tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48981287111763664492024-02-18T21:30:27.579-06:00Dirt Under My Fingernailstarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.comBlogger494125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-7884412341904068922019-11-22T21:29:00.000-06:002019-11-22T21:35:00.735-06:00Twenty Two and Counting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I saw the column of smoke from ten miles away, I didn't realize it was a house fire. </span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A completely different situation than twenty two years ago when we got the call on the 2-way from Charlie saying their home was burning. From our house, it was just a thin wisp of gray. But when we pulled into the driveway a few minutes later, the smoke was billowing black, though we couldn't see the flames. No one was hurt that bitter January evening, but of a houseful of memories nothing remained but icy cinders. The next day, they sifted through the ashes for Millie's diamonds, the only things that could have survived the heat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That was January 1997, just a few days after Christmas when they showed off, as number one fans, their newest Tarkio Indian shirts, personalized for Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Millie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been going through the piles of massive photo albums upstairs, scanning photos both memorable and mundane. In subtle and drastic ways, life is quite different in century 21 even as the milestones we measure and celebrate maintain a recognizable rhythm. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Winter sports dominated our week nights back then...high school basketball...and a few weeks later, after the Homecoming ceremonies, Millie and Charlie got their 'replacement jerseys' from their grandchildren.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like this year, there were exciting wins and crushing losses, but, more often, we celebrated humble victories and small milestones with ribbons and photos and donuts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do you want to do 18 again?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That year Annie came to Washington, D.C. with us: the magnolias bloomed, bison grazed on the Smithsonian lawn and Grandma Millie and Grandpa Charlie got us into the White House after hours. Ann thought it smelled....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It would be decades before we got in there again!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And Josh didn't mention any particular odors....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There were prom pictures that year....and a high school graduation....and someone in the family turned 40....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been on 'mustache watch' while I've been peeking into the past, and clearly forty years of life had not yet convinced Blake that facial hair wasn't his</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> best choice. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He wasn't alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">June and July 1997 gave us birthdays and baseball. June and July 2019 gave us birthdays and baseball....and more baseball....and more baseball...and for a change of pace, some Bach. County Fair 1997 meant stubborn steers that made a hobby of chewing their halters in two, but hogs rule the roost in 2019. Whatever the year, the show ring was chock full of brothers and sisters and cousins.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1997, we sent the first kid to college...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...it wasn't easy.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9lF8Z8_ZdwOlcup_NpGHob5Ar6jO8VN_APxBE_zf4q24zKUQTPOhT-KlgOIZpBBM_vO3UHN6rL7pIyaGtk1XUdGiY3jKWc3LvFknk2ueqS05NDX_MzdUwRzq5fcsPZt1vEPjaoTRkalw/s1600/1997+scans+098.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1402" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9lF8Z8_ZdwOlcup_NpGHob5Ar6jO8VN_APxBE_zf4q24zKUQTPOhT-KlgOIZpBBM_vO3UHN6rL7pIyaGtk1XUdGiY3jKWc3LvFknk2ueqS05NDX_MzdUwRzq5fcsPZt1vEPjaoTRkalw/s320/1997+scans+098.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGfwvj4OAWBtjt9zqRdyDq-w4TWoM2D1UXBvGDIpdhi63Iztf0PfNVnwcviWHNF2fjYevVH0rYt1s6lnlbV6ew5wqf7NPWqLiIUJwopHfLhIgINtNceXvkldoblzRQ37k_BE8Dqwiyz8_8/s1600/1997+scans+105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1135" data-original-width="1600" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGfwvj4OAWBtjt9zqRdyDq-w4TWoM2D1UXBvGDIpdhi63Iztf0PfNVnwcviWHNF2fjYevVH0rYt1s6lnlbV6ew5wqf7NPWqLiIUJwopHfLhIgINtNceXvkldoblzRQ37k_BE8Dqwiyz8_8/s320/1997+scans+105.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCMj_s9r4uIfwq9hF7Yhrt3NghBAPPZGBu5RlKeJvV0A5phQFGrdw-pDbMRcGGKIYgTbqCcHNoMbzwoPnGttfcYDkuBZWJTW0v16oWvRZiQplqArW02JpyZK8N3B1dSxaaakO58e_TKDjb/s1600/1997+scans+101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCMj_s9r4uIfwq9hF7Yhrt3NghBAPPZGBu5RlKeJvV0A5phQFGrdw-pDbMRcGGKIYgTbqCcHNoMbzwoPnGttfcYDkuBZWJTW0v16oWvRZiQplqArW02JpyZK8N3B1dSxaaakO58e_TKDjb/s320/1997+scans+101.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And just like this year, fall 1997 brought harvest and Homecoming, floats and football, volleyball, and, of course, the Lord's Acre Day parade to remind us to give thanks not just for our crops, but in all things.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3W71x2T9KDthhOwVlgX4gAXCvIMlLIxn4R6TPguzGq1Ceb1DcDF9PV2BWTbXEcFFsWS7Na8A64VQY8rxXG15JJhj4vr12JTLS7sktnNlQ1K5zWOg71WNrZafhMwwOc1Anz_VIYQg5WTK8/s1600/1997+scans+103.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1600" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3W71x2T9KDthhOwVlgX4gAXCvIMlLIxn4R6TPguzGq1Ceb1DcDF9PV2BWTbXEcFFsWS7Na8A64VQY8rxXG15JJhj4vr12JTLS7sktnNlQ1K5zWOg71WNrZafhMwwOc1Anz_VIYQg5WTK8/s320/1997+scans+103.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's so easy to be tempted by nostalgia for what appears to be both an easier and happier time. Like the most appealing portrayals on social media, (which didn't exist in 1997!) these photos tend to follow the motto, "I count only sunny hours." We don't remember the records of the 1997 Indians...or the Missouri Tigers....or even the St. Louis Cardinals. Or what the corn yields were or how many times it rained. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJiGiSTX4LDGrgYl0cDcW8InzjIj_Wey4zbmyd5grPDb7yDvtC3EltjWcYZ82NspLHRHeB3FVDldGv5QKRqm4T2hNYj6z1I3oAAndT4yAkHI16gRKYsdyOnAOQd7cpeaJugGnIYcQR2Yq/s1600/1997+scans+050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1137" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfJiGiSTX4LDGrgYl0cDcW8InzjIj_Wey4zbmyd5grPDb7yDvtC3EltjWcYZ82NspLHRHeB3FVDldGv5QKRqm4T2hNYj6z1I3oAAndT4yAkHI16gRKYsdyOnAOQd7cpeaJugGnIYcQR2Yq/s320/1997+scans+050.jpg" width="227" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We can survive fires and storms; we do count ourselves blessed by babies and birthday cakes and Christmas cookies and all those other iconic bookmarks of photographic history. And we miss those who are with us now only in photographs and memories; we can't help but mourn the past that has passed even as we carry on and build upon it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">With Thanksgiving.....</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjur-81ZsQQMG5OuRDVAbWJmX1XrCBrsSLYqHnmy9YvVCe0gf_aD0RphjN32w4EHPzGnYilaWWGxhCCGTY_NcWz7UkbLFqcEtmhAMJWXklUSkLy2T4TKtt9kDBtRpMSm2bisEIXN3Ne3sE1/s1600/1997+scans+117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="1600" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjur-81ZsQQMG5OuRDVAbWJmX1XrCBrsSLYqHnmy9YvVCe0gf_aD0RphjN32w4EHPzGnYilaWWGxhCCGTY_NcWz7UkbLFqcEtmhAMJWXklUSkLy2T4TKtt9kDBtRpMSm2bisEIXN3Ne3sE1/s320/1997+scans+117.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2bYoqxug584GoMEBuCpgJlNBoeQvFEmCczt_AJtTILjNq6LGjyOZxja1-iboy1dJeWu7-hO0SFt0rire3qzu3pZvq95W6FOwKDOO4jAI3oyWJzR916F543ZIU0kgswpgRDK4C14lkni9/s1600/1997+scans+118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1107" data-original-width="1600" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2bYoqxug584GoMEBuCpgJlNBoeQvFEmCczt_AJtTILjNq6LGjyOZxja1-iboy1dJeWu7-hO0SFt0rire3qzu3pZvq95W6FOwKDOO4jAI3oyWJzR916F543ZIU0kgswpgRDK4C14lkni9/s320/1997+scans+118.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2sKFr7P1dYR5z8pftHpVXzzMXJ9AirmTSEIB2gE49XrBt2_KG2KLKD9va5gU5UtRmx816KiOrj8RK2lOJauUT-Qn_kp3Cw3tva-91reE8qq8Yec-ql0BBmtuJZO9_jPz3FADnGgQYSWwM/s1600/1997+scans+119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1099" data-original-width="1600" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2sKFr7P1dYR5z8pftHpVXzzMXJ9AirmTSEIB2gE49XrBt2_KG2KLKD9va5gU5UtRmx816KiOrj8RK2lOJauUT-Qn_kp3Cw3tva-91reE8qq8Yec-ql0BBmtuJZO9_jPz3FADnGgQYSWwM/s320/1997+scans+119.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-53289830242105311392019-10-24T22:06:00.000-05:002019-10-25T08:00:41.462-05:00Big, Big Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Of all the daily household chores, I mind laundry the least. Mind you, I don't enjoy a mass of dress shirts with their sleeves entangled like fishing worms; after a week in an office, the cleaners is where they belong! Dress shirts should stand at attention in the closet.<br />
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No, we are the kind of folks whose dirty clothes tell the tales of our days: sweat stained shirts, grassy knees, potting soil in the cuffs, soybeans in the pockets, and overalls carrying a more than faint aroma of eau de petroleum products. After a dash of deep blue Arm & Hammer detergent, that crusty clothing emerges warm and fresh and ready for another day next to the earth. Folding stiff and recalcitrant Carhartts, matching up woolen socks, turning yet another freebie T shirt right side out are but simple tasks, yet stowing them in the wardrobe restores a tiny bit of order to the universe. These are not pretty clothes: they need not match. One black Nike sock and one black Hanes sock still make a pair. No, these are hard working clothes, clothes that will likely wear out rather than go out of style.<br />
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Kevin was a hard working man. Blake says no one could scoop corn harder or faster. He would start early and stay late, with patience, without complaining. He was a smart farmer, good with his hands and his machines whether it required brain or brawn to solve a breakdown. Even though Blake has a fake tooth in his smile from a Kevin Hurst wielded tire breaker, he will tell you how proud he will always be of his talented hardworking brothers.<br />
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Kevin had a big arms to carry little children and a big laugh whenever he teased our screeching birthday girls about how many spankings and pinches it was going to take 'this year'. It didn't matter how many of us there were at any get-together, Kevin's laugh could be heard above them all. <br />
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Clothes don't make the man, but whatever Kevin wore....grimy sweatshirts or silly Christmas sweaters.... underneath was the kind of heart that is always in style<br />
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With all our love and respect...always....</div>
tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-52152483276647527282019-09-03T20:12:00.002-05:002019-09-03T20:12:31.324-05:00Trees of Antiquity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The apple trees by the office aren’t pretty anymore. They are bent as if by arthritis, with dead branches way out of the reach of pruning saws. But I know their names and remember when my mom and dad bought these two Ozark Gold trees for us after we moved to this farm. We planted these, a dozen or so Golden Delicious, an Empire, an Earliblaze, a couple of Galas and one Blushing Golden. These were varieties my folks were familiar and successful with at their mid Missouri orchard. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And so, in August when we begin to hear the thud of apples falling outside the office window, we know it’s time to pick one of those yellow green fruits and take a bite to see if it's ripe. An Ozark Gold is not a super sweet fruit like the popular Honeycrisp or Gala or Pink Lady. But it’s not sour either like the old time Lodis, good for sauce and nothing else. We used to get a box of those green mammoths from my folks’ tree and believe me, measure for measure, it took as much sugar as apple! An Ozark Gold is tangy, and juicy, and pretty darn crisp for an August apple. It makes a dandy pie but still cooks up into a lovely golden sauce with just the right amount of texture to savor. As we grow them, they aren’t lovely; many have some cosmetic spots that peel off easily, but there is enough clean fruit to keep a bowl in the fridge for munching. This week we froze a half dozen pies or so, ate a big apple crisp with ice cream, peeled and chopped enough for a round of apple breads for everyone and still have four loaves stashed in the freezer for harvest lunches. </span></span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Millie came up one afternoon to “help apple”. When she suggested we pull out the apple peeler, an ingenious tool for sure, I told her our apple were more dimpled darlings than carbon copies, thanks to some early season hail. They needed the hands on treatment. I needn’t have worried. Millie’s been peeling fruits and veggies for longer than...well, let’s just leave it at “longer than. Armed with a couple of knives and one of many peelers, the bucket of odd shaped Ozark Golds were soon tucked into pies while Gma Millie took a tasty streusel topped dessert home for Grandpa’s supper…Years ago, Millie was the one hidden by a cloud of flour while she rolled out crusts for freezer pies, while I, a disciple of comparative advantage, stood at the sink up to my elbows in apple peels. Days spent canning or freezing produce are good days and fondly recollected even after the jars are empty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Speaking of jars…we grab our canner full of empties from the basement shelves, hoping to avoid the ones with dead spiders and crickets inside. They are scrubbed and then examined for chips or rough edges. It’s kind of a treasure hunt and history lesson rolled up in one to guess the vintage and origin of each jar. The Kerr jars are the easiest since I know the date is stamped on the screw top. I handle them tenderly, picturing my grandmother carrying these jars from 1964 down to her basement full of peaches or applesauce from my grandfather’s orchard.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of these jars is from 1976. It doesn’t have the Liberty Bell on it like some Bicentennial jars, but it could have come over from my mom’s cache, a jar of pickles or beans from Millie’s canner, or even a hand-me-down from my mom’s long time friend Carol Findling. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZmL7owSM-UqetDgSL_aJNNh0mZjh3SEDeem_DusHgJzcNXPCfYwE_hG2S_-EkQqUsVKRW_s75cOs0jVrqeDNvnfA7PA7sW9GN76l8jSIWnioeSdQvti8hHC7xFFLGfDZoz0uf9z3-7bW/s1600/IMG_0978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZmL7owSM-UqetDgSL_aJNNh0mZjh3SEDeem_DusHgJzcNXPCfYwE_hG2S_-EkQqUsVKRW_s75cOs0jVrqeDNvnfA7PA7sW9GN76l8jSIWnioeSdQvti8hHC7xFFLGfDZoz0uf9z3-7bW/s1600/IMG_0978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZmL7owSM-UqetDgSL_aJNNh0mZjh3SEDeem_DusHgJzcNXPCfYwE_hG2S_-EkQqUsVKRW_s75cOs0jVrqeDNvnfA7PA7sW9GN76l8jSIWnioeSdQvti8hHC7xFFLGfDZoz0uf9z3-7bW/s320/IMG_0978.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And finally, I wash out a jar dated 1986. That one has some age on it too, but I know it’s mine and has been up and down the basement stairs who knows how many times. Canning is a tribute to our past, a ritual handed down like these jars, a trip down memory lane captured in something as ephemeral and as lasting as glass. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s ironic that some of these canning jars are going to outlast those two Ozark Gold trees out back. I looked up the variety online, but it seems Stark Bros. no longer grows it for sale. I seem to recall my dad saying something about the root stock, but perhaps its decline has more to do with the customers' desire for super sweet apples. And even though it has fantastic keeping qualities for an ‘early’ apple, it is not an apple for storage. Still, an Ozark Gold can be used in so many ways….and carries with it so many memories, that I am determined to find some baby Ozark Golds to replace our oldsters. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Image result for trees of antiquity image" height="206" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0250/1384/6115/files/toalogotrans2_7a1b4598-ce67-4b22-b0d1-1edc8519b934_320x@2x.png?v=1562141836" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I have. A nursery called ‘Trees of Antiquity’ is still growing Ozark Golds for sale. And while I don’t think a tree introduced in 1970 quite qualifies as ‘antique’, I guess I could be wrong! In the tradition of the people who gave us the first trees, and the ones who passed down the canning jars, I’m going to order a couple more Ozark Golds to ensure our grandkids will continue to pick russeted yellow apples for eating, for pies, and for the first fresh loaves of their grandmother’s apple bread…..</span></span></div>
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-25172590105108096622019-08-17T21:00:00.000-05:002019-08-17T21:04:07.489-05:00Summer Suite (with credit to J.S.Bach)<div style="text-align: center;">
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">Prelude</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Without a doubt the greatest flight of whimsy this summer was not taking a 12 passenger van of grandkids 1125 miles to the beach. Nor was it running the bases during Levi's baseball night...though making contact with a Levi pitch is a considerable accomplishment. It wasn't even believing that the Cardinal baseball game we will be attending September 28 might be meaningful....(sigh).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, thanks to J.S.Bach, J.B. Hurst and YoYo Ma, I spent one moonlit summer evening under the gleaming curls of the Pritzker Pavilion while the great cellist captivated a crowd of thousands with a marathon performance of all of Bach's six concertos for unaccompanied cello. It was mastery. It was magical. And it is the inspiration for this three part homily....a little suite ...</span><br />
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">Being Consistent: A Fugue</span></u></div>
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Day after day I've been walking lines eyes moving left and right looking for something wrong. A sudden fountain where some varmint, through thirst or orneriness, has chewed through the plastic tube that connects the emitter to the 3/4 poly pipe. Or maybe a varmint has skittered through the lines, pulling the emitter out and leaving the plant high and dry. Maybe the emitter or pipe is plugged...with an unfortunate spider or cricket...or sometimes, yuck., a petrified tree frog. It's still July and there is room between the lines to walk, to watch, and to stop and pull weeds. Weeds grow around almost every pot: crab grass, barnyard grass, purslane, ground ivy, and an assortment of other annuals I categorize as 'mum weeds.' </div>
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We water, we weed, we watch for telltale signs of insect infestation. Beetles gnawing, caterpillars of a wide variety of sizes and hairiness. It's not a scientific count, but a combination of gut feeling and the calendar that leads us to call in reinforcements when there are too many webs for comfort.</div>
