tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73096752236260105802024-03-12T20:16:31.667-05:00Divinebunbun's Rugged Rural MissouriDivinebunbun lives in a log cabin on 100 acres in the rocky Ozark foothills. Her porch is a box seat on nature and the seasons. This is her journal of chores and mysteries, natural history photos, and observations.Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.comBlogger1248125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-9285986476441804052021-06-05T17:25:00.005-05:002021-06-05T17:51:05.931-05:00My Pandemic (and How Was Yours?)<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1aTG0zjVhhL8PbjQCry6m8em3o7vMP9GanH53RJpy0TbbxPGWhgJJU9vEG6vTEtU_ONXmuQfxlnL7k1RnUHifldhY6kayHeL-y4Ween8OJexn9TgA5L9mL1Y1TONlARM2ul5RdRvvw2Ul/s802/mewithbunny.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="643" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1aTG0zjVhhL8PbjQCry6m8em3o7vMP9GanH53RJpy0TbbxPGWhgJJU9vEG6vTEtU_ONXmuQfxlnL7k1RnUHifldhY6kayHeL-y4Ween8OJexn9TgA5L9mL1Y1TONlARM2ul5RdRvvw2Ul/w321-h400/mewithbunny.jpg" width="321" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here I am at last with a real live bunny, 2021.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: left;">Fourteen months in solitary confinement on the Divine Property. If anyone thought to ask me how I was I'd say, "It's not a lot different than normal, except Zooms took the place of meetings." Sometimes Zooms were okay and other times if people let their pets nose into the frame or talked at length about personal or family illnesses I would "Leave Meeting." Once in a while I'd suggest changing the subject or returning to the reason for the meeting, but on Zoom that sounds very rude. Listened to numerous instructive Zoom lectures and workshops; it helped if I did listening only.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">Compared to many people I had it easy. No aged parents to visit through glass, or to die; no kids to home-school; I could pay my rent. About 10 people I knew died; this included three I counted as good friends. So sorry: Jean, Shirley, Peter. I went on a week's road trip and recently to a social gathering. We tried to talk about the year 2020 but no matter who we were and what happened to us we could barely remember it. It was a lost year.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I worked. I had a blizzard of work all the way up to the end of April 2021. When I was not working I gave myself work. Who knew when this would end? A vaccination appointment opened up on March 31. </p><p style="text-align: left;">I still don't know how I feel, or how I got through it. I journaled every morning and as each notebook was filled I destroyed it.</p><p style="text-align: left;">This blog goes back to 2007. I think it's time to end it here. It began as a poetry/comedy blog. I haven't had those in me for a while although I did all I could to get them back, beg them back, force them back; they were my treasures. This morning, a gorgeous June morning leading into a gorgeous June day (there's still some left), I tried hard to photograph a marigold-colored butterfly among the marigolds, but did not get the photo. When I get good nature photos I tend now to post them to Facebook rather than here. Thank you for your Divine support over the years and may you fare well.<br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-67863082168704179902021-05-07T15:46:00.003-05:002021-05-07T15:50:28.602-05:00I Do Wrong, and Then I Do Right<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3aDVGDN7x4Yu7SsSUcmguIj46xjO462OD9Puqs8xhh8M2XJDGBUp5moHIjKpzUiZMK7eUbsQ_uKBtVpC0GLnAh0tyh7kk9fe5oeGkJ2Uw534a9-cm2PkwhJsJ0yjhtCf2zUQ2GW7m7P3U/s2048/bee2145711781.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3aDVGDN7x4Yu7SsSUcmguIj46xjO462OD9Puqs8xhh8M2XJDGBUp5moHIjKpzUiZMK7eUbsQ_uKBtVpC0GLnAh0tyh7kk9fe5oeGkJ2Uw534a9-cm2PkwhJsJ0yjhtCf2zUQ2GW7m7P3U/s320/bee2145711781.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A plump bumblebee buzzes bounces all day in front of my door every spring and summer, upward and down, and then moving laterally, persistently, and I understand that its "dance" is communicating with other bees. A second bee, this one, joined it, but I'm having guests and I don't want hovering bees, about 18 inches from my front door, to scare them. The bees live in this burrow in the little wooden canopy above the door (with plenty of holes in it), and the slenderer bee, this one, has been going in and out of the perfectly round little hole, about half an inch diameter, and what's in there I cannot guess.</div></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;">So about 1 p.m. I got scotch tape and the stepladder and taped over the hole. Fixed!<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh. This bee worked for an hour trying to get back into the hole while its friend the bumblebee bounced around in what looked like a panic. It probably felt as I did trying for hours to link the Mac's new Big Sur update to a 2010 Brother wireless printer that until Big Sur worked fine. I remembered that we should be good to bees. Wasps are another story, and they've stung me, but bees, never.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I realized I had been thoughtless and had done wrong to creatures who lived here all season every spring and summer and had never done me wrong. After an hour and a half this bee was still trying to nudge its way past or through the scotch tape. I got on a stepladder and stuck a chopstick in there to break the tape. The hole was open, but not wide enough for the bee to shoulder its way through, although God knows it tried. Bringing the stepladder once again, I reached up and clawed all the tape away from around the entrance to their home/office/palace/nest. There now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">We all feel better. I had to buy an updated printer, finding out after calling everybody that Big Sur simply does not and never will support the printer I had.<br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-90997419717895632192021-05-03T14:41:00.000-05:002021-05-03T14:41:16.417-05:00A Mint<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ6MK4TKPdLARaBi0tloNysom2vVNbvX36jDE3q3bET0cOFx0IgSq2W3NHXZh6rLNKyzgtbYvxQCrx3KSxD6h9NQ8NFdmSYXiPUfFUSs9dcjhPcAKHMwOsQBsiHf2PqjzhgLDMujQ0unkx/s2048/mint2021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ6MK4TKPdLARaBi0tloNysom2vVNbvX36jDE3q3bET0cOFx0IgSq2W3NHXZh6rLNKyzgtbYvxQCrx3KSxD6h9NQ8NFdmSYXiPUfFUSs9dcjhPcAKHMwOsQBsiHf2PqjzhgLDMujQ0unkx/w300-h400/mint2021.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>Wild mint is fun to find and harvest. There's a type that's poisonous, with white flowers on tall stems, but roll a stem between your fingers, and if the stem is square -- you will feel how it's square! -- you can have free mint leaves. There are six kinds of mint in Missouri. Although this is ordinary "ground ivy" (<span style="font-weight: normal;"><em>Glechoma hederacea) </em>it smells wonderful. I found it</span> creekside, in the hollow of a tree stump, its tree gnawed down by beavers long ago.