Month: June 2025

Thursday, June 26, 2025 The Inauspicious Beginning of Grave Musings

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As I’ve been getting ready to publish another post in the “Grave Musings” series (my visits to cemeteries), I went back to the very first one that I published 4 years ago. I had high hopes and plans for my cemetery visits that summer. I made a list of about 20 local cemeteries and thought I could knock them all out in one summer. I ended up doing a total of 10 posts, mostly in 2020 and one in 2021 and then my Grave Musings fell silent. Here for your enjoyment is a repost (and link) of the first one with a link to the next one if you just can’t help yourself.

Friday, June 12, 2020. Grave Musings I Maple Lawn I
Yesterday was the Grand Inauguration of my Grave Musings Summer Program (heretofore abbreviated to Grave Musings). As you may recall, I’ve decided to visit all our local cemeteries this summer with each visit containing the following elements: picnic, camera, notebook, watercolor supplies, and a book. Also, maybe a playlist of nice music to accompany all of this. You are no doubt familiar with the phrase that starts out “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray…”

Here’s how it went. First of all, it was a really gusty day. I’ve tried picnicking on windy days and if you don’t mind chasing napkins around or keeping a tight grip on everything at all times, it’s not bad. But I was aiming for a pleasant experience, so I tossed the picnic out of the plan and ate lunch at home in the comfort of our gazebo, whist watching an episode of Stargate.

Next I assembled all of the essential ingredients for the rest of the plan and packed them in my sparkling new carry bag.

My husband had suggested bringing a little folding table we bought for camping, so that went in the car with the rest. I’m all set!

Upon arrival at the Maple Lawn cemetery, I took one crappy photo of the entrance sign and then drove in and around the perimeter to get a good feel for the layout.

I decided to establish my command center near the grave marker for Taopi, a Native American chieftain who converted to Christianity. More on him in another post.

I made my way back to Taopi’s marker and while parking the car, realized that I had forgotten the one item upon which all the other plans would rest: a chair. In addition, I had hoped for a cozy and private experience; the five-acre cemetery was empty except for one other person, also parked near Taopi’s grave, and enjoying a lunch inside her car. It shouldn’t have made a difference… it shouldn’t have, but it did.

Thwarted at every turn, I decided to drive on and pull over occasionally to get out and look at gravestones. I spoke aloud the names that I read; when I saw a particularly old marker I made a special effort to read the engravings that had become encrusted with lichen and were marred by age.

I keep an eye out for epitaphs: poems, Bible verses, etc. I saw one done in Braille and wondered what it said. Others were in German.

I took a few photos, but hadn’t been there long when nature began to call and I am, alas, at an age where that’s a call that can’t be ignored. Farewell, Maple Lawn!

Grave Musings shall return to this wonderful old cemetery…with a chair. And another post shall ensue.

Next: Grave Musings 2 Maple Lawn II

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025 Killed By A Joke

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I spent a couple hours today happily doing research on the cemetery I just visited with my friends Lori and Teresa. I took lots of photos of gravestones and was trying to see if I could find additional information on some of these people on the interwebs, even though they all died in the 1800’s (or most of them). I felt the lure of Ancestry.com, which would make my research so much easier. But Ancestry.com is Expensive.com, so for now I’m just taking the peasant’s approach by googling names and seeing what comes up. If you have a better idea that is still free, do let me know.

Anyway (I do get to blathering), in my researches, I came across a document of information about people who lived in our area back in the day. I didn’t have time to read them all, but as I was scanning down the list, my eyes were arrested by the headline “Killed By A Joke.” Let me share with you the sad story of what happened to poor Mrs. Mahamuel, as reported in The Aitkin Age on July 22, 1893.

“Mrs. Duhac, a widow daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mahamuel, was visiting her parents in Rice County. Joseph Duchene, a young farmer living in the vicinity, called one evening to see Mrs. Duhac. The young people in the neighborhood thought they would have some fun when they saw Joe go there, and went to Mahamuel’s residence to charivari the people. Mrs. Mahamuel, when she heard the horrible noises, went out to interview the crowd. They ran down the road and she followed them. About 15 minutes afterward one of the neighbors, who was passing by, found the old lady lying in the road dead, her face being buried in the dust.”

