Memorial Day parade

In the U.S., the last Monday of May is Memorial Day, mostly to remember fallen soldiers from our wars. But many of us also take the opportunity to visit graves of our loved ones who've passed on, unrelated to war.

I don't think I've been to a Memorial Day parade since I was a little girl, when I rode my bicycle in my hometown parade. I remember decorating my bike with red, white and blue crepe paper in the spokes of the tires. I was proud to ride across the bridge downtown.

So here is our even smaller home town's parade. It was hotter than blazes, but thousands of us turned out to honor our war veterans and fallen soldiers.

I hate war, so don't get me started. But I got teary watching the beautiful old men and women who served in WWII, and the Vietnam vets who are starting to look about as old as me.

In our small farm town, everyone who can or wants to rides in the parade. After the vets come the antique cars and tractors. Here's an interesting one.

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The corn is visible above ground

Click on image to see the corn a little bit bigger

This farmer's field is a few miles from our farm.

Our farm is not a working farm and is just 5 acres. I admire farmers and farms like this one called "Lil Work" farm. Get real! No farm is "lil work." The owners, "Paul and Debbie" according to their little sign, must love farming AND have a good sense of humor.

But the seeds. Do they work? They know to send shoots up to the sun, even though they can't feel it or see it before breaking above ground. It seems almost effortless, this growing. Just doing what they do, being. Year after year I take it for granted, that the sun will shine, seeds will grow, corn plants will produce ears of corn, farmers will harvest them, and I will eat them for supper.

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Our campus gardens

"There is a great insight which our culture is deliberately designed to suppress, distort, and ignore: that Nature is a minded entity; that Nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields; that Nature is not the empty, despiritualized lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind."
—Terence McKenna

Click photos for larger views.

A few of many greenhouses on campus, and viburnum bushes

I stopped by my university’s horticulture gardens after work yesterday to see what’s coming up. Lots of things, including peonies and allium.

Peony (a la Georgia)

Allium, with peonies behind

Today Don has his 4th grade class at the MSU greenhouses all day! The program, “Seeds of Science” is an interactive chance for kids to learn about plant biology. Also, and what’s most fun if you ask me, is that the MSU horticulture and agriculture departments solicit kids’ feedback on their plants!

For example, below are just two of dozens of pansy varieties grown here. Students are asked which their favorites are. (These are mine.) Then the seed companies that use MSU’s horticulture department to test and develop seeds in turn market them as “kids’ favorite.”

Pansies

Don’s class is participating in “my favorite lettuce” meaning that the lettuces the kids think taste the best will be marketed that way.

How fun is that? I wish I’d had Mr. M. for science.

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"HI", from the farm

Vacations are lovely, a needed pleasure away from routines. But it's even sweeter to come home, especially when home is such a haven as this.

Click on photos to enlarge.


I'm glad the lilacs are still blooming because of cool temps.


Can you believe this euonymus spelled out "HI"?


Lesley and I found a frog in the thyme yesterday.


Prisms dance all over the atelier from the sun through the leaded glass window.

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Nice farm welcome, and now good-bye

Dolce & Gabbana with their hay and pitchforks in windows on the most prestigious designer's row in the world, rue Montagne, along with the rest of Paris and its cow parade, have welcomed me most kindly from the farm. And now the farm is calling me back. Au revoir!

Gucci cow, oohlala

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Café crème, again

Tea salon across from the Louvre


I'm going to miss these.

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Synchronicity

me having a café crème at the restaurant where Catherine was also eating; a nice couple from India who live in Chicago offered to take my photo after I took theirs with their camera

Because my blog is "Synchronizing" I want to share this story.

I was reading James Redfield's The Celestine Vision last night before sleep (sleep? ha!). On p. 21 he writes "Another synchronicity . . . occurs when we repeatedly see someone we don't know within a short period of time. The odds against such occurrences are tremendous . . ." He goes on to say we should introduce ourselves if that happens. Perhaps there is an important reason we should meet.

So today, I was walking down the tiny rue Servandoni, an obscure, non-touristy street, and I saw a woman walking toward me who sat two tables from me at a restaurant on the Champs-Elysées yesterday, a long way from rue Servandoni. So, because of reading Redfield's suggestion, I introduced myself to her, Catherine from Toronto.

We chatted for a few minutes, two women on a week's vacation traveling alone. I liked her a lot.

I don't know why we were meant to meet, but that it happened right after reading about the occurrence makes me believe we were connected to something bigger than ourselves.

