Almost Time to Leave

Only a few days until I leave Minnesota for South Carolina.

I feel suspended in mid air

teetering on a brink

waiting to go over the edge . . .

and already missing my life here.

Oh, I'm happy to claim love and companionship I didn't expect, I'm excited about new adventures, and I have plenty to do right now --packing, sorting, planning the travel and all that. But that doesn't take away . . . all the goodbyes.

 

Many things have fallen easily into place: a boy thrilled to have the summer job of mowing my lawn, someone to check the house, wifi put on a "vacation rate," mail forwarded, cat carrier borrowed and tranquilizers arranged (for the cat, not the people) ( although that did cross my mind as an alternative), and so on.

So hard to leave this

This little guy had his first trip to the ER after a playground accident at school.

I'm retired, my partner is not. He is a writer who loves his work and spends his days at the computer, on the phone, out doing interviews or research. So I've been exploring things I might want to do to stay busy and I came across something someone else might be interested in: free on-line college classes with courses in many areas of study by well-known colleges of the world. Free!

 

I signed up for two for the summer: England in the Time of Richard III offered by the University of Leicester and the BBC, and WWI, Trauma and Memory offered by Open University.

 

The classes are of short duration and require 2-4 hours of work a week. No books to purchase either -- reading is done on line and lectures are on video. Student discussion groups are formed either on social media or by sharing comments and conversation on written documents as they are being read.

 

Anyway, here is the link if you are interested. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses

If you sign up for either of the two classes I mentioned, let me know so you can be in my discussion group. I'm planning to sign up for a class in Creative Arts next, when there is one offered that strikes my fancy.

It's so hard to leave my family, even harder than I thought it would be.

Life will go on.

It will be good.

(I don't know what's going on with Blogsy. I've spent all afternoon doing and redoing this post, and this is as good as it gets! )

 

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Gimme a Sign

Signs.

They're everywhere.

Small town Minnesota shop,

with a little bit of everything.

Yes, books,

lest you miss them amongst all the, um,

stuff.

The bigger and higher the sign,

the greater the patriotism?

Practical signs, this one multi-tasking in

London.

We need these in America. Those butts on

the ground and

gum on your shoe are so unattractive.

Advertising.

Because everything sells better with a

Santa on it.

Perplexing signs.

Why do these steps in Savannah, Georgia,

require a warning sign?

They look to be in excellent shape.

 

Signs to make us laugh

(Needs a little grammar work on pronoun agreement, though)

And signs to remind us how to live.

 

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Sunrise on a Morning in May

 

"For one minute, walk outside,

stand there, in silence, look up at the sky,

and contemplate how amazing life is."

– Unknown

The first miracle of each day is the rising of the sun.

There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.

~Bern Williams

The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere.

~John Muir

At sunrise the world is luminous but not clear. It is those we know and live with and love that elude us. You can love completely without understanding completely."

~from the movie "A River Runs Through It"

Some sunrises are like a loved one's smile. They set the world afire.

Today is my dad's birthday and I cherish every sunrise we shared.

Happy Birthday, Papa.

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April (Snow) Showers Bring May Flowers

Spring is very short in the North and there is so much to be done.

Today I weeded and fertilized the asparagus and rhubarb with compost and chicken manure from my sister's chickens. I turned the compost pile, which was teeming with wonderful red worms, and unearthed a baby vole. After it righted itself and became accustomed to the light it slowly meandered off, nose to dirt. Even though I'm not having a vegetable garden this year it seems like there is plenty of work to do, mostly caring for the perennials.

When it's too dark to work outside I'm planning our route to South Carolina. Some of it will have to be traveled on Interstate highways because we have a limited amount of time, but some of it will also be on the "blue highways," the backroads, the ones that follow the routes through small towns that were America before the Interstate highway system came into being and created an America all their own.

If you know of a good travel app or website for the US, especially one for the blue highways to help with planning our trip, please share. It's a special trip for us, and we don't want to miss anything fun! So far we have Iowa's Largest Frying Pan to visit, as well as the future birthplace of Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame and a few others.

I've been enjoying a book called A Field Guide to Happiness, What I Learned in Bhutan about Living, Loving, and Waking Up by Linda Leaming. Bhutan has been called "the happiest place on earth" and the book is humorous but also full of wisdom. I'll leave you with quote I like from the book.

"Acceptance is so much a part of being happy.

First of all, accept who you are in all of your misshapen glory; and then accepting others is a piece of cake.

Mmmm, cake!"

Happy May Day!

 

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A Walk in the Park

.

A week ago it was snowing and the ground was white for a day and a night.

Since then, spring has been making its way north.

Finally!

 

 

No leaves on the birches deep in the woods yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first woodland flowers of spring, the bloodroot, have just opened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along the marsh the faintest and softest greens increase daily

 

 

 

 

 

 

... just like the willows on the banks of the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No warblers yet, but the Canada geese and mallard ducks are pairing up and defending territory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed a picnic of Chinese take-out (triple mushroom pork to be exact) on a rock in the sun and then had a 3-mile hike for dessert.

A perfect way to spend a few hours of a perfect spring day.

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The Falls of St Anthony, Minneapolis

Viewed from the Guthrie Theater, St Anthony Falls, the small settlement that was to become the city of Minneapolis, glows in the spring sun.

The Falls of St. Anthony by Albert Bierstadt

The largest falls on the Mississippi River first became known to the world in 1680 when their beauty was published in a journal by Father Louis Hennepin, an early explorer and Catholic friar of Belgian birth. Father Hennepin is also the one to write about Niagara Falls and bring them to the world's attention.

Indian tribes portaged their canoes on their trade route, the Mississippi River, and practiced their sacred ceremonies on this site from time unknown. When the white explorers discovered the area, the falls became a tourist attraction and source of power for lumber mills, then the flour mills that made Minneapolis "the flour capital of the world" from 1880 to 1930.

Photos by Paul deVere

Locks and dams were added along the great river between 1937 and 1963 to make it navigable by the ships and barges carrying goods from the Midwest 2030 miles downstream to the port of New Orleans.

It's still exciting to sit in the park along the river bank and watch the huge chains of barges powered by a single towboat through the lock and take in all the beauty of Minneapolis and the great Mississippi River.

Thanks for visiting my blog today. I love reading your comments and will visit your blog in return.

 

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The Times They Are A-Changing

 

I'm a really big planner. I thought I had my retirement plans pretty much set, and I certainly had no clue that only a year and a half into it those plans, and my life, would change so radically.

Apricot blossoms

 

First of all, I will not be planting a garden this year. I have raised much of my family's food for the last 40+ years and in spring, summer, and fall my life has revolved around planning crops, planting, harvesting, and preserving. I may grow a few things in pots, but it won't be in Minnesota.

 

 

 

 

Nanking cherry blossoms

 

Second, I thought that I would live out the rest of my life right here in Minnesota, in the same house I have lived in for the last 28 years, near my daughters and grandchildren, sister and brother-in-law, and dear friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And third, it was my dream to travel to places local and foreign, dreaming that had sustained me through all the ups and downs of years of a demanding career.

I was quite satisfied with this life, doing all these things, happily reading all the books I'd had to put off when I was teaching, babysitting grandchildren, traveling near home, taking one big trip a year.

 

What's that saying, life is what happens while you are busy making plans?

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that the young man I started my adult life with would return to finish my life with me. And of course, now I can't imagine anything that would make me happier!

We were partners, part of each others' lives for 7 or 8 years, built a house together in the Carolina mountains with our own four hands, lived a life few could imagine. But then he began to yearn for the Big City and a career other than goat milker and carpenter and I'm a country girl and couldn't imagine a life in the city. We parted ways, each going on to raise a family 1300 miles apart, losing track of each other completely. Then, thanks to the wonders of technology, social media, and his extreme persistence, he tracked me down, and the rest is, well, my own personal Last Tango in Halifax story.

So, I will be continuing to write my blog but soon most of my stories will be from the Low Country of South Carolina rather than the prairies of Minnesota, from a little house on an island with a view of a tidal flat and pluff mud outside my back porch, with two big dogs at my feet and my cat probably permanently hidden under a bed. (Rosie has never met a dog, much less two BIG ones. She will soon.)

 

I do hope y'all will come along!

 

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