I can’t seem to catch my breath. Weeds are taking over our humble acreage here on the Cutoff. This afternoon, I broke the weeder. Pushing too hard on the handle, it broke! We have some pretty tough weeds in our garden. Tomatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, zucchini and peppers have needed tending in our plot in the Community Garden. I’m trying to finish up some projects and the upcoming Elmhurst Garden Walk and Faire has us all busy making final preparations. In-the-meantime, forceful storms rolled in right at suppertime, pounding the skies with thunder and pelting the windows with rain.
So, what do I do? I sit here, my mind wandering, thinking of Honeyman Farms in Homer Glen, where rows and rows of seed packets fill a horse barn. Every kind of seed from a bevy of distributors; heirloom, seed collectors, beans and zinnias and chinese cabbage. There were so many seeds I wanted to buy for the pure beauty of the graphics on the packages – rather like judging a book by its cover. I’m easily swayed.
We wandered around, me reading every seed packet, he exploring a hearty collection of garden tools.
There were golden jars of clover honey for sale and garden plants just out the door, just waiting to be slipped into soil.
Remnants of long ago horse breeding caught our eyes. Old barns have so much to say, don’t they, with their corners and eaves and places that seem especially made for new life?
We strolled around to the pond were bullfrogs reign, and past raspberry canes, the owner inviting us back mid-season to do our picking. Just sitting, thinking about our recent outing, feels good, this taking time to catch one’s breath. Feels real good.
It’s late, my friend. I think I’ll wander on up to bed, read a few pages from Barbara Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior”, listen to the raindrops on the roof, and call it day.
First nights. They have always been a challenge for us. Long before Tom was dubbed Antler Man and I discovered I liked to play in the dirt, we took a trip to the Bahamas and began what has become a long string of first nights to chat about.
There was our one night honeymoon at the O’Hare Marriott forty years ago, when a champagne cork ricocheted off the walls around 4 am, and the window washer who later dropped in for breakfast.
Dare I mention our first night on Maui when we got lost on Kanapali Beach, the late night show with the hula girl, and the shot in the dark?
How about Heather and Andrews wedding, which was a joy to behold, 15 years ago? The night before the nuptials, we had a trip to the ER from Hell, not to mention the three times management had to be called to open the door to our suite.
A year after our honeymoon, 39 years ago, we jumped at the opportunity to share a condo for a week in the Bahamas with friends. The price was right and we were raring to go, even if we had to fly over the Bermuda Triangle to do it.
Our first clue should have been when we went to visit the owners of the condo and get the key. It was the 90 minute slide presentation of the mister’s snorkeling adventures that foreshadowed something amiss.
We all worked the day our adventure began; suitcases packed and stowed in our cars for a quick ride to the airport and a late afternoon flight south. The plane was packed with mostly college students, already “two sheets to the wind”, loud, undisciplined, etc. It was 1973. The world was being tilted on its axis, but, airplanes still had a certain cache. Meals were rolled to your seat by well coiffed stewardesses in uniforms, there were no security checks, one wore one’s shoes before boarding, the pillows were free and one felt safe.
As dusk descended across the Atlantic, we landed at the small Bahamian airport. Our luggage retrieved, we headed out to find our economy rental car. Just as the key turned in the door of the Volkswagon Beetle, the lights were turned off at the airport. Closing time. We came in on the last flight. No problem. A map (a real map), and the four of us, loaded down with our Samsonite look-alikes, a large, portable hairdryer, food, swimsuits, and Easter eggs, we squeezed inside! We were like the Ricardo and Mertzes, Ricky and Fred up front, Lucy and Ethel in back. Tom drove with my hairdryer in his lap, working the clutch with his long legs jammed into the steering wheel, his 6 foot 4 frame pushing the roof of the car. We needed the windows opened, not to smell the balmy air. No. We needed the extra room!
We stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. Off we went, around and around in what seemed to be a circle. Actually, it was a circle. They were toying with us, those station attendants! We figured that out sometime around our sixth lap. Finally, we found the complex where our condo was.
Like sardines in a tin, we crawled, squeezed, and maneuvered our bodies and bundles out of the car, while Jerry, who had the keys, opened the door and went in – then came out, shut the door, pale and shaken. “There are people sleeping in one of the bedrooms”. Did we have the right condo? Right key? Didn’t they hear the door open? Were they even alive? We commiserated, four northern souls in a balmy parking lot, wondering what to do. We decided to ring the doorbell.