<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I had made a favorite India-themed pink lentil soup, and the recipe recommends a garnish of mint leaves. In winter I do without. How lucky I am in spring to simply walk down the road, onto the path I cut, and there was my mint, presented artistically for nobody's eyes ever, unless I happened to seek it out.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-32144065741595799812021-04-21T21:22:00.000-05:002021-04-21T21:22:43.834-05:00Dogwood Winter<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB_Xl9VmNI9hZLXA8OWJvXP513oWwRXnr6DJ9ft-zqpRZFzQbw6XehbAD-4KiY-8T6Y1OR__TBhU16mCmdnkUUJILYpXp3LgUX7KaB-Z8F573JbQgE33BnRe01bd9iZmJqJxu7QkOKIQ_8/s2048/april20snow2021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB_Xl9VmNI9hZLXA8OWJvXP513oWwRXnr6DJ9ft-zqpRZFzQbw6XehbAD-4KiY-8T6Y1OR__TBhU16mCmdnkUUJILYpXp3LgUX7KaB-Z8F573JbQgE33BnRe01bd9iZmJqJxu7QkOKIQ_8/w400-h300/april20snow2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>A "Dogwood Winter" is a cold snap after the dogwoods have bloomed, usually mid- to-late April. Surprise, it snowed here on April 20, flakes wet and splotchy enough so I preferred to photograph snow on my redbuds rather than the dogwoods 50 feet farther away. I believe April 20 is the latest snow I've seen in Missouri. (In upstate New York I watched snow fall on May 6.) But I had to go out again anyway to brush snow off the satellite dish.<br /><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">Two hours after the snow ended it was all gone. I didn't dream our Dogwood Winter: This morning we broke the temperature record for an all-time low with 30 degrees. The previous record: 32 degrees in 1904.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Naturally -- naturally! -- I had an appointment at 8 a.m. and had to pull out the winter coat and pair of gloves (on Monday, we'd had 72-degree weather). There's a "blackberry winter" that according to the Farmer's Almanac comes even later to the Midwest and South in spring. Hope we don't have one.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And by the way, at 2:30 a.m. on April 20 we also had a little earthquake. It didn't wake me, though, not like <a href="https://divinebunbun.blogspot.com/2008/04/biggest-quake-in-40-years.html?m=0">the one in April 2008</a>.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-34068055377986573922021-04-17T18:59:00.002-05:002021-04-17T19:02:17.495-05:00Jack's Pulpit<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnTx4YoRTffiZBNe-LI1Ub03OzhCbBTQzYxj4mwnbwQN9da2V2XISbloijgwuYZbKDbY-KFmFCn69Yu2O5pLvwMNnY898DP_OFlQQzKoo4Ow3cCk86QLcQdfSkUXeDvCEPWYbv4PX4VCC/s2048/jackinthepulpit2021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1642" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnTx4YoRTffiZBNe-LI1Ub03OzhCbBTQzYxj4mwnbwQN9da2V2XISbloijgwuYZbKDbY-KFmFCn69Yu2O5pLvwMNnY898DP_OFlQQzKoo4Ow3cCk86QLcQdfSkUXeDvCEPWYbv4PX4VCC/w321-h400/jackinthepulpit2021.jpg" width="321" /></a></div>Yesterday I led a quick guest tour of the property, including Waterfall #1, Waterfall #5, and "the beach." Sloshing our way up a rill to Waterfall 5, the mud nearly pulled the boots off our feet. I've posted photos and <a href="https://youtu.be/B5uS5zzFurU">video of our waterfalls</a>, but never a Jack-in-the-pulpit because the last time I was in the right place at the right time to see this awesome dramatic springtime wildflower, I didn't have a smartphone, so we are talking before the year 2008.<p></p><div style="text-align: left;">Jack-in-the-pulpits are in fact rare plants.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Every spring since then I have hoped to see one. While the guest photographed the waterfall, I knelt in the soggy loam to photograph the Jack-in-the-pulpit. At home, after a shower, I looked my photos over. None were razor-sharp; none expressed the Jack's imperial presence.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So today after a morning's work I suited up in bad clothes and trudged back. Rain had fallen overnight so the mud was muddier. I didn't see the Jack. Was it one of those flowers that last only one day? I sat by the rill and let the view settle around me and in five minutes found the <i>Arisaema triphyllum</i>. All by itself. There wasn't another.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Determined to get an expressive photo (the majesty of the thing!) I took pictures of it for half an hour. The flap over its top meant getting the camera down so I could shoot upward. I sat down in the mud. Then lay down in the mud. Mom always said I was determined. And I wasn't about to let you down.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-55318502226840853102021-04-14T15:11:00.007-05:002021-04-14T19:42:05.164-05:00Father Dunne's Camp: Memories from One Who Was There, 1960-64<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U7g32lGK2kc" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MbMZ9fFINYk" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> </p><p>Meet Mr. Richard DeVoto, well-named assistant to Monsignor Harry L. Byrne who directed Father Dunne's Catholic home for orphan boys, founded by Father Peter J. Dunne, himself a former orphan, in St. Louis in 1906. Byrne directed too a summer camp for the boys, open from 1941 to about 1971. </p><p></p><p>The Divine property is near what's left of Father Dunne's camp. Mr. DeVoto shared memories of camp life from 1960 to 1964. DeVoto later did two tours in Vietnam and was employed by the Department of Natural Resources and the State Highway Patrol until retiring in 2014. "Lot of happy times here," he said about the camp, "lot of happy times." The videos were recorded in early autumn 2017.<br /></p><p>Was there a school bus from St. Louis to the camp? Oh, no. Every year DeVoto drove a station wagon with seven campers at a time until all 40 were present.<br /></p><p>"From breakfast til midnight" DeVoto was on call for his boss, who lived in a cottage on the grounds. Monsignor Byrne was "from money" and paid for camp fireworks on the Fourth of July, and for the boys' high-school graduation parties, and some of the boys' college tuitions, and "if something was for himself he always paid for it, always, out of his own pocket. In 1963 he had a 1956 Cadillac," DeVoto said, according to my notes. "He never mixed his money with anything. He was always giving me money -- twenties! Whoever back then had $20 bills?!" Monsignor kept a piano in his cottage's living room. "Everything was meticulous," DeVoto remembered. The back garden at the monsignor's cottage, walled with pink brick, overflowed with daylilies and petunias, Monsignor's favorite flowers. DeVoto was expected to serve cocktails to the monsignor and any adult guests at precisely 4:30 p.m., and dinner at 6:00.