Well! They don’t write obituaries like that anymore! I had to look up “charivari,” so I’m going to assume you don’t know what that is either: “A mock serenade of discordant noises, made with kettles, tin horns, etc., designed to annoy and insult.” Rude.

I really want to give awkward kudos to the person who came up with the title “Killed By A Joke,” to describe the passing of Mrs. M. I’m still not actually sure how she died, are you? Did she die of fright? Overexertion? And why didn’t any of those young people help her out? How awful to have a prank go wrong in such a disturbing way. I respect Mrs. M. for getting off her comfortable chair to go “interview” the crowd. The way that’s phrased, you can almost imagine her out there like a roving reporter. “Could you tell me what your name is and why you are banging on kettles outside our home?” And then she followed them when they ran off! Yes, Mrs. M. had an admirable amount of moxie. I like to think of her fixing her steely eyes on those rabble rousing youth and scaring them off.

For man also knoweth not his time;
as the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare,
so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.
Ecclesiastes 9:12

Mrs. Mahamuel, the evil times fell suddenly upon you. I hope you were ready to meet your Lord.

I’ll probably bury this one in the dust in the morning.,

Tuesday, June 24, 2025 Designing and Dining

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Several of you put forth some ideas for my dilemma about wanting to step up a notch or two in the way I set my table for guests. Thank you! Here’s what I ended up with:

Flowers from our garden!

Now I find that a table setting mania has settled over me. One of you mentioned the idea of using a bold splash of yellow and I found a couple items that I might purchase in the future.

I was surprised to see that you can get attractive paper napkins like the above (which tells you just how far out of touch with this part of the world I’ve been). There’s some appeal to this because these don’t need to be washed and ironed.

Last but certainly not least, an old friend and loyal reader of this blog contributed a quilted table runner that she had made! It’s gorgeous! Thank you, Lori!

All in all, this has been a very rewarding experience and I’ve been blessed by your contributions. I thought you might like to hear (and see) the rest of the story. You just never know what’s going to show up on this blog, do you? I don’t, that’s for sure.

If the table runner doesn’t catch up with the napkins, I’ll be deleting this in the morning.

Monday, June 23, 2025 Summer Days and Tales of Posts to Come

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Oh, the joys of summer days! And yes, I still say that after we had two days of extreme heat and humidity.

Our Hallelujah Garden is full of gladsome color – photos and p’raps poems to come in future posts.

Last week with two friends I visited an old forgotten cemetery that has been uncovered and restored. Blog post to come. It’s been a long time since I posted in my Grave Musings series and I am looking forward to it.

After some feedback from faithful blog readers, I’ve gotten some items to dress up our dinner table when we have guests. Thank you! Photos and musings to come.

But at least today I can share with you some water coloring I’ve been doing lately.

No, that’s not for somebody named “Art,” although my father-in-law would qualify. I thought I might string those together and hang them somewhere in the craft room.

A butterfly and many dragonflies. I feel unsettled about the butterfly. It looks somewhat poorly proportioned. If you got that on a card in the mail, would you wonder why the butterfly is sagging a bit or would the gold paint distract you from all of its flaws?

The dragonflies were my attempt to follow a tutorial I found in which you put four dots of paint in a small square and make the dragonfly wings from those. The artist made it look so easy! You can infer from that statement anything you want.

You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11

Many words were deleted in the production of this post and perhaps more will be in the morning.

Monday, June 16, 2025 Baking in the Red Light

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I’d run across something on YouTube that talked about red light therapy (AKA low-level light therapy). I consulted with Dr. Google to learn more. RLT is touted to work on a cellular level to reduce inflammation to help with:

Joint pain relief
Nerve pain relief
Wound healing
Hair Loss
Brain and mental health
Anti-aging effect on the skin
Weight loss
Tendinopathy
Knee osteoarthritis
Plantar fasciitis pain
Chronic low back pain
Fibromyalgia pain

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? I did a search to see if anybody in our fair town featured red light therapy and found one place. This will probably be absurdly expensive, I thought to myself, but I called to inquire. “It’s $10 for one hour,” the receptionist told me. Only ten bucks? Sign me up!