The rest of the day I've been wishing we had made plans to get together later in the week. We'll see, maybe the universe will arrange it.

A different take on this story at Paris Deconstructed.

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Vacation is a wonderful thing

Long trip. Already worth it. I'm getting filled up (more than physically).
What I ate for dinner


A view from my window



At the end of the day . . .



Out the window tonight (will I ever go to sleep? . . .)

I'll also be posting at Paris Deconstructed all week.

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Rambling Ruth

Some last minute thoughts before my week's vacation starting tomorrow.

• I am SO ready. Too, too many student emails.
• Lesley graduates today -- hurrah! SO much hard work for so long, and now it continues to pay off: internship at Pink Inc in NYC! Congratulations, my beautiful daughter! Now, for a place for her to live . . .
• Don found 20 more morels this morning (after abundant rain): one fantastic breakfast.
• My son Peter's new CD will be completed soon . . . I HOPE!
• There is a potential client from S.U.N.Y. (without marketing!) for my new travel coaching business: synchronicity abounds (that's NOT the name of my company . . . but it's not bad).
• The forecast is nothing but rain for the whole week. But it's ok: I love rain. (Sun would be nice too, for pictures. Maybe I'll learn to take rain photos . . .)
• I'll check in with you while I'm away (yay, Wi-Fi).

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Revisiting the amaryllis

White amaryllis in February

Back on February 12 I posted about a white amaryllis. I said I wanted to propagate it, but it is a long process. Some weeks later (what a terrible scientist I am; I didn’t document the date) I took a Q-tip and spread the pollen on the pistil.

Gradually the petals faded and fell. Here we are, almost three months later, and the seeds are ready for the reveal. They were nothing like what I expected. I thought they’d be bigger, heavier. I thought these flakes resembling raisins were just bloom residue, and that my experiment had failed.

The amaryllis yesterday before breaking off the seeds

As they were blowing away on the porch, my science-teacher husband picked one up, crumbled the brittle flake, and showed me the inner seed. Duh. If I were stranded alone on a dessert island I think I’d be crab food in two weeks flat.

The seeds, which were blowing in the wind

Only two of the bloom centers “took” the fertilization; they’re the bigger black ones in the photo above the one of Don's hand.

When I plant the seeds, the books tell me it will take 2-3 years to grow bulbs.

You can see the tan seed among the black detritus

Want to read about a different Mary Magdalene adventure in Paris? Go here.

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The pain - pleasure continuum

I was struck yesterday by the juxtaposition (synchrony) of two blog posts: mine about pink flowers, and my blog friend Rauf’s about eugenics (in his country, India, outcasts are STILL sterilized for population control).

Two things hit me. 1) Proliferation of life vs. death. 2) How to understand pain and pleasure in our world.

I am way too comfortable and can go DAYS without giving a thought to those who suffer. Because I have incredible happiness and ease of lifestyle, I have greater responsibility to do what I can to improve the lives of others.

I grew up with guilt, and this is not where I want this to go.

But I have to figure out a way to remember this daily and do something about it. Some of my blogging friends are very good at raising awareness and keeping this on the front burner: Ginnie, Nathan and Paul (and, as I mentioned, Rauf). My thanks to them.

Here’s to greater awareness, which leads to more light, which leads to greater truth, which leads to CHANGE! Where would we be without the civil rights activists: Ghandi, King, etc.? It doesn’t just HAPPEN.

These thoughts, and comments on my post yesterday have got me thinking more about “beauty therapy.” How does beauty ease suffering? My sister Susan commented yesterday about the study done in prison when psychological conditions improved when walls were painted pink. I do know a bit about color therapy. I want to research the idea of beauty as therapy. I’ve heard about art therapy and music therapy. I know nothing about them.

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Don't overpink it

Too late.

These photos are from the farm. They're all my fault, except the apple and crabapple trees, which were already there before we arrived.



Apparently I like pink (I'm sorry I ever teased you, Susan, over your love of pink). I didn't realize until I took these pics how girlie I am!

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Don't overthink it

Find out why the sculptor of The Thinker, arguably one of the most famous statues in the world, was never accepted as a student at the best art academy in Paris. Visit my latest post at Paris Deconstructed.

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Jasmine tea

Click on image for larger view where you can see the bubbles in the flowers

My friend Diane served this jasmine tea the other night. It was one of those moments when the vision, the scent and the feel were equally enrapturing in a sudden, extemporaneous way. Those who live in more exotic places have no doubt seen a jasmine tea flower open like this in hot water. I had not.

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