Memories of Iowa Falls by Richard

The past few days, I began thinking about our life in Iowa Falls Iowa, and recalled several good memories about the wonderful times we all shared which included the following:

• I recall living in town in a two story home, and then moving to the country to a small farm the folks rented from Mr Brown.


• It was really great to have our own garden and raise our own vegetables, which Mom use to feed us.


• I can see Mom now, cooking on that wood burning stove and baking bread and cakes which we all enjoyed.


• Can you see us all making ice cream on those hot summer days? I can.


• I recall going to those country schools which were one room and one teacher, teaching all the grades.


• We had to walk about a mile or so, and when it was time to go home, I was always hungry. So when we passed an apple orchard I would go over the fence to get an apple or two.


• In the winter months we would each take a potato and put in the school furnace to have with our lunch.


• I remember the swimming pool, which was a long walk from home. Jerry and I would go anyway. We didn't have the money to get in, so they let us to pull some weeds for access.


• We moved back into town when Mr brown sold the property.


• Things begin to change. The war came and all our lives changed also.


• Marion and Adeline went into the service. Mom went away to work at a factory on the war effort. Dad stayed home to watch the younger children.


• Then Mom and Dad went to California to visit Marion and Adeline and were so impressed with California, upon their return to Iowa Falls Iowa, they decided to move to California. Dad quit the Telephone Company. They packed up everything and we moved west.

I hope this note will help you also to recall some those fond memories we all shared.

[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard]

Apple Tree

Synchronized diving

When I was surfing the TV channels I came across the Olympic trials for Woman’s Synchronized Diving. What a beguiling sport! If a sport can be called, 'lovely', this word certainly applies to synchronized diving. I was mesmerized watching the women perform. Their graceful twists and turns seemed effortless as they dived into the water with almost perfect timing. It takes exquisite skill and a high degree of aestheticism to achieve such beautiful dives.

Having been unaware that the sport existed, I was surprised to learn synchronized diving had been a new form of competitive diving at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Back in the 1930's, Aquacades and swimming meets would showcase precision swimming where a group of swimmers would create designs in the water and morph from one design into another. On occasion there might be a display of synchronized diving as a skillful stunt much like those in a circus.

Now that its a recognized sport, it's hard to believe it took so many years for it to become a competitive sport.

I understand there is a special way of judging the events. Both men and women compete in two events. Two divers of the same gender attempt the same dive from adjacent 3 meter springboards, but share the platform on the 10 meter board. Each diver has one of the nine judges watching his or her performance in addition to that of the other five judges.

Roseline Filion (foreground) and Meaghan Benfeito
Photograph by: Mike Ridewood

Photo Credit and Story Link:
Roseline Filion (foreground) of Laval, Que. and Meaghan Benfeito of Montreal compete in the preliminary for women’s synchronized 10m platform at the FINA Visa Diving World Cup at Olympic Aquatic Centre in London,
England, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012.
Photograph by: Mike Ridewood

Canary babies

I'm glad to report two canary babies are busy learning bird language from their parents. I'm sad to say that the third baby didn't make it, but the two that did are replicas of the parents. Only their size lets me know which are the babies and which are parents. Its too soon to tell if the lighter brown will be female as is the mother and the darker brown with black patterns on the wings will be male like the father.

Both parents feed them and their little wings flutter like a hummingbirds as they hold their mouths open as wide as possible to be fed. They are learning to fly from perch to perch across the cage and they like sitting and balancing on the swing.

Hooray!

Hooray! One of the baby canaries is out of the nest.

I didn't see when or how it happened. I just discovered the little guy sitting on the floor of the cage in the late morning.

As the day went on, he hopped around the bottom of the cage and when the parents fed him, his little wings went '90 to nothin' as they filled his beak. It hasn't hopped onto the lowest perch yet but it did stand on the foot rest of the seed cup for a while.

It has the same shade of light brown of the mother bird. The two babies still in the nest seem to have the darker color of the father, but they huddle together in such a way its hard to tell one from the other. They fill the nest and its only a matter of a day before another leaves the nest.

Baby Timbrados

I have three tiny baby Timbrado canaries. A day separates each little hatchling and they were such tiny blobs they were hard to distinguish as birds. I think my little finger nail was larger than each blob.

They are a few days old now and Number 1 blob is beginning to show the tiniest of feathers. This morning for the first time I saw one of them holding its mouth wide open waiting to be fed.

