special? They're an immediate connection to nature, a contradiction to a fast-paced lifestyle, a way to keep us grounded. They are a beautiful burst of color which is sunshine for the soul. Blooming flowers are associated with new life, new opportunities, new people, new vibes for ages. Flowers inside and outside a home create an ambiance of welcome and induce happiness. The magical power of flowers is that they always make us smile.

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

One can certainly see the signs of Spring in Ohio. The birds begin to chirp as the sun rises, eventually bursting into the full bird chorus, right outside of our bedroom window. We've had a lot of rainy days - you know that old saying, "April showers bring May flowers" - and by the amount of rain we've had, May should be overflowing with flowers. The Great Miami River is running fast and high. The structure that is currently in the river is along the bike path on a dry day. It shows where Dayton's first settlers landed. It was a beautiful, sunny day to walk along the river in my winter coat.

Foodwise, I had fun making chicken piccata and instead of serving it with pasta, I served it with Spaetzle that we had purchased when we visited Frankenmuth, MI. This Italian-American dish was delicious with German noodles. Also after requests for almost a week, a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. "Make them like Joanie's (my mom)," which means they're crunchy and a little flat. The cookies turned out as requested and my Cookie Monster is a happy guy. The recipe made four dozen cookies so a couple dozen are in the freezer for next week's company. I did a volunteer stint at Miami Valley Meals and in my two hour stint, we filled over 300 meal trays to be distributed for those who need them.

As I left Miami Valley Meals, I heard a train crossing the bridge that passes over the river so I hurried up the embankment to get a photo. In my hurried moment, my finger became part of the photo. I laughed when I saw this. Back in the day, my mom let me take pictures with her Brownie camera and there are lots of photos that document the place along with my finger. 

On my little road trip over to Xenia to see the tornado memorials, the James Galloway house showed up on my route. James Galloway and his wife came to Greene County in 1798, building his cabin on a bend in the Little Miami River in 1799. The Greene County Historical Society moved the cabin to its current location in 1965. Again back in the day, my mom and her dear friend loved to go exploring and between the two of them, would pack Mrs. Hedley's VW van with their eight kids to go see historical sights. Fast forward a few years, I enjoyed doing counted cross stitch, I found a pattern of the James Galloway House and made it for my mom. She hung it in her kitchen and it stayed there for many years. When it was time to sell her house, I asked Mrs. Hedley if she would take it, as a memory of hauling eight kids around in that VW van. We had a good laugh about those days of historical enrichment.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

We were in Washington DC for a mortgage bankers' convention a few years ago.  While Todd was doing his conference business, I went exploring and discovered the photogenic and hip Blagden Alley, home to the outdoor DC Alley Museum - a series of colorful murals painted on garage doors and building walls. This is Lisa Marie Thalhammer's LOVE mural. Where there is love, hope is close by.

 “Hope” is the thing with feathers

By emily dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.