Orchids & Kitties

These are some photos of the orchids I bought the other day. They had been $12 and marked down to $3 because they didn't have the sence to water them and they had wilted badly. I was surprised at how well they came back. some of the blossoms were all dried up and fell of but the ones that were just kind of limp opened back up once they had some water.



















Cassie



Twinkie

Gretton - Rockingham via plantation

With Eddie, Charlotte and Maureen. Led by me. Sunny, ground frozen, cold wind. 8 miles.





Same route as on Thursday 7 April





We started from the playground on Gretton rec, and followed the path between the new estate and the older houses. It goes by the hedge and continues straight on as far as the surfaced track. Just opposite there are a pair of stiles leading into a grassy field. We crossed this to another pair of stiles. After these the path goes right at about 45 degrees towards a wide gap in the hedge. There we turned right and walked with the hedge on our right, through a few gaps until we came to a stile through a hedge, and on to a track. over the stile on the other side and into a large field,where the path leads slightly right, as indicated by the footpath arrow. As we walked in this direction the metal gate and stile that we were aiming for came into view.





Over the stile to the Gretton- Corby road, and across over another stile. Here there is a short steep slope, which we descended. Then we aimed left at about 45 degrees towards a rather ramshackle stile into the wood.





In the woods, you go down a pretty steep short section of path, just after the stile, and go down to a wide grassy track. Turn left and walk along. There's a notice advising you to keep dogs on leads, and beware of snakes. Today, it was far too cold for any cold-blooded critter to emerge.







After a while the track arrives at a meeting of the ways, and here you need to take care. Not left, not left and slightly back, and not right. More or less straight ahead, with a slight bias to the right. Follow this track to a T-junction and turn left. Don't attempt to cross a quarried 'ravine' ahead. The left turn leads to a stile and on to the Gretton Brook Road. It may be possible to wend your way through the trees and emerge later, but it doesn't look very practicable, and is almost certainly not a public footpath.

From here, follow the Gretton Brook Road, carefully because it can be pretty busy, to the junction with the main road. Keep along this in the same direction until you reach Princewood Road. Follow the footpath/pavement/sidewalk here round through the industrial estate until you come to the area behind the Hampton by Hilton hotel. You can cut through to the main Rockingham Road. The verge is wide enough to walk on, or you can cross over to a surfaced footpath. The road goes past a hotel and the cemetery, and leads to the junction with the A6003. There is a roundabout at the top of Rockingham Hill.

Walk down Rockingham Hill as far as the footpath sign for Gretton - to the left. Continue if you fancy a coffee or more at the tea-shop just after the Sondes Arms.

Charlotte, Eddie and Maureen, ready to climb West Hill!

There is a longish section along roads, but the walks at either end of it make it worthwhile.





More later

Allen County Public Library Grand Opening

This afternoon I attended the ceremonies for the grand opening of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne. It's impressive, to say the least. I spoke very briefly with Curt Witcher, the director of the Genealogy Center, and of course he was quite excited. He said there were a few minor things that still needed to be completed but they were about 99% ready for the opening. Below are some pictures I took this afternoon.

Some lucky folks got a sneak peak at the library last Sunday. You can read about that in an article in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel; they also have some pictures.




The opening ceremony. A few people were on hand.
These scanners allow you to create a digital image of the microfilm, two of them can also scan microfiche. The image can be edited on site. If you load the film wrong and the image is backwards you don't have to reload, the scanner can be set to reverse the image. It can also rotate the image and switch it from a positive to a negative or vice versa. Way cool. Even more cool, you can print the images or write the images to a CD or save them to your thumbdrive (or any USB drive). The email feature is not yet working. I could see using that if you only had a few images. I forgot to ask if they sell the CDs. At this time there is no cost for scanning or printing but, according to the staff member that was giving the demonstration, that may change in the future.



This was taken shortly after the opening ceremony. It is the largest of the patron work areas. It is in the same room with all of the family history books, a small portion of which can be seen on the far wall. The chairs are very comfortable. Two copy machines are available in this room.



This is a huge space. It is where all of the City Directories and oversized books are located. The shelving units move with the push of a button. If someone is in the row the unit won't move. Of course everyone had to see if they worked properly. There are three aisles of shelving units. Each unit is quite wide, probably 20 feet or so.




One of the computer areas. This was about 15 minutes after the opening.


The east entrance from the south side. A city street used to be where the stairs and the ramp are now. The entire area in front of the library has been turned into a plaza. The entrance and the side to the left of it are new. That's where the cafe and bookstore are located. The inside of the building was completely gutted and remodeled. If you've been there before you won't recognize it as the same building, nothing is where it was.




The east entrance from the north side.

Aaargh. I got a little frustrated adding these pictures. They kept disappearing on me! Aside from that, it was a GREAT day!!

Wordless Wednesday :: Another Hoosier Farm

Noble County, Indiana. Summer of 1982.Sepia toned infrared photograph.Copyright © 1982/.. by Rebeckah R. Wiseman

Boys & Pony

Preston and Jayson were thrilled to be able to learn about my pony, Stormy. They learned to groom him and lead him, but most importantly learned to be calm and gentle when around a pony. Stormy seemed to like all the attention. I was so proud of him. He had never been around young children and was so good with the boys. Of course I was right there with them at all times.

