summer highlights

Teachers started school last Monday where I work, and the students begin tomorrow. A few things that I will remember about this summer...

• Scrabble. I played over thirty games with my dad, and I win more than I used to.  Dad is a strategic player so watching what he did helped me improve my own game.
• Family. This year was the 19^th Camp Clair. There are less campers than there used to be because people keep getting older. I helped celebrate a high school graduation and my great niece’s baptism. August included a trip to the Richmond, Virginia area to see my nephew and his wife. My niece was there part of the time, too.
• Gardening. Sometimes it was my garden, other times I did things at the farm garden.
• Travel. I ended up going to some state parks that I do not get to very often. I also went to Bogotá, Colombia with the youth from church on a mission trip.

Two weeks ago, I visited Richmond for the weekend.  Five things I recommend are the state capitol,

the Maggie Walker House, 

the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Maymont, and the fast-food chain Cookout.

• Reading. This summer I read three novels, seven non-fiction books, the Psalms and countless picture books.  The novel I liked best was The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat. Not sure how to choose a favorite from the non-fiction books. Six of them are worth reading a second time.

garden

The zinnias in my garden have been blooming for a while already. So have the sunflowers and nasturtiums. I noticed the cosmos finally joined them. In the morning and afternoon I often spot butterflies and bees enjoying them.

 

It is also zucchini season. I have been eating it in a variety of ways. Today I made a spice cake and zucchini bread. One plant is enough and I usually check it every day, but I still had a few monster ones that ended up in the compost pile.

A couple of weeks ago, I made two one-gallon jars of refrigerated dill pickles. 

And most days there is a bowl of fresh tomatoes to eat and share. I want to make and can some salsa-I think with as many tomato plants that are in my garden, it should be possible.

I have also been using basil, kale, onions, and peppers, too. One row of green beans has been pulled out already, the string beans should be ready soon.  I am grateful that I do not have to grow and preserve all my own food, but it sure is nice to have fresh garden produce.

new places

This spring a friend told me about a part of Lindbergh State Park that was not adjacent to the rest.  A few weeks ago I went there and plan to keep it in mind for times I want to walk somewhere different. This summer I am on the lookout for more new places to see that don't require a long drive or plane trip.

land of plenty

Here are the zucchini and cucumbers that I harvested today.  Good thing I only have one zucchini plant.

literary Ireland

Here are some literary things that I came across while in Ireland.

The stairs to one branch of the Dublin Library. Why not advertise books on your stairs? This branch happened to be on the second floor of a shopping center.

This was at a ceramic exhibit at the National Botanic Gardens. Cathy Dineen put a short story on her ceramic tiles.

At the Chester Beatty Museum, there were a lot of old pages from ancient books.  This is some Scripture from the third century.

A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins hanging in a garden in Carlow. My garden might need a sign like this, too.

This is a machine that prints out a story, poem or comic on demand (see Short Edition website). The comic I got was about neighborhood cats.

There was Red Bookshop in Wexford.  Every room in the store was this packed.

In Dublin, the National Library had an exhibition about poet Seamus Heaney. These are some of his notebooks with his poetry.

Ireland

Here are a few pictures of my trip to Ireland.  I only visited the southeastern part to minimize time on the bus or train.

 

A view on the cliff walk by Howth (north of Dublin). The water you see is the Irish Sea. This walk was one of the best things I did on my trip.

the River Barrow outside of Carlow

castle remains in Carlow

A Polish grocery in Wexford. Ireland has sizable immigrant populations from other European countries in some of the cities I visited. 

A Ferguson tractor at the Irish Agricultural Museum on the Johnstown Castle grounds. Harry Ferguson, inventor of the Ferguson tractors, was born in Ireland. This museum was one of the most interesting ones that I visited on my trip.

 

One of the clocks at the Irish Museum of Time in Waterford. There are over 600 clocks, and soon they are adding hundreds of cuckoo clocks to their collection.

It was fun to learn about the country of Ireland firsthand.

pictures

Here are a few pictures from my trip to Denmark.

the changing of the guard at the king's palace in Copenhagen

view of Kolding from the roof of Koldinghus

the sea and the bridge that connects Funen (Fyn) and Zealand islands

view outside my hotel window in Nyborg

Nyborg Castle-I only saw the outside of the castle because they are doing renovations.

part of the Botanic Gardens in Copenhagen

spring in Texas

I was in Texas last weekend and took the opportunity to go the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  It was beautiful and relaxing.  If you get to Austin in the spring, I recommend it.

 

                 a beautiful tree blossom

The only armadillo I saw.     

Golden Groundsel

   

at the library

If you are tired of winter, it might be time to head to the library to find something new to do.  A few items that I checked out recently from the library.

The ukulele is from a try it yourself kit.  The ukulele comes in a case, along with a tuner and two books for beginners.  The kit can be checked out for three weeks.

Several libraries in my regional system also have jigsaw puzzles. 

My library also has snowshoes available for a weeklong checkout.  This post has examples of more offerings from the library I use.  Does your library offer anything unique? 

twenty years ago

 

Twenty years ago today, I was walking on the Great Wall of China with my sister Anita.  That's me in the red tee, white cap and sunglasses.  The things that I remember the most are the crowds, the heat and humidity, and the vendors selling bottles of cold water.

more than books

If you have not been to your local public library lately, I would suggest you stop by.  Of course, there are plenty of books, but many libraries have increased the variety of things you can check out with your library card.  

My library now has disc golf sets (five plus a carrying bag) you can check out for a week.

You can check out a mobile hotspot for a week as well.

Or a Minnesota state park pass.  

There are also telescopes, board game kits, and a try it yourself ukelele kit in my regional library system.

Does your library have any of these sorts of things?  

east coast

I was in New England last week and here are a few of the things that I had the opportunity to see.I toured Mark Twain's house in Hartford, Connecticut.

I stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts to see these statues and a few more of Dr. Seuss characters.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts was interesting and worth stopping to visit.  If I lived closer, I would go back from time to time.  The exhibits change (one about Peter Sis opens this week) and there is a place where you can make your own art. 

The green mountains of Vermont are beautiful.

A covered bridge in New Hampshire.

One of the many old buildings on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The view from the Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island.

My favorite parts were the Mark Twain House, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and the ocean in Rhode Island.

meet English and French

It has been over a year since I have had fish in my classroom.  English and French came to live in my classroom last Friday, adopted from Wal-mart.  They are definitely more interesting than the collection of plants I have on my desk and table.  The fish generate a lot more conversation, but I am sure that it would have been easier to take pictures of my plants than these squirmy little creatures.

books for 2017

 

My total of books read for the year is 42.  Six were books I had read before-a trilogy by Renee Riva, The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas, As Waters Gone By by Cynthia Ruchti and Unseduced and Unshaken by Rosalie De Rosset.

Recommended fiction

• As Waters Gone By by Cynthia Ruchti    Emmalyn moves to Madeline Island, wondering what's next in life and waiting for her husband to finish his time in prison.  Emmalyn meets some new friends and finds a way to make something good out of difficult circumstances. 
• Catching the Wind by Melanie Dobson    Daniel was a young man living in Europe during World War II.  Now he is in his 80s, and he hires journalist Quenby Vaughn to find a girl he knew from his boyhood in Europe.  
• The Giant Pumpkin Suite by Melanie Heuiser Hill   This book is written by a Minnesota author and is the story of a group of neighbors who work together to grow a giant pumpkin. 
• Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke   Hannah goes to Germany to meet a grandfather she never knew existed.  Hannah learns much about her family history that she never knew.  Like Catching the Wind, this is also about World War II

Recommended nonfiction books are

• The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom   An autobiography of a woman who lived in Holland during World War II, including time spent in a concentration camp.
• The Art of Explanation by Lee LeFever    This book is for anyone in education, sales, marketing, human resources or someone who wants to improve their communication skills.
• Better Off (Flipping the Switch on Technology) by Eric Brende    Brende tells the story of his year living with minimal technology.
• Unseduced and Unshaken by Rosalie De Rosset    Written for women who want to live an intentional life.  Though De Rosset's target audience is young women, it is relevant for those past their twenties.

What books did you read this year that you would recommend?  

new year, new hobby

Yesterday I went bird watching.  There is a Christmas Bird Count sponsored by the Audubon Society, and I took part.  The group I was part of has been meeting for years here in town.  We met up in the morning at a restaurant, and then we were put into groups .  Each group was assigned to cover a certain part of the area surrounding town.  We drove around, looking for birds, sometimes stopping to see if a grove of trees had any birds.  We also stopped when an individual saw a bird.  Then those with binoculars would try to determine what kind of bird it was.  The surprise to me is that we saw eighteen unique species-despite it being in Minnesota in winter.  Some of those were three kinds of woodpeckers, at least one dark-eyed junco, snow buntings, two types of finches, lots of blue jays, six robins, two cardinals, along with some turkeys and pheasants.  It was good to go with others (I didn't know what a junco was and didn't have binoculars either), but bird watching might be my new hobby.  I like the idea of it, as I don't need to invest in a lot of stuff (probably just another bird guide and a set of binoculars).  It is also something I can do anywhere and it doesn't produce stuff, though I will likely start a notebook to track what I have seen as well as when and where I saw certain birds.