I brought some books to read figuring there wouldn’t be much else to do during my hour of RLT. The receptionist showed me into the private room and showed me how to turn the light on, telling me that I could leave before the hour was up, but it cost $10 no matter what. For only $5 more you could also turn on the sauna which is supposed to help. I declined. See my previous post about being frugal.

I settled into the little room, put my books on the bench next to me and turned on the light. GAH!!!! My eyes! I felt like Gollum encountering the sun after living under a mountain for hundreds of years. “It’s too bright, precious!” Sitting there for an hour suddenly seemed very daunting, but I’m no quitter. I would be paying for one hour, I will sit here for one hour in my shorts and tank top to get maximum exposure to these healing rays.

I tried reading for a while, but it was dreadfully difficult to concentrate while under the piercing gaze of those lights. I think I would have confessed to just about anything, if asked. Normally you think of basking in the light, but this was more like baking. As the time went on I got really hot. I became obsessed with the idea that the receptionist had forgotten that I didn’t want the sauna on. “She turned it on by accident, that’s what happened,” I was muttering.

To succor myself, I sang all four stanzas of the the hymn “Rise Again Ye Lion Hearted,” which we had recently memorized. “Mid the lion’s roaring, songs of praise outpouring. Joyously they take their stand, on th’arena’s bloody sand.” I felt rather sheepish complaining about the glare and heat of the red light lamps while singing about the martyrs and their brave deaths in the coliseum. Also, I fervently hoped that no one could hear me singing.

Weirdly, after I finished singing, some sort of radio came on in the RLT room. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off and was unreasonably irritated by it. In fact, I was so hot I was unreasonably irritated by everything. I popped out of the room a couple times to cool off. The RLT room was a small glassed-walled room inside another room, so I still had my privacy.

The minutes seemed elongated, like some strange effect of the light. At last, the time was over. I got dressed (you don’t think I’m going to wander around town in shorts and a tank top at my age, do you?) and went out to pay the receptionist and ask about the sauna and the music. No, she hadn’t turned on the sauna. No, she hadn’t turned on the music. Hmmm.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! But not too soon. I don’t know if you can really get the effects from one hour of exposure, but I could see doing it 2-3 times a month. Next time I’ll know what to expect. And so will you.

I’ll probably expose this post to RLT in the morning. Maybe it will help.

Thursday, June 12, 2025 Too Frugal?

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What’s the difference between frugal and just plain cheap? I hope you can tell me.

I have a favorite purse. It’s not too big, it’s not too small. It’s a purse that would suit Goldilocks: it’s just right.

Into this happy fairy tale, a sad note must be interjected. The straps kept coming off of this nearly perfect purse. It seemed like too much work to try to sew them back in, so I used large safety pins for a while. Clearly I’m not driven by fashion.

Let’s switch to Cinderella. Like Cinderella’s shoe, the safety pins just did not want to stay and would occasionally pop off. And there would be my purse, on the floor looking sad. And with no handsome prince to pick it up, either.

I could order a replacement. The purse was less than $30 after all. But why should I throw away my Goldilocks purse just because the straps were like Cinderella’s shoe?

I went to a shoe repair store and asked them how much they’d charge to sew the straps back. They’d do it for $15. Very reasonable and only half the cost of buying a new one. Of course I did not agree to this reasonable cost. Why should I pay them $15 when I could still find a way to do it for free?

The purse wouldn’t fit under the foot of my sewing machine. I’d have to sew it by hand. I asked my husband to punch a small hole through the leather strap and the purse so I could fit a large needle through with extra tough thread. We are now in the Shoemaker and the Elves story, if you hadn’t figured it out, with my husband playing the part of one of the elves. I had to play the part of the other elf, the one who did the actual sewing. Those elves are completely underrated – it’s hard work. I’ve only completed one strap and the repair job looks ugly. Regrets, I’ve had a few.

Frugal or just plain cheap? You decide!

