Parade

I live in an old neighborhood, full of grand old houses, but also full of young families with children and dogs, which is part of what makes the 4th of July fun each summer. The houses around the local park invite the children to decorate their bicycles, skooters, wagons, or whatever, and they parade around the block and end up at a local nursing home to sing patriotic songs.

This year the weather is perfect, and lots of folks showed up. To tell the truth I don't even know the people in these photos, though some of the more mature ones look familiar from previous years. Later in the day the street will be closed off and there is a big neighborhood potluck, and games for children.

The rccord keeping for these events is a little shaky, but organizers this year think it might be the 50th year - unless they missed a year and it was actually last year.  It doesn't matter, really. What matters is that neighbors get together to greet one another, ooh and ah of wee children and pet the pooches.




Happy Independence Day.

Moving Forward

I have always loved summer, the warmth, sunshine, birds, flowers blooming.  I knew I was having surgery earlier this spring, so I did not plant too many flowers, but this little pot of petunias catching the morning light has been giving me pleasure.

I'm feeling a little stronger, more wide awake, more mobile each day.  I'm enjoying eating again, and have had some visitors.  This isn't going to be a normal summer, but I don't want to miss it.

Midsummer

6x6 inch collage, in my sketchbook

Unbelievable, July is nearly over.  When I was teaching July was the only month that was reserved just for vacation activities - camping, biking, gardening, or whatever was good.  I don't do much of any of those things any more, except a bit of gardening, and that has been curtailed because of my stiff and sore knees.  The  flowers that come back on their own every year are still a source of joy, though. The bee balm has been glorious this summer, as are the lilies.  I try to cut some most every day and bring them inside to enjoy.

This summer has mostly been about the series of cemetery tours that I've been leading in connection with a local group that is restoring the chapel that was built around 1900.  My tours, which highlight interesting people from Janesville and the surrounding area, and old headstones and monuments, is free, although the chapel restoration folks are there every time serving cookies and water, and accepting donations to help pay for the new roof, foundation work, and stained glass window restoration.  The tours, which have been well attended, are fun to lead, but take lots of time to research, plot out, time and rehearse.  I finished writing the last one this week, and I look forward to not having the constant deadline hanging over me. My last tour is August 9th.

I'm also nearly finished with an online workshop centered on composition in connection to collage.  The teacher does work I admire, and I very much enjoyed a one day workshop with her last summer.  I'm not so sure that I'm getting as much from the online lessons, maybe because they were very specific, and there were a lot of them.  So many of them, in fact, that I had trouble keeping up.  That, plus the limits the instructor placed on the materials we could use, began to wear on me.  The class lasted five weeks, and I'm still not finished. I only post some of my completed assignments, because I just used whatever paper I want, which it not what the instructor had in mind.  The little collage at the top of this post is an example.  I just I just have problems following directions. Surprise!

My other summer art involves the community figure drawing studio at UW Whitewater.  I've miss a couple, but the sessions I've attended were great fun.  Thing is, what do I do with stacks of drawings of undraped models?  I suppose I must just look at it as practice, and not worry too much about the drawings, some of which I quite like.

I try to get out and socialize when the opportunity arises.  I spent a week in Kewaunee and Door counties recently, visiting my dear aunt, who is 85, and my brother and sister-in-law, who are a few years younger than I am.  It was fun visiting, going to art galleries, and driving the convertible with the top down.  Seems like there aren't all that many days in the year for doing that sort of thing.

Carpe diem.

New Painting - Celebrating Summer

11x4, oil on canvas

This week I finally finished a small oil painting based an a black and white snapshot one of my life drawing friends shared with me.  The original photo appealed to me right away, with the rocking boat, and determined girl, sucking on her Fudgesicle and pulling on the oars.  I asked for permission to tackle it as a painting, and he agreed.  Apparently the picture is of him and his sister at Camp Cleghorn, near Waupaca. I'm guessing this was in the 1940s.

