The View from Here

Trees

 

 

I’ve been passionate about trees since I was a young child. I loved to climb them and sit on their strong branches to read my favorite book. I loved to sit in their shade and look up at the patterns their branches made against the blue sky. I loved to feel the textures of their bark. I loved to listen to the wind rustle their leaves.

Even now, certain trees evoke strong memories: taking Grandma Della to see the Sequoias, picking out Christmas pines with my parents, smelling the eucalyptus trees along Kearney Blvd., watching black walnuts fall to the ground at Bigg’s, playing in the willows at the park.

I like the lessons displayed by trees. I watch them bend and sway in the storms of life. They don’t let a few cuts and scars and broken branches keep them from growing tall and strong. They feed and shelter God’s creatures, including us. They give us beauty even when they are very old.

When I took a photography class in the 80s it was only natural that my first portfolio was filled with pictures of trees. I find bark and limbs and stumps and logs fascinating. I like their textures and shapes and colors. I also like fence posts, especially the gnarled bois de arc ones found around here.  

Yesterday I indulged in my passion for trees and took the photos you will find in the album on the left. Enjoy!

Mum's the Word

 
 

This is one of my favorite fall plants- Ajania pacifica- "Silver and Gold" Chrysanthemum. It has beautiful leaves, pretty flowers, and attracts almost anything with wings!!
 

This and That

Nothing profound this morning. Just some bits and pieces of my week.

We had “spirit week” at school to show support for our sports teams and to enforce the “no drugs” program.  We enjoyed favorite team jersey day, support Calera day, hat day, “twinkie” (twin) day and silly sock day. I told my students that I wanted to have “crazy hair day”. One of the girls responded, “Yes, because you always have crazy hair!” Out of the mouths of babes.

Each day in our morning circle we review the alphabet sounds, sing a song, read a story, count, do our ASL sign for the week, etc. We also add a word to our “sight word list” of familiar words that we will “know when we see them” without sounding them out or thinking about them. Thursday I told my class, “Today we will add the word we to our list.” There were suddenly a dozen little voices excitedly responding “I have one of those!” “My mom has that.” “We play that at Aunt Nancy’s house!” Of course they were referring to the Wii! I must remember in the future that I’m dealing with the new generation!

Speaking of that- I got an email this week about an “update” for one of my websites and it contained so much technical jargon that I had to call Robert to interpret! Why can’t they speak in English instead of numbers and abbreviations that mean nothing to me? I’d better keep being nice to Robert.

I’m finishing some work on the 1940-1950 chapter of my book and using some actual musty brown copies of the paper that were in Mom’s collection of memorabilia. Most contain family information of one sort or another. Grandmother Della had a “letter to the editor” in Look magazine and The Herald wrote about it. Mother’s brother died and his obituary is in that issue. A neighbor was honored for his war efforts. Mom saved about a dozen old newspapers. Interesting to see them in their entirety instead of on microfilm. I find the ads particularly fascinating.

I love, love, love nuts and I was so happy to see the big bins of whole nuts take their rightful place in the produce aisle this week! I will be shelling nuts from now until Christmas. My Grandmother loved walnuts and pecans for cooking. She usually bought 5-10 pounds of each from a local dealer each year.

I found a food product you might like to try. It’s “Breakfast on the go!” Trail Mix by Emerald.  I like the tropical blend, which is a mix of dried mango, dried pineapple, glazed walnuts, natural cashews, shaved coconut, banana chips, and granola clusters. There is also a berry blend, and another one that I can’t remember.  Each box contains 6 bags. I take them to school for lunch. Very tasty!

Great weather this week and nothing to complain about. We had recess each day and I’ve done a little yard work. Also worked on the big wildflower bed downtown. I’m pleased by how many new plants are poking up out of the grass. I sprayed a selective herbicide yesterday. It kills only the grass and doesn’t harm the seedlings. I’ll plant some seeds next weekend to fill in some bare spots.

The bluebirds have visited each day. It makes me happy to watch them. Hope someone or some critter makes you happy today!

 

Down on the Farm

I’ve had the “nature vs. nurture” discussion with many people and I’ve given it a lot of serious thought because of my occupation. I know that we choose our lifestyle. I know that we can’t use our background or childhood as an excuse for our choices. I know that many people “rise above” how they were raised. I know that the personality and intellect we are given have a lot to do with how we interpret and use our childhood experiences. I am living proof of that. However, there are some things that stay with you and continue to be part of your life no matter what you do or where you go or how old you get. There are profound differences between people raised in poverty vs. wealth, Christian vs. non-Christian homes, or the city vs. the country.  

