Hint of New England in autumn

Late summer yellows and browns are dotted with white and purple asters. The geraniums in their glazed blue pots are blooming furiously along with the gone-wild petunias in the kitchen garden. But word is out, autumn is landing.

I couldn't decide if I should mow the lawns once more or call it done. The quack grass is bold and in places was tall and the back lawn was sprouting with pople seedlings so the mower came out. Just past mid-day the air was warm and dry. Usually I start mowing where the grass is thickest and highest (east and north lawns) just in case the mower breaks down or I run out of gas, but today I mowed in long paths--front by the road to the back edge before the woods. I mowed slowly, no hurry to be done.

More than cutting grass, I surveyed my little landmarks. The deer have pruned up the cedars high enough now it is easier to mow under them. And the white pines, so soft to touch, have had their skirts shortened a bit. More mushroom that need to be picked and thrown away so the dogs can't get them, and a few noxious weed like burdock and stinging nettle need to go soon.

Along the edge near the back side of the garage, a blackberry bush held a beautiful cluster of late ripening shiny berries to the sun and they were a treat for me.

Near the Cocker Garden, where my beloved dogs are buried, I clumsily ran over some tiny volunteer Love-In-A-Mist flowers that fringe my Fancy's grave. Some are still there, but won't bloom anymore this year. Ami's grave is spilling over with bouquets of blue forget-me-nots and white sweet alyssum--on ground that rarely grows anything. It is Ami, my darling Ami, who brings such beauty to life.

Moving between the shade of the majestic centurion maple into the sunny grassy lawns I felt content. Serene. Life is so fragile but this moment is perfect.

I had a sense of New England spun from some memory of a book or a film--Then I remembered... Newhart! Safe. Predictable. Honest. If only make believe.
Our reality now is it is time of the harvest--what we've all worked for and now hope to store for the long winter. Life is ripe for the picking.

Pea Patch Morning

The past couple of days have been cool. Bright but with high temperatures around 60 degrees. Good weather for growing sugar snap peas--if we had a little rain to go with it.

Lawns in town are brown as they go dormant for lack of rain. Mine here are still pretty green, but then they are mostly wild flowers and weeds who might be hardier than cultivated lawn grass. I'm hauling buckets and milk jugs of water to all the flower beds every day, and have started to water the day lilies, too. I noticed their leaves rolling and some turning yellow--drought stress.

Crystal wrenched her rear leg in the run late yesterday afternoon. I'd put her outside in the run with her daughter Molly, littermate brother Freeway, and little elder Meghan to exercise. Somehow she lost her footing. She is very old and recovering from a stroke in March, and still suffers from bouts of vertigo. One rear foot dropped between the grid floor of the run and the chain link panel and sShe couldn't pull it up. She panicked and wrenched it before I could get to her. I gave her baby aspirin last night and she slept comfortably near me, but this morning she looks sore. After she eats I will give her another aspirin. She's putting weight on the foot so it likely is soft tissue bruise.

The pea patch is still blooming and as if shamed into existence, the second planting of sweet peas is pushing up a spindly few plants mixed into the morning glories that will soon create too much shade for the sweet peas. Morning glories seem more vigorous than sweet peas. Or the soil is better for them. But the weather is sure pea patch weather if only we had a little more water. The coolness is perfect and the sugar snap plants continue to bloom.

Now if only I could wait until the pea pods were more mature! Between me and the dogs they never make it into the house for that extra special stir fry.

Soon the green beans will flower and we'll snack on fresh green beans. Wild raspberries are ready and when I take Lexi for her walk we stop at the wild raspberry patch, pick a few sweet berries and share them--tart and sweet-- and then move on. Wild blackberries are fruiting, but lack of water may take that crop yet. We'll see. Those are harder to pick on a walk because of the thorns.

Summertime--at least I am not mowing lawns every fourth day!

Warriors from a Forgotten War--Korea and Dad

The Wisconsin Korean War Memorial was dedicated in 1997 in Plover. Chet Skippy, a realty developer and Korean War veteran worked hard to make it happen. On that summer day my brother, mom and dad came up for the dedication.

Dad stood apart from us, apart from everyone... on the sandy shore of the island memorial looking towards the Statues yet beyond them. He looked so vulnerable, so alone even though we all tried to reach him but none of us could.

After the ceremony with state dignitaries including David Obey who talked about the forgotten war (it wasn't even called a war until recently, but rather the Korean Conflict) we wandered in a discount tool vendor's tent on the grounds. Dad bought me a set of little clamps to use when I went to dog shows, then we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch.

I'm the toughest sonofabitch
this side of the Rio Grande.
If you think you can take me, come on, let's go.
Think you have it in you?
Think its going to be easy? ...you've another guess comin'
'cause I'll fight til I die and I'll not die easy.
I'm the toughest sonofabitch
this side of the Rio Grande.
--excerpt from "My Dad" by Bobbie Lee S. Kolehouse

Dad was tough. He had grit and stamina, but he wasn't a street brawler. He admired street brawlers. What he seemed to search for was confidence and he mistook reactionary possessiveness for it. He tried to tap it through other people. He depended on them to "have what it takes" in case he didn't. He wasn't possessive, he was introverted and spent much of his life in his head, then fogged it up with alcohol trying to escape. Thoughts made uglier from what he'd lived in Korea.

Now my dad was a farm boy and knew better than many about life and death and survival, but he didn't know about war except for the romanticized stories. His father and mother were farmers, not warriors. Quiet, stable, dependable people. He was ambitious and a bit willful. He always considered himself a bit of a rebel--but he wasn't one by nature.