There are all sorts of challenges working from an old photo.  Often details disappear into the dark passages, or are out of focus.  I had real concerns about figuring out where the girl's thumbs were, and where exactly her sun suit top was in the shadow under her arm. When the picture is of people who are friends or relatives, I have a feeling of obligation to create a reasonable likeness, although I tried to not let my shortcomings in that department bother me too much.  My first concern was an appealing picture, whether or not the children in my painting look exactly like the old photo or not.  Then there is color.  I have to invent colors, since the source photo has none.  I really don't know what color her hair or eyes were, or what color her sun suit was.  And since I am fairly new to oil painting, I struggle with creating reasonable skin tones.

But the painting is finished.  All I need to do now is sign it, and hope that people find it to be appealing.

Summertime, Summertime

Recently I took one of my annual summer driving trips north to visit my dear aunt, attend the opening of the yearly Miniature Show at the Paint Box Gallery, and hang out with my husband's sister and her husband.  I took an extra day and spent the night in Two Rivers so I could see sunrise over Lake Michigan, and thanks to a tremendous thunder storm was also treated to a rainbow out over the water.

These are just a few of the photos I took in an effort to bring home some of the beauty I saw during my rambles.

I do love summer in Wisconsin.

 

This was taken just before the storm hit the Manitowoc and Two Rivers area.  I wanted to see the old fishing village, but they were closing just as I arrived.  I was luckier with a lovely private garden, West of the Lake, which was rich in peonies, irises, and other perennial garden plants.

Every year I try to see something I've never seen before, so I took a short side trip to Mishicot, thinking to tour the schoolhouse historical museum, which turned out to be only open two days a week, and not the day I was there.  I also had my heart set on an antique shop/art gallery, but that was also closed when I rolled in town, and wouldn't open until a time I needed to be on the road.  The small town did have a covered bridge, closed to vehicular traffic, but open to bicycles and foot traffic, so the trip wasn't a total wash out.

I adore antique and resale shops, and couldn't resist the classic shape and delicious texture on this 1950s metal lawn chair in Kewaunee.

I've been visiting Algoma since I was a child, and find myself always drawn to the marina area where the fishing boats come and go all the time, though the old commercial fishing boats are mostly painted up and posed for the tourists to photograph.  The red lighthouse is a landmark I revisit every time I go through.

It had been decades since I visited Washington Island, back when my husband and I were first married.  And then we took over our bicycles and toured what I remember as mostly gravel roads.  This time I took the convertible, and covered lots more ground with much less physical effort.  I also visited Nelsens and joined the Bitters Club, something I had wanted to do for ages. This scene was shot at School House Beach, a lovely place with white stones instead of sand.

Luckily for me, I don't have any real schedules to adhere to, so I drive the most scenic routes I can.  This scene was taken at a wayside not far from Fond du Lac, and that's Lake Winnebago in the background.

The trip was fine, so fine I decided I'm returning later in the month for a workshop at The Clearing, in Ellison Bay, another place I have never been before.  I've been feeling guilty that the only art I've been doing is my weekly drive to  Whitewater for figure drawing, but I am hoping that the upcoming one day workshop on intuitive collage will get me going again. 

Digger - Finished at Last

8x8 inches, acrylic on canvas board

I finally finished this little painting this afternoon, well into autumn, despite the summery theme.  I follow other blogs sporadically, mostly other art-related blogs, but also one called Old Picture of the Day.  A black and white photo of a child holding a pail and shovel came up last summer and I was charmed by the posture of the figure, and curious too.  Is the figure a boy or a girl? What has captured his or her attention out there in the water?  What are the plans for that pail and bucket? 

Anyway, I had the drawing done back in August, and it sat and sat, until I decided I had to either paint it or gesso over the drawing and do something else.  My initial intention was to gild the background, as I had done with a couple other paintings the same size and shape.  But then, as I played with the colored I imagined for the water, I gradually got to like it the way it was. So I have decided this will just sit on my shelf as it is, reminding me that summer will come again.

Girlfriends

5x7 inches, acrylic on paper

It has been such a hot summer, I find myself combing through old photos of people sunbathing, swimming, in boats, and fishing.  I certainly haven't been doing these things.  These two girls were high school friends of my mother's, and I decided to try to depict them.  This was supposed to be the under painting, with color added later, but I think I'll leave them as they are for now.  Or maybe I'll try another version in color later.  I suppose there's no reason to rush a decision.  In the original photograph, which is small, in black and white, they sit in front of dark foliage, so that their hair blends into the background.  I decided to eliminate the trees and just emphasize the young women.  Somehow they speak to me of pleasant summer days spent with friends.