</p><p>Also on the scene were colorful characters such as the resident caretaker, Mr. Chilton, who "always did everything the hard way"-- like building a snowplow out of wood; a visiting priest from Kankakee constantly on the phone with his stockbroker; St. Louis Archbishop (later Cardinal) Joseph Ritter; and Brother Matthew from the nearby monastery at St. Joseph's Hill, an artist the monsignor commissioned to paint his portrait. In my early days in this area, I met Brother Matthew at St. Joseph's Hill and visited his hermitage -- filled to its ceiling with painted canvases.</p><p>Father Peter J. Dunne was born in 1870 and died in 1938; RKO Pictures made a movie about him, <i>Fighting Father Dunne</i>, starring Pat O'Brien, in 1948. Monsignor Harry L. Byrne directed Father Dunne's for 25 years, until 1969, and died in 2004 at age 95. Brother Matthew Gallagher died in 2007.<br /></p><p></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-65132963327763821772021-04-13T16:41:00.001-05:002021-04-13T16:41:32.200-05:00Bluebells by the Acre<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQWpF6kf8XCWpaIleJTHSZECh4by6ixl_D3yRLMG7zDxo1642yMYSzdAGIMKzxMswixlQ1Zh3URZMx4O013CgLwngipycweGlPMct3ZH82_jiuxTsMH6qeXIg9YDPpJMvT_zA9zVpEFjM/s2048/bluebells.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQWpF6kf8XCWpaIleJTHSZECh4by6ixl_D3yRLMG7zDxo1642yMYSzdAGIMKzxMswixlQ1Zh3URZMx4O013CgLwngipycweGlPMct3ZH82_jiuxTsMH6qeXIg9YDPpJMvT_zA9zVpEFjM/w300-h400/bluebells.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />Did you want to see bluebells growing in their native sort-of-swampy habitat, during the peak of blooming? Me too. Today I took happy advantage of the creek-side path I personally cut through the woods in fall and winter. The farther I walked, the more bluebells (<i>Mertensia virginica</i>) there were, to the left, right, ahead, behind. Golly!<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86F0J-TLt3FtBn5adfmvgfSeHDcRn5Q5gTuniC2LCBE-_9gI6-ytGVmZZRvzmrLOJACpTSc7qTed0PGPt7LyjUaMcxasSYj6dZJJMkC0WDO8R2M63RaZDduhaUoM6JcXgD9omN85vRGI3/s2048/bluebellacres2021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj86F0J-TLt3FtBn5adfmvgfSeHDcRn5Q5gTuniC2LCBE-_9gI6-ytGVmZZRvzmrLOJACpTSc7qTed0PGPt7LyjUaMcxasSYj6dZJJMkC0WDO8R2M63RaZDduhaUoM6JcXgD9omN85vRGI3/w300-h400/bluebellacres2021.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-8345718949986224842021-04-12T16:17:00.006-05:002021-04-12T16:17:49.391-05:00Good Morel Character<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgug1MIBj4mmg7Ae6hhfooTZjIpRs4oFHPR73RBOivYECcYugBYHXTIqjOoxBq4Pf7gR7S70jkvv39Vjv_UYRv1qDjRitVZ_vQFvKkFHoS1CgZTg9MdtawrHU65Be9GSp4Z3SWubtLxhorW/s2048/morel2021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgug1MIBj4mmg7Ae6hhfooTZjIpRs4oFHPR73RBOivYECcYugBYHXTIqjOoxBq4Pf7gR7S70jkvv39Vjv_UYRv1qDjRitVZ_vQFvKkFHoS1CgZTg9MdtawrHU65Be9GSp4Z3SWubtLxhorW/w400-h300/morel2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>If you live around here -- east central Missouri or thereabouts -- get out and go looking, because now, now, now is the one week of the year you'll find morels. Look near paths or lawns or streams or game trails or parks -- any place that the earth gets regularly disturbed, because fungi like that.<p></p><p>I've been patroling for a week the strip of land where I found eight morels on the property last year. Twice a day I looked. No dice. Yesterday, enjoying some spring sun, I found a game trail not too overgrown; while cutting brush this past winter I'd opened it up a bit. Brushed my way on in there with my folding stool and had a seat where I'd never sat before. This is a wooded clifftop area. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but this nice fat good-sized morel. Just one. Only one. </p><p>Normally you'll find morels in groups. Believe me, I looked for more; there were none. I figured this was a gift from the gods feeling sorry for me for looking so hard, walking up and down, finding zero all week. Here's a glamour shot. I sauteed and ate it within the hour.<br /></p><p>Now stop scrolling and go out and hunt! <br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-19236869811370879702021-04-06T22:23:00.004-05:002021-04-06T22:23:37.723-05:00The Department of Redundancy Department<p>Redundancy is making a clarification that doesn't have to be made, the equivalent of saying the same thing twice. We do it incessantly all the time. Redundancies include:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>connect them together</li><li>genuine sincerity<br /></li><li>bobbing its head up and down</li><li>nodding his head (we don't nod anything else!)<br /></li><li>shrugging his shoulders</li><li>visible to the eye (duh)</li><li>we were assuming in our minds<br /></li><li>scattered here and there</li><li>gasped for air</li><li>hot embers<br /></li><li>retreating back</li><li>a brief second <br /></li><li>at this point in time</li><li>pacing back and forth </li></ul><p>What are your favorite redundancies? <br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-13903863309286934062021-04-02T21:27:00.001-05:002021-04-02T21:28:16.223-05:00The Election Nobody Votes In<div style="text-align: left;">Hope you vote. I do, every time, even on the upcoming Tuesday, April 6, when I know hardly anyone will vote. Worse than an August election. Just checked the county-wide ballot online. The only candidates on the ballot are seven people running for the school board. No political affiliations are given. Six are female. Four of them, in their professional "candidate" photographs, have dyed blond hair.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Nothing against it, except that if you are the sort who conforms to what every other under-60 white woman in the suburbs and exurbs and countryside is doing by bottle-blonding your hair like a TV personality, even if it looks nice I don't want to vote for you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I carefully read all the candidates' biographies and statements so that I would be an informed voter. Only two of the candidates had experience on a school board. These same ones wanted what I want from a school-board member: Someone with an educational background and positive plans. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">They were the two women on the slate who were not dyed blond. [A rude observation that should go here has been withheld.] Coincidence, I guess.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-89094301899290555442021-03-08T13:36:00.000-06:002021-03-08T13:36:21.062-06:00Restoring A View: Before and After<div style="text-align: left;">Behold "before" and "after" pictures of an area of property that allows a view of our shaded double waterfall -- if, and only if, one will cut away a screen of invasive honeysuckle shrubs growing in the half mud-half sand where two nameless streams converge. The site is only yards away from where the confluence quietly empties into LaBarque Creek, beginning its long journey toward the Mississippi River.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7giGUHNcWiKvWpPgCoFnUfHU30talEBPBSsKj-ytfoXK2cmz_1pm0EX0DpMVm_h4C2hCLgnGUtl8MTv9weofHnP4nQYH6EBwuSblhVbxYtIXqmBESfulrlnyEK3B7UTzn72RY3IC9QN7R/s2048/before.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7giGUHNcWiKvWpPgCoFnUfHU30talEBPBSsKj-ytfoXK2cmz_1pm0EX0DpMVm_h4C2hCLgnGUtl8MTv9weofHnP4nQYH6EBwuSblhVbxYtIXqmBESfulrlnyEK3B7UTzn72RY3IC9QN7R/w400-h300/before.