We have been blessed with some idyllic spring mornings lately: plenty of sunshine and blue skies, coolish temperatures and no wind. One morning I hopped on my bike and pedaled my way to a familiar nine mile loop outside Northfield. We call it “going around the block” (a large block!) There is a short trek on city streets and then long stretches of country roads with several hills to climb (and coast back down again thankfully).
In town, as I rode along, I saw a mother with her child out for an early morning walk already. I heard dogs barking and passed golfer’s golfing. Once out in the country it was quiet and still except for the birds singing and a rooster crowing. I biked past peaceful farms, ponies in a pen, open fields ready to be plowed and planted, and wind turbines – to remind me we’re in the 21st century.
On the first six miles of this ride only one car passed me. The last three miles traffic picked up on the country road heading back into town. One truck came up behind me on the crest of a hill and passed me – in a no passing zone. I couldn’t believe he’d pass when he couldn’t see over the hill. I’m thankful another car was not approaching in the opposite lane.
Mostly it’s a tranquil ride – even when I’m out of breath climbing those hills. I’m grateful to have this route close to where I live. I can hop on my bike and be out enjoying the countryside in just a few minutes.
Spring is finally here and so begins the yard work. For the most part, working in the yard and digging in the dirt is fun for me…but spring clean up is a lot of work. We decided to do some trimming over the weekend.
We started with a tree in our front yard. Gary climbed the ladder to cut off a branch and noticed, there in the crook of the tree, my “missing” fairy. We surmised a squirrel grabbed the fairy from it’s secret place in my garden two years ago. The squirrel must have decided it wasn’t food after all, so he left it sitting up properly in the crook of a tree, watching over us all that time. It was a fun surprise to find this fairy-angel in the tree after two winters.
Next, in our back yard there is a honeysuckle vine climbing a trellis on the deck and it was getting out of control, as honeysuckle vines tend to do. So this year we decided to trim it way back. We revved up the electric trimmers and started cutting back the vine when Gary spotted a bird’s nest with eggs in it. Hmmm…we had already started trimming so we decided to quickly finish and then get out of there with hopes that the mama bird would come back to the nest and tend to her eggs.
Fortunately the mourning dove is back and sitting on her eggs in the nest. It will be fun to watch them hatch right outside our window.
I noticed the lone daffodil blooming on the side of our house. There are several daffodil bulbs planted there but they didn’t seem to make it through that last winter blizzard. Even so, the one bright, yellow flower is perky and brings joy.
It is always a delight to discover fun surprises in nature. Some are so obvious and some so hidden. I am reminded to keep my eyes open for there is so much to see.
While in Pennsylvania, visiting my husband’s family, we often take in a show at the Sight & Sound Theatre in near-by Lancaster.
The founder of Sight & Sound Theatre, Glen Eshelman, grew up on a dairy farm and attended the same country church that my husband attended in his childhood. Glen started painting landscapes when he was a boy and then started taking photographs to paint and then photography became his passion.
This passion prompted Glen to start showing nature slides set to music, to church groups, and this is how Sight & Sound began back in 1964.
Today the theaters (there are two: one in Lancaster PA, and one in Branson MO which opened in 2008) feature full-length Biblical story productions with professional actors and actresses, outstanding costumes, professional musicians, live animals, all performed with realistic time-period backdrops and props on a 300-foot panoramic stage. The performances are so elaborate they continually perform the same show for a year. It is difficult for me to describe the brilliance of these productions.
This year we saw the production Jesus. I love this description from the brochure:
“What you are about to experience is not a history lesson on the most famous person ever to walk the earth. It is not even necessarily a story of Jesus’ life. It’s a story of Jesus’ love, which we believe, is life.”
After a beautiful Easter morning service that included the singing of Christ the Lord is Risen Today and hearing the Hallelujah Chorus at a church we were visiting in the D.C. area, we decided to take the train to the National Mall and walk around.
