October fun

The month of October was long and every weekend full of family, friends and the best weather. I worked solidly every day to make new work and I wasn't sorry to see the month end, I needed a break to get my artwork hung in Junction City. What a great Opening! I appreciate the turnout from my Manhattan and JC friends, and was delighted to sell a few pieces right out of the chute. Encouraging.







Wanted to share this three minute Salty Dog celebration in honor of Aunt Judy. It would have gone on a lot longer had she been in the room. Visit often and think of her when you play
this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jLAN-r-n9E

The end of the month brought the best weather we'd seen, highs in the 70's and a Halloween to break all records for happy trick'r'treating. Mouse was distributing candy again this year, check out some responses...
















This was 'Pahantus' coming for some treats while keeping a wary eye on Mr Mouse as Graham, who is just walking, is getting his first real glimpse of our large friend.

Celebrating Emily and Jeremy's marriage

What a fine time we had celebrating Emily and Jeremy's marriage on a recent brrrrrrrrr-y October night. Peter's group, the Sunflower Colonels, played and it was a great evening. I am struggling to upload some tunes, but having no luck so far. Maybe I'll make a Picasa album and you can listen there. Maybe?
We pulled the T@B over to the fest, at Jeremy's parents farm just north of Topeka and spent the night, toasty as toads in our little trailer.
Peter's group is getting ready to make their first CD - just in time for the holidays!

Winfield 2009

We had such a blast at Winfield!
The weather was amazing, coolish cloudy days for the most part, but on Sunday we got the promised rain -- one minute during breakfast, just a few drops, nothing measurable.
It was the usual good times, listening to music at Stage 2 and 3 mostly; cooking in camp with our Manhattan camp mates (who live a block away and we almost never see except for Winfield!) and walking all over after dark, making new friends and gawking at the inventive/crazy campsites. This year we discovered The Couch, which provided a nice interlude between the West Campground and the rocky hill up to Pecan Grove, it gave us a relaxing vantage of Stage 2, awfully refreshing. We met old friends and new at the couch and rested our dogs as well.
I went down early in the week, on Tuesday, and snagged our group a spot in the north camping area, way down east - farthest from the stages - where it's quiet at night and there is grass and space between camps. Families (who value sleeping at night) seek out this area; it's a lovely part of the county fairgrounds, but shhh...don't you go telling anyone. I spent a relaxing day by myself on Weds, exploring Salina by bike, reading and knitting - a sweet little vacation before the music began. Our camp began to fill up the next night, Weds, and it was great having friends arrive.
Old friends and new joined us to share a meal or jam at our camp. I wish we had more musicians, but David and Al provided us some nice tunes as did our neighbors from Colorado,a group called Fireweed. The younger members of our group, George and Nissa, well they were armed with swords and roaming the camp. When not eating bacon they were whacking off the windows of our trailer and generally terrorizing the camp - day and night. Hope they learn to play their ukes over the winter.

A highlight - Peter's group, Sunflower Colonels, played on Stage 5! Like WOW! I was proud to witness this --- from the very front row. None other than the Wilders opened for them! It was awesome. Check out the pics of our weekend -
http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/Winfield2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCO-F_O_X0bTs3QE&feat=directlink
Back in M, washing clothes, packing up the camping gear, things are a mess around here. Friday it's down to Salina for the Prairie Festival. It will be great to see Sally, who works down there AND Evan is coming from Vermont for the PF again this year. I pick him up in KC tomorrow. We'll have lunch with Peter. It'll be great fun.
Been canning raspberry jam tonight - glad to hear the jars pinging. Hope they all seal. What to do with all the rest of the habaneros - I can only put one or two in each batch of jam, and there are scads of them to deal with. Ideas?
Later gators - hope to hear from you all one of these days.

What happened to April?

Radishes are looking good, real good, after the rains interspersed with sunny and warm days. We have been eating greens (collards and turnip) out of the cold frame for a month now, along with sorrel soup and rhubarb. They really satisfy the spring cravings.

I don't know how it came to be May and not a single post for April. Guess I was busy. Feeling behind on many fronts but doing some catch up in the flower gardens around the house and the vegie gardens out back and downtown. Way too neglected they've been.

Sally is home on the weekends and it's so good to have her close. She has gotten me going on kim chee and my first batch was a success. She is experimenting with her sourdough starter but it hasn't acclimated to Kansas yet. I am looking forward to some of her good bread one day soon.


The weeks of work readying mom's house for sale have ended (I guess that is where Mar/April went) and it's being shown a lot but no offers yet. It will be a relief once that chapter is closed and we can do the final clean-out. It's been a tiring, nearly three year process.

Nothing too astounding to report. Wish I was more inspired, mostly I am just tired after long days wrestling euonymous and ivy. I have created an area free of vines out front and composted a garden trail of sorts. Yea!

I'd rather be planting peas...