The parents are very attentive and feed the babies the special treats I put in the feeding cups. I give them hard boiled eggs with the yolks, cooked rice, cooked carrots and various fruits. They will eat seeds when they are a bit older.

I have yet to hear peeping sounds from the babies, but their tiny wings and beaks show they are taking on bird shapes. In time I will know what gender they have. I hope I have a male that will sing as nicely as the father bird does.

Spanish Timbrado Canary Song

So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

KimB

I think someone forgot to tell the bush beans and watermelon seeds I planted about “how long it takes to germinate”. All the packets said 3 weeks so I wasn't expecting THIS!

Bush Bean Seedlings

Watermelon Seedlings

And my strategy on the taters … that seems to be working too! WOOTS!

Tater Plants

So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

KimB

Well it's that time of year again: tweeting birds, sun, rain, heat and the smell of compost in the air.

This week I made my way out to the garden pots and took stock of what was there and what I wanted to do with it all.

The winter planted carrots are still going strong. It's getting very hot here so they will bolt soon but I picked another dozen or so nice ones.

We checked on the garlic but it's way too soon yet but there was hope and we took out a smaller plant to check: it's still a baby garlic bulb but it will taste great.

The beets were not that successful, like the turnips I didn't plant them deep enough and they mostly laid on the surface. I saved 2 nice beets and a half dozen small specimens and the rest hit the compost bin.

My re-planted and new strategy for getting taters is working! I have about 15 or 20 tater plants popping up in their bucket. I gave them some organic plant food and this year I'm hoping for something better than a few marbles. I put in a big mix of taters: reds, yellows, whites and Russian fingerlings.

After taking stock of what was still there I headed down to the local nursery and picked up 2 new pots and some tomatoes and seed packets. I picked out a Better Boy tomato for sandwiches and Sweet Million cherry tomatoes to make the summer tomato and basil salad that Allen likes. I also picked up a packet of bush beans and will see how they do in the pots too.

But this year I am going to be “adventurous” and “daring” and take on a “big challenge”. I am planting watermelons in a pot. Yeah... I know... not likely but I have a “plan”. The plan is: put the seeds in the pot and let the vines trail over the edge and they can sprawl all around one end of the side yard on top of the gravel. I picked the baby round watermelon type so I hope we get something tasty in a bit.

Between the taters and the watermelon it will be a challenging season!

Always To Be Remembered by Esther

My sister Marion, sent me an E-mail she received from a cousin, it was so much history I was not aware of, and it remind me of a time I went to see where my brother Charles was buried.

All my brothers and sisters served in the military. Most of them served in the Marine Corp, one in the Navy and one in the Air Force. Charles was in the Marines and served mostly in China.

That trip was a very emotional one, for we were a very close family. My daughter and her husband Arthur, drove me to Marion’s house. Together we went on to Houston, Texas, and spent the day visiting Marion’s son Bob.

It was a nice day to go out to the Military Cemetery where Charles wanted to be buried. It was a long trip and both Marion and I were remembering stories about how we use to play and little events we did as children growing up back in Iowa. The eight of us children made for some stories and we had to laugh at most of the tales.

We arrived at the entrance to the Cemetery and Bob drove around to where we wanted to go. I had never been to a large town where the larger cemeteries were, and I was surprise to see how large this one was. It reminded me of my third grade teacher who asked the class if they could visualize how much a pile one thousand pennies would look like and how many one dollar bills would it take to make an inch high stack. I was never so impressed, as seeing how far to look in any direction, to know I could not fathom what I was seeing in front of me today.

Through the years, I have watched on TV, when the news would show those who gave the ultimate price returning home in honor and I would give a silent prayer for their family.

As we walked to where Charles' marker was, we read the names, and there was so many and so young. I will always know I could not see the whole cemetery, nor know how many was the count of all who rest there or in all the other cemeteries there are. It is a great price to pay for our freedom. Since then I have a better idea of how to think of what "big" means.

Our family has one Marine and one Air Force member still living today, and I hope it will be quite a while for them before they to will be gone.

I will always think of how a pile of pennies look and how many one dollar bills it takes to make a one inch stack. And how many are at rest in all the Military Cemeteries. Which I still can not imagine how huge it is.

