Early fall

 

As you can tell looking at the building, I didn't move the camera. Maybe there was a bit of wind moving those leaves, but they were striking in the yellow tips on them.

If you live in Black Mountain you'll see this side of the Town Hall as you turn into their parking lot.

Today's Quote:

Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?

SYLVIA BOORSTEIN

Ornish eating in the time of covid,

  We arrived in the dining area to find our whole lunch had been served and was waiting for us.  We took off our masks (mine shows partly at the top right)

A sandwich of thin bread (which I prefer toasted) with lettuce and tomato and a tofu egg salad (no eggs). It was good, considering I've never eaten real egg salad! The soup was delicious white bean and carrot in a vegetable broth (lots of onions). The blueberry desert had had strawberries, which I don't eat. So I gave mine to another woman. A regular green salad with a nice vinaigrette dressing.  And that was all prepared for us which we ate while learning from the dietitian more about eating low fat vegetarian food.

Cooking at home, here's a plant-based burger...which was seasoned a bit more than I would have chosen, so I ate only half of it. I've learned any "fake meat" is usually not to my liking at all.

You'd think peas are just a vegetable, but I've learned they are a starchy vegetable, much like corn, potatoes and squash. I don't mind what kind they are, they are pretty good without any garnish.

Today's quote:

When we deepen our awareness of the simple truth that we are here through the creativity of the stars, we begin to feel fresh gratitude...what a stupendous mystery!

BRIAN SWIMME

Happy Mabon

 It's fall! It's autumn! Yay the equinox is today!

And in the northern hemisphere of our earth, this is the marker for fall beginning...though last week our cooler weather here in North Carolina, already told us that summer was just about over. It will have a last hurrah in a few weeks, with what we call "Indian Summer." 

What I love about it best is that the humidity tanked. Dry air! So very nice to not feel muggy at noon. As I am sharing, there were five of us eating lunch outside with little heaters between the tables last Saturday.

Just a few dozen orange tints are on the leaves outside my living room windows. Give them a month and they'll all have turned. Maples just love to shine in the fall!

It's my favorite season! 

Today's quote:

He said: "I don't quite understand about understanding poetry. I experience poems with pleasure: whether I understand them or not I'm not quite sure. I don't want to read something I already know or which is going to slide down easily: there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience."

by poet John Ashbery 

Wandering in my neck of the woods

 I was surprised to see another gardenia on the bush, so I took its picture, then picked it, and have enjoyed the scent on my bedside table. Ahhh. (I'm feeling very blessed that my scent ability has returned.)

 I'm not sure what these puffy pink blossoms are. Whenever I see flowers, I snap their photo.

 An ornamental grass gives these lovely little purple spikes.

 Another strange flower blossoming on a plant I don't recognize.

 The base of the gazebo at the memorial garden at UUCSV (my church) has some great variety of shrubs.

 One day I walked up this hill, and discovered the picnic table...probably used by the residents of the apartment building nearby. (table looks like 2 horizontal bars in this photo)

 Another resident has some planters at the entrance to her walkway...which she shares with just one neighbor.

I like the pink geraniums, but always buy the red ones. I'll show you why soon.

Today's quote:

"Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring—these are some of the rewards of the simple life."
— John Burroughs, writer and naturalist

Garden peeks

 With all the neighbors driving cars to and from home on Walker St, not many of them will see the garden features of this home.

So I clicked away with my phone camera to capture more details of their buffer between the house and the street.

The side yard drops off and has some lawn which looks out on a big privacy hedge of more of these bushes that have grown very tall. I wonder if these smaller ones will eventually be as big, and nobody can even see into their lawn. The pool is over to the right side behind the house...already invisible to the road.

Today's quote:

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (18 Sep 1709-1784) 

At the end of the road

Walker St.

And I've not been up to the very end of the road but a couple of times. It means stopping and resting several times to catch my breath. I'm not walking it this evening because at 7 pm it's still 78 degrees out. I'm happy to post blogs for the future (since I wrote this back last Friday.)

 Looking up at the end of the road...two driveways invite people up to houses which I could not see. And on the far left is a driveway of a house very close to the road. You can see the black post of a mailbox on the far right, for a house which has an electric gate across their drive (not shown). If you look closely in the middle of the photo, you can see a tilted mailbox that stands next to a drive up through all the greenery (not the one with two tracks that has light towards the end.

And looking down the hill from the end of the road, you can't see much except that fire hydrant. I'm glad the town of Black Mountain is protecting these homes.

I must add this photo and my feelings about Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying yesterday. We all know the people who are ruining our government will try to replace her and take away many of the rights which she fought to keep for women. So I and all the women I know have a duty to do whatever we can, in our small ways, to stand for justice as RBG showed us...that her strength didn't rely upon physical size, that her words were well chosen and thoughtful, and that this heroine of American Justice will have dedicated her life for a cause which will continue.

Today's Quote:

We often think that vulnerability is a kind of weakness, but there’s a kind of vulnerability that is actually strength and presence.

RAM DASS

Young at heart

 Borrowing an oldie but goodie (do they even use that term now?) from another blogger (HERE) who posted this old favorite of mine the other day...

Frank and Swinging on a Star
Thanks, Sabine.

I remember learning the words, and maybe singing in some performance while in school. It is silly and yet presented somehow as an adult song. Yet I think it's targeted for young people.

