Time Flies, Sometimes

I turned around yesterday and realized that some how, it was the end of October. How could that be? In my mind, I just finished July. Time is a funny thing. It's a constant, but it seems to speed up and slow down at different times. How does that work? I stumbled across an article that gives a little insight to this question.

It all relates to the way we process things in our brain, according to a study done in Munich, Germany and reported by Scientific American. Researchers interviewed 499 people from ages 14-94 about their perception of time.They found that in short durations up to a year, for all ages, time seems to go fast--especially when they were having fun. The difference seemed to come when time was examined in retrospect. Time from childhood seemed to have gone slowly, while time from later years (over 40) seemed to go much faster.

Here's how the researchers explained this phenomenon. The brain lays downs memories for novel experiences. However, it doesn't do that for familiar ones. So when you experience a lot of new things, like everything in childhood, there are a lot of memories to go with that time period. However, when you experience fewer new things, like much of adulthood, you have fewer memories. So the same time period can seem either long or short depending on how many memories you have associated with it.

I'm not sure this explains how time seemed to jump from July to October, but it does explain some other things like why I remember and quote more things from my childhood that any other time. This subject needs more examination. When I have time. :)

Do you notice time in different ways?

Joe

or It Was a Privilege

Saturday, Ward and I went to a memorial service for a former neighbor, Joe. Joe lived a long, good life and died at the age of 92. When the service was over, a friend through her tears, said that we all need to know someone like Joe.

Joe grew up on a farm in Virginia and served in WW II receiving both a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service. He married his sweetheart, Patsy, and had four children. Joe was no stranger to hard work and often worked two jobs to provide for his family. He sometimes bartered and did additional work to provide extras for his kids like piano lessons and braces. Joe stressed the importance of education to his children, but also told them that common sense beats book learning every time. He was an active member of his church and used his faith to help him through some of the difficult times in his life.

We got to enjoy the fruits of Joe's labor.

When we first met Joe and his wife, Patsy, they were retired but living an active life. They were the first ones to welcome us to the neighborhood with a plate of brownies and we became fast friends. Joe spent time with Wally and Theo showing them some of his things from WWII and telling them of his experiences. He also showed them his favorite saddle and told them stories about his time on the farm.

Joe hadn't lived on a farm for a long time when we moved to the neighborhood, but it seemed that once a farmer, always a farmer. He could usually be found outside tending to one plant or another. Joe planted an acre of garden for just he and Patsy. Well, actually, he and Pasty, and his friends, and his neighbors. We could always depend on Joe for a steady supply of fresh vegetables during the summer.

I think that I always felt a special connection to Joe because he reminded me of my father. Joe and my father were the same age and both grew up on a farm. They loved being outside and they both felt there was no need to do something unless you were going to do it big and well. Their gardens were a perfect example of that. And as they aged, they also found a way to keep doing what they wanted, sometimes to the dismay of those around them. Below is a perfect example of that.

After Patsy died, Joe's kids worried about their dad being home alone because he had his own set of health problems at this point. They got him a golf cart to use as he checked on his garden, etc. I think that his kids thought the cart would lessen the chance that he would fall while he was roaming around on his three acres. I was surprised, but Joe used his cart faithfully. However, one day I looked out the window and Joe was on the top of a ladder with a chainsaw trimming one of his big trees. No spotters, no help, just a man doing what he thought had to be done. I went across the street and told him that I was there on behalf of his children and they didn't approve of what he was doing. However, I got a big chuckle from it and admired the fact that he was going to keep doing what he liked as long as he could.

I couldn't agree with my friend more. We all need to know or to have known someone like Joe. Someone who valued hard work. Someone who was faithful to his family and church. Someone who put his life on the line for his country. And someone who provided his neighbors with a steady supply of fresh vegetables. I am very happy that I had the privilege to know one of those people.

A Second Look--October 12, 2017

or Busy Bees and Other 6-legged Creatures

Fall is officially here according to the calendar and the weather is slowly following along. Overall, we've had warmer than usual temperatures which is okay by me because I'm still trying to catch up on yard work that needs to be done before everything goes dormant. The leaves of some trees are starting to change and others are going straight to the turn brown and drop stage because of lack of rain this fall. With fewer things in bloom now, the bees seem more concentrated on the fall blooming flowers. One of the things I noticed earlier here in the new yard were fewer bees. Now I wonder if I was comparing different seasons in my mind and not realizing it.

Without further ado, here are a few things I saw recently during a Second Look.

We inherited some very healthy mums outside our backdoor and they are giving quite a show.

The bees are enjoying the mums.

As are the moths...

And the flies.

The patio tomatoes are still giving us tomatoes for salads in the evening.

The osteospermum continue to bloom.

As do the ever-faithful marigolds. The bees like them, too. 

But I do not like the European Hornets that are eating the bark off our lilac bushes.