A man came out, all tousled from sleep. Huh? As we explained that he was sleeping in our condo, we heard a pop as all the lights went out on the island.
It’s hard to negotiate in the dark of night when wearing one’s bathroom slippers – or has just spent hours flying and circling in a VW bug.
It seems there was a mixup from our scuba diving landlord (I told you those slides were foreboding) and the slumbering couple had the condo for a few more days.
All’s well that ends well, I always say, and this story does end well. The two sleeping beauties had another key to a one room unit, where we slept the night, exhausted, on musty beds in the clothes we had traveled in, hoping that no tropical creatures were slinking about. Since the wife was more interested in gambling than sunning on the beach, she readily offered to hand over the keys so they could stay at the swank hotel. Since they would no longer need a car, the husband handed over the keys to his rental. A sleek mid-sixties white Cadillac with a red leather interior and foot long fins; a great white whale that made our second night and our island adventure swimmingly grand!
Thanks to Andra and her post a few days ago about opening a hotel room door to find a man fixing her bed for awakening this sleeping memory. You can find her post here.
Illinois. It is both complicated and simple with its windy city of Chicago that Carl Sandburg immortalized in his City of Big Shoulders, nestled at the shores of Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes carved out of ice eons ago. It has some of the richest soil on earth that produces corn and soy beans and pumpkins. The historic town of Galena sits in the northwestern corner of the state with modern day ski lifts and once rich deposits of lead. while the Shawnee National Forest, on the state’s its southern tip, was once populated by native North Americans and remains resplendent in its natural beauty. Illinois is like a family; complicated, conflicting, often argumentative, always proud of where it has been, what it has accomplished, and where it is headed.
The Land of Lincoln. The Prairie State. Illinois is rich in resources, both natural and human, and much of its terrain was carved from the great glaciers that cut into it long before man settled on it.
We love exploring it – and so we did this weekend as we marked our anniversary.
Tom and I met in college toward the center of the state. Even though both of us were raised in the suburbs of Chicago; he a south suburban lad, myself a gal from the west side, we had never been to Starved Rock State Park together. Tom remembers, as a very young boy, sitting on the top of a rock, Starved Rock, looking out across the tree tops. So, we deemed Starved Rock as our destination, booked a room at the Lodge, and headed out on the road to discovery.
Starved Rock is only about ninety minutes from our house, mostly interstate driving. We arrived on Sunday just in time to have lunch at the Lodge, check in, then wander about the park. This is the scenery from the restaurant where we ate lunch.
This lush, forested park has eighteen canyons surrounded by rock formations born out of glacial melt thousands of years ago. The canyons provide a majestic gift to the flat fields of this part of Illinois. especially when the spring rains give rise to their waterfalls. Starved Rock State Park has become the wintering over locale for eagles, drawing visitors to the park even in winter.
Throughout Starved Rock are statues; old trees repurposed as eagles and bears, settlers and dogs, and all manner of creatures carved out of wood. I am always appreciative when I see new life coming from old life.
We decided to take one of the closer and less strenuous paths, though even the path we chose through French Canyon involved plenty of climbing up and down stairs, looking down into the magnificent canyon, with the forest floor coming alive in native columbine, shooting star, bloodroot, native violet, and ferns. It is amazing how life will cling to the walls of a canyon and how trees seem to arise out of them, determined to live and grow.
Can you find our shadows looking down into the canyon? You may have to click onto the picture a time or two, but, there we are, tiny shadows in the great, big forest.
Jennifer and Jason recommended a Cajun restaurant for us to try. Yes. A Cajun restaurant. After all that climbing, we needed some nourishment, so, off we went to Ron’s Cajun Connection, not much more than a road stop diner on a country road in a town called Utica. It was loud, busy, and full of welcome mat hospitality. We devoured our gumbo; the best one will find in this neck of the cornfields. Yum. Good means are always a part of travel, don’t you agree?
Have you ever noticed how ferns unfurl? They poke through the ground with great determination, all eager to catch the sunshine. Their fronds appear, all nestled in curves like question marks that seem to hug each other like young love in spring, wondering what life will bring.