We have been working like draft animals for six days now, the final readying of mom's house before putting it on the market in April. Removing carpet and pad and the nasty nail strips, patching plaster, painting, painting, painting, scrubbing porch deck and railings and growing exhausted sorting and boxing the endless collections/piles/cupboards full of STUFF. My mother's collections. It's interesting, it's detailed and she never, ever tossed anything. Phew. We have been doing this for almost three years, surely we are almost done. This is the downslope, right? Sally lived here in spring '07 and culled and sorted and tossed; we held two gigando summer sales, one in '07 and one in '08, so where does this junk keep coming from? I feel my muscles and I feel tired and I realize that I should be home cleaning out my own interesting collections so that my children won't have to. Sheesh. At least I know when to throw away body parts that are not working or needed any longer, you just never know what's in a box/basket until you sort through it...

So, five more days and I am outta here. Can't wait to start digging again and tending the sprouts back home, building a new compost pile, planting more greens. I am really missing the smells of working the ground in spring and tiring of this big and sprawling metropolis. I miss knitting. A shout out to any friends who have read this far - I miss you!

Baby bunnies

Today was a workday for me, at People's Grocery, and a very long day, with lots accomplished. Later, back home, I mostly thought about trimming the raspberry bushes and spreading bunny poop. This accomplished I reviewed pics of the adorable new bunny babies, and wished the best to my friend Denise, dealing with oh so many critters up at Blue Heron, all on her lonesome. Take a look at her animal kingdom just north of town...
http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/BlueHeronPrairieAVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCMe6oL29zpLfnQE&feat=directlink

Konza burning

Thursday we went to Lawrence in the afternoon, Jack was headed for a talk at KU and later dinner with Peter at Local Burger. Mmmm. As we headed south on 177 approaching I-70, we were amazed to see the extent of the burn happening on Konza Prairie, right up the edge of the road. I snapped a lot of pictures from the car window, roaring by at 70 mph. Amazing that they turned out as well as they did.
http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/KonzaBurning?authkey=Gv1sRgCOHn5fKDm6KXxAE&feat=directlink

Next day, Friday, we headed off to Kansas City to hear Peter's band play at the Midwestern Music Company, as part of a First Friday in the Crossroad's District. We got there early, around 6 pm, and scurried off to dinner with the cousins at Cafe Vietnam before returning to the Crossroads to hear two great bands from Lawrence, Kasey Rausch and later the Sunflower Colonels. Check out the pics of Peter's band...recognize Peter? He's playing the banjo...

http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/SunflowerColonelsAtTheCrossroadsKCMO?authkey=Gv1sRgCL6GnKyKktPdvQE&feat=directlink

bad day, followed by Good Day

Friday got off on the wrong foot and didn't correct until I found myself at the Cheryl Wheeler concert that night. Left my ticket on the dining room table, but the kind ladies believed my story and let me in. Being late I got lucky and scored a single seat, way up front and next to CW's niece - so there was CW talking to her niece when frazzled me arrived! It was a great concert and she was as funny as ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJaKqOzDvMQ

The day had begun early with Mom getting her dates mixed up for the haircut. We muddled through that, and someone trimmed her hair. After that we scurried over to St John's for the physical with Dr. B. - all went well - lunch and then home. Lots of complaining about the bad haircut, the sore toes, the floppy shoes. Always the floppy shoes. A "discussion" of footwear (hers) back at the apt was the end of my day with her, I desperately needed a break. After a long walk and back at the house, I was fine.
You can see what a nice person Dr. Bandi is. How lucky that we found her when we did. I don't think mom will like this photo of her "bad" haircut, if she ever sees it.

Saturday
Woke up to wind and blowing snow, which didn't amount to much. Realtor coming at 10:30 so I vacuumed up and down, having finished the wash/wax of kitchen floor the night before. The place has been transformed and is looking good. Spent an hour with Realtor #1, a very nice lady who seems compatible. I know she likes this house and I think she is smart and knows this market, yet I feel a need to interview a few others. Time is running out.

Picked up mom, and met cousin Diane and her mom for lunch. It was a fairly relaxing two hour lunch, I think the ladies enjoyed themselves and it was good to see Diane.

Afterwards mom and I spent an hour at Puddn'head Books, a new shop in Old Orchard. Here she is, looking for mention of her grandfather Maack in 'Early St. Louis:The German Community.' Sadly he was not mentioned.
Mom wanted to buy a book so we settled on "The Economist Book of Obituaries," concise, two page biographies of famous people, just the thing for someone with no short term memory who still enjoys reading.

Back at her apartment we did some organizing of papers and then I sat and knit a spell, finishing the amazing, ruffly scarf. I took a series of photos of her wearing it, as the sun streamed in and she seemed happy as a clam. All the discord of the day before never even happened. That brought us to 5 pm, yawn, and I took my leave right then. It was a good day!

