Cinco de Mayo and tomato hornworms

First, I have to vent about the lack of internet access if one happens to be a persopn living in rural America! Our only option is a satellite, that works only fitfully. So, again no photos because I am writing on a miserable net book without that big hard drive full of photos.

The Cinco de Mayo celebration in the fourth grade at Lacoochee Elementary was spectacular! I lugged in about a ton of stuff (with help from the kids): picadillo, tortillas, rice, fixings for guacamole, pineapple and giant grapes, and flan! I didn't know how much help I would have, but muchas senoras showed up with cooked beans they smashed and cooked again for refried beans. My favorite teacher, Rachel, brought in lots of sour cream, cheese, and the best corn tortillas made by her mother-in-law. One of the volunteer senoras brought in hand made decorations and I had my cd player belting out Celia Cruz. The kids were very interested in a huge and extremely heavy mortar and pestle one mom brought in to use to make the guacamole.

The making of the fiesta and the eating of the comida took a couple of hours and lots of other teachers came by to join in the fun. Afterwards when we had cleaned up everything in the multipurpose room, we went outside to do the pinata thing.

Rachel's husband is a teacher in this school too, and he is always into eating any of the stuff we make, so this day, after pronouncing the picadillo very good, I asked him to find a place to hang up the pinata I had filled with candy (I had considered filling it with politically correct and educational trinkets, but none of them would fit into the small orifice, so I went with candy.)

We all trooped out to the playground and fixed the hot pepper pinata to monkey bars with stout twine. These Mexican kids knew exactly what to do, they had done it many times before. There is a special chant, some rules (all new to me). So these kids were out oin the hot sun whacking away at a giant red cardboard jalapeno pepper. Eventually the thing just died of exhaustion and broke open. The kids all jumped on it in a clot more violent than anything in NFL.

It was the best. So satisfying to all, dangerous, potentially hurtful.

I loved this zany celebration and how kids and adults just hung out together and had fun all afternoon. I love this school that has the confidence and expansiveness to embrace this kind of joy. I especially loved being welcomed by these Mexicans who put up with my newly minted Spanish.

As I gathered together all the remains of the grand feast parents I didn't even know who were waiting for their kids sprang up to help us trundle everything out to my car. And several parents who are working on our school garden hurried up to tell me what was happening in all those containers. The corn! The beans! The peppers!

With my car chuck full of dirty pots and dishes I pulled out of the parking lot as six women colorfully clad in bright yellow traditional Mexican dresses were massing outside the auditorium. I just had to stop my car and leap out to give each of them a hug. I know some of them as the moms of kids I know. Others are the gardeners.

Speaking of which, I discovered a tomato horn worm on my best tomato plant approximately the size of a wiener dog. I cut it in six pieces with my garden scissors. I am spraying with BT, all an organic gardener can do. And I trapped an armadillo last night. The pests are here! Went to Lowes today and bought netting to cover the plants from squirrels and birds. Tomorrow morning when it's cool I plan to put down weed cover to quell the immense amount of dollar weed sprouting on all the garden paths.

I am here alone for a couple of days, not a bad thing. I love the solitude and privacy, the dawn chorus of birds, the hummingbirds busy in the honeysuckle, the crane family stalking around, proud of junior who is losing his red color and starting to get a bustle. I love working in the vegetable garden before it gets hot. It's similar to doing a jig saw puzzle because you just think about what you are doing now. Oh, yes, I thought this weed would never come back. Should I leave this morning glory? What about the volunteer zinnias? Yes, the butterflies love them. Oh, here is a lovely brown toad. And before you know it, the sun is getting high in the sky and I am dripping with sweat.

Blazing hot!

I vowed that I would never complain again about hot weather, but I am recanting. Zip! On the first of May, it became mid August with temperatures above ninety. So we cranked up the A/C a month early.

The vegetable garden that faired poorly in the cold spring is not that adaptable. It was the year that we had at least six big pickings of English peas, but in this heat wave, the squash overwhelmed them, glad to be able to reach out tentrils to something already there. The red pontiac potatoes are doing very well and we eat them daily. I love those little babies, so sweet and crunchy and fun to find by digging my fingers into the dirt where there are so many earthworms now. Collards are spectacular and I have covered with netting the tomato plants that are attractive to the birds and squirrels. This year I put out the tomatoes early and planted them in large containers. What a difference that made! No nematodes, and so far no tomato horn worms. We are already picking cherry tomatoes.

I have covered the salad tables with left over screening so we are still harvesting lettuces. Cucumbers are coming on.

I have never seen such an infestation of dollar weed! I heavily mulch the actual vegetables with hay, but the paths between are verdant with the beautiful circles of this pervasive weed. Many self seeded zinnias are springing up and I treasure them, as do the butterflies.I heavily mulch but in a few days dollar weed is back. We replaced a jute mat on our porch and I put the old one out in the garden to smother weeds. It works very well. I need more old biodegradable mats!