That rambling opening is my explanation for why the sight of the state guys mowing the highway median yesterday gave me that “warm and fuzzy” feeling most women associate with the memory of their favorite doll. Show me a tractor and I’m transported back to the arms of my father and the days when every problem could be solved by a good crop.

I was raised on a tractor; learned to drive one when I should have been playing with dolls. Did some things on a tractor that horrify me now! I sat on Dad’s knee while he drove. I even remember standing on the edge of some part of the tractor while Dad drove.  Two or three of us often piled on the tractor to ride to the house. It’s a wonder none of us ever fell off.

 I drove a tractor and pulled a wagon through the fields when I could barely steer and couldn’t step on the brakes at all. Dad would jump up at the end of the row and do that! One year I rode on the edge of a wagon pulled by the tractor and reached out and dropped tomato plants into holes. We even rode on a “ditch digger” for weight. Dad pulled it with the tractor and dug irrigation ditches, but if the ground was too hard he picked one, two, or three of us to ride on it to make it sink in.

As my brothers got older they took over tractor duty. Poor David often plowed for hours and I know he hated it.

There are other things that pop up in conversations that carry me back to my farm days. We were discussing Thanksgiving yesterday and I told my colleagues that I have an 1890 cookbook that explains why pioneer women never got far from the kitchen. Their lengthy recipes start with “kill chicken and pluck feathers…” There were several “oh, gross” comments and I was the only one who had actually plucked a chicken. I often went to the chicken yard with Dad and carried the dead chicken back to mom. Then I helped clean and prepare it for our table. It was a natural part of our life.

Those are the kinds of experiences that stay with you for a lifetime. You can take the girl off the farm, but you can’t escape the memories. And I wouldn’t want to.

 

Weather, or not...

 

 

 

 

I have long been fascinated by the way weather affects people. I guess I first noticed it when we moved to Iowa in 1975 and I experienced the changes in my own mind and body. I had never lived in a cold/snow climate before as an adult and I was totally unprepared.

In California we didn’t give much thought to “winter”. We didn’t have a lot of preparation rituals. We didn’t have to do much planning. Grab the coats out of the spare closet and wash a few sweatshirts and wait for the temperature to drop a few degrees. But more important- the weather seldom kept us from our activities. We didn’t often change our plans because of the weather. My only prior experiences with that had been once when the valley got about ½” of snow and school was let out so everyone could play in it, and once here when we got snowed in at Mama’s and the school bus couldn’t get to us. But for the most part kids don’t think about the weather unless it prevents them from playing outside.

When we moved to Iowa the whole world revolved around weather. The first month (August) we were there it rained nearly every other day. We were living in our converted van with three children so that was an experience worth another post! Everyone in Iowa seemed concerned about how the weather would affect the crops and the pigs and the river and the roads. As the year progressed I learned about storm windows and insulation and weather stripping and batteries and boots and gloves and coats and caps and layering and snow shovels… Who knew a car battery could freeze? Who knew I could spend twenty minutes dressing to go to the post office, two blocks away, and get back to the house exhausted? Who knew our rented meat locker would be warmer than the outside temperature? And I learned to religiously watch the weather report. I couldn’t plan a day ahead without knowing how much snow we would get. In a cold climate you can’t just say, “Next Wednesday I’ll go shopping.” Maybe you will and maybe you won’t.

I noticed, too, that people in Iowa made preparations for the “worst case scenario”. Gary’s cousins had three refrigerators, a generator, and extras of everything. They reminded me of my grandmother; she always bought extra food because of her experiences in the Great Depression. Gary’s cousins stocked up on everything because one year they were snowed in for three weeks. Think about that for a minute!

I guess what affected me the most about Iowa were the weeks and weeks of being indoors with small children. I just couldn’t cope with that. I was moody. I was cold. I was cranky. I was cold. I was unhappy. We returned to California in April.

We like to complain about the weather in Oklahoma because it is erratic. One year we might have a freeze in November and the next year we might be mowing our lawn in December. We seldom get much snow- maybe an inch or two for a day or two. We hold our breath in the spring waiting for that last vicious ice storm to end the cycle. And the wind comes sweeping down the plain whenever and wherever it chooses, sometimes leaving devastation in its wake. Yesterday Gary wore a t-shirt and mowed the lawn. My children at school wore flip-flops and played on the playground. Next week we may be bundled up in our coats.