[Editor's note: This story was written by Esther]

ABBOTT, CHARLES H
PFC US MARINE CORPS
WORLD WAR II
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/16/1927
DATE OF DEATH: 12/21/1998

BURIED AT: SECTION M2 SITE 841
HOUSTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
10410 VETERANS MEMORIAL DRIVE HOUSTON, TX 77038

USA Veterans Nationwide Gravesite Locator

Houston National Cemetary

Fads

Hair styles of women are a 'statement' of the latest fashion in clothing. From the extreme arrangements of Marie Antoinette, to the short, shingled cuts popular with women of the Flapper age in the '20's, women readily follow the latest trends. I have no idea how the fads get started, but they sweep the nation over night it seems. The women on the street, as well as those appearing on television, all wear their hair the same way.

In my opinion, the latest hair fashion makes women look like cyclops. Hair is draped over one eye so that only the other eye is seen by an onlooker. During a conversation in person, or as seen on a television screen, when a women is interviewed or reporting the news, a lock of their hair hangs over one eye in fashion. No effort is made to brush the lock aside as the interview or report continues. Apparently the woman believes this is attractive, but I find myself wondering how the woman can see thru the hank of hair. I stop listening to what's being said and start brushing my own hair away from my forehead, wishing the woman would do the same.

Another fashion I see on television, is a style that looks scraggly. Wisps of hair stick out in all directions giving an unkempt appearance. When the most serious topics of the day are being discussed by a woman with this hair style, I always have the feeling that she's a scatterbrain and what ever expertise she may bring to the conversation is lost on me.

I am also amused by women who ignore their years and wear their hair long and flowing like a teenager. Perhaps those prepping a person for the TV camera are to blame. since they think hair brought forward on each side of a woman's neck is more feminine.

Who knows what the next fad will be. What goes around, comes around. I wouldn't be surprised if long braids wrapped around one's head became fashionable again.

Marie Antionette

Theater: 101 Years of Broadway by Richard

Frances, my valentine, and I had the pleasure of seeing the musical revue 101 Years of Broadway. The musical revue was about several of the best musical Broadway shows, with the actual stars singing the beautiful songs. It was incredible and fascinating to watch listen and enjoy.

Neil Berg was the musical director and producer who also played the piano and the lead in the New York Band. The cast of Ron Bohmer, Chuck Wagner, Sandra Joseph, Andrea Rivette and Lawrence Clayton all were so talented that they brought the music to life in such way, it was magical.

This musical revue transformed the audience and my self back in time, as if we were back watching these musical plays again. Frances and I left the theater with a better understanding of Broadway Musical productions.

To Neil Berg,the cast, and the band, well done.

[Editor's note: This story was written by Richard]

Skipping Stones

Today as I surfed the television channels to find something interesting to watch I stopped for a few minutes to watch cowboys in the movie, Broken Trail, to skip stones across a creek. I had seen the movie several times and knew the plot, but didn't remember the skipping stones scene.

It brought back many memories of standing on the bank of a body of water with family and friends on picnic outings and competing to see how many times we could skip a stone and how far it would go.

These little competitions were never planed. It was a spontaneous move on the part of someone in the group to pick up a stone and skip it. Now and then a stone wouldn't skip, in which case, the group telepathically appraised the moment and as a group, silently agreed to mosey on our way, or automatically begin competing to see who could skip stones the best.

At any one skipping session we could spend an inordinate amount of time developing our skill. Of course there had to be a good supply of skipping stones available. Skipping stones is one of those childhood skills that stays with one, but you never hear anyone bragging about it. When I saw the two old cowboys in the movie casually showing off their skill to each other, I realized we do take pride in our accomplishments and draw on them when we want to show off.

Skipping Stones by Alan Bray

Superstitions

I am not a superstitious person and I do not believe in the supernatural, but I do believe in something we call luck or chance. It's hard for me to define luck, but I think I am a lucky person. I feel lucky. That doesn't mean that I think I'll win the lottery, or come into a fabulous inheritance. It's just a feeling I have.

I not only have a feeling of being lucky, I make up little reasons why I'm lucky. I know my pretend lucky signs are just that, pretend, but they are fun and I change or add to the list when it suits me.

Currently, Camel cookies are a sign of luck. I buy animal cracker cookies in a large plastic 14 0z size container from Sam's. When I grab a hand full of cookies and find a camel cookie, it's lucky. If I get more than one, the luck doubles.

I also pretend numbers in sequence bring me luck. When I glance at the clock on the microwave and it reads, 2:20 or 4:44, that's lucky. Whenever I check the time on my cell phone, any combination of like numbers brings luck and if there are more than two, the luck goes up accordingly. The other day, on the 25th of January, I woke early and checked the cell time. It read, 25,5:55,55 Now that is REAL LUCK!!!