Reading Bill Strickland's Ten Points

A little while back, someone suggested that I read Bill Strickland's Ten Points, and before I knew it I was interacting with Bill Strickland himself and he sent me a copy. When the book arrived, the cover alone induced a pre-emptive sense of nostalgia. A cyclist walking his bike into the fading sun, beneath the overhanging trees, as if savouring the sweet devastation of defeat. Of course this would be on the cover of Bill Strickland's memoir.



Bill Strickland is the editor of Bicycling Magazine. He lives in Pennsylvania. He races for Kapelmuur Independent. And he writes, a lot. Articles for various cycling and sometimes non-cycling magazines, a few books, blog posts. The first time I read something by him was maybe in Rouleur a year ago, and then I began following him online. I remember it initially surprised me that a person who wrote like Bill Strickland was the editor of Bicycling. Those guys are all about nutrition and training and race coverage and roadbike reviews. Strickland's writing is evocative and sensual and self-consciously sentimental. And that's just on his instagram account.



Ten Points is an unconventional memoir. It's inextricably tied to bicycle racing, but is not really about it. Bicycling is more of a metaphor, an explanation, a case study in magical thinking. At the start of the book, the author tells his little daughter that he will score 10 points during a single racing season, then proceeds to participate in criterium races and fail spectacularly week after week.



But this plot line merely serves as a trajectory for the real story - a story of surviving childhood abuse, emerging damaged, then wondering for the rest of your life whether you're human or a piece of garbage. In adulthood, the author considers himself cursed, a monster. He struggles to stay in control, but the past haunts him and he worries about being a fit parent and husband. He believes that cycling keeps the monster in him at bay. And winning 10 points for his daughter might just have the power to lift the curse entirely.



Reading the memoir and trying to process it as such, I must admit that I found the 10 points theme to be overbearing and at times distracting. The writing is good. Bill Strickland excels at creating a visceral sense of understanding between himself and the reader. Repeatedly I found myself lost in his past, in his life, in his very sensations. In contrast to this, the overarching storyline of the 10 points feels forced, packaged. Like maybe the author had written the book differently, and then some editor swooped in and tried to make it more marketable for those who like the "top 10 ways to tackle hills" types of articles. I don't know how else to explain it.



Could the story have been told without the 10 points theme being so overt? I honestly think that it could. The book is really a rich collection of snippets, flashbacks to various incidents in the writer's life, and there are other ways in which these could have been tied together. The narrative style is jewel-like, seductive, while somehow also managing to come across as sparse and reserved. It is part American Gothic, part John Updike, but replete with its own, uniquely Stricklandian, characteristics.



In a way Ten Points reads more like a novel than a memoir, and some characters feel more believable than others. The incidents from the past, despite how dramatic some of them are, read as believable, as do the parts about racing. But in the present-day dialogue with the wife and daughter, the things they say are sometimes too well-phrased, too conveniently meaningful. In those instances I could practically feel the author trying to wrangle them into the 10 points plot.



At his best, Bill Strickland is the sort of natural storyteller who can engage an audience with a description of an Idaho cornfield. He can stir the reader into alternating states of wistfulness and fear within a single paragraph. He is a master of subtle foreshadowing. I want more of all that, less meta-narrative.



Writing about this book, I find myself wishing I hadn't interacted with the author prior. Because now I am hyper-aware of him as a real person and nervous about how he will feel reading this. But maybe that's arrogant. After all, who the heck am I and what does it matter what I think. I am describing the book as a reader, not as a critic. And I continue to follow Bill Strickland's writing with interest.

Guttation

**Update**!

I changed the name of this post (from "Dewy") after Wayne pointed out that it's not dew in the photo, but guttation. Which is waaaay cooler than dew! (I'd wondered why there was just moisture on the edges.)
-----

There was a chill in the air this morning. First time in ages.

I have a lot on my "to do" list.

And yet I still can't stop watching OK GO on treadmills.



If you have trouble watching videos on the internet because of a slow connection, try this trick: Hit play, then mute your sound. Switch over to another web page, or email, or go make some pasta. Come back later, when it it has finished. Hit play again and it should be viewable without all the jerks and starts. It works for me, anyway.

A Rose... Unlike any I've ever seen before!

Updated 06/10 at 8:45am: A reader sent me an email and she said it looks like a David Austin Rose. I think she's right. Thanks, Stephanie!









Temple Square Gardens – Tuesday, June 7th

Meeting the Grands...

Donna Pointkouski has an interesting post, Meeting Great-Grandma, in which she discusses longevity and over-lapping generations. Her post prompted me to take a look at my database. Even though I knew some of my “grands” had lived long lives, I was surprised at how many were alive during my lifetime.

My Dad knew 3 of his 4 grandparents but all of his great-grandparents were long gone before he was born.