I'm trying to lighten up my life these days. I have friends who can tell all kinds of jokes. But me? I seldom remember both the joke and the punch line. Actually, I remember lots of punch lines. Maybe they are worth something somewhere...

OK, Here's the Potato Bag exercise...
An exercise for people who are out of shape: Begin with a five-pound potato bag in each hand. Extend your arms straight out from your sides, hold them there for a full minute, and then relax. After a few weeks, move up to ten-pound potato bags. Then try 50-pound potato bags, and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-pound potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. Once you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag. 

I consider that a shaggy dog type story. There was this shaggy dog....and that's all I remember, except there might have been an elephant and a penguin in the joke. And it did go on and on and on. Haven't a clue how it finally ended.

Knock knock?
I remember the one with the orange. Do you?
That's all I remember. I mean, I know the whole joke.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Knock knock.
Who's the he-- there?
Banana
Banana who?
Orange you glad I didn't say orange again?

Oh I just realized I remembered the whole joke wrong. It's supposed to be banana first. Duh.

Today's quote:

Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle.

VINCENT VAN GOGH

Plastic recycling and women cooking...

Today I want to veer towards the future, and change the subject from cooking to plastics. Fear not, I have a link to a previous post about how women have cooked...

This article says a lot to us in 2020.  /how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled

NPR and PBS Frontline spent months digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials. We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn't work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.

The industry's awareness that recycling wouldn't keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates to the program's earliest days, we found. "There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis," one industry insider wrote in a 1974 speech.

Yet the industry spent millions telling people to recycle, because, as one former top industry insider told NPR, selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn't true.

 The rest of this article has interviews with more people, including 

Chevron Phillips Chemical's $6 billion (new plant in Texas)...their investment in new plastic..."We see a very bright future for our products," says Jim Becker, the vice president of sustainability for Chevron Phillips, inside a pristine new warehouse next to the plant...(a new petrolium/plastic plant.)

And here's my organic greens package, which says it's a recycled plastic container, which can be recycled again. I'll sure try to recycle it again. But according to the article above, it's not likely to happen.

Just thought since I'm thinking about how to use less plastic, I'd share it with my SS friends.

----------------------------

But more in line with Sepia Saturday's prompt...

Have I ever cooked over an open fire? Yes, with a grate in a camping area...so the pans had something to sit upon. And I usually was using wood rather than charcoal.

The way I cooked when camping (1969-1998)

These Australian women are cooking over an open fire...as Sepia Saturday shared this week.

in 1915, while wearing their hats!

And allowing a photographer to capture their efforts.

I feel sorry for the one in a white skirt. She is probably sitting on a camp stool (hidden by her skirts) If not, then she is a master of a squat - the exercise I can't hold for even 1 second!

So I went trolling (that's somewhat educated searching) through my old photo collection and found these other women (yes, it was always women!) cooking on wood stoves, or earlier at fireplaces.

Sepia Saturday has me beat...no billy cooking. I had to look up what a billy was...since I'd only heard of it in a song...Waltzing Matilda.

The term billy or billycan is particularly associated with Australian usage, but is also used in New Zealand, Britain and Ireland.

It is widely accepted that the term "billycan" is derived from the large cans used for transporting bouilli or bully beef on Australia-bound ships or during exploration of the outback, which after use were modified for boiling water over a fire; however there is a suggestion that the word may be associated with the Aboriginal billa(meaning water; cf. Billabong). SOURCE: Wikipedia

I have formerly posted a Sepia Saturday post about women cooking in fireplaces (for how many years?) and then cooking on wood-burning stoves, HERE.

Today's quote:
Input from experts is valuable but our own sense of the truth is ultimately the most important.
Daily Om

Fish dreams

This was posted on Facebook, and I loved the humor of someone putting cats' faces on fish bodies.

Here were some more normal looking fish in the big aquarium at the cardiac center's waiting room.  They were somewhat curious about me, but not the phone very much.

And this is where I wish I were, and the fish are probably dreaming the same thing.

Today's quote;

Wait for evening.
Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.
Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes
and pretended to be invisible.
The one to whom you told every secret.
The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in silence
while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?
Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue
(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that color of Amen).
Then you'll spy the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning
with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing
shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face
is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands
are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered
to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.
Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life
as a book of candles,
each page read by the light of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee
(from Behind My Eyes)

Thanks to the blogger who shared this.

Intersection of Old US70 and Walker St

These are the four newer homes on Walker St. I'm pretty sure they all have a dog, since the owner of the furthest new one was out walking his, and as I walked by, two more were at the windows talking to me. There are few pedestrians out these days, just a few of us seniors from the apartments nearby.

Down at the corner of Old US 70 and Walker St. is a lovely 2 story house behind this fence. They keep up their corner very nicely.

End of summer plants are still somewhat green on the corner.


Look across to the corner where the Blue Ridge Apartments sign is located...



Just standing by the road taking photos was a bit dangerous, as these roads don't have any pedestrian (or bicycle) lanes. I feel sorry for folks who want to bike around...mountain roads are especially dangerous. The caution light down the road is the intersection of N. Blue Ridge Rd...where there is no shoulder even upon which to walk.

Today's Quote:

The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful.

PAUL HAWKEN