The bottom line is that most of the vegetables we eat come from this family garden.

Our gentle bull, Nugene, didn't live up to his potential and he was taken away today, soon to replaced by another more horny bull. We want every cow to have a calf and Nugene didn't accomplish this.

I love these days of just this and that in this paradise of tree canopy, sounds of frogs and insects and so many songbirds. Lots of work to maintain this but it is worth it!

Can't do a blog without some thoughts about the crazy Florida politics happening. So what is wrong about taxes?? Those taxes get us what we need for a decent life style. It's called democratic government! I am glad that Charlie went independent. Just maybe he has a chance. I am voting for Meek I think, but I am for anyone who can be a spoiler for Rubio. (Are you all amazed at the bottom feeders who have also come out as candidates?)

Keep growing your own food! Stay tuned for my report on our Cinco de mayo fiesta happening at Lacoochee school.

The Process of Quilting

There are two best things about making quilts. First, there is the initial process of thinking about the person who will receive it. ( I rarely make a quilt for us.)

The second thing is just doing it.

Usually the recipient gives me some guidelines about what they want, and they never want anything classic, and they always want something really hard to do. This is my great challenge and I love to do it!

They tell me that they love dogs. So dogs it is and I scour the fabric stores and the thrift shops for images of dogs and when I have collected these I spend hours putting the collage together, and then hours appliqueing them into the final image. And of course I must invent many of the elements from my vast stash of many colored fabrics.

I apply all these elements with careful stitches onto an appropriate background, usually made from some kind of classical patchwork. All the while I am thinking of the recipient of this quilt, and this is really the best part.

I listen to music the whole time, and when I need to spin more bobbins for the sewing machine I take a break and go outside and water the lettuce or look at the moon.

I am a self taught quilter so my quilts are incredibly idiosyncratic. (The ladies in the quilt store are quite appalled!) Nothing classic about my quilting!

Here is an early photo of a landscape quilt for a dear young man who is graduating from college in a month. He didn't want dogs or anything specific so I went for images of his life as a redneck Floridian. (The back side of the quilt will be quite sedate.)

I have discovered that boys and men love quilts just as much as the women do.

After making so many quilts I have learned so much. My quilts are much stronger now and can take a lot of abuse. I know that young people don't wash stuff very often so I give them colors and constructions that can stand up for a long time.

But the bottom line is that I love to do this quilting thing for the people I love. I am happy thinking of them curled up under these basic covers, warm and enveloped and sharing my DNA ( and the dog hairs) from so many hours of work. I am happy to think of the many folks who have been facing life threatening issues who are curled up under my quilts and I love to think of the students who may be scrunched up under my quilts while they study or make love, or the babies sucking their thumbs under a fluffy quilt, and the newly weds happily hunkered down with their new responsibilities under a king sized Molly quilt.

So, back to squaring up this new quilt! Got to get the binding on, another few hours to think of my good friend who'll receive it.

Firefly magic

Just at dusk, before it is thoroughly dark these days the edge of the woods fills with a million flickering lights of the seasonal fireflies. And behind them is the harmonic resonance of the frogs, tuned together into such a magnificance of nature, who could not be awed?

Before dinner I went out to the vegetable garden with my five year old grandson and I introduced him to the bliss of eating fresh raw English peas and finding little new potatoes like treasure from underground. "Grandma Molly! Is this pod plump enough?" he asks. I show him how to tell and he stands there happily pulling off those fat pods and finding those incredibly green babies all lined up in their green row boats and ready to be eaten. We find some carrots and roll a number of pea pods into a collard leaf to take inside for dinner with the nine potatoes we dug.

We are fresh (but very tired) from hours in town where we have been pursuing our complicated real estate deal that has included selling two houses and combining our families into one new place. Our daughter has a wonderful new 1925 restored bungalow in old northeast with a carriage house on the back. It will be up to us to remodel this for us. Quite a challenge! We do not worry because our main home is here (in paradise) on the edge of the Green Swamp, not in spitting distance of anything man made. Still, it will be interesting to make something unique out of this and we don't flinch, having done this many times before.

Late this afternoon when the shadows were long and dark and grandpa was making dinner from the garden, Quincy and I drove out in the golf cart to explore the pastures. He asks me, "Why do you have two houses?" I try to explain this, giving him some simple history of our situation. I tell him that no way will we give up our ranch and that our new place in back of his new house will just be for us to come to not so often. And we want to come to his place because we love him and his mom and want to have a place to see our friends we have known for ever so long.

Five year olds keep you honest! So many questions! But Quincy knows in a deep way that this place is his. He's comfortable in the bedroom that used to be his mom's, and his tether is so long now on the place!

He knows what we do, and expects to go with me to my classroom volunteer gig at Lacoochee Elementary School on Tuesday. We are discussing the possible cooking activities!