Camel Shape

Sponge Garden

I am growing a tiny garden on a kitchen sponge.

One day while I was filling my canary and parakeet seed feeders I wondered what would happen if I sprinkled some seeds on a wet kitchen sponge and kept it moist for a few days. I had a hunch the seeds would sprout and if so, I'd have some fresh greens for the birds to eat.

Since this little experiment worked, I'll start several sponge gardens and test various seeds to see which sprout easily, perhaps lettuce seeds.

Sponge Garden

Humor by KimB

Humor

Humor is a welcome twist,
In the midst,
Of the angst.

Cause by the dread,
And the fear,
That ends the year.

Of forms to be filed,
And taxes to pay,
By end of the day.

While we race through the forms,
to finish on time,
and avoid any fines.

Gives us a laugh and a grin,
and Humor it’s said,
keeps us ahead,.

Puts a smile on our face,
as we contemplate fate,
and review our estate.

In the State & the Feds,
We know if we search,
There’s an abundance of mirth.

And in spite of our woes,
Shows there’s fun to be seen,
On lines in between.

KimB Feb 1996

Trees

To celebrate Arbor Day in Houston, Texas, volunteers planted 25,000 trees in four of the cities parks. The goal is a million trees for Houston.   Back in my grade school days, the school made planting a tree on Arbor Day a big event by having children plant the tree.

Long before I seriously began my study of art, I used to draw trees. I found the various shapes of trees interesting and drew them on scraps of paper. When we lived on the asparagus farm, there was a beautiful poplar tree along the gravel road that I could see from my bedroom window and I often made drawings of it.

Among the trees I knew in my childhood was Black Walnut, Butternut, Oak, Maple, Flowering Lilac, and many kinds of fruit trees, including pear, apple, cherry and plum. Living in California we had Orange trees, tall Palms, giant Sequoias and Pines. In Texas I became familiar with Magnolia, Myrtle, Dogwood and Pecan trees.

For some years I was a member of the Arbor Day Foundation and would receive 10 free trees every year to plant in the area in which I lived. I either planted them or gave them to others who would plant them. The Arbor Day Foundation has a Hazelnut Research Project inviting people to become patrons and receive three Hazelnut bushes to grow. One can Google for more information about the project at the Arbor Day Foundation Hazelnut project.

I once saw a magnificent collection of 2 and 3 hundred year old bonsai at a museum in San Francisco. I've tried making bonsai but was never able to keep one growing for more than a short time. I either over watered them or had to leave them behind when I moved.

We lose many trees when hurricanes and tornadoes happen. Knowing how beneficial trees are to our environment, I think the government should start a national push to re-forest the country. Trees might help us thru those hot days of summer as the planet continues to warm up.

Lovely Trees

Weather

I can't believe the warm January days we are having here in Houston, Texas. It has been 70 degrees and higher with no predictions of cold weather. Several times recently, the weather reporter on TV has said cold weather was due , but it never materialized.  I have experienced various winter weather patterns in my life time, but frigid, snowy days dominated.

In those long ago school days, my siblings and I wore heavy coats or snow suits and snow boots. The boy's snow boots had a knife pocket, which I always thought unfair since the girls boots were just plain. We also wore knitted hats with pom poms on the top which were called tokes [sic, recte tuque].

One of my earliest memories of blizzards was when I was in the first grade and walking home from school. I was unaware that it was a blizzard, only that it was very cold and the wind was so strong I had to walk backward when the cold gusts pushed me off the sidewalk. The sleet pricked my face and walking with my side turned toward the wind helped. About half way home, my mother appeared in the blowing snow and sleet and held a newspaper in front of my face and put her arm around me as we walked the rest of the way home.

In those early school days of my childhood, Dad was often asked to leave his inside job of switch board operator at the phone company to help linemen who were working to restore telephone lines that had come down during blizzard conditions. It would often be late in the evening when he would get home. Mom would have steaming coffee and a hot meal waiting for him. I watched as he took off his heavy clothes and unlace his boots, and rub his hands together to get them warm, all the time telling Mom about how bad the weather was and how many miles out in the country side they had to work.

Having a 'white' Christmas was special, and we were rarely disappointed. One year my husband and I spent the holidays with his family in Philadelphia. I had been told about the sledding on the hill near the house, but there had not been snow all season so I was not going to enjoy a sled run down the hill. Imagine my surprise when we woke Christmas morning to find everything covered with a thick blanket of powder snow!

