Summer Break's End / Back To School

While the drought here in Kansas is becoming more severe, this week we finally had a little over an inch of rain.  There’s been plenty of heat, which does produce very short and spotty afternoon showers.  But we were beginning to feel as if there was a force field around our house keeping us dry.  This is the first year that I can remember our rainwater pond got too low to water from and there was no more reserve left in the cistern.  Then Tuesday we had an entire morning of downpours which was enough to fill the pond and yield overflow to the cistern.  It also reminded me to appreciate the beauty in a rainy day.

The drought has brought us one really cool consequence.  We have a friend who is a cattle and sheep rancher and a couple of weeks ago she discovered wild lotus growing in one of her ponds.  The pond was built in 1980 and never has had lotus growing in it before.  She thinks it has something to do with the drought and the water level being so low.  Since the lotus is one of Paul’s and my hobbies, we invited ourselves over.  We heard you could find it growing wild in Kansas but really didn’t believe it. 

Paul finished digging our own second small, ornamental pond, recycling what used to be Turtle Island, giving it a purpose again.  I want to dig up some of the rock from this cliff we live on to line around the edges.  He was only able to capture one of our fish to move from the lily rainwater pond to the new one, Popeye, our one-eyed goldfish.  He was blindsided.

We have all been trying to savor the last bit of summer.  Yes, the heat and calendar say we still have much left of the season but the schools here in Kansas and Missouri say differently.  Our two teacher daughters went back on Monday, while the grandchildren start next Tuesday!  To make it even worse, the local city pools are all closing this week.  For the past few years, they’ve been closing when the kids go back to school because they lose their workforce.  But grandma and grandpa’s little pool stays open until Labor Day!

So we’ve tried to fit in as much fun as possible here at the end.  It’s now a tradition on our last Friday brunch to go downtown on the streetcar to have lunch.  We made a trip to the farmers’ market, (which meant homemade pickles and peach cobbler), and we made it to the parade at the fair.  We had a back to school sleepover with the two oldest granddaughters.  Their littlest cousin ended up being part of the fun due to a daycare snag.  We had a great time going on a nature walk to gather materials and then making a sun catcher box.  And for the grand finale, the Perseids helped us commemorate with an outdoor movie and meteor night and a family sleepover.  Now I for one could use some recuperation time.

I’ve not knitted for two weeks, instead making Amelia’s second birthday book.  Her favorite song is Footloose.  Paul wrote the words for the book, using Footloose’ lyrics as a template.  If you think of the melody while reading it hopefully you can hear it.  I also made a little reversible dress for her.  I embroidered what I thought looked like a lower case “a” on the pocket.  But no one has been able to guess what it is.

Looking up over these photos I'm about to post, I'm struck by how full and wonderful my life is.  I am so grateful for what I have.  Blogs and Facebook are wonderful about showing us the very best of our lives.  But often, while living through all this love and happiness, we also deal with problems, stress, tragedies, and heartache.  Sometimes we just need to be reminded to not let ourselves become consumed with the negatives.

July Yarn Along

What a difference a  month makes.  Even though June was my first month of retirement, there were so many obligations that I wondered how I would have survived it all had I still been working.  But July has been much more relaxed, allowing me to settle into what I always imagined retirement life would be, giving me the time I want to spend with family and time to work on projects.

For the July Yarn Along I want to share the short socks I've been knitting.  I'm now on my second pair.  The pattern is Rose City Rollers, by Mara Catharine Bryner.  Although on the second pair I've opted to change the rolled cuff for a one-inch ribbed cuff.  I hope I will like the fit around my ankle better.

As for books, this month I've finished one novel, Commonwealth, and have nearly finished a second, The Nest.  Paul and I finished two short audiobooks, The Colorado Kid, and Blood and Smoke, both by Stephen King.  Definitely not as enjoyable for me as his more recent works. And now that I have more days a week that I can cook breakfast, I've also been reading Chicken and Egg. Finally, I checked out 5-Minute Sketching Architecture by Liz Steel.  Liz is an amazing artist I've been following for a few years.  I was delighted that my library had a copy of her book.  I'm working on a drawing that is now waiting for me to add watercolors.

Our lotus bloomed for the first time this season on the Fourth of July.  We had three granddaughters over for a sleepover the night before so they are in the picture as a size reference.  This year's leaves are massive.  Last Saturday we went to a lotus party at our local water garden nursery.  We learned lotus lore, a little more about growing this amazing plant, and then ate a lunch of several lotus recipes.  I had no idea that nearly all of the plant is edible, and for that matter, delicious. 

Also, our rainwater pond is really looking spectacular.  In the photo you can see a goldfish swimming in the fish high rise. One morning Paul was pulling sticks out of the pond from a storm the day before.  To his surprise what he had in his hand wasn't a tree limb, but one of the largest walking sticks we've ever seen. 

Unfortunately, one night a couple of weeks ago an intruder wreaked havoc on our turtle pond.  The next morning we found destruction, but no turtles.  So the tank has been sitting there as a sad reminder.  But today Paul started work to move and bury it in another location for a second rainwater pond that we can enjoy from the backyard. 

Another summer joy,  it's wildflower season.  My morning walks have been just beautiful.  We live on a river bluff and at one spot on my walk, I can look out over the river valley and farm fields.  And although I hate to think about the payload he's dumping, it's also crop dusting season.  It's like our own private little air show as he comes up the bluff, sometimes directly over the house, to swoop back down into the valley.   This time we hopped in the car to follow him and watch as he moved from field to field.   Although we were probably making his job more difficult.

We love all things to do with flight and space.  Paul recently put the app ISS Detector Satellite Tracker on his notebook.  For a couple of weeks during the first part of June, we were able to see the International Space Station pass over us a couple of times a night.  The last couple of nights we have been able to view the Chinese space station, Tiangong-2.  The app tells you exactly where it will appear in the sky, how long it will be visible, and exactly where it will cross into the shadow of the earth and disappear from view.  I like to think what someone who doesn't know what they are looking at, thinks about something that looks like a star, moving at a measured pace across the sky, then vanishes before their eyes.  Often long before it reaches the horizon. 

Finally, I'm working on Amelia's second birthday book.  I'm hoping to have it finished in the next two days.  In just a couple of weeks I will be working on Sophie's second book!

Finally

I often write about my passions, although I have purposefully not written about one specific passion here on my blog.  But then sometimes in life, something touches you so deeply that you can’t continue to pretend life is normal. There’s more to life than knitting and drawing and my summer reading list, and now is my time to speak up here.

The day before yesterday I was listening to the radio and heard a refugee from Honduras interviewed. She crossed the border in 2016 with her 4-year-old son.  She and her son, together, spent time in a family detention center.  Currently, she is living with and sponsored by her brother while she awaits her trial for asylum.  She gave her story through her interpreter from Innovation Law Lab, and it was heartbreaking.

Also interviewed was a local pastor in a Presbyterian church working with a largely Hispanic congregation.  It was his statement that made my breath catch:

“Jesus separated the nations into two groups, two groups of nations, those who welcomed him as a stranger and those who didn’t welcome him as a stranger. And to those who welcomed Jesus, he said, ‘come and enjoy the kingdom of God.  Enjoy life in my presence in love and grace.’  And to those who didn’t welcome him, it’s not going to be good for you.  Because here in this country we are not only not welcoming the stranger, we are torturing the stranger.”

I am not an overly religious person, which I’m sure is probably a great disappointment to my mother.  But this struck a nerve deep into that little Catholic girl I was growing up, who now as an adult is struggling to verbalize my reasons to my family why I don’t support President Trump’s policies.  Because let’s face it, it’s difficult and dangerous to argue with family.  You love them, you know they are basically really good people.  So how can they just sit there and defend the policies put in place by this administration, no matter the consequences?

Never mind arguing their party and the current administration want to cut their Social Security and Medicare, or that they care nothing about climate change and protecting the planet for my grandchildren, or that they are making enemies of our allies and allies of our enemies, or that more people have died in school shootings than active service men and women have died in active duty this year.  But this latest and most egregious policy, how do you support that?  Surely, those words spoken by that pastor will make a difference to my family!

My daughter, an elementary special education teacher working with mostly Hispanic children said to me the other day, “People don’t see these immigrants as human beings.  They don’t look them in the eye.  They don’t speak the language.  They view them as animals.”  More words I won’t forget.

Where I live, being Democrat is very unpopular.  We hesitate to speak out because we don’t want to offend our neighbors.  We don’t want to be part of an “us versus them” mentality.  But what about all of the moderates in the middle, when do you say enough?