It is not only the fireflies and the magic of being here in such a paradise. It is the getting to know a small community of local folks who really care and show up and help each other- Richard and Kathy, Virginia and Norman, the Greens, Judy, Nia and Dave, and Cpl. Hink, Kristen, and so many others who in their quiet ways really make a difference! Whatever we are, black, white, hispanic, we care in all the small communities across the land. It is so affirming and keeps me from the despair I could easily feel right now being an American.

The Spring Garden is producing!

This blog has gone a bit south because my computer access has been limited due to technical problems. However, I am trying to get going on this puny mini netbook whose connection will crash at any moment.
The spring garden (sorry, no photos yet), has been struggling because there was such an abundance of cold weather, then followed by really hot mid days. The lettuce has not been truly thriving, but we are eating broccoli, asparagus and arugula most nights. There is always something kin the garden to sustain us and our friends. I am salivating in advance of the English peas that are plumping up for a feast this next weekend. Cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, carrots, beets, beans, onions and potatoes are all potential at the moment.
Every night we are trapping armadillos, possums and raccoons outside the vegetable garden fence. We think the raccoons are the varmints who empty the bird feeders, and the armadillos are intent on breaching the fence around the vegetable garden, and if they are thwarted they just dig really deep holes in the yard so I keep the hoe handy. I renewed the flags on top of the fence to discourage the deer, so far successful.
Dollar weed has invaded the vegetable garden, no matter how deep the mulch, and each day I pull out what I have the energy for. We replaced a large jute mat we had on the porch so I took it out to the garden and plunked it down on top of the dollar weed, covered it with mulch, and so far at least that section looks pristinely free of weeds.
What I love about gardening in central Florida is that every year is different! So, this spring we haven't had any love bugs or caterpillars to notice. (yet!) But we have gnats to hate! The hummingbirds came back right on schedule, but where are the chimney swifts? The monarch butterflies are applying chrysalises to everything and the owls make noisy love all night.
The stars are bright and I look for bats in our bat house. Iwalk down to the pond to look for what's there. Maybe alligators? Certainly kingfishers and Florida ducks hunkered down for the night.
I see five deer out by the feeder, two fawns.
And now, I must tend to the voluminous watering schedule we have during the dry season.

Spring Swamp

Our beloved Green Swamp is full these few days: an abundance of water from the el nino rains, a rarity in this usually dry time. The river is flowing out of its banks and the newly green foliage is an intense light green, a joy to behold. Ibis and ducks and the occasional otter are happy. On the river today, we saw no alligators, but we know they are there. These Florida rivers running into swamp are certainly a jewel. The high water has flushed out an amazing amount of trash and we saw some styrofoam cups and even an occasional cooler thrown out by careless boaters.

Tonight, I hear the deep harmonic resonance of a million frogs croaking in the dark. On top of that are the sounds of the nocturnal insects.

We had a few young people visiting us this weekend, young men on their spring break from college. Our special friend, Stephan, wanted his house mates to see the real Florida. Stephan has grown up in Florida, son of environmental scientists.

My first viewing of them was to see one young man in cell phone mode striding around the pasture trying to get a connection, oblivious to the swallow tail kites overhead. The other young man was hunkered down at his computer trying to get an internet connection. Stephan was out checking on the property with his binoculars.

We had a wonderful dinner with them and Stephan's parents and brother Phil. We ate ribs off the grill, and by request, I made my famous exploding volcano cake. (Dry ice is the key.)

So interesting to see these young adults who are so accomplished and smart. Because I am old enough to be able to be totally eccentric I can ask hard questions at the dinner table. Seems that this generation is really NOT interested in politics or those dicey questions of ethics. It's
' whatever'.

There is, however, another group, and I count Stephan in this, who maybe do not demonstrate in any political way, but they are thinking and acting about being conservators of our planet. These young adults plant gardens, take responsibility for their environment, and think about careers that will help the world we live in. (I also think that the technophiles can do this!)

I just wish they would get up on their hind legs and be more vocal!

It has been a lovely spring season, despite the oak pollen that slays me.

Values: you have to be carefully taught

Why are we Americans so uncivil these days? What has happened to our values? When my candidate for presidents lost the election I was disappointed but I was brought up to believe that this person who would be our next president, even though not my choice, was chosen. Believing in the American democratic process, I made peace with this choice, recognizing that we are a disparate nation and we must move on. I revere the position of President of the United States, elected (most of the time!) by the people.

I am worried about this ugliness we see now in our nation, this strange meanness in our society. Where are the values of family and Christianity now? What are we thinking?

When I was a young child I would return from school and find my father in his disorganized study where he was writing a book. I'd jump into his lap, displacing the cat on his chest and he'd draw me a picture, read our book and we'd talk about the day. Later, as I grew up, his lap could not accommodate me, but we still talked.