The metro system in Washington D.C. is user friendly and we hopped on the train, along with our host for the weekend, and “people watched” for thirty minutes while we enjoyed the train ride to the National Mall.
As soon as we stepped out of the metro station we saw the Washington monument standing tall. There were lots of people everywhere…and this was April…I can’t imagine the crowds during summer. We turned and looked behind us, to the East, and saw the U.S. Capitol from a distance, and then started our hike walking west toward the Washington Monument.
The day was cool but the cherry trees were in bloom and it was beautiful. We walked from memorial to memorial, beginning at the Washington Monument (built in 1848). I have been up in the Washington Monument on a prior visit, but it is currently closed for renovation until 2019. We glanced at the White House to the north as we passed it, then walked through the WW II Memorial (dedicated in 2004) on our way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (dedicated in 1982), and a Vietnam Women’s Memorial, a sculpture dedicated in 1993 for the women who served in the Vietnam war.
Next we stopped at the Lincoln Memorial (dedicated in 1922) which is a favorite of mine, and for many I believe.
Next we walked to the Korean War Veterans Memorial (dedicated in 1995) and then to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is a fairly new memorial dedicated in 2011, and this was the first time I saw it and it immediately became a favorite for me. The Stone of Hope is a granite sculpture out of which the carving of Dr. King emerges. The memorial covers four acres and is located on the Tidal Basin. The walls surrounding the statue are etched with several different quotes from Dr. King Jr. such as:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
At this point we were on a trajectory to see the Jefferson Memorial (dedicated in 1943) which took us past the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (dedicated in 1997), also new to me.
The King, Roosevelt and Jefferson memorials are all on the Tidal Basin, off the Potomac River, surrounded by blooming cherry trees.
When we started out we had no idea we would hike a total of six miles that afternoon, but it was fun to see these truly amazing memorials. There are interesting stories behind each one.
They are continually adding new memorials and museums in this area. For instance, they are planning a Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, under construction at this time, and we visited the newly opened Museum of the Bible which was very interesting.
Washington D.C. is a very unique place to visit and a fun place to hike around, and I am grateful we had the opportunity to do so in the cherry tree blooming season.
Click here to view a good map of the National Mall.
I received an invitation to a very special event. It was and adoption celebration but not of the “ordinary kind” that comes to mind. This was an adult adoption.
My friend, who is single and has never had children, befriended a young woman and was a loving mentor to her for several years.
Then the decision was made that my friend would adopt this young woman and they would become a family.
I loved the wording of the invitation and I congratulate Angie – now mother, grandmother and mother-in-law, and Karyssa – a newly adopted daughter, mother and wife.
Last fall a new trail in town opened and is getting a lot of use. I guess the idea “you build it and they will come” works. This is good.
Our friends were walking on this trail a few days ago when they saw folks stopped along the trail looking up…which usually means there’s something “up there” to see (much like cars pulled over in a national park…you know there is some kind of wild animal in sight!)
They discovered high up in one tree there were several nests, called a rookery, and Great Blue Heron’s were occupying those nests.
When they told us about this we grabbed our binoculars and went to check it out, and there they were. I didn’t know the big, beautiful Great Blue Heron I often see standing so tall and majestic in water near shore, built their nests in the tops of trees…it was interesting to learn and fun to see.
We counted eight nests in one tree and over all we saw five herons. We stayed there to watch a while as a couple herons flew away and then a couple flew back.
It was entertaining – and as we stood there along side the trail looking up – others stopped to find out why.
Matthew 6: 26-27 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
The Oberg Trail, near Lutsen, Minnesota ascends about a quarter mile and then levels out to a 1.8 mile loop around the top of this “Minnesota mountain”. The trail has eight scenic overlooks in all directions…several looking out onto the big lake, Lake Superior, and a few overlooks facing the inland forest and a beautiful small inland lake called Oberg Lake. We’ve hiked this trail many, many times over the years…it’s an easy trail and a nice length, close to our rented cabin and a wonderful way to see spectacular vistas of Lake Superior. Some years we get to see the trees in their beautiful autumn array of color. In 2017 we saw an ample start on the fall colors. When the sky is blue it makes the colors more vibrant. This year the fall colors were emerging but the sky was clouded over. It’s still a wonderful sight and a place I love to be!
