Day off

It's a holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King.

I'm taking a day off from this blog. See you tomorrow!

Morning musings...

Up I am at dawn again. And grateful for this day...and as I swung my feet to the floor, I noticed that there is a speck of sunlight hitting the highest peak across the valley.

I smiled and said to meself, "The dark times are past."  Meaning of course, that there are now 10 hours of daylight each day, which is much improved from the solstice on Dec. 21.

Fixed coffee, gathered the trash baskets for a meeting in the kitchen by the door, toasted half a bagel, put away a few dishes, turned on the oven to low heat, (left the door cloed) then the stove exhaust fan which will blow the heat back down (I think) to where I live rather than letting it sit on the ceiling while my knees are cold.  I do the same thing with the wall heater in living/dining room...with constant fan to move the hot air to my comfort zone.  It was 33 outside at 8:00 when I first looked on my WunderGround app.

Witch Hollow Farm, Boxwood MA, home of Job Tyler (ancestor)

DAR unveiling of Spencer Clack memorial Sevierville, TN (Ancestor)   

I have put on sweater and slippers...and plan to have a bit more covering when I take the trash out in a few minutes. Our apartments have trash picked up once a week, and recycles picked up every other week. But because bears are attracted to the trash with food items, we have to take that kind of trash out the morning of pick up. They usually come around 9:30-10:30...and 2 men on the truck pick up the trash bins and dump them in the back of the garbage truck. We have a corral of about 7 trash bins and maybe 4 places where the recycling stuff is piled. It's really a mess. But at least no bears.

I sip my first cuppa coffee (with a fresh brewed pot) and munch my bagel while reading emails and updating my blog publication for today (this was Friday).  I have to put it by hand to another blog to link it for Sepia Saturday.  I wonder if all those people who do "link ups" on various themes each day actually have to do the URL by hand after it comes up. I don't know any other way, to get the individual URL for that day's publication rather than the general one for the whole blog. Somewhat cumbersome, and I keep seeing fewer blogs every day. But I do enjoy a few folks who frequently comment on mine. So I'll keep bogging for now.

I just threw in a couple of pictures because nobody reads a blog without them, do they? I'm doing my nebulizer treatment as I type this...twice a day inhaling my 2 types of drugs...to help clear my lungs. Joy joy joy. Cough cough cough (it helps me cough, really, that's what they say.)

See you in the funnies.

Women's March 2020 Black Mountain NC

Jan 18 was the gathering and march for women's issues...expanding all the things that run through from ERA to LGBTQ, reproductive rights, climate change...all that are on the table these days.

 Where is everyone? They are down the street to the right in Town Square (invisible) in this panorama taken from the steps of the Center for the Arts.

 I got there and sat in the cold for a while, with a Dripolater coffee of course.

So I eventually walked down to the crowd on the square.

 My friend Diane enjoyed listening to speeches, and said the sound system was much better this year!

I walked through the crowd while young girls gave excellent speeches but it was pretty cold, so I didn't wait for the march to start.

My friend Suzanne (center bottom of shot) was one of the faces I recognized...and just look at all the "pussy hats."

Some costumes to promote the LGBTQ community (or maybe some more theatrical group, I was happy to catch their photo!)

 One of the last speakers...then there was drumming and a brass band... but still the focus was on the "stage area" rather than going to the street...time for me to leave.

 The "counter-march" of pro-life demonstrators was outside the square. Because they appeared, the organized marchers (with permits) had to hire extra support teams to ensure keeping the peace.

 Some of the peace keepers, and a photographer.

 My panoramic shot of the crowd...

One of several girl scout cookie sales were set up on the march route.

 Still no march...

 By now the air was total wetness...a cloud just sat down on the town.

 Still no march coming...though small groups came by to have coffee or lunch.

I actually went to the clay studio around 12, got ready to throw some mugs, then put my coat and hat back on and went back to State Street, and the march still hadn't started and it was after 12:30 already, and though rain was not falling, we were enveloped in a cloud, thus all surfaces were wet.

I can't wait to see better pictures of the actual march. Sorry I missed seeing it.