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wTfcYPzIgOh9W4NS5-RV16E8bbY6a_yBcSOjSmFAJvjwoA3_Je8CCfD0i7RAb5_FRsVwoBjkTm5ZX1YxqqLwZ43HQjoD_7fVJatt0sN7MKl5Wkr2DnK6wadBZWV5KjH0QEVVE0lHdnSm/s2048/afterbetter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-wTfcYPzIgOh9W4NS5-RV16E8bbY6a_yBcSOjSmFAJvjwoA3_Je8CCfD0i7RAb5_FRsVwoBjkTm5ZX1YxqqLwZ43HQjoD_7fVJatt0sN7MKl5Wkr2DnK6wadBZWV5KjH0QEVVE0lHdnSm/w400-h300/afterbetter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />How to accomplish this? One shoulders loppers, then crawls, then chop-chop-chops, thinking the labor is really a fool's errand because the honeysuckles will grow back, but a clear view of the double falls (operating best after a rain) is worth conserving. While I was cutting close to the rocks, I was privileged to see the very last of the ice and the first of the fiddlehead ferns. This is one of the lowest spots on the property, a micro-climate, even in hot summer noticeably cooler than anywhere else -- and in spring and fall, has breath that's sweet and positively chilly.<p></p><p>And of course I left standing the native Missouri trees. <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">I could go back and do a bit more, but I've adopted a philosophy that many male types I know practice with insouciance: 80 percent is honorable; it's good enough. <br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-84179579048543276232021-03-03T17:15:00.004-06:002021-03-03T17:17:05.683-06:00They Can, I Can't.<p>Last week 0 degrees. This week 70. That's better than the other way around.</p><p>Anytime I try to do something, I just can't. Have to go inward for a while and fix this. Am glad to have crocuses around for inspiration. They're blooming in the stony little rock-garden microclimate just outside the kitchen door. First seen March 2. Crocus day is always the real first day of spring. They've also already attracted honeybees.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg56HS0CKSkQfnqfbSGhPTMg2Bao7Jy57Mk1lImGUlsJEBuodgX8DXrFIkYprxjP_lTxx62OqIv5ifnIZgB8CLwXEMhCe3g3BiX5zzuZa7pQxIzDDCX_7iJVe6l9rbADvx3gSKjBv6D1uu-/s2048/March2021croci.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg56HS0CKSkQfnqfbSGhPTMg2Bao7Jy57Mk1lImGUlsJEBuodgX8DXrFIkYprxjP_lTxx62OqIv5ifnIZgB8CLwXEMhCe3g3BiX5zzuZa7pQxIzDDCX_7iJVe6l9rbADvx3gSKjBv6D1uu-/w300-h400/March2021croci.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-72254013046069508742021-02-26T01:00:00.118-06:002021-02-26T01:00:00.130-06:00No Such Thing<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPNBROmHXSmXceEjKaEpl6ZQ6-WMJ4FovvqNWBttN2_VGiM_CZENzUqrlU114NWhvo10Q8PQfpQCODQk6LxKTlhRYGwhCOvLVwfhuKVmFgdsPtanSV1GdcAdKq9c7_D4eq6Op8EKpFP2Rg/s2048/pinkmat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="2048" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPNBROmHXSmXceEjKaEpl6ZQ6-WMJ4FovvqNWBttN2_VGiM_CZENzUqrlU114NWhvo10Q8PQfpQCODQk6LxKTlhRYGwhCOvLVwfhuKVmFgdsPtanSV1GdcAdKq9c7_D4eq6Op8EKpFP2Rg/w400-h251/pinkmat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />When will I learn that when an old item crumbles or won't come clean, it's time to buy new? Towels I bleach and bleach until they fray, or rubber gloves with two fingers fused with hardened LocTite are still serviceable, I say, and keep using them. Then the day comes when my eyes are opened, like people's are in the Bible. Today while lying on the folding mat that I loll on daily, indoors and out, a foam mat used for 25, maybe 30 years not only for lolling on rugs and concrete and grass but for exercise and camping and blissing out and suffering agonies (just the normal agonies of any lifetime, no big deal) and napping, I realize that little acid-green crumbs, the mat's core, are coming through the pink, and they're not bugs.<p></p><div style="text-align: left;">The thing has worn out.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I use the mat daily, often more than once. In summer it's hosed down, washed with soap and a scrub brush, and dried in the sun. It's thinning out, and the edges curl. I slept on this mat the night I moved into the Divine Cabin, before there was furniture. It was June. Warm breezes wafted through the screens. I was in such ecstasy I thought I might not sleep.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The manufacturer I assumed must be long out of business since their mats last 25 years. So I spent an hour looking at possible substitutes. It is thicker than a yoga mat, and its top is not sticky but sueded. (When I bought it there was <i>no such thing </i>on the market as yoga mats.) Those crash mats covered with vinyl; one can't loll on vinyl. I don't want one I must roll and unroll and tie. One (I guess literally only me -- there is no such thing even on Amazon!) wants a mat one can fling open the selfsame second one is seized by the impulse to loll or do push-ups.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh hell, I thought. I'll google the brand. Amazing: It's still in business! But they're down to royal-blue mats only.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I will take it! This pink one I will repurpose for gardening or seating.</div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-36033172947545903962021-02-24T19:36:00.000-06:002021-02-24T19:36:19.625-06:00What If I Said Yes?<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGgtHxFtrzjNnL7HT4RFc7T1p1L0DqX1hZXHfWntMcqd-YPV1hixT6YHlB-9QDppuPOKxHPqGBRmVwGeVwSICstuWvnVsppRM7l4R1t-qSPiqnLe-VA03EC0_UbH4bD7Y88ElZ7baIME-/s2048/porchpicnicfeb2021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGgtHxFtrzjNnL7HT4RFc7T1p1L0DqX1hZXHfWntMcqd-YPV1hixT6YHlB-9QDppuPOKxHPqGBRmVwGeVwSICstuWvnVsppRM7l4R1t-qSPiqnLe-VA03EC0_UbH4bD7Y88ElZ7baIME-/w400-h300/porchpicnicfeb2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I let errands pile up until I have four or five, then drive to town to do them, and yesterday, as the snows melted in the February sun, came an impulse to pick up a takeout salad. Oh, man, how I fought with myself, turning in the direction of the place, then turning away, then turning the car around and back because I could make salad at home. I shouldn't spend the money, because when I'm old and shivering I'll wish I'd saved it . . . But gosh, I can't ever treat myself? And the portions are big enough to make two meals . . . I overthought a Chicken Caesar salad. I wanted it all readymade, with potato chips and a cookie. It's been months since I've had a bag of chips or an oversized greasy coffeehouse cookie. </p><p>Thus they were made manifest, bagged, and passed to me through an open window and as the day neared noon and 60 degrees -- a full 60 degrees warmer than the previous week -- I thought it ideal for the year's first picnic. I added a plate of sliced apple and a beer. (Beer: It's not just for breakfast anymore!) My in-laws always know when they visit to bring a case of Wisconsin beer, and because they visit twice a year at most and less so this year, I hoard my beers for special occasions, like the first day of 2021 warm enough for porch dining.