Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 8

Paintings

They are ‘petite’. Kind of my ‘postcards’ of a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine.

Painting is like writing…you can be master of what you wish to include.

And you better be quick if you wish to capture what you just saw. We had fog moving in and around the water so that last picture was what I saw first and then I realized I better take pictures of what I had been painting and of course things had changed. One of my husband’s favorite watercolors I have done in the past was of the Grand Canyon at sunset. You don’t get a second chance and the one you have is fleeting.

I guess that is like real life.

Red Hot August

Well, not that hot…yet. The first couple of summers here in Tulsa were cool enough to use screen doors and open windows during the day, but then there were the summers where it was blistering hot by 8am and never cooled off during the night. This year we seem, so far, to be moderately warm. Getting to the high 90’s but not actually into the 100’s. (That one year we had something like 20 days above 100 in one 30 day period.)

So my Red Hot is pictures of plants.

A little battered.One of many blooms, as many as five a day!My favorite…feeding the bees!And since the previous picture had pink and pink is a shade of red…some ‘Surprise Lilies’, or ‘Naked Ladies’ to finish.

Writing

Time for the Insecure Writer’s Post.

August 4 question – What is your favorite writing craft book? Think of a book that every time you read it you learn something or you are inspired to write or try the new technique. And why?
The awesome co-hosts for the August 4 posting of the IWSG are PK Hrezo, Cathrina Constantine, PJ Colando, Kim Lajevardi, and Sandra Cox!

I’m not going to have anything truly creative to say to this post. I just haven’t bought a lot of books on the process of writing. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a bought a book on writing. There might have (in the very early days of the internet) been a book of publishers and their requirements which was probably out of date by the time it went to print.

Ah, I do remember a book on ‘poisons’ that was for the murder mystery writer. I think it was part of my mother’s collection of books.

The problem is THE INTERNET, the source and fount of all knowledge. (I almost typed ‘font’ of all knowledge and would that be wrong?)

Summers Past

Read a blog post a few weeks back that made me think of summers past. Childhood summers. Hot summers where swimming was a major part of the summer.

We lived about 30 minutes from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and the beach Big Foot State Park. It was a treat to don swimming suits, load up towels and drive there. The parking lot was on one side of the road/highway and the beach was on the other. I don’t know if it is still set up the same but you really had to look out as a driver and as a walker when crossing.

Once you crossed the road you were there on the beach. The ‘sand’ was only about 15-20 wide. It was just enough to find a spot to dump your towel. Of course it is a lake so you didn’t worry about a tide coming in and getting your things. Then you would wade into the lake and oh my it was cold. Dug out by glaciers I’m sure.

I can still see the bright sun and then sudden shadow of passing cumulus clouds. Hot air and cold water. We didn’t really ‘swim’ that I remember. Mostly waded and flung water. I don’t even remember how long we spent before we would gather up and drag our stuff back over the road, find the car in the lot and load in with sand crusting out of all corners. I think we sat on our towels going home to try and keep the seats dry. Windows wide open because we had 4-60 ac. (4 open windows at 60 miles an hour). I don’t remember the next part, but I’m pretty sure my mother hosed us down in the yard before we were allowed in the house.

Later after moving to a different house we had a ‘pool’ in the driveway. Not great for swimming but splashing just fine.

Later still were the summers were we got season passes to the city pool. That was a deal! Even paying for four kids. The mornings were for swim classes, which at some point we all took part in at least one year and later I even signed up my son when we were home. Then there was a break for the life guards/teachers to get lunch. The pool then opened to the general public at 1 and remained open until 9, with lights when it started to get dark.

Mom would drop us off with a time that she was going to return. Dash though the showers in the changing rooms and out to the pool. It was/is a pretty terrific community pool. It had a shallow circular ‘baby’ pool. Then the real pool started with a 2 ft section that gradually deepened. At probably 3 ft it had a ‘float’ chain marker across demarking the ‘kiddie’ section from the next part which continued to deepen until about 4.5 ft where there was another float chain. At this point the pool took a right-hand turn and you had the length and depth for swimming lanes, which were marked on the bottom of the pool. The pool continued to the right deepening until it was deep enough for diving…low and high. How we would line up for our brief air-borne thrill.

The high dive honestly scared the $#!* out of me. I did/would jump off it, but I never (that I can remember) actually dove off it.

