Hidden Treasures of the Local Library

Lazy summer days with heat indexes over 100F are not days for Mighty Mouse Projects around the house & yard – but they are fine days to sit in the shade with a glass of ice water that has just a touch of lemon & read.  So when I deliver the trash & recycling to the local county facility for trash & recyclables I also visit my local branch of the regional public library.   It is my custom to wander up & down an aisle or two of the library & pick up 2 or 3 books, whatever catches my fancy at the time.  Recently this rather haphazard selection process netted me a real jewel. 

Now the title would led one to believe this tale concerns some non-canonical text or other, but this is not the case at all.  Rather it’s the tale of  the twin Presbyterian Scot sisters who found  the Sinaitic Pamplimsest  (a Syriac translation of the 4 canonical gospels) while searching for old Syriac manuscripts at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai desert.  The text is c.325 AD & thus rather important to the field of New Testament manuscript studies, but the best part of the story is the story of these 2 remarkable women.

These 2 Victorian Scot ladies were over 50 when they made their first trip to St. Catherine’s and they went unescorted by either husbands (both were widows) or fellow scholars.  The trip involved negotiating all transport from Alexandria on, including arranging for food & staff to prepare it, tents for themselves, camels for the land journey etc.  The year is 1893 & the Ottoman Empire is not a particularly safe place to travel.  Ok, Ok, so they both spoke Greek & Arabic, but that doesn’t make the trip itself safer.

Janet Soskice writes of Agnes & Margaret’s whole lives, not just finding of the manuscript.  It’s a good read whether or not you have any interest in manuscript studies. 

Meanwhile late summer is slowly morphing into early fall.  Only a few lightening bugs are rising each evening & there are no new plants in the understory of my woods.  I haven’t seen the brown skink in awhile but there are at least half a dozen little blue strip baby skinks running around the same brushy stump.  The nightly woods chorus has added insects to the frogs & toads of mid-summer.  The bird’s nest in my front bedroom window now has 4 Carolina wren babies in it.  Both mom & dad are busy keeping them fed.  And of course there are hummers – at least 2 nests of hummingbirds are in the white pines along the property line.  As the late summer orange flowers bloom along the wood line I’m sure I’ll see more hummers of an evening.  So the cycle of the seasons moves at its own pace.

Lazy, Hazy & Way Too Hot

The lazy, hazy days of mid summer have arrived along with way to much heat & humidity.  The trim painting project is on hold until the heat index is below 90 & the daily thunderstorms are over.  All that rain maybe great for the water table but it also means I’m still mowing the yard weekly & barely keeping up at that.  I’ve also made progress on minor projects around the house, but even sorting through boxes of books etc. is hard when the heat index is still over 100 at midnight.

The praying mantis of course are perfectly happy with the hot & humid weather.  There are plenty of bugs for them to eat & plenty of lush green plants to ambush said bugs on.  This one is just shy of 3 inches back on July 27th.  The lilies have bloomed & are drying back so the mantis have moved on to other hunting grounds.

The nest in my front room window was built by wrens.  Currently the hen is sitting on 4 brown speckled eggs which should hatch in another 7-10 days.  I’m sitting in my back yard rather than the swing in the front yard until the birds have grown & gone. 

Else its been a good summer.  Last Friday I took my daughter’s Ninja in for its annual inspection & then rode it up to her on Saturday morning.  We had a great day staying cool at her place with lunch at the Amphora with Carly, Dean, Don & Dolores.   Sunday I drove to Lynchburg & spent the day with Gypsy Jane at the Izaak Walton League campground.  I got a bit too much sun swimming in the lake there  (yes I put sunblock on, twice even) but that’s healing up nicely.   Wednesday was a marathon lawn mowing session & house chore day so I could spend Thursday again with Gypsy Jane.  We had a great time chillin’ & of course swimming in the lake.  (I wore a t-shirt over my suit so as not to re-burn my previous burn.)

Here’s Gypsy Jane’s New-to-Her RV with my truck parked behind it.  The silver mat over the front window is heat reflective material so the inside doesn’t become an oven.  She’s got mats for all the windows but only the front one goes on the outside of the rig.  Her work has had her working nights the last few weeks so the mats are needed to keep the rig both cool & dark inside.  It’s a very neat rig, a great place to a full timer to live although its not as easy to drive as her previous home. 

Ah the 1st week of August – can A Laid Back Affair Motorcycle Gathering be far behind?

When it Too Hot to Work Outside–Work Inside

The Plan was to get the Urchin’s motorcycle to the shop, mow the yard, finish the roof trim  & get the larger of my motorcycle trailers up for sale this week.  Well I did get the motorcycle to the shop Friday, loaded it onto the rail trailer all by myself just fine.  I also called the Urchin Friday eve & wished her a Happy Birthday.

Trailer with installed by me wood flooring & ramp

And I got  the yard mowed finally.  The cable that engages the wheels so they turn broke but I got things moving by substituting a bungee cord.  I got half the back mowed Saturday but had to stop when I located the yellow jacket nest under the doghouse the hard way.  No hard work until the effects of  the stings & the shot at the clinic wear off.  Spent the rest of Saturday with ice packs on various parts of my torso & drinking lots of water.  Mowed the front Sunday & the rest of the back Monday, all except a buffer zone around the nest site.  I do not want to annoy these squatters again. 

