My Far-Flung Family

Let's see. It's Wednesday. My sister and brother-in-law must be in Panama because last month they were in Costa Rica. Sarah is just back from a business trip and a few days of fun in Puerto Rico. And Anna is in Vietnam for a couple weeks, part of a leadership program for agriculture in Minnesota. Without the wonders of Facebook and WhatsApp (free texting all over the world) I would be feeling very lonely!

 

 

My sister and BIL rented a house in Costa Rica for a few months. My favorite adventure of theirs so far involved this little guy.

 

 

 

They were eating breakfast one morning in their open air kitchen and a baby sloth fell from the rafters of the house with a plop onto the floor at their feet! No mama in sight, which was odd because this was a tiny baby and they usually stay attached to the fur on the mama's belly for many weeks after birth.

The neighbors called an animal rescue group who sent someone out to try to find the mother. No luck. They were told that baby sloths seldom survive without their mother and they didn't offer much hope for this one. They recorded the baby's cries, took the baby with them, and left the recording to be played at intervals in hopes that the mother would hear and come s-l-o-w-l-y down out of the trees to find her baby.

Several days passed. They did see one sloth but it was determined to be a male, not the mama.

Finally, after it seemed too late to even be looking, they spotted a female in a tree!

I'll let my sister take over from here:

"A little later in another tree Darryl spotted another sloth. This one looked like a female. We played the tape of the baby over and over and she reacted, moving around trying to see where it was coming from. Called the rescue people and they came right over. The guy said yes it's a female and is the mother.

"They had brought the baby with them. They put it at the base of the tree with our speaker playing hoping the mother would come down. She started to come down but stopped. They decided they would get the baby up to the mother. They got a rope around the branch right by the mother and used my straw purse to put the baby in and hoisted it up. Took a bit for the baby to get out of my purse and try to reach the mother. The mother was able to reach down and grab the baby and put it on her back.

"It was one of the neatest things we've seen. The rescue people were very happy and appreciative for us spotting her."

I just wish they had taken more pictures!

 

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Harper Lee and Atticus Finch

Having taught American (as well as British) lit for many years, I learned of the death of Harper Lee this weekend with memories both sad and sweet.

Most American students read To Kill a Mockingbird in the 9th grade. Over the years I guided hundreds of them through it.

I love this book.

My copy has many loose pages held together by a rubberband. It has years of underlining, highlighting, and notes.

 

With her southern gentility and beautiful prose, Ms Lee seductively and oh-so-gently draws the reader into a horrifying tale of unfairness, of prejudice, racism, classism, gossip, brutality, suspicion of those who are "different," parental abuse, alleged rape, and murder. The story's profound lessons are delivered by the wise lawyer, "nigger lover" and single father Atticus Finch. Through the tale, the reader is confronted with the maddening stew that is the complexity of human nature and the problems that afflict society. Ultimately, and at great personal sacrifice, even Atticus is helpless in the face of such deeply-rooted custom and prejudice.

Atticus faces an angry mob of white men with his children by his side outside the jail on the night before he is to defend a black man in a rape trial. (from the movie To Kill a Mockingbird)

For many, if not most, students Mockingbird is an introduction to life in the American South post slavery, with all the complexities of good people and prejudice that comes from generations of living in Maycomb, Mississippi. With the children of Atticus, Jem and Scout, readers lose their innocence.

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Atticus Finch, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

The book is served up to students at a time when teenage brains are maturing, as they begin to examine issues and form values apart from their parents' and based on their own knowledge and experience. It's a about the loss of innocence read by students who are in the midst of losing their own.

"Its not fair"

"It's not right"

they protest. With the children of Atticus, students grapple with tough lessons gently taught:

The knowledge that good people, people who are willing to make great personal sacrifice, can't always fix society's evils.

The knowledge that the all-powerful parents who rid the closet and beneath the bed of monsters can't fix everything.

The knowledge that,

"You can never really understand a person

until you consider things from his point of view. ... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

Atticus Finch, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

 

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Be-you-tee-ful Beaufort

Beaufort (pronounced b'you-fert) is South Carolina's second oldest city. It's located on Port Royal Island, about a half hour from our house by road. A few weeks ago we enjoyed a horse drawn carriage tour of historic homes of the town.

The carriages are brightly colored and the horses friendly and smart. The horses are purchased from the Amish after their farming lives are over and housed on a farm outside of town.

According to our guide, they know the route as well as she does and make stops and turns without being "told". Ours even watched the traffic light turn green, the signal to proceed!

She told us that the horses work a day and rest a day and they don't like to be left back at the barn. They all come running to the fence when the trailer arrives whether it's their turn to work or not.

They also have a rest between trips and it was obvious that they were restless and as ready to go as we were before their rest time was up.

 

 

Our guide was a young Beaufort native who knew a LOT about the town's history and clearly loved her job.

 

She was also an interesting story teller, and especially charming with her southern accent.

 

 

 

 

Beaufort is known for maintaining its historic character and preserving its antebellum architecture. It was occupied by Union troops just after the Civil War began and spared the burning and destruction of other towns of the South because the Union used it as a military headquarters throughout the war.

 

I can't remember all the stories and I can't remember which house was which. So I'll show you some houses and tell you some of the stories randomly. Sorry about that!

I had a hard time taking any photos at all because I was in the middle, sandwiched between some large people who were leaning out to take photos most of the trip.

 

 

 

The mansions of Beaufort were built as summer homes for planters of South Carolina, a refuge for them and their families to escape the heat, insects, and disease of the swamps further inland.

When Union troops took the town in 1862 there was almost no resistance from the planters who owned the property and home. They grabbed what they could and ran from the city in carts and carriages, hastily burying treasures that they couldn't take with them in the gardens and under outbuildings.

