Birthday visitor

Russ remembered how to rock hop into the middle of the Little River

Sad feelings today.  A visit from one of my sons was short, sweet, and oh so busy and full of love.  Now he's driving fast along the highway back toward his own life, and I'm so glad he had a chance to step into mine for a few days.  There were moments I knew he was texting with his wife or kids, and I thought how he must need to stay connected to them while here.  I didn't mind at all.  It would have been nice if they could have visited too, but the kids are in school still.  I did love hearing about their lives. Maybe over a vacation I can see them.

A rather strange panorama with Looking Glass Falls and Russ taking it's photo!

I'll share a few of my photos here today...more as I enjoy remembering my "late birthday present day with my son."

I don't know the reason that arm is extended...?

Coming back through the rhododendron thicket was a bit more tricky than just jumping along rocks.

The following are more or less private notes for myself. (I extended my own day, being out and about for more hours than I had previously.  Of course I came home and collapsed into a 2 hour nap.  But afterward I did stay up for my regular evening pursuits.  You don't really care about all this, but this is also my journal here, so I keep track of what my health is doing.  Goddess knows the doctors don't.)

And thus is the life of a 75 year old...grateful for so much, but aware of how my life now revolves somewhat around the medical conditions that I'm dealing with, and will the rest of my lifetime!  My dear doctor shrugged his shoulders about several of my questions.  Apparently the experts don't know that much. He did say I wouldn't get any better with bronchiectasis.  But he had no new options available for me either.  Come back in 6 months.  But really why?

Potpourri

Some photos which just don't seem to go together, but I found enjoyable.

First a lovely dinner of swordfish steak, fresh organic corn on the cob, and luscious nectarines. Not only delicious, but such vibrant colors!

The fish has a bit of paprika tossed across it, but mainly was just buttered and baked inside aluminum foil for about a half hour and then broiled for five minutes in the toaster oven. The corn is shucked, then wrapped in wax paper and microwaved for 2 minutes, let sit still wrapped for 5 minutes as the heat finishes cooking it.

Roy Rogers and Trigger in front of the Alamo in San Antonio, TX in the 50s I think.

I never knew that when the horse did that rearing back that the rider leaned back rather than bending forward (which I'd have done!) He's got good stomach muscles!

Dr. David Blight of Yale University (New Haven CT) was in Asheville, NC to give a lecture on Frederick Douglass a few weeks ago.  I attended along with a half dozen of my friends, and as you can see, there were more grey hairs than young grad students in this Lenoire-Rhyme Grad School sponsored lecture, but it was standing room only.  Dr. Blight is about to publish another book on Frederick Douglass, and knew a lot more than his 2 hour lecture could cover.

I've taken Dr. Blight's course on line from Open Courses Yale...available HERE.  I enjoyed learning more about the Reconstruction era, as well as the politics behind the Civil War.  I spoke about how his course helped me understand how this time affected my own ancestors in the south HERE.

Coincidentally he was also interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning the week before he gave the lecture here.  He spoke about how Yale had recently renamed a building from the slave-owner  Calhoun, to a female military heroine.  (See this article HERE.) Some of the discussion had been about how statues of Confederate soldiers were being pulled down.  He also was questioned about how Elihu Yale (for whom the university is named) had been not only a slave-owner, but made most of his wealth by being a slave trader...so was the university considering changing it's name? Dr. Blight said in his interview on CBS - he wouldn't go there.

Sepia Saturday this week gives this theme to consider.  I have no idea who's at the controls, and have decided to share other miscellaneous photos with you this week.

This is a photograph of the cockpit of a 1948 B-36 plane which appears on the Flickr Commons stream of the American Aviation Historical Society.

Flora and fauna and Espanol

The other day there wasn't a single goose around.  Maybe they've gone south finally.

Goldenrod in full bloom, which apparently is not the one that triggers allergies.  The Ragweed does that, according to a good friend.

I don't have to go far to enjoy these mums, nor that rosemary below, right outside the Lakeview Center for Active Aging, at Lake Tomahawk. I like the new name, though it's a bit long.  I have really enjoyed taking my Spanish conversation class there weekly, as well as meeting many new friends at the lunch program sponsored by the Council on Aging.

Ola! From some of the regulars at the Seniors Spanish Conversation table - free of course! (Lunch costs $1.50 with reservations)

Last week of September

Yes, there were tubers floating down the French Broad River on Saturday 9.23.17!!

Just look at those fungi on that old stump!

A B&B overlooking Lake Tomahawk with lovely blue and violet hydrangeas

Some real monarch butterflies (sorry I don't remember who posted them, aren't they beautiful!)

I saw a monarch flittering across the 4 lanes of US 70 in Black Mountain the other day, holding my breath that he didn't hit anyone's windshield.  He made it.  Now only a few thousand more miles to go to Mexico for the winter.

Words for Wednesday - Another blog reposted

 I enjoyed reading this description of Aldous Huxley's thinking...writing...musings!

The Doors of Perception – Aldous Huxley

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Christopher Chase

“Each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet.” ~Aldous Huxley

https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/the-doors-of-perception-aldous-huxley/

Sacred stone writings

I've heard of "newspaper rocks" and viewed some out west.  And some in the southeast.  Here's Judaculla Rock, right in my backyard, so to speak.  It's near Cullowee, NC, a little over an hour from my home in Black Mountain.

 First view...it's huge, with a nice interpretive walkway around it...no not a translation, but some of its history!

 It's location is at the head of a cove, with a field of cattle next to it.  It's been protected by one family, the Parkers, who have owned and farmed the valley for generations.

These nice interpretive plaques are arranged around the raised walkway overlooking the rock.  Seeing the Cherokee Syllabary, I remembered reading about Sequoia, who devised it so that their language could be written. Then I tried to remember New Echota, GA, where many Cherokee were housed before the "trail of tears," the genocidal removal of Native Americans to the west by white men.

The information given says the rock was used to form bowls as these three lumps show the beginning of carving away the basic shapes...about 3000 years ago.  The other marks are unknown but believed to have been carved 1500 years ago.

As we looked at the symbols, and discussed what we saw (our own sense of meaning of course, like how art therapy looks at intuitive meanings of symbols) we made discoveries that changed.  One part seemed to be a footprint, but later we thought it looked more like a man and woman.  I think these signs may well have deeper meaning.  We didn't stand and ponder for long however, but I am glad to have brought home some good photos which I can now look at for more intense study.

Anyone who has studied Karl Jung and archetypal meanings of symbols would really enjoy these carvings.  And any archeologist would enjoy thinking of the people, the culture that was supportive of the forming of this enduring collection.  Myself, I am thrilled to finally see it.  Now to find the Cat Museum in Sylva...

Cookie Jars - Three

 More butter yellow glaze, with a bit of drips of white and plum.
I like the little ball in the middle of the handle, for some reason.

 This is the largest of my jars, I've been making.

Cookie Jars - two.

The other 5 pounder, has a inset lid, which I prefer to those that sit on a gallery, or lip inside the opening.  Main reason is being a householder I find it's hard to clean everything out from behind those galleries.

This one has yellow tulips with orange highlights, lots of green leaves, and a turquoise background glaze

Here is what it looks like finished.  I'm very pleased with it.

Windows into ancestors

Let's look a bit at windows, as triggered by Sepia Saturday!

So I'm looking through my New England ancestors to find some of the oldest houses they built, to just look a glimpse into their lives through their windows.

John Sherburne house at Strawberry Banke Museum, Portsmouth, NH

Captain John Sherborne built his house in Portsmouth NH in 1695. Those windows are wonderful, but small. His wife's sister was an ancestor of mine, so he was just a great uncle times 10 or so.

I enjoy finding grandmothers who somehow had 12 children, and Grisell Brindley Sylvester was one of them, (More about her Here.)  Her husband Capt. Nathaniel Gascoigne Sylvester became quite rich off of the sugar/slave trade in the early 17th century, and bought and settled Shelter Island, NY, which is at the end of Long Island, NY. (More about him HERE.) I haven't been able to discern who his parents were, however.  But he did have brothers, and they married and also had many children.  So there's a whole bunch of cousins out there! This is in the lineage of my father's mother, Ada Swasey Rogers.

Photo of the Sylvester Manor as it is today. It was inhabited by family members for 12 generations, from 1652.

Sylvester Manor as rebuilt in 1737, as it looks today (2016?)  These windows have the ability to go up from the bottom or down from the top.

Ann Sylvester was daughter of Nathaniel and Grisell, and Ann married Jonathan Bower, and their home looks like this...also still standing. Their home was the first built in Somerset, MA in 1723...

These are incredible windows!

Obviously the window with the air conditioner is newer, but I notice the one with diamond panes below it swings out to the side, of the older part of the home.

There's even a quilt of old Somerset houses, and this one is included! 

Jonathan Bowers home is 3rd from top in second to right hand column.

The Bowers daughter, Mary married Joseph Swasey, who built the house below in 1749 also in Somerset MA.

And Joseph Swasey's father Samuel had built the house on the left in Newburyport, MA in 1735, while his father Joseph built the one on the right in 1710-11.  At least this is the way they are listed in Ancestry.

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt is...

So I think my ancestors were looking out through these various windows when they were children!

Cookie Jars - One

I started with this little one.  5 pounds of clay and a lot of trimming.

Having done over a dozen small cats in yoga poses, which apparently aren't considered sculptures in clay by the ones who look at pottery blogs (not a one was mentioned last month by Pottery Blogs)...I decided I could do a few cookie jars.  I guess the yoga cats are consider whimsey.  They each took at least and hour to make.  And I'm an artist, so I consider them whimsey art!

 Well, I decorated it with the red sunflowers.