Yep
It happened
And you have been gone
For so long
Every year
Spring slides in blooming
And summer explodes
Fall knows sadness…and
The crows come back
Winter snow drifts down
To the cold, sleeping ground
You reminder
You have been gone
For so long
John
2011 By David Jacobi
Can you imagine Jay-Z at 60? He was born just a few months after Woodstock, the same year a 34 year old Elvis returned to performing in Las Vegas. Elvis would be 85 if still alive, and Jay-Z will be looking at his golden years in just a decade. Besides The King’s recorded music, merchandising and Graceland, his legacy is carried on by impersonators. Dozens of bands and individual performers have tribute acts. Quite a few of those original bands have replaced members, and as time goes on I have wondered when, or if, the act will ever end. Take the Rolling Stones. Of the remaining founding members, will the band continue when one of them dies? How could they possibly continue without front man Mick Jagger? Many of us thought the same thing about Queen after Freddie Mercury died, until they toured with Paul Rodgers, then Adam Lambert. Is it possible that the most iconic bands (or at least those who make the most money) could just go on and on, replacing members as needed even after all of the originals are gone? Kiss is halfway there. We can now also watch the illusion of a performer on stage. Tupac, ODB, Maria Callas, Billie Holiday, Roy Orbison, Michael Jackson and several others have been projected on stage, and given the rapidly advancing technology they/it could be made to perform anything. Tupac could dance with Ginger Rogers while Roy sings with Frank Zappa, all with ABBA singing backup. Computers can do almost anything these days, including complex CGI, Deepfakes, holograms, de-aging and I am pretty sure things I have never heard of. Just listening to the music is not enough for some fans, while for others it is the essence of musical artistry. To each his own. As long as we can still have a few brew’s and watch our favorite robot band, how can anyone not be happy with all the options?
Fall is here so it’s time to dust off the crock pot. Crockery Pot Cooking offers a huge array of recipes to try in your slow cooker.
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The Poorhouse Story provides “a clearinghouse for information about 19th century American Poorhouses for … history buffs, genealogists, teachers/students, and others with a similar interest.”
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Along the two mile stretch of our gravel road from the county highway on our east until the first cross road to our west, there are seven acreages. That leaves much room between neighbors, but not so much that you don’t know each other. The first neighbor to give us a welcome and introduce himself and his young son gave us some sage country advice, “Out here we are friendly, but we like to be left alone.” Last year we were visited by another one who has an art degree, works at a local co-op, and helps run a custom jewelry business with his wife. Yet another works as a physical education teacher, and the other two are a cattle rancher and the crop farmer who owns almost all the land around the rest of us. On the property closest to us to the east the house is gone. The out buildings survive and the family keeps it up, mows, and the yard light still burns at night, but no one lives there. What used to be the eighth acreage was sold a few years ago, all the outbuildings removed, and now corn grows where the yard was. The only clue that anything but crops ever existed there is the short, weedy gravel driveway approach from the road, and the four digit house number sign leaning next to it on a post. There are two streams that wind through the area and cross under our road at either ends of our two miles. A cemetery with a couple hundred graves sits on a hill overlooking our road and one of the streams. The oldest burial I have found dates from 1881. Usually the vehicles on the road belong to local folks going to and returning from jobs, giving a wave if they see you in the yard. The traffic will soon increase to a steady stream of farm equipment, bringing in the fall harvest.
I have been using the National Weather Service website for years now. It is part of my morning routine to check the weather and the news before I begin my day. Just enter your zip code for your local forecast. The site also offers radar, weather records and education, alerts and safety information. I have sampled other weather sites over the years and the NWS has the most accurate weather information and forecasts I have found on the web.
Since we finished moving to the country last winter this is our first garden out here. We planted in a freshly tilled section of the yard and the results have been almost unbelievable. We have put up 12 quarts of tomatoes so far and we should easily be able to at least double that while also making stews, soups, spaghetti, chili and salsa. All that from seven plants. I am going to make my third batch of salsa this weekend and thought I would share the recipe. As usual, I don’t measure the ingredients, so flavor to your taste.
Ingredients:
Celery, diced
Green onions, sliced
Tomatoes, diced
Garlic cloves (I use a hand held garlic press)
Green peppers, diced
Jalapeno peppers, diced
In a mixing bowl stir together all the above ingredients then add:
Basil, salt and pepper, cilantro, parsley, paprika, oregano, Tabasco, cayenne pepper and cumin. Stir well then chill or serve at room temperature with tortilla chips.
This version is chunky. If you prefer more juice, puree some tomatoes and a scoop or two of the salsa together, and add back to the bowl.
Once a month I highlight a piece of art I have created and posted on my Fine Art America site. This one is titled Winter Dusk from the Photos Collection.
I recently finished reading a book on a very disturbing episode in U.S. History. Massacre at Mountain Meadows was written by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Jr. and Glen M. Leonard and published in 2008. The book centers on the circumstances leading up to and including a Mormon and Indian attack on a wagon train in Utah Territory. The authors were given access to LDS archives and also combed through primary sources to assemble this well researched and engrossing work. After giving a through look at the history of the Mormons up to that point in history the events chronicled mainly involve Mormon settlers living in the Utah Territory, some Paiute Indians, and emigrants passing through on their way to California. A wagon train of around 120 men, women and children, mostly from Arkansas, is traveling through the Territory in 1857. They stop to rest and refresh at Mountain Meadows, a well known area on the trail. For a variety of reasons including the Mormon history of persecution by others, suspicion of outsiders, and a fear at the time of an invasion and war with the U.S. Army, the wagon train is attacked on September 7 by a Mormon militia and some Paiute Indians. The emigrants circle the wagons, dig in and fight back for five days. On the 11th the militia approach the wagon train under a flag of truce and deceive the emigrants into surrendering. Given the title of the book one knows what the ultimate fate of the emigrants will be, but the description is still heartbreaking to read. Only one man was tried and convicted, 20 years later, of mass murder. He was hauled back to the site of the massacre and executed by firing squad.
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Wassily Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists and this site has to be one of the most comprehensive compilations of his life and work on the web.
Live Science features articles about space and physics, history, health, animals, culture, tech and, my favorite, strange news. They also offer a free email newsletter.
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When our two kids were able to walk and talk and were out of diapers we began taking them camping. They loved to gather sticks for the campfire, roast hot dogs and make s’mores. If there was a beach they would play in the water until they were wrinkled like raisins. When they learned to ride a bike we would bring those, too. Around the time they reached their teen years we stretched out these vacations in both time and distance. Over the next few years we traveled to The Dells, The Badlands and Mount Rushmore, Grand Tetons, the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone. We usually stayed in cabins, sometimes next to a river or stream or on a mountain. We had to quickly climb a slope to avoid a bison, break for bears and share a river with moose. We toured caves and zoos and museums, took hikes, enjoyed campfires. And then it was over; the kids graduated high school and were off to college. Recently one of our granddaughters stayed with us for a few days. Peanut, her nickname, is seven years old. I was looking at a thin paperback book by Lincoln Borglum about the construction of Mount Rushmore. Peanut wandered up to me and was looking at the photos. I asked if she knew what that was. She shook her head no. I briefly explained what it was and then added that her mommy and uncle had traveled there with us to see it when they were younger. “You mean you saw that, in person,” she asked, her eyes lighting up. I told her yes. “Did you climb up it,” she wondered. I told her no. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I want to go see it, too,” she said, doing a little dance. “Can we go see it?” I replied, “Well, you just never know, Peanut.” We looked at each other and smiled, content with that answer for now.
