stereoman's Blog

I want to send a great big thank you to everyone who has over the past few days thought of me and my Beloved, wished us well, said a prayer for us, sent us a smile, posted on my "getting married" thread, or otherwise added to the aura of good energy that has been upon us since our ceremony last Saturday. THANK YOU! I believe your thoughts, prayers, smiles and good wishes MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Needless to say, I have no wedding photos to post since I was not taking pictures at the time. When they become available, I will share. Promise. I did however have a camera along for our honeymoon, and I took quite a few photos that are in fact appropriate to post on this forum.

So. Our Honeymoon Cottage.

This is in Hot Springs, NC, just 35 miles from our house, a lovely private camping area right along the French Broad River.

Legend has it that a brave native warrior was spurned by the local princess and leapt to his death from the bluffs on the other side of the river.

Almost every cliff face and bluff in Western North Carolina has a similar "legend".

Our first outing was a road trip to Roan Mountain, up in FrazzledApril's neck of the woods. We swashed our way through torrential rains both going and coming back, but while there, when we had driven to the very top of the mountain, there was a brief respite of steady drizzle. In a parking lot big enough to hold a hundred, ours was the only car. We hiked to the top of Roan High Bluff (the second-highest point on the mountain) in an eerie gray silence punctuated only by the steady droll of tiny droplets on the lush alpine forest. The mosses blazed with reproductive activity, and every living thing glowed a vigorous green.

Next day the weather was picture perfect, the air deeply cleansed by the previous day's deluge. Off we went to do our obligatory honeymoon tourist destination: Dollywood! Now you might be thinking just what I was thinking at the beginning of the journey, something like "Oh boy this is going to be overblown commercialism at its crassest, a theme park focused on a tiny woman with a great big  . . . voice." But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Sure, the park was full of self-aggrandizements and scary rides.

But it included a great deal of authentic (not just replicated) pioneer artifacts, as well as a working blacksmith shop, a working wagon building enterprise, and a huge water wheel operating a four ton grindstone, among many other machines, all connected together with authentic looking canvas and leather belts, and watched over by a genuine millwright. Fred here told me he'd love to have a copy of this photo, but he doesn't have a computer.

We got to ride on the old-timey train, a century-old locomotive that had been painstakingly rebuilt by craftspeople in the on-site locomotive barn.

Along the ride was a diorama of pioneer life in the Southern Appalachians. "Hillbilly" life, if you will.

In addition, the park has used some of its funds to build a preserve for bald eagles that are unable to survive in the wild due to injury or prolonged captivity. Among the dozen or so birds we saw two nesting couples and a hatchling in one of the nests! They are magnificent birds.

And here we are at the end, posing for the obligatory promotional photo:

Well that's about it, folks. You don't get to see the rest. We're back home now, I gardened today as well as installing Win2000Pro on my second SATA drive, since my WinXPPro has now been installed one too many times and Uncle Bill won't let me use it anymore. Still installing software. Then I have to do room assignments for the conference coming up in two weeks, and get all the other site arrangements taken care of.

Busy times ahead. Thanks for reading my blog!

Steve

My little patch of urban paradise is really shaping up! Everything that's going in the ground is in the ground, everything that needs to be mulched is mulched, flowers are blooming in reckless abandon, and I have begun to harvest. Mostly radishes.

Radishes. I used to plant radishes primarily as marker plants, and used a few here and there in salads. Most of them ended up in the compost, until this year. This year, I discovered that my dear friend Virginia is crazy about radishes.

Virginia is more than a friend. I jokingly refer to her as my "surrogate grandmother", although I'm really too old for an 84 year old woman to be my grandmother. Heck, my father is 86! But she doesn't mind the title. Years ago, ten or twelve I think, she briefly attended the Quaker meeting where I am a member, but I didn't get to know her then; it wasn't until two years ago that a mutual friend suggested I call her because she needed help with her computer. She was in the midst of writing a memoir of her youth, and completely computer illiterate.

Now the book is completed, and in the hands of a publisher. In the time we've known one another, we've found very strong similarities in our outlook on the world, our views of theology, and our desire to make the world a more peaceful and pleasant place in whatever little ways we can. One thing we learned about each other, for example, is that we eschew drive-in windows. We always conduct business in person, and always have a conversation with the person we are conducting business with. Bank teller, wait person, CSR, grocery checkout, doesn't matter who. If I can get a person to smile, I feel I have accomplished something worthwhile. Viriginia feels just the same way.