Happiness
by Joyce Sutphen

This was when my daughters were just children
playing on the rocky shore of the lake,

their hair in braids, their bright-colored jackets
tied around their waists. It was afternoon,

the shadows falling away, their faces
glowing with light. Whatever we said then

(and it must have been happy; it must have
been hopeful) is lost as I am now lost

from that life I lived. This was when nothing
that I wanted mattered, though all I wanted

was happiness, pure happiness, simple
as strawberries and cream in a saucer,

as curtains floating from a window sill,
as small pairs of shoes arranged in a row.

Canoe

old snapshot, found in a file drawer at a consignment shop today

Green Canoe, by Jeffrey Harrison

I don't often get the chance any longer
to go out alone in the green canoe
and, lying in the bottom of the boat,
just drift where the breeze takes me,
down to the other end of the lake
or into some cove without my knowing
because I can't see anything over
the gunwales but sky as I lie there,
feeling the ribs of the boat as my own,
this floating pod with a body inside it...

also a mind, that drifts among clouds
and the sounds that carry over water—
a flutter of birdsong, a screen door
slamming shut-as well as the usual stuff
that clutters it, but slowed down, opened up,
like the fluff of milkweed tugged
from its husk and floating over the lake,
to be mistaken for mayflies at dusk
by feeding trout, or be carried away
to a place where the seeds might sprout.

Smokin'!

It's really really hot this week in southern Wisconsin.  Today it hit 100 degrees in Janesville, and it was not dry heat.  There's a burning ban in effect in most of the state, and lots of Independence Day fireworks displays have been delayed or canceled.  Not here though - I guess shooting pyrotechnics out over the Rock River is safe enough.

I'm not sure if the ban extends to outdoor grilling; I don't think folks would stand for that.  The heat got me thinking about this 1956 snapshot of Grandpa Tess, dressed up in his Fathers Day apron and cap, cooking burgers on a very low-tech grill. Genius at Work is what the get-up says.  I remember that they set up picnic tables in the garage, and we all settled in for burgers, chips, potato salad, and Cokes.

In the background our old green car is there, heating up in the sun. Nobody had air conditioning, and cars certainly did not have any way to cool down except by rolling down all the windows - by hand.  It made for some steamy vacations.

Immigrant Picnic
By Gregory Djanikian

It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped  
like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my father what's his pleasure
and he says, "Hot dog, medium rare,"
and then, "Hamburger, sure,  
what's the big difference,"  
as if he's really asking.

I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,  
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins  
are fluttering away like lost messages.

"You're running around," my mother says,  
"like a chicken with its head loose."

"Ma," I say, "you mean cut off,
loose and cut off   being as far apart  
as, say, son and daughter."

She gives me a quizzical look as though  
I've been caught in some impropriety.
"I love you and your sister just the same," she says,
"Sure," my grandmother pipes in,
"you're both our children, so why worry?"

That's not the point I begin telling them,
and I'm comparing words to fish now,  
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,  
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.  

"Sonia," my father says to my mother,
"what the hell is he talking about?"
"He's on a ball," my mother says.
                                                     
"That's roll!" I say, throwing up my hands,
"as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll...."

"And what about roll out the barrels?" my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, "Why sure," he says,
"let's have some fun," and launches  
into a polka, twirling my mother  
around and around like the happiest top,  

and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
"You could grow nuts listening to us,"  

and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,  
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,
wordless, confusing,
crowding out everything else.

Day Tripping, to the Everglades of the North

Yesterday the heat and humidity broke and Mr. Bike Man and I decided to travel north and take in a boat tour of the Horicon Marsh.  I had taken a similar trip with my dad when I was in college, but Dick and I had only driven around the edges of the huge cattail marsh.  A few weeks back we saw an item about Horicon Marsh Boat Tours at Blue Heron Landing on the local television news, and decided to go see for ourselves.  This photo is of Marc Zuelsdorf, son of the man who founded the operation.  Marc has been giving tours since he was eleven, and knows the marsh and its birds backward and forward.  We were impressed not only by his knowledge of the history of the marsh, but his ability to spot birds from very far away, and identify them by their calls.  There were a couple hard-core birders with the group, and none of their detailed questions threw the man in any way.

I always think of the marsh in terms of it being the source of the Rock River, a river that begins here, runs south west through towns like Watertown, Fort Atkinson, and Janesville, then eventually empties into the Mississippi at Rock Island. But the marsh is the largest fresh water cattail marsh in the United states, and an internationally important wildlife refuge.  The city of Horicon, which has a population just under 4,000 people, is home to a John Deere manufacturing plant, seen here from our vantage point on the Rock River. 

These boat houses are for for hunters and fishermen to store their boats.  Some are new, some a hundred years old.

The marsh is huge, and shallow in most parts.  Fishing isn't very good, unless you're out for bullheads or carp.  

Out in the marsh what you see in the middle of a summer day is a whole lotta water.  Off in the distance our guide spotted some white pelicans, and we saw other birds like great blue and green herons, kingfishers, cedar waxwings, red-wing blackbirds, several varieties of swallows and swifts.  We also saw quite a few painted turtles sunning their little cold-blooded selves on logs in the shallow water.  What we didn't see much of, although there were hundreds of thousands of them nesting in the cattails, was ducks.  The marsh is divided into a portion controlled by the Wisconsin DNR and part run by the federal government.  The Wisconsin controlled part has a hunting season, but hunting is never allowed, and access is strictly controlled in the federal wildlife reserve.  Guess where there are more ducks and geese.

Over three hundred varieties of birds have been documented in the marsh, but the great blue heron is one of the most common ones to see outside of spring and fall when the land and sky are black with ducks and geese.  It's hard to resist trying to get a knockout photo of these large birds, but this was the best I could manage. 

Maybe I can talk Mr. Bike Man into a spring or fall trip, and see what sort of bird pictures I can snap then.  He certainly seems to enjoy a summer day out on the marsh.

Feeling the Years

Yesterday was the 4th of July, warm, very warm, and sunny.  A beautiful day for a bicycle ride, I thought.  My husband loves his bicycle, and has logged over a thousand miles this season; I have ridden a handful of times, to breakfast (maybe two miles), with friends (six miles) around town (who knows?). Anyway, I clearly am not in shape for the Tour de Janesville or anywhere else.  But I suggested we ride from Verona to Mt. Horeb and back,  twelve miles each way.  It sounded like something I could do, even though Mr. Bike Man told me the first leg of the trip was all up hill.  How hard could it be?  It's a railroad conversion, no more than a 2% grade.  I could do it.

It was hard.  I was soaked with perspiration, winded, with sore legs and a sore sitter.  I got off the bike to look at scenery.  I got off to get drinks of water.  I got off to whine.  I got off the bike to take pictures of wildlife (see turtle below).  I finally said, "Just go on ahead; I'll catch up," and to his credit Mr. Bike Man refused to abandon me.

We finally made it to Mt. Horeb, a charming Norwegian community along the Military Ridge Trail.  Our destination was a brew pub called The Grumpy Troll, a name that by that time could pretty much describe me.

The place was packed, but we were seated and when the waitress saw my red face and dripping hair she sprinted to get me ice water.  After about forty-five minutes of cooling down and eating a really really delicious Italian Wrap sandwich, I was ready to face the trip  home.  Here's the thing.  If you ride uphill for twelve miles, the return trip is much easier.

Thank goodness.

Great Day for Berries, and a Poem

This morning we hiked downtown for the local farmers market.  Saturdays so far this season have been cloudy, cool, rainy, or all three, but not today. Today is clear and sunny, and promises to be warmer than the week was.

Our market is a relative newcomer, smaller than the one in neighboring city Beloit, and certainly not in the league of the venerable Madison markets.  But this one has the charm of being close enough to walk to, and I like seeing people I know, and getting tips on what's good.  Today a retired teacher friend sang the praises of a vender's organic beef, and early season cauliflower.

We were in search of fresh strawberries, cheese curds, fresh bread, and Kettle Corn. I wanted some strong coffee too, since ours at home tends to be on the weak side.  How did I get through my life so far without kettle corn?  The combination of salty and sweet is irresistible to me, and apparently to lots of others as well, based on how many bags I saw being carried around.

There were several vendors with strawberries, but we tend to favor the folks at Skelly's Market.  Today one of the ladies was there to show off a huge and weirdly shaped berry.  She took time to explain to a disappointed buyer that their berry pies from the farm are flying off the shelves so quickly that they didn't have enough to send to the downtown market.  We took home a pint of warm strawberries, and could smell the scent of all the way back to our house.

I found this poem on my Poetry Foundation app last night, and liked it well enough to share here. There is as much truth as poetry in these lines. You betcha.

Ode to the Midwest
By Kevin Young

The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
—Bob Dylan

I want to be doused
in cheese

& fried. I want
to wander

the aisles, my heart's
supermarket stocked high

as cholesterol. I want to die
wearing a sweatsuit—

I want to live
forever in a Christmas sweater,

a teddy bear nursing
off the front. I want to write

a check in the express lane.
I want to scrape

my driveway clean

myself, early, before
anyone's awake—

that'll put em to shame—
I want to see what the sun

sees before it tells
the snow to go. I want to be

the only black person I know.

I want to throw
out my back & not

complain about it.
I wanta drive

two blocks. Why walk—

I want love, n stuff—

I want to cut
my sutures myself.

I want to jog
down to the river

& make it my bed—

I want to walk
its muddy banks

& make me a withdrawal.

I tried jumping in,
found it frozen—

I'll go home, I guess,
to my rooms where the moon

changes & shines
like television.

Fair Album

Click on this picture to enlarge. I only noticed the sign in the upper left corner after I loaded it on the computer. Too funny!

Yesterday while my husband was away on one of his epic bicycle rides, I drove to Elkhorn, my hometown, for a visit to the Walworth County fair. I have a nostalgic affection for this fair, since I exhibited muffins, cookies, banana bread, some really bad sewing, and a few watercolors there many years ago as a Sugar Creek 4-H member. Grandpa Pierce, leaning on his cane, held court in the Simons hybrid seed corn tent, taking orders for the upcoming season and chewing the fat with other old-timers. Grandpa was always good for quarters for midway rides to get us kids out of his hair. Later, when my dad sold John Deere tractors, we hung out in that area.

These days I hardly see anyone I know at the fair. A couple years ago I got my sister to come wander around and eat roasted sweet corn with me, and once in a while I see a former classmate. If I'm lucky I find my brother in the farm equipment area like Dad used to be, though yesterday he was working at the store. I spied a former rival from another club (now matronly woman), introduced myself, but it was clear she did not remember me. I, like Rip Van Winkle awakened after years only to learn he has gray hair, am no longer am part of my old community.

So I headed to the animal barns.

I love the critters, from the cows, to the pigs, to the sheep and goats. In the middle of the days most animals were napping, trying to ignore all the folks wanting to scratch their ears. This pig was awake, though his neighbor was sound asleep, grunting softly, running in his sleep.

The food hasn't changed much, lots of sugar and fried foods. I love the taffy stand, though I know that a $5 bag of sugar isn't what I need. I did get an order of quesedillas and a horchata, and later bought a mammoth cream puff to bring home and split with my skinny husband.

It's fun to watch the little children on carnival rides. When I was a kid we paid for rides with coins, not coupons, and you could usually get enough change for another ride by rummaging around the seats where centrifugal force wedged them in the back crevices. I took this photo by accident, just pressed the button by mistake, but the crazy angle sort of captures the feeling of the ride.

My last stop on my way out of the fairgrounds was at the camel ride. I chatted with the man running the operation, and asked him if the camels were cousins to llamas. They are, you can see the family resemblance in their faces. Asked if he thought the camels minded walking around in a ring with folks on their backs, he smiled and said this was an easy office job compared to carrying, say, salt across a desert. These camels lie and work in Wisconsin, and the Elkhorn fair is almost the end of their season before winter.

There lots more, arts and crafts, the horticulture building, the grandstand with sulky races and tractor pulls. I enjoyed the trip, a traditional end-of-summer activity in this part of southern Wisconsin.

June is Dairy Month

Adapted from a monotype I did a couple years ago of two Holstein cows.  I might like this version better than the original!

In Wisconsin June is always Dairy month.  It's a promotional tool for dairy farmers, but they don't call us cheeseheads for nothing.  Tomorrow Dick and I plan to attend the Rock County Dairy Breakfast (very local eating), and there are lots of other events going on in the area including Cows on the Concourse in Madison.  

Here are some favorites from 4-H days.

Don't Be Blue Cheese Ball

2 packages cream cheese

3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Put the cheese in a mixing bowl and allow to come to room temperature.  Mix in the chopped onion and Worcestershire sauce at low speed, processing until smooth.  Cover and chill several hours, then shape into a ball and roll in chopped pecans.

Dreamy Milk Punch

1/2 gallon milk

1 quart Squirt or 50-50

1 1/2 quarts orange sherbet (or your favorite flavor)

1 small can frozen orange juice

Mix the sherbet into the milk, reserving some for putting on top.  Add the soda and orange juice about ten minutes before serving.  Makes about 32 cups.

Lots of Bran Muffins

1 15 oz. box bran cereal with raisins

3 cups sugar

5 cups flour

5 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons salt

4 eggs, beaten

1 quart buttermilk

1 cup cooking oil

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  In another bowl whisk together the eggs, milk and oil.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid mixture.  Stir until combined; do not over mix.  Spoon into prepared muffin tins.  Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.  This makes about six dozen, but don't panic - they freeze well.  Or just keep the batter in the refrigerator and bake the muffins fresh as you need them.  The batter keeps several weeks.

Happiness is Getting Together With Your Friends

I've made lots of friends over the years, and lost a few too, but there are only a handful who have stayed close despite living miles away.  This past week I got together with my college roommate, Cathy, who lives near South Bend, Indiana.  We shared a room in a rented house as undergraduates.  Both of us were English majors with an interest in art.  I decided to teach, and she decided teaching wasn't her calling and went into journalism instead.  

These days I am retired from teaching, and she isn't working for a newspaper any more, though she is very busy with a high school freshman son, some freelance editing and her artwork.  She's a wonderful pastel artist who has started a pastel society in South Bend. Busy as she is, she made time for me. We each took a train to Chicago on Sunday and had lunch and a walk around at the Art Institute.  Then we both took the South Shore train back to Indiana.

Her husband Bob, a Notre Dame grad, oversees the official student publication of the school as well as its literary magazine and yearbook.  They were married at the log cabin on Notre Dame's campus, and I was honored to stand up in that wedding in 1976.  This week we hiked around one of the lakes on the campus, where I took this view of the golden dome.

We took a couple day trips, one day to a couple nearby Amish communities.  I would have liked pictures of the barefoot wives hanging out laundry on the line, the children (also barefoot) playing in their schoolyards, or the young men and women on bicycles, but that isn't something they appreciate, so no photos.  I especially enjoyed seeing the men putting bales of hay on wagons pulled by horses.  My dad and his neighbors put up hay together, though they used a Farmall tractor. Another day we drove a few miles north to Michigan and Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve near Niles.  

There are miles of trails, and several different themed gardens.  Late summer showed off the black eyed-susans, and Joe Pye weed teeming with butterflies.

Here she is in the herb drying house at Fernwood.  This little series of posts occurred to me because I share her fondness for Charles Schulz.  She was once a "little red-haired girl" and she actually sent him homemade valentines.  Later, she struck up a friendship with the cartoonist that lasted until his death.  In 1997 she invited me to a writers' conference in California and I got the chance to meet him and some of his family.  Unforgettable.

Prickly Garden Problems

I recently met Teri C., an online friend who loves cactus plants, and I wanted to draw a cactus for her.  This pen and ink and watercolor drawing isn't too bad, if you ignore the pot.  I looked up this cactus online, and I think it is a Mexican barrel cactus.  When I bought it, ages ago, it was about the size of a softball, but it has grown to the size of a cantaloupe, and has begun flowering in the summer.  It likes summering outside, though sometimes I have to be careful it doesn't get too much water. I repot it every year to two, and the spines are so lethal that I began using leather gloves to handle it.  Two days ago I moved it, carefully, to the side of the house that gets more sun, hoping to encourage it to bloom again.  

I also moved a big potted geranium that wasn't blooming because, I imagine, the maples have grown so much that a formerly sunny spot now is partly shady.  To my horror, only hours later I discovered that the geranium had become a magnet for iridescent green beetles, and they were earnestly chewing the leaves down to the veins.  Japanese beetles.  I had never seen them before.  Since then I have gone out to the plant with a saucepan of soapy water, and sent scads of the critters on a sea cruise.  I imagine the kindest thing would be to just send the geranium back to Baby Jesus, and take away the beetle magnet, but I paid a bundle for the plant and hate to give up so easily.  We shall see.  If I were dedicated I'd sketch a dead bug, but frankly I don't want to look at one that closely.

Regarding Goats

graphite, colored pencil

I took myself to the recent Rock County 4-H fair, armed with an appetite and my camera. I'm a sucker for nasty fair food: fresh squeezed lemonade, deep fried cheese curds, cream puffs. I try to mitigate the effects of eating this sort of junk by parking the car blocks away and walking, but I know I'd have to park in, say, Beloit, to work off the effects of one cream puff. Still, I only indulge once (or twice) a year. I like to tour the midway, watching the children on the rides, take a low walk through the 4-H project barns to see the home sewn outfits and wood projects. But mostly I like walking through the animal barns, watching the 4-H kids washing and blow-drying their animals for the ring, or lounging in folding chairs playing cards.

I like the animals too, especially the goats. We didn't have goats when I lived on the farm as a girl. Dad raised purebred holsteins, and we had the usual complement of barn cats and a couple dogs. For a few years we had a nasty Shetland/Welsh pony. But no goats. I'm not sure why they appeal to me so much. Their weird eyes, pale, with pupils that slit horizontally? Their petite size? Or maybe it's just that they seem to love attention, rubbing up against their pens, bleating, leaning into it when I bend to scratch them behind their ears. Anyway, I sketched from a couple photos I took that day, and I can't resist finding a poem to go along with the sketch.

Ginger
Carl Rakosi

Am I the only one
watching
my neighbour’s
frolicksome goat,
Ginger,
tied to a pecan tree?
All morning
it has been examining
an empty bushel basket
and has lifted
one leg delicately
like a circus horse
as if to roll it,
but whether to do that
or to butt it
with its small horns,
that is the question.
Not of great moment,
no signing of the Charter,
but like air music,
quickest of the elements.
Towards which I leaped!

In form
its own grace,
appearing,
as it passed
in retrospect, classical.

The real goat stayed,
imperturbable,
the body solid
as a four-square loom
and delivered me
from abstraction.
His coloring,
greyish-soft shades,
their dark and light
passing into each other
as in an antique rubbing.

I now found myself
sitting so near,
my shade,
as in the Inferno,
sensed his,
but he gave no sign
of my presence,
even when I stroked him
and my heart leaped
at the gentle fleece,
too fine for a hard life.
He continued nibbling
on a dry bush.

I would not have believed
unconcern
could bolster the man in me
and be so enduring.
Sic transit, not caring
whether it is recognized,
The Divine
(from another age).

He was poking
into the underbush now
and reached across my head
for the small spiny twigs.

At that the phase
changed
and a sensuous trembling
hung in the air,
as when a bee is about
to descend
on blossoming clover,
and I
felt myself being pulled
as by a line
from the invisible
other side
to enter goathood,
deeper than sight.

Sketchcrawl

pen and ink, watercolor, finished while chatting with online friend, Teri, this week

July is history, and we're heading into August.  The weeds are winning out in my flower beds, and I water the potted plants with less enthusiasm than I did in June.  Since it it dry (flood waters having receded leaving lines of scum and acres of dead grass) the mosquitoes are marginally less evident than a few weeks go.  The cicadas have begun their electric thrumming, but there are fewer fireflies lighting the back yard than there formerly were. The wasps are winning the contest with the hummingbirds for the bottled sugar water in the hanging feeders.  Note to self - buy some of those bee traps for the deck.

