August 2, 2020...The Mystic Lilies are in bloom

On July 29, I looked out the dining room window and saw five Mystic Lily stalks.  Later, when I went outside I found more.

I call them Mystic Lilies because that is what Tom's dad called them.  He gave me a dozen bulbs shortly after we moved in this house over fifty years ago.  The bulbs multiplied, I gave some to friends and still they multiplied.  Just the kind of flower I like.  Plant them and they will take care of themselves.

On July 31, the first blooms appeared.

They grow tall, taller than the birdbath.

Just this year I learned their Latin name, Lycoris squamigera.  They are in the amaryllis family.

In the spring, the leaves come up, straplike leaves, densely packed, and over a foot high.  They die back and completely disappear.  But spirit-like, the flowers rise in late July or early August.

There are a lot of common names for them, Resurrection Lilies, Surprise Lilies, Naked Ladies.  Take your pick.  I will always call them Mystic Lilies.

Family Gathering...July5, 2020

Sunday was the first family gathering we have had since Tom died.  It was a mini gathering, just those who live in Ohio and Michigan. We were missing Steve because he was at a resident camp.  Maybe next year we will have those from North Carolina, Colorado, and London, UK as well as Steve, with us.  I'm hoping the Covid virus is under control and no longer an issue.  

Usually we have the get together our house but this year, Samantha, our Ohio granddaughter, had it at her house.  It was a chance to see her mostly reconstructed house.  It was close to being destroyed in one of the 17 Memorial Day Tornadoes of 2019.

Before the Tornado she lived on a lovely wooded lot.  Now only two big trees are left, one in the front yard and one in the backyard.  They look different.  Their large branches were broken off by the tornado.  But the trees are hardy.  They are covered with green leaves on newly sprouted branches.

We arrived in late afternoon.  Everyone brought food.  Victor and Samantha provided the meat. The day was hot and humid, temperatures in the high 80s.(Fahrenheit).  We spent part of the afternoon in the family room. The light spot on the carpet is sunlight on it.

  

It is nice to have a chef in the family and nice, too, that he did the grilling.  I was impressed that John had all the meat...half chickens, hot dogs and hamburgers ready at the same time. After eating, the temperature cooled off a bit so part of the group sat on the patio.

 

Here are Eric and Katie from Michigan.

Samantha's dogs enjoyed the party, too.

Gizmo, the puppy, enjoyed the attention.  Samantha said he mostly caught up on his sleep on July 6.

Henry went from one person to another hoping for a handout.  I didn't see him get any, not even a bit of cookie from Sonja. I would not be surprised to learn someone sneaked him something. He did get plenty of loving pats.

Last of June, First of July...A Busy Time

We have had a good summer...

Our son, Ray, and his wife, Gretchen, visited with us the last week in June.  They have been in London, UK for the last year.  It was good to see them.  Afterward, Tom said, " Do you realize that is the longest visit Ray has had with us since he started college?"

I think that was a bit of an exaggeration but it is true we haven't had him stay overnight for an extended period for a long time.

We didn't do much over the Fourth of July.  We did watch the traditional People's Fourth of July on PBS.  I realized I do not know the popular singers of today.  I did recognize the Muppets!

The prairie flowers are blooming.  Tom's little patch beside our driveway is beautiful.

The same kinds of flowers but about a million more of them, and other flowers, too. are blooming at Huffman Prairie.  The butterflies are enjoying both places.

I saw a bobolink at Huffman Prairie.  I like walks by myself but when I see a bird I don't see often, it is even more special when I share the experience with a friend.  And Jeanne was with me.

Happy Birthday to Me...The Rusty Bucket, Huffman Prairie, Hofbrauhaus, Cincinnati Art Museum

I count the short visit with Ray, our oldest son, as the start of my birthday celebration this year.  He was here to pick up his youngest son, Steve, and take him back to London, UK for a visit.  Tom, Ray, and I had lunch at The Rusty Bucket where Ray's oldest son is the chef.  Afterward, Ray continued on to Steve's apartment.

Tom and I drove to Huffman Prairie where the Wright Brothers conducted many of their flying tests. This is the time of year when sometimes we are lucky enough to see bobolinks on the prairie.  We saw two.

