A Fun Trip

The outside is covered in a mirror mosaic.

This weekend is a weekend at home. Yea! It seems since August, I have been gone at least every other weekend. Too much for me. It's hard to get traction on the things that need to get done at home when we're gone.

With that being said, here's one of the places we went recently with my father-in-law and his girlfriend, The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. We have visited here before, but I never get tired of going. It is a totally fascinating (some would say quirky) place. All of the works are by untrained artists who are doing the work more for the process than the product. We particularly wanted my FIL to go because he has made several things very similar to works we saw there. The dream would be to get some of his things exhibited. But that's a big project for another time.

To make things simpler, we did all the driving. A lot driving, but some of the best conversations happen in the car. :) As hoped everyone enjoyed the museum, especially my FIL, who by the end, was relating to some of the artists because he could tell they probably enjoyed making their creations as much as he does making his.

Here are a few pictures from the day. No flash allowed, so some of the pictures are kind of dark.

This is Fifi, the mascot of the museum. She goes to a lot of parades.

This entire wall was filled with quilt "squares" made from neckties.

This was in the OCD room where everything had a lot of detail. 
This room was my favorite.

If you look closely, you can see that this mosaic was done with Maxwell House coffee cans. Also notice the cafe coffee station in the background.

This is in the main lobby.

Don't remember the details of this one, but it was interesting to me.

They had a display of mostly wooden mechanical toys. Ward and his father were especially happy that the insides were exposed so they could study how they worked.

There was everything in this dino sculpture except the kitchen sink.
 It reminded me of an eye spy book.

A closer look at the above picture.

This sculpture outside the museum was moving all of the time.

You can walk through this creation.

So many more things to show, but I think this was enough to give you an idea of the fun we had at that day.

Note: If you go to the link above to a previous post about this museum, you'll get a little better idea of the philosophy of it.

And Then There Were Two *

Last Friday, our cat, Lucky, died. It was time. He lived a good 18 years.

We got Lucky. with his sister Lucy, as a young kitten from one of Theo's classmates. When Lucky, a black** kitten, was a few weeks old, he followed his mother out a door that closed on him before he was all of the way through. His family thought the slamming door had killed him, but no, Lucky had other ideas. When he came to us a few weeks later, he was a healthy, playful kitten that we named Lucky because of the good luck he had already had in his young life.

It was soon evident that he was the dominant cat over his litter mate Lucy, a sweet gentle girl. Three years later he remained the top cat when the other two cats, Leo and Annie, came into the house. Despite constant challenges from Annie, Lucky remained in charge. No need for swats or growls to keep the others in line. A stern look from him was all that it took.

As part of his leadership role, he was a leader in the food department. He was the one who got to eat first and the one who opened the food bag for the others. He could tear a hole in a new bag of food in no time flat. Then the others got to enjoy the spoils of his efforts. We tried to put the food away as soon as we got it, but he was amazingly fast at this trick.

He also got first crack at the prey that ventured into our house. He didn't bring the dead mouse or mole to us as many cats do, he hid them under one particular rug in the basement. The same rug that he did his trick of laying on his side and running around the edge of it. We don't know what all of that meant in cat behavior, but I guess he did.

Lucky was also a relaxed cat who enjoyed a good lap to purr on and a pat from anyone--stranger or not. Even the vet. That was until he had some medical problems that needed invasive procedures. After that, the the vet was not his friend. In fact, sometimes it took two or three of the most experienced people at the vet's to help Lucky with what he needed. Can't say that I blamed him. I wouldn't have been very happy with the people who poked and prodded me for no good reason that I could understand. But he and I survived as well as the other cats whom he hissed at for several days after they had been to the vet.

He was also our adventure kitty. All of our cats were indoor cats. They were curious about the outside, but happy to watch the show from a window. A door left open by mistake might get a cat creeping outside, but never a dash. So we couldn't figure out how and why we would occasionally find Lucky outside meowing at a window to come back in. He seemed happy, just ready to come inside for a little warmth. Sometimes he had been out all night and we didn't even know he was out there. He helped us figure out one time that we had a torn screen (maybe he tore it), but other times we never figured out how he made it out. But he always came back.

I have 18 years of stories to tell about Lucky, too numerous to tell all of them here. Let me just say that there is an emptiness in our house now that wasn't there last week. Lucky had a good long life that we are very grateful for and he will be missed.