None of the planters returned after the war and most of the grand homes were sold to former slaves or northerners for a few dollars of back taxes.

Most of the homes were occupied during the war by Union generals and other military commanders and their staffs.

 

Several functioned as a hospitals for Union soldiers with outbuildings used as morgues. Others were used as federal government buildings.

 

 

 

After the war one house was inherited by two brothers who couldn't get along so they ripped out the staircase at the center and divided the house in two. Presumably they and their two families lived happily--and seperately--ever after!

Another grew so tired of his two daughters squabbling over who would inherit the family home that he built them two identical mansions side by side on the same street.

Long before these times, the pirate Blackbeard hung around what was then called Fish Town. In the 1990s the ruins of Blackbeard's ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, were found and identified in the water two miles from the Beaufort harbor. There are lots of stories of Blackbeard and his women visiting and staying in some of the mansions where it seemed like he always killed someone, the bloodstains are still visible, and the place haunted.

 

 

In spite of hurricanes and fires that destroyed parts of Beaufort after the Civil War, some gorgeous old trees, up to 300 years old, remain. Several of them grow in the middle of or right over the old streets like this one. Some are marked with signs with the height clearance, some are not.

The carriage barely fit underneath the one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A live oak so old that its branches have grown along the ground and back up is called an "angel oak".

 

 

 

The "motor" for our carriage got plenty of treats on the trip from the treat bucket on board.

 

 

 

 

 

He is also wore a fly-protecting head cover for his comfort.

 

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Wednesday Whatnot

We've had some cold weather that gets me longing to take on a knitting project. The only problem is, I live in South Carolina now and can't think of anything I need to knit!

I have a couple winter scarves, more than enough for the few days cold enough to wear them, two wool shawls (ditto), and several pairs of wool socks.

So, when I saw this car on the road in front of us, I knew exactly what happened.

 

 

 

She had to knit!

Something! Anything!

I may soon be out yarn bombing our mailbox.

Or knitting leggings for the egrets, poor things, who stand out in the icy water day after day.

 

 

 

I couldn't resist stopping in this animal rescue charity shop when I saw the name.

 

 

 

And look what I found!

My cat would have loved it.

And defeathered it in a day!

And probably broken the lamp in the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tulip tree last weekend outside the Beaufort Library

... and some very good advice

 

 

 

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Back to Amelia Island

Amelia Island off the Florida/Georgia coast is one of our favorite places.

When my house is Minnesota is sold next spring, we are thinking of making it our home.

We ended our Florida trip last week with a night and a day on Amelia. When we arrived at our hotel the sky was cloudy and gray with just a hint of the pink sunset.

 

We had this beautiful view of the ocean and sky from our hotel balcony over the dunes.

We took an evening walk on the beach and then settled in at the sand bar to listen to the waves break on the shore and have dinner.

We were practically the only diners sitting outside.

 

 

 

The next morning we walked another beach, City Beach, in the only town on the island, Fernandina Beach. I had never seen Black Skimmers before, and they were in abundance.

 

 

The skimmers hang out with flocks of gulls on the sand, then suddenly en masse lift out of the gull gathering and fly and wheel low along the beach. Then they land, the gulls catch up, and they do it all over again!

 

 

 

This is a a skimmer.

I couldn't get near enough to them to get a closeup so thank you very much, Wikipedia.

 

 

 

 

On the drive home from Amelia, we left the interstate somewhere to take a backroad through Woodbine, Georgia, population 1300, in search of the Stardust Motel. Even better, we found this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Woodbine International Fire Museum and antique store.

The sign on the right says "SHUT. Dead People's Things For Sale".

It looks as if it has been closed up for a long time.

Wouldn't you just love to meet the owner whose dream this was? I would!

 

 

 

Just one more photo for you.

 

 

 

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday in the USA. The Green Bay Packers weren't playing so without a dog in the fight, I stayed home and read a book.

 

Obviously the rest of the family

was out partying!

 

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No Rana Temporaria. Just F.R.O.G.

In case you wondered ...

 

 

No frogs (rana temporaria to scientists) were hurt in the making of Frog Jam.

Honest!

Frog is an acronym for the main jam ingredients which are

F for figs

R for raspberries

O for oranges, and

G for ginger.

FROG JAM

(Makes 5-6 half pints)

Ingredients:

4 cups fresh figs

1/2 cup orange juice

2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

1 tsp fresh ginger, chopped fine

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 Tbsp low-sugar pectin

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

Purée the fruit and ginger in a blender until smooth.

Cook mixture in a large pot with sugar and pectin over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens, about 10-15 minutes.

Pour in jars and keep in refrigerator.

Frog jam is said to be "exquisite" and an "irresistible combination" of fruit.

You can make it

Hoppin' Frog Jam

by adding jalapeño peppers to taste!

Apparently it's a favorite food at Amish weddings these days.

I wouldn't know. I don't have any fresh figs to try a batch.

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'I Brought You a Little Something'

I thought we would stop on our way home and get you something from Florida. This looks like the perfect place (and reminds me of the Florida of my childhood).

One-stop shopping.

The Nuthouse has everything!

 

 

There are lemon, lime, and orange trees

for sale

in front.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would you like some shells

or oranges?

Frog jam, anyone?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if frog jam doesn't do it for you,

how about some alligator jerky?

 

Last chance!

Shell wind chimes, t-shirts, peach cider, necklaces, 10 flavors of honey, boiled peanuts, marmalade, bags of pecans in the shell, shelled pecans flavored with chocolate, cinnamon, chili pepper, honey, lime, orange or dirt (ha ha, I made that one up!).

 

 

 

We bought some local honey for the friends who took care of the dogs,

used the restrooms,

and escaped!

 

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