Mei-Mei

Debbie, my sister who lives near Guy, Arkansas (pop. 523 with the arrival of her great-grandchild Rylie), is staying a few weeks with us at the Dancing Toad Ranch; she is my younger sister, so her name in Chinese is "Mei Mei." If I remember rightly, my name in Chinese as the older sister is "Lei Lei." (I'd ask Casey, but she is in China until the 11th.) Mei Mei is constantly telling me that I am "big sistering" her or someone else -- it doesn't mean giving astute and wise advice because of my years of experience -- it means that she thinks I'm getting bossy! Imagine that...

Earlier in her visit, we had lunch with Allan Northcutt, someone who was at our grade school, intermediate school, and high school. At one point Deb and I were going back and forth about some embarrassing even in our younger days, and Allan said quietly that if we got any louder we were going to be kicked out of Red Lobster...and I don't think that's a common occurence in Allan's life. Imagine that...

Plans for my trip down the Lewis and Clark Trail with my brother and Dad's ashes are complete. I will fly to Seattle on the 18th, and I'm spending the 20th with a good friend Nancy Kress. Then we leave on the 21st. First stop is Fort Clatsop, Oregon, where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-6. The fort burned several years ago, but Brad says it's been restored. I'm anxious to see it. To my relief, we are NOT:

camping
portaging
eating only what we can kill

Our goal is to be back at TDTR on Thursday, the 25th (what would have been Dad's 86th birthday) to start picking up relatives at the airport.

I had a lovely birthday on the 5th--thanks to all those (e)cards and e-mails!--Van and I drove to Lawrence to attend a day-long "Funday" put on by the North East Kansas Beekeepers Association. It was a blast, from holding bees to eating honey strawberry icecream to learning how to catch swarms.

The Birds And The Bees

Spring has finally arrived, with sunny days and lots of birds.

We have had a blue heron wading in our pond for several years, and we can watch him in the early morning and late evening when he flies out and back to his perch. But we never could find where he perched all night. We could HEAR his hoarse bark in the dark, but we couldn't tell where it was coming from. This year before the trees leafed out, I glanced to the woods early one morning -- and there it was! The heron had built a large platform of sticks in the crotch of a tree about ten feet off the ground. We can also see him wading in the wetlands in our West land during the day. I haven't gotten brave enough to climb the tree and check out the next tho...

There is also a blue bird at our niger seed feeder. When we first saw him, we decided he was a bluebird and eagerly put up several nesting boxes, only to have sparrows use them instead. This year I got a good look at the blue bird and checked out my BIRDS OF KANSAS, only to find that the blue bird isn't a bluebird at all, but an indigo bunting. No rust-colored breast; our blue bird is blue all over. *sigh* Maybe we'll just let the sparrows enjoy their houses?

The other visitors to the niger seed feeder are LOTS of gold finches.

At the regular feeder, we have a woodpecker who thinks the eaves on our house is a snack, and I throw things at him to disabuse him of the idea. There are also the usual suspects: cardinals, blue jays, orange winged black birds, and robins.

The cats sit on a table at the front room window and go nuts when the barn swallows (another blue bird who isn't a bluebird but has a rust-colored breast...confusing, isn't it?) loop and dive in from of them enroute to their nest in our guttering.

The path to the bees takes me past a killdeer's nest, which upsets the mother immensely. There were originally three eggs (off white with mud-colored mottling); but the last time I saw it, there were only two. Raccoons?

As for the bees, the second hive box is on each one; and the queens are busy laying eggs. The last four or five days have been sunny, and I've seen bees on the heather at the front door of the house and on the chives in the garden. We're hoping they are buzzing in and out and making honey like...well, like busy bees.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

A special greeting to all the women in my life. All are mothers and deserve to be celebrated today:

To the natural mothers who bore children that they would occasionally like to zap into an alternate universe upon hearing one more chorus of "Are we there yet?"

To the adopted mothers and the married-into mothers who chose to have children that they would occasionally like to zap...

To women who are like mothers to us, who comfort us when our own mothers aren't around and encourage us to be LaLas.

To those who care for our furry friends, who adopt them and get them nutured--thanks, Alice!

To those who mothered my father at the Garden Court Memory Care Center; you guys are the best.

To all women who fill the role of mother for others, whether in a classroom or as a next-door neighbor or for anyone who needs kindness and love and a little help.

Have a wonderful day!