*We now have two cats, Annie and Leo.

**On first glance, Lucky was a black cat. But a further look revealed more. Each one of his hairs was black tipped, but the rest of it was light grey often giving him a curious look. The vet called him a tabby because of the stripes on his tail and officially a Domestic Short Hair. We called him Lucky.

Post I Never Got Around To

I sometimes have an idea for post or take a picture for one that never quite makes it to the blog. It seems I get distracted by something and forget about my idea and move on.  Then while looking for something else, I run onto them. I find it hard to find the time to develop them all, so I thought I'd do some abbreviated versions before I forget about them again. Here is my first post in the Posts I Never Got Around To series. (I plan more, but we'll see.)

A Few Pictures From Around the Yard Over the Last Month, A Second Look so to speak.

You saw another picture of these cosmos in my last post, but I wanted to elaborate on one of the comments I made there. The local Girl Scout troop did a project on bees and one of the points they made was to plant plants that attract bees. To encourage that, they made bee bombs which were soil balls embedded with seeds. I wasn't sure what was in them, but this is what came up from my bombs. I think this would be a fun project for other kids. 

Stinkhorn fungi. I found these for the first time last year in another location in the yard. They come from little white puffballs in the ground. It will be interesting to see where they pop up next year.

I got two, small, inexpensive ($1.77 each) mums from Aldi's last year that came back quite nicely this year. I especially like their round form. 

We have yellow mums in the back that were there when we moved in.

They have continued to spread and fill quite a large spot. I want to do some more with this bed, but hate to disturb the mums because they are really happy in this location.

I was going to take more pictures to go with each one of these, but, well, you know.

Until next time... :)

Harpers Ferry

Last weekend, Ward and I wanted to get out of the house. We weren't in very good moods and thought a distraction was needed. After several considerations, we headed for Harpers Ferry, WV, which was about an hour or so from our house.

Harpers Ferry is a small historic town that is perhaps most famous for John Brown's Raid in 1859. Brown was an abolitionist and attacked a federal armory there hoping to start a liberation movement among the slaves. Things went badly for him and he was eventually hanged for treason.

However, there is more to see than the spot where Brown's raid took place. The town has many of the original houses that have been turned into museums. But this visit, we didn't go to study the civil war or way of life 150 years ago, we went to see a collapsible boat designed by Merriweather Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame. We have visited Harpers Ferry a few times over the years and had never heard of this boat. We saw it online and we were curious.

Harpers Ferry is a National Park and as national parks are so good at, they had a bus service to take us into town. The day was a little cold and windy (or refreshing as Ward would say) so I didn't take many pictures because my hands were in my pockets most of the time.  However, below are a few of them.

Harpers Ferry is interesting geographically. It is at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and is where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. We were not at a good angle for a shot, but this is where the two rivers meet.

The Appalachian Trail goes through the town, so Ward has visited the area more than I have on backpacking trips. Notice the railroad bridge in the background. There is a close up of it in the next picture.

There was a nice footbridge across the river next to the railroad tracks that we crossed to the other side to explore. However, something happened along the way back. I remembered I was afraid of heights and decided the best idea was to get back to solid ground as soon as possible. That's me hightailing it in the blue. Ward took his time examining how the bridge was built. He said the only thing that would have made it better was if a train had crossed while he was on it.

However, we did see three different trains throughout the afternoon. I enjoyed them along with Ward when I was on terra fima.

This is where John Brown's raid took place. Have you noticed that we're meandering a bit on our way to find the collapsible boat?

Not only did Lewis build his boat here, he secured other supplies for his trip.

The boat was to be carried with the other equipment and used in inaccessible areas where the wooden boats wouldn't go. The details of the boat did not photograph well, but you can get an idea of how big it was from Ward at the edge of the picture. The original boat was never found, but this replica was built from Lewis's notes.

The collapsible iron frame was covered with animal skins and sealed with pine tar. It did well in tests on the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry.  However, the exploration party didn't need to use the boat until Montana where there were no pine trees for tar to seal the seams. The other things they tried as sealants didn't work, so down it went. I was disappointed to hear that it didn't work, but probably not as much as Lewis and Clark and the others on the exposition. 

We came home in a better mood and did a little of our own exploring in our yard where we found these cosmos that seemed to have gown a foot overnight.