I’m off on a bit of jaunt in the jalopy with my favorite frond as we share a spot of time to celebrate our 40th anniversary.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend. If you behave, when I come back in a day or two, maybe I’ll tell you how to be a bee spotter.
After being fingerprinted, twice, and posing for a mug shot, I really started wondering what, exactly, I had gotten myself into. A month went by. I wondered why I hadn’t heard anything. My imagination went on overdrive. I kept looking at my finger tips.
Have you looked at the tips of your fingers? The underside, fleshy part? There should be oval ridges going round and round and round in a pattern unique to only you. Ruffles Potato Chips have more ridges than my fingertips, which are as round and smooth as a baby’s bottom.
The beautification committee was finally notified. We were officially sworn in, which meant we had to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) test, which is another story for another time. I stood. I raised my right hand. I swore to do my duty, then shook several sets of prints, I mean hands, and met two very fine women, from different walks of life, who would soon become my partners in dirt. The three of us had a common vision and ended up on a subcommittee together. Each brought her own set of skill to the committee we agreed to work on. Though none of us knew each other beforehand, we managed to plow ahead, set up a plan, research, write, and draw up ideas.
Last summer, we took a field trip to other communities so see what they had done. We talked to others, took pictures, formulated talking points, then shared them with the whole committee, city employees and elected officials, and finally started talking to members of our community. The city gave us a go-ahead IF we could get enough participants to fill fifteen garden plots.
We did.
On May 4, we held opening day of our community garden! The plots were dug and tilled and plotted by city workers. Paths were laid between plots. A sign with our rules and regulations was posted, and Home Depot donated a pick-up truck filled with bagged soil.
It was a happy day for the three of us. There was a time we did not think it would happen, even though we all shared a common vision for a community garden. The seeds were sown and in the process a dozen or so folks in our town were granted a small plot of land to grow vegetables for a nominal fee. Most of these community farmers live in condos, apartments, and trailers, with little or no space to plant their own vegetables – and, of course Tom and I, who have two acres and too many deer! We took a plot, as well, and look forward to tomatoes and peppers and beans!
When you put your fingers into good, rich earth, no matter what your fingerprints look like, good things begin to grow and flourish and good will is born. I felt good, through and through, as I watched several gardeners start to plant, work the soil, measure and look toward the sun. They were smiling and talking, enthusiastic and hopeful.
My favorite gardeners were a duo; a young woman of about thirty years and her grandmother. They were sharing a plot and came ready to work. The grandmother had sewn matching aprons with three deep pockets in each for their gardening chores. It made my heart leap for pure joy of it – for a good thing was beginning to happen. A garden was starting to grow.
Another gardener was planting a Mexican garden with corn and hot chili peppers and cilantro. Rows of lettuce have suddenly sprung up, and little sprouts have poked through the soil. There are pinwheels in some of the patches – to scare the birds and rabbit-proof fences, one with a door.
It was really worth all the nonsense of fingerprints, for this little community garden of ours is already nurturing souls – and will soon feed them as well with the riches of the soil.
Sometimes, prints lead to paths and paths lead to gardens. Don’t you agree?
Have you ever had a split second in time when you are taken by surprise, only to realize that what surprised you was exactly what you expected to see?
So intent was I to peek inside the little white house, stepping up the first step of the wooden risers, that I didn’t realize August Ekdahl was standing right there, cobbling a shoe. I let out a little gasp of startled surprise as my heart skipped a beat, then quickly realized it was just a mannequin, wondering if the children playing in the schoolyard across the way had noticed my moment of panic.
It was a cold but brilliant day, with the kind of sunshine that makes one want to be out-and-about, exploring. I was northbound through the town of Western Springs, a few destinations on my docket with a time to spare and made the impulsive decision to explore the little white house in a small park I often pass by.
As much as I love the cathedrals and museums, halls of learning, justice, and governance, I also appreciate the little framed structures of history that dot our Land of Lincoln and speak of the pioneers that settled. Many of them cleared the land and farmed, others followed with goods and trades and established towns.
August Ekdahl was a Swedish immigrant who eventually settled in what is now Western Springs. A cobbler, he built a small house and set up shop in 1887. While shoes were already being manufactured in factories in Chicago, land beyond the city limits was still open prairie. August worked in his shop, raised a family, and even shared his space with a postmistress.
