Listen to Me...

I'm the Dad and you'd better start listening to me!

Today is National Pet Parent Day. 

Do you know what your pets are up too?

A Survivor of Urban Decay

Pruitt–Igoe was a huge public housing project on St. Louis' lower north side, which consisted of 33 11-story apartment buildings on a 57 acre plot . It was designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, who later designed the World Trade Center towers in New York City. The new complex was first occupied in 1954, but the ungrateful residents soon tore it up. The decline was such that a decade later, the housing project had become infamous for its crime and poverty. It's 33 deteriorating buildings were demolished in the mid-70s. It was an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars and the poster child for failed urban renewal. 

My dad worked there during its demolition and uncovered this old, old bottle in the ruins.  

Kids & Pets Just Go Together

My son when he was little with his beloved Kitten Nugget.

Yesterday was NATIONAL KIDS & PETS DAY. (Sorry I'm late in posting this --- long story told on another blog). Anyway, I'm not sure what this celebration is all about, but I do know that pets are good for children growing up. 
          My sister and I always had a regular menagerie: dogs, cats, hamsters, fish, frogs, piglets, calves, a pony, a horse, an orphaned raccoon, baby birds fallen from nests which we tried to save, and the list goes on and on. I feel sorry for anyone who grew up without at least one pet to love and care for.

Love Those Red Hats!

Bayfield, Wisconsin

Today is RED HAT SOCIETY DAY.  It all started when Sue Ellen bought a bright red fedora hat on a impulse at a thrift shop.  A few years later, she read a poem called “Warning” written in 1961 by Jenny Joseph which is about an older woman in purple clothing wearing a red hat. The poem begins with the lines: “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.” She liked the poem so much she gave a framed copy of it, along with a red hat, to her friend Linda as a birthday present.  Linda enjoyed the gift so much that Sue Ellen started giving the same gift to other friends. One day they all decided they should dress up in purple (like the lady in the poem) and wear their red hats out to tea together. Soon they were doing this on a regular basis and inviting other friends to join them. As the group became too large, sister groups were formed. Now they hold conventions that fill entire hotels with red hatted women having a great time together. Women over 50 are the “Red Hatters”; those not yet 50 wear pink hats.

This year the Red Hat gals will celebrate their 14th birthday at the Hard Rock Café  - Hollywood.  They are now a global sisterhood of women whose mission is fun, friendship, freedom, fulfillment and fitness. In only five years they’d grown to 40,000 chapters worldwide. For more information, their official website is: http://www.redhatsociety.com/

To read Jenny Joseph’s poem that inspired this sisterhood and, see:

http://www.wheniamanoldwoman.com/pages/348544/index.htm

I first heard about this group while at an artist retreat near Duluth, Minnesota in the summer of 2006. One of our fellow artists was a member and was explaining to us what the group was all about.  Imagine my surprise when one Saturday morning a year later, I happened to spot a small group of “Hatters” while on a self-directed artist retreat in Wisconsin. I was waiting to board a tour boat when I spied this group having their pictures taken on the balcony of their bed and breakfast suite. There appears to be three of them, posing with a sign and holding a couple of extra red hats (maybe for members who couldn’t be with them that day for one reason or another).

[I'm presently reading THE RED HAT SOCIETY: Fun & Friendship After Fifty by Sue Ellen Cooper and I'll post a review in my book blog after I finish it.]

Teach Your Children...

c. 2006 Godar Graphics

Today is TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO SAVE DAY. This awareness day was established by the American Banker’s Association Education Foundation to express the importance of teaching our children how to save money, how to set up and use budgets, how interest works to make savings grow, and most importantly (in my opinion anyway) how to recognize the difference between needs and wants.

Weathervane

Galena, Illinois

The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, 

their written language is too difficult for human minds, 

and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.  

~John Muir~

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, fellow Earthlings!

Walk gently, observe joyfully,

Live responsibly and respectfully!

And a special Thank You to Home Depot for the free pine seedling!

A Postcard from Jacksonville

This is one local cemetery I still have yet to visit.  A very dear friend of mine was buried there a month ago (I didn't find out til days later---it was a private family gathering), so someday soon I'll go look for where she rests.

What Blooms Here?

Does anyone know what flowering bush this is? I shot the photo in Minnesota.

'Tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes!
~William Wordsworth

Poverty of the Modern

Fewer and fewer Americans possess 

objects that have a patina, old furniture, 

 grandparents' pots and pans, the used things, 

warm with generations of human touch, 

essential to a human landscape.  

Instead, we have our paper phantoms, 

transistorized landscapes.  

A featherweight portable museum.  

~Susan Sontag~

I Go to Nature...

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, 

and to have my senses put in order.  

~John Burroughs~

A Glimpse of the Past

A glimpse of the past through a shop window, Old Town Galena, IL

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  
And this is all life really means.   
~Robert Louis Stevenson

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

My father died in 2005. Today would have been his 85th birthday, and I still miss him. Chuck was an outdoorsman, through and through. He taught me the love of nature. He was a hunter and a fisherman, and truly lived off the land.

This photo may repulse some, and I apologize to anyone's sensitivty. (This is the only photo I have of him on my computer --- my scanner is broken --- and I'd really rather not use this one, but....)  My dad understood the importance of hunting for keeping wildlife populations in check. Coyotes, unlike other predators, have adapted to the presence of humans throughout their wide range. They reproduce prolifically and even mate with feral dogs. They carry rabies and heartworm, and would just as soon eat someone's pet kitty or small dog as a wild rabbit or squirrel. So I make no apology for hunting them.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!  If you were still here, I'd fry you up a mess of crappie and mushrooms today, and toast you with a brewskie. You may be gone, but you're not forgotten

Dang!

