Between college terms—getting home projects started

           Mid-week, I will begin the fourth Master of Fine Arts (MFA) class online from University of AR at Monticello. This one is “creative non-fiction” instructed by an out-of-stater, one advantage, the director said, of online classes. Do all these years and weeks of writing columns for The Amity Southern Standard—about 1,100-- count as “creative non-fiction”? I assume so, but with three textbooks, I no doubt will be required to widen my horizons, as I was encouraged to do in the latest poetry class.

        

      

        

                Son drove over from Hot Springs last Friday to help with sanding the original wooden screen door on the south side of the house. During its 86 years, this house had shifted and the door wouldn’t close properly. He bought and brought a spring to add to the turnbuckle already there. The diagonal piece is the turnbuckle. Turnbuckle was a new term for me. [A turnbuckle, stretching screw or bottlescrew is a device for adjusting the tension or length of ropes, cables, tie rods, and other tensioning systems. It normally consists of two threaded eye bolts, one screwed into each end of a small metal frame, one with a left-hand thread and the other with a right-hand thread.]

                After adding a short piece of scrap wood he found in the shed, he closed a gap on one side of the door. Still, there was light between the other side of the door and the frame. After much sanding of the threshold, the door closed better, even with that tiny gap that “no fly or mosquito can get through.”

Eric and I social-distancing. You can see the door that I have to sand & paint.

                Now, to paint the door white to match the other wood parts of this ole’ house. That’s MY job.  I won’t set a date to have it finished, however. Plus, I must buy a sander.

                Last weekend and the first of this week were busy. First off, I usually stop for the week’s supplies on the way home from church, but last Saturday, since I was expecting guests early in the week, and since I had a $5-off coupon for that day, I decided to shop. Guess what? I completely forgot the $5 coupon. It was clipped to my list, which I stuffed into my pants pocket. Duh!

                Today was final cleaning and prepping for tomorrow’s writers meeting here. Only four of us, so we can social distance with no trouble.

                Then, Wednesday, the fall term begins. I’m s-o-o-o-o thankful I don’t have to travel to an on-sight classroom.

                Stay safe, all!

c 2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Poaching unripe ground fall pears

Unripe, ground-fall pears

                I swore I wouldn’t do anything with this season’s pear crop and have offered the fruit to several folks. However, the day before son Eric came to mow the acre, I picked up the ground-fall pears—small, unripe—so he wouldn’t have to mow over them. They filled the bottom of a plastic dishpan which I brought up to the house. What could be done with them, I wondered, besides throwing them out for the rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks? My curiosity got the better of me and I went to Google: how about poaching them, eHow.com’s article suggested. The only food I’d ever heard of poaching were eggs, which I never actually did.

                So I bit. Washed the fruit, layered one deep in a Dutch oven, covered them with water, set the pot on the stove, then read the directions: “Steep the pears in a fragrant bath of fruit-forward white wine (no), water, sugar, scraped vanilla bean (dumped a bit of liquid vanilla instead), and cinnamon (one stick).” I tasted the “water.” Not sweet enough: added more sugar, then the last of the maple syrup, the rest of a bottle of cranberry juice, and an instant package of Tang. Mixed. Tasted better, sweeter.

                Turned on the burner and when the liquid boiled, I lowered the heat so it could “simmer for 45 minutes.” Nothing about covering the pot, so I didn’t. But I set two timers and stayed fairly close to the kitchen area during that time.

                When the timers sounded, I turned off the heat, pulled out from a lower cabinet a plastic-wrapped round silver-ish tray that I’d never used in the fourteen years I’ve lived here, covered it with a drying towel and placed each pear on it. The skins were shiny instead of dull like when they went into the brew. The liquid had cooked down to a small amount.

pears after poaching

                After they cooled, I pulled out a cutting board and a serrated knife and began cutting each in quarters, removing the stem/seeds/hard spots (rare). Of course, I had to taste the first one. It was semi sweet, both skin and pulp. When all were cut, I plopped them back into what liquid was left, pulled down the largest casserole dish I owned. Sure enough, it held both the fruit and the juice. But barely. If I’d trembled while putting the covered bowl into the fridge, it would likely have spilled. It didn’t.

