If you've got it, flaunt it! COG 55 posted!

And man, the Genea-Bloggers have got it!

Jasia at Creative Gene has posted Carnival of Genealogy, 55th Edition and it is the biggest ever! There are 50 posts by 49 authors covering the "Show and Tell" topic. As Jasia says, "Our esteemed group of contributors is sharing special persons, photos, documents, and heirlooms with you today. You will be truly amazed at the collection of articles presented here! No, I'm not exaggerating. You will be amazed at some of the fascinating items people have shared from their family's history."

My contribution for this edition is Indiana Sisley Stem :: Show and Tell and The Sisley Family Bible. Yes, I submitted two posts, but they are related (pun intended).

The next COG will be hosted by Lori Thornton of Smoky Mountain Family Historian. The topic is "10 essential books in my genealogy library." Check out Lori's post for more information.

Due to the explosive growth of the COG, and the amount of time it takes to put a COG post together, Jasia has a request for all contributors to future carnivals:

Due to the recent rapid growth of the COG, and assuming its popularity continues, I will have to make some changes to the way it is presented. I am asking that all future participants use a descriptive phrase in the title of their articles (i.e. "Miss Kate's Autograph Book" as Denise Olson did) and/or write a brief description/introduction to your articles in the "comment" box of the blogcarnival submission form (i.e. "I loved show and tell in school. Way back then I was only allowed to bring one item. For this edition of the COG I'm bringing a small valise full of items that are all related to A Pink Ball Gown." as Apple did). This will give readers an idea of what you've written about and hopefully interest them in clicking on your link. I will no longer be doing this for the authors. I just can't keep that up with the volume of submissions. I'm also considering other changes to the COG. I'll keep you posted.

The deadline for submissions for COG 56 is September 15th. Use the carnival submission form to submit your post. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the carnival index page.

Carnival of Genealogy graphics created by footnoteMaven.

The Beach

So my parents are off to the beach. They make the three hour drive to their house in South Bethany every weekend from about April until October. My father is 90, and he didn't wear a seat belt until he was about 85 when he got pulled over for speeding in his red BMW convertible. The cop was so astounded at his age that he let him go on the speeding, but he gave him a ticket for not wearing a belt. That's what got him. Not the years of my mother nagging, but the $25 ticket. My mother can't stand the drive, or the sand, the sun, the water or the wind. She hates the beach. My father loves it -all of it. My mother hates the way my father drives. He is a big proponent of relaxing with one finger on the wheel and cruise control, and if the exit for Route 50 is coming up, and he has to cross four lanes of 495 at the last minute and cut off a dump truck- it doesn't bother him a bit.

Sometimes they stop at Jimmy's Grill. My mother likes that. She gets at least one soft shell crab sandwich once a year. They always stop at Short Brother's farm market. It is one of the tiniest markets on the road- no advance signs, no wind gadgets- it just appears near the Delaware line. Diane, who is the ever present farmer's wife, knows my whole family and will report on one member to another as we go by. She will pick you out the best corn or a good melon if you ask her. My father will take my kids to the barn to look at the horses. He knows the whole family. Everybody gets back in the car. When we go past a graveyard, my father will say -do you know how many dead people there are in there? The answer is: all of them.

They have been going to the Eastern Shore since there was ferry instead of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Back then they couldn't afford to spend the night. Much later, when I was around, we stayed at the Delmar Hotel in Ocean City, MD- the great old kind with a dining room and rocking chairs on the double decker porch. You slept in saggy beds with your brother, and you both had to cling the edges to keep from landing in the middle. One time when I was about four, my father got a huge splinter in his foot walking on the boardwalk. He had to go to the hospital in Salisbury. The thought just makes me cringe even now.

My parents have had a beach house since the late sixties when ocean front property was cheap and risky. They used to rent it all summer, and we would go every weekend in the winter. Every day was cold and windy. For a kid, It was grim. Now they can afford not to rent, and eveyone in the family loves it there except for my mother. The only problem is my father always has a project or two- from screen repair to retiling the kitchen floor. If you are a male guest you might not make it down to the sand. Once one of my children wanted to know why their Daddy was the only one not on the beach. My father had decided that weekend that the deck railing was looking shabby, but if you ripped out all the nails and flipped the boards over, it would look good as new...

My mother occupies herself with planning all the meals and cooking up a storm, and hopefully a cocktail hour or two. Even if you have killed yourself all day trying to replace a garage door, you will be well fed. How my parents stay married through all these years is one of the last wonders of the world. I say hats off to my mother who grits her teeth and climbs into that car every Friday. As long as her VCR is working, she'll make it through another long weekend, and another year of marriage.

The Face Behind Bikeyface

It's not every day that one meets a cartoon character, let alone a bicycling cartoon character. And so imagine my delight upon learning that I live just minutes from one. Allow me to introduce:Bikeyface!

A sure cure for self-seriousness,Bikeyface is a weekly comic strip that offers a parallel universe where all the weird stuff we imagine but don't say out loud materialises in cartoon form. Rich in visual detail, manic undertones, and good old fashioned perversity,Bikeyfacehas charmed thebicycle blogging universe with unexpected gems like"Office Shower Politics","Men in Skirts"and "Winter Beard."

The heroine of Bikeyface describes herself as a "common commuter" type - who wears "non-spandex" clothing, "inappropriate cycling footwear," a hounstooth patterned helmet, and a "bikey smile" as she pedals around greater Boston on her bike, Marlene Dietrich.

Occasionally she will don a cycling-themed accessory, such as this gear pendant (okay, so they're the wrong type of gears)...

...or a beard/muschachio balaclava, to compensate for her lack of facial hair on chilly winter commutes.

But who is Bikeyface really, the woman behind the cartoon and the knitted facial hair?

Well, all right: She is Bekka. She is a painter with a non-painterly dayjob, to which she commutes by bike. She lives in Somerville, MA. Before that she lived in LA and rode her bike there. And she is from New England originally.

The bike she currently rides is a tiny Surly Cross-Check in her favourite colour, which she got last summer and loves. It is called "Marlene Dietrich" because it is sultry and feminine, yet with a tomboyish edge. Of course. Other bikes she has owned have included an Electra Amsterdam and a couple of hybrids, but Marlene is the preferred ride - used for both commuting and long distance recreational cycling.

Of all the people I've met so far via the cycling blog connection, meeting Bekka has been my biggest "the worlds collide" type of experience. Besides living walking distance from one another, we discovered that we have some uncanny non-bikey things in common and spend more time talking about those than we do about cycling. It sometimes feels as if we are interacting as two different sets of people: the real us, with our bikey alter egos hovering in the background. We've talked a little about identity - how we both come across differently on our blogs than we do in person, and how people react to that difference when they meet us. Whereas Bikeyface is a perky, mischievous and boisterous character, in person Bekka is subtle and analytical, and rather difficult to characterise. Visually, she is striking: A soft and delicate face withenormous, unusually shaped blue eyes - the type of face that belongs in a 1930s French film and not so much in a 21st century bike cartoon. I would certainly like to paint her some time, as herself.

In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy Bikeyfaceand invite you to do the same. The strip normally comes out every Wednesday morning and is certain to brighten up your day.

ATV Time

We took the ATV's out the other day after a rain, to see how bad a shape the roads were in. Nothing to bad but a few were washed out some.

Pedal and Coast

A friend of a friend flies gliders at the Ulster Gliding Centre down the road. I was encouraged to visit. "He used to race bikes. He restores old planes. The place is amazing, you'll love it."



Terrified of flying and armed with only the vaguest notion of what gliders actually are, I nonetheless head over there one evening. The phrase "restores old [fill in the blank]" proves to be excellent bait.In honor of the occasion, I ride a 1938 Tyrone Flyer, handmade in Northern Ireland.





Astride the 75-year old machine, I race down the winding coastal road, at length turning onto a narrow lane toward the Lough Foyle. I ride past pastures, chicken coups, a thatched cottage, and a field of parked caravans, until finally a meadow comes into view - spread out along the water's edge and littered with small aircraft. From a distance the scene resembles a vegetable patch.