I missed a day! The first time this has happened since I started my daily blog in November.

Be Yourself!

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, 

instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.  

~Judy Garland~

Kitty in the Clover

No amount of time can erase 

the memory of a good cat, 

and no amount of masking tape 

can ever totally remove his fur from your couch.  

~Leo Dworken

Missed the Bluebells

Darn! We missed the blue- bells in all their glory! I did get a great shot of the bluebells on April 6th, but when I took Willow to see them, we only found a few be- draggled rem- nants, as seen here, under the mayflower umbrellas.

To see the lovely bluebells, and a picture of Willow mushroom hunting, click on this website & scroll down a little:

http://theheartlanddaily.blogspot.com/

Mid-air Collision

Some people say that cats

are sneaky, evil, and cruel.  

True, and they have many 

other fine qualities as well.  

~Missy Dizick

TODAY IS NATIONAL PET DAY!

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ANIMAL SHELTER!
(Katmandu & KittenYahoo were adopted as sister-kittens.)

In My Garden

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.  

My garden of flowers is 

also my garden of thoughts and dreams.  

The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, 

and the dreams are as beautiful.  

~Abram L. Urban

Read A Road Map

We just concluded READ A ROAD MAP WEEK. One of my favorite, time- wasting hobbies is reading road maps and atlases. I'm probably one of America's foremost armchair travel experts. I love to plan long trips around the continent, imagining the places I'd go and the things I'd see and do if I was independently wealthy and could travel anywhere I wanted. One place I'd definitely want to visit is the Pacific Northwest.

Happy Easter!

Dickeyville Grotto, Dickeyville, Wisconsin

"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HAVE NOT SEEN, AND YET HAVE BELIEVED."
John 20:29

HAPPY EASTER TO ONE & ALL!

Willow Woodsprite Comes to Stay!

 

Willow Woodsprite showed up yesterday 

and stole my heart away!  

She's custom-made...designed and created for me 

by my good friend and fellow-artist, Kathy Hall.

One of the best things about little Willow 

is that she loves the same things I do: 

hiking, nature, wildflowers, sunsets, butterflies, 

rocks, trees, the changing of the seasons, 

long talks, and the full moon. 

Willow isn't just a signed, collector doll 

made by the most talented of all doll-makers...

WILLOW IS MY NEW LITTLE FRIEND!

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Willow Woodsprite! 

A Fine Mess of Mushrooms

     While we've only found two (yes, 2!) morels after traipsing over our 35 acres of woodlands, a very disheartening prospect, my husband has been able to hunt more secluded woodlots on the farm where he works and has brought home several nice batches of the "land fish" for our suppers. I don't know why their old-timer name is "land fish." They don't taste anything like fish. Maybe it's because they're fried, and often in the past we've found so many we could make a meatless meal from them and some biscuits and gravy. Now, with the dwindling pickings, we can only enjoy them as tasty
hors d'oeuvres, which we gobble down as fast as they come out of the frying pan.

Dig This!

CC circa 1981

My playlist was chosen as today's Noon "U-Tunes" on 100.5 FM --- WYMG (Springfield's Classic Rock).  I won Lunch for Two at Secret Recipes in Chatham.  I never win anything!!!  I'm a winner!



My songs were:
 SOMEBODY TO LOVE -Jefferson Airplane 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIkoSPqjaU4
MAGIC MAN - Heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDwKuYWVMvo 
ME & BOBBY McGEE - Janis Joplin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTHRg_iSWzM&feature=related

YOU'RE NEVER TO OLD TO ROCK N ROLL!

CC's Believe It or Not!

I was surprised to discover this tree with a metal fence post sticking out of it the other day when I was mushrooming. It's beside an old shed where we kept our horses when we first moved here 24 years ago. I guess when my husband was building the temporary corral, he leaned a fence post against a small tree where two limbs separated, and after two and a half decades --- the tree has grown completely around it! There's at least a foot and a half of solid tree above where the post juts out.

Beary Alert

Here's my dog, Beary, alerting on poor Katty. In the next instance after I clicked the shutter, he pounced on his cat and shook her like a rag-doll.  I guess Katty likes it, or she'd make herself scarce when Beary's outside! She has only herself to blame for teasing him so!

White Trout Lily

Here is one of the lovely spring wildflowers I photo- graphed on yesterday's mushroom hunt. (I got skunked on the mush- rooms!) It's the WHITE TROUT LILY: also known as Adder's Tongue, Dog's-tooth Violet, Serpent's Tongue, Trout Lily, Deer Tongue, and Yellow Snowdrop.  I found it very interesting to read that in Native American nature lore, the Onondaga women used the leaves as a temporary birth control method in the spring, to avoid giving birth in the most frigid part of winter. There's a lot of wisdom in that idea!

It's Hard to Be a Boomer

Photo courtesy http://pdphoto.org/  Thanks, Jon!

 Besides being April Fool’s Day, today is BOOMER BONUS DAY for everyone over 50.  “Baby Boomers” is the generation made up of the approx- imately 79 million babies born between 1946 and 1964. World War 2 was over, our boys were coming home, getting married, getting jobs and starting families.

 IT'S HARD TO BE A BOOMER
by C.C. Godar

Your hair's falling out ...maybe some teeth as well.
You forget where you put that box of old photos.
Those clothes you loved no longer fit.
Some of your friends may have passed on too.
Memories fade and the old bones ache...
It's hard to find the enthusiasm for much any more,
and you sure dread another birthday rolling 'round.

Today's your day to CELEBRATE!
Don't regret growing older.  
It's a privilege denied to many.
Keep a twinkle in your wrinkle, 
and never forget, you're always 
the same age inside anyway!

To all my Boomer friends out there, 

this beautiful song's for you:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzXyoeKOcx4