Our life in Oregon's Willamette Valley bounded by the Cascade Range to the east, the Oregon Coast Ranges to the west, and the Calapooya mountains to the south.
The last day of May was the perfect day for an afternoon drive over to the beach. It was sunny, in the 60’s, and a 14 mph wind that floated Marvin’s Tuskegee Red Tail Kite perfectly. We also found some nice agates along the water line. After a couple hours of kite flying, at Taft Beach in Lincoln City, we drove south to Newport because Marvin remembered he liked the hamburgers at the Arctic Circle. Then home again. A beautiful end to the month of May.
Tuskegee Red Tail Kite
Name Marvin means sea friend.
Pam Takes a Turn Flying the Red Tail
When a Gardener Has the Camera at the Beach: Photos of Giant Onions!
“Double Delight ” are the pink roses, and the yellow one is a “Peace” rose.
On our 33rd anniversary, we drove up to Mount Hood Lodge for their lunch buffet. We had never been there and heard the food was delicious. Sadly, it was so chilly, and spitting snow with an overcast sky, that we did not see much of a view from any vantage point. We did enjoy the meal and exploring the lodge. It was certainly a good idea for an anniversary meal, regardless of the weather. There were surprisingly a lot of skiers finding places to enjoy their sport. Did I say our anniversary is July 2nd?! It seemed like a safe time to ascend the mountain and see the vistas.
On the way home, in the lowland, we stopped at a large nursery and bought a rose bush for our future home on Vinyard Avenue. We originally wanted a “Double Delight” , and evidently so did everyone else. So Marvin remembered when he helped a lady with her yard, that she had a “Peace” rose that had a good fragrance, so we bought one of those. It is a beautiful yellow rose with rose bud pink edges, but later when we acquired a “Double Delight” there was no comparison to the fragrance.
When I was a young child, my grandmother often bought our birthday cakes from her friend. They were more delicious and beautiful than any cake that I ever bought from a bakery. I have specific memories of the perfectly shaped roses that tasted exactly like what a “Double Delight” rose smells like. If you only have the room, or want to care for only one rose, it simply must be a “Double Delight.”
The strawberry patch didn’t get the memo. Tonight, as I was doing a slug check on the strawberry plants, I found one “wanna be” for the celebration, and I decided it deserved some recognition even though it was a couple days late. I am glad to have a strawberry from my garden any day, so this is close enough. There were a couple more contenders with yellow tips on them. Strawberries are one of my favorite plants to have in the garden. Generally, things go well for me in the small fruit department.
Do you have a person in your life that will forever remain a life saver? No matter what is ever said or done, that person will never be removed from that honored place of gratitude. My Aunt Esther was my life saver.
I was expecting a baby, not my first, and not with any reason to assume that the pregnancy wasn’t going to progress normally, and become a special memory with the reality of having a precious baby to hold and love.
What was different, was that Marvin was in the military, and would not be able to be with me at the birth time. My parents generously allowed us to stay with them while Marvin was in training, and promised to deliver us safely to his duty station just as soon as the Dr. gave us the go ahead to travel.
Sometime into the pregnancy, my Aunt Esther ask if I had considered taking a pre-birthing class the hospital provided and having a birthing coach? No, I hadn’t thought about it, so I asked my mom if she had any thoughts about it. Her only thought after having eight children was that she was not going to watch her daughter go through the same ordeal. Hmm. I thought about it some more. It seemed like maybe it should be something we should do. I let my aunt know, that she could be my coach. What could it hurt?
What could it hurt indeed? Aunt Esther took me to the all the classes, and we had a wonderful time together. I thought we made quite the team. She was very attentive to all the instructions. We practiced, and I just knew with all this support it was going to be a piece of cake.
Near the due date, one night after going to bed around midnight, I sprang out of bed with my feet hitting the floor so hard my parents woke up. My water had broke! There was the usual hustle, trying not to wake everyone in the house, making phone calls, having Dad drive me to the hospital, and making sure Aunt Esther would meet us there. I thought my Dad would wait around, but after eight kids, I guess he didn’t see any point in that. I thought it would have only been a couple of hours, but I had a coach, so we got busy.
By two in the morning, my aunt and I were settled into our routines we had practiced for. Things progressed. Well it seemed they did, but daylight peeked in the room, and no baby yet! It couldn’t be much longer now, but still a couple more hours pecked away at my patience level.
Finally, it was time to be moved to the delivery room, and I realized, what a good decision it was to have a coach. We both worked very hard, and after many “this will be the last one” pains, the Dr. pulled up a stool and announced that for every inch I gained, the baby appears to go back two. I despaired! That was it!! I said very crossly that I was done and going home. Then I met the real “Coach Aunt Esther.” She commanded me very sharply, “Pammie, you put that bag over your mouth and do what I tell you.” I was into another pain, and I obviously was not going home. Coach Esther took over, and somehow, a baby boy almost ten pounds with the crabbiest little face I ever saw, came into the world. I don’t think I ever worked as hard, or got coached as thoroughly, as I did those last pains. I often wonder what I would have done by myself. I suppose there would have been a nurse up to the job, but I was always forever glad it was my Aunt Esther.