Franklin and his sister's letters.

Yesterday, January 17, was the birthday of Benjamin Franklin in Boston, Massachusetts (1706). He was a printer, a scientist, an inventor, a writer, the founder of America's first lending library, and one of the Founding Fathers of America itself. He recalled in his Autobiography (1794) that writing well became "of great Use to me in the Course of my Life, and was a principal Means of my Advancement."

I finished a most enjoyable book about him and his sister, Jane, a few weeks ago. 

Book of Ages, The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore.

Now I see photos of my mini-iPad aren't very clear, nor do they copy and paste from the digital app.  But I like the library's summary of the digital version of the book.  I'll retype it if you have trouble reading the photo...

From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians, a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister and a history of history itself.  Like her brother, Jane Franklin was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Unlike him, she was a mother of twelve.

Benjamin Franklin, who wrote more letters to his sister than he wrote to anyone else, was the original American Self-made man; his sister spent her life caring for her children. They left very different traces behind. Making use of an amazing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one woman but an entire world -- a world usually lost to history. Lepore's life of Jane Frankllin, with its strikingly original vantage on her remarkable brother, is at once a wholly different account of the founding of the United States and one of the great untold stories of American history and letters: a life unknown.

 I not only enjoyed the information about these very different individuals the way Lepore brought them to life, I enjoyed the appendix where there was more information about the way the letters had been brought together. Unfortunately, with my library's app, Libby, there was no way to go to the end of the book to read footnotes as I went through the book. That is cumbersome, and I would probably have enjoyed the information that footnotes provide.

Another aside is that it's very likely that Ben Franklin was a nudist among his other interests. (It wasn't mentioned in this book.)

I'm now reading another Lepore book, These Truths, a history of the United States of America. It is a bit more difficult for me to get through, but perhaps because it covers so much of history in succinct chapters, and each paragraph seems to jump into a completely new subject. I do enjoy her viewpoint though.

Two women and some fowl

From Traces of Texas on FaceBook...

A farm woman with chickens for sale in Weatherford, Texas, 1939.

An utterly classic photo taken by Russell Lee.

The many patched inner tubes next to the car speak of how difficult the roads were, and that tires weren't anywhere near as good as these days.  Chickens were probably going to become dinners to those who bought them, and the serious woman selling them would be able to purchase whatever her family needed.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday this week...with a couple of similarities...one woman, fowl in large group, and women in dresses and hats caring for the birds.

Come see what others have come up with based on this photo over at Sepia Saturday.

Wet day at the lake

Heavy rain often washes the gravel path into Lake Tomahawk, and then the bright pylons are put out for walkers to avoid the crevices that are left. The Lakeview Center is to the right (before they took down the holiday (I almost said Christmas!) decorations.

These are the greens in my life today...

 All kinds of succulents gathered into a failed casserole dish.

 The lavender is happy enough in it's sunny spot.

 Rosemary also has sunshine most days.

 Another succulent continues to grow bigger, next to the Oxalis. (Purple shamrock, also below, and yes, it's not green!)

A weekly shot of water and tuck the dying foliage into the pot which has no drainage...and this plant makes its own hummus as it has for over 10 years. (Fertilize when I think of it, maybe every 3 months.)

 Another long lived plant, which is pruned yearly, and brought inside until spring, when it often blooms again, the gardenia.

 And after 2 years keeping this plant barely alive, and finally repotting it, it has promise of blooms.

 Except the one at the bottom had broken off.  I'm carefully giving this a few drops of water every few days, and it has indirect sun (when it shines.)

 Another plant that continues with minimum attention is the philodendron.

 Half of the Thanksgiving orchid is still blooming...and it gets an ice cube worth of water a week.

 The Kalanchoe is beginning to have some buds too on the sunny side (not the silk yellow mum!) I rotate it weekly, hoping it will have more flowers. I need to stop watering it too. Duh, I know that.

 It's really nice the African Violets are about to bloom. Nice for January!

Thee are cuttings from the Kalanchoe...which probably have rooted, and I'm going to put them in dirt in old pots, bowls, mugs..the rejects can certainly become planters!