I believe in the power of prayer to influence events in the world. I believe that if enough people are praying together at the same time for the same thing, it becomes much more likely to happen. I believe that if a person prays for something often and ardently, it affects the person's life. A few years ago, some of the folks in my Quaker meeting started getting together in the middle of the week for the purpose of praying for peace. We spend a half hour in silence, then a half hour sharing with one another our experiences as peacemakers. Mostly just little things. We're not rabble rousers, crusaders, or self-styled messiahs, we're just ordinary people making peace with one person at a time. After our time of worship, we share a big pot of "stone soup" and a small salad.

Over the years, the participants in this little group have changed somewhat, and a year ago, we began meeting at Virginia's house. She was delighted to have it, as she relishes being a host and because of a physical handicap is unable to attend Sunday meeting. And she was thrilled to have a big helping of home-made vegetable soup once a week, especially when it included ingredients from my garden. I try to have something fresh every week. A few weeks ago, I brought some radishes for the first time. The way Virginia reacted, you'd think she was a six year old just opened the gift wrap to find that Santa had brought her just what she wanted!

That's the way she is: no holds barred immersed in the simple joys of everyday life, never tiring of counting and recounting her blessings. I admire her so much, for having lived her life as she did, and being the person that she is. I hope that very soon, her wonderful book will be published and she will be a famous old lady author. I look forward to seeing her hobbling amongst her fans, autographing, smiling and laughing, asking them how they liked the book, and being really interested in hearing what each person has to say.

That day will come, I pray. But for right now, I simply look forward to bringing her another bowl of radishes, knowing that the sight, the smell, and the taste of them will brighten her life.

O! that there were more hours in the day! My work -- my "real" job -- has been taking its toll of late, coupled with planning for an upcoming event of great importance. Three weeks from tomorrow, our friends, families, and faith community will come together to witness me and my Beloved exchange our marriage vows. We're trying to keep it simple, mind you, but even "simple" seems insufferably complicated.

I keep on a steady keel by taking one thing at a time, and not taking it personally when it all gets to be too much for my darling Lynnora and she gets all disturbed over the details. We can work it out. There's plenty that's gone wrong so far that we've managed to work through, so why not face the future with confidence?

My main complaint right now is lack of time for gardening. In addition to the wedding plans, my business has been keeping me busy far too many hours. And worse than that, I've run out of mulch! In the midst of everything else that's going on, I have to find someone willing to loan me their pickup truck, and then get on down to the mulch factory for a fill up.

How can I garden without mulch??!!

After a light frost a coupe of mornings ago, it appears that our weather is ready to settle, with balmy temperatures forecast through the second week of the month. I am happy to report that our resident hillbilly's tried and true method for preventing frost damage has been tried and proven once again. I was out in the garden at quarter to six, Beloved protesting in her sleep, hosing down my tender plants, certain that anyone who saw me would think me a fool, especially with all the rain we've had lately. But everyone in the neighborhood already knows I'm a bit eccentric -- why should they be surprised to see me watering my plants in the dark?

Later in the day, the sun high in the sky, the still air warmed to the fifties. My potatoes were all just as perky and robust as they were the day before. My tiny baby beans, just this week beginning to pop to the surface, all pointed their baby leaves like happy little arms. Not a drooper among them! My zucchini, recklessly planted far too early, was unscathed. My Beloved, who doesn't often engage in gardening endeavors, did me a "favor" and planted several caladiums over the weekend, in a particularly cool and shady spot. They too, were undamaged by the frost, thanks to the Bill Mitchell Frost Insurance Spray Program.

So the garden is making progress on its own despite my lack of time and lack of mulch. I even had the delight of my first harvest the other day -- four ounces of radishes and a handful of swiss chard!

There's my little chard babies, all shiny and colorful . . . photo taken before I harvested that mighty handful!

Plump red radishes are bulging through the mulch, and my first legion of carrots have developed their first feathers.

The front bed is right next to the sidewalk, and chock full of perennial bulbs, annual flowers, and . . . potatoes! In the background, you can see the boundary between my yard and my neighbor's, where I've cleared out the boxwood hedge and planted my (our!) first three blueberries bushes, one barely visible at the left.