                The recipe continues: “The poached pears can be served warm, cold or at room temperature, by themselves or accompanied with poaching syrup (?). Vanilla-bean ice cream and some additional wine for zing add an extra note of indulgence.” Probably not, but perhaps. When my Florida son comes for the weekend, we’ll see if my experiment was worth crowing about. And perhaps repeating.

The fruit is crisp and crunchy. And sweet. I call it a success. 

c2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Being back online is a blessing for a writer

Time for air conditioning

                How dependent I am on a working internet at my advanced age was brought home to me when a July 2 thunderstorm took out the modem. Even after a 52-minute consult with two Filipino women—one whom I could understand; the other whom I couldn’t—and trying everything they suggested, which I’d already done once, a tech was scheduled for Tuesday, the 7^th between 2 and 4 p.m. FIVE DAYS LATER! OH, WOE!

                By my schedule, I should be napping since I arose with the alarm to get my taxes to town to the agent, to buy stamps at the post office, to buy printer ink at Office Depot, which was locked and barred, then buy birdseed at Tractor Supply with Mother’s Day gift cards from my younger daughter. Three errands out of four wasn’t bad, eh? Oh, and I stopped at a Dollar General for retirement cards. Lately, my cousin and my BFF have both retired. And now I had stamps!

                I was more careful selecting bird seed this time because the young birds didn’t care for all the small yellow seeds; they wanted sunflower seeds. In desperation one day, I bought some cockatiel seed from the grocery store. No, thank you. Perhaps the squirrels and chipmunks enjoyed what was spit out or pushed out, or what I dumped out the following morning.

                I was saddened by the death of Hugh Downs. In 2014, I read his book, Letter to Great Grandson, 2004, Scribner, p. 93 where he said, “To walk around the south pole—thus around the world—takes twenty-four steps, each step in a different time zone.” This scrap of paper was one of the things I found when I cleaned off the surface for the modem. Isn’t that strange, that I found his quote from six years ago around the time of his death? Wonders never cease.

                Birthday joys abounded even as late as today. My older daughter and her son, who was in Finland as an exchange student until the country “deported” all exchange students at the onset of COVID, came by to visit. We social-distanced. She brought fresh plums and tommy-toe tomatoes from a farmers’ market in Conway and a fresh, still-in-the-package mask. Jake, who will be a music major at UCA this fall, looked through my enormous stack of LPs and took home a plastic crate full. Now, who would like the others?

                Stay out of the heat if possible; wear a mask in public, and stay safe otherwise.

Grandson Billy Paulus and nephew Keith Hoggard @ my 80th birthday party

               

Flag Day June 14 -

                It just so happens that while reading A. Scott Berg’s 2013 biography of President Woodrow Wilson, titled eponymously Wilson, I came to the summer of 1916 when, after much provocation from Germany upon its neighbors far and wide, and after years of Wilson’s determination to “stay neutral,” things got so bad that the president went to Congress for permission to put the U. S. into the war.

                I’ll pick up on page 403 and since copyright allows reviews, I’ll quote a few sentences: “June 14—the day in 1777 on which Congress had adopted the Stars and Stripes as the emblem of the Union—had been sporadically observed ever since the start of the Civil War; but in the spring of 1916, Wilson officially proclaimed it a day for ‘special patriotic exercises’ on which Americans might ‘rededicate ourselves to the nation, ‘one and inseparable,’ from which every thought that is not worthy of our fathers’ first views of independence, liberty, and right shall be excluded.’ It had an electrifying effect.”

                From The Big Book of American Trivia by J. Stephen Lang published in the waning years of the 20^th century—1997—come these questions about “Grand Old Flags”: “Flags are more than pieces of fabric. They’re symbols, often highly charged with emotion. Small wonder that their design and care have been important parts of American life.”

