happy birthday to Pat

Winter has finally showed itself as the cold windy snowy gotta shovel the driveway again nuisance it is. Momma pumpkins and Poppa pumpkins are buried under a foot of snow waiting to surprise us in spring. I think I can finally put the lawn mower away. With our ability to garden severely limited by the snow, what can we do? Why take a road trip to the northern most point in West Virginia and visit its most famous destination, the Homer Laughlin Pottery Company, home of Fiesta Ware.

Newell is an easy 2 hour trip through increasingly wooded and hilly terrain. I never tire of the trip. This time I missed our intended exit because I wasn’t paying attention. We were rewarded by a fun ride down route 7 through what Chicagoans call the “woods.” We passed a concrete statuary, or what I would call a yard ornamentation place, in Lisbon. We will visit the place in the early spring when lawn ornamentation season is just starting, because you can never have too many concrete rabbits in your yard. This little sidetrack didn’t add much time to our trip. Besides, nothing starts till we get there and we got there in plenty of time to buy everything Pat wanted.

The Homer Laughlin plant is right on the bluffs overlooking the Ohio River. As you look out over the river you can almost see pioneers on flat boats making their way to the future. But we didn’t make this trip for a history lesson. We came for Fiesta Ware and Pat worked her list. There seems to be a division of labor as I watched the customers. Husbands for the most part mill about waiting for their wives to finish. I dive in. I’m not driving 2 hours to mill about. I can mill about in my own driveway. I want to buy plates, actually bowls, big bowls, medium size bowls, and little bowls. We found a new-to-us selection called the Bistro Collection. It is great looking diner ware, just the kind you would expect to see in a chrome and Formica breakfast and lunch joint. I got a starter set. Pat picked out a bunch of stuff that we were missing and a 2 person set of a discontinued color. If you don’t act on discontinued Fiesta ware when you’re at the factory store, you are stuck with the secondary market. And guess where the secondary market gets their stuff? Yeah, the factory store.

When we got home Pat called out to me. “I got the wrong size plate.” Now there was a time when I would have said, or at least thought, actually definitely only thought, “bummer.” Without hesitation, (now this is a Peter Cook moment from The Princess Bride -- "twue wove") I said, “we’ll go back tomorrow and get other stuff too." So back we went, through a snow storm this time. We got the plates Pat needed and a bunch of other fiesta ware we didn’t know we needed.

The Fiesta ware colors are so bright and happy that they will put a smile on your face no matter what mood you find yourself in.

wordless wednesday

first snow

It finally snowed. I was happy in denial. The Plain Dealer just ran an article about how it’s been 250 days since the last snow. I was hoping for a few more weeks without snow and since I was in denial, temperatures in the upper 50s would have been fine. Now it isn’t the "schools and airports are all closed, there’s a run at the grocery store" kind of snow. It’s more of the, if you look hard, you can see the snow kind of first snow. But, none the less, it is the first snow. It’s time to find the snow shovel.

wordless wednesday

be of good cheer

Or how the Grobles put up outdoor Christmas decorations and stay out of jail.

Sunday dawned the perfect day to put up outdoor Christmas decorations. It was in the mid 50’s and sunny. And most importantly, Jimmy was home. We store the outdoor ornaments above the garage. Last time I went up there, I fell through the ceiling and cracked three vertebrae, so I needed a volunteer. Once we had everything down, we needed to figure out where the ornaments would go. We spent Christmas last year in California so we did not put many up. A year off seemed to erase our collective memory and offer us an opportunity of re-thinking what we would put where. In true democratic form, everyone had different ideas. An unspoken division of labor took place. I worked on the front of the garage. Pat and Jimmy worked on the yard. Bob and Fred provided security. We got half of the front yard stuff up and operable before the sun dipped below the trees and it got too cold to play in the yard.

Jimmy suggested that we run electric lines to all the flower beds. This would eliminate the need for a zillion extension cords. This would also help in preventing what I view as our Country’s biggest seasonal danger, which is the nation being engulfed in a coast to coast fire set off by overloaded extension chords sitting in the snow. See, the real enemies of this country aren’t guys in some capital. No, they are guys working in some factory somewhere who have figured out that when the 20 gazillionith light strand gets plugged into a jerry-rigged splitter the whole country will short out. Kind of what happened a few years back when an electric line in Ohio shorted out and sent the whole east coast into darkness.

You guys who only know what snow is from the news don’t have to worry, unless of course, you put Christmas lights on your palm trees.

See what happens when an over-eager imagination can’t spent time with plants.

The Ohio State flag is the coolest of all state flags.

wordless wednesday

fun in columbus

The drive to Columbus in the spring and summer is a trip through a green rolling countryside. In November, the same trip is fog shrouded, leafless brown and gray.

I’ve been in Columbus for the last two days attending a seminar. There are gaps in the schedule so I’ve been able to explore. I have always liked exploring. Whether it was my Dad packing us all in the 56 Pontiac and counting all 10,000 lakes in Minnesota or finding every place Abraham Lincoln stepped foot in, exploring with the Boy Scouts, or stopping by every historical bronze plaque when I was driving for a living, I can’t resist the chance to see something new.

At last year’s seminar, I visited the state capitol building. The Columbus Dispatch’s office is across the street with a huge neon sign. It’s like the founders of the paper told the politicians, all those years ago, that they were going to keep an eye on them and report all the shenanigans. It’s a mini lesson in political science. The capitol is surrounded by bronze monuments to the sons and daughters of Ohio who fought in our wars so they could get a memorial one day. If I was an 8th grade teacher, I would take my students on a capital tour, just like they do in Illinois (excepting that you visit Springfield, not Columbus).

Pat and I took time Friday to visit the Franklin Park Conservatory. Lona over at A Hocking Hills Garden posted about it sometime ago and I thought what a neat place, I have to visit. It’s only November, no snow has graced us yet and I already need my gardening fix. August seems like a faint memory. Pat and I do not have house plants. As good as we do outside; we kill everything that enters the house. I think it is just the way of the universe that Pat and I can not grow house plants (If this isn’t a plaintive cry for help, I don’t know what is). Back to the Conservatory, the grounds are autumnal brown, the bushes like skeletons waiting for a coat of snow. Inside you are greeted by the wonderful displays of glass. The Conservatory has a collection of glass artwork by Dale Chihuly. Pieces of artwork are interspersed throughout the conservatory. You wander along seeing green, green and suddenly brilliant color. The place is beyond cool. All I could think was: “now this is garden ornamentation, Pat….”

Boy, I did not want to go back to the seminar.

Besides the glass globes, the pool was filled with these man eating goldfish.

The Conservatory has a hot shop for glass work. Demonstrations are ongoing and the creations are sold in the gift shop. Yeah, some went home with us. It is an amazing process.

Just like the birds, I was off to the seminar.

wordless wednesday