We're heading into a month I used to enter with mixed feelings.  August always means our county fair, though the past few years I've gone and not recognized a soul.  It's the month of my husband's birthday and our anniversary.  It also used to be the month when I had to try to ignore back to school advertising, and begin thinking of my return to the classroom.  No more. Summer can last for me until frost kills my flower beds.  It's not over until the last blossom drops, and that won't be in August.  As for the heat, I decided years ago that I would only complain about one season, and I picked winter.  

It has been a while since I posted a poem, so today I offer Sunflakes.

Sunflakes

by Frank Asch

If sunlight fell like snowflakes,

gleaming yellow and so bright,

We could build a sunman,

we could have a sunball fight, 

we could watch the sunflakes

drifting in the sky.

We could go sleighing

in the middle of July

through sundrifts and sunbanks,

we could ride a sunmobile,

and we could touch sunflakes--

I wonder how they'd feel.

Meeting Another Old Friend for the First Time

I'm on the left, and Teri C. is on the right.

To me, summer has been about having fun.  This week I had great fun meeting an online friend who I met through the Everyday Matters Yahoo group and Flickr.  Teri, who spends part of the year in Arizona, part here in Wisconsin, is a gregarious person who fills notebooks with delightful pen and ink drawings, enhanced with watercolor washes.  Her pages are filled with images of the parts of her life that bring her joy.  We emailed each other and decided to meet for lunch in Delafield.  She reported her granddaughters were alarmed. They had wisely been cautioned against online acquaintances, and were worried she might be doing something rash in meeting me.  Still, we found each other easily and talked as old friends for the best part of the afternoon.  We even sat and sketched, though my conversations with her were better than my drawing of a church across the street.  She took me on my first sketch crawl!

Despite dire newspaper warnings about meeting people in person whom you met online, I have had all good experiences.  Since about 1997 when I started being active in online book discussions, I've met people in San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans, Louisville, Nashville and Charlotte.  We've always met in public places, and I've always announced my plans to my husband, who apparently has never worried much about me.  Twice he has joined me for these meetings, and they have always gone well. Once, the in the Charlotte NC airport, and online friend came to meet us on a layover.  Though we had never laid eyes upon one another before we knew much about one another, our families, lives, likes and dislikes.  After she left a puzzled onlooker asked me about our conversation.  It was clear that we knew each other, but had never met.  I explained, saying it was like being pen pals, old friends meeting for the first time. One online book buddy ended up moving to within a half hour of where I live, and we have gone from being virtual friends to actual ones.  Each of the people I have met in person after having met online as been as charming in person as I knew they would be.  We already knew lots about each other, have seen each other interact with other people.  And who couldn't like person who loves to read or create art?  It's a wonderful world where we have the chance to meet people who share our enthusiasms and interests.

Up Up and Away

My husband gave me a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride for Christmas in 2006, but a variety of scheduling difficulties and weather issues prevented us from taking our ride until this week.  In this photo several of my fellow passengers watch the crew set up and inflate the huge balloon.

Our pilot, a congenial man who was born in Wisconsin, moved to Arizona where he learned to pilot balloons, and now has moved back, took us a mile high, then flew low enough over fields and tree tops that we could see deer, rabbits, turkeys and sand hill cranes.  Water-logged fields made the extent of damage from our recent flooding very clear.  The view here is of Lakes Mendota and Monona.

The burners threw so much heat that I sought shelter under the heat shields.  When the burners are not throwing flames, the ride is whisper quiet.

While I don't have a photo of the inflated balloon, I enjoyed watching our shadow as it passed over the countryside.  

At the end of the ride, after we landed, packed up the balloon and returned to our point of departure, the crew put out champagne, strawberries, cheese and crackers.  We heard a  bit about the history of hot air balloons, and then were sent on our way with this familiar Irish blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

If you'd like to see an image of the balloon, or find out about the company, here is the web address for Token Creek Balloons:

 www.wedofly.com/hot_air_balloon_rides_madison_wisconsin.htm