He tried to enlist and was rejected because of a heart murmur, but he cleared the second time and landed in the Army. He was close to his brother Lee who was in the Merchant Marine. Lee was scrappy, and bold--different from my dad and most of his family. Dad was the youngest of eight. At home with his family he was always Bobby.

Throughout his life he grappled with and clung to his military experience. His closest friends were veterans, some highly decorated for valor and courage--all alcoholics. It was a nightmare they all shared and gloried in and fell victim to in the end. Throughout his life he'd quip, usually in an alcohol stupor, "Think you got what it takes?" He never got home again and we all miss him yet.

With planning this time we can provide resources to assure good transition programs are in place for our current military veterans returning from war. Their service doesn't have to cost them their lives, and the lives of those who love them, even if make it back safely.

All military veterans, thank you and your families for your service.

**Wallet pictured was a gift from my father to my mother's sister, Gloriann Meyn, brought back from Korea. My aunt gave it to me as a keepsake of my father.**

From the WKWM website, http://www.koreanmemorial.org/index.html

The Korean War - June 25, 1950 thru July 27, 1953

Forgotten by all but those that served.

War is truly hell and those who fought would never glorify it. Those Wisconsinites helped save a nation and then returned home, without honor or fanfare.

Wisconsin has long forgotten the 132,000 of her sons and daughters who served in the cause of freedom in the Korean War

	801 were killed in action
	4,286 were wounded
	111 were prisoners of war (54 of these died in POW camps)
	84 are still officially listed as missing in action

Amidoll--Amigurumi

The past few months have been a bit challenging and to get a grip I am knitting --and crocheting. Public television's Create channel with its Knitting and Crochet Today program, (as well as the garden programs) has helped.

If television doesn't have an influence on behavior, someone needs to rethink their studies...

So having invested heavily in fancy yarns, tools and books (and a small fortune in glass beads for one lovely project) I saw this cute little project the other night for a toy--a teacup. The craft is Japanese and is called "amigurumi". Most of these small, soft toys are distinguished with oversized heads, small arms and legs and bright eyes.

The tea cup was a free pattern and I added a saucer. It is cute but I don't think it is quite right. I captured the darling expression typical of the design, but think maybe my cup is too roly-poly cup when it should be a cylinder.

Not content with it and thinking maybe it is because I didn't use the exact yarn mentioned in the KCT pattern, I bought a new skein of Seafoam as noted on www.knitandcrochettoday.com. The artist Ana, doesn't say what yarn to use in her directions other than it be blue and worsted weight. I'll see if the second one looks more correct or if these will vary because they are sculptured a bit.

For my little blue tea cup, I made do with batting salvaged from one of my Cocker's fleecy beds. Danny, (the Ripper) loves to pluck batting out of the little roll around the edge of his beds. Because batting can kill a dog (block their intestines) I have to take it all out once he's got one open. That is what I used in my little blue tea cup-- used dog bedding. Not to worry, it is clean and to be sure it doesn't smell like dog, I dumped lavendar oil on it. Enough to choke us all, so my little blue tea cup doubles as an air freshener.

Today when I was in the yarn shop again, I bought a skein of white and a skein of Irish setter red for a new toy I want to make. A Cocker Spaniel and name it for my Ami, my beautiful red and white Cocker who died tragically on May 2. I can't write much because it hurts too bad, but she is my model for my own Amigurumi Cocker Spaniel doll. The doll's name will be Ami, for Ch. Kindred Playin' By Heart. Part of the reason I paid attention to the pattern was because of the name of the craft--I heard Ami.

When I have pictures of my new Amidoll, as well as my cute purses, lovely shawl and this awesome knitted vest pattern I bought today too, I'll share them with you. In the meantime, here is my fat, little blue tea cup--sweet expression, don't you think?

Oh, too, I'll share pictures of my strawberry pot next. It is another project I learned about on Create's Cultivating Life program.... Check it out! http://www.cultivatinglife.com/Alpine-Strawberry-Pots.html

Peepers

It never grows old, this watching the world wake up. It teems with life. And though it is always there, in spring it is as if everyone shakes off winter's wait to stretch and feel life tingle.

Songs fill the air. Cardinals, bluebirds, buntings, goldfinches, phoebes, and busy robins sing warnings of territories and mating lures. Somewhere in the still stick-bare woods a jay calls, an echo that is the spirit of wildness. As each day grows longer, warmer and moist, the maples push redbuds into the air and popples start to look like children's sponge paintings with their yellow-green shadows of new leaves.

Bulbs push through to the air, some trapped by dried maple leaves that bind them until they cannot hold them in their dry embrace. Then the bulb leaves snap the tight hold of last year's leaves. Flower heads of hyacinths, jonquils, daffodils, fill the air with scents of spring.

I arranged a group of them in a pretty blue-grey pottery vase I bought at a local gift shop. The vase is the first piece in my remake of my front room changing from the warmth of ruby, burnt orange, and browns to ocean blues, sunshine yellows, sandy tans and sage green to freshen this farmhouse for the new year.

The vase sits on my desk holding four fresh daffodils and one blue-violet hyacinth. Next to it is a charming egg jar decorated with drawings by Beatrix Potter. The lid is the top of the egg and has the little rabbit with his blue coat as the handle--Peter Rabbit. It was a birthday gift from my mom and was filled with the most exquisite floral arrangement of carnations, mums, freesia, a blue spiked flower I don't know the name of, and flat waxy leaves. It was breath-taking with flowers, and is beautiful as a jardiniere.

Twilight closes in. Earlier I opened all the doors and the kitchen window so a gentle breeze filled the house. The kitchen window is still open and sounds of peepers are loud as they pick up where the birds left off.

Spring.