By the hangar, Owen waves me through, bike and all. We exchange greetings and straight away his eyes are on the bike.





Owen used to race 100 mile time trials. He was good, right up there at the top. Then he stopped. But I can see the cycling has not left him. If he sees a bike, he can't not look at the bike. Then it's my turn to look at the planes.





A hangar is basically a garage for aircraft. This one is dome-shaped. The interior is well illuminated. There are little planes everywhere and I wander through them as if through a forest, stepping over tails and wings as if they were felled tree branches. Some planes are colourful and others are white, some fairly new and others quite old. Owen restores the old ones.






I ask about the materials, the paint, the provenance. Most of the machines are British or German, WWII era. We talk about plastics, and how they've changed over the years (a topic I'm familiar with from my fountain pen collecting days). Then he shows me the cloth used for wings - stretched so tautly and painted over so smoothly, I would never have guessed it was cloth.






The planes are so light and small, they seem toy-like. "I could take you up in one of these if you like?" I shake my head in horror, which I quickly try to disguise as a polite "I wouldn't want to impose."






So what exactly is a glider? Put simply, it is a small airplane without an engine. A non-motorised plane. Visually, gliders can be distinguished by their lack of propellers(although there are alsomotorised gliders, which do have propellers)and their unusually long wings.






Because a glider does not have an engine, it cannot take off under its own power and relies on a tow-plane to bring it up to the desired height, then release it.






Once airborne, the glider uses streams of rising air (thermals) to prolong the flight, as the pilot steers it. In this manner, the glider can stay up in the air for hours and even travel cross-country. "Cross country without an engine?" I said, growing interested in the mechanics of the thing.






Long story short, I ended up in the glider. Owen - as most of the pilots there - has such a steady, reassuring manner about him, that the more we chatted the more it began to seem like a good idea - just a normal way to spend an afternoon. "There's no engine, so nothing can go wrong, you see. It's a bit like cycling really. Take your camera!" Yes, it would be like cycling.




I was feeling pretty good as I approached the glider, until another pilot - Gary - handed me a parachute. "Here, put this on." I must have turned white and begun to inch my way backward (OMG why do I need a parachute??), because Gary sort of held me in place and swiftly began to put the parachute on for me, cheerfully instructing me on its usage while gently nudging me into the glider. "There. It's like getting into the bathtub."




In fact, the thing is sort of canoe-shaped. The pilot/instructor sits behind the student/ passenger. There are duplicate controls. There is very little room, and once the top is down, you feel sealed off from the rest of the world. Once I was in it, my attitude was - If you're gonna do it, do it. Otherwise don't do it. No point being scared now.






As Owen began to rattle off a series of mysterious control-check messages into the radio, Gary grabbed the rope attached to the glider's nose and connected it to the tow-plane.






This is what it looks like to be towed along the grass runway. We are taking off toward Lough Foyle.





Here is the rope.






The take-off is quick and painless. Before I know it, we are being towed through the air.






View from the ground.





Finally, the rope is released. The tow-plane returns to the ground and the glider - well, it glides. I am in a small plane. Everything is completely silent. We are floating, coasting really. I am feeling fine. Calm, downright serene.





The landscape spreads out beneath. Familiar places from an unfamiliar vantage point. In that sense, it really is a bit like cycling. In an abstract sort of way.





We fly along the coast, then turn inland and head to Binevenagh Mountain. Owen explains how to work the controls to make the plane bank, turning it around. It makes sense and I give it a try. The plane turns. And there is Binevenagh, half submerged in shadow from a low cloud, half illuminated by intense sunshine. It looks quite tame from here, flattened out against the landscape. My heroic climbs and descents hardly seem like an accomplishment now.



On the very top of Binevenagh is a mysterious lake. It is up a rough gravel road and I've only made it up there once so far. The lake is eerie, prone to mists and unusual growths around its edges. When you're standing next to it, it looks as if it is about to pour off of the edge of the mountain.





But what you don't see from the ground, is that the lake is distinctly heart-shaped. It is also nowhere near the edge of the mountain when viewed from an aerial perspective.





My camera is with me in the glider. There is a small window that slides open to stick the lens through. I've no experience composing aerial photos, and my 50mm lens is all wrong for the task. Even as I take them, I know that my pictures will look generic, uninteresting. But they are mine and I take them with the same genuine enthusiasm as anyone would.





The sun fades gently in the silence.Over Magilligan Point, we see another glider in the distance and wave to them.Everything is beautiful. "You all right?" Owen asks. Yes! This is wonderful. "Want to try a Chandelle?" he says. "Oh. What's that?" It's a maneuver. A bit of fun. Not quite aerobatics, but almost. "All right!"



The glider does something that is part spin, part freefall and part loop. I see clouds. I am not sure which way is up. I feel pressure in my temples and my vision starts to go dark. A split second later, I am drenched in a cold sweat and hit with a wave of nausea. I sit very still and take deep breaths. "How was that?" Owen asks from the back seat."Mmm hhmm hhmm!" I reply, mouth closed, worried I will puke all over the nice glider if I try to form sentences. Point taken. No more aerobatics. As the sun sets, we descend.






On the ground, I am soaking wet - hair, clothes, everything. Weird, the physical reactions we have. I don't remember feeling scared, but my body must have decided otherwise. We have a laugh about it. Then we steer the plane down the grass runway toward its next tow.






Is gliding anything like cycling? Hmm, I don't know. Maybe the feeling of landing is similar to that of a long descent. The view can be similar too. But on a bicycle everything feels open, whereas in a glider you are closed in, closed off - a bit claustrophobic for me. Not that I don't want to do it again. But perhaps no Chandelles just yet. It could be a useful skill, knowing how to fly light aircraft.






Some day. But for now I get back on the Tyrone Flyer. I pedal uphill, coast downhill. That is more my style of gliding.

A SEEDY SAGA

At May Dreams Garden, Carol has posed questions about seed gardening. I read the fascinating answers, and decided to tell our story, too, even though much of our seed buying took place years ago.

In my childhood memories, certain people shared the wonder of seeds. My grandmother Anna handed me a round pod from a tall hollyhock, opening it to display the way the seeds were all nestled in a ring, telling me that we needed to plant them in late summer to grow and flower the next year. I promptly tried to plant them under an Ailanthus tree, and learned that hollyhocks need sun.

When I was in elementary school, we students were given boxes of seed packets, and after being pumped up by classroom speeches, were sent home to sell them door-to-door, thus improving the world and gaining fabulous prizes. I can’t remember if it was a result of one of these campaigns, but my mother planted a package of Four O’Clocks near the SW corner of our house. The little things that looked like pebbles became a temporary shrub, “The Marvel of Peru”, that was covered in flowers by the time school began in fall.

My dad occasionally planted a row or two of peas, and the vines produced pods that we could pop open, eating the delicious raw peas. Maybe my father had hoped to grow real crops on our acre of suburban prairie? After all, our neighbors treated their acre like a miniature farm, with a vegetable garden, dwarf fruit trees, goats and grapevines. That was possible for two mature people – but our well could barely meet the household needs of a family with 5 kids. There was enough surplus water left for keeping saplings alive and growing a few vegetables, but no mini-farm for us.

I was not yet out of my teens when I married Philo, and discovered that my husband was a born gardener! Even when we were newlyweds, living in beat-up grad student housing, he planted sunflowers, radishes, peas, and marigolds in the tiny patch of land around the house. Another graduate wife gave me a few divisions of perennials – oxalis, chrysanthemums and iris, and our plant propagation pattern began.

We had space for medium-size vegetable gardens in each of our three Illinois yards, always with tomatoes, peppers, and of course peas in the vegetable garden, and with summer annuals like zinnias and marigolds in flowerbeds.