Last fall our trek up Oberg Mountain we hiked the trail with our son and his wife and our five-month-old granddaughter. It was her first hike on the north shore. She wore a darling moose outfit in honor of the occasion. We didn’t see any moose but she drew attention from the hikers we passed along the trail. It’s funny how babies and dogs often provoke comments from strangers.
“Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest personal satisfaction.” ~ Ben Franklin
While visiting the Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg one of the scheduled events that sounded intriguing was a multi-media concert of glass instruments. So we made sure we were seated in the auditorium before the demonstration began.
Mr. Dean Shostak was demonstrating three glass instruments. The first instrument, the armonica, was created by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. It is a series of glasses cupped together and you use wet fingers to play it. Each cup produces a different tone. I had not heard of this instrument before. However, it has been featured on Mr. Rogers. Mr. Shostak showed a video clip from one of Mr. Rogers television programs where Mr. Rogers was introducing the instrument to the children.
Mr. Shostak played several pieces for us on the armonica.
Next he showed us his glass violin. He had it made for him in Japan. It was a beautiful instrument with lovely etching on the sides. He let us come close after the concert to take photos and touch it. There are not too many of these glass violins around. He played one song on it for us. To my untrained ear it sounded nice and much like other violins
The third instrument was similar to the armonica only formatted differently. Instead of the glasses cupped together they were upright in a wooden box, but you still needed wet fingers to play it. I forgot the name of it.
It was a very enlightening, interesting and entertaining 45 minute concert in the Williamsburg’s Folk Art Museum.
On a side note; while we were looking at the dress design exhibit in the art museum we recognized a fellow Northfielder as we turned a corner. We stopped to chat and laughed about our meeting unexpectedly in this place so far away from home.
We traveled over 3,200 miles during our three-week road trip to the East Coast.
I’m so thankful we have a comfortable car to drive and ride in, instead of a horse and buggy which we saw trotting all over Lancaster County when we visited my husband’s family in Amish country. Can you imagine?
Our trip took us to Colonial Williamsburg, Washington D.C., and Lancaster County Pennsylvania (with a stop in Indiana, Delaware and Kentucky.) There were many highlights: visiting friends and family and attending a family wedding in a restored barn, going to see Jesus at the Sight and Sound Theater, attending an Easter service in a welcoming church, participating in a Seder meal with our Jewish host and hostess, walking six miles from monument to monument in DC, touring the new Museum of the Bible in DC, seeing the cherry trees in bloom in DC, touring the Hagley Museum where gunpowder was made in Delaware, attending a glass instrument concert, walking throughout authentic Williamsburg, seeing Jamestown and Yorktown, hiking to find the wild ponies, enjoying spring flowers blooming, taking a detour on our way home to see the replica of Noah’s Ark in Kentucky.
While waiting in the theater to see the awesome production of Jesus I thought to myself how blessed I am to be able to experience so many wonderful things. Our travels have been enriching times! I’ll be writing more details surrounding different events.
We are grateful for our safe travels, and for the variety of experiences we enjoyed.
They are calling this a Historic Blizzard – Saturday, April 14, 2018.
We have been out of town for three weeks and when we drove into our driveway at the end of last week it was disappointing to still have snow in our yard.
And then we heard the forecast…a winter storm warning. And this time they were right. 12-15″ of snow and strong winds were predicted, and it came. Lots of snow and sleet, and very strong winds swirling the snow around into drifts and corners and clinging to windows. They are calling this the Historic Blizzard because this is the middle of April.
We tucked ourselves in, sat near the fireplace, and waited out the storm. (Although we did go for a walk in the snow last evening…we couldn’t resist being out in it.)
This morning Gary plowed out our driveway and there is whiteness everywhere.