My daughter in Vermont knows what is in store for her- days and weeks and months of snow and cold. I’ve teased her before about Vermont only having only two seasons- snow and mud. Which brings me back to my original thought about the weather- it affects our mood and our actions. Katrina recently bought a lamp that counteracts the “winter blues” some people experience from a lack of sunlight. The light we get in the winter months is not only lower in intensity than summer light, but we also spend far more time indoors so we get less of it. That leads some people to feel tired and depressed for months on end.

Winter weather also affects how we eat. We start craving carbohydrates and comfort food when the north wind blows. Bread and pie and stew and chili get added to our weekly menus. We eat more and exercise less.

Some people have far less energy in the winter. It starts getting dark at about 6pm and I’m ready to snuggle up on the couch and call it a day.

If you really start thinking about it the weather even affects what people drive. You won’t see many convertibles in Iowa or Vermont unless they are “second” vehicles.

It is supposed to be 80 degrees on Saturday! That is about as erratic as it gets for November, although I’m sure we aren’t anywhere near a “record”. I thought our rain total for October- 11+ inches- would break a record, but it wasn’t even close to the 22” Caddo got in 1981.

If it is sunny and warm in your part of the world today, have a little sympathy and say a little prayer for those who are already in the throes of winter. They need us to help them through the long dark days ahead.

BTW- Gary took the pretty fall leaf photos!  

Just an ordinary day...

Yesterday was a perfectly ordinary day. At school we did handwriting and phonics and math and reading. We read about forest animals and made a little book. We played at recess. We had corn dogs for lunch. No hassles, no problems, no headaches. Perfectly perfect.

After school I worked on my Caddo book and made some real progress on the last chapter .

As the sun was setting I noticed that the moon was rising over the pond and I took a few photos.

I met with one of the TRAC committees last night so we could make a couple of decisions before the city council meeting.

When I was getting a drink of water late last night there was a loud bang on the sliding glass door. I moved the curtain and was about to chastise our outside cat, when I saw the raccoon family staring at me! All four were sitting on the steps to remind me that I had neglected to leave food for them! The dad rose up and scratched the glass before they scurried away. Lots of food tonight- I promise!!

I love ordinary days.

Harvest Moon

Took these shots at dusk.

Expectations

My current project- writing the history of Caddo- is driving me crazy. I’m almost finished with the “printable version”, but less than thrilled with it. If I only had another year to spend on it I know it would be amazing!

Okay, back the train up. That last sentence is what I kept thinking yesterday as I worked on the last chapter. Granted, I’ve had some setbacks- most of one chapter is lost in cyberspace somewhere and I had to retype it.  But for the most part I’ve just expected more than I can deliver. I do that a lot.

It’s not that I can’t write the history of Caddo. It’s not that I don’t have enough material. Quite the opposite. I have more than enough information and stories for several books, and I’ll probably end up writing all of them. My problem with this one is knowing when to quit, knowing what to leave out. This book is mostly for genealogists and contains a lot of newspaper articles filled with names and events and the basics of Caddo’s history. The next one will be more about individual families and their contributions to Caddo’s history. After that I plan to do one about lawmen and outlaws. My great-great grandfather was one of Caddo’s constables.

I had planned to have the book completed by Heritage Day. That didn’t work out. Now I’m trying for Thanksgiving, but if I have any more weeks like last week I will probably have to settle for Christmas. Of course no one is holding a contract over my head. No one is pestering me to hurry and finish. I just had my own expectations for the project and I feel like I’ve somehow failed.

That’s what overachievers like me do. We set ourselves up with higher expectations than we should, and then we shoot ourselves down when we don’t meet them. I have three projects I’m working on that no one else even knows about, or cares about, and yet I feel this tremendous pressure to do them quickly and well. That just comes from my own personal emotional baggage. The effects of being the oldest child? The only girl? A woman? I don’t know. Perhaps it is a combination of all three. Women tend to feel daily pressure to be the best they can be.

I don’t know why I push myself to do these things, but at least I know when I finish this book I will have a joyful sense of achievement and relief.

Then I can go on to the next unrealistic expectation.

A Sunday Bath

I have been working on my Caddo book for about four hours this afternoon. Whew! I took a break to get a cup of coffee and these cuties were enjoying a bath outside my kitchen window. The one on the fence seemed to be trying to decide between the pond and the bird bath. I think he made the right choice. And as soon as the bluebirds were finished a mocking bird came to try the water. (Some of the pictures are a bit fuzzy, but I had to shoot through the window.)

Shoes

I’ve been thinking about shoes. I know, I know. It doesn’t seem like an important subject for blogging, but for me the subject of shoes is very complex. My memories and musings began yesterday when I purchased a copy of Woman’s Day. On page 22 there is one of those “filler” pieces titled “What does every woman need?” Brooke Burke, model, answered, “A community to count on…I can’t do it alone.” Dr. Nieca Goldberg, cardiologist, said, “Confidence to go with your gut…your first thought is usually the best one.” And Kelly Ripa (admittedly NOT one of my favorite people), talk show host, said, “A really big shoe closet.” Apparently her husband built an enormous shoe closet in their apartment. Oh, come on. A hundred possible answers to the question and hers is about her shoe collection??

I have a relative and a few friends with “shoe collections”- thirty to fifty pairs. In fact one tried to tell me the difference between her “navy and white” shoes and her “white and navy” shoes to justify having both. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand such extravagance. I have fifteen pairs of shoes, including house shoes and garden shoes, and I feel guilty having that many! Honest. Guilty. There have been many years when I’ve had five pairs of shoes and thought I was blessed.

I took photos of my shoe collection once. I was taking some photography classes at a community college in California and was required to take a “self-portrait” for my portfolio. I gathered together my hiking boots, running shoes, fuzzy house shoes, favorite scuffed up loafers, shiny church heels, and a couple of pairs of “everyday” shoes. I piled them on the living room floor and took a photo of them. I still have the black and white 8x10 from that portfolio and each pair of shoes tells me a story.

When I was a child I wore shoes to go somewhere. I seldom wore them at home. If it was hot I went bare footed. If it was cold I wore socks- two pairs if it was really cold. I had one pair of shoes for church or any other dress-up occasion. I had one pair of shoes for school. I might have an extra pair of shoes if someone gave them to us or Mom found some at a yard sale or flea market. And some years I had a pair of shoes or boots for the field, although typically we just had several pairs of those rubber boots sitting around and I wore a pair that was two or three sizes too big. My school shoes were supposed to last the whole year and with the help of cardboard, usually did. I covered the holes in the soles of my shoes and kept my feet on the floor so no one would see them. Once a week Dad cleaned and polished our shoes.

Shoe shopping for school was a big deal. My brothers and I went to the shoe store and a man measured our feet with that shiny metal device and Mom clucked her tongue at how much our feet had grown over the summer. We bought one pair of shoes at the shoe store and then Mom tried to find extra shoes at the flea market when she could.

As I grew older and bigger I had the privilege of sharing shoes with Mom. That benefitted both of us. Mom loved high heels and was thrilled when she found a good pair at a sale. I think that once we both started wearing them she felt better about paying a little more for them. And she had quite a few laughs watching me learn to walk in heels.

I remember walking for miles in heels. I’d wear them all day! Of course I’ve also lost my balance and turned my ankle a time or two. I was lucky and didn’t do any permanent damage to my feet, although I do think my later back problems may have started with those days in heels. Mother wasn’t so lucky and had to have foot surgery when she was older. My grandmother also had serious foot problems. I wore heels for about ten years, but I never did like for my feet to hurt, so I didn’t wear a lot of the really high or really narrow ones. And gradually I switched to flats. Now I won’t wear anything that isn’t comfortable and safe.  I can’t believe women still walk around in 4”-6” heels after all we’ve learned about their effects on our feet.

I don’t pay a lot of attention to feet, so I suppose that is one reason I don’t get excited about shoes. I don’t understand the whole idea of decorating our feet. They aren’t the best part of us.  At least mine sure aren’t!

I don’t spend a lot of money for my shoes, either. I think the most I’ve ever invested in a pair of shoes was $65 for a pair of Rockport shoes that I wore when I worked at Macy’s. I saved for several months to buy those shoes and the comfort of them was worth every penny. But now I buy cheaper shoes and put Dr. Scholl’s insoles in them! I remember getting angry at Oprah once (one of a thousand times, which is why I don’t watch her show any more) because she commented that she was enjoying her “$250 house shoes” so much. That just seems like such wasteful self-indulgence to me. I don’t care how much money the woman has.

Ironic that while I was talking to my daughter this morning she told me about my granddaughter’s new boots. When Hope told me how much she paid for them I told her “I’ve had cars that didn’t cost that much!” She laughed and said she wants one of those, too. I won’t begrudge her the boots. I remember the thrill of saving to buy something special. I understand that she and her friends are very brand conscious. At least she isn’t buying high heels! However, I hope that as she gets older she invests her money in other things.

If you have a shoe collection I hope I haven’t offended you. I just don’t “get it”. And if you have a “shoe closet” I really don’t understand.