Tom didn't have his camera with him so I used my little Olympus Tough to get a picture.  Seeing the bobolink made me smile the rest of the day.

June 13 was alternately rainy and overcast.  Since we were inside during most of the rainy times, the rain didn't  stop our plans.  We ate lunch at the Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Kentucky which is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.  Both of us enjoy German food.  Tom bought a piece of German chocolate cake to take home for a late afternoon snack.

Newport has been building a lot of expensive-looking high rise condos and apartments in the area.

The Newport Aquarium is near by and so are other restaurants and shops and entertainment.  

We always admire this beautifully carved cabinet just inside the front doors of the Hofbrauhaus.  The dining area is set up for friendly, casual meals.

After lunch we drove back across the Ohio River to Eden Park.  The Cincinnati Art Museum is high on a hill there.

The Burning Man exhibit has been at the museum for some time.  It was in the special exhibit galleries for several months but now the various sculptures are spread among the museum's regular exhibits. Coming up on the sculptures is a bit of a surprise.  There is no mistaking them.  They are unique.

The first one we found was The Five Ton Crane.  It reminded me of an old-time movie theater set up in a street car.  It was an interactive piece of art.  People could climb up into it, sit down and watch movies mimicking the silent films of the twenties.

Since Tom is in a power chair we watched the movies while standing beside the structure. The movies were projected on a screen beyond The Five Ton Crane as well as on the screen with the green curtains framing it.

A "professor" instructed us via a blackboard on what might cause a woman to float into the air after a discreet kiss from a lover....

                                             1. Gravity Allergy

                                             2. Electro - Magnetic Polarity

                                             3. Blood Holds Helium 

This was just one of many silly demonstrations continually flipped through as we watched.

Tom and I stopped to look at some of the museum's regular exhibits, too.  Tom especially liked a painting of sailing ships in a harbor because it was so precise and true in the details.  I liked this one by Robert Henri.

One of the Burning Man sculptures that has been used a lot in the publicity shots is this one.

The dancer is made of triangles covered by a translucent skin. Here is a close up of her thigh.

This photo gives you an idea of her size.

The Burning Man is a temporary art installation set up in a desert between two mountain ranges.  It's name comes from the effigy of a gigantic man which is traditionally burned on the last evening of the exhibit.

This is an facsimile of the effigy.  It is bigger than life size, but not as large as the one that is burned.

The day following the burning of the effigy the entire art exhibit is taken down and moved away.  The goal is to leave the desert exactly as it was before the exhibit. If you google "Burning Man" you can find out much more about the mindset of those who participate in the exhibit each year.

Tom and I wandered around the museum for a little less than two hours.  By the time I have looked at exhibits for a couple hours, my brain is stuffed full.  So many ideas, so many ways that art can be presented.

The drive home was sometimes drizzly. Sometimes rain was pouring down.  We were happy when we arrived home. 

In the mailbox I found birthday cards from my sisters.  Better still were the letters enclosed in the cards.  I am glad I am part of the generation that writes letters.

Tom and I ate our piece of chocolate cake and I enjoyed reading the notes. 

Memorial Day, 2019...A Memorial Day to Remember

Steve visited with us on the Memorial Day weekend.  The morning and afternoon of Memorial Day Monday were beautiful but a trifle humid.

In the morning, Steve and I went to Herrlinger Park, a little park in Troy where he celebrated several birthdays when he was younger.  A railroad track runs beside the park and everyone who knows Steve knows he loves to railfan.

This year he has a short-wave scanner so he can hear the railroad dispatchers and engineers talking as the trains pass various points along their routes.  The scanner was a birthday gift from his dad.

Listening to his scanner made railfanning much more interesting to me.

After lunch he was picked up and headed home. The afternoon was a quiet one for Tom and me.  And so was the early part of the evening.  Tom was already in bed when our evening became more scary than our evenings usually are.  Our cell phones blasted out warnings.  Tornado warning.  I turned on the local TV channel.  A tornado had touched down north of us.  Later in the week the National Weather Bureau listed it as a EF-3

The meteorologist could barely keep up with what she was seeing on her weather displays.  Tornado after tornado.  Tornado to the west, to the east, to the north and to the south.  All this happened Monday evening.  It took until Thursday for the newspaper to report what the National Weather Bureau had decided had occurred.

