Summer Public Service Announcements

 With summer in full swing, I have a couple of reminders about safety. These are not new messages but ones that resonate with me because of personal experiences.

Be careful of thunderstorms. Remember, lightning can strike ten miles away from where you hear thunder. I witnessed this one afternoon after a brief thunderstorm that moved quickly through the area. When we thought it was gone, lightning struck a tree beside our house. You can read about the details here. We were very happy that no one was hurt, although Theo felt a tingling go through his arm, and many things in our house got fried. 

Wear Sunscreen and have regular dermatologist visits. A close friend was recently diagnosed with melanoma. Luckily, it was in situ (hadn't spread into her body), but from under the one little red spot that was visible on her cheek, it had spread from ear to nose and up to her eyelids. Removing the cancerous cells was a painful, involved ordeal, but luckily, she's going to be okay. She had regular checks with the dermatologist, so the melanoma was caught just in the nick of time. If she hadn't been vigilant about keeping appointments, hers would be an entirely different story. And if sunscreen had been around when we were kids, she might not have had this problem at all. (BTW, there's a lot of misinformation going around about the safety of sunscreen. Talk to your doctor to get the real facts.)

There are many more ways that we need to be careful with summer activities, but those are my warnings for today.

Now, go have fun - Safely!

Until next time...

Speed blogging. It rained!

My timer is on 13 minutes today from whatever I was timing previously. Let's see where my stream of consciousness takes me for the next 13 minutes. 

Not from my yard but from our early morning walk in Frederick last week.
The coneflowers in our yard are being eaten by some hungry insects as soon as they bloom.

It's a quiet Sunday morning. Ward is still sleeping, and I miss having fussy cats yelling about their breakfast being late - no matter what time it is. A peek out the window reveals puddles in the driveway. Glorious puddles! We finally had real rain last night - over an inch. Hurray! The thunder started to rumble at bedtime, but I didn't mind because along with it came a real downpour. With the heat and no rain, we've been watering, trying to help the plants cope. For the first time ever, we emptied our entire rain barrel. Now, they have gotten the deep drink they deserve.

Also, from our walk. Our Black-eyed Susans haven't bloomed yet.

More storms are predicted for the afternoon. I think it will be a good day to focus on things inside. We've been using early mornings to work in the yard. We're making good progress on the two-page list we have. Trees have been trimmed, flowers planted, beds edged, bushes trimmed, beds mulched, and plants watered. Despite attention, some plants, including the grass, look pretty stressed from the heat. The heat has turned much of it brown, and the twice-a-week mowing has turned into no mowing. That's one reason we have had time for some of the other yard chores. I have a feeling that last night's rain will change that. 

Another picture from our walk.

In the garden, I have pulled the broccoli and peas. Ward built a nice frame around the broccoli to keep the cabbage butterflies out. Didn't work. They found their way in anyway. Luckily, we got good heads off the plants before the caterpillars started feasting. The side shoots were not so lucky. Oh, well. It was getting too hot for the broccoli anyway. 

I also pulled the pea vines. We got a good crop of peas this year with a couple of meals, and I froze some. We have small zucchini forming and many green tomatoes. And true to form, the deer found the tomatoes and carefully pruned the top 1/3 of all the plants. If that's all they do, that's okay. I'm willing to share. Like I have a choice. :)

Well, there goes my timer.

Until next time...

Feline Friday

 Danielle at Sweet Tea Reads is participating in Feline Friday, where you post a picture of a cat, real or imagined. Even though we don't have cats anymore, I do have a few pictures from owning them for decades, so I'm playing along.

A cat and his bag.
Not only was Lucky in charge of this bag,
 he was the king of the other cats when we had four.

An Early Morning Walk

 I had a couple of days off in a row this week and felt like doing a staycation. However, the weather was too hot for several things we first considered. And other things were closed on the days available to us. After searching, we decided to do the Public Art Trail in Frederick, MD. Frederick is a small city (pop. 78,000) founded in 1745. It is steeped in history and has an active arts council. 

We set out at 7:30 am to beat the heat. It was pleasant in the shade, but it was getting hot by the time we finished an hour and a half later. Not only did we find everything on the tour, but we also saw several historical houses and other murals and sculptures that were not featured. We definitely want to explore more in the future.