I got 2/3 of a coat of paint on the rear trim, but the heat is defeating me there.  Its just plain too hot to paint anything.  So the last 1/3 of the rear & the kitchen side trim will just have to wait.  Ditto working on the blue motorcycle trailer.  Its too hot to do anything outside, too hot even to read in the shade outside. 

I did consider finishing this front window because its well shaded but decided to wait until the birds are done here.

So I made lemonade – both literally & figuratively.  Since outside work was out, I worked inside.  Cleaning I did late at night when its cooler.  Letter writing, photo file organization & history projects I did during the day.

This is my shooting bag.  The strap has been reversed for left side wear & shortened for half-ling sized me.  The leather patch in the center of the strap is for a powder horn strap.  The strap slides under the patch so the bag & horn stay together as a unit.  The leather has been treated with Pecard dressing & an 18th century reproduction buckle installed.

Thank you Henry Bryant of Ft. Vause Outfitters for both the buckle & the tutoring in leather working.  This is a Speedy Hogarth bag & I wanted my alterations to match Speedy’s work in quality. 

This is Buffalo Woman’s Leatherman shooting bag.  She had some water leakage issues in her gear storage area & this bag had developed some serious mildew.  Well the mildew is gone thanks to a good cleaning with mouthwash inside & out.   This  bag has also been treated with Pecard dressing.  Another thanks here to Henry Bryant & his workshop on leather care at an Eastern Primitive Rendezvous.

The gear in the bag had suffered from the dampness also & corroded each in its own way.  I polished the German silver & brass pieces then polished & re-blued the iron gear.  The char cloth, flint & tow in the tinder box were unaffected by the moisture, so the box did what its supposed to do – keep the tinder dry. 

I also replace the strap on my mid-19th century style cherry wood canteen & am currently working  on a small pigskin flint & steel bag as well as a powder horn strap.  Will post those pictures once I’m done. 

I have also seen the final Harry Potter film but promised my daughter not to talk about that until she’s seen it too. 

Happy Birthday to the US of A

OK, I admit it, I LOVE the 4th of July.   The celebrations of my childhood involved neighborhood potluck cookouts where chicken, fresh fried lake perch, hotdogs & hamburgers were flanked by German potato salad, marinated garden peas & baby onions, coleslaw, jello with various fruits inside, canteloupes  &  deep red watermelon with iced Frosty root beer to drink.  The fish came from Lake Michigan, which had a viable fishing industry into the 60’s, & the produce was all locally grown.  After the evening feast we’d all pile into various family cars, the idea being to get the whole neighborhood into as few cars as possible.  Full dark does not come early in a western Michigan July so the local fireworks  never started until after 9 PM even before day light savings time was the norm.  The fireworks were shot off from a barge anchored  either in Lake Michigan or in the boat turning basin of the St. Joseph River if the lake was too rough.  The show was watched from the bluff above the lake or the river banks & lasted about an hour.

Once I’d left my parents’ house for the wider world the 4th was still a magic day.  I didn’t manage a picnic & fireworks every year but I managed at least fireworks most years.  I watched the DC Mall-works for several years with my daughter from the grass of a highway interchange in Alexandria VA, spent happy years with D&D at the Vienna VA works & one year watched 3 small town works at once from the Buena Vista campground. (The picnic pavilion was on a hill, the view was spectacular.) 

So it’s a sad year in Mudville when I have to work on the 4th & thus miss seeing any  fireworks.  Like this year or so I thought.  Until on the eve of the 4th the local neighbors held a potluck to rival those of my childhood, except there was BBQ pork  instead of fried perch.  I came home from running some errands just as the feed was winding up.  About 5 minutes later & with a thunderstorm moving in the fireworks began.  Yes real honest to China skyworks.  Roman candles, whistlers, bangers & flowers - lots & lots of flowers.  This stuff was most certainly not bought at the local fireworks stand.  The show went on for about half an hour, the thunderstorm moved in forcing an intermission & then there was another 20 minutes or so more.  It was gloriously grand.  Better even than the mall works, better than 3 town works at once, & maybe better even than those nights on the bluff above Lake Michigan when I was young & the whole world was new. 

Happy Birthday to All of the US of A

May there always be fireworks for your birthday.

Gifting

Once upon a time a long, long time ago in a state far, far away I packed everything I owned in the world into my car & headed to my parents house for the summer.  I had just finished a very good semester at Michigan & as I drove west I realized that I didn’t really have to go to my parents house.  I could go anywhere I wanted – I had plenty of $$, I was of age & I could just drive somewhere I wanted to be, get a job & get on with life.  It was a moment of immeasurable freedom.  Of course I didn’t take that path, I went to my parents place & on into life by more conventional routes. 

