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Number Three

September 3, 2021 in Celebrating, Loving by Colleen | Permalink

A Grandma Cracker (seriously what she calls her!) made yummy lemon cake full of Frozen goodness!

This photo shows the moment we started singing Happy Birthday! What JOY in knowing it was just for HER. The best!

T H R E E

Oh my goodness, in a high flying time moment, my cousin Ryan’s wee babe is now THREE. She is, among many other things, adorable and thoughtful and playful, and ever so loved.

I was the only person to old-school wrap her present after forgetting to buy a gift bag large or sturdy enough. What an ill-used muscle I have for this, dear reader. It took ages! She was a very careful unwrapper, slowly peeling off each piece of tape, before going delicately at the paper, which delighted me. I am a lover of precision and care, too, yup. She liked her necklace and magna-tiles, which also delighted me. I do not ever wish to be a lame gift giver!

We ate well and enjoyed many a conversation with parents and friends, aunts and uncles (there I am with mine!), grandmothers and grandfathers. The kids ran circles around us, eating and playing and squealing and splashing. A wonderful day to be THREE, indeed.

Rust

September 2, 2021 in Quoting by Colleen | Permalink

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. So we must stretch ourselves to the very limits of human possibility. Anything less is a sin against both God and man.

Leonardo da Vinci

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Summer Road Trip 2021: Ness City

August 30, 2021 in Traveling by Colleen | Permalink

We made a quick-ish lunch stop in Wichita, noshing at the very good Meddys, getting Juniper’s wiggles out, and buying more than we ought at the Nifty Nut House. Eeek, so much fun candy and nuts, of course. Yum!

Ness County Court House
The Ness County Bank Building – completed in 1890
N E O N ! !
Now that’s a tire!!

Hiya! We are on the home stretch now. Ness City was our final night away from home, and it was a sweet treat. A tiny plains town, with a couple of architectural gems, and that light! We were treated to a beautiful sunset and sunrise.

While I was taking the photo just above, I heard a cracking sound in the field next to me. When I finally got a bead on the source, I saw the most beautiful buck with an enormous set of antlers hopping over corn that was well over four feet tall! We shared an eye-to-eye moment before he bounded off in the opposite direction. Oh, nature…

The Sunflower State lives up to its moniker! Goodness, what a feeling to behold such cheer as far as the eye could see.

I think, above all, on this trip, I experienced at true sense of the MAGICAL: in visiting such beautiful places; in seeing, touching, and smelling where my ancestors lived; in experiencing nature in such glory. How very lucky I am!

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Summer Road Trip 2021: Joplin & Carthage

August 27, 2021 in Gardening + Nature, Traveling by Colleen | Permalink

Greg gets his kicks at the Route 66 Mural in Jopin. Getting hip, alright…

L I O N S not lambs…
Made us chuckle…
The Dawn Redwood – not small

At the Wildcat Glades Conservation & Audubon Center. I love it when such beauty and serenity is tucked in amongst the city. We got up early to enjoy it and reveled in beauty, birdsong, and the babble of flowing water.

What a dazzler of a building! The Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage.
A nod to my Williams ancestors, also in Carthage
What kind of a bug are YOU?
A Tiger Bee Fly, thank you very much.

Just above and up to the Williams family ancestors nod is Red Oak II, created by the artist Lowell Davis, who died in 2020:

Davis, once a commercial artist who left Dallas to return to his roots in the Missouri countryside, hit it big in the 1980s and 1990s with sculptures and paintings based on farm life at the nostalgic village of Red Oak II, a community of old buildings he purchased and moved to resurrect his family’s hometown of Red Oak, which was once located near Avilla. His work was sold in 2,000 stores and galleries worldwide.

It’s a truly magical experience to wander about, amongst sculptures and every manner of building, that someone would go to such lengths to recreate a HOME. It is a fabrication but so very authentic, too.

Thanks, Joplin & Carthage!

Warm

August 26, 2021 in Quoting by Colleen | Permalink

It is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.

Franz Kafka

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