If you want, you can join me for the tour we took. I have posted more pictures than I usually like to, so no problem if, at some point, you want to skip ahead to the end. 😀

Community Bridge. This bridge was hand-painted over five years, with symbols of the community spread throughout the stones. Those are not stones and a gate you are seeing. It's all paint on a flat surface.

Iron Bridge. It is hand-forged and represents flora and fauna found along the creek it crosses.

Marie Diehl Memorial Drinking Fountain. The fountains honor Deihl, the founder of the Frederick Humane Society. It has drinking fountains for people, horses, and dogs.
 And they all work!

Zodiac Sculptures. There is a similar one on the other side. They are intended to connect time, universe, and humanity.

Edge of Gravity Mural. This is one of three of Angels in Architecture. The image depicts a person of indeterminate age, gender, and race attired in clothing from 1745 when Frederick was founded. 

Charity the Dog. This cast iron statue has been on this property since the 1850s.
 (It's an 1820s building.)

John Hanson Statue. Hanson served as the first President of the US in Congress after the Articles of Confederation were ratified.

Becky the Calf sculpture. This bronze statue of a calf pays homage to the cattle that used to graze along this creek.

The Spire. This was made to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Baker Park. It is made from agricultural machine parts to reflect Frederick County's agricultural history. The spire represents the clustered spires in the poem Barbar Fritchie by Whittier.

Victory, WWI monument. This was in Memorial Park, which had several monuments to people who had served in different wars.

Guess, Greyhound Sculpture. Cast iron sculpture replica of original marble one carved in 1839. Supposedly, the young girls who lived at the house would say, "Guess" when asked their dog's name.

Clarke Fountain. That's Cain and Able on top playing. It was originally built in the late 1890s and was rebuilt in 1965.

Dinosaur Mural. This is a large mural (30'x150') on the side of a parking garage in a narrow alley. It was a fun mural that depicted dinosaurs doing winter sports.

Earthbound Mural. This is the second mural of the series of Angels in Architecture.

Angels in Architecture Pheasant. This is on the same building
 and on the same side as the one above.

Egress Mural. The third installment of Angels in Architecture features
 a wood duck entering the streetscape. 

Until next time...

Happy West Virginia Day

 Today, we celebrate the day West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863. As most of you know, I grew up in West Virginia--a fact that I'm very proud of. West Virginia is not large in either size or population, so not many people know much about it. Or they only "know" what they've seen on TV or in the movies. Let me see if I can give a brief summary of what West Virginia is like.

Like most other places, West Virginia has many different kinds of people and ways of life-- especially since our two panhandles reach far into other areas. Go to the northern part of the state, and it is like the Northeast. Go to the far eastern part of the state and you'll identify with Washington, D. C. Take a trip to the southern reaches, and you are definitely in the South. And when you're in the far west, you are in the Midwest. If you grew up in the middle part of the state, like I did, you can choose whatever you want to identify with because there are bits of everything.

Also, like most other places, there are rich people and there are poor people. There are well-educated people, and there are poorly-educated people. There are people who like grits and ramps and others who don't like them at all (that would be me). But I'd say that almost everyone likes biscuits.

Besides biscuits, there are other things that bind the state together. People here have a connection to the land. This is where they hunt and fish, and where they grow their vegetables and graze their cows or goats. They appreciate things from the past, such as quilting and dulcimer playing. They also appreciate the beauty around them. Whether it is hilly terrain of hills and hollows (hollers) or long mountain ridges with long stream valleys, it's all very scenic. The people of West Virginia are a very resilient group of people. Life has not always been easy for many people here, but they find a way to keep going.

But the thing that strikes me the most about West Virginia is the friendliness of the people. I have found friendly people everywhere I lived, but not always the comfortable friendliness that I have experienced with the people of West Virginia. I hadn't realized this until a young Theo asked me a question one day as we were traveling back to visit his grandparents. He said, "What makes everyone so friendly where Grandad and Grandma live? It's different from where we live." I started to notice that he was correct.

So there you have it. I have just summarized 24,230 square miles of land, 1.77 million people and over 150 years of the history of West Virginia in just a few paragraphs. Maybe another time, I'll tell you more.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But wait, there's more:

Want to learn some interesting facts and trivia about West Virginia? Visit here.

Until next time...