Twittering

For the past few months, I have been attending meetings of Kansas Beer Guys, formerly known as the The Beer Selection Committee, at a friends' house. There are three members and two groupies (another member's wife and myself). The members range in ages from 27 to 40 to 62, but they share a passion for beer, especially microbrewery and specialty beers from around the world and all are homebrewers.

In April, the Kansas Beer Guys began a pale ale contest, sometimes called "The Pale Ale Pandomonium." They sample 8-11 different beers each Thursday, the samples carefully poured so that it is exactly divided equally into three glasses, then rank them. After each pour is ranked, one of the members twitters.

Now, Van and I didn't know what twittering was, aside from the sound birds make in the morning when you want to sleep longer. It sounds like something that Virginia Woolfe would approve of -- stream of consciousness in short bursts on the computer. It's taken awhile, but I think Van has gotten the hang of twittering and does his share throughout the night.

It's no coincidence that by the end of the night, all three are twitterpated...

If you'd like to read what the Kansas Beer Guys are up to, check them out at:

http://ksbeerguys.blogspot.com/

Boompa

My dad was named "Boompa" by Renee, his first grandchild; and the name stuck. He was 85 years old and had dementia, and he passed away on February 10th in his sleep. For the last few years, he had been living in a memory care center in Olympia, Washington, near my brother Brad and his family. They were great about spending time with Boompa, and Brad was sleeping at the center the night Dad died.

Dad was cremated, and in June I will fly to Washington state and drive back with Brad and Dad's ashes to Wichita to inter him next to Mom. Since Boompa and Brad drove the Lewis and Clark Trail when Dad moved out to Olympia, it seemed fitting that we drive the trail back to lay him at rest. Brad has been plotting all the interesting points along the way, and he says it'll take 4-5 days for us to get to The Dancing Toad Ranch. I've been reading UNDAUNTED COURAGE, the story of Merriwether Lewis, to see what I can expect.

I have questions.

Brad and family are in Florida, so I'll post my queries here:

Exactly how many days of the trip will we be portaging?
Do I have to bring my own canoe?
Are Quaker Oats granola bars allowed; or do I have to eat buffalo, elk, and beaver tail?
Who is going to shoot the buffalo?
Do I need to bring my own rifle?

Any "Yes" answers will make my flight VERY interesting!!!

The Care And Feeding of Grass Carp

We have a lagoon.

It isn't the kind of clear-blue water in paradise type of lagoon. Ours is a "waste stabilization pond," commonly called a "lagoon" by someone with a strange and warped sense of humor. We have a lagoon because we are too far from town for a sewer line and because our ground is officially a "wetlands" and won't support a septic tank. Our lagoon sits between the house and the road, just to the East; and it consists of a 40' by 40' depression with water in it, surrounded by a six-foot berm of dirt, topped by a six-foot fence. It is NOT attractive.

I have seen several turtles and a muskrat swimming in it, and last Fall I began to see a bright lime color floating on the surface of the water. Diagnosis?

Duckweed.

Duckweed is an invasive, hard to remove aquatic plant that can clog the "laterals" that carry waste to the lagoon, keeping the lagoon from doing its job. You can buy an expensive chemical to treat duckweed -- and treat it and treat it, repeatedly -- or you can do as I did today. I drove to Culver's Fish Farm in McPherson and bought four 10" grass carp. They LOVE duckweed, they don't reproduce, and they were cheaper than one treatment of the chemical.

Tonight my very own disposal unit of four is working away, making my world a cleaner place to live.

While in DC

I realize I'm backing up a little here, so bear with me...

I spent Jan. - March of this year in DC; I was nanny for my grandson Austin while his official nanny, Liz, was on maternity leave. It was a wonderful experience, and I recommend it highly for any grandparent. Not only did I get acquainted with my grandson, but I also got to live full-time with my daughter for the first time in 15 years and get re-acquainted with her.

While I was in DC, Austin became a toddler. He learned to walk, to babble, to stack blocks, to throw fits. He even sings! He developed a sense of humor and played tricks -- hiding things and laughing out loud. He started eating people food and wanted to feed himself, although his skill with a spoon was not too specific. His favorite foods were graham crackers, grapes, cheese, cheerios, tangerines, and tabouli...wasn't much for meat or other veggies.

The kids also moved while I was in DC, to their original townhouse in the historic neighborhood of Fairlington. It was a great place to walk, with people and dogs out at all times of the day and flowers everywhere. When I left, the cherry trees in the pocket park behind the townhouse were starting to bloom.

I was afraid Austin would forget me, but I am happy to report that at our last Skype session, he pointed at my face on their computer screen and smiled.