My Priceless Book, A Treasure

 

E Bay will tell you the book I treasure is worth about $100, I imagine that’s without  the corners chewed by a frisky German Shepherd puppy in 1964! The date on my book is 1948. This book will never be for sale, at least by me and doubt anyone but me would appreciate its eaten corners, its value to me is worth more than money.  It was my teacher, my friend, my companion, it filled rainy days, hours of snow storms that kept me in the house. There are times  an only child has time to fill, sometimes a lot of time.  I don’t know where the book came from, who it belonged to before it became mine.  I do not remember anyone giving it to me and it doesn’t seem like a book my parents would have bought. I’m also a bit surprised I didn’t take it with me when I left home. Those will remain mysteries.

I had occasion to look for my book, I honestly didn’t think in the condition it was in it would still be there, long ago tossed to the dust bin.  Behind some other ‘newer’ books I found it!  It was like finding my childhood all in one book!  As I paged through the book memories of each section came back to me, I read it over and over, talk about dog-eared corners, this had them before the dog chewed it!

This isn’t only a dictionary, that was only the beginning section.  Filled with topics from literature, nature,  history, biographies, how to garden, an encyclopedia of information, much of it in colored drawings or in line type drawings that  appeal to a younger reader (and I suspect less expensive for production), or an older one that can’t see very well 🙂  In its sections I  find bits and pieces of ‘me’.  That sounds absurd, but I  have many questions how I learned to read before I went to school, why I knew some unusual things for a little girl: like every breed of dog and what the uniforms of the different branches of the armed services looked like, I liked the ‘human body’ part and how to draw people, animals, buildings.  This book was like a silent educator for a child that had time on her hands to fill and did find a good way to do it! 

I knew one insect from another, what birds my dad went hunting for looked like, what birds came to our feeders, what fish he caught.  He would catch and hunt, I would go look it up and learn all I could about the kind of fish, the sort of duck, I never did like the hunting part.  But at that time everything dad hunted for we ate (yuck still).  After watching them cleaned plucked and cut up, this form of protein wasn’t high on my list of foods!   My thinking today is how much I learned, not by instruction but by curiosity and the life taking place around me, the life I was living with my parents and my grandparents.

There are perhaps as many ways to learn as there are things to learn about.  Some of the ways we learn of course is by example, what we see, kindness, thoughtfulness, love of nature and environment, caring for other people (empathy).  Which leaves also the things we learn by making mistakes or observing less than ideal behavior.  Reading has been my escape at times from less than an ideal situation, a distraction that is and was healthy and helpful.  I learned my love of books from children’s books, and added my ‘slightly used’ pictorial dictionary and I had my education off to a good start!  Books, you just gotta love ‘um!  This one is one of my ‘treasures’. Here’s my salute to reading and our treasured books!

Strange Past time?

Tags

hornets nests, seed pods, wasp spray, wasps nests

There are some things I just can’t pass up, I’ll list a few.  I love birds nests (after abandoned), big papery bees or hornets  nests, can’t beat them for the top of your Christmas tree, I also like seed pods, dried (like lemons), they shrink into interesting shapes and I can use them in any number of ‘arrangements’.  One thing I become quite intense in acquiring are wasps nests.  Like many of the other things I like to collect and tend to pop up around my house, wasps nests are front and center, the larger the better.

I had great luck this week.  My granddaughter Riley Ann noticed one of the empty (shame on me) bird feeders had large red wasps busy inside, thankfully she was inside the house looking out!  I generally don’t randomly kill ‘things’ that live in our yard, unless they do pose a threat to people our my pets.  Wasps are number one on that list!  Wasps have bitten me (ouch)  it hurts and they tend to swarm once disturbed. 

 

Of course what other product would one use to ‘off’ wasps other thanBlack Flag Off wasp spray? I didn’t have a full container, sprayed what was left  and brought the feeder to a place away from people until I could spray it again the next day.   My intention was to buy another container the next day and finish the job right. 

The next morning all the wasps had died!  My small amount of spray had worked (calling to my attention how toxic these products are).  I could now easily see the nest it’s self!  It is one of the biggest ones I’ve found.  I had a few problems to overcome before I could acquire my prize nest. The nest was beautifully constructed around the center post of the bird feeder and there wasn’t a way I could reach it even with the feeder opened.  A hammer comes in handy right about now.  I was on a mission!  This nest would have a perfectly round hole in the center, if, I could get it out without damaging it.  I took all my aggressions of the past months, maybe years out on smashing the bird feeder to bits!  It worked,  now all I had to do was find a way to slip it off the post!  Hooray!