                I’ll skip the first one (June14 is what holiday?) 2. What was John Philip Sousa’s flag-waving march, written in 1897? 3. What familiar D. C. sight is 555 feet tall and has fifty American flags around it? 4. What southern state’s flag shows a woman trampling a man? 5. What southwestern state’s flag features the sun symbol of the Zia Indians on a yellow background? 6. Over what historic Maryland fort was the first fifty-star U. S. flag raised in 1960? 7. What was added to the original U. S flag in 1795? 8. What state’s flag was designed in 1927 by a 13-year-old schoolboy? (Hint: the 49^th state)

                Answers: 2. “Stars and Stripes Forever”; 3. The Washington Monument; 4. Virginia’s—the female figure is actually an Amazon warrior woman, trampling on a tyrant. The state motto is Sic semper tyranniss—“Thus always to tyrants” (in other words, “Don’t mess with us Virginia folks”). 5. New Mexico’s;

                6. Fort McHenry in Baltimore, site of Francis Scott Key’s writing of “The Star Spangled Banner”; 7. Two new stars and stripes for the new states, Vermont, and Kentucky; 8. Alaska’s.

                Finally, from The Morrow Book of Quotations in American History by Joseph R. Conlin, 1984, these tidbits: Oliver Wendell Holmes – 1809-1894, Physician, poet, and wit: “One flag, one land, one head, one hand/ One Nation, evermore!” from “Voyage of the Good Ship Union,” 1802. And John Greenleaf Whittier (1807- 1892) Poet: “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,/ But spare your country’s flag,” she said.” (from “Barbara Freitchie,” 1863.

                Fly your flag on Flag Day.

c 2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Mostly photos of flowers and happenings around the Couchwood acre

What's left of a two-story-high brush pile in the southeast yard

One of two drift roses, second year, with driftwood, in front yard

Rose campion (I used to call lamb's ear) in the south patio. These plants grow everywhere a seed falls and are beautiful this time of year.

A community of toadstools that son says show tree roots below. Indeed, this is where a hackberry once lived until it needed cutting for the neighbor's fence, and I agreed.

Close-up of toadstools, south yard

I had trouble keeping the photos in the order I downloaded (uploaded?) but I guess it doesn't matter how they are arranged, does it? The rain keeps coming, the grass keeps growing, and we'll be thankful this summer if there's a drought.

First Sunday back to church at Tull AR, Mother's Day '20

c 2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

What to do with a persnickety feline?

  On my latest “must-do” list, I accomplished two: resupplied meds and bought Fancy Feast canned tuna for Greye, the 14-year old who was born on this hill and is the only one of his litter still living. Oh, how I wish I'd kept a ledger of the cost of the cans of cat food I've thrown out to the other creatures who live on this acre. 

              A little history: Mid-October of last year, he brought the back half of a rabbit to the door wanting inside. Of course, that was not an option. I picked up the late animal and threw it as far south as my left arm could throw. And ever since then, Greye's refused the dry food that he'd been eating all these years: Nine Lives with added nutrition. I finally sacked up the remaining and gave to Roxie W. for her feline.

            Since then, I've had to try something else--many something-elses. At first, he gobbled up cat cannedsalmon. Then, sniffed at it. Later, he gobbled up tuna, then sniffed at it. Cod, whitefish, shrimp, salmon mixture, pate, shreds, gravy, every brand and style that was available. For a while, he scarfed down Fancy Feast's tuna grilled flaked. I bought all the stock the stores around here had. (They didn't restock after a week, boo.)

        Last Sunday morning, I was in the car by 8 a.m. for a quick trip to the close-by dollar store. Greye needed Fancy Feast Grilled Tuna or Flaked tuna. None on the shelves (I’d bought up the last cans last Monday. )Another walk back to the front door with an empty buggy drew questioning eyes from both clerks. “Gotta find something Greye will eat. ‘Bye.”

                On the road to the nearest other dollar store (same brand) about three miles south, I met zero vehicles that early on Sunday. This store didn’t have the food Greye liked, but I bought a box (12) cans of various Fancy Feast fish/ salmon pate, plus three packs of four each tuna push-ups. Plus, litter. Plus a host of other things for myself.