Below is an enlargement of the diagram of where the tornadoes hit and their strengths.

Since this newspaper was published one tornado has been upgraded to an EF-4.  The number of tornadoes has been increased to at least 14 after more checking by the National Weather Bureau.

We haven't had a severe tornado since 1974 when one destroyed a portion of Xenia, a nearby town.

Unfortunately our granddaughter's house was one of those severely damaged.  She and her pets are temporarily staying with friends.  She thought one of her cats was lost but it showed up on Saturday.  It was hiding among the debris in her damaged attached garage.  Friends have been helping her clean up the trees and utility poles and the rest of the mess.  She called today.  She says there is a lot of cleanup still to do but a lot has been cleaned up and a lot taken to the disposal site.  She says she is alternating between feeling lucky she still has a house and feeling overwhelmed by the entire experience.

And despite severe weather  in all directions, Tom and I never lost electricity  and no branches fell from any of our trees.

Roses, Lunch and Ducks...February 22

It's been fifty-eight years that a dozen red roses have arrived for me on April 22.  This November, Tom and I will have been married fifty-eight years.  Tom and I had broken up in 1960 and we hadn't seen each other since that fateful day.  Tom said when he sent the roses he really didn't think I would reply but he wanted me to know that he would always remember me. I had been remembering him, too.

The flowers arrived in late morning.  At noon, we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday's.  Our daughter had given Tom a gift card for Christmas which he used.  After choosing salads from the well stocked salad bar, Tom had meaty ribs, so tender and well cooked that the meat fell off the bones.  I had grilled chicken with a honey barbecue sauce.  Dessert was apple cake with ice cream.  We were pleased.

The day was chilly but sunny.  This time of year "sunny" means the day is a good one.  Tom drove us to Englewood dam, one of the five dams built in the Dayton area after the devastating 1913 flood flooded downtown Dayton up to the second floors of many buildings

The ducks were too far off for Tom to get good photos but we got good looks at Canvasbacks, Redheads and Ringbills

The usual Canada Geese and Mallards were there also.

Tom decided to check out Eastwood Lake.  That was where we saw our first Bufflehead of the year.  The next stop was Eastwood Metro Park.  There we spotted two Hooded Merganser males and one female. 

Tom finally found a bird close enough to get a good photo...a Great Blue Heron.  He already had a nice bib of mating feathers.

Seeing the ducks means Spring is on its way and that brings smiles to our faces.

The Day After Tom's Birthday...January 20, 2019

As I wrote in my last blog, January nineteenth was a horrible day. For most of the day we had rain, turning to ice when it hit the roads and trees and lawns.  Late in the day, the rain turned to snow.  By morning we had about five inches of powdery snow on top of ice. The temperature had fallen to 9 degree Fahrenheit. For people like us who had no reason to venture out, the world was beautiful.  The sun shone and all the trees and bushes glittered with ice.  Tom took all the photos in this blog.

This is my favorite of the ice covered branch photos..  Click on it to enlarge it.

This Carolina Wren is cozy under his puffed up layers of feathers.

Tom was focused on the cardinal.  He didn't notice that a house sparrow had done a photo bomb until he looked at the  picture on the computer.

These are the neighbor boys who made some pocket money clearing off drives for us old folks.

And Now Tom is Eighty....January 19, 2019

On September 12, I took Tom to a Reds game and then to a German restaurant to celebrate his eightieth birthday.  We were celebrating early because his birthday is January 19 which is an iffy day to plan anything in Ohio.

Now I'm patting myself on my back.  On January nineteenth we awoke to pouring rain, rain that was turning to ice and icicles .

Sonja, our daughter, called to say she, Reagan, and Samantha had planned to bring over breakfast to celebrate but when they saw the rain and ice, they decided to send greetings and visit us another day.
(Sonja stopped by on Sunday, the twentieth, after working at Kroger and brought pizza.  It was a pleasant visit.  It is not often that she has time for a relaxing visit with  us.)

Back to Saturday, Tom's birthday.