By the time we moved to our second house, the Sugar Snap Peas were introduced, just in time for the stirfry craze to sweep the country. We experimented with other interesting vegetables from the catalogs, like delicious Kuta squashes, the new Gypsy peppers, and the very odd Asparagus peas, and we began growing fresh herbs like basil and dill. Some things were planted directly but some were started inside.
When the catalogs came, we’d look them over for weeks, finally making our decisions. Since many favorite vegetables and flowers were available at local stores like Franks, we concentrated our mail orders on the ‘special’ seeds. At that second house, I still scattered cosmos and alyssum, marigolds and zinnias, but my heart belonged to iris, clematis, peonies, lilacs, phlox and other perennials that were shared by division, rather than seed.

When we moved to house # 3, there was a somewhat larger space for a vegetable garden, and there was basement space for seed starting.
Philo built a 4’ X 2’ wooden box, with 4-inch sides, and set it on a worktable so it was at waist level. He cut a section of ½ inch hardware cloth to fit the box exactly, then wound silicone-coated heating tape back and forth, so that all parts of the box would get even heat, making sure the end of the tape with the plug hung out of the box at a corner. He’d scrounged some old wooden window blinds, and took them apart, cutting and fitting them to make a grid, which divided the box into planting squares. This framework was filled with a light potting soil – not the store-bought kind, but a mixture that he’d stirred up like an alchemist in his wheelbarrow. Now it was time to plant the seeds, with the name of each variety written on the wooden wall of each square. Once the seedlings broke ground the lights were turned on. The light fixtures were also scrounged, the old fluorescent tubes replaced with grow lights, and the lights were hung on a frame made of PVC pipe. Philo designed the frame so it could be disassembled and stored.

With this system, Philo grew interesting, hard-to-find varieties of tomatoes and peppers, and I was able to start perennials from seed, like Blackberry lilies, columbine, white coneflowers, Lychnis coronaria alba and splashy hardy Hibiscus.

Those twelve years at house & garden # 3 were the high point of our seed era, ending in 1999 when we came to Texas. We still garden here, but it’s a different kind of gardening – at the last house, the vegetables had to be protected from the deer and grown in a 5' X 12' wire enclosure!
Now in house # 5 we have a small garden area, but with no basement or attic, where could we even set up the seed box? Luckily for us, the Sunshine Community Gardens here in Austin have a sale of plant starts and plant divisions every spring. The lines are long, but Philo has been able to try all sorts of tomatoes and peppers, including heirlooms.

I’ll answer a few of Carol’s questions:
Buy seeds? Yes, we still buy some seeds, but also buy a lot of starter plants. When I am in a nursery, a big box store, gift shops belonging to parks, or even in unlikely places like the dollar stores, I’ll run my eye over the seed racks. To a casual observer, my purchases might look like impulse buying, but I keep a sort of mental wishlist, so if I see the ones I want, I grab them, wherever they show up. That’s why I have a package of heirloom 'Cupani' Sweet peas ready to plant – they turned up at Red Barn and I grabbed them.

Seed Catalogs? I’m ashamed to admit this, but since moving to Texas in 1999, we’ve become such crummy mail order customers that no one even SENDS us any catalogs! I do browse the Park Seed site, but the Plant Delights site gets more hits from my computer.

Bulk seed store? One place we frequented was Pioneer Feed and Grain back in Illinois. It’s a cool old-fashioned place, with some seeds by the scoop, as well as seed potatoes and onion sets.

Save seeds? I save the seeds from many plants, like Moonvine, Blue Pea Vine and Hyacinth Bean. I buy basil seed, alyssum, and sometimes zinnias for cutting. There are always a few seed packages in a basket in the breakfast room.

Since we moved to house # 5 in this warmer climate, some of our annuals and perennials feel quite at home here, and they volunteer all over the place. Sometimes the 'Coral Nymph' salvias, Cardinal vines, Larkspurs, Verbena bonariensis, marigolds, Cooper lilies, Purple coneflowers, Balloon flowers, Cupheas, Sunflowers, ‘Katy’ Ruellia, Pavonia/Rock roses, and cilantro choose a different place from what I had originally planned. If that place is a better choice, they can stay. If I don’t approve, they’re weeded out or relocated.