Once I had  the nest in hand I brought it in to show my prize to Hal, he isn’t impressed by these things but does humor me and did notice it was rather a large one and that the wasps (now dead) were very large, red and fierce-looking.  I don’t know the variety, it doesn’t matter to me as long as they aren’t any longer a threat.  Always be wary!

The next part of wasp nest collecting isn’t something everyone may enjoy doing. The cell of the nest where each larva is growing  is covered by a tissue like substance that needs removing, really a work of art considering a wasp made it.  I use a tooth pick or a thin skewer to remove the remains.  Is anyone grossed out yet?  I knew while I was doing this that photographing what I was doing would be helpful and I could write a blog,  but was to engrossed in what I was doing.  I usually do this in the house, relax, prod away until I get them fully cleaned out.  This day I decided sitting in the sun room would be just the spot! 

As I started to open each cell, to my GREAT surprise out came a fully formed angry and very much alive wasp!  OH NO!  I then noticed there were several wasps that were not dead (lack of spray) and ready to come out and greet me.  First up was to get the living wasps out of the house and I had interested cats a dog and a husband telling me that what I was doing was disgusting anyway:-)  The wasps and I got outside and I managed to go to work on the nest after ridding myself of all living red, large wasps! 

This cleaning process does make a mess. On my paper towels was a mounting supply of larva, some wiggling, some mashed by my toothpick.  All were in varying forms of turning into big red wasps.  It did occur to me while I was performing my wasp nest surgery I might  be a bit bizarre, that not many people would enjoy this obviously anal and rather gross process.  That however did not stop me, (never has)  my enjoyment of cleaning these nests is greater than my shame of making a big gooey mess of what were going to grow up living….but nasty creatures.

Red Paper Wasp (Polistes carolina) at St. Mary’s Colony, Texas (Picture A Day February 27, 2010) (Photo credit: mlhradio)

Well, sometimes breaks just happen!  Just this minute I’ve acquired a NEW nest!  It’s pretty big, doesn’t have a hole in the center, most of its larva have flown the nest!  Our pest removal guy, was looking for and found more wasps (I had no idea he was doing that) so I captured him and he saved one for me!  Bigger then the one I just found but no interesting hole in the middle.  I’ve got a little cleaning to do today, looking forward to that.  I must take a photo so ‘you’ my readers can see what a nest looks like before I clean it, although the new one won’t need much ‘work’ 🙂

I did get a little lesson on wasps, we rarely have ‘yellow jackets’ here, we have the red wasps and the paper wasps, the nest today is a paper wasp‘s.  Bless her/his sweet little heart!  And now I have someone who will get the nests for me that are high up!  Life is so entertaining 🙂  Always take time to enjoy the small things which often have no cost, pretty inexpensive entertainment today, and I learned a few things.  All and all a good day!

Mother’s Day Musings

Tags

Home, motherhood, Mothers-Day

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, a holiday we are all supposed to send or give love and thoughts  to our Mothers.  Seeing I am a mother I like this idea! Hey, cards, a gift, dinner, I enjoy being remembered.  Or, maybe we aren’t remembered, it happens.  Children have different beliefs, priorities, lives filled to the brim with their own activities and possibly a  mother you simply know is there and the day passes by.  Your mother loves you, or she does not.  Chances are if she does you’re one of the ones more likely to forget the day, she is not going to disown you 🙂

I remembered my mother this Mother’s Day, likely for the last time, I sent her flowers. My conversation with her today while  I was looking in my dressing room mirror;  I don’t relish looking at myself and being reminded where I am on the timeline of life, I was paying attention to my reactions, my expressions responding to my mother’s happy observations outside her window (the bird feeders), I wanted to ‘see’ (literally)  my reactions to my mother’s softly spoken (weak) words, hear about the  flowers inside her house and who had visited yesterday. Her world is small these days but she has accepted that and does delight at the bloom of a hibiscus that opened today, blooming on a plant she told her caregiver to get rid of, it was ugly.  That too is my mother.  The plant seems to have survived, not everything escapes my mother!

Mother had a little boy and his uncle visit yesterday.  The uncle is a  young man she had worked with and he wanted to pay his respects, the little guy is his nephew, just a mite of a boy and not excited to visit an elderly, very sick woman, whom he didn’t know and in a strange house.  Mother had dripped soup on her blouse when eating and wasn’t certain she wanted anyone to see her in such a ‘mess’.  This too is my mother, you do not get dirty!  If you do you fix it!