                Face covered with a scarf (I was the only one with such), I checked out. An older man was in line behind me, also with cat food. We chatted about the changing appetites of our pets.

                At home, I pulled down a small plastic bowl, put one can of Fancy Feast in it, stirred it, then added one serving of tuna push-up, rather like a thick gravy. I mixed it and set it down at Greye’s “table.” One look, one smell, and he turned away. Now, what do I do?

              Since then, he's snubbed all the different kinds of Fancy Feast, the shreds of Friskies. All he'll eat are Temptations treats.

             Tonight while making my supper of turkey and Colby cheese on rye, I  tore off  small piece of the cheese and threw it to where he was standing. He actually ate it. When I placed a Ritz-like cracker beside it, he didn't "bite."  Then I thought, 'Wonder if he'll eat part of this sandwich?' So I sliced off an inch slab, placed it in a plastic bowl, smothered it with a push-up pack of tuna-flavored gravy and showed him. 

            Aha! He appeared to be eating, but when I looked, he'd only licked the tuna gravy and left the sandwich. Tomorrow's another trip to the store. Early. With face covering.

           And by the way, I'm way too old to have such a recalcitrant "child" to tend. Anyone want an otherwise sweet old cat?

                 

           c 2020 PL, dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA     

What can we do while sheltering at home?

                 For us without small grandchildren to homeschool, for us without (on purpose) TV, for those of us who prefer quiet to ‘white noise’, how have you spent your ‘shelter at home’ time? Some folks binge watch old or Netflix movies, clean out cabinets, file computer works and hard-copies that probably won’t be read until our descendants happen on them (when and if they go through our stuff ) after we’ve moved on.

                Others have used the time to catch up on reading. Since I ‘shelter at home’ most of the time anyway, nothing much is different other than the cancellation of various groups—Bryant Bunch Lunch, local poets’ meeting, church, Lucidity in Eureka Springs, Spring Celebration of Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, Girls of ’54 breakfast.

                Instead, on days without rain, I’ve worked in the yard trying to tame the spring-growing, ubiquitous privet, rake leaves from the flower beds, trim back the loropetalum, and move the houseplants to the front porch.

                Several folks from church (fifteen miles away in Tull) have checked on me, and a family going by the house who saw me outside wheeled in to see if I needed anything, and my retired-from AR-DOT son came over to mow and weed-eat. He and I stayed six feet apart during the entire morning, which was hard to do but we blew kisses to each other.

                I can tell more folks are on their computers or iPhones; my computer is much slower nowadays, it seems. I completed my MFA assignments on Tuesday before they were due on Sunday, so I began reading David Brook’s The Second Mountain. Greye-the-old-cat climbs up on my throw-covered lap for some close, quiet contact. Now, if I could find something he will eat longer than two days at a time.

                This past Sunday, I did vary my routine a bit. More than a bit, really. First, I slept (and dreamed) until nearly 10 a.m. I brought the local and state papers inside, cleared them of the advertisements, made coffee and checked email, Facebook, national news online.

                I looked through my CDs to find some choral music and found two discs of such. One was “Vivaldi” and the other was Faure’s “Requiem” both performed by my sister’s community chorus, NoVa Lights when she lived in northern Virginia. Then, instead of sitting at the table or on the loveseat, I sat on the sofa by the lamp table and began reading the Perspective section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I actually read nearly every article, column and letter to the editor, which I usually do NOT do. And by four o’clock I had even begun the BIG PUZZLE, always a difficult one. But it was nap time, so I turned off the music player, set the alarm for 6:30, warmed the heating pad and neckpiece and enjoyed a shortened snooze. Monday, things got back to normal.

              Now that the daffodils have gone, irises are popping up everywhere. My roadside bed is full of early whites and a few blue-purple ones. Later, the nursery stock whites and maroons with dazzle with their large blooms. Azaleas are coming into their fullness and beauty. If we have to stay home, we can enjoy the blooms. And hope the bees flock to the flowers, too.

c2020, PL, dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA