Quote of the Day

A man's mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)

Nancy Ward - Beloved Woman of the Cherokees

Last night Dorothy and I went to the Center for Performing Arts at Northeastern University at Tahlequah, OK to see a production of the musical "Nancy Ward - Beloved Woman of the Cherokees".  This story is especially dear to  Dorothy because she is a descendant of Nancy Ward . Dorothy's niece Paula Chaffin and her friend Kathy Morgan had singing parts. The play and music was written by Becky Hobbs the country song writer and singer who is also a descendant of Nancy Ward. It's the story of Nanyehi (Nancy Ward's Indian name) and how she helped her people to achieve peace with the White European settlers and to modernize Cherokee society by introducing farming, dairy production and other means of commerce.

 

 

Dorothy and Paula pose with Duane Sciacqua, a musician whose

resume includes playing guitar for the Eagles and Paul McCartney.

Duane is married to Becky Hobbs.

 

A Labor Day Sail in the Caribbean

This weekend our daughter Rachel and her husband Brad are sailing from St. Thomas to Culebra, Puerto Rico. They stopped at Culebrita and took this video:

Quote of the Day

"Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 19th century transcendental philosopher

First Day of School

First day of school for Jenna, 2nd grade, Hunter,

5th grade, and Marley, 8th grade.

Area 51

Have you heard the news? The government has declassified the infamous Area 51 in Nevada.  At first I expected bus tours to  be organized so that those of us who have been curious about the goings on out there in the desert could go take a look. After all the UFO sightings and rumors we deserve to finally know the truth.  Every few years a TV news crew attempts a penetration of the perimeter but are always turned back by armed, uniformed military men driving ominous looking SUVs.  On a vacation in 2003 I even took my family through the surrounding area to see what we could see.


Kelly, Sami holding Hunter, Marley picking
up a rock, Tara, Dorothy.

Here we are by  a UFO which evidently had crash landed outside the boundaries
of Area 51 (which is just beyond those mountains in the background.)
It's obvious that aliens frequent the inn. 

In the article I read officials claim the site was used to test the U2 spy plane during the 50's and 60's and the stealth technology on some newer aircraft. Admittance to the area will still be forbidden to the general public which makes me think they are still hiding something. Maybe I should make another trip to investigate. I'll start packing as soon as I can find my tinfoil hat.



 

Dorothy's Latest Cake

Dorothy got an order for a birthday cake for a little cousin turning 3yrs old.  Here's how it turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday Dinner

Although my birthday is not until Tuesday we had the party yesterday so the entire family could make it. 68 years old.  My God, that went fast.

Tara had to leave early for work so she's not in the picture. But,

here I am with Zacht (adopted grand son in black shirt), Gracen, Hunter,

Jenna, Sami, and Marley. In lieu of a cake I opted for a blackberry cobbler.

Dorothy also made a fudge brownie pie. There were only two candles to blow

out because the forest service withheld a burn permit to prevent a conflagration.

 

 

Quote of the Day

Know then that the world exists for you. . . All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house heaven and earth; Caesar called his house Rome; you perhaps call yours a cobbler's trade, a hundred acres of ploughed land, or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build therefore your own world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday Night with the Grand Kids

Saturday night we had three grand kids and one great grand child spend the night with us.  We watched a marathon showing of Scooby Doo cartoons until I couldn't stand it anymore and switched off with Laurel and Hardy.  We played Uno too.

 

 

Gracen thought the more cards the better and complained when she

she had to discard to the pile.

 

 

Jenna studies her cards

 

Hunter

 

 

Marley, at 13, is too mature to play cards with kids so she was in the other room watching

Scooby Doo.

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Day

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world.  Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries.  Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity.  It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

--Karen Armstrong

Quote of the Day

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
-- Louisa May Alcott

47 Years

Today Dorothy and I reached another milestone in our lives. This is our 47th wedding anniversary.

 

 

 

 

 

It's Not Good to Live Alone in Oklahoma

It's not good to live alone in Oklahoma because of the ticks. I don't have scientific statistics to prove it but my guess is that in this part of the country they outnumber humans a million to one.  The wretched little beasts evoke revulsion and disgust when they succeed in their efforts to latch on to our bodies.  It's necessary to have someone standing by to assist you  because of the bug's tendency to search out a location on our body that we can neither see nor reach. If you live alone and get that familiar itch between your shoulder blades you may be able to align some mirrors to enable you to confirm that it is indeed one of the nasty little arachnids, but how will you remove it?  I suppose you could have a doctor remove each tick that finds its way to your skin, but that would be expensive over the long-haul, and you just can't bother the mail man with something like that. No, we all need someone that we are on intimate terms with, someone who might even look forward to the job with great anticipation.  After all, didn't Brad Paisley sing "I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers, and I'd like to check you for ticks" ?  Yes, checking each other for ticks can often develop into a rather pleasant enterprise.

Quote of the Day

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
          
-- Carl Jung

Summer Eating

It seems that I'm spending most of my blogging time writing about food.  Well, it's summer.  Each year I expect to lose weight in the summer because we practically become vegetarians with all the stuff coming out of our garden. But I realize that's not possible with all the jams and jellies, pies and cobblers, breads and cakes made from fresh ingredients during this season. For example, we had a very nice low calorie taco salad for lunch today, then for dessert we had this pie that just came out of the oven:

Blackberry-Peach Buttermilk Pie

 

 

 

Maybe I can get back to watching my weight in the fall.

Quote of the Day

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children.
This is not a way of life....Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging itself on a cross of iron.

--Dwight Eisenhower - General, 34th President of the Unitied States, April 16, 1953

Busy Saturday

Dorothy finished a birthday cake she was working on yesterday, so this morning I gathered as many tomatoes from the garden as possible.  She worked on two projects:  blackberry jelly and salsa.

Getting all the ingredients together to make the salsa.

 

 

Look at the pretty stuff.

 

 

After finishing a fresh batch of blackberry jelly the logical

thing to do is to make biscuits, and while they were in the

oven why not fry up some bacon and eggs? Hash browns

seemed to fit the plate too. The tomatoes, potatoes, and blackberries

are fresh from the garden. Soul satisfying is the only way I can

describe the pleasure of eating food from your own patch of ground.

 

 

Quote of the Day

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

--Sir Isaac Newton

Dorothy's Latest Cake