My father was a devoted Christian and he made sure all his five kids were received in the church. We sang in the choir, were acolytes on Sunday, and we read the Bible. When I asked him, as a teenager, was Christ a communist, he took my question seriously and we had a long dialog going for many years. He was respectful of my questions, very strong in his intellectual way. He knew that he had given me the tools to think. He was a model for me of generosity and the necessity to examine all sides of a question. When I decided that Christianity was not for me, he accepted this.

I believe in democracy. The Constitution is so amazing it makes me cry with humility. I love the independent American spirit, and I believe we are like no other people on earth.

But, still, I am worried right now. I think we now have a president who truly wants to do the Right Thing. He wants to have universal health care so that all of us will be taken care of. Who could dispute this? And yet, we have the Republicans who monolithcally always vote NO, and have no better plan.

I think that we as a nation are very much on the wrong track. We need to get together to make this country work! Stop thinking of lining pockets of politicians (of both stripes), stop thinking of getting elected next time, just do the right thing for the people. Consider the issues. Think about the best values for all of us. Care for each other and stop the vituperation.

The Right Thing to Do

I am hopeful today after the passage of the health care reform yesterday. It is far from what I would like, but it is a start, as was Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. It will evolve into what most Americans want and rely on. This is the right thing to do, as our President has often said.

What concerns me as I think about this fiercely independent spirit of the American people, is the nastiness and meanness and lack of generosity I perceive right now. When is the line crossed?

I am a direct descendant of John Adams who was vilified in his time. Seems he had some cause to be hated, but, he too, wanted to do the right thing. So this is nothing new, this vitriol. We have grown to be a huge and populous country with many agendas striving to be paramount. We must not forget our responsibilities to see beyond the personal needs and desires we all have. We need to look to doing the right thing.

Abortion! o.k. So personally I may be against it. In countries where the people have universal health care, abortion rates are far below ours. This is because young folks have access to free birth control. I wonder why there is such an outcry about this (by old men in gray suits, otherwise known as politicians)? I conclude that this is really a non-issue concocted to get votes for politicians who really do not have a clue. There is another agenda, and it is probably race.

It seems to me that there have been very few politicians these days who vote with their conscience. Like the financial wizards motivated by their greed, politicians are for the most part just seeing to getting themselves elected next time don't ask me about doing the right thing.

Seems we just love the media circus, Glen Beck and all the rest (of both parties). We are the internet generation!

I love America! I love our spirit and I do not want to live in Europe or wherever. I love the raggedness of us, our sassiness, our questions and our inappropriateness. But I wonder about our generosity of spirit in these days? Florida is at the bottom of the heap of states in philanthropic giving and volunteerism. What's happened? Have we become misers, hunkered down with our own issues and suspicious of change? Would any one of us really cast a cold eye on a tiny illegal Mexican immigrant child who needs medical attention and not step up to the plate? Would any one of us kick that homeless old man under a bridge? Would we help?

We need politicians to say "YES" to a few things they believe in. We need them to be responsible to their view of what is the Right Thing to Do. Looking at last night's proceedings in the House, it seemed like such a zoo!

Just thinking..

Moving On and Happy to do It

This is our home now, the place we walk and discover and renew our commitment to the land and each other. We have owned this small patch of Central Florida in the Green Swamp for many years but until now it was not our primary residence.

We have sold our town house in St. Petersburg. The closing is next week. We are expecting to move to a place with our daughter and her son, maybe a duplex. But for now we are in limbo when we want to be in St. Pete where we have deep roots and love to see our friends.

I thought it would be sad to leave the town house after eight years, most of them before we retired. But as I look back, we were hardly ever there in daylight and at night we were busy still working on the ends of our day responsibilities.

As we approached the task of moving out of this place that for so long has seemed very impersonal compared to the ranch, we discovered so many 'nests' of stuff that had to be dismantled: Photos of the grandchildren, small drawings made by my favorite students, boxes of stuff left over from previous moves, and, of course, the junk drawers where everything was stowed. We took yet another vow to reduce the stuff.

We beat it into some kind of order for the packers and movers who will come next week and trucked a few boxes of stuff to the ranch. We incorporated the clothes and books we wanted to keep and took a whole bale to the Hospice thrift shop and the local library. I had a box of my treasures from many trips to South America so I changed the theme in the powder room from cows to the Amazon. Out with all those cows! They have gone to the attic because I cannot yet get rid of all the cow paraphernalia given to me by students. (I will sort out the attic boxes later- much later.)

So that left us with a table full of silver candy dishes and petit four plates and old jewelry from our mothers. Finally, I packed this up into boxes and it too will go into the attic.

For now, it seems that all our stuff has been culled. Today Andy went to a machine in the supermarket that counts coins, with ten years of loose change we had stashed in little containers everywhere. It amounted to $67.83! My studio is swept and the pencils are where they should be.