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These are the summer chores. And to be successful, we have to be consistent. Same routine, every line, almost every day. The weather changes and the plants grow, but, like a fugue, the melody is passed around over and over....</div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Being Persistent: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sarabande</span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Blake used to love tuberous begonias. And for several years, I attempted to satisfy this preference by planting them under the hostas in the shadiest spot in our large yard. Alas, these prima ballerinas of the plant world sulked in the crumbly soil of this former ash heap. Then along came sunpatiens, bright and bloomy, resilient and tolerant.....and the begonias were history. To paraphrase, happy husband, happy wife; the sunpatiens </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have planted </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the pots and flower bed near the patio where he sits after work in Jefferson City have always bloomed profusely from June til a hard freeze. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But this year, the sun coleus towers over a flower bed of sunpatiens no bigger than when I planted them in late May! The varmints quite clearly prefer Blake's sunpatiens to any other plant in the backyard, grazing them down to the height of the mown grass. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fool's errand or no, quixotic or not, the summer is long and I am persistent . Like the stately slow measured tempo of a sarabande in Bach's suites, I am willing to repeat my movements any number of times to finish the song....or outlast the deer that treat Blake's sunpatiens like hors d'oeuvres.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Take that, deer, and that, and that, and that..</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Being Present: Gigue'</u></span></div>
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<a href="https://youtu.be/MWwNJau_ky0">Bach Cello Suite #1: Gigue, YoYo Ma</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One man playing one instrument in one spotlight on a stage designed for an orchestra under </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a summer moon and the skyline of a great city. It focuses all your senses...the stillness of the audience, their concentration an invisible wall against the sirens and horns and bustle of the surrounding night life. After the somber and even atonal chords of the minor suites, the final movements are not so much light-hearted as affirming, an aural expression of the life force pulsing in our veins. This single-minded focus on the music made time both stand still and flash by. It was the universal and the unforgettable, the experience that makes one wish we could, with Emily from 'Our Town', <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"> "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">God's glorious creation can bring us to that revelation. And so can the miraculous, if we recognize it. But I don't know if anything but music can return us to that state of wonder and focus and recollection again and again. Being present and conscious of the marvelous in the mundane lightens steps and lifts spirits. We take care to memorialize our big moments....but none of us, no matter how we wish to, can summon back all our small pleasures.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">like days of summer chores with dewy feet,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or garden flowers with the morning's first coffee...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">but I know a Bach cello suite will always take me a June night in Chicago, the air alive with the music and nothing else....</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;">“I can't look at everything hard enough!” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;">― <span class="authorOrTitle" style="color: #333333; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Thornton Wilder, </span><span id="quote_book_link_205476"><a class="authorOrTitle" href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3119231" style="color: #333333; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Our Town</a></span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-72082527047768965632019-07-24T21:12:00.003-05:002019-07-24T21:12:58.277-05:00Dear RedbarnJust thought you'd like to know about our rain over the weekend....more than 4 inches! We noticed lots of lightning when we went to bed and even a few rumbles of thunder, but they were off to the east. Blake said he even checked the radar before he turned out the light and assumed we had missed the system when he saw the bright colors over Maryville. Well, Sunday morning he went out to check the gauge and came in asking whether I'd dumped the rain gauge after I ran the sprinkler Saturday (because no matter what the rain chances, I am running a sprinkler when it is 99 degrees. Keeps me sane.) I said I'd made a particular point of dumping the gauge. Well, he says, we've had a big one then.....<br />
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I took a picture of the little test tube gauge....were it not for surface tension, I think it might have overflowed. Ann and Matt's gauge is bigger....all the better to record an extra half inch, my dear!<br />
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I am grateful. Though a drive through the country later Sunday afternoon showed lots of road damage south of town and even some leaned over corn, this rain was still a plus on the ledger. Lee thinks the soybeans at the greenhouse grew six inches. And that may be; I have to think they were all curled up conserving moisture by reducing surface area these last few days. Now the countryside, the gardens, the sweet corn and the people can exhale and relax.<br />
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Well, not quite everybody. Ryan noticed that the big greenhouse was flat as a pancake. Then he noticed the electric pole holding the transformer was black! REA came out to replace the transformer and we got the power turned back on down there but I bet we find some damaged goods in our infrastructure at Deadman's Hollow. Betcha that's not the only line crew out at work today....<br />
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Tracy posted some very pretty daylily pictures today, giving you all the credit, Mama, for her love of gardening and daylilies in particular. Ben's daylilies are almost done down in K.C., but I still have some clumps of later ones with generous stems of big fat buds. The coneflowers are also going strong and the first hibiscus blooms have appeared. I have, unfortunately, seen a few Japanese beetles for the first time this summer. I picked and squished them off the canna they were hatching on (?) but haven't seen a widespread outbreak. Something voracious really chewed up a couple of sunflowers but I know this will not cause Blake any grief. Also looks like I have a couple of casualties among the vine crops. While the airplane came over Deadman's Hollow to clean up the caterpillar and beetle problems there, the garden at Spruce will just suffer through without spray. There are just so many butterflies and assorted bees that I hate to discourage...<br />
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It was a busy weekend with some of the best entertainment that small towns can offer. We started off early Saturday morning down in Osborn, Mo, a small town just a mile south of highway 36 between St. Joseph and Cameron, the jumping off spot for this year's Farm Bureau Tractor Cruise. Last year there were 89 tractors, but the numbers were down somewhat Saturday...due to the hideously hot weather, I'm sure. The tractors were umbrella-ed and the drivers well-hatted. One gentleman on his IH tractor was decked out in a IH pith helmet, reminding me of Grandpa Renken in his gardening gear. Fortunately, everyone ate lunch at Lathrop in their clean and cool cafeteria. And they got to eat ice cream at the Shatto Dairy for a cool down before the last leg. In the past, Lee and I have been responsible for taking pictures of the drivers and their tractors, but someone else was deputized this year, so we took our time driving the byways of Clinton county, enjoying the farmsteads and scenery. Blake has always been second in line driving one of Vern Hart's John Deeres. Last year something on the tractor broke, but he completed the ride without incident or accident this time around. Ben and Levi drove up to watch the sendoff, and I took a really cute picture of Levi and his grandpa. He is smiling big, but Blake reports he wasn't real confident about his seat in the open air, unlike when he rides in the combine! Maybe he thought he was going to have to drive the whole way!<br />
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And on Friday evening, we enjoyed a theater outing in Rock Port to watch Lizzie and Abbie and Josh (and Aaron in a "cameo"appearance as the king) in "Frozen Jr.", the culmination of the week long kid's theater camp. They sang and they danced with great energy and smiling faces. The kids' enthusiasm would have melted hearts of stone, but the audience of moms, dads, family and friends was primed to be entertained, cheering for the songs and laughing with the jokes. It was impressive and surely rewarding and encouraging for the adults who worked with the kids all week. They have a leg up on future thespians! Not only that, but Lee reports the weekend gave a healthy boost to the Liberty Theater coffers. The renovations are very nice...so many improvements from the very first time we played over there in the Sound of Music!<br />
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The last of the summer hibiscus will be delivered this week...we will have cheated the weather gods and sold almost all of them without hail or major breakage or plague. We canned a batch of bread and butter pickles this afternoon...it was a real pleasure to have the windows open and have all that steam escape. Blake is of the opinion that no sandwich is really complete without pickles; this was a start on filling the shelves in the basement. Abbie has picked a generous bowl of cherry tomatoes leading to a recipe search for luncheon dishes that will use them up! Tomorrow's choice: Spinach tortellini salad. With tortellinis and cherry tomatoes, what could go wrong.<br />
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Ryan and Matt went down to the sweet corn patch to pick late this afternoon. The kids sold sweet corn in Torrey Pines' parking lot last year and made some nice money. The corn is a couple of weeks later this year, but the ears Ryan brought up to the house look nice....nicer than they would have without our weekend rain! We are hoping this bodes well for the field corn of the same vintage.<br />
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And I guess that's about it for this week's news. Weather and kids and flowers and Farm Bureau...a pretty normal mix, right? We miss you a lot and love you more,<br />
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Julie<br />
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-69115220553674891672019-07-21T21:14:00.000-05:002019-07-21T22:25:25.042-05:00Let It Go<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">December 2012</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Aunt Kenzie knows little girls, despite being the mama of a soon to be 7 year old boy. She is responsible for the first, but not last, karaoke machine in the family. It was a gift to both Lizzie and Abbie Christmastime 2012. They wasted no time in serenading us all, but found Grandpa Blake a particularly appealing...and captive....audience when he was ensconced on the leather couch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I don't remember what they sang when they were five years old, but by Christmas the next year, there was only one soundtrack on everybody's mind and that was '<i>Frozen</i>'. In the third photo, Lizzie is dancing her little heart out in front of the Christmas tree to '<i>Let It Go'. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I learned to love musicals from my parents. My dad was in the pit orchestra when <i>Carousel</i> first broke my heart. We saw <i>How to Succeed</i> and <i>Guys and Dolls</i> live. I was crushed when I first heard a recording of my spoken voice and realized how awfully squeaky it was. And even though I could carry a tune and read music, my singing voice was just plain ugly.. Even in church, people would turn around. '<i>Life upon the wicked stage</i>' was not going to be in my future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This makes watching the grandkids grow up in our local theater ever so sweet. From Aaron's first appearance as Louis in the <i>King and I </i>through a fine menagerie of imaginary chorus creatures in <i>Little Mermaid, Shrek, and Beauty and the Beast, </i>the children have song and danced their way with joy and enthusiasm with the help and encouragement of parents and music loving volunteers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And...needless to say... Blake and I have watched and laughed and cheered. We also applaud the patience and cunning of the producers and directors who realized what the addition of all these cute faces and costumes to the stage would do for the box office of the Liberty Theater! <i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And now the little girls who sang to their Grandpa are singing to a crowd, acting alongside their friends, putting their hearts and hands and smiles into the story of Elsa and her kingdom like it's the first time told....and the magic isn't just in the fairy tale, or the tunes.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">July 2019</td></tr>
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The magic is in the theater itself...it's in the lights and the applause and the generosity of the volunteers who put community into their theater. And in the applause, the bravos, and the tears of those in the seats who can't sing, can't act...but love those who do!<br />
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-1814540267303948182019-07-18T21:15:00.000-05:002019-07-18T21:45:08.813-05:00Mid-season Wrap-Up<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiGe_CMlpjIGAi8XbtTOS8ezsts9bOO4v9Oh490ZIZXdYQiBXR247PBB-RtwLBUKF0J4ouCAbsT_LTB42RZhrrHsQ311ZyJeyy0bK7GzHVxKVvjCHKzqtGVGcu0caLK2gxnLgIqgnHV2k/s1600/IMG_0354.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiGe_CMlpjIGAi8XbtTOS8ezsts9bOO4v9Oh490ZIZXdYQiBXR247PBB-RtwLBUKF0J4ouCAbsT_LTB42RZhrrHsQ311ZyJeyy0bK7GzHVxKVvjCHKzqtGVGcu0caLK2gxnLgIqgnHV2k/s320/IMG_0354.JPG" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dead Week, otherwise known as the All Star break is upon us, and despite the numerous urgings and notifications on my cell phone, I’ve managed to resist place holders like the Futurity Game (a tie) and the Home Run Derby (like we need more!) Rather, I’ve chosen to spend these several evenings strolling among the flower beds, snipping a mulberry here and pulling a strand of the noxious Honeyvine Milkweed there. In baseball, July is the Continental Divide of the season and soon the teams will divided like the sheep and goats, the contenders and tailenders, the buyers….and the sellers.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9101f08a-7fff-ecec-9f14-6d853baf7a8f" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Similar categories can be applied to my garden. Some of the successes are by design; some attributed humbly to Mother Nature. Some of the failures will be blamed post mortem on all kinds of factors...too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry...the usual suspects. And some of the attempts are strictly bad judgement, otherwise known as operator error.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unlike our floral posts from Hurst Greenery, where, like Lake Woebegone, all the women are strong, the men are good looking and all the children are above average, not every pot and planting at 502 Spruce is a winner. In the interests of truth, justice and the American way, here’s my annotated photo album from this All Star Break, dishing the dirt on the losers and praising the winners as worthy of imitation and increase.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">First up: an All Star lineup of winged wonders. This July has outdone itself in volume of butterflies: every foot step through the clover sends a cloud of Painted Ladies into the air. The representative photo of a Painted Lady as far as Google is concerned shows one delicately perched on a lantana. At Hurst Greenery, the butterflies have upped their game, settling one, two, and even three at a time on a single bloom. It’s not much of a challenge to photograph a Painted Lady on a bloom! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/wcb2fgu1wcoYeGjn6YOQW-OCenXyutN8H10VjD9bTgmaXuGuYMNTXd_i5XMs-qIw6uKsINAMCXvoeGyqDLSKfG2HlMKJ71AsUcFoJfPvMO5i_XKQ6o9SV8840u-mhL4Gotz4H2ry" style="border: none;" width="300" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lately the Swallowtails have taken over the spotlight. Their arrival coincides with the peak bloom of the purple coneflowers. I know their caterpillars favor members of the carrot/dill/parsley family, but coneflowers seem to keep a flighty swallowtail’s attention longer than any other flower. Fortunately, I have groves of free range echinacea so I occasionally will get a decent photo with my phone if I don’t get greedy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Ep-2RTmXYbhBDQEpvABYSSDVaq29g3Vau4rEvaEhpQUEfDKl9AepZDiZNUQE2-e1bHuV9Vp_OtqylszKRxAPZAmXmBL_Pw1_ASfRaCu7oVHUGLK8lUT2MXOhFib6f9jVAi5TVsTK" style="border: none;" width="299" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The Black Swallowtails found the Liatris in the front flower bed. Liatris is a tricky plant: a hardy prairie flower that flourishes on hot roadsides in southwest Missouri during the summer, but is difficult to site on our better soils here. At some point in time, I planted a couple of white ones in front; gradually, they reseeded and volunteered, reverting to the pinky lavender color I would characterize as Crayola ‘Thistle’ and making a cheery combination with the lemony Happy Returns daylilies. Liatris blooms from the top down rather than the bottom up like other spiky flowers such as snapdragons or gladiolus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/l-ZYZtEBbOgQLvap5Y1kQzjfb8RU8zzhmtN5ER991dIWHsvQloM8Q65IIEkO0ksRcESem11YOHXUW56j5LFRH19ITCyTvEBHNqqa1Vrh-gQGLw6b5EIZJ9r73M0EyuqeRA0x9pWU" style="border: none;" width="266" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I guess it’s all the spring moisture, but I have never seen so many tiny toads and frogs. The guys in the garden pond are downright conversational at night in voices I can only describe in human terms. One’s a shrieking soprano, another an inquiring alto while the odd guy out has taken up residence in my ceramic fountain on the back patio.</span></span></div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e_qBwJy9S1o/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e_qBwJy9S1o?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those who don’t think amphibians can be cute, try this guy out….</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="428" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/32bKJsCHIGMGijqNpY1pWedArr07Lh7ifoav8t8r5JSn77vrfc3mOAFnZ4sjWmV7NgVYtm5qS5mbSNziNEskNqTHhV5gumoFVBkGwPunpY4f-O2as7ZvxALERQ8BvH_iedcn6SlL" style="border: none;" width="321" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That’s daylily ‘Prairie Moonlight’, one of the few daylilies in my garden whose name I remember! Taking pictures of the daylilies is a temptation I don’t try to resist. If you have a summer garden with daylilies, you will never be cheated of color in July. Any color. All colors. The bugs won’t eat them….and they will forgive you for overwatering, underwatering, lots of sun, too much shade. They’ll fight through the weeds and come back each spring as sure as the sun. Can you tell I’m a fan? By the way, they go great with purple coneflowers…..