Every state park must have its claim to fame, and at Interstate State Park in Taylor’s Falls, Minnesota, theirs is potholes. Yes, potholes! This seems so appropriate in Minnesota, the Land of Potholes. Of course, the potholes at Interstate are like regular potholes on steroids. They were formed by melting glaciers, which created “fast moving whirlpools of swirling sand and water that wore deep holes into the rock.”
Oh, and by the way, there’s a matching state park across the St. Croix River in Wisconsin with the same name: Interstate, which I suppose explains the name. But does theirs have potholes? If so, I bet our potholes are deeper and bigger (this is called state rivalry and I don’t indulge in it very often).
Me: All the kids are grown and gone and I’m not working anymore. I’ll have oodles of time to do various hobbies and crafts!
Also me: Where does all the time go?
This is my quaint way of saying that not much got done in the Workshop this week, although I did finish those mittens and passed them on. My life is a combination of actual busy-ness and inefficient use of time.
I did work on the watercolor pages for my last cemetery visit. That was part of my “Grave Musings” project – I bought a watercolor blank pages journal and had thought that for each visit I’d do a two-page spread. It’s probably just as well that I haven’t been to many of the cemeteries on my list. Doing the artsy part is rather time consuming and never turns out like I had pictured it in my mind’s eye. Still, it’s all I’ve got, so here we go:
Good luck reading that tiny writing on your phones!
I’ll probably delete this in my workshop in the morning – it might be the only thing that gets done all week.
Can anyone say “sedentary?” I’ll admit that I’ve never been a big fan of moving around a lot, being one of those people for whom the word “sedentary” is actually a positive thing. Give me a good book and a comfortable chair and I’m pretty much done for the day.
Gym class was never a favorite of mine, not being one of the naturally athletic kind. At my elementary school the gymnasium had fat ropes that dangled from the ceiling and we were supposed to learn how to climb them. There were a lot of monkeys in our class that no sooner touched the rope than they were merrily making their way to the top. How I envied those limber people. My experience was more on the order of trying to climb a greased pole. I couldn’t seem to get a good grasp on that rope and when I did, my arms lacked the necessary musculature to pull myself up.
I almost forgot about the old blog post today. I met a friend for a picnic lunch somewhere and it doesn’t take much to throw me off my groove. However, I do have something of interest to share with you married ladies.
I’ve been reading through Paradise Lost by John Milton for the first time. It’s a bit tough now and again – an epic poem consisting of 12 “books” and each book consisting of about 900-1000 verses. Phew! I’m taking it very slowly. This morning I read about how Milton envisioned Adam trying to wake his wife up after their sleep in the Edenic bower (this is before the fall). Here’s how it went:
“Awake, my fairest, my espoused, my latest found, Heaven’s last best gift, my ever-new delight, Awake; the morning shines and the fresh field calls us.
I just want each of you to stop for a moment and try to imagine your husbands waking you up like that. It’s an entertaining thought, isn’t it? Since sin hadn’t yet entered the world, Eve responded pretty well:
O sole, in whom my thoughts find all repose, My glory, my perfection, glad I see Thy face and morn returned…
It turns out she’d had unsettling dreams because Satan had been whispering in her ear. But that’s another story. I just wanted you to know the correct response if your husband should choose to quote Milton to you some morning to wake you up. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I’m guessing that some of you wouldn’t even think of responding unless your husband had a cup of coffee with him whilst calling you his fairest and ever-new delight.
Now I know why we’re supposed to read the classics!
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, when the fresh field is calling me.
When you see a bird on a wire, you can ask all kinds of questions. Like, why, little birdie, do you want to sit on that nasty sterile wire, rather than on a nice woody branch? How is it that you don’t slip right around that thing and hang like a gymnast from the bottom? Are you just resting for a moment, or is this going to be a long perch while you gaze into the infinite sky? What’s it like to be up there while we plod along below? Why do you fly away when I stop to look up?
Unless you are walking in the pages of a fiction book, the bird will not answer you. Not in words. But if you think about it long enough, you will realize that you don’t need answers. The bird tells the same story every day, just like every other creature in this beautiful created world. He tells the story of His Maker. And that’s the story you need to be telling, too.
So where did Fiction Friday go? If you think about it long enough, you’ll realize that you don’t need the answer to that.
If you see this post sitting like a bird on a wire, it’s a sure sign that it will be deleted in the morning.
I’m ready to start the next felt animal in the project book: Purslane, the Hedgehog! I’m open to other names, by the way. Purslane is an ubiquitous weed that also has medicinal properties – you’ve got it all over your yard, no doubt. Does the name fit our new friend?
I’ve got everything I need to start working on this furry little creature…except for the fur! The pattern calls for “hedgehog fur fabric.” I’m here to tell you that this is not a stock item at Joann’s. I only need a small swatch (6×5 inches). Got any ideas? Do any of you happen to have hedgehog fur lying around in your house?
I’m going to go all girlie on you here: I think hedgehogs are ADORABLE!!!
Now that it’s starting to cool off a little bit, I’ve dusted off my knitting needles and am continuing some work on a pair of mittens I started last winter to donate to a friend’s afterschool program.
What you don’t see when you look at them is their unique soundtrack. In the same “dusting off” theme, I have rediscovered our record album player and have been systematically playing our albums while knitting. This has been quite an eclectic playlist, ranging from Men At Work (Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive; It’s A Mistake) to Verdi’s Requiem (Dies Irae, Dies Illa…Rex Tremendae Majestatis…). I sang the Verdi Requiem as part of a 300-member choir in college. I had to stop knitting a few times because I was becoming so verklempt (I love that word!) listening to it.
I’m catching up with myself in the Psalm Project. It’s been fun coloring in the pages that I did six years ago, but it’s looming on the horizon that I’ll have to start creating new ones, soon. Hold my feet to the fire, people!
How kind of you to read through to the end. I have the best blog readers in the world!
I’ll probably delete this when I find hedgehog fur, which might require a door-to-door search in the neighborhood. How’s that for creepy?
Early on in our Italy experience some years ago, we found ourselves at the Milano Centrale train station, which was huge, hot, crowded and confusing – but quite a work of art!
We decided to get some food before going on to our destination. There were shops and little places to eat all over the station, so we chose a place called “Bistrot Centrale,” which appeared to be a cafeteria style place with many little stations. We looked over the menu posted at the entrance and while Kris wanted a sandwich of some sort, the Caesar salad with chicken looked really good to me. Simple, right?
I approached the counter and said, “Vorrai un Caesar Salad e un croissant simplice, per favore.” I thought I was doing pretty well with the language, but the woman looked vaguely exasperated and did not appear to speak English. She pointed away from her counter when I asked again about the Caesar salad, so I got the idea that I couldn’t get a salad from her. Kris decided to get a sandwich and my croissant from the sandwich lady and I went down to the other end to enquire about the salad, although none of the stations had a sign saying “Insalata.”
I approached another counter somewhat nervously and discovered that the young man there spoke some English – hallelujah! I asked again about the Caesar salad and he assured me I had come to the right place. He beckoned me down to the end of the counter and indicated that one bowl had the basics (lettuce, tomatoes) and I could choose from the other bowls to build my own salad. Visions of a Caesar salad began to dissipate as I looked over the choices. He indicated that I could choose one meat (of 3) and either olives or walnuts. None of the meats were recognizable, so I asked him what they were. “Octopus, swordfish and ________.” I didn’t recognize the last word, but it looked like sardines. PASS. “Could I have olives AND nuts if I skip the meat?” I also chose edamame and corn. We found a place to sit and enjoyed the meal, but I never did understand why I couldn’t order a food item that was on the menu. Just one of the hazards of doing business in a foreign country, I guess.
We still had about an hour to kill before our train departed and there were 3 levels to explore. First we needed to find a bathroom – how hard can that be in a huge public place like this? We looked for obvious signs (the universal bathroom sign), but didn’t see any, so we went to a display that showed a schematic for each floor. Finally we spotted one on our floor and went off to find it. Dead end – it wasn’t where we thought it would be. In desperation, we went back to the Bistrot Centrale, and while Kris wandered through the place looking for a sign, I stopped and asked the woman at the front cash register. She was very friendly and proceeded to give me instructions in a mixture of Italian and English.