When Tom checked Facebook he saw that our oldest son, Ray, had posted a very nice tribute to him and what he had accomplished in his eighty years. Ray said, "I live in awe of what he's accomplished in those 80 years."

As the day passed, more and more people he has met and worked with over the years took a few minutes to send him happy birthday comments on Ray's Facebook post.  There were a few comments that made him ( and me) chuckle.  He heard from friends he hasn't seen or heard from in years.

In late morning, our 97 year old neighbor called, said she had something to bring Tom for his birthday. She drove over, said she had some shopping to do before the weather got any worse. We were her first stop.

She brought a practical gift for nearly anyone turning eighty.

By then, I had the cheery pie which he asked for in the oven.

I forgot to take the picture before lunch.  We also had scalloped potatoes with ham which he had also asked for.

But no company.  It was NOT a good day for visiting.  We were glad to see our neighbor returning from her trip to the grocery store because snow had now arrived to cover the layer of ice. And then the wind arrived.  By late afternoon, this is how the bird bath and back yard looked.  The bit of sunshine was nice but it was only a teaser.

It was still snowing when we went to bed.  But the weather did not stop Tom from having a great birthday.

Steve's Christmas, December 2018

Steve and his brothers, Picture taken by Steve's mom

Steve's mom dropped him off at our house about noon on Christmas day.  He was smiling and happy.  He had already had a good Christmas.  His mom carried a huge heavy Christmas bag of presents from her and Santa and his brothers.  She said the bag was heavy because his big gift from her was a coffee maker. He was wearing his new shoes from brother, Ted.

In the bedroom, he changed into the sweatshirt and CSX cap from MeeMaw. That was his outfit for the rest of Christmas day and the next day, too.  You can see a bit of his railroad theme socks.  He wore them two days, too.

Shortly after he arrived Sonja, Samantha, and Reagan arrived.  Tom and I were scurrying around in the kitchen and dining room, putting Christmas dinner on the table.  Neither of us thought about taking photos. We had Cadbury milk chocolates and shortbread assortment from Ray and Gretchen for our dessert (and the cherry pie that Tom had requested) Reagan, unknown to us, took a few photos and posted them on Facebook.  Thank you, Reagan.

After dinner, we moved to the living room.  That's where we were when Ray called from London, UK to tell all of us hello (especially Steve) and asked how he liked his Christmas gifts. He still hadn't opened the gifts from his dad and Gretchen.

But,after the call, he opened their Christmas gifts.  These photos are especially for them.

He opened the two DVDs...Norfolk Southern's 30th Anniversary Heritage Locomotives and

Modern Marvels, The London Underground.  (After he finished unwrapping the other gifts, he immediately disappeared down the basement to watch both DVDs).  Nothing is better than trains.)

The box with the Modern Marvels, The London Underground, included a note from Santa Claus.  Steve read it to us..."DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS, Love, Santa".

I poured the candy from Convent Gardens Candy Store into a bowl so we could all get a good look at it.  Reagan looked up the candy store on her cell phone so Steve could see the store it might have come from.  Reagan said there are a lot of the stores throughout the area.

He liked the model of the doubledecker bus. 

The tote bag from the London Transport Museum was the perfect size to hold all his gifts.

On Wednesday, Steve and I went to Menards to do a little shopping.  He spent most of the rest of the day in the basement listening to his new DVDs.  He also opened the box he received from Santa at his mom's.  Guess what!  It was a miniature train.

On Thursday, Steve and I drove to the post office so he could mail his box of gifts to his dad and Gretchen. When we came back to the house, he brought the bus, still in its box to me.  He asked me if I had a little screwdriver. Once the box was open, he sat on the couch for a long time just looking at the bus, reading the printing on it.  He said, "I'd like to ride in one of these someday."

It was on Thursday , too, that he took the shirt from the London Transport Museum out of its box and brought me his yellow-covered book, Winnie the Pooh.  I showed him the book that I read to his dad when his dad was little.  Then we sat close together on the couch and I read him the first chapter, the story of how Winnie the Pooh had tried to get honey from a bee hive by floating up to it using a balloon.

That reminded him of a Christmas gift in the big Christmas bag his mom carried in for him when he arrived on Christmas day...bee magnets from his brother, John.

The bees.