</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/yMyykKdGiMSD1MCTqrLAnf0v0zbzSlZmOjHJqJxSQXe3_RDEuaIYQFQPpjTC8hpWPFzv16_WCedxl4C0CUFierm-hvFnjpubwSePuWLd4jT2eTbCURoa1fSkFct_RjOCDrDd83oG" style="border: none;" width="297" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CmQ7eI8RjmK0KraSAwABsTWleHeZfOy6TgnsMSKgapdLIUNDDpQg8Aa_TRC9gK_jgjQjT1yDOgMvAqAWJo_cVJ0O9gdFBw1QrP3RmigvQMDdvIkKsVVnMuTHOijpFu3Q1k2c1d3Z" style="border: none;" width="299" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/SzPKbXnenGgvsKIIK532F2hyhNGTjii3EdASQeIs4zaOdeTpjeUCcQ-oVsWQ3PerjrV_pAZQZkwMFj-jn4AnW29MEwzle_-36w1jM1977agY7lSZjhfvSqMV_rsIH5XRWNXJI4Pm" style="border: none;" width="299" /></span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thus far the beauty and success has all been Mother Nature’s doing. So let’s take a look at the back patio..</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For real garden impact for hot summer places, it never hurts to slip in a few tropicals. I have palms and ginger for the south facing, but very shady, front porch and bananas and colocasias for the very hot back patio. Sometimes I forget how big these plants can get when they are happy!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/th1OAhCAfNQlSfsQqffdqzAHAIC9K-rkjUrDTXx0vqaqB6rB8gNqeP5eEBc0FibGwrvpERZkNrY_GKUcFzQzeYf4q6N8CbxnZC-igNQS5LrKDW_ugmVcd8xIi_ysJ7GeR643_ad9" style="border: none;" width="300" /></span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For instance, who put this huge plant in this tiny pot? This 10”pot looked just fine back in May, but is totally overwhelmed and needs to be watered all the time now in July! Note to self: tropicals start out </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">slowly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> but catch up </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">quickly</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when the weather warms up!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="300" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/l3xwCuQKBGLw0XHf9WH_80x-xqyosYhL-5JyxolqCtLycc5Pad4SlJ_MKmYkCnh68c7rJbspsCqKkWFMPnSSH96DLiSXilMT7NJaaYh-JeoAq3SvJ4pt8dj9R8eXyzkFTrG-0U3J" style="border: none;" width="399" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> These Sunpatiens baskets were planted back in February. Why are they still pretty? Because I dutifully water them every single day. And why are they still in their original 10”baskets? Because that’s the size that fits on my hanging basket tree. Do what I say and not what I do….if you buy a 10”basket, bump it into a 12” basket or even a 14”basket. By the time you acquire your 10” blooming basket, it has been using up the soil mix and fertilizer in its container for a couple of months and needs a reboot in order to bloom to potential all summer long. Don’t let your basket be a casualty of July! Don’t be that guy! I wish I had a picture to show you what a 10” sunpatiens basket looks like when transplanted into 14”....like Ben has done with his. So much flower power! And a great object lesson about giving your flowers plenty of room…..</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="300" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/DlfWfnr9Yjg75OwwyWpRfUc9_VtVCSUsDF7t34wtpqKc_qDXWzeQpc7Hra6nvyCIoNU3ZjnyMInVIdWHwEPO_4ZyzT7GzYqKNj1AS5WCP0lHnmFSJLCd1wBeOe5GwJTuVMm76paF" style="border: none;" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here’s another combo pot. What? You don’t see the combo part of combo pot? Well, there are a couple of ‘River Walk’ coleus peeking out from amid the vigorous stems of coleus ‘French Quarter’. I really did read the tag on these two coleus and according to the labels, these two plants should have played nice with each other. Wrong. French Quarter is a plant and a half and has totally overwhelmed the River Walk, normally a pretty potent plant itself. Live and Learn and pretend I intended this all along…..</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/h5nCVSbMOM7iNp6hyCZ1UauD_617Z1-9Km6jNBFLTTntZzqKVGuFYZRdSsxDHd9u-qxpaZpLERCu7suQlpYxdHLrtdFKYzYVTYIJGsPygKTfbe7z-kq5Mtyi8ynjli0kpGtv8NTR" style="border: none;" width="299" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/merJ6OZNRoZUMudTkv_KRQmnXILkt9J-CYHcvTaNsbKMzyFV8DRPKLvEhd6KW881qiwdzfFtjd7K75MULDodgQjfi9mGY4J1TIrF6WP2hQssNhDm-sm82kB3ebLHVJlrs70LgrZp" style="border: none;" width="299" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Final exhibits in this mid season wrap up are two pots that prove I can learn from experience. That purple plant is strobilanthus, a plant that sulks for the two months it lives in the greenhouse, barely growing and causing much consternation. Then, magically, when June comes around, it turns into Cinderella, growing long iridescent silvery purple veined leaves that shine unfazed by heat, humidity, or sun. You can see that it grows to match its companions: it matches up with the canna and big yellow coleus...and it is well mannered and contained with the pentas and white sunpatiens. Don’t be afraid to ask for strobilanthus….you’ll be so glad you did….</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/atDMx0646cpVzJskFhNBvTBAf44eIgUZ_Om_Rcn2gMXceT-EuWwrheUV7Zz6gGZRiWV4jbNnA2qq2Az_N2pd3VTT_c5fKCk197yhcnN0G7nqCV3pSyuL8lwSknHK83_6ZveA9tZR" style="border: none;" width="299" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Second half of the season is upon us. Day games are brutal. But the hardy hibiscus are on deck with flower power to burn. Enjoy! And we’ll catch you in the stretch run….</span></span></div>
tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-10953372667386496652019-05-20T21:05:00.000-05:002019-05-20T21:05:12.542-05:00Grill Tales<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Hkr3YUo7-pD7p5VoaQqpUuYLmYdU5vu4j5rIu5PPc_1BsVy_2zFqy_M9QTbcmAue7QBEG77SFL2FRcOeVWNulGToI2V890DDtHptq-MpVJFF14oszr3t3rb1YDo4Kq7AhsbVldeeZJQY/s1600/IMG_0985.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Hkr3YUo7-pD7p5VoaQqpUuYLmYdU5vu4j5rIu5PPc_1BsVy_2zFqy_M9QTbcmAue7QBEG77SFL2FRcOeVWNulGToI2V890DDtHptq-MpVJFF14oszr3t3rb1YDo4Kq7AhsbVldeeZJQY/s320/IMG_0985.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Screen door slamming was verboten in our household. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-240c9501-7fff-d037-64d5-7c4cfa86b4ab" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> While the front door was equipped with a standard issue aluminum storm door, the kind that was supposed to close slowly and quietly, in actuality, it was so flimsy that a good solid gust of prairie wind could bend the pneumatic door closer into a pretzel shape, resulting in a door that certainly didn’t slam, because it wouldn’t close at all. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the door to the garage was blissfully unencumbered with anything but a tightly wound spring and, man, if you opened it more than six inches, you’d better have a hand free to set it back against the jam. Calmly. Quietly.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the other hand, I couldn’t help but be excited when my father fired up the grill. As I remember it, our grill was a very simple affair, more of a campfire on three legs than the scientific kettles of today with their multiple vents. He grilled in the garage and the smoke made my mouth water. But when he called through the screen door to my mom, “Toots, I’m ready for the sauce…”, that was the real signal to salivate. Everything got a basting with my mom’s concoction of chopped onions sauteed in butter then drenched with Worcestershire: hamburgers, chicken, and best of all, steak. My mother loved steak, and I know he cooked it for her exclusively because his teeth weren’t up to the challenge. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEZxI2XB5RQlRuCkwGBe6Ol6DO_nYyMXOVr_E7P1aDD7IFwRTFNvRyBxihHqGUgGGomOGDC4ZJ6x1_QFRsYavGiCYTOaepjqv8X6La8DtXd0STlwsIPGqUVJ5SWc7EwW54gFGZmkhEapIr/s1600/1983BBQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="836" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEZxI2XB5RQlRuCkwGBe6Ol6DO_nYyMXOVr_E7P1aDD7IFwRTFNvRyBxihHqGUgGGomOGDC4ZJ6x1_QFRsYavGiCYTOaepjqv8X6La8DtXd0STlwsIPGqUVJ5SWc7EwW54gFGZmkhEapIr/s320/1983BBQ.jpg" width="178" /></span></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My father called my mom ‘Toots’ every once in a while. Usually it was Ginger or even Gingie. “Toots” came from my Grandpa Froerer. Crusty as he was, I remember him calling my sister Laura by that nickname and I can only assume she reminded him of my mom as a little one.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjelZr7ct_nmeQ42jk8e200cKwLxzKQAPLe8A3aPF6M2W72NUOVFd0UOGSD62lVIIL6j1Ke-Uld53luRFV4RIj3cGQMaRk8SkfmBmYyGHLmBq_HdXxEe6IJjTDkQHtH8G0hmmRl8XkkuH-D/s1600/IMG_3232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjelZr7ct_nmeQ42jk8e200cKwLxzKQAPLe8A3aPF6M2W72NUOVFd0UOGSD62lVIIL6j1Ke-Uld53luRFV4RIj3cGQMaRk8SkfmBmYyGHLmBq_HdXxEe6IJjTDkQHtH8G0hmmRl8XkkuH-D/s320/IMG_3232.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">My dad's dad, C. John Renken, Sr. manning the grill and the sauce....</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXKc1JDfFUQq3MVkM9xsf3lwUTSwH4wrGno2Mvh6iXBj7oQ-eM4RqzvGlNpIkb3e0smhp1LN57JeNSI36asCX61b-tLHJOfwMN6HJHU5IcZNJFjjTg91PJETDAJR6s2yeL3hg_Sr2kQQ7o/s1600/1992-1914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXKc1JDfFUQq3MVkM9xsf3lwUTSwH4wrGno2Mvh6iXBj7oQ-eM4RqzvGlNpIkb3e0smhp1LN57JeNSI36asCX61b-tLHJOfwMN6HJHU5IcZNJFjjTg91PJETDAJR6s2yeL3hg_Sr2kQQ7o/s320/1992-1914.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIxH2_qdmTjVmOWaufLOqDeFeLV7FRRfBEdqWTOMdL6kNko2MLSnhGgtFm6aVCxHuMIOuZAjINy2w2BM84WpoPWfY8R-4W2_5IOKvApzFRvG0KobLFL0N71OAUkKxvMYIL6B4Mg7tTl-Gc/s1600/Christmases+past+019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="764" data-original-width="1145" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIxH2_qdmTjVmOWaufLOqDeFeLV7FRRfBEdqWTOMdL6kNko2MLSnhGgtFm6aVCxHuMIOuZAjINy2w2BM84WpoPWfY8R-4W2_5IOKvApzFRvG0KobLFL0N71OAUkKxvMYIL6B4Mg7tTl-Gc/s320/Christmases+past+019.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A family get together of any size was reason to grill. When all the aunts, uncles and cousins came to the farm for 4th of July, he’d prop up the sides of a piece of corrugated tin between concrete blocks, fill it with coals, and cook an army’s worth of pork steaks on a slab of cattle panel. For our visits, he’d babysit a roast on the Weber, or perhaps pork chops, whatever the weather, whatever the season. </span></span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This Sunday, I fired up my Weber grill. It’s our second one. The first Weber was my baby gift upon the birth of Annie on July 5th. My mom had come up to stay for a few days, riding the bus up to St. Joe where Blake picked her up. Before they came home, she bought us a grill, figuring that the second little girl was already well supplied with hand me downs from the first little girl! Life on the farm was hard on that Weber….after too many summer windstorms, the lid was no longer tight and the third leg had to be replaced with a stack of concrete blocks. Nonetheless I cooked with it for twenty two years until Lee and Ann and Ryan and Matt bought us a new one for our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. Weber #2 is the one feeding us now. Fifteen years of fire has burnt up one of the vents, but life in town is less perilous and I’m hoping it holds together as long as its predecessor.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYCYsxwGSXiDM1b83WgiLVwxJj-IExQH5fw9bcRnva9Pz4MqhcACEFHYg8EAq1TSYjQJb-gb-bKghwGwW-8IvbW_si1j2MbAKMudgQ68NSZ7DBK2lMkqjntxjwFYPjWdeed6Q1x1Tnfb1/s1600/IMG_3106.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYCYsxwGSXiDM1b83WgiLVwxJj-IExQH5fw9bcRnva9Pz4MqhcACEFHYg8EAq1TSYjQJb-gb-bKghwGwW-8IvbW_si1j2MbAKMudgQ68NSZ7DBK2lMkqjntxjwFYPjWdeed6Q1x1Tnfb1/s320/IMG_3106.JPG" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Millie and Charlie bought us a gas grill years ago, probably assuming a need for speed when it came time to put food on the table. But I could never get attached to it, nor particularly good at cooking on it, so when one of those aforementioned thunderstorms blew it over and bent it to pieces, I took it as a sign…..</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vEW6JItiIQJlA-1REao5XzeM4-2oFrMJNBYYYhvoenH7oRWc9cpLDwz2xpX6csoxKrmRaE8MuAsVh1Xq9xSYw_FEa-s6Ai7iVzzLGvaociWrSNbe9oGmt1_TMgT7vcMswFuxkNtGlZAa/s1600/FourthFun996.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vEW6JItiIQJlA-1REao5XzeM4-2oFrMJNBYYYhvoenH7oRWc9cpLDwz2xpX6csoxKrmRaE8MuAsVh1Xq9xSYw_FEa-s6Ai7iVzzLGvaociWrSNbe9oGmt1_TMgT7vcMswFuxkNtGlZAa/s320/FourthFun996.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here on the cusp of summer when charcoal smoke is in the air and kids chow down on hot dogs at ball games, burgers on the grill is a pleasant remembrance and tribute to the man who taught me to build a fire and conserve coals for the next time. </span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-24778145668952668432019-02-26T19:43:00.000-06:002019-02-26T19:43:32.422-06:00That Old Feeling<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>“I saw you last night and got that old feeling”...</i></span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-84cf8325-7fff-eb9b-e59b-b55a24392fe1" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“That Old Feeling”, lyrics by Lew Brown, music by Sammy Fain</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/t75zMNWU6DiUXrCV0Q1sGB2UY_bf-Dp-f490DhPnU--0l-EXOTzjw-crDeQNt9jxN52ssgDyv02Gtm6bhcHsZF7Wo9lbgKAfgE8PdnhShgf7tasDk5jiEeq0WfwTQ-LdkvH9Sh08" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="300" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/RQ59x7vU0b7-I8lb3VjaFoRoJpMUdV0Rb8G1pcgE2IJJAnmKDxSo6P45_TWqdNCqE0BcLamt6y9E7D1LkDFSNPxwtf8kjWaBPgoqvfYpHUXylMwgSJaP2j5s2ARQacoT6O2TbNjQ" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="298" /></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My shin sports a brand new welt. My hands could etch glass. And the boots I’ve worn every snowy day this winter have suddenly sprung a leak. My feet have ’that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cold </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feeling’. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are already worries a plenty….too much weather, too little help, too many plants for too few pots….stuck trucks and frozen vents and cancelled orders. An unexplained shortage of sunpatiens. The perennial lack of scaevola. Happens every year….’that old feeling’.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But problems a plenty flutter away like dry leaves any time I slit the packing tape on a box labeled ‘Live Plants’: instead, I hear Ella swinging soulfully about ‘that old feeling’….as I pull out a tray of potential springtime.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://genius.com/Ella-fitzgerald-that-old-feeling-lyrics" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Ella Sings 'That Old Feeling'</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="417" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/bN8V2qsiklpiPhxLiv38F1NXzFh1gJo-kujCT5AarxmSrQc8phDInVzlxEM3NqDBiQ5lIHC9i3dta2flPy7jyv9BY_vjmvjBcss2usG-ZGsp2KzpnynsriqkAK7A_qHaEcnmXBGy" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="313" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="367" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/lh3wOIp4OCnEQAdFLug-cWJSPzbeRpl1NcG9uFFk10u-3F_sR6-0bw8hZqX1QkCAzARTBJuuFk6K7OlpLfj-LTGHTszainPaIYZDxWDP9KsIU-IWakIeLDVXjGYQ_l8Mi5dcb2u5" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="275" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">It’s been that way for years. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Never mind the patience Blake exhibited when, instead of an intrusive family, I brought a collection of houseplants that was more than enough to provide a healthy level of oxygen in our first apartment. No furniture, no problem! After we moved to the farm, I discovered a new hobby: propagation! A pinch here or broken stem there stuck into a tiny 2” plastic pot and placed under a cheap fluorescent shop light and lovingly watched over and watered carefully almost always yielded a baby. Hey! I was good at this! Not only that, but there were hobbyists out there who supported their plant habits by selling cuttings and fresh leaves to folks like me who wanted to try a different begonia or a fancier African violet….</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Our tiny house was being overrun.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="308" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/lxq6BgD77T2gWEpoVmj0WgdrXX6i3MF7F0BDJFoGj2OeNwtLNXgGILHNxIpIXOlA7DusiV23yb1EBBi6E1frX9nJuNxcxeGjv3kKSR-rNbUCfo_oOmGfi68BF__1CVqX1GISgz3f" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="308" /></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately, I did not have a mail order business...or any other kind of business...that would offset the increases of the plant population due to propagation and/or acquisition. I tried. I painted a sign with the name “Hurst Greenery” and displayed it at a weekend flea market at the Tarkio Community Building. Even seen through the foggy, forgiving resolution of an Instamatic camera, it’s a pretty pathetic little effort. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="304" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/t0MoX8uVpQOcwliFmoKALcY_2aerXP6KXjQDWbyMfTXlz5kvs-veNkCEomIipVU9npIM0RdprLuiisa5RW48bnb9BxdVRA2eZuaApsGepNknHLXXJxEgl7CCrCsztuIF5pBO_u3J" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="290" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another attempt at inventory reduction from a few years later….</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="339" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/z7KCerddj_o1LiW3347mC8S7-PRGmHXrUDD7B-CJLsw3C-u7l70WLyNUirc1s8VPt85DRxMe3gXtvBEIkxWhE2FOQvGWNisohtmsHnPt_7kK84ag7hxVa-RNVtYPcGJ5HLyVJJpH" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="314" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These look a little better…</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eventually it became clear that the peak of the house plant boom had passed. I had a yard, a garden, and two cute little girls that liked to play outdoors more than hang out in a barren basement. Propagation by cuttings gave way to propagation by seeds. A few trays and some plastic wrap and my germination chamber was complete. Seeds were cheap!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And...it turns out, the plants one grows from seeds could be sold. Here are a couple more shots of some early efforts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7yXwUb-E5CWoCB85npKhcVh0tTq1S2wa8LyL7wWIsEMrB0Cin85K5o45ldANh4OJ2BH2tzIXL58dy8jg4_QdR6IRIiDhMOLgEDpHxYv-cpvs1o1nFu8x4TAmxlc_gD65A6BknAxV" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="299" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="262" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/u0EG3iA6IF-emWOnKQhS_lqkMyr2llB9Pw62IdEWlclAbRk8X3uMixxHphZcyU8NDZOTQ7h2_TxXaGJxUChl0quUHFulnXqwimNfjS_PG0P5hQo95Uz8K9Ix3PnEXyxFTGi4j-i4" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="349" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="300" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/y_XHi8oAremB6FT5ZZfP5UNYNdxPKTJIX6y0y2uAMF-u2KTxVAOZt3lst--fF7nRiAGQkhHrrq48q7GbzzJ2vYzg95t34UXyUwwkO26cz15ukWIDgjZbHoi-3D4-YDhTpE2etRqm" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I cringe now when I see the weeds under the benches, the stretched petunias, the starved tomatoes and marigolds. The camera doesn’t lie; there are also pictures of equally ugly poinsettias and overgrown impatiens, jury rigged wiring and some home grown greenhouses that weren’t up to the wind and weather load of Deadman’s Hollow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="272" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/BQat2txVscIa-z2WEaWUQXT_dyQQsG1_Mlg2TNoEwtD7sOt-h5_NKwRQvlyrKBb6eYG7AEbZ9qGTjyxMcxijFCao8HnBY9VI2OwjFIV5xjOCSScAisvSYmbHNPv5iE4w7ASkMEE8" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These old photos have a certain piquancy. They are lovable in the way your first burnt cakes or tough roasts are funny years later.