She pointed down toward the end of the restaurant and said something about stairs. Then she said “48A” and made sure I understood it by holding up 4 fingers, then 8 fingers and then made an “A” with her fingers. Oh boy, this was sounding rather complicated. Then she said something about “3.” When she finished, she asked me if I’d understood everything. I had no idea what she was talking about, but figured if I told her “no,” she’d just start up with the same inscrutable instructions. I assured her confidently that I understood and went in the direction she had indicated.
Kris hadn’t been successful yet, so I told him I’d gotten the scoop, hoping it would make sense as we went along. Sure enough, we found an elevator and stairs. We got on the elevator and went to the 3rd floor, figuring that must have been the “3.” We went down a hallway and found a door leading to bathrooms, both of which were locked and had a keypad. “Oh, it’s a code!! – press 48A!” Sure enough, that got us in. This felt like a major victory, I’ll tell you.
On the train in Italy
This has been Tuesday True Stories with Lynniebeemuseoday. Another true story is that we studied Italian for months before going on this trip and I don’t remember any of it now, except “ciao!”
I’ll probably delete this when the sun comes up in Italy.
Years ago, my daughter Ruth and I decided to go exploring in the area around our house, so we drove off and took random turns, ending up on a gravel road in the country that wound around through corn fields and past old farms. At a lonely crossroads, we found a small cemetery, well-tended, but looking a little neglected nonetheless. We got out and wandered for a bit, took some photos, and went on our way.
I tucked it away in my mind as a place to which I’d like to return and it went on my list of local cemeteries last year when I decided to try to visit all the cemeteries in our town and surrounding countryside. My ambitious schedule was to visit 20 cemeteries in one summer. I made it to three.
A few weeks ago my niece was coming down for a visit and and I had a fun idea to do a cemetery scavenger hunt with her at Denison Cemetery where Ruth and I had gone before. Don’t worry, she’s used to my strange ideas of fun and is a pretty good sport about it.
I did a little research before she arrived, but didn’t come up with much, other than finding a list of those buried there and the dates. I looked it over, did some speculating and deducing and came up with the following scavenger hunt list:
1. First burial: Denison Baby Girl, March 6, 1853, daughter of James and Mary. 2. Last burial: Elberta Nichols Denison 1906-1988. 3. Possible founders of the cemetery: James Denison and Mary McEachran Denison. Did they start the cemetery to have a place to bury their infant daughter? 4. Interesting deaths noted: Shirlie Tripp Fulton – drowned; Andreas Swanson – killed by horses. 5. Eddie Castle 1878 -1883. Only five years old when he died. Probably not all that unusual, but I was drawn to his name and age.
It all looked so easy on paper, but in reality, when we got there we realized that a lot of the gravestones were so old you couldn’t read what was on them anymore. We found a few on our list, but mostly just wandered around taking photos and noting interesting epitaphs.
Grace was a good cemetery sleuth!
Scavenger List #1. We didn’t find Baby Girl Denison, who died in 1853, but we found her older brother. Does that name look like “Lurton D” to you? I’ve never heard of that name. He would have been born before his baby sister, but died On August 28, 1862 when he was 16 years and 17 days. How sad for James and Mary, the parents, but they had hope of seeing Lurton again. The poem below reads: “We’ll meet again when storms are o’er, The ills of life are past Where trials rend the heart no more, We’ll meet, we’ll meet at last.”
Lurton died during the Civil War – is it possible he joined up without his parents’ permission and died in battle? You’d think that would have been noted. Still the Civil War would certainly have been a dark storm and trial hanging over the whole country at the time.
Scavenger List #2. Elberta Nichols Denison.
We noted that that there were later burials than hers, so I guess the list I had looked over was not up to date.
Scavenger List #3. Possible founders James and Mary Denison.
James married an older woman! I wonder how common that was? If I’ve done my math right, Mary McEachran was born around March 19, 1812, so she was 8 years old when James was born. There were lots of Denisons in the cemetery, so if James and Mary weren’t the founders, there were plenty of other candidates. My money’s on them, though.
Scavenger List #4 Shirlie Tripp Fulson and Andreas Swanson.