The low dive was easier and I actually, after lots of trying, finally got to where I could do one summersault in the air before entering feet first. Cannonballs were popular (not with me). Once you entered the water you swam as quickly as you could to the ladder and, shivering, back into line for the next 2 seconds of excitement.

Some days we were there from afternoon until closing around nine. Around five thirty it thinned out quickly and being there late was nice as you weren’t bumping into people. I remember coming home with eyes stinging from chlorine because we kept them open under water to see where we were going and just horsing around and the length of time we were there. We sure slept well those nights.

And I’m sure my mother was glad to have a quiet house to herself.

Looking at other pictures available, it looks like the diving boards have been replaced with ‘slides’ which to be honest would be a heck of a lot safer!

But you can see the ‘lights’ are still there for evening swimming.

Summer Fireworks continue

I love spring when things start to ‘pop’ and the earth turns green, but summer flowers are great! And perennials can make the show year after year. If you look carefully in the monarda picture above (second one up) you can see a flying furry butt of a bumblebee in the monarda. I took more pictures of the bee but I don’t know where I’ve ‘moved’ them to, grr.

Milkweed

I know this won’t appeal to a lot of people. Heck, most will wonder what the attraction could be.

Childhood memories for one. My brothers and I ran free on several acres of ‘undeveloped’ land between our house and the elementary school we attended. Nothing there but gravel-y ground and milkweeds.

On which you could find monarch caterpillars growing, which could be brought home and fed until they changed into their chrysalises and then emerge as adults which we would release. Now we know they took wing to Mexico for the winter only to return north the following years. For more information and the ability to help track them go to Journey North (which also tracks the journey south and keeps tabs on many other animals of North America.)

What I didn’t realize until I started growing milkweed in my garden/yard is how fragrant it is when flowering. It is a wonderful floral aroma that I associate with summer but until I had it here I did not know that milkweed was the source of the scent. You learn something every day!

See that nice fat pod?

This year I actually have several milkweed pods. I am so happy because this is a first for me. I had brought milkweed home from a friend in Illinois and although it seem to like it and was spreading some, it never went past flowering to forming seeds. At one expo on natural plants I asked about this. Actually I asked if I needed to have a ‘different’ plant for ‘cross pollination’. Milkweed will spread by runners and I was suspicious that my stand of milkweed was probably due to one of the plant’s spreading. Yes, it is true I needed to have two different plants sources for pollination. Well, bring home some more milkweed, plant some seeds from wherever I got them and now I must have two different milkweed sources growing as I have PODS! That or someone (bees I’m looking at you )has brought in pollen from some other local source.

I am chuffed! I will have milkweed blowing in the wind in a few months. (Not sure how the neighbors will feel if they find plants in their gardens, but I’ll probably never know.)

Now to get the monarchs to find my yard and start setting up their larval nurseries on all those ‘yummy’ leaves.

IWSG Time of Month

July 7th optional question – What would make you quit writing?
The awesome co-hosts for the July 7 posting of the IWSG are Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, and Louise – Fundy Blue!

I don’t think anything would make me quit writing. I might take some long pauses, but even when I was very young (grade school) I had urges to write/create. If I ignore them for a while they eventually drive me to put something down on paper (computer?). The look/feel of a fresh sheet of paper has been known to drive me crazy. It can be almost unbearable especially if I can’t figure out what to write.

Fortunately my mother pushed me over the edge to really get writing and with the help of DIL I’ve published some of those ideas.

Does that internal muse/devil ever stir you to write?

(Clicking on the picture above will take you to others who have answered this month’s question.)

Happy Fourth – Fireworks

My favorite fireworks!

And the Grand Finale!

Enjoy your Fourth!

88Degrees and Rainy

I feel like the Ray Bradbury story “All summer in a Day”. Not that it has been raining forever, but it has been slow and constant. Streets in the lower areas and by storm drains are to be treated with caution as the water is pretty deep. It’s the old Morton Salt logo, “When it rains, it pours.” Although even the Morton Salt might cake up on a day like today.

It might be a good day to bake…even if the temperatures are kind of warm.

This is not really a complaint. We will definitely get hotter and DRIER days as the summer is only just now into July and this is Oklahoma after all.

Guess I’ll go find a book and a snack and curl up to read.

The Missing Photos +

Blurry cone flowers and phloxTiger Lilies and hydrangaMore cone flowersMullein (my vertical element?) and hints of the coneflowers and phlox to the right and sunflower to the left.