I’ve been thinking a bit about these small post offices. Not only did they provide a more accessible place for people to pick up and send their mail, but, they also brought people into towns, which provided the opportunities for farmer and townsfolk to talk, share stories, exchange goods. I still look forward to trips to the post office to buy stamps and mail letters and packages, and I usually plan other errands around them, though I do it in my mocha colored VW with latte interior instead of a horse and buggy.
I also been thinking about local historical societies and the vital role they play in preserving history. There are the large, deep pocket organizations that bring about the grand scale preservations and I applaud them and the work that they do. There are also the smaller organizations; the grass-roots historians whose passion is to save the one room schoolhouses, general stores, and the homes of founding mothers and fathers. They are folks are a mighty band of preservationists who hold in their purpose the salvation of our past. The Western Springs Historical Society is one such group. I’m sure you know of others.
Back to my brief encounter with Mr. Ekdahl.
Here he is, cobbling shoes,
and here is Mrs. Watson, sorting the mail.
The August Ekdahl house is more an outdoor museum and is unique in its approach. Risers are all around the building, leading to windows from which to peer inside, with information posters on the outside walls of the building. I couldn’t help but think of what a great place it would be for an afternoon field trip with children or grandchildren, with a picnic lunch, a visit to the post office or a local shoe repair shop.
Zoobies. Have you heard of them? They are famous characters of kiddie lit that have blankets hidden inside. I almost bought Corduroy Bear for myself, though the Llama in his pajamas was awfully cuddlesome and the Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar was a temptation, I must confess.
We had, you see, the pleasure of attending a “family and friends” night before the grand opening of a new business in La Grange. It has been a while since we’ve been to an opening, and longer still since it involved toys.
I didn’t want to leave.
We were excited to hear that Becca and Nathan, along with Becca’s mom Leah, were opening a “green” store and delighted to go to the event, which was not only filled with toys and books and other items, but with a crowd of supportive family and friends – and lots of children discovering new toys. You can imagine the happy chaos of that, can’t you?
Eco Maniac of La Grange is on the main thoroughfare through town, La Grange Road (also known as Mannheim a little further north and Route 45 throughout. La Grange Road also hooks up to historic Route 66). It is a most perfect location for such a store, nestled in among other independent shops, the La Grange Theater and restaurants. But, I digress. I want to tell you about the store in which items that are green, sustainable, organic, and repurposed are sold.
Also found within Eco Maniac’s bright rooms are jewelry, clothes, and just the thing for a little gift, a stocking stuffer, perhaps, or maybe a little something to wear to a costume party.
I wish all the best for Eco Maniac in La Grange. I admire their leap of faith in opening a new store in this quivering economy and I applaud their respect for our little planet in their choice of merchandise. I can’t wait to go back, which I will do just as soon as I find where Tom hid the car keys.
They spring up like a self-basting thermometer on Thanksgiving day. Turkey Bowls. Informal games – or fierce yearly rivalries – these football games are played in neighborhood parks, on quiet side streets, and in backyards. Footballs are energetically tossed around by high school students in their prime, college students wishing they hadn’t partied the night before, and middle-aged men (and women) sure to be aching come Friday morning. These gregarious games of football are as big a part of many a Thanksgiving day celebration as stuffing and pumpkin pie.
I played this year, for the very first time.
I was out and about mid-morning for dinner rolls I’d forgotten, enjoying a few moments of turkey talk on the radio as I drove around. I was coming up to a park where a game of football was in play. Shirts and skins on a breezy 50° November morning, I sensed they wouldn’t be thinking about the few cars going by.
I saw the pass. Fast and low. Faster than the 30 mph I was going, with a wide receiver (I don’t know what that means, just thought it would sound good) aiming to catch it. Of course, said receiver, old enough to know better, did not look both ways as he crossed the street. Fortunately, this granny in her mocha VW with latte interior saw the pass, slammed on the breaks, and intercepted the pigskin with the hood of the car.
The young man looked chastened; relieved, no doubt, that it wasn’t his own skin that was intercepted.
With several stopped cars now lined up behind me, two teams of rivals cheering me on, wishing me a happy Thanksgiving, I waved goodbye, forgetting I’d pushed the automatic button that proceeded to close over my arm.
We get our kicks on Route 66. Not “kicks’, exactly, but Kix Cereal. You see, about a mile or so from the Cutoff, sitting on old Route 66, is a store where we buy groceries. Another mile or so east sits one of the many Historic Route 66 signs that dot the United States. As we hit a slight rise in the pavement, the magnificent skyline of Chicago comes into view. Some twenty miles away sits Buckingham Fountain, the gateway to Lake Michigan and the symbolic beginning of Route 66.
This now historic two lane highway once took travelers from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California, ending in Santa Monica. Route 66 was the 2,451 mile Mother Road to a better life for many and the great migration west; those escaping the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression, seeking jobs in the fertile fields of Southern California, looking for wartime employment, or the glamour and excitement of Hollywood.
Route 66 wound around and through small towns and large, from the midwest to the southwest and the Pacific Coast, It brought tourists to their diners and motels, offered a place to settle down and start a family, or provided the opportunity to see local attractions as more and more people began to own cars. This long stretch of highway and the cars that rode on it helped support the economy of many towns. When the interstate highway system was completed and Route 66 was decommissioned as a highway, many towns and villages suffered economically, changing the way of life for many.
Many of us remember Dinah Shore as she blew us all a kiss each week from her television show and encouraged us all to “see the USA in your Chevrolet”.
Then there were these two fellows on the television series, Route 66. They made young girls’ hearts go pit-a-pat each week as they drove the cars that all the fellows longed for – and still do.
When I first left home for college, we drove Route 66 to Normal, Illinois. I will always remember that first trip to school, my dad behind the wheel, my mom trying to keep a stiff upper-lip, my own mixed emotions at leaving home for the first time. We drove out of the Chicago suburbs, past cornfields, Joliet, more cornfields, on and on. It seemed forever, until we approached Dwight and the first stop light from Chicago. There was a diner at the light were we often stopped for coffee and a piece of pie.
As long as I’m riding along on the memory lane of Route 66, I should mention the Dixie Truck Stop near Funk’s Grove. Heading toward Springfield, they had some mighty tasty hamburgers and interesting people to watch. I believe it is still in operation, though with new owners. More “kicks on Route 66″ through part of Illinois. The phrase was first made popular by Nat King Cole. It is fun to listen to as he sings about all the places the Mother Road passes.
The magnificence of maples and oaks and birches with pines interspersed was dizzying. Ancient rocks pushing through the ground, reminders of ice age glaciers cutting through the vast valleys and hills of Northern Wisconsin, were powerful in the early morning sun. As I drove the interstate toward home, I felt as if I had been dropped into a bowl of candy corn.
I love Autumn so much. I can’t seem to let it go. Not yet. I want to see it and hold it in my view for as long as possible, a Midwesterner’s reward for the brutally hot, dry summer we had and memories to keep close when the long winter settles in. Do you ever feel like holding on to a season for as long as you can?
I stopped at a rest area near Black River Falls and walked around a bit, stretching my legs after hours driving. In the thirteen years I’ve made this drive, I’ve never stopped at this wayside. I walked about and I wondered why, grateful to find something new on a familiar path. The view was picturesque and I learned that one of Wisconsin’s major crops is peat moss grown in the area. Who knew?
I stopped at the apple orchard I mentioned a few blogs past, happy to know it was still selling apples this late into October, and that it was open so early in the day. I hauled a half bushel of Cortlands, a red cabbage, and butternut squash into the car, deciding to gaw rather than gee as I drove out the drive. My reward was such a pleasant country road, with gentle turns and swaths of sun brushing across the farmland.
Oh, the russet colored wonders of corn stalks drying under such a blue sky with the colors of Autumn for company.
Pulling to the side of the lane to take pictures, I could hear the gurgling sound of Sandhill Cranes, so high I couldn’t see them migrating south, reminding me to continue my journey home.
I can’t seem to catch my breath. Weeds are taking over our humble acreage here on the Cutoff. This afternoon, I broke the weeder. Pushing too hard on the handle, it broke! We have some pretty tough weeds in our garden. Tomatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, zucchini and peppers have needed tending in our plot in the Community Garden. I’m trying to finish up some projects and the upcoming Elmhurst Garden Walk and Faire has us all busy making final preparations. In-the-meantime, forceful storms rolled in right at suppertime, pounding the skies with thunder and pelting the windows with rain.