Tomorrow, I will throw the dimes found in the bottom of the dryer into some small container. I will throw that tack or that eraser or that set of instructions for some one of our possessions into the pristine junk drawer. Tomorrow, the new projects will spill over into disorganized joy.

I hate moving! It is a limited opportunity.

Ragtime

You will just have imagine it, no photo, a large barn on the premises of the Florida Pioneer Museum full of folks having paid to be at this first ever Ragtime Festival in this small Florida town. We arranged ourselves on those hard metal chairs, in front of the stage and the backdrop of farm implements and we surreptitiously eyed the strawberry shortcakes and the chocolate cakes on sale on tables back of us.

We had invited some friends from the city and they were late due to torrential rain in the afternoon, and another friend who found us in the parking lot. But finally, we all connected and settled down with our tickets for the raffle. I am cursed with having to count the house, not only for numbers, but also for the diversity of the crowd. Looking around it seemed to me that the great majority of the folks there in the audience were the white "Q-tips", white retirees from the trailer parks and snowbird homes who are interested in ragtime music. I saw no Hispanics and the only African American I saw was our young guest from Vista.

The program was just stellar! The star of the event was a ragtime pianist from New Orleans, backed up with a Florida jazz ensemble. There was a time for a local brass group from various high schools and we all loved that. (especially the little guy who played the tuba) We got lots of information about the birth of jazz from its beginnings in ragtime music. It was a most appreciative crowd! The next day there was a Ragtime parade to a park where ragtime music was played all day.

Why did this amazing event happen in our little town? Two years ago, two couples went to the midwest to attend an old time music event. They had such a wonderful time they began to think that our little town of Dade City Florida could host such an event. So, Virginia and Val began to plan how this could happen.

Virginia is an amazing person, so intelligent she leaves me in the dust! She is so shy and self effacing I could not believe she would put herself forward to head up this wonderful event. But, when she believes in something, she goes forth and does it. And, wow, was this event something fine! Neither she nor Val were ever in front of the mike. Virginia was not dressed up in costume, but I saw her going around to make sure everything was going according to schedule. As the music was happening I could see her feet tapping.

We loved the evening, the event, and our Florida friends who made this happen.

I love the surprises of living here.

The Princess in our Midst

Here is Princess Caroline with her wings and tiara and tutu and anything else she can think of. She has been visiting this week. This is my youngest grandchild of six, the only girl, and boy is she ever the girliest girl! We all sign on to this persona. But I wonder. What's a princess? Is it someone who is not capable and needs to be waited upon? Does a princess just sit and wave her sceptor and expect attention? Does a princess ever do anything? And do we even ask?

Thinking back of my own daughter, our baby woman, I remember how great it was to have a girl in the family after two brothers. I sewed great dresses for her and her dolls. But mostly she wore overalls and sturdy shoes (when she wasn't going barefoot). There was the time of the "rubber dress", a hand-me-down from an older friend. This thing was black and stiff, made entirely out of some ersatz polymer and had a lace collar and could stand on its own. She loved it and wore it every day for weeks. Like cement blocks, we never had to clean it. Then, that was over and she went back to more comfortable jeans.

Just thinking about this visit from the Princess, her older brother and her parents. We all fall into this play acting, and it is fun for sure. But this princess can catch frogs and crickets and look at a map and find Africa. And she can sure push her brother's buttons. What fun it has been for me, the grandma!

Another topic: we are moving! Our town house was put on the market last week and we have a buyer. So sudden, lots of cardboard boxes. I never thought this would happen so fast. Now we are looking for another place in St. Pete, a compound with our daughter and her son. The ideal thing is to buy a main house with a guest house on the property. Our daughter's house goes on the market next week. So we are all trying to get everything to work out for all our needs. (I thought I was through with all this!) But Grandma Molly is still here at the ranch, very happy with the scene of so much wild life and the gardens, and art in the studio, and the connection to this area.

I dream of being a princess, where all we will be done for me..

All those little gray boxes

Last night I was vegged out on the couch with the dog watching the last of the Olympic figure skaters. My husband finally went to bed and as he left he handed me a remote. When the last lovely skater was waiting for her scores, and my eyes were at half mast, I clicked the power button, and baloop, the screen went dark. You'd think that it was turned off, ready for the next day. But, no! I had done something wrong. When, the next evening, my husband wanted to watch PBS, the t.v. was all screwed up.

In our life we must have more than ten remotes for t.v.'s and radio and such. And each one of these has many many buttons and functions and applications and menus and ways to reach god.

Sorry to sound like Andy Rooney! It's kind of like learning a foreign language to manage these remotes. I know it is more difficult for us rural folk who must rely on iffy satellites to connect with the world. But still, why does it have to be so hard? Why is it that when I want to simply play a video for my grandson, I have to man two remotes and remember seventeen different actions to actually get "Curious George" on board? Aargh!