Yesterday morning was dark and dreary and I found this bumblebee sleeping on a purple sage plant.

And close by, I saw a cricket. I'm wondering if this is the one that sounds so loud at night.

Many trees are still green, but some are starting to change colors.

The leaves have already fallen off this pear tree revealing an interesting bird's nest. It's very messy which suggests a sparrow built it, but it doesn't have the coarser material that I've usually seen in sparrows' nests. I'm still waiting on Aunt Martha for an ID.

Family Reunion

or An Interesting Question

Last weekend I went to a family reunion on my father's side of the family. Besides the normal catching up, there was a theme throughout the day. How did your parents meet? This all started because I found a newspaper clipping in one of my mother's scrapbooks about my oldest aunt's wedding in 1948. It got me thinking that I had heard the story about how my parents had met, but none of the accounts of how my aunts and uncles first got together. I asked around and heard bits and pieces of stories from various cousins about their parents. However, I was able to get one of the stories straight from the source--Aunt Debbie and Uncle Alan.

Uncle Alan at the time he met Aunt Debbie
(minus the leather jacket.)

Debbie and Alan told the story of when they first laid eyes on each other at a church Christmas play. Upon seeing my uncle standing at the back of the church in a leather jacket, my aunt declared that was the man she going to marry. It didn't seem to matter that her fiancee at the time was sitting right beside her. They wove a quite colorful story of the complications of fiancees and girlfriends with my aunt even telling my uncle that she was engaged, but only on weekends.

While I immensely enjoyed the tale of their first meeting and courtship, there was another part that I found even more interesting. My aunt asked each one of her suitors, including my uncle, a curious question, "If you were going to build a city, what would you do?" Among other things, Uncle Alan answered that he would design one like Washington, D.C., with a center circle and streets going out like spokes from there. I commented to my aunt that that must have been an acceptable answer and she said that Alan was the only one who ever gave her an answer. Her fiancee said she was never going to build a city, so it didn't matter.

Then I asked the obvious question, why did she ask about building a city? Aunt Debbie said that it told her if the suitor could make a plan and if they could dream about the future. I found that very smart of her to question her boyfriends in that way. It seemed to be a good test because she and my uncle have been married for almost 62 years now.

I was not nearly so clever as my aunt, but I had a question for Ward, too, before we got married. I asked him that if we had problems, would he go to a counselor with me? He said that of course he would. Then there was my follow up question, "Would you go even if I thought we had problems but you didn't?" Well, he gave the right answer to that one also and here we are thirty some years later. Luckily, I haven't had to take him up on his promise yet.

Did you have any specific questions for someone with whom you thought you might spend the future? Is there a question you wished you had asked?

Note: You've heard it many times before, but I'll say it again. Now is the time to learn your family stories. My Uncle Alan is the only one left of my father's eight siblings. I wish the others were here to ask the same question about their meeting, but they're not. Who knows what other stories we might have to add to this one if I had talked to them earlier.

PawPaw Festival, Part 2

or What you get if the Three Little Pigs had built one house all together.

Last post I talked to you about the Pawpaw festival I went to recently. Besides doing all things Pawpaw, we got to explore the grounds and see the sustainable farming methods being practiced on the farm where the festival was held. We also saw the farm house that I'll show you today.

The circular, round-timber framed, strawbale house was built using local resources and was finished about a year ago. Mike, the farmer, his wife, and son are living there now. Fortunately, we were able to go on a tour of the house. Well, sort of. There were so many people who showed up for the tour, that moving around the house was difficult. So Mike gave us an overview and let us walk around on our own. Sometimes it was difficult to get a good picture because of the crowd, but I think below you can get an idea of what the house was like.

The house has a main level and a loft. It also has a green/living roof that helps with absorbing the summer sun and insulating during the winter. It was quite a hot day when we were there and even with all of the people inside, it was pleasant.

It was a busy day for Mike, so he ate his lunch as he told us about the house. The kitchen is behind him with concrete counter tops.

The house was framed with tulip poplar timbers harvested from the farm. On the right you can see a bit of the balcony that they used as a reading area. Also, you can see the high windows which help with climate control.

The walls are all straw covered with plaster. This porthole gives a peak into them. The plaster was made of clay, sand, wheat paste, fine straw, and the secret ingredient to make it white-Charmin toilet paper. Apparently Charmin has fine microfibers in it that makes it a good match for the plaster.

The earthen floors were made of clay, sand, and straw and were hand troweled on. After the floors set, they were coated with linseed oil and finally wax.

The bathtub and shower.

The fireplace has a soapstone stove insert that keeps the house warm all night with one armful of firewood. In the summer, Ward found it a good place to sit.

There were two bedrooms, this one for his son, and one for his parents.

You can go to Mike's website if you want to see more details or see pictures of the house being built.