As the garden evolves, it seems less necessary to plant seeds – and more important to recognize seedlings.

Cliff Ice at High Falls

Today felt more like a spring day than a December day, with temperatures approaching 40 degrees and rain falling all afternoon. The mild day made for a pleasant walk in the woods (well, before the rain started it was pleasant). I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and took a walk to High Falls on the Pigeon River in Grand Portage State Park. Along the walk to the falls there were tracks everywhere... from squirrels, birds, rabbits and mink to dogs (accompanying their human companions on their own walks to the falls). The cliff that High Falls drops over was amazing, with incredible ice formations everywhere along the rocks that make up the face of the cliff. This particular composition was just to the right of the main flow of water as it drops over the falls. This was taken with my 100-400mm lens fully extended at 400mm.

Another Loose Horse

Here are photos of the loose horse we found on Sunday in the horrible wind storm that went across NM. This one was outside the mares pens when we went to do the morning feed. We figure she is less than 6 months old. And not hand trained. She won't let us touch her. Yet. She will if she stays here. We didn't know what to do with one this little. Was able to slowly work her around so that she entered our yard and then into an empty horse pen. We feed her and she is eating hay and drinking lots of water. She had chunks of cholla cactus in her tail and still does have a few but can't get them out yet. We called the county sheriffs department as we don't have an animal control offerer here anymore. They said they would give us a call if anyone called them. The same with Rio Rancho Animal Control this morning and the livestock board. We put a listing on Craig's List and a sign on the corner and have been watching for anyone that looks as if they are looking for a lost horse. So far nothing. I really don't need another one but couldn't leave her out on the road and hungry. Just hope she doesn't have some weird horsesickness that she will give to mine as she has been nose to nose with all of ours.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Thursday, September 1st - - With the campsite in shade and temperatures in the low 30s this morning I went and found a nice sunny spot in which to eat breakfast. Then it was off to see the sights!





Sometimes, I guess, Buffalo prefer an easy route to wherever they are going! They were frequently seen alongside and on the road, usually only one or two bison at a time.



My primary destination this morning was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone with its beautiful Lower Falls and Upper Falls. Located at the northeastern corner of the southern highway loop, the 40 mile drive from the campground took about two hours, with stops along the way at the Mud Volcano Area and Sulphur Caldron.





My first stop in the “Grand Canyon” area was Artist Point on the South Rim.



Artist Point provides stunning views of the 308-foot Lower Falls. It is, quite simply, breathtaking! The morning light along with a hazy sky enhanced the view allowing details in the sides of the canyon to show up, though the colors are somewhat muted.





A closer view of the Lower Falls.



And, even closer.



The colors of the canyon didn't show up clearly in the photos of the Lower Falls, but, oh my, how they “popped” when looking to the northeast! The fantastic colors of the north side of the canyon come from rhyolite and sediments that have been altered by hydrothermal action (i.e. hot water from springs that were active in years past).





The Upper Falls is not quite as impressive (only 109 feet) or photogenic as the Lower Falls but it was still worth the walk down a short trail to see it.





It was also easier to access the Brink of the Upper Falls from another short trail. The Brink of the Lower Falls was a strenuous trail that dropped 600 feet in a very short distance. I passed on that one but did go to the Brink of the Upper Falls, shown above.





The view from Inspiration Point, on the North Rim, looking to the northeast.





As I drove up to the northwest side of the park to the Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces, the clouds moved in.





I walked along most of the boardwalk trails in the lower terraces but my legs were getting a little wobbly by the time I made it to the upper terrace area. Whether it was from the lighting conditions or the fact that many of the springs in that area have gone dormant, I was disappointed with my visit there. The photos I took were rather blah.





The view from the front of the upper terraces was rather impressive though. On the drive back to the campground, I took the “shorter” route along the west side of the northern loop then cutting across to Canyon Village and the eastern side of the southern loop. It was still about a 75 mile drive back to the campground.