On my desk I have my three little bricks: my cell phone, my camera, and my ipod touch. I love them all and they have their uses. I especially love the ipod because it expects nothing from me, has a long battery life, and accompanies me with music when I garden and walk and tells me bird calls. This is an easy tech machine, no problem. I have come to know my complicated camera because I always use it. My cell phone is still an enigma. (If it's so smart, why is it so hard to use?) I should have gotten one of those basic old fart models!

My computer, my friend, system 7, works just fine for me. Nothing these days comes with instructions (as has always been the case with kids). You just have to figure it out on a case by case basis.

Even if the remotes are too remote for me to use comfortably, now I can get everything on my computer!

All this will be resolved soon. Remember when all washing machines had computers on board and touch pads and such? No more. We just want to wash the clothes and the manufacturers found this out. I am hoping the remote folks will pay attention.

Authentic

Jack is eight years old and he is in the midst of this year's production of the annual Shakespearean play at his school. All the students are fascinated with this. The 'project room' is full of incipient costumes and bits of scenery and the bulletin boards bristle with wonderful pictures of the various characters in the play. Today I brought a CD of images of Verona and Italy so the kids could see some pictures of Italian arches and architecture they might use as parts of their art for the play tee shirts they will make and wear proudly for this new production.

I go here every week to volunteer in the place I retired from as a teacher and director. My grandson now is in kindergarten with the most talented teacher of small kids I know. Quincy pays scant attention to me, and that is o.k. But he did save me a seat beside him so we could eat pizza together. He told me the entire plot of "Finding Nemo".

In the project room I am looking for scraps to use for designing the tee shirts, and there is a mom there who is helping with the costumes. Katherine and I chat a bit and start imagining the costumes the kids will wear. She has hit the estate sales and come up with some incredible medieval swags, perfect for the sleeves for Romeo's costume and I will connect these to the blue costume, designated for him. We wonder, who in the world would have anything like this in their house?

And, now I know. This evening, after a pelting rain commute home, we went to a so-called cottage meeting of folks hereabouts to learn about our local St. Leo University. We were dressed as usual (but clean!) Despite being under dressed for this catered event, many people sucked up to us because they knew we were major philanthropists in the community.

The house where we went was in a gated community with the usual conspicuous consumption names. A Jaguar and a Lexus in the courtyard. Looking around at the three living rooms, the huge gourmet kitchen, the media room, and the master bedroom with HUGE poofy bed things all in shades of beige, I had to go outside to draw breath. In the massive screened enclosure there was a koi pond ($300 a pop for the fish, as the proud owner told me.) There was a swimming pool with a couple of waterfalls, and I must say, it was quite beautiful.

I love being anonymous- in my jeans and kind of wrinkled and old. So I could poke around. And then, I saw it! There were the swags on some windows- the very ones, found at an estate sale that I will make tomorrow into the sleeves for the ten year old Romeo! Maybe next weekend these people will have another estate sale because of a foreclosure, and , who knows, we may have some more sleeves for Shakespeare!

Life comes around!

What can one say? ("My! You seem you have a large footprint on the earth?") This conspicuous consumption truly disgusts me and I truly wish we could be over that. Yet, I understand that some of these folks are really supportive to our local concerns.

Just so you know, blogger followers, I know how judgmental all this may seem. I try to be humble, but I have been opinionated since birth.

Staying current!

Glen Beck said the other day that he thinks that America is still in the morning, and that may be true. I am discouraged, however. One looks back in history and there have been times similar to these we are in.

Last evening we had a couple of young people here who walked with us out into the property- the swamp and the forest and the fields. They stayed for supper and all the time they talked and talked about what they were doing. They are Vista workers, now attached to Habitat for Humanity. Their main work is uncovering the history of African American cemeteries in our locale. Nia is black, Dave is white. For so long our community never acknowledged the presence of African Americans, and these two people are researching what happened to the families who are buried without tombstones.

Our local museum has since its beginning ignored the history of blacks and hispanics in our community. This is just a small issue to all the small historic preservations across the south but emblematic of where we are now in the 'morning of America'.

The young woman, such an idealistic American, wonders if the place we are in with such a lack of drive in Congress, such partisan bitterness, is really just a new reiteration of racial discrimination.

Her words discourage me, and yet, I cannot think of a better explanation for how so many members of congress just say NO to anything Obama.

Discouraged as I am in the so-called morning in America, I do love the clear skies and the warmth of the sun on my shoulders as I put in the spring garden and tenderly plant the cucumbers and peas and carrots and lettuce and hope for the best for the potatoes.

Sometimes I think that I should never pay attention to this partisan crap from Congress and just love the swamp and the potential of spring vegetables.

Something new to learn

Being out here in the boondocks, our satellite sometimes doesn't work, so no new image tonight.