After she remembered who her visitor was (please take off his hat so she could get a good look), she worked with dozens of young people her years at The Dogpatch, a Munising Michigan well known restaurant.  My mother enjoyed working with the ‘kids’ each one of the employees as they came and went;  it seems they all remember her and like to pay her visits, they did before she wasn’t well, so these are not sick calls.  The young people she worked with in her 60’s and 70’s gave her energy, kept her up with what was happening in Munising, she would say they kept her young.  And her steel like personality garnered her respect, her work ethic perfect,  and she can be great fun.  She worked when most people would have been more than happy to give it up; she worked because she liked the job, the people she worked with and being occupied was important to her. She was a working woman all of her life.   Being raised in the depression having extra money to set aside certainly didn’t make her unhappy!

Mother took a liking to the little boy who visited yesterday.  He is an endearing little guy and she wanted him to feel comfortable at her house, not wanting him to leave immediately, just as he arrived.  So my mother, the woman who allowed no one to touch anything under threat of who knows what (most likely nothing but a dirty look, I’ve not been ‘hit’ in my life) she was a firm woman, still is, don’t touch!  She encouraged this little guy to please touch, pick up, and enjoy or explore the multitudes of things she has in her home that give her pleasure.  What he enjoyed was a clear glass globe with birds flying around as it played a tune.

While I was busy listening, looking in my mirror I heard a different mother, not changed, people rarely change, but one that was appreciative of a little boy, wanted to make him comfortable in her world, even if she had spilled soup on her blouse.  The spilled soup could have been a door barred from entrance at one time.  Yesterday it didn’t really matter other than it crossed her mind.  What will become of the little boy seemed paramount on her mind and what a gentleman his uncle is.

It is mindful for us  to remember on days when cards are often mushy and don’t fit our situations,  don’t come close to our feelings or relationships, that there is good in almost all people.  find a blank card, write your own feelings and thoughts, most of us even if childhood was difficult can remember a good thought, a memory that was loving, kind and represented our mother in a good light.  We are here!  If nothing else we can offer a big thank you for a mother who cared for our needs, gave us life.  That is the gift our Mother’s have given us. And for that I am grateful 🙂

Why Blog, Why Write?

Tags

literature, world today

To blog or write (are they the same), that is the question.  I’ve given this question a great deal of thought, I have a tendency to over think.  What sometimes seems an impulsive decision to someone else is something I’ve more than likely been pondering for ages.  On occasion I share my perceived dilemma with another, someone who’s opinion I respect and value, but not always.  There are times you follow your own instincts and carry on.

Why does a person start a blog? Why do people write books?  One  must expect someone is going to read it, our words, our opinions, our thoughts, knowledge on a certain topic, our creativity, whatever the topic of the book, the blog.  I found myself wondering why do I think I have anything to say, share or expound on that other people might want to read!  And then even promote it! Seemed rather self-serving and ‘looking for attention’ kind of an adventure. What’s left of those thoughts is:  I really enjoy writing, even if it’s not profound or going to change the world.

Today we live in a world where social media has become a way of communicating, a way of life, blogging certainly is social media and a way of sharing our thoughts, although at times like all good things extremes happen.  Look at Facebook, I’m afraid I don’t have 498 friends, I don’t know 498 people!  I have a handful of friends, my family and people I’ve lost touch with and this enables me to stay in touch, so used properly it’s a good thing ( I sound like Martha Stewart).  And I do enjoy following my children’s friends and see (is that creepy?)  as they become interesting (most of the time) adults and sometimes parents themselves. It’s an easy leap from Facebook to writing a blog, technology, which I’ve always loved, makes it very easy.  Everything you have is at your fingertips and instructions make even a novice like me able to come up with something that’s easily read.  Getting people to read, to follow, is another story, I do have some friends

The Helicopter Spies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

that are still concerned if they read my blog  a world-wide network of spies will find them!

Some people who write a blog are planning to write a book.  I have no intention of writing a book (never say never).  I don’t have the ability to make up characters and complicated plots.   The abilities of writers is amazing; how a tidbit mentioned in passing at the beginning of the book somehow ties in to the very essence of the story or plot.  So many talented writers and so many topics and styles of writing;  books are wonderful!

My writing could only come from what I ‘know’, what I’ve experienced in life, people I’ve met, enjoyed, disliked, or simple observation of life.  After 65 years you tend to learn a lot about people, yourself and how life takes us on paths we’ve not expected.  At times we  meet people whose lives seem  to be always the same, they live and through good fortune or choices made, their life seems a ‘cakewalk’.  I don’t believe anyone’s life is a ‘cakewalk’.  Truthfully all of us have a life worthy of a good story.  That’s the problem I find if I were to ‘really write’.   I am left to write the truth!

It would be easy to offend someone, it’s difficult to disguise a person in a story of life, they know who they are. You’ve then hurt someone or maybe many others. Even if there is a good story sitting right in front of you, maybe more than one, waiting to leap on to the pages and you expose it to the world (perhaps world is an exaggeration).  What have you done?  If you are not famous perhaps only a handful of people will read or care, if you write and you’ve done a fair to middling job of writing what will be your reward or punishment?  Will it have been worth your poetic license to write about people you knew/know?  Does this mean we can only write about people who are dead?  And how long do they have to be gone before we can ‘not hurt’ anyone who cared about them?

Writing ‘vanilla’ is a term that I’ve heard.  It’s safe, it touches the surface of the story, and it doesn’t dig deep into the soul of what drives the characters to behave as they do.  There are times that finding out the unsavory secrets of a persons past shines a light who they’ve become and why. The truth helps us to decide if we care or understand a person/character.   I like this form of story telling, it helps us to understand human nature, what makes us tick and sometimes not tick so well.   It is how I would like to write if I were to write a book.  I’d like to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help me god. And of course use a little poetic license!

In the meantime I will continue to write my blog.  It’s bits and pieces of what I know and enjoy and sometimes it even comes close to the ‘real’ truth.  As for what do I get out of it, I enjoy writing, I enjoy the communication, I enjoy hearing from other people and I have a place to share and use my mountains of photographs.  I will continue, at least for now to write a ‘vanilla’ blog 🙂

A Ride With Grandpa Joe

In my mind there were few things I learned to do that equaled the sheer pleasure of driving a car!  I learned to drive when I was young, fourteen as I recall.  I learned on country roads, places I couldn’t hurt anyone other than ruining my boyfriend at that times car!  And I was young to have a boyfriend but I was strong-willed young woman and there I was on my sixteenth birthday (and having passed drivers training in school) ready for my license.  Hooray!  I passed with flying colors.  Passing with flying colors in Munising Michigan isn’t saying much seeing there wasn’t even a street light, no merging highways, the hardest thing for me is I did need to learn driving ‘a stick shift’.  So at one time I could drive with the best of the guys, at least I thought so.  The good thing was my mother drove an automatic shift and so the family car was automatic.  The test would be a piece of cake!

I think the day I got my license I was off running errands or making up errands as soon as my mother got home from work.  The car was so freeing and fun to drive, a whole world opened up for me. My mother and dad’s car was never so clean once I could drive it!  I could hardly wait to buy my own!  Which I did within a very short time.

My parents were very free allowing me to use their car, and I was pretty useful driving off to the grocery store to buy something my mother had forgotten.  Of course each trip took far longer then it needed seeing I had to drive all the streets of Munising hoping I might see someone I knew to wave at, maybe even an ‘older’ boy.  One summer day my dad asked me if I’d take the car and  give his father,  Grandpa Joe a ride to the doctor’s office.  Grandma and grandpa lived in Shingleton, about 12 miles from Munising, a nice ride.   I would be able to show  grandpa how well, and fast I could drive, how grown up I was.

Can you imagine how comfortable he must have been?  I wasn’t a very big young woman, most likely 100 pounds wringing wet and I didn’t look old for my age.   Although I was chatty and I really did enjoy my grandpa.  He was I thought very ‘old-fashioned’, he didn’t drive, he didn’t write and I’m not certain he could read, he spoke English rather well, I think he preferred his native Croatian.   He walked everywhere he went, many miles through the woods to go hunting or fishing, he was a competent man. He had been a lumberjack earning his land by helping to log the forests of  his part of Upper Michigan.   He built his and grandma’s house, all the out buildings and an extra house to rent.  That included two out houses, one for the little house and a rather deluxe one with three openings and I do think I remember one was smaller for the children.  One of his out buildings was a work shop, from the time I was small I loved to go in there to see just what mysterious thing I might find or see.  He had all sorts of tools and sharpeners, warned to not go near the scythes because they were really very sharp.  He sharpened them on a grinding wheel and that was how the lawn got mowed.  It wasn’t cut until the daisies stopped blooming.  Grandma and grandpa’s house and property was one of my favorite places to spend time.  I believe my love of gardens started right there in Shingleton Michigan on grandma and grandpa Dolaski’s piece of America.

Back to our summer day and grandpa’s exciting ride with his grand-daughter, Trudy Lee.  I drove the top end of the speed limit all the way, passing cars if needed; I was out to impress grandpa.  I don’t think I did, but I felt special taking him to town for his appointment.  He was most likely very happy to reach the doctor’s office in one piece.

