Poetry

You got in the way (A Caregiver's respite)

Your memories have long since gone away
Still, I wait for you to say
Through shadows of years and mists of tears
Let me laughen-up your day

That's what you'd always smile and say
Since so many years ago I lay
Upon this sand, my life all planned
When you got in my way

I'll not rest while your away
In hope that you'll return one day
Won't let this heart break apart
I pray you've only lost your way

But there's nothing more that I can say
As I walk the sand alone today
I cling to sweetest memories
When you got in my way

Sorrowful Mother

South to Bucyrus he saw the sign.
'One half mile - Sorrowful Mother Shrine'
He didn't stop, preferring to imagine
What his sorrowful mother shrine might be.

Whose mother knows not the sorrow
Of disappointment and love undone;
Of nights awake, waiting alone
Beside an uncaring, unringing phone?

A lone stalk of corn standing tall, unbended
Is his sorrowful mother shrine imagined.
Passing field after cornfield, uncountable stalks
Surround graves at Evangelical Pietist Church.

Without sorrow can our joy be as full?
Will mother stand as tall and unbending?
He imagines so - then stops along the road to eat
Where the corn is ripe and the melon sweet.

Christmas

When fall is frozen over 

When fall is frozen over and
The moon is slivered shut;
When the tree is trimmed and ready
To gather presents underfoot;
It's then I like to sit with you
In silence by the hearth
And reminisce about old friends
From whom we are apart.
No visit from St. Nicholas
Or carol sung on high
Can warm my heart as surely as
Your words from time gone by.
You say, "It always snows for Christmas!"
Still I laugh and don't believe, but
Fall is frozen over and
The moon is slivered shut

Christmas Card

I could fill my days writing what nobody reads.

I could fill my days giving what nobody needs.
But, you deserve more than Hallmark card greetings;
More than just online gifts with no meaning.
So, let me write only what needs to be said,
And pray - Wrap with love all our gifts from above.

  Merry Christmas

Reflections (Earth Day, 4/22/2021)

The poppies march and paint the breeze        

With golden trumpet bells, pointing to the sky.
They present their fanfare as geese fly low
Overhead, overheard; Only me to please. 

A duck sitting on a log, asleep,
Cares not that I invade his space.
I capture the log’s and duck’s reflection
In the side stream from pond to river deep.

The lupin and poppies, and geese for that matter,
Don’t give the duck or log a thought.
As usual, it is I, the human, who disturbs
With my intruding pitter-patter.

Is there but one variable in nature today?
Will balance return only when we go away?

Garden 4-1-2020

The garden is almost ready for the vegetables. In the past two weeks, we added steer manure and some of our compost. Today, I laid the drip hoses in the raised beds. I added the timer and will wait to watch it come on tonight as programmed for 10 minutes at 6:20 PM. I tested the watering without the timer first, and from the pictures below, you can see the watering is pretty close to correct. 

    

Beds 1 and 2 above. Mostly for tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The plant in bed 1 is Greek Oregano that came back from last year. I'll add basil also. Bed 2 will also have cucumbers on the frame at the rear of the bed.

Beds 3 and 4 above are for more cucumbers on the frame at the rear of bed 3, and for squash and lettuce, beets, spinach if I have room. 

 

Above is the Orbit timer that I have to look up on YouTube every year to relearn how to program. It went smoothly and we'll test it tonight.

We also have two compost bins that are used year-round.

Traveling to Monticello and Charlottesville 3/2 - 3/6

I arrived in Charlottesville Wednesday 3/4 after exploring a bit of West Virginia on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday, 3/2, I went to a cemetery (Graham cemetery) full of family names (Grinstead, Roush, Weaver, Curry) in New Haven, WV. I may have to explore that cemetery one more time on my way to Ohio this weekend.

Above is a cluster of gravestones of Grinsteads. My grandfather's family came from New Haven, and I bet there are still Grinsteads living in the area.

After leaving New Haven, I headed toward Summersville, WV. Just down the road from Summersville is the New River Gorge Bridge which I wanted to cross. I stopped and walked to a viewpoint and walked through the visitors center. If you are into bridges, it would be a great park to explore. I crossed the bridge twice since I had to come back to head to Cass Scenic Railroad State Park.

I headed on to Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. The website was not clear on whether it was open for train rides this time of year. It was not. Too bad, because it was a beautiful day and it would have been a great train ride. They open in May, so maintenance guys were working and people in the gift shop had a lot of time to answer questions and help me on my way to Charlottesville.

I could spend a lot of time in Charlottesville area. Monticello is beautiful and there were knowledgable guides and docents all over the place with a very small number of visitors. I was glad to finally see Thomas Jefferson's home, his architecture and inventions.

Monticello above.

Sally Hemings' slave quarters were interesting to see. Nothing like Jefferson's home. They have added a lot of information and guidance on the slaves and lives of her family since the genetic testing in 1998 pretty much confirmed that her children were also Jefferson's children.

Jefferson was a brilliant man who admitted that future generations would have to solve the slavery problem. He could not in his time.

After Monticello, I walked to the pedestrian mall in Historic Charlottesville.

I had a cup of coffee here and visited some of the art boutiques on the mall. Notice there are no crowds at all. I bet on a summer weekend it is ... vibrant. Lots of breweries, restaurants, art boutiques and interesting people here.

I decided to walk to University of Virginia and see the rotunda and campus. It was a bustling campus. Lots of students walking everywhere. Cars, buses, scooters, and me just lollygagging along.

The Jefferson-designed rotunda was beautiful, as I expected. I had seen it earlier in the day from his grounds at Monticello from a distance. The guide explained that Jefferson liked Octagonal designs architecturally. The dome at Monticello and the dome of  the rotunda at UVA were very similar.

Not sure where I'll be in the next few days, except for watching some UVA womens tennis, so I'll add another blog entry in a couple days.

Ohio-Michigan 2/26-2/27

Waiting at the Sacramento airport to catch my flight to Columbus (2:20 depart) . I don't get in Columbus till 11 PM, so Thursday will be my first day back east. The plan is to visit my aunt in Grandview Thursday morning and drive to Detroit Thursday afternoon.

Tentative Itinerary

2/26 Columbus. Stay at Varsity Inn one night. Breakfast Thursday at Stauf's in Grandview. Visit aunt.
2/27 Detroit. Stay at La Quinta 2 nights. 
2/28 Detroit. Rehearsal dinner evening.
2/29 Detroit. Stay at Courtyard by Marriot in Warren. Wedding. Paige (neice) and Tim.
3/1   Detroit. Visit brother Jim (Alesia) stay one night.
3/2 - 3/5  Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia. Travel 3 days. 
3/6 - 3/8   Tennis (UVA Women), Monticello, sight-see Charlottesville.
3/9 - 3/16  Columbus. Visit family, friends, sight-see.
3/17  Sacramento return flight.

Zach's beer

Today is a beer brewing day. 

1. First was sanitizing the brewing keg. 
2. We added 2 gallons of water to the pot and started the fire.
3. We added the grains and brought the wort to just a boil.
4. We turned off the fire and steeped the grains for 30 minutes with the fire off.
5. After 30 minutes, we removed the grain and added the malt extract. 
6. We began the 60 minute boil.
7. Cooled down with the chiller.
8. Topped off the wort to 10 gallons and transferred to the two carboys.
9. Yeast added, airlock in place and put in a back bedroom in the dark to ferment.

Zach's keg for boiling the wort. 

Steeping the grains for 30 minutes

These supplemental hops are our hops we grew in the back yard (Cascade)

Zach adding hops to the boiling wort. Boiling hops, irish moss and finishing hops.

We used Zach's chiller to cool the wort before transferring it into the carboy.

One of two carboys ready, with yeast added, to ferment for 3-5 days.

Zach will keg the beer in 1 to 2 weeks.

There's a road in Hocking County, Ohio, near the city of Union Furnace, named Goat Run Honey Fork Road. My grandfather was born in 1900 in a house in Union Furnace that can be seen from the main crossroad in town.

In 2000, I visited the man who lived in the house. I just pulled into the driveway and he was sitting in his porch swing. His son came over from the trailer next door and we all talked about the house and living there.

The old man said he bought the house in 1938. He said the people he bought it from had lived there for years, but he did not know if it was they who might have bought it from my grandfather's family.

I showed them the picture of my grandfather standing in front of the house at eight years old, all dressed up with his family. The house looked almost the same.

The son took me into the house and I remember it was dark and old. The wood floor was thin slats, almost black, and seemed to be warped throughout the house. Everything looked like it had not been updated in a hundred years.

Out back, I remember how green it was. This is Ohio and there is plenty of rain to keep it green. The dark woods ran up the hill on the other side of the broken-down stone wall and wood fence.
Back out front, I said goodbye to the old man, his son and daughter-in-law.

They said to come back anytime. Here's my poem about the experience.

Goat Run Honey Fork Road

I got lost on Goat Run Honey Fork Road.
Who has stopped in Union Furnace in summer
Finds routine that denies complexity.
My stopping interrupted the simplicity.

He watches the world from his porch swing
At the four-way crossing that is the town.
I show him the yellowed photograph, faded hard
Of my grandfather, eight-years-old, in this yard.

The house is unchanged, save for the trees.
Even the porch sets the same after one hundred years.
The walls need painting, and wood floors, waxed in grime,
Make a slanting walk falling me back in time.

Out back is lush green with woods encroaching
As to attack and devour the man-made glade.
I search the defending rock wall for a stone;
A remembrance of this time alone.

I leave him to resume his porch swing duties,
And thanking me for interrupting his day.
He says come again when I'm down this way.
If I can find Goat Run Honey Fork Road, I may.