Every year I try to learn or do something different and challenging and new to me. My project for this year is to learn Spanish. When I visited Colombia in October, I felt so deficient in my ability to get along in Spanish, I vowed to do better.

People told me that on line I could get some free language lessons. How to choose? I went for the Pimsleur method and they sent me ten lessons for free. This takes a half hour each day so I stick in the CD and sit back in my chair, totally focused, speaking back to those speakers who ask how many beers I want and is my husband sick. By now, I am way past those ten free lessons and am cheerfully paying into eternity. They ask you, almost make you sign in blood, that you will NOT look at anything written. You are learning how to speak in Spanish as a child would, all by ear.

As I progress, now almost half way through Spanish 2, I realize I can really operate on a pretty basic level. This week I attended a two hour meeting with Mexican women who were debating what should be done to make a float for a parade. With tremendous focus I could understand everything and I could even speak when asked. I can even speak in several tenses! And they understand (and don't laugh).

Getting over the hurdle of actually speaking out loud is hard, but I put myself out there having to do it. These women are with me on making a community garden so we have to talk about it and I often have to ask the names of vegetables. They are so happy to deal with my halting Spanish and I am amazed that they can understand me.

Learning a foreign language humbles me. I see all the kids I deal with each week who are bilingual. Here they are at a young age, functioning in two languages. I am determined to do it too.

Football is really dog fights

Just a short one. Superbowl night. This is like a dog fight, a blood sport. I would not want my children or grandchildren having their heads and limbs battered as football does to those players, "our heroes". There is enough research done about the many small and large concussions these players endure that make them sorry members of our population.

So, I am not hosting a super bowl party to night. We have no nachos and beer in front of the t.v. I am doing something else.

Being Old is a Hoot

No photo today. You'll just have to imagine.

Opera lovers we are, and so, finally we began attending the simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera that are shown in local movie theaters all across the land. For years we listened to the Met on Saturday afternoons. We work in our studios and hear these productions, imagining the sets and the house and the musicians in the pit. Once a year or so we treat ourselves to a trip to New York to see the opera.

A few weeks ago we saw our first opera on simulcast HD. It was Carmen, and not knowing how popular this would be, we arrived in what we thought was good time and found the house almost full half an hour before the show. So we had to sit fairly close to the screen.

Despite some problems with the satellite, it was absolutely wonderful! Everyone in the audience of the sold out house talked to each other, checking on the plot and the singers.The woman sitting next to me actually clasped my hand as she worried that Carmen's dress might fall off!

Today, in a stiff chilly wind, we went back to this bleak movie complex theater in the midst of a dying shopping mall to see a Verdi opera neither of us had ever heard before. Again, it was a sold out house. We arrived with a bag of sandwiches and fruit we planned to eat before the opera. (The only food available in the whole mall is the overpriced nachos and hot dogs you can get at the theater.)

Outside this sterile theater we can immediately identify the other opera goers. Mostly they are the elderly and retired, all white or Asian. (I always notice these things) Because this is the Opera, we all talk to each other. ( Can you imagine it? Placido Domingo singing Baritone?)There is no play bill to tell us the plot or the names of the singers or the producers, or the names of the contributors. But people stop by our primo place in the front, just before the rail I can put my feet on, and they talk about the opera to come. This is better than any Playbill.

We are all there in this sold out house, in our jeans and sensible shoes, old. We have no fear of being thought odd. We are odd! There was a woman down the row who had brought a head lamp so she could read her book while waiting in the twilight for the opera to begin. And we had our picnic to be consumed while we watched the preliminaries of the opera.

And what a show! We sat there, mesmerized for three hours. The intermissions were fifteen minutes long, but we were shown what goes on back stage as they changed the sets, the musicians in the pit, and interviews with the principals.

The opera was wonderful with such amazing singing, we could forgive the ridiculous plot.

We all left, we q tips and the folks with walkers and a few youngsters. And we were all in agreement that we'd had a very nice Saturday afternoon.

Late Winter

Here is the view from our house these wintry mornings. No frost since the last devastating freezes of December, but it is still cold in the mornings and I don't want to get out in the garden and dig. I did put in a long row of peas and a bed of beets and the new collard and broccoli starts are doing well.

We have had two weeks of guests that I love. Still, it takes energy and lots of rearrangements so we are getting back to our usual routines.

More than ever I am embedded in our local school, Lacoochee. Each Tuesday I go to a certain class and we cook something and spend a lot of time reading out loud. This week, while the mac and cheese we made from scratch bubbled in the oven, we read several chapters of Little House on the Prairie.

Why won't classroom teachers read to kids every day? It's by far the most effective thing one can do to promote reading, as all the research shows.

The kids leaned on me and there was total silence as I read. (I am a very dramatic reader.) Then, we served the macaroni and had conversations. By now, some of the teachers know about these Tuesday afternoons, and they come, supposedly to work on their computers. But, really, they are listening intently, as are the kids, to the story. And they love the food, too.