My first Christmas away from home was in San Francisco and I spent the day joining other sun bathers on the beach under the Golden Gate bridge. The temperature was 85 degrees. I still remember how strange it seemed to wear my bathing suit on the day I opened my Christmas presents.

The Mistral winds of the southern of France are similar to the Santa Anna winds of Southern California. When my husband and I were on our walking trip thru France, Switzerland and Italy, we experienced them on the return route to Paris. We were told by the inhabitants that the Mistrals often lasted a week, and after experiencing them for three days, we understood what people meant when they said Mistrals could drive you crazy.

Living here in Houston, I've become familiar with hurricanes and hot, humid temperatures of 100 plus degrees. While watching videos of glaciers breaking apart in huge chunks, demonstrating climate change, I can't help but wonder how people will cope and endure the drastic changes predicted. Humans are resilient and resourceful, so I have no doubt they will find ways. I can only imagine the strange garb they will be forced to wear to protect themselves. In the meantime I will continue to knit sweaters for cold, windy days, and blankets for cold winter nights.

Highways and Byways
I knitted this blanket for my son's Christmas present 2011

Flower by KimB



Flower by KimB 2005



Election Money

The huge amounts of money the candidates campaigning for President have raised and continue to raise is an OBSCENITY! Where does all this money come from? It certainly isn't coming from those in the 99% who are looking for work and struggling to put food on the table or families desperately trying to avoid being homeless.

There is a race between super PACs to raise ever higher and higher amounts to pay for television adds, which spew negative propaganda against competitive candidates. The media also adds to the mania with endless speculation night and day of who's up and who's down in the hourly polls they run.

The schism between beliefs of what government is and how it should work is drastic. Some advocate business oriented programs with less regulation. Some want government to limit personal rights. Some threaten loss of national security if their views are not accepted. They all invoke the constitution intimating they alone know exactly what the founding fathers meant but rarely mention liberty and justice for all.

In my opinion, its the power elite doing what they do best, make certain they continue being the power elite.

Is this any way to elect a president?

Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.

Margaret Wheatley, How is Your Leadership Changing?©2005

The Egypt Game

I'm playing the Egypt game again. The name of the game is A Tale In The Desert 6. There is no combat in the game, only role playing with avatars of people and animals. Avatars can plant and grow veggies, fish, build buildings and monuments, create fireworks and have festivals. Avatars achieve levels by solving puzzles. Each 'Tale' last about a year and a half, then a new 'Tale' starts. This is the 6th version of the game or "telling".

So far I have reached level 5. When you earn a new level you get "zapped" by lightening. My palace is on the Red Sea right on the waterfront. I have plam trees and date palms in the courtyard.  I have sheep and camels too. If I want to travel to any other part of Egypt, I have to take a chariot to where ever I want to go. I do not plan on reaching a high level in the game as some players do.

I enjoy doing the simple things and have as much fun as those trying to be the first to reach the highest level possible. In the last Tale I designed a mall with trees, fountains, and lanterns.

I may do something similar this time. It all depends on how much time I devote to playing the game. I started knitting a baby blanket for Heidi, my sister Esther's, granddaughter, who is expecting a baby next month. We don't know if it's a boy or girl so I am using colors that will be for either.

Getting ZAPPED!

New Year 2012

New Year aspirations of 'peace and good will' burst into full flower as we sang Auld Lang Syne and toasted each other for health, wealth and happiness. During the hours of celebration we forgot personal troubles as well as those plaguing the nation.

As holiday events fade into memory and the ringing bells of 'peace and good will' fall silent, our economy again takes precedence and we concentrate on matters personal.  Our personal resolves give way to old habits as government officials continue to seek ways of easing the plight of those who have lost, or are losing the 'American Dream'.

Air ways have become saturated with rhetorical boasts of politicians declaring they have solutions to the nations problems, Our teetering economy is causing a great deal of apprehension. The belief that hard work would let you live the 'American Dream' is no longer true. The struggle to maintain this illusion does not result in achieving the great 'American Dream' much to the chagrin of those who have lost jobs and homes thru no fault of their own.

There are solutions to the disparity of those who have and have not. We just have to be courageous enough to opt for them. Perhaps this is the year we will find a way for families to get back a semblance of tranquility and prosperity and the country regain a stable economy.

Auld Lang Syne (English Translation)

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS