It's a Tennessee Blizzard, Y'all!

Northerners may chortle loudly, but today we had the Tennessee equivalent of a blizzard. I came home from work at 2 PM after setting up some cells for next week, just in time to see the rain starting to bounce off my car. It wasn't liquid falling anymore. 30 minutes later, my Nebraskan husband was strangely invigorated, bouncing from window to window, watching the snow fall in huge, wet flakes. A few inches accumulated in just a few hours. We walked to the local cafe, snapping pictures along the wandering way, for two large hot cocoas. How better could we spend a snowy afternoon? Enjoy the pictures.

Love is Strange

FRIVOLOUS CAT POST ALERT!

This is Jorge. Isn't he gorgeous? He's here for two things, one of which is food. It is springtime, you know. He is bold. He does not want to be petted. A snack is appreciated, but he really wants the small female hiding under my car.

Spot (a fixed female) is not amused. While I was outside, she felt relatively safe. She sat in front of the garage staring away from him, only occasionally directing a stabbing glare at him that screamed "YOU DESPICABLE CAD!" as well as any offended human could. Another black male from the neighborhood, Diego, arrived later. He. too, meowed for a snack. Evidently, when "courting", they're too obsessed to hunt. He is hiding under the other car. Poor Spot is not happy, but she can defend herself, and if she really wants them to leave, she'll hurt them, and hopefully they will go. But the soap opera out back is pretty funny to watch for now.

More From Bulletin 32

This is a flower from my backyard, as of this morning. We usually have at least one more cold snap after the flowers bloom like this.

Here is the section from Bulletin 32 that caught my eye, and would be just as relevant today in a magazine article as it was in 1916:

There is probably no other section of the country where farmers can live more cheaply, healthily, and happily than here in the South, where choice vegetables of some kind can be had every day in the year, fresh from the garden. It is however, noticeable as a rule that the farmer is the most poorly fed of all classes of individuals, when he should be the best, for the reasons given below. 

1. He can have the choicest beef, pork, mutton, milk, butter, eggs, poultry, etc., raised on his farm; and, handling it himself, he is sure it is clean, healthy, and wholesome. 

2. He can supply his table bountifully with every fruit and vegetable that will grow in a temperate or sub-tropical climate (the list is too long to mention here), and all from his own garden, field, and orchard.

3. Fresh fruits and vegetables have a medicinal value, and when wisely prepared and eaten every day will go a long way toward keeping us strong, vigorous, happy, and healthy, which means greater efficiency and the prolonging of our lives.

I take back what I said yesterday about Carver not stressing veggies enough. His advice is timely. As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.

G.W. Carver Bulletin 32-Meals For Farmers

The posts for the next few days will be from this bulletin. Wisdom if ever I read any!

This bulletin, entitled"Three Delicious Meals Every Day for the Farmer", was written in 1916. It appears to be public domain, so I'll quote it freely.

As we learn more about ourselves, and the relation of food to our well-being, we cannot but agree with those who have made it a study that "the prosperity of the nation depends on the health and morals of its citizens, and the health and morals of a people depend mainly upon the food they eat, and the houses in which they live. As a rule we are wasteful; we do not know how to save. Ignorance in the kitchen is one of the worst curses that ever afflicted humanity, and is directly or indirectly responsible for more deaths than all the armies combined.

He goes on to talk specifically about bad selection of food (not having nutrients to build a body or keep it healthy), bad combinations of food (creating a body "un-nourished and overstimulated"), and bad food preparation (he says 75% of those entrusted with it were deficient- in 1916!). This bulletin could be sent out today, and it would be timely. I would add more veggies to his rotation of meal plans, but as a plan for a one-horse farmer, he has very good ideas.

A Garden as Health Insurance

This is a small head of broccoli from last year's garden.

Could raising some of your own food qualify as health insurance? If you raise the right stuff, and don't hurt yourself, probably. Most of the really early stuff is cruciferous (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale), and the whole cole family is really good for you. Sulfurophanes (from broccoli) have anti-cancer properties.

 I read today that " health care" takes up 16.7% of our national budget- not government spending, but GDP. It is due to take up more than 20% by 2018. Are we really THAT sick? Is that much medication really necessary? I knew a woman who lived well into her 80s, who said that she never went to a doctor, except to have a baby delivered, for most of her adult life. I daresay most of my ancestors, living on farms many miles from large cities, could say something similar. They raised food for themselves, and worked physically hard all their lives. Maybe we should do more of the same.

The Barren Trees Are Alive With Birds

A few of the trees are starting to wake up due to last week's warm spell, but most are still leafless. The flock of robins on which I commented a few days ago has not vanished to Parts North quite yet- they're just stripping berries in a different part of the neighborhood. I was amazed to go outside and hear the birds this morning- spring is coming, even if the weather is cold. The birds are singing louder and longer, and getting bolder as well, sitting in trees or on wires to watch me put out birdseed. I talked to a mockingbird this afternoon. It was alerting me to the presence of Spot, and I told him/her that Spot was duly noted. I like how mockingbirds seem to curse at cats. When young are fledging, the adults will actively attack (they dive bomb for the eyes, from above and behind) any cat that comes out from under a roof. Most cats just find a sheltered area and wait it out. This is my wild kingdom at work.

An Afternoon Spent Mending

Is a good afternoon indeed. Seams tend to rip loose easily in shirts these days. Upon close examination, I could probably make one as well (or better) as the ones in the stores are made, so I'll try. They don't leave much in the way of a seam allowance, though, which makes repair difficult.

In other news. the robins have NOT taken over the berry-producing world. They haven't shown up today at all, so they must have gotten what they wanted yesterday. The picture above is on the neighbor's roof, yesterday. 

I have so much stuff planted now that some of it has to go on the sun porch, to make room under the light downstairs. The garden is getting ready to go outside and grow. I hope it does.

World Domination... One Tree At a Time

Do Northerners ever wonder where robins go for the winter? Some of them like blues and barbecue, for they seem to flock here to Memphis. This tree by a neighbor's house has held blackish-purple berries for months. They must be ripe now, because a flock of robins is stripping the tree today. It is raining, cool, and windy. Even the cat is not coming out to feast on the fat birds, though she sits in the garage doorway watching them.

Have you ever seen this many robins in one place? Are they plotting to take over the berry-producing world? News at 11.

Means and Ends, or Self-Training

The above is the title of a book written by an anonymous female author, in 1839, for girls aged 10-16. Some of the medical physiology ideas are outdated, but it is chock-full of good stuff. Here's a good example about health:

Look, my young friends, at the mass of diseases that are incurred by intemperance in eating, or in drinking, or in study, or in business; by neglect of exercise, cleanliness, pure air; by indiscreet dressing, tight lacing, etc.... Were the physical laws strictly observed, from generation to generation, there would be an end to the frightful diseases that cut short life, and of the long maladies that make life a torment or a trial.

Our ancestors knew the value of cleanliness, exercise, and balanced diet as well as we do. It is a lot cheaper to prevent disease than treat it, so in these times try to stay healthy. Spend those discretionary pennies on good food, or grow some. Go outside and work the soil in the spring, even if it is only a few small pots. Your Great-grandcesters will smile.

Cabbage is starting to Grow

I saved these cabbage seeds totally incorrectly. I planted some, then folded over the packet, put it in a plastic zipper bag, and placed it in a brown mailing envelope on a shelf through the hot, humid summer, near the kitchen. I did not store them near the back of the fridge with a dessicator as I know now to do. But guess what? They're germinating anyway! Slower, and with less efficiency than seeds bought this year, but growing.

I read a story in one of my old gardening texts (I think it was from the 1700s) of a gardener who threw a bunch of seeds that had been on a shelf for years (he didn't think any of them would still be viable) into a fire, then had to put the fire out. Imagine his surprise when several of the seeds germinated, producing robust plants! He said that most garden failures occur because we do not LET plants do what God designed them to do. We intervene too much. Maybe he is right. I'll try to be less fussy and just let things grow. Though I will pick off the cabbage worms if the mint and marigolds don't repel them.

Germination Testing

I'm just starting in the seed-saving part of home gardening, so a lot of my seed is just extra, saved from last year. I'm using a simple germination-testing technique:

1. Moisten a few paper towels. 

2. Place several seeds spaced out between the paper towels. Place the towels in plastic zipper bags (they can be reused from carrying sandwiches- our bread machine bread is too tall for plastic sandwich boxes, so I use and reuse the bags). I place the bags on the windowsill in the kitchen so I remember to check them. 

3. Check every few days for germination. Here you see seeds I placed in bags on Saturday. The chard is germinating. I'll place these seeds in the soil under the lights downstairs on Saturday.

Roller-coaster Weather

The picture above is from March 7, last year. Right before it snowed a few inches.
Roller-coaster weather is what we're having. Upper 30s this morning, upper 60s tomorrow, then back to freezing again tomorrow night, with possibly hazardous winds shifting direction from west to south to north and storms tonight as it warms. My joints ache. I love Tennessee, but the late winter/early spring weather (and sometimes fall weather, too) is not kind to me. Yes, this is normal Tennessee weather. A lot of people who look at the statues in our town squares and parks would say that the American Civil War never ended here. I'd agree, but in a different context- the North vs. South battle is in the wind and weather, not on the ground so much. Though my grandmother was quite relieved that I did not marry a Yankee.

Babies Grow Up

Here are those baby plants, 4 days later. Much bigger. I'll be shifting them to the sun porch this weekend for one week, then one week of hardening (out during the day, in at night), then planting the next week-end, if all goes well. 

Surviving (and Being Helpful) in a World that Isn't Home

Yesterday's post may have implied that I somehow felt superior to the girls who became my neighbors as time passed and the farms disappeared. That was not the case at all. One of them was a model, about my size. She noted our obvious relative poverty and brought over bags of clothing once or twice after photo shoots (She was always being given clothes she did not need or want after the photo sessions). She tried to check on me frequently, and really provided friendship when I needed it, in a sensitive way. I still have a few things she gave me, 20 years later. 

I just felt very, very different. Once everyone matured and the bullying stopped (early high school was pretty rough for me), things were great. Even the boys, noting how I cringed when they used bad language, tried to control it around me (I took a lot of math/sci classes, where girls were a minority), and I tried in turn not to act too surprised when they slipped.

Moving to a big city to get my Ph.D. was a jolt about as culturally shocking as going to school with very wealthy children, but in the opposite direction. I did not see beggars on almost every corner (they seem to work in shifts here) back home. Poverty here means living on food stamps or fast food and church handouts, not garden-grown food and fish from the river. It's a different paradigm of poverty, and must be handled differently.

How to help, even in hard economic times?

1. DO NOT GIVE OUT CASH if you can help it. I saw a beggar regularly on my route to a different school a few years ago, and I started making him a small lunch- sandwich and fruit.He seemed to appreciate it. You might also keep an inexpensive coat in the car to give if someone looks cold (quilt-lined hooded sweatshirts are really warm, and quite popular). 

2. Donate to charitable organizations you trust. They can feed people effectively.

3. Be sensitive to the needs of people around you. Give a good starter cookbook to a college girl struggling to meet budget and needing to learn to cook. Hem up a co-worker's pants or let out a garment for them. Offer skilled help when you do not have money. From someone who grew up in a cash-strapped home, such things are usually welcomed and not as embarrassing as being offered bare cash.

When your values differ drastically from those of the surrounding culture, life can be difficult. Being helpful- and being humble enough to accept help when you need it- bridges the gaps. It doesn't make this world Home, but it does make it a bit more livable until we get There.

Resident Alien

This is a picture of one of my GGF's brothers and his wife. It is illustrative of the ideal of beauty I grew up viewing.
I was reared to be weird. I was a teen in the 80s. When my companions at school were humming "Material Girl", I was humming "I Can't Feel At Home In This World Anymore" (we listened only to Southern Gospel, with a little classical and pre-1970 oldies allowed). They bought outfits for our 8th grade PE fashion show at the malls, while my Mom made mine (a red flannel suit with a cropped jacket and a calf-length circle skirt). I walked like I was in a cornfield no matter how hard I tried to be feminine, because we lived on a dying farm, and we spent a lot of time in pastures cutting wood. My house was full of old books, home-sewn dolls and pictures of fully dressed women, not fashion magazines and minimally clothed plastic dolls and Entertainment Programs of gossip about Hollywood. I had a few Barbies given by family friends, but I tried to make them clothes with more coverage than they had in the package. I was raised by parents with definite beliefs, clearly communicated.

It made a huge difference. It is dreadfully fashionable these days for people not to be "dogmatic" in raising their children, not to insist that their way is right, but rather to let their kids find their own path. "Dogmatic" means "characteristic of a doctrine or code of beliefs accepted as authoritative", and that's where the trouble lies. Authority outside the self, obedience, submission, joy found within boundaries, all of these things have become bad somehow in modern culture. Parents are no longer authorities, but friends. I was SUPPOSED to rebel as a teen. All mom's friends told her I would, that she was too strict. It was more fun to rebel against them (and sometimes even my own emotions, which taught the priceless lesson that emotions are not a dependable guide) than to violate the family rules. 

Did I do some things differently as an adult? Yes. Do we see eye to eye on  everything? No. Did everything go smoothly all the time? No. But I can tell you that raising your kids WITH CLEAR BOUNDARIES and FAITH (and a deeply thought-out, Bible-based rationale for why we believe) is better than the alternative. 

Studying Useful Skills

This is my grandmother's mother's treadle machine. The last patent date on it is 1875, so it may well predate Annie. Her insoles are in one of the drawers. Metal, uncomfortable things- she wore the same shoe size that I do, size 10 women's. I wear insoles, too.
There are LOTS of skills my cabin-dwelling ancestors took for granted, that my grandparents still practiced as a part of daily life, that my parents still know, that I am familiar with as dim memories from my childhood. 

I can freeze veggies easily (blanching, cooling, and packaging is not rocket science). I can water-bath can apple butter and tomatoes, and I remember canning pickles in an un-air-conditioned kitchen in August as a kid (hot enough to make you live right, eh?). I can sew simple outfits on an electric sewing machine, and hand sew minor repairs.

This year I've decided to expand the skill set. I'm reading library books and amassing quite a collection of public domain, old texts from Google books. I'm collecting documents from online agricultural extension agencies (useful and free). I've bought a pressure canner and my dishwasher (unused most of the year) is now full of jars, and I'm collecting more. I want to get a leather belt for my father's mother's mother's treadle sewing machine, and a set of attachments and needles, and learn how to sew with it. I want to revive the old skills in case the economic times and climate change legislation combine to make things really hard. I know in my head how my ancestors survived, being a family memory keeper, but I want to put that knowledge to use. It may come in handy.

BABIES! (plants)

Women are biologically predisposed to love babies. Watch the high school girls at the mall. they may coo and fan themselves over a "hot" guy, but they'll positively chase down a woman with a stroller if she looks friendly. Especially with twins.

I have baby cauliflower and broccoli plants! This picture was taken  last night; they were tiny and cute, spreading their first leaves toward the fluorescent light. They already have more leaves, less than 24 hours later, and the green onions are starting to peek upward! These babies will hopefully grow into beautiful veggies. I'll keep you posted on how well this basement grow system works.

Twine

This is twine my husband picked up from a rusting old hay baler, when he was working for a farmer during a college summer, over 25 years ago. We're still using it. The stuff is very, very useful for tying up plants, binding trellis to stakes, marking rows or boundaries, and other uses. My husband used it today to drop a shop light (with new bulbs) over a table in the basement for use as a grow light. Wonderful and cheap.

A True Find

The picture above was among the ones inherited from my grandmother (Father's side). Imagine my excitement to turn it over and find in her mother's handwriting, "my Grandfather, Mr. and Mrs. Ervin Thurman". I looked him up. He fought in the American Civil War. If you had ancestors who fought in that war, and they later requested pensions, the Mother Lode of information about them is available on microfilm at your state archives, or maybe even your library. He was in Cook's 3rd infantry (TN) and fought at Donelson, Chickasaw Bayou, Chickamauga, Lost Mountain, Atlanta, and other battles. He was wounded in a Very Sensitive Place at Chickamauga, but he managed to sire four children afterward, so it must not have been too devastating. As he was being carried off the field, he was hit in the back by shrapnel, once again causing "flesh wounds", but that was not why he was claiming a pension. He was claiming the pension because of a 40-year case of diarrhea, which had recently gotten worse, to the point of disability ! A witness note dated 1905 (these microfilms really are fascinating) states that he was also taking care of his 90-year-old father! He owned no land, and made a living by share-cropping. If you think his life was easy, check out his wife's hands. The ragged child looks a bit like my great-grandmother, but is probably a cousin. When I look at these pictures, and read the bits of information about the lives of these ancestors, I am grateful for what I have, and that is good.

How We Lived, Not So Long Ago

For those who say the Worst Times Ever are coming, I kindly refer them to my great-grandparents on my mother's side. Above on the left is HD, my great-grandfather, going with his brother to get corn ground. He was born in 1865, so this is a pretty old picture.