Shirlie was only 13 years old when she drowned. What a blow for her parents and family! We couldn’t find the gravestone for Andreas Swanson who was killed by horses at 87 years of age in 1911. We also never found the gravestone for Eddie Castle, the little 5 year old boy who died in 1883.
Our house was built by a Spitzack – it’s a common name around here. I was intrigued by the DIY nature of the engraving on his stone. It sort of looks like the Spitzacks couldn’t afford to pay a marker company to do the engraving, doesn’t it? There were two Spitzacks side by side, both of them with these home-made looking engravings. Neither of them had death dates either. Benhart’s says 1908 – 19___. Hmmm. Seems unlikely Benhart is still with us.
Note that the tree on Flora’s stone is similar to the one above on Lurton’s. I did a little research and believe these are weeping willow trees, which of course suggest grief and sorrow. However, “the weeping willow is also associated with the gospel of Christ, because the tree will flourish and remain whole no matter how many branches are cut off.” (Source: Stories in Stone by Douglas Keister)
Intrigued by the name “Sep”
When you enter a cemetery, you enter a little village where the residents can only tell you so much, just the essential bits of data that can be scraped onto stone. And as the years go by, those voices fade.
Thanks for joining me for another cemetery ramble.
“Ah, this is the life,” Figgy thought to himself as he drifted along the river close to the shore in the Lucky Lucy. Miss Agra and Grimpus Leatherfoot were still keeping company with him, but since the boat wasn’t large enough for them all, the two of them walked alongside the river bank, occasionally disappearing into the woods to forage for nuts and berries. Agra had brought along a nice tent that Grimpus carried for her. It was getting toward fall and the weather was perfect – just a touch of crisp in the morning. So Agra slept in the tent, Grimpus slept wherever it is that bears sleep (do they sleep? Sometimes Fig and she conferred on this topic and agreed that they’d never actually caught him at it) and Figgy preferred to sleep in the boat.
On this particular day, Agra and Grimpus had gone off exploring and Fig was enjoying the steady musical buzzing of the cicadas. In fact, he was singing along with them, not that they could tell. It was a rousing old ditty that was a favorite of frog mothers to sing to their tadpoles, called “You’ll be Jumping Soon.” It went like this:
Oh dear little tadpoles With your wriggling tails And your stubby growths That will turn into toes
Keep eating the algae And the duckweed, too And before you know it, You’ll be jumping soon.
Just look at your papa How high he can jump But he started like you With nary a stump
Keep eating bug larvae And green mosses, too And before you know it, You’ll be jumping soon.
Fig was quite pleased at how well the tune went with the bass notes laid down by the cicadas. He was getting ready to launch into another rendition of it, when he detected a rhythmical “whump, whump, whump…” sound that puzzled him. Before he even had a chance to investigate, something hit him in the head and knocked him right out of the boat!
He came up sputtering and was shocked to see a fox gathering up out of the water a sash with two large balls on the ends, and calmly getting into his boat and shoving off with the oars.
“Wait! You can’t take my boat!” Fig cried out in dismay. The fox tied his sash around his waist and turned to face him. “Allow me to introduce myself – I am Phineas Fox, and although I sincerely regret relieving you of your handsome boat, I am in need of it.” A nice little speech, indeed, for a thief! Fig swam furiously to catch up to the boat with the intention of jumping in to re-take it, but as soon as he got close, he was rewarded with a clap on the head from one of his own traitorous oars. He reeled back, somewhat stunned and clambered up on the bank, watching his beloved Lucky Lucy being rowed away with admirable speed.
“Oh, by the way,” Phineas Fox called out, his voice getting harder to hear as he started to disappear from view around the next bend, “your singing was top notch! I quite enjoyed the concert! Ne’er fear – I’ll return your fine boat to you when I’m done with it!”
And with that he was gone. And Fig Newton sat on the side of the river, bereft.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Oh, that dastardly Phineas Fox and his bola!
This has been Fiction Friday with Lynniebeemuseoday.
The chickadee had An unintended meeting With a pane of glass
The saddest part of the story was that when I got up to look out the window to see what had caused the “thunk” sound, I looked down and saw a little live chickadee sitting next to the body of the unfortunate one, almost as if it were waiting for the dead chickadee to rise up and fly away. It was strangely poignant.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, eagerly awaiting the flight of the chickadee.