Allen Cox not very happy for his first day.
When it was time to go home, I invited Aunt Esther to come down to the hospital and dress Allen in his going home clothes, and help me with the hospital farewell business and take me home. We had all kinds of grandparent, and sibling company in the meantime, but I wanted her to finish what she started.
Allen was born the day before Mother’s Day. He was the best Mother’s Day gift I ever got, because he was in my arms on Mothers Day, and not the other way around. He never did get very cheerful for a couple of months. Being born had to grow on him.
Yes, on May 2, National scrapbooking Day, you can join thousands of other makers of scrapbooks honoring their craft that dates back hundreds of years. Scrapbooks enabled people to preserve all their treasured scraps of news clippings, personal notes, memorabilia, tokens, souvenirs, photos. Literally anything that could be stuck to a page in an album.
My grandma Jenny was the first person I knew who kept a scrapbook. It was a big heavy album with the two covers held together with screws. I would estimate that she started keeping her book sometime in the 1920’s. If we went to her house for a dinner, and the weather was too bad to go outside to play afterwards, we begged her to get out her scrapbook. We would squeeze together on the couch and start looking at her keepsakes. She would tell us about the people in the photos, or explain why she kept things. One of her children died in childhood, and some of the school crafts he made for her had been saved. There were obituaries, and other news articles. Ribbon banners from caskets. One particular newspaper article we relished having her read it to us, featured our father, when he was a young lad, playing with fireworks by the river dock. The explosion caused quite a commotion, because the paddle wheel river boat was docked there at the time. The reporter spared no words on the incident, and what he missed Grandma filled in for us.
Grandma Jenny getting help blowing out her birthday candles (1960). We were about this age when we started taking an interest in her scrapbook. L-R cousin Terri (hairbows), Paul, grandma Jenny, My dad, cousin Tim, Judy (glasses), Pam (me), my mom holding Cheryl.
I have made more than a few scrapbooks over time, but none of mine carried the charm, and excitement we experienced on the couch with grandma telling her stories about the items in her scrapbook. Perhaps we should put less effort in getting a color coordinated layout, and just start filling heavy paper pages that age over time with lots of tape and paste preserving our stories as life rolls.
Many people laugh at Flat Earthers saying they don’t believe in Science. Almost without fail, the first example they’ll use is “Gravity”. So while a Flat Earth believer is talking they might pick up an object, look them in the eye and then drop it. As if the Flat Earther is going to slap himself in the head and say “Oooo of course that’s what I’ve been missing all this time.”
The reality is that …
Gravity is NOT the downward force of all objects traveling at a rate of 32 Ft./Sec.^2. No-No-No Gravity may be an explanation of why objects fall to the earth but it is NOT the actually motion itself.
If you really want to picture Gravity it would look like this …
The true picture of Gravity
What this is saying is that ANY two object are attracted to each other at a force that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. So if two masses get to close to each other they get sucked into each other. Good motivation for social distancing, Huh?!
By this “simple” equation the mass of all the “planets” (or wandering stars) are calculated according to their proposed speed and distance relative to the Sun (not the earth).
So you may ask how was this proven? Well that, to me, is what people really should be laughing at. Here’s how …
This is a much truer picture of Gravity. It’s an inconsistent, unreliable experiment by a charlatan to measure the mass of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and Starts.
The trouble with his apparatus is that it didn’t work. Notice that the article tells you that G was not “derived” until after his death. The experiment was not easily observable or repeatable. If you ask an experimental physicist to show you the proof of gravity you will not be shown the Cavendish Experiment. Instead he/she will probably pick up an object and drop it to the grown and say “there you are, there’s your proof of Gravity.”
Folks, that’s neither Gravity, or Science, that’s Circular Reasoning.
The fact is that there IS NO REPEATABLE SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF THE THEORY OF GRAVITY. The number G they use was derived according to the proposed mass of the earth to make the model work with what we observe. But it does not prove the model.
I have planted a lot of trees over the years, but I can’t recall doing so specifically for Arbor Day. I don’t remember even doing anything special for the day when I was a youngster in school.
According to the Arborday.org web page, a Nebraska pioneer, J. Sterling Morton, is responsible for the original Arbor Day recognition on April 10, 1872. Having driven through Nebraska quite a few times, I can understand the need for thinking about tree planting. On that first Arbor Day, more than a million trees were planted in the state. In 1885 the governor of Nebraska made April 22, Mr. Sterling’s birthday, a legal holiday for the state. Since then other states have done the same, choosing days best suitable for setting out trees in the spring. Not to be out done, Oregon has designated the first full week of April as Arbor WEEK.
With the COVID-19 lockdown, there were probably not a lot of trees planted then. I planted two fruit trees in my yard last fall, a yellow delicious (on the right) and a McIntosh (on the left). I am counting them as my 2020 Arbor Week contribution. They are both blooming now, a respectful nod to Nebraska’s Arbor day holiday on April 22.
Please note: This post is from our old blog and was written around 2008. I believe it is still relevant TODAY, amidst all the crisis we are undergoing this month with the COVID-19 Flu shutdown.
The other day when I was doing my meditations, I had an interesting idea come to mind. My assignment for the day was Hebrews 11:1.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. “
On the word substance, my margin referenced Romans 8: 24, which says, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” After that reference was listed II Corinthians 4:18 which says, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
I will confess to needing breaks from looking at the news, but I am trying to understand where our culture is going or perhaps gone, and trying to understand how 93 million people can be unemployed and function on their own personal economy, much less what that implies for the national economy. [Remember this was written in 2008.] Actually, it appears hopeless. We often look to this life for some measure of security or evidence of stability, and it does look hopeless. Our world is in one big mess. Totally depressing.
Then I realized my error. I am looking at the wrong things. In fact, the LOOKING was the problem. You know the sarcastic expression: “Move along now, nothing to see here.” Well it is true, if you are walking by faith…there is NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
I had been caught in the trap old as the garden of Eden: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, …” you know the rest of the story. Eve ate the forbidden fruit and convinced Adam to eat it, and their eyes were opened. They began to see things they were never intended to see, and lost their fellowship with God. As believers and part of the body of Christ, we have plenty to be busy about, but looking around at hopeless stuff is not one of them. Christ is the head of the body, and if we are to be looking, we need to look through his eyes. Our faith can not be seen. There is no evidence for it here in this life. We must keep our hope in eternal unseen things, and trust God. If we could SEE what we hope in, what need would there be for hope?
There really is nothing to see here as stated in Hebrews 11:3: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which were seen were not made of things which do appear.” This is the brick wall science runs into by explaining origins of life from the things which we see. As the word of God began life, it will also continue it eternally for better or for worse depending on your relationship with Jesus Christ the Creator. [ My comment today: I believe it is necessary to stay informed of current events, but your rarely get any real true reporting. Just nuggets of fact here and there. I have found that when what I see around me is disturbing my peace, I use my eyes to read the scriptures, which refocuses my understanding, settles my mind, and helps me to get a better perspective of my purpose to be here, and God’s purpose for this world. Hope this helps you as well. ]
Our family has two birthday seasons. The first is in the early spring, and the second in late summer, as in August thru the fall, with a few stragglers in the middle. Two of my daughters-in-law in the first group requested handmade gifts for their kitchens. One wanted some hanging hand towels and hot pads, and the other requested a new table runner. Their color choices were very similar, but one wanted a punch of red, and the other no red. When I was shopping for a spring look, so many beautiful fabrics had lots of red in them. Grey is going to remain popular as a neutral for another year. I finally settled on a home décor fabric from Hobby Lobby that had the grey and light sage color with an herbal theme, and a couple of pieces from the “wanderings” collection by Poppie Cotton. Suzanne stenciled my floor for me. I just love it.
When Lori Holt put out her first Farm Girl Vintage quilting book, my sister Cheryl and I wanted to do a Sew-Along. We planned ahead that we would first look through our stashes for suitable fabrics, and then supplement with purchased fabrics. We then took each of our fabrics that were large enough to at least divide into two fat quarters or fat eights and cut them in half. We kept one half and mailed the other halves to each other. We also decided on a common background fabric, and bought enough for us both to have the same. With that done, we made lists of the blocks we particularly liked and shared them with each other. Lori plans her patterns so that each block can be made into a 6-inch or a 12-inch block. They can then be laid out in multiple of arrangements. Our assignment was to sew two of any blocks we chose, regardless of size. We could use the other person’s wish list in our choices, or work from our own. Then we sewed for a month or so, sharing our progress, and giving sneak previews. When we both declared ourselves done, we mailed each other their blocks. I ended up having enough blocks for three quilts, because I like to sew double bed size or twin quilt size.
Above are the quilts that I made. They are all a combination of each other’s blocks and fabric choices. Two of mine were gifted, and the third was hanging on the wall for photographing after I finished quilting it. When my daughter-in-law, Suzanne, (who blogs here: https://www.wifeinthecountry.com please visit and leave a comment) came to visit and asked where it came from, I told her it was one of the Farm Girl Vintage quilts. It did look different from the other two, because I added 6 inch blocks and added hand quilting to some of the blocks. It was my favorite of the three. Suzanne asked if she could have it, and I was pleased to gift it to her, as she helps me out in so many ways. So that was the first sew-along.
We picked this March for the kick off month for season two sew-along using Lori Holt’s Farm Girl Vintage 2 quilt book. Over the winter we got our copies of Lori’s second book, made our wish lists, shopped for fabrics, discussed background choices, divided our stashes, mailed our fabrics to each other, found more “so cute can’t do without it” fabrics and mailed again. We are now busy at our sewing machines making blocks. I decided to do all the twelve-inch blocks first. The pictures below are the first two 12 inch blocks I have done for my sister. I will make more posts as we sew-along.