After my classroom gig I went to inspect the small garden project for parents. Yes, all the plants are well cared for and I see many flats of plant starts also there. So amazing!

On Monday I will go to the meeting for parents and I will bring more seedlings and seeds. I will tell those parents in my halting Spanish that this week we'll have more containers for their gardens, a better hose, and a garden shed for their tools. All free! I have a Vista worker on board to help. I am imagining that eventually we'll have a proper tilled vegetable garden, but for now we are going for containers.

The folks in the Lacoochee administration are great and give me free reign. Parents are on board, kids help.

Meanwhile those teachers struggle with a mountain of paperwork about the FCATS and they never have enough time to do what they really want to do with their groups. Everyone hopes devoutly that the FCAT and NCLB will pull back and actually let teachers teach!

Quilts and craziness

I am still despondent about the state of the world and the state of the union. Go have your tea parties, pack guns and dismiss everything that you fear and do not understand. Shoot yourself in the foot. Climate change will undo you but you will drive your huge SUVs into the polluted sunset. I devoutly hope I will be dead by then.

So, here is a photo of the beginning of a quilt for my dear friend Julie who is struggling with a rare blood disease. Making this is a positive thing for me. While I sew I think of this wonderful and intelligent woman who has shared such wisdom with me.

In this season of my despondency the best things are working in the vegetable garden, weeding out the dead stuff from the prolonged freeze and renewing the beds, planting new collards and seeding the lettuce beds. I have small seedling containers, now full of shoots.

This is a renewal of life going on and I rejoice in this.

Where are you young people who should be revolutionaries?? Why are you not out there in the front telling the nation what you think can be done?? Are you only hunkered down with your Facebook and Twitter and buying things online and you tube on inconsequential matters? It makes me sad.

Saving the Turtles

Here is a green turtle on a quilt I made a few years ago for these amazing people, the Meylans, the only famous herpetologists I know. (Actually, I don't know any other herpetologists.) And here is a portrait of the heroes, Peter, Anne and Stephan.

In this beginning of the new year we had such a dreadful freeze that decimated crops and gardens in Florida we could hardly keep abreast of the magnitude of the stress in all our wildlife. When Anne and Peter and their sons came for a visit today they were full of the heroic stories about how the sea turtles of Florida were saved after the freeze.

Some four to five thousand sea turtles, mostly green turtles, but some loggerheads, were in terrible distress from the cold. Many were dying and the living ones were cold stunned and lying listless in the sea grass mats near shore and in the estuaries.

Peter Meylan, a professor at Eckerd College, enlisted the help of students in his reptile class. They went north to the Panama City area, where with the help of government and environmental groups and volunteers who scoured the lagoons and weed mats, they rescued many turtles, bringing them to the Gulfworld Aquarium in Panama City to warm up before release.

Meanwhile Anne Meylan from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation, and her son Stephan (on winter break from college) needed to take 92 cold stunned turtles from Pinellas to Ocala and the Wakala fish hatchery where they had the tanks to revive the turtles. On their wild ride to Ocala with the turtles they described having those huge hundred pound turtles barging around the floor of the van, getting under their feet, lunging everywhere.

After their turtle drop off near Ocala, they went to Merrit Island where there were hundreds of sea turtles, also cold stunned. Here, NASA let the sea turtle rescue operation use the NASA orbitor warehouse where there was a warmer. Seaworld, Disney, and others helped with their resources. There were lots of veterinarians who helped in the tagging and getting blood samples for genetic testing. Many of the turtles had fibropapiloma tumors, a contagious condition, and these turtles had to be separated from the healthy ones. This was the first time Stephan had had to do really fast work to pit tag these huge sea turtles. (This is the same thing we do to microchip our dog and cat pets.) The rescue operation painted numbers on each turtle after tagging. This took days and cold nights warmed by adrenalin, no doubt.

After warming and the data gathering, the turtles were released into the sea again. The dead ones had to be taken to the dump. Anne spoke of the steady volunteers who helped with this awful chore.

I have probably made mistakes in the telling of this. But what I know is that many many folks here in Florida stepped up to save a huge population of sea turtles. Eighty-five percent of them were saved!)

The Meylans are exhausted. We fed them a supper of rice and beans and listened to their stories.

The best stuff one ever does in life is responding to crisis. We Americans are so good at this. There are legions of ordinary folks who trundle off to New Orleans to rebuild houses, or cook for the homeless, or save manatees, or go to third world nations to repair cleft palates or fistulas. We take simple stoves and water purification and bed nets to places in need of these things. We believe that thing by thing, one by one, we can make a difference. And we do.

But we must also think over the long haul. We cannot just respond to a crisis, and this is certainly good. For Haiti we need to keep on giving in a responsible way after the water and food crisis abates.

We are global, we are our neighbors.