Sigh…I’ll probably pay you $15 to delete this in the morning.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025 Intriguing Enclosures

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What do these three books have in common? Aside from the fact that I received them as used books, very little…except for the fact that I found within each of them something left by the previous owner. I actually love it when that happens, so much so that I’m tempted to plant things purposefully in books we give away.

Here are the intriguing enclosures I found within:

The watercolor class book contained part of a letter written in thin, spidery handwriting and signed by Lisa. I read the letter – no simple feat with that handwriting – and found a reference to the topic at hand: “Thanks for the water color paper it’s so nice to have the real stuff as the paint behaves totally differently.” And later Lisa adds, “I’m amazed at what I’ve been able to learn from a book. I’m just so impatient!” She tells her correspondent of their plans to go to Athens, and then to Paris, Naxos and ___ on the way to Turkey. From a reference she makes later, it sounds like she’s traveling with her Dad. I’m imagining that she’s writing to her sister, or maybe a best friend, someone who gave her the Watercolor Class book, knowing she was going on an interesting world tour where she’d be exposed to a lot of art. I hope Lisa got more out of that book than I did. I might ending up giving it away, too, passing Lisa’s letter on to the next person.

The King’s Daughter (which I just read for the first time and LOVED) had a name inside the cover telling me that it was previously owned by a fellow named Andy. The book contained a tiny piece of paper on which is neatly printed the German words: “Ich habe ein Frage.” Very intriguing! I googled it and found out it means “I have a question.” Then I turned the piece of paper over and found the neatly printed words “I have a question.” Ha ha! I have a question, too. Andy, did you put that in the book because it was appropriate to the content? Are you learning German and making little flashcards for yourself, one of which got made into a tiny bookmark? Questions abound, Andy!

Lastly, the Peanuts cartoon was found in The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party. Sally says to Charlie Brown “What are the words you hate most to hear?” Snoopy thinks his answer: “You stay home now and be a good dog.” Perhaps the previous owner of the book was a dog lover who found Snoopy’s thoughts to resonate strongly based on his/her own dog. Or maybe it was just a random comic strip that was readily at hand to use as a bookmark.

If you’re a curious person like me, these little oddments are like finding a tiny pieces of treasure. What kinds of things have you found in used books? Do tell!

I’ll probably stuff this in a book and give it away in the morning.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025 Kissing Grandma’s Cheek

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This is yours truly kissing my Grandma Lois on the cheek. Now that I have grandchildren old enough to do that, I know what pleasure it must have given her.

Having a good laugh with my own granddaughter when she was about the age that I was in the above photo. I wonder if she thinks I’m as ancient as I thought my own grandmother was…

Musings…

I’ll probably delete this ancient blog in the morning.

Monday, June 9, 2025 Mr. & Mrs. Mallard plus a Rabbit named Willow

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We have a largish fountain in the front yard and a smallish one in the back (an embarrassment of fountain riches). For the first time in 20 years of living here, our tiny little ponds have attracted a pair of mallards.

Is it just me, or is her beak longer than his? Lately, the mister has been showing up by himself, which makes me wonder if his lady love is nesting nearby. Will they bring their darling ducklings to our pond? Is that a good thing? They’re fun to watch, but it’s not all glistening green necks and plump feathery bodies on orange legs and feet. They’re also leaving their ducky calling cards on the edge of our front fountain. What if their new habitat catches on and we have a veritable mallard tourism site in the years to come?

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’ve developed quite the relationship with a rabbit doe who likes our perennial garden. I call her “Willow.” You ask how I know she’s a she? I was privy to a very public courtship between Willow and an ardent admirer of hers. Although she rebuffed his advances, he kept chasing her around the garden. When he’s not around, she comes surprisingly close to me, perhaps it’s because I’ve honed my sedentary skills to an art and I seem more like an unmoving part of the garden landscape. As much as we’ve hit it off, I have strongly discouraged her attempts to build a nest in the garden by putting our scare owl in the hole she started to dig. Sorry, Willow. I like you but I can’t have you ruining our garden.

Willow eats our dandelions, which endears her to me.

I’ll probably use a scare owl to ruin this post in the morning.