Sunny Day St Louis

Late lunch at Brio ... the wine was good! And the lamb chops too. And the salad - wow - a two watch, gold star day! Gnawing on the chops, and food tasting like food! Yea, mom's back!
Started at the jewelry store, where we left mom's diamond ring to be enlarged. Off to visit dear friend Mary Ross who is in St John's Nursing Care, recovering from a stroke. As her son told us yesterday, Mary has her smile back, and this she does, she is looking great. She was snoozing when we arrived so we tickled her toe and she came to, delighted to see us. Had a good visit and were glad to see how much improvement she has been making. She'll be 92 April 19th, day before mom turns 88. We'll be celebrating together as usual. Mary's OT came and ran her through some exercises and then we decided it was time for lunch, nearly 3 pm, which brings us to this lovely photo of my crazy eyed mama, wearing two watches. After the tasty lunch we headed over to Kaldi's for coffee and chocolate which tasted like coffee and chocolate. Yea! Things were still good so I took her to the Kirkwood library, got on the internet and showed her my blog, which she marveled at. No matter that she calls it a glog and demands an explanation of the word. Delivered her home to the apartment and said g'night. It was 6 pm and I was done in, as was she. We'll be back at it 9 am tomorrow, when appointments begin.

Almost finished this crazy scarf for mom which I began last weekend - it's made of a flat tape, which is about 1/2" wide (wool/acrylic). It's five stitches across on size 5 needles. Looks like a ruff or an Elizabethan collar, or "an underwater growth," says mom.

Shreddin' out back

We have been working with inventor friend Dave Sampson to come up with a bicycle powered leaf shredder for use in our yard, the neighborhood and beyond. The design phase is closing in on teeth that truly cut leaves and we hope to soon add a bicycle component and get those many bags of leaves shredded and into the compost cycle. Pictured here, the hand crank version, are inventor and entrepreneur, Dave and Jack. Stay tuned...

Came across this wonderful film while cruising the net checking out links! Below the you tube link is the link to the Maya Pedal website. Very cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL1MqPeaerk&eurl=http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:hAT8Pp97WeQJ:www.howtoons.com/post/maya-pedal/+maya+pedal+bike+machines&&feature=player_embedded


http://www.mayapedal.org/bicimaquinas/contenido_in.html

Furry friends unite in Abilene, KS

We were awash in rabbits this weekend in Abilene!

It was a fun time, a "first" for me to visit a rabbit show. Here is my friend Denise who yesterday pulled maybe a fourteen hour work day, first feeding all of her critters at the home farm and then loading eight bunnies and Bailey (Yorkie pup) into the truck before heading to Abilene. She got set up before I arrived at the fairgrounds around 6 pm. The evening show began at seven pm and after much poking around and misc photo taking I bailed at midnight. Denise stayed for Best of Show, and collapsed back at the motel around 1 pm. Red wine and conversation. Yikes. These bunny folk work hard days.

She was back at it this morning, much earlier than me, and still hadn't shown her bunnies by 4 pm when I headed back to Manhattan. Lots of waiting around and talking rabbit at these shows.

I wish I had taken more pictures of the cute kids cuddling their bunnies, what a patient and caring bunch of kids. And lots of 'em - bunnies and kids. Rabbits are huge in 4-H around here and many adults catch the bunny bug too. Witness Denise and her cast of characters. Lucky for us the weather was dry and snow didn't amount to much.

Don't go to Abilene to dine, but do expect to spend some money at the Shivering Sheep yarn shop if you're into fiber (open Thurs-Sat) and visit the wonderful and endlessly fascinating hardware store across the street, on this the main street, Buckeye. It is one of those hardware stores that inspires Projects. I got lost in there and can't wait to have an excuse to go back. Thank God for such hardware stores. Abilene has many antique shops, in fact one woman said "if not for the antique shops, downtown would be empty." She's right, they are amazing and everywhere.

Check out my pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/AbileneRabbitShow?authkey=V4y9sW8QdAs&feat=directlink

Also, here's a link about the breed Denise loves most, the satin angora's - so fluffy and easy to love:
http://www.glauserweb.ch/satinange.htm

More later, off to see The Pink Panther... a valentine treat!

No germ lab in cattle country!

Tuesday, Feb 10, was the day Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius visited Manhattan, KS's Level 3 germ lab (which isn't usable yet due to safety hurdles yet to clear and money problems no doubt) at KSU's Pat Robert's Hall. We were there to greet them! They were in town to celebrate the decision to place a federally funded Level 4 lab here in KS, adjacent to this building. Bye bye Plum Island, hello Manhattan, KS. Yikes! We have concerns.

Check out the photos, it's always good times visiting with friends on the protest lines...

http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/RecentlyUpdated?authkey=KX5K4BNdh3w&feat=directlink">

And here an article about the visit:
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090211_4394.php

Turning 22 at Dempsey's Pub

We had a blast in Lawrence the other night - Peter's birthday, Feb 8th, he turned 22 - listening to Peter and his new band The Sunflower Colonels. They were great and there was a good turnout at Dempsey's Irish Pub to hear them. Fun time! (We had to limit Ana to one Pepsi - she was having too much fun!)

Check out the Colonels...here are some tunes to listen to:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=184446141

Full round of the evening's photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/salsamama1950/Dempseys?authkey=Pc52hVCpkTQ&feat=directlink

Red Chile Morning

Any day can be conquered after eating a plateful of New Mexico red atop Betty's fresh eggs. Ahhhhhhhh, warms from top to toe and tickles the brain.

Finished the lap warmer for Esther yesterday; will mail it today.

Madonna and I had a dinner date at Coco Bolo's and a great time catching up.