Month: July 2017

Saturday, July 29, 2017

How kind of SJB to let me use his car while he is traveling in Europe.

The clerk at REI says that barefoot runners (a light-weight shoe) are not easy to adjust to.

CD insists that the brain is far more powerful than medical science and neurology have as yet determined.

The Hispanic workman who is shoveling stones for the neighbor’s driveway says he’ll gladly take red beets and tomatoes from our garden.

CS thinks the political ambience is growing darker and darker.

The fellow in the utility truck had not idea where the closest gasoline station was located.

DMG guided me in downloading WhatsApp for our use when Joy or I are traveling.

NM says it’s tough, it’s rough going.

Erv Boschmann recently published a memoir from which he will read at 4 PM, August 12, at First Mennonite Church in Indianapiolis.

DK can’t do coffee on Monday because he’ll be traveling in Kansas.

IEH wants to see a major league ball game with me. (Red Sox vs Yankees)

The tomato stakes were behind the recycling bin as Allen Mast  had said they would be.

O asked us to bring in her mail while she is on vacation.

JG told me via “messenger” that I ask good questions.

The Enterprise Rent-a-Car clerk reduced our bill greatly because of the smoke odor which she herself detected after we returned the car.

I look forward to the next personal contact.

 

Tuesday, August 25, 2017

This summer two family reunions blessed our lives. That is no insignificant statement because many family reunions are times of  tension, distrust, guardedness and isolation. Here in this blog I will summarize pictorially elements of these two good reunions.

Location

The Hesses at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center, Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania.

 

The Glicks at Camp Overlook, Keezletown, Virginia.

Good attendance

The Hess family.

 

The Glick family (in two photos, with three people missing)

.

 

Fun activities

The Hesses in the pool.

 

The Glicks in the pond.

 

Cordial conversation

The Hesses on rockers.

 

The Glicks on the deck.

Happy mealtimes

The Hesses at lunch.

The Glicks at snack time.

And of course, evenings.

The Hesses around the campfire.

The Glicks before the setting sun.

So very blessed.

 

 

 

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Today’s walk was slow-paced, because I wanted to take in the details of Arbentrout Path in the Shenandoah District of Virginia.

In the distance to the east is the Massanutten Range.

 

Much of the side-ways were fenced, even forested acres.

 

 

Several of the structures by the road were built in the past 30 years, but most have stood for a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The variety in this short span is remarkable.

Another memorable gate fastener.

 

 

The truck bumper says “FARM USE.”

 

 

 

 

Quite  a few run-down lots.

 

And green pastures to make up for them.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

I sincerely hope you won’t mind if I tell you of my virility.

• At Starbucks this morning, she took one look at me and called me “dear.”
• Yesterday the clerk in the pharmacy said I was “darling.”
• The day before that the waitress mentioned “sweetie” every time she saw me.
• And I have been called “honey.”

I’m waiting for “honey bunch” which surely will come soon.

 

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Shades State Park, located about 17 miles southwest of Crawfordsville, is a quiet yet rugged country, just right for hikers.

On Trail 7 I came to an innocent waterfall …

not knowing that the little creek would be the continuation of trail 7. I was grateful for one walking stick, doubly grateful for two as I moved downstream among the slippery rocks.

Such are the rivulets that over centuries have carved through sandstone, leaving spectacular cliffs and ravines.

Trail 7 led to trail 8 led to Sugar Creek whose water I might have seen yesterday in Lye Creek that runs by Winter Wood.

The creek is just about back to normal, but the banks remain muddy.

Grasses bent by the surge, haven’t found the gumption to get back up yet.

But creekside flowers feel no such malaise

Much of Shades State Park features sharp canyons and overhangs. I hope they remain for another thousand years.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

I count it a privilege when Lali and Doug ask me to tend the property while they are on vacation. The request is modest; it’s not for me to do the many tasks associated with The Juniper Spoon (at this very moment, a crew is serving a wedding dinner), but rather to just “be around.”

There is a list. In fact there are three lists, with the dominant item in bold: enjoy yourself.

Here at Winter Wood my chief responsibility pertains to four hens and a cat with three kittens. Ten minutes ago the hens went obediently from their dust bowls under a tree to the coop. Fifteen minutes ago the final two felines entered the house. Thus my responsibilities for the day are completed.

To tell the honest truth, I set my own agenda and often work well past a heavy sweat. Today I tried to rebuild a walk that had sunk. Yesterday I staked up sunflowers and removed a branch that had fallen. The day before I worked the compost bins and took a load of recyclables to the pick up station.