A year ago I said enough.  I started putting myself out there and the people around me are learning who I am and what I stand for.  My husband and I are the new chairs of our county’s local Democratic Party. My husband, children, grandchildren and I have been marching in the streets.  It’s become a passion of mine to do what I can to make a change.

And now, finally, I’m writing about it here. Because this is a big part of who I am now.

There will be more writing about knitting, books, and art, but now that I’m newly retired, there might be more posts like this too.

You can listen to the podcast of that radio program here: http://kcur.org/post/seg-1-life-immigrants-american-detention-centers-seg-2-why-pseudo-science-persists

Cup of Jo wrote two excellent posts on the immigration crisis.  You can find those here:

https://cupofjo.com/2018/06/how-to-help-separated-families/

https://cupofjo.com/2018/06/family-separation-what-you-need-to-know/

On Wednesday evening we held our first event as chairs.  People still came out in the middle of an excessive heat warning with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees to hear from Democratic local and gubernatorial candidates running this season.  Maybe, if that can happen in this community, the tide just might be changing.  

Passions

   

It’s already time for the May Yarn Along.  I’m pretty sure my last post was the April Yarn Along post! 

Since then I finished my basic blue crew neck sweater, and it fits just how I wanted it to!  I’ve been able to wear it twice.  (I wrote before how cold and nasty our spring has been this year.)  I had enough yarn left over to knit our grandson a cable vest which is on the needles now.  It’s my yarn along photo for May.  I’m reading My Life In Stitches: Knitting My Way Through Love, Loss and Laughter by Rachael Herron.  If you’re a knitter, you’ll relate.  It’s funny, touching and sad but always there’s a knitting moment that I recognize I’ve been in myself!

I also had the opportunity to make another doll.  After the younger granddaughters got their dolls for Christmas, my daughter asked if I could make her one too.  She wanted to have one so that she and Sophie would be able to play together.  I wanted her to be Hispanic, although not a Frida doll.  I really love how she turned out.  Now I want to make a Frida doll for myself.

I had written before how our spring had been largely missing in action.  Still, even with the freezing nights, the trees' blossoms made a show and they are beautiful.  Our lilac is just outside the front door and right now I get a whiff with each trip in and out of the house.  The cherries and apple trees look like they will give us a good season, and even the magnolia pulled it off in the end.  Her flowers looked as if at the end of the night she got caught in the rain and their skirts were dragged through the mud ultimately ruining their hems.  But still you could appreciate their beauty.

And now the trees are proof, reminding us that there was indeed a spring. Even though the spring temperatures only lasted about a week and a half.  In true Kansas form we have moved straight to summer with the temperatures reaching the mid to high eighties.  But the summer weather means that the turtles and goldfish moved out to the ponds.  Paul moved them out on a day when Jools and Rowen were here for a sleepover.  Rowen enjoyed keeping the goldfish company while they waited their turn to move.

Yesterday I planted our tomatoes, peppers, and basil.  Today we’re moving out the houseplants and repotting the ones that have been begging for more room.  I love it when the deck becomes an extension of the living room.  This early summer feel is making me want to open the pool.  Somehow I think if we took the plunge temperatures would slip back into the sixties and we would regret the early opening.

Lately, something I’ve been the most passionate about is sketching.  I’ve been participating in the online Sketchbook Revival, twenty artists giving lessons and tips about their sketchbook process. It has been just the kick in the pants I needed.  I have long struggled with sketching, longing for a daily sketching practice.  Being able to sit down, look at something and render a quick sketch that actually looks like on paper what I was looking at in front of me, was something I daydreamed about.  But truthfully, getting past the blank page was a hurdle for me.

One of the artists gave a lesson on making mini sketchbooks, taking drawing paper, tearing and folding it into a continuous book.  I know it sounds silly but Eureka!  I don’t know why it makes a difference but in my brain it does.  I can’t find enough time to spend on drawing.  Last week I drew my coffee, tea or lemon water mug every day.  I’ve done some still lifes, some room views, the other day I even tried drawing the grandchildren playing outside.  I would have never attempted to draw a moving two and four year old before.  I have to say, it’s been a blast.

Finally, the other day driving home I saw yet another abandoned sofa on the side of the road.  Over the years I’ve taken pictures of many of these.  It’s always so sad. But in the spring for reasons I can’t seem to say, I think even more so.