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="522" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/VWFnuxBoAhb84fS3YeqhhXGvlEdG22H2xp5Fsbpr032ob3TO6anTal_SfnRY2ha8to29HNBbDjHw-vwD8DxkIi3RYbVuaBiTnrYGRIf-SMth9J-i67B2mtZqut5WkP88lnVqmV3A" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="390" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“There’ll be no new romance for me, it’s foolish to start….”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="369" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/FljCaeKiivzP6unaLcmH8o5toNcrdQzO2ttYTk5sjDsrfzyV2lYRGOsP0JWCFAlaX0r0ni6mFdovUmGhmJ3jClFU-XfQmVQLF1U0nJwqVcnvH8FEFeEK1b7pQEmnhsJzc8DxoaRC" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="267" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Playfair Display'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="356" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/t2IyPSutgY0Vm3c3trvYIPbRReA2V76z-9dYLu_4U12Y6xVaVEBr0eyuDUTtaeyDnA5lV-d3rha66AsuDbKjn3l6AppgNhOwBVoY5HpLa77unxhwYr90sEyLTo9cAw0IKChQJUyU" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="356" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That old (Spring) feeling….</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">is still in my heart.</span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-46651766134522023092019-02-03T19:50:00.000-06:002019-02-03T19:50:15.521-06:00Put on Your Apron<span id="docs-internal-guid-b381f8e6-7fff-fb8f-1122-f48ccb809995"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="476" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/oTsHVV4-2qT8Tz0cyGqIdi--KKZvdJLvP1Osh2PfDeqQ5Xxqd8PIaYUiQXPdXMXYMTePGRJ41HKe3Iy_wSzTf_iXu50__BIt8l-vUaP2-ieswN-bRJgn312tQiAOHx_WnzNOlIRK" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="316" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Newsflash! Seismic shift! Ego shattering revelation!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After more than four decades of putting food in front of my family, I’ve discovered I am not a cook. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s kinda a big letdown. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wasn’t raised on fancy food. Was anyone who was a kid in the 1960s? Round steaks and meatloaf, spaghetti and stew, canned green beans and corn and peaches and pears. My mom could bake everything and did: homemade cinnamon bread, homemade noodles, gooey rolls and fruit topped coffee cakes. From my granny: round loaves of brown bread studded with raisins and baked in fruit cans. From my grandma: oatmeal cookies with caramel icing. She could also pan fry chicken, a task I undertook to learn despite my father’s admonition that only women of a certain girth could be expected to do that successfully. I wasn’t fazed because none of the women in our family met that criteria and all fried chicken. Carrying on tradition, I would faithfully fry a big mess of chicken parts the night before we would leave on family vacation so we could picnic out of the cooler for lunches along the way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="299" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rGC9iSgHcxxOfRnoa9mMmW99dOZ_3ojyQ7EFTlIr08qkjEj37eVkpKib-HlCblNaSBoE2yTkvX18yn4SckMlzqjd__LiWp3CP_yh9X38QvknlbqVbcxFdRcDSPo6lmnm3OiJWuVn" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="399" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, my mom used recipes: her Joy of Cooking and Betty Crocker cookbooks were well-thumbed. But after awhile, I doubt she needed to look back at the recipe for teriyaki marinade or Spanish rice or raisin bars. Aside from steak on special occasions and grilled burgers and barbeque chicken in the summer, our dinner table was set for sustenance, not style.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So our kids grew up on pasta with hamburger and homegrown spaghetti sauce. They choked down the big chunks of tomatoes in the chili though they weren’t thrilled about it. We ate homemade pizza and baked chicken, pot roast with potatoes and sweet corn from our freezer. We ate a lot of eggs. But I was creative every once in a while: from the recipe insert in the St. Joe paper, I would make one really tasty recipe for pasta called “Amatriciana” every once in a while.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="213" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Rx3u0EvOoZV_KxtPbfgEHpmgLzTrgYxI5xajf-zlrcvq6s_h3v5tfBHHsJFVG9w6hJgFEB55KHbeHZUP7tojMZi-lDeCJ4tDL2atx-JAnM3kheKhpoHHV0jAWD9MlxKaxzlFQqFc" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/bucatini-all-amatriciana" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bucatini all'Amatriciana</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…..no, not that one….I had to look up what ‘bucatini’ is... My recipe called for bacon rather than pancetta and I’m certain I used Kraft-Parmesan-out-of-a-can instead of Pecorino Romano! But! It was a recipe! I followed it, and it tasted different and took more time and effort than my usual throw in a pound of this, a jar of that, a handful of salt and oregano, and put the cheese on the table. Cooking in those days focused on bulk, not art, and any dish that could wait on the stove on low without becoming totally inedible was a keeper. Double bonus if supper could be created from what was in the freezer and the pantry when the HyVee was miles away and people were hungry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This extended preamble is intended to illustrate that I am in full realization of the rudimentary level of my cooking skills. But that self awareness was no match for the schooling, nay...revelation, that I received at the gas burners of the New Orleans Cooking School. Here, we learned culture: that Creole and Cajun are like light and dark, city and country. That the best French bread is stale within hours. That the “file’” in gumbo is sassafras and should be used to taste with care. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="375" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Tn8_3Mz4kynN0L8VfMaXagyMgynU45fxWkQcuJfTaHxqiO38jptz6Xg18P87dTXha7sEXBQoRPEDcsATu_1H7reCEQK11g071VF7fv8bNJp1mQpc4KnxRSythddGOJJD02DAsRFU" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="281" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it comes to ‘the roux you do’, we grew faint of heart as the flour and lard darkened and needed constant reassurance that our skillet would survive. This glorious hue, achieved after forty plus minutes of stirring with a roux spoon, was the result…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="460" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/cSfu6HT-yIHZK4PpI9N2N_3RDnVsxzqHLZDS669rWj7xsBCK9e96drPCr95ReydiaElwM8oZ7oF5mb_2T2bDR8cvFDuNtwPu6zO5ynDghdtBvhJeYm0LaxVwW4gJ2hwuvbX5fs0h" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="345" /></span></div>
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<a href="https://jesspryles.com/recipe/how-to-make-a-roux/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How to Make a Roux</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Looking at this link will show you the color progression. I will say that Chef Kati did not suggest oil; we began with about a pound of lard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cooking up the sausage required another leap of faith. Again, the bottom of the pan became ominously black, but we were told not to worry: that all that crunchy stuff was essential for full flavor. And, sure enough, when the ‘holy trinity’ of celery, pepper and onion was finished ‘sweating’ , like magic, the bottom of the pan was as clean as a mirror. Notice how casually I throw around terms like ‘sweating’ and ‘holy trinity’? Before my stint at the Cooking School, sweating was for humans and the Trinity was not constrained to vegetables.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="438" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/WuTRRWa7eTF8mozBvX1vPimFkYKJGZi-LgFPIWNiQl1enE53DsRzaKgYYMvz333_2r77VGslkkQjwwR6d4iLWCOFx25a5_5FKpIxNvdUD2FR3oxNPJlrsvulrCKnzrCHQihV6ax7" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="328" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time to taste. “Needs salt!”, was the unabashed opinion of one cook. We did, and added a shot of Crab Boil for good measure….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="318" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/J0sNJaXWXIUfdeQHNkXOvllOWC33LIh1gS9MMMQdMalRcD6BXdCN7F3vSYriYyPSoLFN3iLdSqhcQIksihnyN_kQCRkTWwBnFjVtOjZyJiOKy7mVGZFhWhyvkK5LHMkgb1nowg0N" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="212" /></span></div>
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<a href="https://store.louisianafishfry.com/products/seafood-boils/la-fish-fry-crawfish-crab-shrimp-boil-liquid-109.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crab Boil</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, we shook in a little Joe’s Stuff, the all purpose seasoning of the New Orleans Cooking School, tasted again, shrugged our shoulders, and handed our dish off to the chef for his professional opinion….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="396" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/1GXMnBuM2rmjYZX8w6YaIxP_xlibujtBoYgKIDczDR2jW4EUeVeEL1_rLKbOHQj3LIZ0NaKrtkumxXdwVvq-9KmEtWrOgIhGcBhmWxPIVUV034tgS8jpsTh4rJ6zgKGD87IK4dDQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="396" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And...and...after all that chemistry, all that culture, and all that care, the chef simply dumps Joe’s into the pot willy-nilly...just like I would??? We all gasp….then taste...and declare our gumbo the best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was it fun to follow the rules...to execute rather than wing it? To know why? To create as we replicated? To honor tradition and culture? Yes..this was cooking food that I would pay money to eat like I would buy tickets to the theater...performance food. While the method undoubtedly determined the excellent results, I wondered how many Cajun mamas stirred the roux for hours to ensure the perfect color and maximum flavor and how many looked at the clock and said, Mon Dieu! Papa’ll be a bear if this isn’t on the table when he walks through that door……</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….as she pours a bunch of Joe’s into the pot and gives it a quick stir….. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="268" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Ec9VdF29Dt3NAGRSa72ALv6B6PYI1xnsWU_BD7UM86ZyNxA3yLI3z2cvEo3X3sn6Gco05LGxkKgmfFTanv0Gp46ytVeM3ETO0Sc0PPNswEatSHoqT7rBn8X_rSHhd-r-Khr3E478" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="479" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, I looked up a recipe for Sunday dinner. I put on my apron before I wiped onion and garlic and chicken juice on my jeans. Putting on the Cooking School apron made me feel all official. I had my chicken and mushrooms, my angel hair pasta and cheeses. I’d bought a jar of Ragu, but, under the influence of the Cooking School apron, halfway through the process, I decided to go home made all the way. Hmmm….well I didn’t have the three Romas, but no matter, I did have a can of fire roasted tomatoes. And...yeah, I didn’t have a lick of half & half, so I cut the flour a bit and added all the tomato juice</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the can. That’s a picture from the website. It looks <u>almost</u> exactly like mine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I tried to follow the recipe….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My husband still added salt. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I think it would be even better with shrimp. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Must be the apron…...</span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-59963324509968097392019-01-28T20:21:00.000-06:002019-02-03T19:29:54.165-06:00Songbirds<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a0cc6e69-7fff-17af-8519-16fc0c9b66ba" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overnight, the winter birds found my feeder. Before the snow, though the ground was bare and brown, they had flitted through the shrubs and pecked at the seed heads in the garden. But the storms that drove us humans into the warm hearts of our homes kept the birds grounded too...and hungry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, rather than purchase the big bags of “mostly millet”, the stuff that leaves the ground under the feeder rank and weedy come summer, in pity, I sprung for the good stuff…..sunflower hearts and cracked corn. The rosy purple finches and the wintry green goldfinches clung to the perches in defiance of freeloading squirrels while the sooty little juncoes took their chances with what the other birds dropped. Watching them from the kitchen window, I felt slightly less downtrodden by the speed bumps of the season. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Skylark, have you seen a valley green with spring </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where my heart can go a-journeying </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the shadows and the rain to a blossom-covered lane?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….Hoagy Carmichael </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alas, the meadowlarks that stick out the season in northern Missouri, contrary to all common sense, have no such help when the ground is white. Like forlorn hitch hikers, they huddle on the shoulders of our country roads, taking their chances with the passing semis in hopes some grain will blow off a flapping tarp or leaking trap. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been reading John Eldredge’s new devotional </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Restoration Year</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a year long selection of short devotions that builds on the foundation of his </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All Things New</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a book of wild hope and encouragement. Like opening a door to warmth and companionship, his book and these short essays are like looking down into the valley green with spring and rain beaded blooms of tulips and quince and redbud. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I took a screenshot of that page….the January 30 page...which sparkles defiantly with cheerful birdsong when spring is not just one calendar page, but three or four months in the future. Be hopeful, be confident, and throw those songsters in your yard some seed for their long winter days…..</span></div>
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<img src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/9dc2c39a-980f-4272-a5dd-e1bffe4b30f2" /><img src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/233c3c36-216b-4635-aaac-3a53b1c93fea" /><img src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/74d94f06-83d8-4f52-b5e9-d593c3ebc711" />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-20548988566998912402019-01-02T19:01:00.000-06:002019-01-02T19:01:42.506-06:00Everyday, Every Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometime this week, while celebrating, we lost someone.We didn't notice. But today, as I began to dismantle the Christmas decorations, I discovered one of the little Snow Village shoppers had disappeared. Not a trace, even of a dropped peppermint striped shopping bag. I thought the little figure might have slipped beneath a poly quilt filling snow drift. We checked the empty gift boxes as we hauled them to the trailer to take to the farm. Lee even asked Ryan if he had any inkling...since he has been known to rearrange the inhabitants of Snow Village when no one is looking...but alas, after all the ornaments were boxed and the decorations bagged and carried to the basement, the china tot was nowhere to be seen.</div>
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Christmas 2018 is in the books, but the Christmas mystery remains.<br />
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Tonight while the north wind is howling at the windows and hissing around the doors, I think I hear the old year digging its nails into the trees and its heels into the driveway while the new year chugs in like a freight train. Farewell to ye, old year, and a good riddance to your foul weather and rotten politics. Whatever may befall us in 2019, there will be a minimum of political ads, if not opprobrium. The elements? Meh...it <b><u>will</u></b> be too hot and too cold, droughty and rainy at unfortunate times. The elements will be what they will be and we can but pray for the best and expect the normal extremes to average out to "normal".<br />
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The 2019 family calendar is hot off the presses at Shutterfly and in the mail, nearly every date filled with the best moments of 2018 in pictures and/or birthdays and anniversaries of loved ones. It's my constant reminder that each day brings its own blessing, the small ones as vital to our well-being as the big ones. However crummy the corporate memory of a year, it cannot be considered an unmitigated disaster if a person has 718 happy pictures to fit into 365 days....<br />
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I have been enjoying a recent addition to the YouVersion app: using some of my own photos as backdrops to favorite Bible verses. The verse comes first and then the search for an image. The right photo doesn't always appear, but these ordinary snapshots of my oh so ordinary life make God's Word a more integral part of my daily routine than the spectacular photographs and calligraphy often provided with the very best of intentions.<br />
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This frigid New Year's Eve Blake and I stayed home. While I loved last year's extravaganza of music and a night out, our evening of grocery store sushi and Netflix, snug under the flannel sheets when the midnight fireworks popped and crackled, was comfortable and fulfilling. The Christmas tree is downstairs with just a few staticky pieces of tinsel left behind....those, and the gifts that need to be framed or hung on the walls. Matt and Aaron, Lizzie and Josh sawed and drilled and fitted the stained glass door from my folks' house into one of the doorways here at Spruce...a labor of love performed in the busy week before Christmas. Ryan worked his metal magic and produced lantern covers with wonderful cutouts for the summer patios of all us gardeners...mine's a bison, a reminder of our Wyoming adventure. A graceful pottery bowl in Western hues waits for its turn to hold strawberries or cherry tomatoes this summer....Lee's choice along with two little watercolors from Missouri artists. Ann took time to add pictures to the blogposts from 2018 and now they are a hardcover book created by Storyworth. Forgive me if I am kinda excited about "being in print" even if it is a single volume! Kenzie and Ben have given us music....tickets to Lyle Lovett in a couple of weeks...and art for the garden when sunnier days are upon us<br />
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I take time to enumerate these generous and thoughtful gifts for a reason: because these parents give of their time and talents, their kids are learning the joy of making and giving. Levi chose presents for all his grandparents at the "Elves" shop where they label and wrap too! Kenzie laughs when she describes his care in choosing just the right item, "He has a reason for every one!" Aaron picked out vintage style National Park postcards for each family, choosing parks we had visited, and then mounted them on finished boards...strikingly reminiscent of the boards and stain of the Schlouse! Gabe vanished into the his dad's garage to build his grandparents a sweet smelling cedar shelf. Lizzie drew and hand-colored a beautifully detailed Christmas doorway, arched and lighted and hung with greens (something else to frame!) and Abbie sprinkled the house all Christmas long with fanciful origami birds and flowers, Santas and stars, snowflakes and reindeer. As they did last year, the kids prepared and practiced, (Lizzie made programs and Josh drew a sign) then sang and played Christmas songs for the second Redbarn concert...before they opened even one package. When the new garden tools are muddied; the Legos deconstructed; the boots outgrown and the letter jacket left hung in the closet, the music will be remembered still.<br />
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Wish I noted where I read these lines this Christmas Eve: I think they perfectly express the heart of giving and what the grandkids are learning at home.<br />
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" .......we cannot purchase pleasure. Joys are given by God; man can only accept them.<br />
But joys cannot be bought, only received. The one thing we can do to develop a capacity for enjoyment is to practice generosity--a kind of reckless sharing that imitates the divine largesse."<br />
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Wishing everyone a generous New Year...give with gladness and receive with thanks.....<br />
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The everyday. Every day.<br />
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-40007012839358147282018-12-23T13:38:00.000-06:002018-12-23T13:38:02.891-06:00Four Advent Movements<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-b8e70a4f-7fff-78e3-7aaa-0969ce3c5d63" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I’m driving across the brown fields of north Missouri...and nothing makes me happier. The fields are empty but for the quiet searchings of cattle for dropped and broken ears. No more standing grain, no more grain carts or combines or trucks….just the ruts remaining as evidence of the drenching rains that made 2018’s harvest as stressful as the dry summer that preceded it. Now, Thanksgiving snows are memory and no one in our part of the state is longing for a White Christmas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin: 0pt 45pt 0pt 36pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winter’s pale bright air spotlights every Christmas display, every billboard, every red barn. Deep ruts squirming across a field are a sure sign some farmer will have to forego no till in 2019. These level fields bring to mind holiday travel across Illinois so many years ago. Every field was black, ridged and frosted with snow like an Oreo cookie. The crusty drifts in the ditches reversed that color scheme with a dusting of windblown soil clinging to the icy ridges. The snow invariably disappeared as we drove south, finally revealing tawny pastures and clear still farm ponds across the Mississippi. Kids in Missouri were the lucky ones; they seemed to get out of school for Christmas earlier and go back to school later that we Illinoisans did. Christmas back then was a beloved story read over and over again that we never tired of. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Advent. Wreaths and the gradual parting of the wintry darkness as each candle is lit and the prophecies assure us that the Messiah is nigh.The interior of our little Lutheran church was dimly candlelit during Wednesday evening services. Unlike the Lenten hymns which were unrelentingly slow with a multitude of dolorous verses to remind us of our sins, the Advent hymns, while minor, seemed to me beautiful with ancient longing…”O Come, O Come…”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The choir loft of Christ Lutheran was hot in the summer and hot in the winter, but the organ and pipes were there and my father directed the choir, so we sat up there often. From the back pew you could look down and see the ropes for the church bells and watch them go up and down at the beginning and end of the service. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My granny and grandpa’s house had only two temperatures: hot and cold. A story and a half brick house with metal framed windows that grew icicles in the winter. During Christmas though, the combination of pots boiling on the stove and a houseful of guests defrosted the windows until rivers of water puddled on the sills. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Grandma Nelson’s old house hissed and fizzed on Christmas Eve while the floors creaked under the load of aunts, uncles, cousins and more cousins and the air was redolent of wet coats and boots. I wonder….with churches full and fires stoked, was Christmas Eve the only night of the year our ancestors were warm?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scripture is so ingenious in introducing the life of Christ with a tale that would captivate any and every child. Who would not be amazed by the shepherds in the fields and the angels in the air. The mysterious travelers following a star in search of a king. The baby who spent his first night with the animals in the barn. We all have our favorite hymns, like Levi’s ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘We Three Kings.’ Lee just wants carols she </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sing...no more 'Angels We Have Heard on High' for her. I used to tire of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Away in a Manger’, but these days they bring tears to my eyes. </span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-50763922362734187462018-12-22T16:34:00.000-06:002018-12-22T17:00:29.578-06:00Mary and Martha and the Christmas Cookie Plate<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Bible holds multitudes. Take, for example, the subject of Christmas cookies and the other similar confections we concoct during this season for gift giving: caramel popcorn, homemade Cherry Mashes, peanut clusters, fudge, and anything using Hershey kisses. And the lesser treats: Chex mix, frosted pretzels, candy canes and dark chocolate M&Ms. When I look at the building blocks of all this sweet bounty, brightly colored like a mosaic, on special end caps at the grocery, then spilling out of the plastic sacks in the kitchen….maraschino cherries for one recipe, almond bark for another, condensed milk, Rolos for unwrapping….all those ingredients one only purchases for holiday baking….what else can I possibly see but “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”? Powdered sugar...cream cheese….candy canes for pounding...and so much butter I’m embarrassed to enumerate it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tKI_niO2Tbocarpvu36g1iSCwF1_0QIhDrZM8gM393TeHZezkWp_qmsbA5OMLEVpAtyvfSNF2BfbVfYRgi5QtthmY4rB8pXohKiLm5xSqBwfp5RGeD1dK1sBKps1pD4BrL7T65Eb" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tKI_niO2Tbocarpvu36g1iSCwF1_0QIhDrZM8gM393TeHZezkWp_qmsbA5OMLEVpAtyvfSNF2BfbVfYRgi5QtthmY4rB8pXohKiLm5xSqBwfp5RGeD1dK1sBKps1pD4BrL7T65Eb" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="245" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I pray using this verse from Luke, the very words of our Lord in the Beatitudes, is not sacrilegious. But, in some tangential way, I consider the making of Christmas cookies akin to Mary pouring the expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet...and then wiping them with her hair. Christmas cookies, lavished with chocolate and nuts, or cunningly shaped and decorated, aren’t just simple constructions of flour and sugar and shortening. We know they are treats….not necessary, but extravagant….and sometimes so lavish, so sweet, and so rich as to be inedible! But that’s why we give them: to be just a little bit over the top ….in decorations….in calorie content. “Good measure….running over.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img height="404" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/nri69MlScA7iY7ueyNCZ0v7xgY02aTqZLTvY-gqIsJCu1gcgq0iVHpDskpq8NMf4UK-ZaJ7m4QPObT7l_FHrlS-jKuTJagTU1y6UcPtQcBYZ98FO3cNWKH4-J4z-DCUDxR3ptC2Q" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="302" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img height="401" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/u27ZijTmTiGEpIjjWQeBAJ3omEMpR9sjroneyEQo7AQcikaudE9OG2dv1O-HX3hD7jV9n2QtKods8tSmRXNBZK1kdTRBVI5uJQ4eFF-SJOoGiW52kOiiCP1u0QcH1mG08VWJKrbb" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="300" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Martha, Mary’s sister, not maligned so much as not up to snuff in her choices as a hostess, is also a Christmas cookie kind of gal. Anyone with a sibling knows Martha, from her all too human aside to Jesus (“Lord, don’t you care that Mary isn’t helping!”) regarding her sister to her desire to have everything just right. This story is in the Bible for all of us through the ages who get so wrapped up in the worry of serving that we miss the fun not just of giving, but of receiving too. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img height="374" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Mc2jq_Z6BES1ybYIbUSDcNCaiyBASdrWJwhMbf-j22vvEF_6f_5ZJvJVhSRmR-HZb8fPfYSerR3zErzHqxqvfIBUxImYPPQ9sy_OjCtDbASJL2XqFyiWSC4kPCznkS1lBA7QKfB8" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="280" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So be a little Martha and a lot of Mary. Bake that Christmas dinosaur. Don’t sweat the plates or presentation or the angels without heads. Give the kids the honor and glory of making and baking. Spread the sprinkles. On this earth, we won’t always be able to give the people we love what they most need.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img height="317" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/TR7SNJVHmvs3emfRyJ_XGiZ0alzjSJZnpiPQFQqimtPiYrNslr7MIu8IcOEYD618IRGX6It3bV7n-mK5fgXjkBcNiJwoZZztC8VheHHlMvdQoyzpcu3_kBhm0WxBR68np4xFLGI8" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="317" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But we can always give them cookies…..</span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-35212629366276840402018-11-24T08:53:00.000-06:002018-11-24T08:58:23.338-06:00Do You, Do You Remember These....?<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<img height="332" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/y4JjBgY0nRLQnbtQR6xm-iXdeDBG7XA9fqc5JXOmiupb3ojb4alAjjU8kw55zS74nvhlPurjVMHz_-RjsIc3OiThIk1ATXc6pFPwr2tqma0K5CBdr2q1Zqec8h8BtjsvxVZrxCuD" style="border: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="329" /><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-a5502ff6-7fff-2950-aed9-99d1236bcd9d"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look at those lapels. Oh if only this album cover were</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in color! </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you,oh, do you remember these? The Statler </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bros.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">released </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Do You Remember These?’ in 1972. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ten years later, I took this picture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="220" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/JXmFnGYGyHCcjgPDMEFPJh8OSbufKiVgq5dRfTe3_0G7tos_y9wQprmDAqKTCaslouAQZjbVe14lfUELib29NxpQo7StWeudF07FZ7V5iPqej5p2MX3aCWRfqAeSUqTjKLhkqA-A" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look at these cute little girls posing amid the trees </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of Tan Tar A. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Heck, I think </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">some of those same patio</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tables</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and chairs are still in</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> service down there. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Coming</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> down</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to the Lake is fun:</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the weather is nicer than in</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Tarkio;</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">they get to stay in a hotel; </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">and, after she </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">gets off work,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> they get to play with their grandma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, Dad has to go to meetings, and sometimes </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they have to sit in </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">quietly and color, but they </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">also get to go swimming so it's still</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pretty much like a vacation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/H3j8JTIghhdBusj-rzJjZs8GBitiL8MCUciREeEU_lcS76gElaz-TLg6_u-yDPYEXUSDtlQzBe2v9UeKtpQMZIdpXsAMiSF6r-TJfZQSKstv5_V3KA2yCb4ymeHa0Qc8_ZH6CdiC" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="329" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you remember 1982? I do...it was one of the first Farm Bureau meetings Blake and I attended. It was before his mustache phase. The two little girls, Lee and Ann, were just three and two that December. They haven’t missed very many Missouri Farm Bureau annual meetings in their lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> You can do the math.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><img height="307" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/jPGwTvlcNb5fT03pLN5lMvpPaLC5UZfUSOknCjRPLIrAUVKGPvbgPaY2Snyiwndn0fGX8ydWNVIjaB9mW-YxzNvOFoK0ImuSeXnLhd_lpZ7H5eCQQToThduvclDNFU3_GpABHEe4" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This past week I stuffed a whole bunch of envelopes with a letter from Blake asking you to grant him another two years as Missouri Farm Bureau president. I don’t know everyone...or even every little town....Missouri has so many! But I recognize a lot of those names and addresses….and it does my heart good to see envelopes with the names and addresses of your families, too. Just like Lee and Ann who are in their third decade of Farm Bureau meetings (So many pancakes! So many escalator rides! So many pages of resolutions!), Farm Bureau committees, speech contests, and leadership roles are filled with a mix of old traditions and new energy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each year we come down to Tan Tar A to work..but also to mingle. We love seeing how little ones have grown and we mourn those no longer with us. Once upon a time, we chased kids down the hallway…..oh wait!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We still get to do that!</span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-50571315844863575342018-11-21T17:14:00.000-06:002018-11-21T17:14:47.077-06:00Don't Know Much About....<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qo6nXBwUy2_Jz3F2IpD326NWqRzFXZKjsrVHLjGVV2IggpSc-MD3yb41cGIwimOf3Xcqi7uj0ZwlKZ_JH48n4_ReUP4ZdJ44pHdJthRk2pMPkRBQuxUJxLcXXYFuB5vprjO1w5cR" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="308" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were hats. Almost everybody wore one. As the women filtered through the doors one or two at a time, the Wednesday Club might have been a hiccup in the time space...or was it a time-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">place</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> continuum: a dignified, brick, white columned place with a boardroom, a century plus of history, and a structure which charged each member with a task: from pouring coffee to running the state of the art sound system to inviting the guest lecturer in one of twelve different disciplines. Two women in the restroom adjusting their Halloween finery were discussing the whereabouts of a third: ‘Has anyone seen her yet?’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ‘Well, no, and I called at eight and there was no answer….’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh no! I thought, imagining an injury or bad fall…..</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’But she may be playing tennis…’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So much for preconceived notions...my mental vision is shattered by a two handed backhand...</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="292" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/jbgF8zB5T4mH13JUDCc4GzR-WMMg7b4mU8ZABWcPYY0X925B_ujUIwlh_F0ZpziUq6TxeMNcOIzfHC3x369QBfcFpg2t3w6RHOojdolhhLNqX79GBk1p1n_tcWREK9HgVNK9eCHC" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="316" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our hostess is a member of Missouri Farm Bureau and has read Blake’s opening articles in the Farm Bureau’s Show Me Magazine. In one of her introductory letters, we learn she and her husband have a farm in Crawford county and they understand that cattle need protection from predators and the elements and why some people need to harvest three deer “to make it through the winter.” In her words, “this is likely not know by many in the city”. Blake’s talk will have to deal, at least tangentially, with the approved topic in the History section: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Omission in U.S. History in the Media.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Whew! Because it is very clear that discussing spitting contests and name calling, whether social media present or yellow journalism past, is beyond the pale of the good manners and propriety of the Wednesday Club, Blake’s talk mentions what the media gets wrong, but its main focus is what agriculture gets right. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8vr-37O4wMmPSSRTnQqExAfpGxXwlFpM18pmfqNBVZXGBA1CXNBS5OnvuyI8hsZD6VN8JQsItqoFhXvG3fMXBjZB99bHdK7hBSJN7OE-nGN71fqePzYaj_4MkNZBmYKEumIzXc7ZxN_bu/s1600/IMG_6624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8vr-37O4wMmPSSRTnQqExAfpGxXwlFpM18pmfqNBVZXGBA1CXNBS5OnvuyI8hsZD6VN8JQsItqoFhXvG3fMXBjZB99bHdK7hBSJN7OE-nGN71fqePzYaj_4MkNZBmYKEumIzXc7ZxN_bu/s320/IMG_6624.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Every day and in every way, today’s agriculture overcomes obstacles of weather and climate, disease and fertility to feed the people of the world. But you have to get past the “bad news” to learn about this a modern day miracle. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/GCLblIMmmsBEDJQkdvCCZv4_yAvBSAFhh94c23T2NvqWlg3mA0yMS9OU2xbH3iYvi_j0uCJq-YVD6mOs9ZZVyyzbn26xItQUwDYk7iCIFSjh9O-duVMF_4Hlg-kP1sdWeqSCyKyC" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="299" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fortunately, the women (and man) of the Wednesday club are receptive to this tale. They are folks of a generation that understands science; many have been associated with medicine or Washington University in their professional lives. They are also of an age to enjoy or at least tolerate multiple pictures of cute grandchildren and to poke gentle fun at the minor technological snafus posed by holding a mouse backwards. This is an audience unfazed by the science of genetic modification, but a little ouchy about ethanol; after all, one of their previous guest lecturers was from the Danforth Plant Science center. Someone asks about food deserts and another member seems quite concerned when Blake mentions that we have been using no till farming for twenty years on our highly erodible soils. Turns out her farmland is in Illinois where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the soils are deep, black….and flat. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="304" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/QgSqICR1NeX4R4t_Pe_j4WgRbRre2-3gLd63w6sRuYQ7MBP3Sa0Ztv33_X-myFIqLGJHSiNoksWVjmro7WzGW6gGFg7Lid5mwh9ckREWSMwUMdAVFO9U3kqZAFx2YsFpocGTrkOO" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="405" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="213" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/gWyBRDXjnA8Si9sIXA2QJmYmUGrPQYyfvDX2GnbPIBjlf1W97vzccowAKIoi3s6RnfmxU48bM05MOR7isJ6HAQu_Qy-s7vyf0OMuE-OMDrE7amWRwEPY62EOWDs9WcR1RYF9yLo7" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Off to lunch, where, in a flashback of nostalgia, I halfway expect to be served a cottage cheese filled pear on a lettuce leaf. Didn’t happen. Instead, I compliment the coffee and eat my Halloween hued cupcake, enjoying the cheerful chatter from the tables all around. When we were first married, I accompanied Millie to a couple of meetings of the neighborhood Morning Sun Extension Club where the ladies were primarily of Blake’s Grandma Hurst’s generation with names like Eunice, Gertrude and Velma. And, later, I was a faithful member of the Atchison County Republican Women and an erratic attendee of the Tarkio Garden Club with stalwart women all a generation or two older than me. But kids and work took precedence over civic groups and meetings and I hardly noticed when local organizations like these faded away. The women of the Wednesday Club shore up their volunteerism with a hearty dose of accountability and duty; surely the full tables this Halloween are indicative of a relentless and iron willed civic spirit. Today’s individualistic bent allows us to tailor our self improvement on our own at any time and place of our choosing. But associations like the Wednesday Club keep the “community” in “betterment”. The past of our grandmothers, if not the hats, lives on at the Wednesday Club, and the culture of our future is better for it...</span></span></div>
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-36971032737087242452018-11-04T20:11:00.000-06:002018-11-04T20:12:00.357-06:00Bach to the Future<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Way back when in 1968, the Cardinals got beat in the World Series by Mickey Lolich and Denny McClain. The Democratic convention got the best of Mayor Richard Daley. And the movie <i><b>2001:A Space Odyssey</b></i> confounded anyone who saw it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="561" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vD5ni5IHXcvaX2EKWEeACeGLYcN1IijP_zQYN_F724YThqbX_byGWKqfdXi33Ewt-EyFJGVV551dXSpjMIcy8AGFOw8_QnB2vua3lzI-2OGwtEqAecArYGQay3IBExlOWqr7fTTQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="335" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="255" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2XJ56UcEHdS6URUcdRQtdqwVw1PvI0AS5xpeUSItBDKBJmPHSErN5tJlKE_NWlN0Fzg_5qdCtrAE9x-ir6WWhSM4MtxQcufpcYRfSksaewoxnI-4QwyYqUUW_IkP8hEGyVl9aHnV" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="342" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I didn’t see game seven of the World Series..it may have been a day game, I don’t know. I saw the newspaper coverage of the demonstrators and police in downtown Chicago. And I didn’t see the movie…..but I was curious enough about it to get Arthur Clarke’s book out of our school library. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="245" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/80NsGiYTxGQ-hAiGAQxW7Vmz0hlM2ojOQ2VPeKGkmcHwl2RR6OivBXkr_jghOx0xi04s9C5oq_RCl78uSW1xVnD2svOBo7hpEjd-GLWvwT5T8KWGfRnQLQ6dOz0EVJ-YUKI9XCXX" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="160" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sitting here on my couch, typing on my iPad, it takes some imagination to recollect how very strange the date 2001 sounded back then. Men in spacesuits were part of our vernacular; my dad worked with the massive computers of the day; but the next century was farther in the future than Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman were in the past. The movie was rife with symbolism and ambiguity and I admit feeling so uncomfortable with the part of the book when HAL goes rogue that I skipped past it as quickly as I could. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="180" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/G37p5llxqKy2dq1LpB2_edSf3hG3nho2XS_bS6AqEYpjdnVjJhQCABGz0Er-YZid13A0cgq9NnMBaLZhmo0Q6blsBrTewqXmPy2ODz1SsKeKVY_ZJOlXLuX8bZnjjmNzEAzlLiGb" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It’s funny what the mind chooses to remember. Apes and aliens aside, it is the music that remains after all these years. <b>2001</b> made Richard Strauss popular for a season as his brooding and melodramatic tone poem <i style="font-weight: 400;">Also Sprach Zarathustra</i> introduced the black monolith that is one motif of the film. But deep into the book, when Astronaut Bowman is rocketing deeper and deeper into the Solar System all alone, he talks about the music that has been his company: progressing from the Romanticism of Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms to the Classicism of Haydn and Mozart. Finally, he says, he settles almost exclusively on Bach, finding inspiration and comfort in his infinite variety. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="320" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/L5hSwnc-t2mmNTmXiy4DywDmOVFZJ_CBy9luAqqJKE0dV8VHAXGXV6sUGpsUJrM0OKpuvfJShzKKy6EgNemdf9BEQUsxBW0WDHtIo9HhAdtvboigY6IELJH1xNklrI9pzZEg6Xz3" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="277" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is only now in my musical journey that I’m beginning to appreciate that observation. I'd always felt aggrieved for my favorite geniuses, Beethoven and Brahms, not as much for the dismissal of their grand concertos and symphonies, but because Arthur Clarke seemed not to admire the almost modern dissonance and complexity of their later chamber works. But these days, while I’m road tripping over familiar highways, a Bach cello suite, sonorous or sprightly, is the perfect companion for making the miles fly by. And if I’m practicing my clarinet and open the Bach book to an Allemande or Bouree with a bunch of accidentals and some tricky fingerings, it’s far better music than I deserve…..</span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-52256742818068700962018-10-21T22:46:00.000-05:002018-10-25T21:12:20.545-05:00Hardware<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Back in the day</b>...before Lowe’s or Home Depot or Costco or Overstock.com...or LampsPlus or FaucetsDirect...or a whole laundry list of online suppliers catered to the persnickety or bargain oriented home renovator….there was Vic’s...and Friendly Boys….and Curfman’s. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp89skmcwcet5KMujsWdLHfSuUH6hIWUYe5E9YQGxtT7kshjmU0q4T7L77eep1I7FquoByd6GySCeOd26asdYI9Eo8ztylwkA0dJxK0QuyWGY5INtlUs1i7r8jsRSmEZWS69J4WxLCSAd0/s1600/IMG_6584.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp89skmcwcet5KMujsWdLHfSuUH6hIWUYe5E9YQGxtT7kshjmU0q4T7L77eep1I7FquoByd6GySCeOd26asdYI9Eo8ztylwkA0dJxK0QuyWGY5INtlUs1i7r8jsRSmEZWS69J4WxLCSAd0/s320/IMG_6584.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, <b>back in the day</b>, you couldn’t sit in line at the elevator, or watch the auger, pull up a website, and pick out a gift for your wife’s birthday…. which happened to fall smack dab in the middle of harvest. No, the opportunities to shop ranged from null to void...unless something broke down and you had to run to John Deere for parts. And then, your options were….Vic’s…. or Friendly Boys….or Curfman’s.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0XnPaZjTT-PYoLAtsCuHuxALFI0QXJSThBAUeYuxgC3iGe2aIJ4xnE82hobDmLHZAuO4f2DqI2Aohr93pqxWRH1yGbk0r3oHNEST-UnhtpijkN9AhMN3dLajMwkqk7xnE0ZbP_Uf0FfB/s1600/cheese+slicer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0XnPaZjTT-PYoLAtsCuHuxALFI0QXJSThBAUeYuxgC3iGe2aIJ4xnE82hobDmLHZAuO4f2DqI2Aohr93pqxWRH1yGbk0r3oHNEST-UnhtpijkN9AhMN3dLajMwkqk7xnE0ZbP_Uf0FfB/s400/cheese+slicer.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many a year I received something practical for my birthday from the hardware store. Even more likely was a Christmas present from Curfman’s especially if their Daddy took the kids shopping a day or so before Christmas. Ann remembers being particularly partial to kitchen items. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nearly every Christmas there was a cheese slicer in my pile of gifts, the perfect item to replace the previous cheese slicer, which had met an untimely demise sometime earlier in the year. I’ve often wondered if Cathy ever noticed all those cheese slicers, or perhaps, whether....with a sly smile... she was the one who suggested them year after year!</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiye87WdXoPEECOCzIsOE9_UPo8MXi9evxTF_2asNUyHER3s1QPAG5-_ebVFI03AuCR2765BLe4ahk6w4gcsc6uUwMu3PqQSsCMBehsCWL2BgBQ8mQBXKsa-dD8dkfPdi9tVMUCYGWUsT4Q/s1600/Tarkio+Mo+postcard+1910.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiye87WdXoPEECOCzIsOE9_UPo8MXi9evxTF_2asNUyHER3s1QPAG5-_ebVFI03AuCR2765BLe4ahk6w4gcsc6uUwMu3PqQSsCMBehsCWL2BgBQ8mQBXKsa-dD8dkfPdi9tVMUCYGWUsT4Q/s320/Tarkio+Mo+postcard+1910.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Curfman’s almost always had what we needed...if I plopped down a bolt or tap, they found it, slipped it into a brown paper sack, and you were on your way. Paint supplies, brooms, buckets, rope, chain, shovels, batteries, fuses, extension cords, various plumbing parts or electrical parts for whatever was ‘broke’ at that time. Cathy or Ivan knew the place for everything, even the contents of the shelves that towered into the dim reaches near the tin ceiling. Lord only knew what amazements were hidden on the upper floors or in storage in the basement. After all, there was a Curfman Hardware before there was a town of Tarkio…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alas, after some years, Cathy retired from small business and took her pleasant demeanor and even temperament to the halls of the Tarkio school system. Sure enough, a century of rural history emerged from the bowels and storerooms of the old brick building, a time capsule, a snapshot of what a farming community used, broke, fixed, and finally, replaced decade by decade. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCrOapZszakUdkQMkAztGTuNfIEcp7WTqO4DMd4P205YVCZpMut5Pu8hUOrh_1ny43o8Zt_PwJZzONLVmU8kbdGayt-36gwmYGqKLVEmuEqmUdMx6EOOtZaG82XxGe4fMXStsFkz9h4KfQ/s1600/F4C0E959-8355-43EB-869F-4D39B4F6C6EC-1085-000000E319BF25E8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCrOapZszakUdkQMkAztGTuNfIEcp7WTqO4DMd4P205YVCZpMut5Pu8hUOrh_1ny43o8Zt_PwJZzONLVmU8kbdGayt-36gwmYGqKLVEmuEqmUdMx6EOOtZaG82XxGe4fMXStsFkz9h4KfQ/s320/F4C0E959-8355-43EB-869F-4D39B4F6C6EC-1085-000000E319BF25E8.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most amazing artifact was the brand new full sized windmill top complete with vanes. It was enormous. I don’t remember the manufacturer..perhaps it was Aermotor, but it might well have been a Dempster, hometown Beatrice, Nebraska. I pined for that windmill, every time I stopped by and still wonder what lucky soul got the opportunity to top their tower with a “never been out of the box” windmill.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-O9UCHw_Y-EpUmz0ZR2whE1GO3xoSYrLJwckDVbwZfAStgLOakUOz_3Ntfqk6vYb0vBRkzlZHpPkwED_ebHDyIZC9kpFKDlnCUeZRXhSLg0o1tq1QU9Wy1EYxyOEq1L-TGYLwlYDTMZA/s1600/New_Old_Windmill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-O9UCHw_Y-EpUmz0ZR2whE1GO3xoSYrLJwckDVbwZfAStgLOakUOz_3Ntfqk6vYb0vBRkzlZHpPkwED_ebHDyIZC9kpFKDlnCUeZRXhSLg0o1tq1QU9Wy1EYxyOEq1L-TGYLwlYDTMZA/s320/New_Old_Windmill.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">After Curfman’s closed, we had to move down the street with our hardware needs. We bought a dryer at Vic’s and lumber and nails for all kinds of repairs in the twilight zone that was Friendly Boys. I’ve asked Blake how long the lumberyard had been “Friendly Boys”, recollecting the personality of its longtime proprietor, but the answer seems to be lost in the past. Vic’s is a derelict building now but the former site of Friendly Boys is a bright and shiny new grain facility, built out of the reach of the occasional soaking by the Tarkio River that used to warp the bottom boards at Friendly Boys. </span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEacpxW_rE1XuFuorfSBPz780M0QncmPxj1YAVsHVSpYCYe2u52ablBt2xWlj03GXEaJk6sbElX8FkVF4JTyZA_2uJmGOHhAaW58HnfciAx2YAKenrzPco8zDiAPfkvaIZuFPVUL3t5juQ/s1600/burke+lumber+image.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEacpxW_rE1XuFuorfSBPz780M0QncmPxj1YAVsHVSpYCYe2u52ablBt2xWlj03GXEaJk6sbElX8FkVF4JTyZA_2uJmGOHhAaW58HnfciAx2YAKenrzPco8zDiAPfkvaIZuFPVUL3t5juQ/s320/burke+lumber+image.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And, never fear, we still get the wherewithal for our myriad repairs and quixotic projects large and small at a place with the same “yeah we have it here somewhere...let me look” attitude of the hometown hardware stores of yore….we just have to drive a little farther. As a matter of fact, the phrase “going to Burke’s” has become something of a family catchphrase, and the result of any trip there is almost always “something we can make work” or at least a good story. </span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-29475207820684863282018-10-11T20:30:00.001-05:002018-10-11T20:31:43.540-05:00Frost Free<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-76a016e9-7fff-d004-5510-49752f37f6cf" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>"They must hunger in frost who spring-time have lost." </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>German saying</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial";"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 36. Northwest wind 11 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. " height="87" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ViwFz8OeaUW82CcvIcbp1I4GKLmNb82DG4g3vnKg38Guc--No2CfpopdQYrSurq10XAgjR5WguRZDB3ptZhL209wXFzmcJeAYqU16euFTXhGpFb6r0OkJFax5JoRW3TFxYc4QGJ3" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" title="Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 36. Northwest wind 11 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. " width="87" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thursday</span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Comes around every year….yes, yes, it’s mid October and several days beyond the average first frost for Tarkio, but don’t we all postpone the inevitable when it comes to cold weather? Who turns on their furnace, or rolls up the garden hose, or winterizes the lawnmower...in September? At any rate, the night time temperatures this whole week will be settling into the mid-30s, dropping, dropping before making that final fatal plunge to 31 degrees on the 14th.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My birthday. That comes around every year too. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The proverbial “spring cleaning” is a no-go for folks in the flower business, leaving those long harvest evenings as the ideal opportunity for home improvement projects in this household. I’ve just wound up the living room painting project, covering coffee spills and assorted furniture divots. I even had the pleasure of rearranging the furniture….as much as one can in a room with three doorways, a window, and a giant pocket door. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="300" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ok1hou5kB2VTeiPWMYV0gF_REy06i6xoyR_bbeNLKia4D6T8gio_8uI933FiGZMGY4RayymBzsE2rdkz-s1keI_94SmTvXPRjXZQsb-q_7YNvUzBSkO9nqTLOpsGTdZHT40IHeQ-" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My folks clearly had different theories about birthday gifts. Gifts my mother picked out: pretty sweaters, fuzzy jackets, dangly earrings, a whimsical watercolor print of geraniums and a baby robin that hangs in our kitchen. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gifts my father picked out: a step ladder, long handled pruners, waterproof shoes, a rain jacket. My mother always told me, “Your father prefers useful gifts.” Sometimes there would be compromise, like the pair of blue lamps for our bedroom, but especially when I received pottery: mixing bowls or serving bowls or platters that were not just serviceable but beautiful as well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="422" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/AD1Pdjf7UM5rwk6w6JxQdNpZWO-TeScdiF2I3fFBd_lkdDu9-GSdvmU2W5DSztCt8pdb0jfGbUH7OeRdZxA6F72fiTSt2atPTpuML_KB2JUU5by769ZFZ4GBpw877UoRLpomn6M0" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="316" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One year they broke with this pattern, unwrapping a beautifully finished 3 foot long slab of cherry with a single autumn hued handmade tile mounted on one end. The tile they had purchased at a gallery on one of their local travels, but the slab of cherry was an heirloom of sorts, a piece of wood my father had inherited with my grandfather’s woodworking tools. My Grandpa Froerer had purchased the cherry somewhere in Illinois years and years ago. The rest of the board was left open for me to decorate with tiles from future travels. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XSkcPcSNmtOSCoB8Iwu3VTzSwsZfgpVx81TYXx_pOQ41ei3ea8PTGIy9ujAZFj6cwPgPs16_t4JPWuDDCuBzYQ7gxiRwz7nfkJV_H_3-AZoXM7io8Ft25BG8QgtEPTHYL2hW2jx-" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XSkcPcSNmtOSCoB8Iwu3VTzSwsZfgpVx81TYXx_pOQ41ei3ea8PTGIy9ujAZFj6cwPgPs16_t4JPWuDDCuBzYQ7gxiRwz7nfkJV_H_3-AZoXM7io8Ft25BG8QgtEPTHYL2hW2jx-" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="308" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">This object is no lightweight. As a matter of fact, it’s always made me a little nervous, hanging above the bathroom door as it does. My father screwed two hooks into its back, very firmly, and, in typical frugal fashion, re-purposed what I’m certain is chain from the swing set he made for his grandchildren. The board sits atop the crown molding on the door, so the plaster walls do not bear the full weight, but I’ve never felt the engineering was quite up to the standard of redundancy my father usually executed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="427" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MuB_w9QjWiB9L8qG4FNP2QAafhpnLg4YJZDFnJGNwU2LwssZqDi7PGZ1beu_cQQ1UfXMsc9AetSPjBKbwooQcn0LU38sli5zYpOrnW64LmCHukBNZ43ItLoCpHwDLBfBiHNZ8gnd" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="427" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/4XD1azbgj7EzgGQFnvT-SvYCNrsxua_ehRzHvXqq7qf1RCSLMovB8EY1JXyCLZAdCkQlTa50fe-HHbdhzxiE5izxRz82Pjx-XbmWL6g_72gAnFbC9G6XFmKWT62sKVAxNCGENdAM" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="320" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, with all due respect and appreciation, I bought a picture hanging package designed for items weighing between 75 and 100 pounds(more weight than I could ever lift overhead!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="427" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/CZecvxNEnOhqNVtqNtdvgLmqCFeW04T7h8c9jCxB9TdfVOY3YuAR4dhE1r9mLKEvQ3v7zn9D3M_hXZTUhcS2QiHLH18FOZuCUi-bJGzJpelURBPgOqRFO57aMPq4DvfWDRzNgiFB" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I unscrewed the twisted and bent hooks (yikes, they weren’t in danger of pulling out, but they weren’t straight anymore, either!) and drilled into the beautiful cherry with the proper hardware.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="427" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/DlDnL_tL1nP9aQCvDV5JRzAGfxj1LlWssLcp-xuBbzriV330ThLSell2Yl2GmwpbkLFOJgFAByRU7bdsNEMzrBx9B9_G1T_Mdfa5K_HrVsZFxAdXJtg5_ft9tJNBcSRkObVSzdTW" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="427" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xCDfov9AtnbwP_3yfM1w_PzzErwGqeccXd3m3XowqPwctGBgrPsHjDGrnA04vA8pfi-zK6gCImUoETZ1zpyQoP7bv95XYfVbBjy_xlq-VtcnkdXqZT8nMqH3xTtou5izqv-l1tT4" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I replaced the swing set chain with picture hanging wire, doubled up and tightly wound. It was a labor of love. I put my tools away after I finished. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="320" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d6EC052w809wV63dQDUDtSYIBwz8mtjypIfIyY_QjsNZn_q8yEzas0q68Q5XW8FzSnggTw3F_J8PaDPhxUGPQuhWO3dvYOOO0ocu5CR2jOYDARGLVB6B3RQ2x2f1cuQEoCVLXyQi" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="427" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="299" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Bt_JzqyrKIK0PQOdBX6aH1VhUFIe3QuhjTOtPCJDE2prKSVrqhncmpWxIXbxMH5WHUufzWkAgwaMCvlE-0_XFWPMKFCiqXVTDa3DoNORFdhG_1BUsw3Zx7xN2eL1Wtcmr_VDhtS0" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, barring a direct lightning strike or a bigger earthquake than we’ve experienced thus far, the birthday gift from years ago is safe and secure...and the folks that pass through the bathroom door are too!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="145" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/eDsq6TkaOv60MUIJECCMrlu-olxa_h0lphlHjrOBSVs3POGvq0xD64nk54n3PRD2I_R323eRz9A6GcVtT5hw2TLGaOhTA5l27GSON7fMmFoH-ag099_CS5hQXYvnUT35LY_UjzqD" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And what about that freeze on the 14th? Well, the houseplants are happily situated in their winter quarters as well...all except for the big jade, a two person job.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/7pBFRT-HsF2XkF6APOV2H5iGNhrISeuLzHrXQE2I8sKClnTf6eqH5IuIi3lXO5Ajhr7umEGaRRa-lrnsUJhthy78cJGC8tLq0uP4a7vUZYDgZLmE3QCsu3ZbKbAfhdoJK8KiTYWN" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/7pBFRT-HsF2XkF6APOV2H5iGNhrISeuLzHrXQE2I8sKClnTf6eqH5IuIi3lXO5Ajhr7umEGaRRa-lrnsUJhthy78cJGC8tLq0uP4a7vUZYDgZLmE3QCsu3ZbKbAfhdoJK8KiTYWN" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"> My mom’s house plants always summered in the screened comfort of their market barn and were moved back into the house and greenhouse well before the first freeze.</span></div>
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2ZdJUcPMvD26sWHc2hJuJKl-7bnRI3Rt4KEudIn17GV-g1owm53zZK0Ll452zlvM-RuwdMsDJ8iIeckpkiWylig7VAOuj5ZjCtT0pnsJXcy1RxZDkCOyFbjM_LXF249bY4j4pWZH" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2ZdJUcPMvD26sWHc2hJuJKl-7bnRI3Rt4KEudIn17GV-g1owm53zZK0Ll452zlvM-RuwdMsDJ8iIeckpkiWylig7VAOuj5ZjCtT0pnsJXcy1RxZDkCOyFbjM_LXF249bY4j4pWZH" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="388" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I’ve never been that organized and often have fallen upon the mercy of the weather gods in praying for a night that DOESN’T QUITE FREEZE while I promise to move the posies to safety TOMORROW. Not this time. This year all the hand me down begonias, the antique hoyas, the hibiscus as tall as I am, and the succulents I can't quite part with will have been carried up the stairs two by two to their botanical equivalent of the ark.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Using the right tools for the job? Moving the plants in before it freezes? Is THIS the birthday I get not just older...but wiser? </span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-14010096968654099122018-09-17T07:30:00.001-05:002018-09-18T06:52:33.476-05:00"IF....Roadtripping with Grandpa 2018 Version<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If...you give a moose a muffin…..” </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If...you give a mouse a cookie….”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If ...you give a dog a donut…….”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If...you give a cat a cupcake….”</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To these popular and well loved titles by author Laura Numeroff, I would suggest an addendum, lacking perhaps in alliteration, but leading to an equally logical chain of incremental links:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="415" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/AgDjoKHMRGXxpGv-GlDiIxL331AftjNTvEsa4EJxagH62M0SAfW02IgNQGtH5nqBkP7GLssgkm2ohIoR2NE_Cpm71kz8FiDniU8LeEPxCcghXyIn5Bhd29S3QYNqjFVbXSrzZrB2" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="311" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If ….you give a boy a Road Atlas…” </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Especially if that boy is Levi....</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you give a boy a Road Atlas, he will tell you the next exit. And the exit after that. He will ask you if you’re in Kansas...and a little while later, he will ask you if you’re still in Kansas…</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But...he’s just checking on YOUR navigation, because if you give a boy a Road Atlas, he will know how to read the map. He will keep you on your toes, inventing new and intricate routes to your destination, particularly if these routes include cities or states he’d really like to drive through. It can be difficult to stay excited about I -70 across Kansas to Denver….</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If...you give a boy a menu, he’ll order a cheeseburger..”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you give a boy a cheeseburger, he’ll ask if there’s barbeque sauce.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Especially if that boy is Josh....</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQNy7zohYEqklPfNbwqyzdyYjL8k7X19rz9-e_i5bpKNZs-Cgdyl0KYOfF5MX15ocuoqfRtioVuuRWDZ0khgpC6_kabQIAtHq3eJ-fR5Utc8M0_xIVv8dLW8b4urx3Qv9pTNfwmhz2mNB/s1600/jackstack.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQNy7zohYEqklPfNbwqyzdyYjL8k7X19rz9-e_i5bpKNZs-Cgdyl0KYOfF5MX15ocuoqfRtioVuuRWDZ0khgpC6_kabQIAtHq3eJ-fR5Utc8M0_xIVv8dLW8b4urx3Qv9pTNfwmhz2mNB/s320/jackstack.jpg" width="224" /></a></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This makes meals with Josh both the easiest of times and the hardest of times. Steak houses, burger joints, even Mexican places can be relied upon to have something satisfactory on the menu. Given his preferences, credit Josh with a generosity of culinary adventurism the evening a sudden Vail thunderstorm drove us into the only place that would seat a grandpa, a grandma, and six kids….a German restaurant with an empty second floor. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="291" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/82wLV9HNhSf5iSicv_Ej7lli466OH5e6cO5qFfSlxpwpGkgWWpNYOeCCvz34QJYrJ54GHVsAVXSFjPVqMMj4VdEEAW7gnw-YtPpZ3jmEvQwFUYfPoLy2rMiJcjzaOKLWikdcg1r2" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="436" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If...you add kids to water, pretty soon you have ….fun.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="398" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/RFn7DZCeCZ1wjx4y-2_bI3gGs8EAXc5Yyp-YJ-cWVB3X2UBjAxqB5RCb0wFkWG2RZ045rgSz5cyiEqlSm-Mpl8B4Mb42Dm0XQdhaVzjkEvgfvPu_dpLuNNV3Lk-cosZpfPzN1CGe" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="298" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Kids in ankle-high water moccasins wading through the busy brown water of the Colorado; </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="396" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/LpSSD7Fcxy7IWIutnwtxjWCWQ2TbOCeLK-x8oUmkqAjFVwVZkEbuPjttzeMkIXCUhFIVv9mtlmy_Qg5zmCtnVcih1L3mwcWB8Qta8S3y5tFMldZgEZhj-1AckgXYPgG_P9JYJzOd" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="297" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">kids bumping over the waves in an inner tube. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="455" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gb7S7nmuVVLMuUcMMrih41O6EbBm5cRRe_uymlsoBeykJAoTC6QNlPFy79eJewlB-DbcxCeqzmg-86C7rFVTJH1pX2z_ypwGM6W9sH4asFMkvlPDDdXUR_eB4R1OI7bv2Dz6XU6Q" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="341" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kids tippy toeing over the rocks across a mountain stream;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="428" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/SYeOYn7KG9odRls8w7EV0vjh2gNygqo3o-RgrL4wAtG7h7hj_iD6LmBF3EnhWlISxxqUKAOjLH0inOjC4oxxk1RTf37_OdeQmjWB2FqS1MirFp20UnNb5LbaR0RFQQ8FHYz2Op5X" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="285" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> kids skipping stones and heaving sticks; </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="263" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/gPUi9Sf1scnoFa2j6IlZH8UnxNPNU0P8SyttGzbx8v3qdibbAYzvgyBr-dIi6afnqnw-UZTZHxz4kLxIiHDq6jqxYpBNHbVnroLbzkc1st1mQwuHlHf6iAFpQsPtEtVh83Pm8jdl" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="394" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">kids building towers in the middle of the creek; </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="428" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/hRqQIVVV031uiq1aOoalh1w9InNZUxfEDVPNOqAnJkxMNiWrJp7irLfqmz43hFxLIG-gza7B3WSwUFT5JmxNLvKh5_8Y5h695nYcJ2CyhYGMBw4hzoVR--fejq6hYYiLC0vTlsEJ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="285" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">kids washing pebbles and putting the prettiest ones in their pockets to carry home….Kids, rub a dub dub, half a dozen of them, escaping the mountain chill in the hot tub.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="232" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/MwLNpf-TidpHgUQhztLEQAPcWq8GKV_iOTllaGIMltgecppRsoFP818mxOSR5Lyv-ikhYyHtvww1M_V3cz0ExEU2onIQLT8xFigeDOGHMzg3rX-UuCDl26K0o522WXCLqAiooBgZ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="347" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “If…. someone asks what a belly flop looks like…..? ”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trust me, Josh is your guy. Not only that, but the ensuing splat will be a 10 point 0 on the Richter scale. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="507" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/mcm74dki306nDXXSaIhoCqY5cQ9cD_eIsGVKMbQnWtNgeW3qjf7v4cQSWDFWUBbn6M982_Zoy0o8TPZLde359VMIXeyjkmNiZyE2uKoV28sKWn-S0qxjQYV9kKvlSMgwHtmBNMmS" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="380" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If you give a kid some money, he’ll need a souvenir….or a snack!” Refrigerator magnets are a family tradition; Levi is captivated by Abbie’s Colorado Flag magnet so we make a trip to the gift car on the Leadville & Colorado Southern excursion train. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="471" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/qwP-MdiUXjSwCjJI7ZegcmaRHUTrUlv2E8xrb0dxZafklYcvUXDIQqYHp_AxUFb-W0DzILNkSUSscgNRPETu6FT2Ov9w1_KYOnNaJP0qzt68_emjADraWps-_YHQEqhrMKjh28Rh" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="353" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because breakfast that morning was early, Gabe and Aaron need a root beer….Gabe is on a growth spurt and has spent most of the trip hungry. This is why we have a snack bag at all times....</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="532" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/KgBhOyMNrVfpTSX4Z-DrvytsXkrkSJWr4JPhMjlhlTLTcXaQ1oKW610Z-ix2q5pyEK-eXQlrOcEtZy4I6-YfUx9nyqhIfzKVozDYOK1kRTuLrtuQBrKJKl8LDOw5_2KqXa-JIjea" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="354" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="442" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/aG6Oj9WYT42ApJ240tSC7mQAGBd5Itq71sCrNF2zX_2M8z5VWVVWnGlb6rCfDINMFqP1Sjeg-Pgu2bHy7AXIMqK_gmqIXzWiGxUlha3wDkJzBTJa6tUit4yi_sNJmCIiekPB1bdA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="331" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Josh, despite remonstrances from his older brother, buys a pocket knife on the train. This is a grandparent sponsored trip and Josh has his own money, so the likelihood that this pocket knife will follow past souvenir pocket knives into the kingdom of lost tools is irrelevant. (At last report, the train pocket knife was not yet lost, even though the recent move from rental to new house may have altered that status: in this case, entirely understandable!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="597" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LDzzbrp6t4Jx3ZUGxCYwgR0sn4E-ZVfBWNm9kvf0uExt0jrvVlfI6VMIoFPKP3n7fxLsObxjtGhXoynEqvPPVJY-nETxlyD8ETi50yW7qJw0CdLG8HYGnTITU43ML2wco4A1tD-b" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="398" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Aaron broke even on the trip: one College World Series hat became someone else’s souvenir in Eagle, Colorado. It is replaced by one carefully considered cap purchased in Vail. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="525" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Lb5smXH4iCyGy6YjF_llFC-rUfumcZefymexDAQ7wC4G8m8-4Pzpx3REKNFKxDPmicVHGEhwpMh2FWEhCd50TqX8Ac2JR_znacr91V_o9hP-Rb7tRHG7KFWLzYsXa58SqQ6gGp99" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="349" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Not thirty seconds after the conductor on the train cautioned everyone to hold tight to their ticket, Lizzie, leaning out the window to take a picture (with, thankfully, her camera on a lanyard!) watched her ticket flutter away under the train’s wheels. She turned to me, aghast, crying out, ‘I’ve lost my ticket!’ Of course she did! Fortunately, our receipt proved she was accounted for...though this particular blond headed conductor did not look the sort to leave a little girl beside the tracks, 142 miles from Denver…..</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="463" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZLjtUg6wWGxzl8tLvhEcborH8jqVzE8anSY9NPuEPCGZb-3fZg7BbqebM6kYruBUtbvv5snnFCvzDTKEoQ9H7enBkBWX-g156Cje6AdNT0LVA0BF_al3Nq3cI7wRC7L7z4N6sBlW" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="347" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The grandparents did their part: six kids got into the rental van in Kansas City, and six kids got back out four days later. During those four days, no one got hurt (really), no one got sick, (well, just a little), no one fought or argued (except when they were really really tired). The cousins were considerate and kind to each other even during the long drive there and back. They helped their grandparents, and they helped each other. I’ll never forget that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="463" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xjpdy3AyaeLSee0rqYmO7LcuCdlFmbVthG8TlVCRDZq9XLc1XmJix_IglP3T8fX9wLJi-Vodb7_iS7uVK9F77BrmflkEcrg9_Vb81pPlfD_1M-XdQySgcFFaqy9HCqDkFkMclycg" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="347" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nor will I forget drying towels at all hours, the blessed luxury of a washer and dryer for six kids and two adults, Blake bringing back frozen pizzas the night we arrived and how we attacked them like they were gourmet, not just DiGiorno. No, no one wanted to sleep with Josh...or Gabe...or even Levi, (snoring? kicking?) but it all worked out with the bonus of a bedtime story or two and the chance for this grandma to “tuck in” all her kids…</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was no time to read, no time to use our phones...except to take pictures to send home! Time was the present and that was busy enough....</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For a week afterwards, I woke up feeling I should count noses….</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And “If"….I could do it all again, I would!</span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-84948322213812612942018-09-16T22:07:00.000-05:002018-09-16T22:07:15.068-05:00Weather Change<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><img height="436" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/0QeS-PUI3Xa22OWpcjkYUpf9VwXQ2J4wBUw4Z_BXdoCrjXe-nPaLOfHU9OCHAqM4ck5E1f9JzR1cdtOn9Sl4gO2oDe2LDqVSAFRBKxPBJHNgtVSA5N757K9wpAxYOEps8a_UZgle" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="326" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The weather ruled our summer. From June on, there was never a day that didn’t revolve around the dry skies, the dry ground, the heat. We pulled hoses at work. We ran sprinklers at home. We drenched for crown rot and sprayed for pests. And while the fall plants responded to the attention beyond all hopes, no effort of man was sufficient to sustain the fields, the roadsides, or take the gray haze of fires far away from the skies.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So when I drove home in a driving rain the other day to Tarkio’s empty and quiet streets, I pictured the inhabitants of every house inside, dry and cozy, watching water stream down the windows, down on their knees in thankfulness for the refreshment. If they weren’t literally kneeling, surely, like me, they felt a relief, a deliverance over and above all expectation. While our human brains know the weather will always turn, our human hearts can be discouraged, beaten down, wrung out of gratitude.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rain. Some years, some droughts, you kinda stop looking for it; the forecast never changes, the heat never wavers. But this year, we could see the rain on the radar: it was always out west or up north. Even if those green or yellow reflections drifted across the Missouri, nothing reached the ground. Showers would pop up...and fizzle out. Neighbors and friends and acquaintances all across the state told the same tales. The USDA forecast record yields everywhere else. But here is Mis-er-y, all we had was company….</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/Animations.aspx">Missouri Drought summer 2018</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then, one day, as sudden as a tropical monsoon, the rains came. The first three inches didn’t budge our pond a bit. But the next week’s inch brought a few inches of cover to the bare cottonwood log on the bank. The next two inches made the grass grow rank so quickly that lawn mowers roared into life early every morning. If it wasn’t raining! But we didn’t complain, even if Labor Day activities were of the indoor variety and we squelched and slid on the sodden grass loading our trailer loads of drippy mums.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="443" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8P-Rf8CeXyOomVqfcR3PO1kBis2eKm5zi8LOQ-8pYVIESNHDKGUsbCsEqiPjQ8Pb4Ee23ZO0Hrfa6ssze0z-0HkUa_4M7opyus6gaOMko-TYYD4jEJzcHv3kT_SW5j9Th_vH85Wq" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="332" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The corn fields are weary and bedraggled, yellowed prematurely with big brown dead patches on the steeper thinner hillsides. Blake brought in ears from the bottom and ears from the hillside; the hill ears are thinner and shorter, like the lean and mean cows of Exodus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="207" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qc9Ik1TZdzZGkUltLdifKu_91kRLDxcT1bfHMnX1Mm6SLki2GH4z4tLOjtp1BgpjidcuhhDmqxTgDqz8qS7JszCfl_1XHT4M9zsJz8LGOokSWb2KJqhey844dd3cYO9LhA3ehYvr" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="500" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It will be a leaner and meaner corn harvest. Sometimes the ears don’t dry properly when the plants die prematurely. The lines at the elevator will certainly be shorter. Maybe we will pick most of the corn before we even start soybeans, which appear to be maturing normally. But the nearly 7 inches of rain in August will refresh the earth, replenishing our shallow wells. The football boys won’t land as hard on the field. There will be fewer grass fires or field fires than last year. Perhaps the cover crops we sow will germinate. Here’s hoping the trees and grasses, gardens and crop land will go into the winter chock full of moisture and ready for more than 2018’s 48 hours of spring!</span></span></div>
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-72259784096966021052018-07-18T21:04:00.000-05:002018-07-18T21:32:19.539-05:00July Afternoon at Deadman's Hollow Corral....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Lee to Gabe: "When your dad yells, he's being intense....not angry."</div>
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Abbie to Lee: "I need my hair up...because the pigs like to eat my hair when I clean out the feeder."</div>
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Pigs: (Squealing!)</div>
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Ellie: (screaming)</div>
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Ann to Aaron: "Get the baby!"</div>
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(on crutches) </div>
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"Don't run!!"</div>
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Lizzie and Matt: Daddy/ Daughter dance.....</div>
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The moms close the deal....</div>
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Family portrait...Landry tries to wipe off the "pig dirt"....and it's off to weigh!</div>
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-45909367336412540282018-07-09T22:36:00.000-05:002018-07-09T22:36:10.058-05:00Doin' the Continental<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><img height="368" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Z5iAjgkqaOqTcyhQmxGhfFVg6nJjhJUiWYVck7NXSwpXnWUopcXmCLtAJT_J261Z6X0EfebJxUqAJ4pXdqlQeTmB-ISbZ_5Crxay39ZhGqXLB6Rma3nNrPxpL5u8slWGQrQGk26f" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="368" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A humid </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">continental climate</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Köppen prefix D and a third letter of a or b) is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, which is typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Where was spring? Where were the days we rolled up our tshirt sleeves in April to begin working on our farmers’ tans? Each morning I’d don a short sleeve tee in hopeless optimism….then a long sleeve tee...and a pullover fleece. The aborigines have their three dog nights, but we marked the April calendar with X after X of three shirt days. Most springs, the first optimistic tomato customer will call soon after April Fool's (coincidence, no doubt), but even the most Pollyanna-ish gardener will save their ammo when the morning low is 19 degrees. Snow? Unpleasant and messy, but not unheard of. Frost in May: economically damaging and a monkey wrench in any delivery schedule. But NINETEEN DEGREES? “Always winter and never Christmas”, C.S. Lewis would say.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="316" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/01MGvrljhvn5JWawp9CnOImHcPg0QYnc3kwvLBoo1m_XafY-dlccg3AoArln5OSJV4MUTBozv4LajB-e2wYLaPjzsDYAatD0M8-tcefahFO2QxYRp64piW8Mx4pdRQmJDgSw1pu5" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="316" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Continental Climate</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">noun. a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">climate</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> characterized by hot summers, cold winters, and little rainfall, typical of the interior of a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">continent</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Collins English </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dictionary</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It snowed. It snowed Palm Sunday. Well, that can happen: we noted, with bravado, that March was just going out like a lion. It snowed again, the next weekend, while we were purportedly hosting our annual Open House. Nary a customer braved the roads, but Mark and Laura and Grandma Millie and Grandpa Charlie came to drink lemonade (!) and eat cookies for the kids’ sakes. ‘Cause nothing can really warm you like a cold glass of lemonade. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxe6QrCPhSRD5Wmc-JQz-oFNn6Kk0tK2f_J2orogsfwSf1XM8nu1FtuOhkERfJvSgviD9Le_o5eLpIFzs8PNXa33o09miwYSOpMYL3cuElzAC9W1IAW72jIKkJYSLMOiZoUv_3RXT9yxD/s1600/snowy+April+Sunday.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxe6QrCPhSRD5Wmc-JQz-oFNn6Kk0tK2f_J2orogsfwSf1XM8nu1FtuOhkERfJvSgviD9Le_o5eLpIFzs8PNXa33o09miwYSOpMYL3cuElzAC9W1IAW72jIKkJYSLMOiZoUv_3RXT9yxD/s320/snowy+April+Sunday.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The next weekend it got serious. Though most of our customers told us to hold their plants until it warmed, some sales have no “rain date”. Necessity being the mother of inventions, we improvised, leaving the tender veggies in the heated houses overnight and swathing every cart in shrink wrap to keep the warmth and moisture from dissipating. An electric heater kept the semi and the Isuzu above freezing several nights. The gaps in the trailers were even sealed with duct tape so the windchill couldn’t sneak in. The first morning the temperature was above forty degrees, we almost broke out the t-shirts.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://weather.com/news/news/2018-06-06-may-2018-record-hot-temperatures-united-states-noaa-report" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://weather.com/news/news/2018-06-06-may-2018-record-hot-temperatures-united-states-noaa-report&ved=0ahUKEwjR-6iWzJPcAhWHxIMKHeOMBHYQFggvMAE" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lower 48 States Just Had the Warmest May on Record | The Weather ...</span></i></a></h3>
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<span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="f" style="color: grey;">Jun 6, 2018 - </span><span style="color: #6a6a6a; font-weight: bold;">May 2018</span> was the hottest of any May in 124 years of recording keeping for the continental United States, eclipsing the extreme <span style="color: #6a6a6a; font-weight: bold;">heat</span> of that ..</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With a flip of the calendar page, frozen April morphed into blistering May. It was so hot, water from a hose blanched flowers in an instant. It was so hot, hostas bleached and the daffodils that had waited patiently through the freezes around Easter sighed and bowed out for the season. The wind was a scirocco, sucking the moisture from foliage, flower, and soil. A common refrain was, “Well, I won’t have to mow again!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the few crops that shrugged its shoulders at this schizophrenic weather was the hardy hibiscus. The hoodlum autumn glory clematis perished in wholesale quantities in my yard, surviving only in the canopy of a century old lilac; the lackadaisical butterfly bushes fainted dead away...literally….but for one pair of leaves I’m fostering like a spark in the darkness. And while the so called “hardy” grasses never broke “dormancy”, leaving behind a thicket of rapier sharp blades for the unlucky gardener to penetrate and dispose of, the hibiscus ignored, as is their wont, the entire frigid calendar page of April, and then, sensing the blaze of May, stretched underground, and shot to the surface to take a look around. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now it’s July and the hibiscus are nodding their giant heads in approval over this hot state of affairs. And so are their potted friends, lined out in rows of ruby and green down by the sweet corn patch. Some of them are blooming: the vibrant Midnight Marvel and silvery Mocha Moon, each blossom lasting but a day. From cuttings to a three gallon pot is a mere six weeks; but even if you can’t SEE the hibiscus growing, you could certainly MEASURE it day by day….By the end of the summer, the roots are as thick as your fingers and anchored so deeply in the soil beneath the ground cloth that they must be cut with pruners. But don’t wait that long: plant these voracious growers now while they can still be unpotted without trauma to either plant or gardener and enjoy their flower power for the rest of summer, however hot, wet, dry, or...continental….. it may be…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As for me, it’s off to sleep before another July morning of watering lines of asters and mums, praying for cooler evenings for them to set buds…then an afternoon loading hibiscus, the flower that says….Let’s DO the Continental!</span></span><br />
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tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-75530747525853006442018-04-24T20:57:00.000-05:002018-04-24T21:01:05.789-05:00Skating Tricks, Licorice Sticks and Other Feats<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for white sox broadcasters history" height="225" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/72/a6/6e72a63c311b631bd5421754ef993e18.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Comiskey, Harry Caray, Jimmy Piersall</td></tr>
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I had a dream....</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLlWsrA7raFceyaCsjLu0_UQqGyiojlStbT4afkZYJaK_UM8nbw-arw53CjI6IIePUU91yrQZrsGt4t4WLg_0yOi7fp5iqLQsxxno7eaELmRiyRYsA23UNiRo9p1m2xvxiiLiu3XrHaRK/s1600/crinoid+fossils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLlWsrA7raFceyaCsjLu0_UQqGyiojlStbT4afkZYJaK_UM8nbw-arw53CjI6IIePUU91yrQZrsGt4t4WLg_0yOi7fp5iqLQsxxno7eaELmRiyRYsA23UNiRo9p1m2xvxiiLiu3XrHaRK/s320/crinoid+fossils.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crinoid stems in limestone</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnloG3GaVYJ-nUUCRkiQk2BgOQvVq9AVPmbonzNx3mQDyHaW-OOK9V5KtLpLeCtL-vlZ_fAsad3zsTKonT9ajDg86SUoiEvO3vPsbD6vBxQhma45kAdqsJBtR5RLJSCHfU2vvboYc-Pn23/s1600/brachiopod+fossils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnloG3GaVYJ-nUUCRkiQk2BgOQvVq9AVPmbonzNx3mQDyHaW-OOK9V5KtLpLeCtL-vlZ_fAsad3zsTKonT9ajDg86SUoiEvO3vPsbD6vBxQhma45kAdqsJBtR5RLJSCHfU2vvboYc-Pn23/s400/brachiopod+fossils.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brachiopod fossil </td></tr>
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I had several dreams, actually. Ones that I admitted to all the world when I filled out an interest survey in the library of the Orland Junior High. Of course, I don't know what occupations the other boys and girls signed up for after browsing through the various options. The cards were quite pragmatic about the job prospects for each career. Because I loved collecting rocks and fossils, walking along stream beds and hiking trails with my head down, I thought being a geologist would be interesting. The career card was quite frank about the prospects, cautioning me that I was unlikely to get paid for being a rock hound; most geologists worked for petroleum companies after taking lots of science and math.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluaUmmfqwZdfDhdUhNn-b-uAUNHX4rw00kde_6JmVw6SkiERbk-mC_bH0d_D0qH2MntEMXNKrVEDWZ02vtDHLAf5jUUO9gKvpJO4KOT2OtlWbqnvwQKpVj4j8Kk8zFyFWnkc74qYdMlq7/s1600/early-job-fair.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluaUmmfqwZdfDhdUhNn-b-uAUNHX4rw00kde_6JmVw6SkiERbk-mC_bH0d_D0qH2MntEMXNKrVEDWZ02vtDHLAf5jUUO9gKvpJO4KOT2OtlWbqnvwQKpVj4j8Kk8zFyFWnkc74qYdMlq7/s320/early-job-fair.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
My other aspiration was even more quixotic: I wanted to be a baseball announcer. I had spent my entire life listening to Jack Buck and Harry Caray...even Jack Brickhouse! I could just see myself taking a seat up in the booth, donning a headset and marking up my scorebook while sending the play by play over the airwaves to fans all over the Midwest.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbOinKqLMGgd8TSyjVFdZOlTeTCk8Wkhl4l_L88MXkvW2FEl5XTzjXIEBetUemIjxaTENO5ojeFdbduAcUi7s2chr-qhoiHdbGqSdi1xafRkjApRNR7ZAxDatdty8QF6OStdy5q2F_S5wa/s1600/55ca262222253.image.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbOinKqLMGgd8TSyjVFdZOlTeTCk8Wkhl4l_L88MXkvW2FEl5XTzjXIEBetUemIjxaTENO5ojeFdbduAcUi7s2chr-qhoiHdbGqSdi1xafRkjApRNR7ZAxDatdty8QF6OStdy5q2F_S5wa/s320/55ca262222253.image.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Alas, I could find no card in the library with the prerequisites for becoming a baseball announcer...<br />
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The arrowheads and brachiopods and crinoid stems stayed in their shoeboxes...as did the baseball cards.<br />
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Even though Laura and I both had tricycles when we were little, the next step up from three wheels was not a bicycle, but roller skates. Our house was on a corner lot, so a girl could get a little wind through her hair sweeping around the curve. Steel wheeled skates like "I've got a brand new pair of roller skates" didn't have a long life span; the wheels picked up little bits of gravel, pitching the skater onto her knees, and eventually, the bearings would spread and the bb's inside would spill out onto the sidewalk. What a joy it was to go a skating rink where the wooden wheels glided across the floor! I learned to skate backwards and even crossover going around the rink. I may not have been going that fast, but the rumbling of the wheels made me feel like a freight train under a head of steam.<br />
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Of course, I was an utter failure at other athletic endeavors; I could run, but could never master a cartwheel, ruining any chance of being a cheerleader, though I jumped and yelled at recess with all the other little girls. I flung myself into the air from the mini-trampoline...only to land flat on my back attempting a front flip, losing my breath and walking on tenterhooks for weeks afterwards.<br />
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I did write lots of stories, even a book(!)..of sorts...titled <i style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Time Machine Travels</i> featuring my two best friends at the time...and me. Funny thing is I don't even remember which time travel book provided the idea, but I do know that my grandmother's writing was the inspiration. All those little newsprint note pads covered with 10 year old cursive! I scribbled on all kinds of scrap paper, numbering every sheet to measure my accomplishment.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIy2Z_H18wfAyzHflXNtOrvRsnj7vvKvxd-GZNlqUvZZeKi7ZoerR5yQNmAe6GwxX-gazfnNo3XhcE3u2WSnZ52Sll3SB8AUtKn3n1vVukld-b-mJqGBepIgfm-E9OlUmdkeSYauFQLKTj/s1600/IMG_4149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIy2Z_H18wfAyzHflXNtOrvRsnj7vvKvxd-GZNlqUvZZeKi7ZoerR5yQNmAe6GwxX-gazfnNo3XhcE3u2WSnZ52Sll3SB8AUtKn3n1vVukld-b-mJqGBepIgfm-E9OlUmdkeSYauFQLKTj/s320/IMG_4149.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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Thanks to my father's perseverance, I finally took on a project for life when I stuck a reed in my mouth and learned to assemble the Normandy clarinet he bought for me. Music, as my father said once, has no evolutionary reason for existing: man can and does live and work without it. 'Why Beethoven', he would ask the air, 'If not for God?' Certainly the angels plugged their ears for years as I learned the physical mechanisms for making sounds from my licorice stick, but the associated benefits..perseverance, routine, patience, sacrifice...are not limited to the world of music. Listening to music makes the world richer, but playing an instrument ties you to past, present and future. I first buzzed a reed more than a half century ago...and still do....happily if not perfectly....<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC88Y0ZbjL3E-DJn_QbSYF-8nqSy-_S8oW8OxdFvRWFMTnIOaS5hwp98yNilk0LqQ27b-G49RVscRTeihkSKwUg54aeur8IuVddipY7YWEq-djYqpToWUUaWZ5A_pYGvXlj1cKNyy64K8e/s1600/IMG_4150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC88Y0ZbjL3E-DJn_QbSYF-8nqSy-_S8oW8OxdFvRWFMTnIOaS5hwp98yNilk0LqQ27b-G49RVscRTeihkSKwUg54aeur8IuVddipY7YWEq-djYqpToWUUaWZ5A_pYGvXlj1cKNyy64K8e/s320/IMG_4150.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lord knows I can't turn a cartwheel!<br />
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<br />tarkiodirt@blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00238899563100236269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4898128711176366449.post-34933461786372545272018-04-15T19:08:00.000-05:002018-04-15T19:11:02.889-05:00And If Not, He is Still Good<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUM-0sEuDlnXiG0a-3fN-qLNop-dJ4h22vLs6BQGKt5dXGdJs-Kdp11WX70Pwwf82iBdUEP9OW7gS62bdzbjVfo2oJPIUHADsnJZ5Aj-U5QlFFQw_2sp8fZnmUQip-bO_Taxm4iaz6UAO8/s1600/SRT-Daniel_instagram9-1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUM-0sEuDlnXiG0a-3fN-qLNop-dJ4h22vLs6BQGKt5dXGdJs-Kdp11WX70Pwwf82iBdUEP9OW7gS62bdzbjVfo2oJPIUHADsnJZ5Aj-U5QlFFQw_2sp8fZnmUQip-bO_Taxm4iaz6UAO8/s320/SRT-Daniel_instagram9-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I have been known to kick the trash can, slam the door, hurt my toe, and scream 'why me'. I'm not proud of it. I know good and well these dramatics are unproductive and even silly, especially since this kind of outburst is provoked not by real pain, real trouble, or real distress, but by short term frustration.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirjqe-iP0PD1ZRg3x07bQemqHUsutZWb4xdHSQI7gmAvXJg8HZraVxQ3PIOopg4CHiqXXq7738UtZ8iw1esTOq8JhzJcamIboBFYp7HI916lFKj64mPpOYOHQqTuq1_8pywIoz64UNwJls/s1600/charlie+brown+why+me.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirjqe-iP0PD1ZRg3x07bQemqHUsutZWb4xdHSQI7gmAvXJg8HZraVxQ3PIOopg4CHiqXXq7738UtZ8iw1esTOq8JhzJcamIboBFYp7HI916lFKj64mPpOYOHQqTuq1_8pywIoz64UNwJls/s320/charlie+brown+why+me.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Real heartache does not make me shake my fist at the heavens. Real heartache, wherever and whatever it may be, makes me pray. Then, I am reminded to be thankful for every good thing I take for granted.....filling two cups of coffee at breakfast, comfortable shoes, beautiful music on the radio, challenging work with people I love. When the tribulations of life come around, I recognize my limitations, taking to heart the Scripture that assures us our entreaties are heard even when they are wordless.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEias48Het_2yD4WJqBEzObwLKduf29somD3VnkFEGDMpmUNykwjs9UYtxMFsys3bGatklPyWnk23nBi7T_kE9AgFePgHviSyJnp0HZ7U3fTsOritUpv25Ex5v54_lGl2aRc8_QBysmvwIYP/s1600/Romans+8+26-27+-+God+understands+our+prayers+even+when+we+cant+find+the+words+to+say+them+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEias48Het_2yD4WJqBEzObwLKduf29somD3VnkFEGDMpmUNykwjs9UYtxMFsys3bGatklPyWnk23nBi7T_kE9AgFePgHviSyJnp0HZ7U3fTsOritUpv25Ex5v54_lGl2aRc8_QBysmvwIYP/s400/Romans+8+26-27+-+God+understands+our+prayers+even+when+we+cant+find+the+words+to+say+them+%25281%2529.jpg" /></a><br />
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"When we don't know what to pray for..." My memory is chock full of times when prayers were answered...prayers for healing, for rescue, for happiness, for safety, for good news, but when my father had a stroke and my parents' world was upended, I could not find the words to pray. We were always winging it, always trying to solve yesterday's problems, trying to wrest contentment and compassion from chaos. Health and happiness faded as spring bloomed.<br />
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But even as we grieved, God's merciful hand was easy to see. With gratitude we remembered the times we had gathered to celebrate at Redbarn. The hard choices to uproot them, to buy a house, that seemed so fruitless, upon reflection, turned to blessings as their loving family and our caring community showed patience and compassion and the best of human kindness. Until the very end of their trip from this world to the next, my mom and dad were together.... as they always had been. A final gift to them from their loving Father....and a comfort for all of us saying goodbye.<br />
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Hard times call for trust. Faith trusts in the story. And whether or not we understand the story, we are called to believe it. We will see it clearly someday.<br />
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And if not, it is still good.<br />
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