Below is a later picture, with his family and some grandchildren, standing in front of HIS HOUSE, or as some of our relatives call it, their "cabin home". My grandfather may be one of the teens close to HD, who is on the left. They lived a hard life. 

My grandfather had most of the fingers on one hand cut off in a game of "chicken" involving an axe and a chopping block. He didn't back down. Many of the pictures of relatives from the 1900s-1930s on Mom's side are in front of cabins this ragged. Their belongings were few ("no bought toys"); their formal education was limited; their work was hard and continuous; but their lives, if not cut short by moonshine, accident, or injury, were surprisingly long. Mammy, HD's wife, lived to be 90 years old in that cabin. She is below.

So maybe we can live without cable, eh?

Tilling 2 Ways

I spent most of yesterday digging up a built-in flower bed with a pick and shovel, then raking in an "organic" fertilizer (see yesterday's picture for an "after" shot). In the afternoon my husband came out to look at his field of cultivation, the front yard, which he wants to turn into a lovely, green, grassy lawn. I came up front, dirty and achy as only the first day of digging after 2 months of winter can make you. He had been meticulously hand-pulling weeds. He said "I think we should rent a tiller. It would make this a lot easier."

I flopped down on the front steps and laughed hysterically. "You were not the first person to think that today." I watched him use that tiller this afternoon, and a lovely job it did as I picked my way through the rest of the un-dug flower bed. I was glad to be using the pick. I found hexagonal tiles exactly matching what we have in the bathroom, and I got out a lot of the remaining roots from the bushes I tore out in January. The soil around here is pretty much always workable, when it isn't too soggy. It never really freezes. We don't get the assistance of frost heave with plowing, and the bugs stay alive through winter, but we can grow something almost year-round.

Dirt Farming

Many of the gardening books I have read state that the gardener should feed the soil, not the plants. If the soil is right, the plants will be, too.

Above is my dirt, after digging down several inches and digging in a bit of fertilizer. Then I put the leaf mulch back on to smother weeds, and to decay. I saw a RECORD number of earthworms- many, many more than last year, even when digging in consistently warm weather. If they are any indication, the soil is much improved. Maybe they are surviving better because the birds can't dig through the leaves to eat them. I don't know, but I am thankful.

A Marriage-Long Commitment to the Cheap Date

We are a frugal couple. Our shoes are a sight to behold. We were presumed to be homeless once when walking through an affluent neighborhood looking at houses, before we bought our current one. From the beginning of our relationship, we have preferred the "cheap date" to more expensive ones. Here's a list of ideas:

1. Split a small pizza at a local establishment. Drink water or go during Happy Hour and get 2 drinks for the price of one. You'll be full enough, with no waste.

2. Walk, if you can. Sunsets and moonlit evenings are much better enjoyed on foot than in a car, looking for traffic signals and road signs. Conversation is easier, too.

3. Small, local cafe-type restaurants or delicatessens often have great food at reasonable prices, and in reasonable portions. There again, no waste.

4. Go to the free events like concerts or Shakespeare in the Park. They'll ask for a donation, and that's good, but even your donation will be cheaper than theatre tickets. Even theatres often have matinee performances or "nosebleed section" seats that are cheaper.

5. Some bookstores have cafes, so you can eat, then enjoy some fine literature. Some even provide live music on week-ends.

6. Curl up at home with a cheap, rented movie. Pop your corn in an ordinary paper bag in the microwave- no added fat or salt, and it tastes fine. 

7. Go to a park frequented by many people, take a book, lounge under a tree, and people-watch. Kids and dogs are better than cable TV.

8. Pack a lunch and water and hike some trails. We got engaged at lunch-time on a hike- the ring was at the bottom of my lunch-sack.

9. In cold weather, make soup and cornbread, followed by hot chocolate later. Put on wooly slippers and long robe. Curl up on couch with a good book and blanket. Toasty, especially if 2 can curl!

10. Never get too old to play in the snow. Build snowmen, throw snowballs, make face prints and snow angels. 

11. Library books are free as long as you return them on time. Get books there for the above cheap dates.

These are our most common outings. We'll spend a bit of money sometimes, but usually it is $20 or less. We are blessed to be together, and to be able to enjoy life inexpensively. 

A Teacher From Another Planet

No, I'm not rereading Madeleine L'engle's Wrinkle in Time series, though I think it is awesome, awesome (and CLEAN) adolescent science fiction. She is a Writer. Like Tolkien for teens. Not kidding. 

I'm helping out with a teacher-training grant at work, and finding out that I was trained on a Different Planet. A planet where teachers are expected to know their subject matter (or know how to learn the new stuff before next fall without any hand-holding-it's called a LIBRARY), and expected to care enough to actively pursue learning the art of good pedagogy. Research- based, proven methods for teaching students are not rocket science and are within the ability of just about everyone, but a lot of modern school systems seem to be set up to promote the status quo and discourage real excellence. Teachers spend too much time putting out disciplinary and administrative fires to tend the forest (i.e. the kids. Do the workbook pages while I fill out these reports.). The really excellent teacher scares people because s/he works too hard, and cares too much.

I obsess over things. Then it was teaching and eating right. Now it is research, eating right, and gardening (which fits into the overall food theme). I do love the act of teaching itself, though, with a passion. Helping someone learn something new is phenomenal. I hope to do it again, soon.

The Chicken Business

This is an excerpt from an interview in 1995 with my (now) late great uncle, Marvin. He is the man in the picture above. The girl is my aunt. She is still alive.

Marvin: Yeah, after I got married I assumed the chicken business, raising little chickens up into hens. They went to laying. I have been close to 1,000 of them. George would have nearly 2,000. He kept me busy. Your grand-daddy Orville used to fool with milking cows. I never did get into that part. George and I were into all those chickens. That kept me busy day and night. Some days I’d get 60-70 dozen eggs a day. I’d have to gather them up twice a day, bring them in, clean them that night. I had a thing, an egg washer. You put them in some warm water, and it rotated like that. You’d buy a special kind of soap to put in there, to help clean them. Set them down, let them dry out overnight, then get up at 4:00 the next morning to carton them all up and label them for the people I carried them to. I’d carry Rozena in to work. She’d take several of them during the week; two or three days of the week she would carry them to people where she worked. I carried them all over Belle Meade, and everywhere else down through here.

I remember going to the 2-story chicken house with my grandfather and two uncles as a young child. The egg business was gone, but they still raised chickens for personal use. It was a large, airy structure with chicken-wired windows running the length of it, with wooden shutters to close in inclement weather. They would feed the chickens outside, then get the eggs and clean the house while they ate. Nowadays those chickens would probably qualify as "free range".  That farm was hard on the men, but it was a home away from home for me as a young child.

The Learning Curve of a Lemon Tree

My lemon tree appears to be dying. The leaves are yellowing with spots of green that turn brown as the leaf falls off. It is budding and getting ready to flower, but this spotted-leaf thing has me concerned. I mail-ordered a sulfur-based fungicide (good for powdery mildew in roses and squash and cucumber, so I'll be using it A LOT this summer) with fatty acids, which are an "organic" contact poison for mites and aphids. I made a VERY DILUTE solution of the stuff and applied to the leaves. Here are the things I know I did wrong this year:

1. I did not fertilize the tree at all after adding some soil to the pot last spring. I've read that potted trees should be fertilized monthly. It produced three very good lemons, but it needed some nutrients during that time and afterward. I gave it a belated dose last week.

2. I was watering too much for cold weather. The soil needs to really dry out between waterings, and our enclosed sun porch gets surprisingly humid. The humidity actually encourages fungus growth.

3. I needed to order the fungicide sooner. With the tree on the front sun porch and my winter hangout in the kitchen at the back of the house, I wasn't paying attention. I tended to get out there to water at night, so I did not see how sick the plant was.

If it does not recover, I will use the pot for something else, but I will be very sad.

Spring is Coming!

The buttercup bulbs are sending up shoots, exploring. Soon spring will come, but not for a while yet! These flowers always come up early, and always get nipped or snowed under. But they always come back profusely, as we all should in the face of adversity.

Another Welcome Sunny Afternoon

When we came out of church, that warm, earthy smell was in the air. Sunshine and a southern breeze beckoned, as did a forecasted high 20 degrees cooler tomorrow. We walked down to the local park to sit in the sun, reading. A percussionist band of adults provided free entertainment practicing under a tree, while deliriously happy dogs chased frisbees, balls, and each other across the open field. Humans were chasing footballs and soccer balls, too, with games intermingling and picnickers around the edges enjoying the fun. What a glorious afternoon. Now it is cloudy again, and the wind is shifting to come from the North, but we had a few hours of precious sunshine. Carpe diem.