Now I’m at the point in life where retirement is less than a BA degree in time away.  I’m  concerned with divesting myself of things I no longer need & I’m pretty sure all I own wouldn’t fit into a large storage locker.  A  friend of  a friend has suggested “Gifting” as a way of reducing what one owns.  “Gifting” involves leaving good usable things one no longer needs on stranger’s porches in the dark of night.  A fun idea to consider, but not one I would actually implement.  Gifts are best given to Goodwill, the Salvation Army or the Habitat Store. 

I however have been the recipient of “Gifting” of a sort. One of my neighbor’s put this nice green plastic lawn lounge out for trash pickup a year or two ago.  I saw it on my way home from work one morning, stopped, looked it over & took it home with me.  I has proved to be a wonderful place for sitting & reading in my yard.  I’ve even taken a nap or two on it. 

More recently the same neighbor put these two lawn chairs out with the trash.  Once again I stopped on my way home from work, determined they were in good condition & brought them home.   They now live out by my fire ring.  Eventually these items will in fact crack & break, but until then they are very useful & I enjoy their “Gifting”.

The mantis is now 1.75 inches & looking very good.

James River Batteau Festival

The James River Batteau Festival is an annual event where reproduction colonial era batteaus travel the James River from Lynchburg to Richmond.  The festival uses prearranged camp sites & the trip takes 8 days.  This year the river rose as the trip progressed, which made it easier on the crews.  These photos are from the Scottsville camp on Wednesday evening. 

Most batteaus have shade canopies against Virginia’s hot sun.

Some boats use a simple center ridge pole & tarp instead of the half circle canopy.

This gives a fair view of a bateau’s construction. 

Looking downstream, these boats had landed when I got to Scottsville about 4:30 pm.

This batteau’s crew is cooking dinner on an onboard woodstove

Batteau are float boats which are also poled downstream.  They can be poled upstream if the river is deep enough to float the boat in slack water.

These boats have no keel so steering oars at both ends are need to keep the boat on course

This is an older boat that’s both well caulked & the wood has swelled nicely.  This makes for a heavier boat & thus its floating lower in the water.

This is a fairly new boat & thus floats higher in the water.   As the wood absorbs more water, it will ride lower in the water.

Scottsville usually arranges for old timey musicians to play in the batteau camp area.  This group was doing old style fiddle tunes.

My friend the Paddling Potter – I also know him from OVPR & have a couple of pieces of his work.  I’d hope to get one of his jugs latter this year.  His wares are available in Waynesboro.

Of Wine & Song

Saturday I went to visit my Urchin & she took me to the Clifton Wine Festival.  I’ve never been to a Wine Festival but it sounded interesting so off we went.  They had 12 to 14 wineries, several food vendors, a couple of jewelry crafters, 2 tobacconists & a dozen other assorted vendors.  There was also a stage showcasing various local electric bands.  The music wasn’t much to my taste but it wasn’t loud enough to be annoying, the jewelry was lovely (and way beyond my price range) & the food selection was decent.  It was well attended, too crowded for good photos but not so crowded as to be physically unpleasant.  Mostly my Urchin & I wandered around listening to very entertaining descriptions of the various wines while we waited our turn to taste  whatever caught our fancy. 

The wine tasting part was delightful.  I sipped every dry, semi-dry and semi-sweet white wine there.  I tried wine aged in oak barrels, wine aged in stainless barrels.  Most the wines were made from French varieties of grapes with 2 Australian, 2 Bulgarian & 1 Georgian (as in Russian) grape wines for variety.  Prices ran from $15 to $22 with a few fruit wines at $12 and 3 or 4 premium ultra award winning wines at $25-$30.  I even sampled a semi-dry cranberry wine, which was excellent but since it had some red wine in it is likely to give me a smashing headache.  Those sulfides do me in big time.   Urchin bought a bottle of rose to share with JR and a bottle of the Georgian Rkatsiteli for each of us. 

After the wine fest the Urchin & I headed out with Carly & Dean for a house concert at Andy & Sandra’s place.  This is the front of their little home in the country – colonial mostly with some later anti-bellum additions.    Plenty of porch for socializing.

Here’s the back porch just as folks were moving inside for the potluck & concert.

This grand dame in the back yard has seem more than a little history.

I really like the way Andy blended the modern kitchen fixtures into the room.

The servants’ staircase in the kitchen and a sideboard.

The solar where the concert was held & the main staircase.

The old dining room with some of the potluck spread out.

The new dining room with most of the potluck spread out.  What’s an FSGW event without good food ?

George & Lorraine brought this – it looks almost too good to eat & it tasted as good as it looks.

The concert was Deborah Robins & Larry Hanks.  I hadn’t heard Larry since the late 70’s & had never heard Deborah.  They do western music -  swing band numbers from regional & family bands, Carter family, U. Utah Phillips, Woody Guthrie, cowboy, lumbering & mining songs as well as humorous novelty songs.  And Larry plays a seriously mean Jews Harp.  Larry put on a great set when I last heard him and Deborah adds her own wonderful voice & guitar picking to the mix.  They’re two great performers who compliment each other very very well. 

I drove home Sunday morning still a bit tired but very very happy.  Thank you Urchin, Carly & Dean – it was an awesome day.