Mom was in her late teens when her grandfather, Charles Brubaker, passed away though she says she never met him (he moved to Mississippi before she was born). She was in her mid to late 20s when the other three grandparents died and she knew each one of them. She met two of her great-grandmothers and one great-grandfather but would have only been 4-8 years old when they died. However, she says she remembers them.

Although one of my great-grandfathers and all four of my great-grandmothers were living when I was born, I don't personally have any memory of any of them. I would have been between the age of two and ten when they died. They all lived within 15 miles of where we lived.

Dad's mother's mother (i.e., my Great-Grandmother) Nancy Jane (Lavering) Shuder died January 2, 1954. I was not quite six years old when she passed away at the age of 99.

His father's mother, Amanda (Alexander) Wiseman was also still living when I was born. I was two years old when she died June 2, 1950 at the age of 89.

Mom's mother's mother, Maude (Wise) Brubaker died February 14, 1953, aged 75; I was almost 5 years old. Maude is in the middle, her granddaughter Phyllis (Phend) Mitchell is on the left and her daughter, Hazlette (Brubaker) Phend is on the right.

Mom's father's mother, Susie (Yarian) Phend died April 29, 1956 at age 84; I was 8 years old.

Of my great-grandfathers, only Mom's father's father, Henry A. Phend was still living when I was born. He passed away July 10, 1958 at the age of 92; I was 10 years old.

Henry and Susie (Yarian) Phend with their great-grandchildren at their 60th Wedding Anniversary Celebration in September 1952. I'm sitting on the ground on the left side of the picture.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Thursday, September 1st - - With the campsite in shade and temperatures in the low 30s this morning I went and found a nice sunny spot in which to eat breakfast. Then it was off to see the sights!





Sometimes, I guess, Buffalo prefer an easy route to wherever they are going! They were frequently seen alongside and on the road, usually only one or two bison at a time.



My primary destination this morning was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone with its beautiful Lower Falls and Upper Falls. Located at the northeastern corner of the southern highway loop, the 40 mile drive from the campground took about two hours, with stops along the way at the Mud Volcano Area and Sulphur Caldron.





My first stop in the “Grand Canyon” area was Artist Point on the South Rim.



Artist Point provides stunning views of the 308-foot Lower Falls. It is, quite simply, breathtaking! The morning light along with a hazy sky enhanced the view allowing details in the sides of the canyon to show up, though the colors are somewhat muted.





A closer view of the Lower Falls.



And, even closer.



The colors of the canyon didn't show up clearly in the photos of the Lower Falls, but, oh my, how they “popped” when looking to the northeast! The fantastic colors of the north side of the canyon come from rhyolite and sediments that have been altered by hydrothermal action (i.e. hot water from springs that were active in years past).





The Upper Falls is not quite as impressive (only 109 feet) or photogenic as the Lower Falls but it was still worth the walk down a short trail to see it.





It was also easier to access the Brink of the Upper Falls from another short trail. The Brink of the Lower Falls was a strenuous trail that dropped 600 feet in a very short distance. I passed on that one but did go to the Brink of the Upper Falls, shown above.





The view from Inspiration Point, on the North Rim, looking to the northeast.





As I drove up to the northwest side of the park to the Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces, the clouds moved in.





I walked along most of the boardwalk trails in the lower terraces but my legs were getting a little wobbly by the time I made it to the upper terrace area. Whether it was from the lighting conditions or the fact that many of the springs in that area have gone dormant, I was disappointed with my visit there. The photos I took were rather blah.





The view from the front of the upper terraces was rather impressive though. On the drive back to the campground, I took the “shorter” route along the west side of the northern loop then cutting across to Canyon Village and the eastern side of the southern loop. It was still about a 75 mile drive back to the campground.

Kautz Glacier, Muir Snowfield, and Access

One of the neat things about this site is that climbers (just like you) send me their route reports and photos. Thankfully, Nick Bratton sent some information on the Kautz Glacier route. At the same time, Brent McGregor also contributed a few great photos (including this nice one of Mount St. Helens). Also worth noting is Ian Litmans' update on the Disappointment Cleaver. If you're up on the hill and want to share your stories or photos, definitely drop me a note with your thoughts.

Those visiting Camp Schurman will find one of the most scenic high camp toilets on the continent (seriously)! Why? The toilet door has blown away (3 times this year) leaving the user an unobstructed view of the Winthrop Glacier, Seattle and Puget Sound. Be prepared, however, the spacious decor potentially comes with blowing snow and wind as you take that personal break. We hope to get this problem resolved this weekend, but in the meantime, enjoy the view.

For those more concerned with access issues, here is the round up:

The Sunrise Road will open this Friday, June 15th. Paradise shuttles will resume this Friday (June 15th) too. If you can't get a parking spot near the Jackson Visitor Center, you may want to consider this free shuttle service. And over on HWY 123, a contract to repair the road has been awarded. The state highway should re-open by mid-October. There is even a chance that it will open to "one lane of traffic" sometime this summer, so stay tuned.

Southside aerial by Mike Gauthier (6-13), centered on the Nisqually Glacier and Fuhrer Finger route.