When I picked grandpa up  at home he was carrying a brown paper bag with him.  The time was late morning; I asked him what was in the bag.  Well, he was pretty sure he was going to miss lunch while he was waiting to see the doctor so he brought it with him.  I knew grandpa always planned ahead, usually anticipating anything that might happen but bring his lunch to the doctor was a new one and I knew better than to giggle on the outside like I was in the inside

We made it to the doctor’s office in record time, I assume that was because I felt the high-end of the speed limit was the proper  way  to drive.   We found a seat in the waiting room; I helped him get checked in and found us a place to sit, the office did have other patients waiting.  Grandpa must have decided either due to his stomach or his pocket watch it was time for his lunch.  He took out his ever-present pocket knife, opened his brown bag, cut a nice piece of onion, a chunk of bologna and began to eat.  I’m sure he offered me a bite and I can’t say I remember having any but I know I didn’t have any onion.  To someone else this may have been an embarrassing moment, for me it was not.  People knew one another in Munising, I’m certain everyone in the waiting room understood this was grandpa’s ‘way’ and I was smiling on the inside at how comfortable he was.  He had no false ‘airs’ about him, he was who he was all the time.   I was proud of him.

Our ride home was uneventful, I didn’t even know why he was seeing the doctor.  I expect it was serious otherwise he’d not have been there.  I must not have given the why much thought then seeing I remember being quite happy on my ride back ‘to town’.  I was ready for another adventure driving!

TRANSPLANTING and TRAVEL

Most people love to travel (I am not one of them). This causes a problem; I have the curiosity and desire to see many of the wonders of the world; the wonders of my own country; a contradiction to be sure! I think this falls under the category of ‘self improvement’, even at this age!

Months before a scheduled trip (it would be best to spring them on me) I begin to imagine all that could happen while I’m gone, what could befall me or my home while I’m on the planned adventure. I have a limited long end to our trips that I can cope with, driving my husband to wring his hands seeing he would like to incorporate every possible thing to be done on an expensive/or not so expensive adventure. Ten days! My limit, I can’t go beyond that or I begin to fall apart and turn into an absolute pain and everyone knows where. I’ve not tried longer so who knows, I may not implode and my house and animals may not fall into ruin while I am gone. I’m not going there though; I don’t want anyone getting ideas.

I’ve struggled with this ‘issue’ all my life. It didn’t matter for much of my life because I didn’t travel; I thought about it and solved some of my wanderlust by reading about the interesting places to go…..someday, safely in the future. I’d been on a few trips, short ones, saw a few things in the United States on well planned trips that I knew beforehand where I would be and what I would be doing, who would be caring for my children, my dog, my garden, all the things that are near and dear to my heart.

As it has a habit of doing life changed! Bam! There it was, I was a single woman (I preferred never to call myself a widow at 48) and the future was before me and I needed to make changes. The changes are a story for another day; today we’ll stick to travel

I met my current husband, which leads to multiple stories for other days! To visit him I had to fly, by myself to totally unfamiliar territories. Well, suck it up and do it was all I could think of doing, but I could control the time frame and where I stayed (very important to an environment based person). It was much easier when he visited me, but not always possible. My flights began, I got pretty good at it and branched out to meet him in different cities where we could go on a cruise! Oh boy, panic in my heart. A cruise, on a ship and I don’t like water and what kind of ‘room’ would we have and would it have a private enough bathroom area, my thoughts go on and on. Early in a relationship one doesn’t always make their desires and views (and weaknesses) completely well-known. That takes time and getting to know your companion better, admitting a weakness or even two (more than that and you are pressing your luck), or to express loudly a strength!

While writing these entries I’m trying to relate my short stories to gardening, something I know well. I can do that! Never fear, I do have a relationship in mind to my gardens and me. My plants and I have something in common! They dislike being moved, every single one of them. Even though I’m usually doing them a favor, improved light, better soil, and better drainage, all for their benefit. They react much like I do when faced with  traveling. They wilt, they sulk, they refuse to thrive, sometimes parts fall off, and it’s often not a pretty picture. They liked it where they were no matter they weren’t growing well, or not able to show their full beauty. I coddle them and treat them well, pay attention and almost all the time they come around. They don’t always do what I planned but most often they survive and turn out better for their move. I don’t mention to them they aren’t going back to their former home. That’s where our stories differ; I do come home to my animals (seven), my family, my ‘treasures’ and my own bed. Of course while I am traveling, my husband is with me and I’m totally engrossed in taking photos of this that and the other thing. Sometimes what I’m taking a picture of is a doorway, or the crack in an old Roman wall, again leaving me stories for other days.

As you may have guessed I have a trip coming up. Wish me a bon voyage and that I don’t lose leaves, wilt or sulk. I haven’t yet, but it could happen!