The stone walk needing repairs there by the tree.

But each of these tasks is simple in technical terms. Or in the vocabulary of agendas. In contrast I think of those whose day is fraught with urgent and sometimes contradictory  demands, people who can’t go from here to there without being interrupted by a to-do, managers of minutia long into the afternoon and even into their dreams.

Here, life is simple. The cats are in the house. The chickens are in their coop. The wheelbarrow and shovel are in the shed. And my supper consists of meat balls and bread pudding sent up from The Juniper Spoon staff.

 

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Jarod told me of the Heritage Trail in Lafayette, but when I got there, it was obvious that much of the trail was covered by the overflowing of the Wabash River.

So I thought to try Prophetstown State Park, without knowing much about the history of the battleground and the prophet. What might I see on a hot rainy morning?

The park contains useful information boards, featuring geology (and land a thick, underlying rock) …

agriculture with a full-function farm, camping facilities, recreational sites, but most important of all, a large restored prairie.

I wished that I had a guide to prairie flora.

I imagined that I was an early pioneer, walking ten miles to help Andrew pen a letter to the powers-that-be concerning details of his homestead parcel. That helped to make the walk on the prairie all that more meaningful, until …

I came upon a monument of twelve large boulders with a tribal name inscribed on a plaque: Fox, Ottawa, Miami, Winnebago, Wyandotte and others.  The monument was dedicated to the brave people who fought to preserve their way of life. Upon further reflection, I realized that the fictional Andrew and I were one small but significant segment of the force that drove the native people from this area. The land upon which Andrew settled and which he now claimed for himself and his family, once was communal land. The non-fictional I was taking a walk through history, a painful history. I paused to rest and eat an apple …

aware that I was resting on communal property. The remaining three miles of the walk took place within a context that I had not anticipated when I entered the park.

 

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Fortunately my daughter Lali and her family take vacations, because then I have the privilege of property sitting. They are up in sunny Michigan somewhere and I am in the land of heavy rains and enjoying them, although the field lakes don’t bode well for corn and soybean crops.

Here is little Lye Creek, that usually bounces its way toward Sugar Creek. Today it is a surge.

I had heard that today, Wednesday, was to be dry, with rains forecast for tomorrow. But when I got up from my nap — tough life here — I heard rumbles, so I jumped in the car to drive to a clearer view. (Winter Wood is concealed within forests.)

Sure enough, a storm was gathering in the north, but since the wind was from the west, I assumed the storm would miss us. But gradually the sky got darker.

Powerfully beautiful, isn’t it. I returned to The Juniper Spoon annex which is my den for the week, yet I couldn’t keep myself indoors. What a privilege for a city bloke to watch a storm in the country.

The heaviness darkness moved eastward but we got a full pelting of rain, which means that if tomorrow is again rainy, Lye Creek will be big enough for river freighters.

Sunday, July 9

I’ve not racked up a lot of miles lately, but I’ve increased the weight of the backpack and have selected more difficult sites. Today I returned to Pate Hollow Trail in the Hoosier National Forest.

The forest was reverently quiet this morning, almost as though the trail itself was just awaking.  I might have been walking for an hour before I heard the birds, some with a love song, others with a text.

The forest is thick with old trees. This break is unusual enough to record. I also admired the dead tree still standing tall.

The trail elbowed its way up and down hillsides. Learning a lesson from my first visit, I was fully equipped with water. And this time, I often stopped for brief rests.

A top goal during a walk is to pay attention not to time, not to mileage, but to the environs, be it animal or vegetable, becoming or ugly

Here are the remains of a recent trunk break.

And here a trunk that refuses to break.

And this is my “photo of the day.”  Small, insignificant yet essential to Hoosier National Forest.

 

 

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Since the traffic flow into the greenhouses has lessoned, they’ve given me a companion task — watering the plants in three greenhouses and outside in the beer garden.

This task helps me to focus on particular plants. Today, for example, I saw the new tiny blossoms in a water puddle on a bromeliad.

Not far away, the sensitive plant (its leaves close if you rub across their tops) showed several exquisitely refined blooms.

I’m also learning which plants should be watered from the pan up and which ones want to be drenched from above, such as the orchids

and lady slippers (which actually belong to the extended orchid family).

Because Menno Expressions, a local congregational publication, will be featuring pearls in the August issue, I decided to take a picture of the plant named String of Pearls.

Water drops add something special to plants, don’t you agree?

Oh, and I want to print a photo of a stag horn fern, in my opinion a greenhouse phenom.

Just a very fine day at work.