Back at the ranch

Dan, the maintenance man, asked me to stop and approve the way he intends to install the screen door. (That's Dan's back, in the next picture.)

I said I didn't need to stop; I wanted both door knobs on the same side. 

"I can't do that!" says Mr. Dan. "Then you won't be able to bring anything through the door."

"Why did you ask?"

"If you look at it now, you won't argue with me later."

So I went over, and took the opportunity to walk up my new steps.  The deck guys closed the risers, so my wheeled cart will work.

My front door, there, opens in, to the left. They did it that way at the factory. If the storm were hinged on the same side, it would open into the middle of the deck, using up much of the access room. 

"So, case closed?" asked Dan. I went on in.

I looked in all the rooms, but only took one picture. The window at the end of the drive will be the studio, and yes, it has the smallest bathroom in the entire park enclosed in that room. Definitely the cat's room, as there is no other adequate place.

I don't see moving before June. No water hook up yet; the state hasn't inspected yet. There is no shed, there is grading to do and grass to plant. But, it's happening.

Beautiful day, sad story

The national park has been here longer than I have, but not much. I've told the story of undervalued property, 400 displaced families. How Ohio Senator Taft and Ohio businessman Vail (who had land to donate) tracked down President Ford, on vacation in Colorado, on December 27th, to have legislation for the park signed, back in the seventies.

And so it began.

I've been fascinated by the golf course bounded by Akron Peninsula Road and Truxell Road. The corkscrew willow at the end of the pond on Truxell Road has been my header picture for the last many years.

The stately yews planted by Mr. Yesberger, straight row after row, have drawn me in for years. Sadly, the year I booked a tee time and a golf cart, for the purpose of photographing trees while a granddaughter drove the cart, I was foiled. I neglected to complete my disguise with a golf bag. I was not allowed to go on the course. I would distract the golfers!

It's the course where I followed the life and death of a young deer, who I called "The Little Guy". And, it's the course where a solitary heron has spent the summer these last several years. Today I saw the heron for the first time this year.

Mr. Yesberger, the owner and builder of this course, lived across Akron Peninsula Road, up (down?) a windy road. He died unexpectedly a few years ago, and title passed to an unexpecting grandson. The story only grows sadder; this young man could not carry on, and took his life.

I always knew there were covenants of some sort protecting the land from development in the circumstance of no heirs, but I was very hazy on the details. So, I sought them out.

That piece of legislation that President Ford signed in his vacation motel room in Colorado, has the only stipulation of its kind of any federal park  in America. In the event the land leaves the Yesberger family, it may not be developed, though it may be returned to its natural state.

The person who explained this to me wanted me to realize the amount of tax revenue lost to the village, the school, the library.  But my mind focused on "returned to its natural state". 

Yes, he explained. The ponds drained, the roughs gone, the greens gone, the sand traps gone, the hundreds and hundreds of trees removed.

This is still sinking in. 

I think I'll go post the picture I took today of the willow.

And they are no more

Deb and Steve of Elements Studio, held their studio open house yesterday and today. It was a complete success for me, and I hope everyone else did as well.

They used their garage and studio. It was a massive undertaking, just cleaning up ceramic dust and making enough room. Looking through from the garage, above, the shelving is a backdrop for Deb's carved scenes.

Bags of clay powder are stashed everywhere! I have a table of towels over past the woman in the red scarf, and those are sacks of powder beneath the table and behind the wire grids. Now you'll notice supplies stashed everywhere. It was a beautiful job.

Over in the studio now, here is a sweep of the room, with pottering paraphernalia neatly stashed everywhere. That wall of porcelain plaques over to the left disguises the big collection of odds and ends hidden on shelving.  

More displays of various artists' wares, going around the room.

And the last set of shelving. I'd guess Steve put some spare pottery there on the steps, to discourage anyone checking to see if there might be "more upstairs", in the studio attic.

I did not see the kiln anywhere, and cannot imagine where it was secreted away.

Another day in the rain

For weeks I've looked at the paper narcissus, asking, "Where are the buds?" And here they are. This time next week, a stand of the little white beauties.  The woolly thyme is quite taking over as ground cover; there are only a few stubborn weeds to deal with.

The rain keeps on sprinkling, day after day. The plants are so happy. Here is a sedum, an August lily hosta w.a.y in the back, Aunt Laura's iris and everywhere, air blooming crocus (colchium).

Here is Aunt Laura's iris, close up. They are ordinary little wild iris, but Aunt Laura gave me seeds, years and years ago.

Pink coral bells and my little stand of miniature daffodils.

Look at the puddle! Any step into the dirt yields rising water.

The chives are happy in their pot. They will be moving, soon.

And speaking of moving, here is a bag of marble chips I emptied when we moved here, three years ago. I wanted whatever I had in a pot there to have a nice background. I think I'll put on a pair of gloves and pick up a good many of them for the new rock garden.

Some more of my week

The plum (?) tree outside the Methodist church is in flower. Nancy and I led Tuesday, until the last hand, when we were swept away by their massive meld.

The week commenced rather coolly, daytime highs barely reaching the sixties, before disappearing. Yesterday Ruth and I took advantage of a fabulously beautiful day to go to Caroline's school and watch her team play its last softball game of the year.

At Ruth's house, mid afternoon and temperatures up to the eighties, I stripped down to one shirt. I tied the hoodie around my waist, just in case. As we sat in the bleachers and cheered the girls, the weather changed literally on a walk off walk. 

We watched it coming, coming, coming, and the big rain started and the temperature dropped thirty degrees in the time it took to  walk fairly quickly the hundred feet to the car. Such a storm!

Back home I began to work on a new project. I bought a skein of cotton yarn, plied with a fine synthetic boucle.  It is the boucle that makes an otherwise nondescript strand of cotton appear so crinkly and interesting.

I calculated enough yardage to put fifteen yards in each of eleven bouts on the loom, and that much at least is working out. I spent the rest of yesterday and most of today putting the fifteen yards on each bout. I've never warped this way, mathematically. Once there were eleven little balls of purple to put on bobbins, my work was over, theoretically.

I merely turned the beam and wound until each fifteen yards of purple was beamed on. A good idea, except I cannot recommend it for boucle yarns. I have figured out how not to have the little bumps catch in the tension box reeds, but it still must go through the heddle eyes and beater bar reed.  We'll see.