</p><p>Salud! Then I had a nap.<br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-89965476538091450012021-02-06T15:33:00.003-06:002021-02-06T15:54:27.747-06:00Preparing for Polar Air<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfU5Bk-oQv1v6lk845hyphenhyphenzmHU9CyGUka3dIey3XR5oonl9SyWqyvKyhvdiBh4FtNY7gwI6avVmzukRq4Qn2xlCrca2-nrsGo-s2YOPRNDAshzop97V9lGs2kExcWeGybf-dvJFr50POBTPv/s2048/curtains.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1831" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfU5Bk-oQv1v6lk845hyphenhyphenzmHU9CyGUka3dIey3XR5oonl9SyWqyvKyhvdiBh4FtNY7gwI6avVmzukRq4Qn2xlCrca2-nrsGo-s2YOPRNDAshzop97V9lGs2kExcWeGybf-dvJFr50POBTPv/s320/curtains.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">In a log cabin the logs get chilled all through in deep winter and then radiate cold -- indoors. That's my least favorite part of living here. Then I use my extreme-temp strategies. There's no gym, church, coffeehouse, library, club meeting or anywhere to escape to this year, so:</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Wear over-the-knee wool socks and long underwear under fleece-lined sweats, and maybe leg warmers and headgear. Indoors. I do mean it.</li><li>On the weekend, place the closed car or other vehicle in the sun (if there's sun). Let the sun heat it up real good. Go nap in it. Warms your bones. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVcL_nUPDCwoyMfyaFZj3e9Z9DMoJlgP8m3_qQMfjl0XycF68U1nRnEdOkINjPK5PpzSkg8Lc5C7lQ4I40YbnqbYp23VM7YtCyhz3lnlaNLI6YePZ6ZG1DgO5vA44fXp5U-NUEBO-_H7Es/s2048/orangesbetter.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVcL_nUPDCwoyMfyaFZj3e9Z9DMoJlgP8m3_qQMfjl0XycF68U1nRnEdOkINjPK5PpzSkg8Lc5C7lQ4I40YbnqbYp23VM7YtCyhz3lnlaNLI6YePZ6ZG1DgO5vA44fXp5U-NUEBO-_H7Es/w200-h150/orangesbetter.jpg" width="200" /></a></div></li><li>Eat higher-calorie food to sustain body weight. It is not healthy to "get thin" because of cold temperatures.<br /></li><li>Curtain or shade all windows, or tablecloth your window, as I did this morning. If possible, tape the curtain's edges to the walls. Science says a curtained window loses 25 to 35 percent less heat. </li><li>Take vitamins and eat citrus daily. I like water with lemon. Here are lovely honeybells (cross between grapefruit and tangerine. Their skins "unzip" very neatly).</li><li>Make and consume soups and herbal teas and lots of water. That sounds counter-intuitive. It isn't. Single-digit temps and indoor heating bring very dry air, dry air means dry and vulnerable membranes. Intersperse intake of caffeine drinks or alcohol with glasses of water.<br /></li><li>Set and patrol mousetraps because furry company is likely to creep in seeking shelter.</li><li>For the duration, forget economizing. Use all resources.<br /></li><li>Leave a stream of water running in the slop sink so the pipes won't freeze.</li><li>Exercise will warm cold extremities.</li><li>Find an active, distracting household task: Ironing, long recipes, repairs and alterations, dusting, cleaning the oven or the ceiling fan blades, shoe and boot care, and so on.</li><li>Don't complain or call people to complain that you need spring or summer. Move to Florida if Missouri's too much of a challenge for you.<br /></li></ul>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-5104395547349660242021-02-05T17:26:00.001-06:002021-02-05T17:26:30.725-06:00Still Life<br /><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltljhp8iyCJwvW4SCPIVBCO07LhVS0J2JqLQRwMxUeoRh0-y1KUPkuaj77zaLeyYJTPiyrogK4T2ejI69ZQAwUCjDZbAY1eRnUpyuAT79vXzEduyPAFF4Reg9Oa-a9mhECu7K8u2hsHi_/s2048/acorncapfeb2021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="2048" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltljhp8iyCJwvW4SCPIVBCO07LhVS0J2JqLQRwMxUeoRh0-y1KUPkuaj77zaLeyYJTPiyrogK4T2ejI69ZQAwUCjDZbAY1eRnUpyuAT79vXzEduyPAFF4Reg9Oa-a9mhECu7K8u2hsHi_/w400-h378/acorncapfeb2021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p>This rare (of course!) neurological thing lets me walk and sit just fine but my legs tremor when standing and they demand I lean on something or sit down. At last I know why hour-long exercise classes wore me out, why I leaned on walls at parties. Mom had a more common and disabling tremor; fortunately she didn't live to see mine. I can stand for a while, more with a cane, but then the legs tremble and I widen my stance (this is called "the Frankenstance"), and widen and widen until I either have to start walking or sit down. I carry the cane to show folks I'm not drunk. It does not hurt, nor is it fatal. Neurologist (my first ever! He's really nice!) can only give stupefying anti-seizure drugs. There is almost no research because no public figure has anything resembling this except <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/06/27/germany-angela-merkel-shaking-lon-orig-ge.cnn">Germany's former chancellor Angela Merkel</a>.</p></div><p>Well, I never wanted to stand in lines anyway. So I carry a <a href="https://www.minimaxstool.com/">collapsible stool </a>or wheel a handsome, top-of-the-line <a href="https://www.evolutionwalker.com/product-detail/items/xpresso-zero-series.html">folding rollator</a> (a rolling walker with built-in seat) that I have named The Bolt, or carry a featherweight aluminum folding chair I took fishing. On hikes and mushroom hunts I can sit and rest and then keep going. It was news to me, but the act of standing takes big bandwidth in the brain, and one tires easily.</p><p>There are some benefits. People are helpful and kind. If I must seat myself at the hardware store while discussing what wrench I need, the clerk will squat so we're face to face. When I unfold the portable stool in the checkout lane people ask why didn't they think of that, or where did I get it because they need one too, and they tell me why. And in the woods today while sitting for a minute I saw a perfect little still life of oak leaves and the side of the acorn cap that looks like the iris of an eye, and one tiny hopeful green February shoot.<br /></p><p>Another doctor prescribed physical therapy, and the exercises increased my strength, balance, and standing time. Exercise holds this thing at bay. If it thinks I am an easy mark, it's mistaken. </p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-67267892164180452672021-01-28T20:02:00.000-06:002021-01-28T20:02:24.051-06:00My Retirement Party<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBlU2AeJBz-4vFw8RB58tR49wHMMShlkdMU8lWN1EUbgxLoj6irtqZ97MmEsElU3Krhi09AoowL-6JhQ24-_jaAjyX4opiD2isGq0S1fG3NX5D_HCF9W3L9DsIwqu6VHyrUm6-woqrxBeU/s2048/IMG_20210128_icepond.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBlU2AeJBz-4vFw8RB58tR49wHMMShlkdMU8lWN1EUbgxLoj6irtqZ97MmEsElU3Krhi09AoowL-6JhQ24-_jaAjyX4opiD2isGq0S1fG3NX5D_HCF9W3L9DsIwqu6VHyrUm6-woqrxBeU/w400-h300/IMG_20210128_icepond.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">
I cannot resist a sign saying "Pond" with an arrow pointing the way; "pond" is one of my favorite words. It snowed yesterday, about two inches. It snowed four weeks ago, two inches. That is this winter's total snowfall. Today, a quartz-crystal, unworldly January day, about 31 degrees, I took my first real exploratory hike in many moons. <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p>
After months of calculations and arrangements today was the first day, after 50 years, I no longer have to work, although I will continue to work because I like it. So I'm not "retired," but merely began drawing on retirement savings, easing up a little. My feelings were quite new and mixed, as if this were not an end but a beginning. I phoned my sister to sort it out. She said God's timing is perfect.</p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>"The money should be in your account at the end of the business day," the money man had said, music to my ears. Back at home, lunch. Then what? Ideally I'd give a party. Can't in a pandemic, and if you live on rural roads no guests will come to a party in January anyway. Yet I desired to do something special. Chose a hike at a once-familiar place not visited for more than a year, maybe two. Thought as I trekked about how a year from now I may fish in Missouri without a license. After half a mile of beaten trail mine were the only footprints in the snow. I saw the word "Pond" and the arrow and walked uphill to a pond with the sun thawing a thumbprint into its ballroom of ice.<br /></p></div><p>
It remained only to give myself a retirement gift. What I have (embarrassingly) wanted ever since somebody gave me an insanely delightful three-month subscription 20 years ago was a full subscription to Fruit of the Month Club. I couldn't think of any reason why this would be bad.<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-90274768226187199952021-01-23T18:52:00.004-06:002021-01-23T18:54:07.512-06:00On the Beach<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqa70SKz0_-0I5wjHq46wwCgf8igD5RvprrYAC5jNmDllhZudNuym0S-MQMNNejR0pxFLgnvASlh2_ykD9Xgk4s3x6JQwwEBZE5jg3BoT8a_soVwY5IHi-UPrWbsuJ_TXcfd5AOoA34dsG/s2048/mybeach2021Jan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqa70SKz0_-0I5wjHq46wwCgf8igD5RvprrYAC5jNmDllhZudNuym0S-MQMNNejR0pxFLgnvASlh2_ykD9Xgk4s3x6JQwwEBZE5jg3BoT8a_soVwY5IHi-UPrWbsuJ_TXcfd5AOoA34dsG/w300-h400/mybeach2021Jan.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>Never cared for taking almost all my clothes off by the waterside, joining a bunch of strangers similarly undressed and all either yelling or playing dead. Can't swim and don't care for tanning. Given a beach (I have seen some marvelous lake and ocean beaches) I, in long sleeves and long skirt or pants, will hunt for shells or fossils, or take photos, or watch birds or other creatures. This on the shore of the mighty LaBarque, at one of its bends, is my ideal beach. It's private, the sand is soft, its crystals rounded; it doesn't stick to my parka and winter hiking pants when in January -- secretly overjoyed that the wheel of the year is turning toward spring -- I beat the bushes to get to my white sand beach, look for fossils on the water's edge for a while, sit down, sigh, and lie down on the sand that contours perfectly with my frame, viewing the sky up through the bare trees. Then shutting my eyes. Ahh.<br /><p></p><p>Did this two days ago and attracted a big buzzard that flapped noisily away when it saw I was alive.<br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-51682986371339304022021-01-08T11:52:00.000-06:002021-01-08T11:52:15.696-06:00Lost: One Appetite<p>Slicing into my favorite bread, freshly baked so as to tempt myself, I put the knife down, turned away. Nah, I think, I don't want it.</p><p>-Here's butter. Have as much as you like.<br /></p><p>Don't want any. <br /></p><p>-Here is your favorite vegetable soup: pepperpot, heated up nicely. Come on, you have to eat.<br /></p><p>I don't feel like it.<br /></p><p>-Can you smell and taste? Maybe you caught the Covid?</p><p>I can smell and taste.</p><p>-How about a slice of cheese on that black bread? No? Drive-through burger and fries -- your favorite junk food? Or just the fries. Or -- ice cream? <br /></p><p>Couldn't face it. Can't imagine. The idea makes me queasy.<br /></p><p>-There's a special-occasion steak in the freezer. <br /></p><p>Meat, I definitely could not eat. </p><p>-What's wrong?</p><p>Turmoil and violence in our country. For no good reason. Totally unnecessary. Meant to desecrate what so many of us love and honor and fought for, in some cases died for: democracy, the democratic process, our country's principles, our Constitution. <br /></p><p>-Let's cut brush all day and caulk cracks in the walls all evening, and that will stir up an appetite for sure. </p><p>Call me back after January 20.<br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-34579322339702094122021-01-06T13:46:00.002-06:002021-01-06T15:14:07.200-06:00For the Love of My House<p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" dir="rtl" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBL7cQBpFzPj2yQebmQGthuDWQY7ISfDVSG_cG_npoH2oalNzbROyrZVNLQJy4iCY2GqwksYyS-Bo14gbtN0D1ATM-yoqpSRyIFKTJ2_2Vtxukxj1WIQLCH0vIGhNjLxTCF0A6nQyeefl/s2048/cutbetter.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBL7cQBpFzPj2yQebmQGthuDWQY7ISfDVSG_cG_npoH2oalNzbROyrZVNLQJy4iCY2GqwksYyS-Bo14gbtN0D1ATM-yoqpSRyIFKTJ2_2Vtxukxj1WIQLCH0vIGhNjLxTCF0A6nQyeefl/s320/cutbetter.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">The Divine Cabin, love of my life, is not worth salvaging or renovation. Experts have told me this. It's expensive to maintain an 80-year-old largely neglected rental house and yard. I don't grudge the landlord's lack of interest in regular maintenance. They'll come running for anything serious, like the furnace out or a fallen tree blocking the lane. That's better than some.</p></div><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFVvrDwkYTa2mbsLzPNKWvAayXsGQKzLnplWOUrvd9ArC5QPm25K4OWAVXtzLTNJ6Bi8K2rpxU0TqF-Fm6i1gZVTjGK6VtmQ7pUgFEr-0-AXPPBh1qssUdmqD4YrbJCXopX_1E1YZGP9U/s2048/threat2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFVvrDwkYTa2mbsLzPNKWvAayXsGQKzLnplWOUrvd9ArC5QPm25K4OWAVXtzLTNJ6Bi8K2rpxU0TqF-Fm6i1gZVTjGK6VtmQ7pUgFEr-0-AXPPBh1qssUdmqD4YrbJCXopX_1E1YZGP9U/s320/threat2.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">Yet intuition kept bothering me as I worked in the cabin's "office" and watched through its window the season's first ice storm, followed by snow. I'd been noticing a thick (can't get your arms around it) dead oak next to the house with a very long and hefty horizontal branch -- the tree's only remaining branch -- suspended about 20 feet precisely over the "office" roof. If ice snapped it off, it'd bring a neighboring tree's branch down with it, or the whole tree might fall, for a total of thousands of pounds of momentum to splinter one third of my roof and house.</p></div><p style="text-align: left;">If the landlord then said the damage was not worth repairing, I'd have to move, breaking both my heart and pocketbook. But they don't do (much) preventive maintenance, and right now the landlord is short-handed and their chief guy is in quarantine. Still, I know it's perilous to ignore a nagging intuition. Sometimes things are up to me.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjJxLTtdj-ZdlO33PXfdXLh0kAlCMBypXpSLpD3K1lCsO-aOIuRQAjwR0xrXlYetNCcpy3nvSP9WPcAaDRLhf1YM_WG3eoyEAZVlnCl8yJyqu3JSm1b4udHzCmAxphINblpUD4RmkpNf3/s2048/rot.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjJxLTtdj-ZdlO33PXfdXLh0kAlCMBypXpSLpD3K1lCsO-aOIuRQAjwR0xrXlYetNCcpy3nvSP9WPcAaDRLhf1YM_WG3eoyEAZVlnCl8yJyqu3JSm1b4udHzCmAxphINblpUD4RmkpNf3/s320/rot.jpg" /></a></div></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>It's hollow. On the right is my sneaker.</div></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p>Although as a tenant I could have chosen to "Miss Ann" the landlord and make pestiferous demands for "Now, before the next snowstorm," I elected to hire and pay for a local tree service, called "Get 'Er Done," for removal. The estimate was yesterday. They'd need a lift (pictured above left, in action) and ropes and a crew. For me, peace of mind and disaster averted would be worth the money that by Divine grace I have earned and will spend for the love of my house. </p></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">So today after they started sawing, the tree team's boss knocked at my door and told me to come and see how rotten/hollow the branch was (see photo at left) and said they don't know how it hadn't fallen already.</p><p>After they sawed the tree trunk into pieces, stacked them, and left, I counted the tree rings: approximately 75. That places its genesis in the year 1946 or so. I am grateful to have shared 20 years living alongside of it, and for my intuition and my job.<br /></p>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-29580717818643227522020-12-12T20:18:00.004-06:002020-12-12T20:28:52.594-06:00After 13 Years, I Clean<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpw7tz090PC0AiiovetygVlCkdxbFXzWitVv0GWGSDN4LA4ik2Kcm3uw3kwbobuGQVBJzuR5xgGOJURIlHMtGFdqNff8uL7IXQKlHUTuGzYOv33AMOL8xA-nNBcLpwlS-4RBKIV7GmcJEw/s2048/junkdrawer.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpw7tz090PC0AiiovetygVlCkdxbFXzWitVv0GWGSDN4LA4ik2Kcm3uw3kwbobuGQVBJzuR5xgGOJURIlHMtGFdqNff8uL7IXQKlHUTuGzYOv33AMOL8xA-nNBcLpwlS-4RBKIV7GmcJEw/s320/junkdrawer.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Nutty with quarantine I cleaned a shelf I'd covered with newspaper back in 2007. Hadn't cleaned it since. It's a closet for canned goods, nobody sees it, and a bottle of balsamic vinegar exploded in there four or five summers ago, so I was extra reluctant but cleaned it, one shelf took 30 minutes, and laid down a sheet of 2020 newspaper as a reminder to clean that shelf again in 2033. A few days ago I manned up and organized the junk drawer. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">To my delight it yielded an end cap for a chair leg, five kinds of tape (scotch, masking, electrical, strapping tape, pink barrier tape), numerous craft sticks, two partly-burnt sage bundles, twine, red gift ribbon, 13 keys and various scraps of velcro I will surely need after I throw them away, and an NOAA weather radio, a transistor, useful until I moved out here, too far from a tower to catch a signal. The water-purification tablets got transferred to the camping-gear drawer. NOAA now broadcasts through an app. Packaged hardware for an office chair, long since given away, I had labeled and dated: again, 2007. Rather than tossing it I kept it. Who knows when I'll need it? That's what a junk drawer is for: contingencies. This is the "after" picture.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-49895942752041719242020-12-04T15:11:00.003-06:002020-12-04T21:36:47.568-06:00The War On Shrubs<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEM2TuTOhjyLrgGi9QSYq9jnSnp8agXiz0T4F19f479nSFT6h4nEa6h_SUZEknl_oCSqBelXOwWDZ9khHPGYdkeDzKB5wWqUbN5_G2FFgnOob3i6yGBJeDFrQZelEx2tbB-o2Li1_Tudd/s2048/honeysuckle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEM2TuTOhjyLrgGi9QSYq9jnSnp8agXiz0T4F19f479nSFT6h4nEa6h_SUZEknl_oCSqBelXOwWDZ9khHPGYdkeDzKB5wWqUbN5_G2FFgnOob3i6yGBJeDFrQZelEx2tbB-o2Li1_Tudd/w300-h400/honeysuckle.jpg" width="300" /></a>Armed with the lopper I cut through thickets of <a href="https://mdc.mo.gov/trees-plants/problem-plant-control/invasive-plants/bush-honeysuckles-control">invasive bush honeysuckle</a>, starting with the path to the creek (wanted to take a friend there). My muscles grew as I spent a couple of hours per day lopping the fountain-like woody shrubs despite having to do it seated, and I proudly finished the path of about 150 feet to the creek's stony little "beach" where my friend and I basked, six feet apart, in the late-autumn sunlight.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7gaAEEQw6iYBk30tmtUFQv3MLZ0MPtVqE3OByQAXt6osesF-1MH3m-KsoctRBB-MNEOTAj66HN-0JlU5iLPIqG8VeQuFVRr_rhfQDpHd5Wi-ODBlNPTvH8MPTy46KE-MUCFLohC_NYi8/s2048/honeysuckleberries.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7gaAEEQw6iYBk30tmtUFQv3MLZ0MPtVqE3OByQAXt6osesF-1MH3m-KsoctRBB-MNEOTAj66HN-0JlU5iLPIqG8VeQuFVRr_rhfQDpHd5Wi-ODBlNPTvH8MPTy46KE-MUCFLohC_NYi8/s320/honeysuckleberries.jpg" /></a>That was such a tonic I tackled the invasive honeysuckle surrounding the house, sipping nutrients and water away from the oaks and hickories that rightly grow here. Yes, the cream-colored honeysuckle blossoms in summer are pretty, and so are the red berries on them now. But the price of pretty was the next generation of native Missouri trees. Birds don't care for honeysuckle berries; I understand they are low on nutrients, like candy. One morning I saw a cedar waxwing bite one and then fly away.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I can lop shrub trunks and branches an inch or less in diameter. Hired a man with a power saw to cut the rest. Before he arrived, I tied red ribbons on the young oaks and hickories I didn't want cut. I explained this, asked him to cut only the honeysuckle, "the fountain-looking things." He kinda-sorta did. There were plenty left. Spent this morning clipping and stacking the one-inch-or-less honeysuckle branches. The berries in the second photo are the fruit of the shrub in the first photo.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Invasive honeysuckle is truly removed either by ripping it out of the ground, roots and all, by fire, or by painting the cut stumps with Roundup or Rodeo herbicide (no other herbicide will work). Can't do any of those. When the shrubs grow back, though, they'll mostly be an inch or less across. Then they'll face the business end of my lopper, its blade sharpened daily, and I'm just as persistent as they are.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-26038407459158995882020-11-14T13:05:00.001-06:002020-11-14T13:05:57.624-06:00Keep Going<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFuFhYNEB1RMwyhMJ7Qc4mJVRm4UkAxRGbDtXIfQ5jtNQAS9Am8HR_LAi2CjWLOQO-Qg7-MAEKyE6GS5RCBGQYRNawZNeL6mvJsemeQvap3Lc5N3ecNYsEhg34sisl9kHI0HAVXJrLICdQ/s2048/keepright.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFuFhYNEB1RMwyhMJ7Qc4mJVRm4UkAxRGbDtXIfQ5jtNQAS9Am8HR_LAi2CjWLOQO-Qg7-MAEKyE6GS5RCBGQYRNawZNeL6mvJsemeQvap3Lc5N3ecNYsEhg34sisl9kHI0HAVXJrLICdQ/w300-h400/keepright.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>Was walking in a park savoring a beautiful weekday afternoon. Afternoons are a world I'm still exploring, closed to me for the 30 years I spent in offices hiding two or three jars of spices such as peppercorns or cinnamon in the desk drawer so when most depressed I could take whiffs of a natural, beautiful smell. In my basement office, also a supply closet, I hung a calendar of spectacular natural scenes, and prayed that someday, someday. . . I stayed there because I couldn't risk losing the health insurance. I'm much better off now.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">At the park were a few other untethered people, older men, and a woman in her twenties sitting in her truck fiercely texting, and I thought, "Oh God, I remember that." I trudged into the wet sand beneath the highway bridge, to the river's edge and its beer-colored water, because every walk needs novelty; or else, under COVID-19 awareness, each day feels too much the same. We are all very tired, maybe dazed. Most of us are coping as best we can. We miss our communal lives and casual contact. It hurts to give that up for so very long, and some people won't, and they get sick and make others sick. I mean, the virus is reaching an astounding new peak in mid-America. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So it's more important than ever to strictly observe the health guidelines. I follow them. I had just visited an open-air fruit and vegetable market, purchasing bell peppers, cauliflower, scallions and fresh ginger for a first try at an exotic recipe, when this sign reminded me to choose to stay in my lane no matter how careworn and discouraged, because this too shall pass.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-7691875624468638222020-11-10T22:10:00.000-06:002020-11-10T22:10:16.002-06:00Pan Dowdy<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5URyTbepNURKlaxt9aNC-Gezn9yziLSiPwKRM32UeoUhob7-oo7dfbo8HKCQcijeCJ0sbdVtMBRVKoJ5cwLC53Ci4cufyoxoA_d0gZa_m0VN92lVX8zrvvLCyypOmrT4-USwYj7bu9M33/s2048/pevbetta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5URyTbepNURKlaxt9aNC-Gezn9yziLSiPwKRM32UeoUhob7-oo7dfbo8HKCQcijeCJ0sbdVtMBRVKoJ5cwLC53Ci4cufyoxoA_d0gZa_m0VN92lVX8zrvvLCyypOmrT4-USwYj7bu9M33/w400-h300/pevbetta.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">My pots and pans hang above the stove and this is so convenient I forget that they are on display although rather the worse for years of wear. Stymied for something to do because my satellite Internet is so bad, my biker bro-in-law on a visit about a year ago asked me if I had any of those copper-colored curly-scrubby-scouring pads. I said no, why. He said he wanted to clean my pans for me.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I had long before ceased to be conscious of the state of dishware and cookware 10 to 20 years old. That it functioned was all I cared about. But after the visit I reproached myself and bought copper-colored scourers. It took half an hour to shine up just the interior of one small "stainless" skillet, using first soaking and dish liquid, then baking soda, then vinegar fizzing the baking soda, meanwhile scrubbing until the copper scrubby was in shreds. Then several rounds in the dishwasher. All this did not vanquish the brownish varnish, but it did make the pizza pan peel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I settled for 50 percent improvement. Then on another day I began lapidary work on the pan's exterior, but soon lost heart.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One day this summer I bought new dishes and bowls and felt like a bride. But I forgot about the dowdy pans until today. Not an hour later I ordered a new nonstick pizza pan, small skillet, and omelet pan. Please see the photo, which I display as art, hoping you might validate my inkling that buying new was a good and reasonable thing to do.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7309675223626010580.post-15527120715393431242020-10-31T17:51:00.002-05:002020-10-31T17:51:46.352-05:00The Picture of Happiness<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPiC3RseOCgfStyPndgfGQxfeRizwRMQOCQuVBPZqVO344LpWz_QYEXPMpTcq9TdbgAzm6NobBvn9YRx4XFtfBrHEMOYXCFSs-mf8OAzrh26mGKEcWT00epLBscsa3KCT1puQLQvCSnz95/s2048/thecamera2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPiC3RseOCgfStyPndgfGQxfeRizwRMQOCQuVBPZqVO344LpWz_QYEXPMpTcq9TdbgAzm6NobBvn9YRx4XFtfBrHEMOYXCFSs-mf8OAzrh26mGKEcWT00epLBscsa3KCT1puQLQvCSnz95/w400-h300/thecamera2020.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I pined for a Nikon camera, nothing fancy or weighty, just a point-and-shoot with a few bells and whistles, and around 2004 finally bought a Nikon Coolpix and loved it: great optics, a 4x zoom lens, a close-up option for intense nature photography; and I got a tripod, too, and with them snapped hundreds of gorgeous nature photos, turning some into calendars custom-made and lovingly sent 1) to my parents, who hated the calendars; one year I included a dramatic, unbeatable photo of a blacksnake, and photos of turtles, and close-ups of mushrooms, and a green bug on a pink flower; I had no clue they'd be so repelled and offended, and 2) the couple who lived on this Divine property just before me. They liked the calendars.<p></p><div style="text-align: left;">I hung the camera by its strap near the door, to grab when I saw deer, turkeys, sunrises, orioles & that. I'd owned other, heavier cameras, SLRs with multiple lenses. The Nikon felt so portable and good in my hand! It had a 256MB memory card, and no wireless capability. Around 2013 or 2014 its electronic shutter got gummy. It was not worth the repair. Besides, we now all carried cellphones with built-in cameras.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Realized when trying to photograph the Moon the other night how I missed the little Nikon and steady tripod mount. (The difference between amateur and wow-factor photos is the use of a tripod. )</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Often I had thought to sell or throw away my tripod but didn't. Someday, someday. It waited patiently in its box for years until today, when I mounted on it a used Nikon Coolpix, purchased on eBay, one configured and operated very much and delightfully like the old one. Could have bought the latest model for about four times the money. Decided to see if I could again love photography enough to haul a tripod around and sit in the cold to wait for the ideal light, or wait an hour to snap the just-right bluebird photo.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The 256MB memory card is now 8GB and that will be nice. Yes, to download I'll have to run a firewire between the camera and computer. So.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here is my setup to take a photo of tonight's blue moon. I could just cry for all the time I missed my former Nikon camera, and for joy that I have one again.<br /></div>Divinebunbunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13949098603351912637noreply@blogger.com0