Dreams in Brookville, Ohio

I had another disturbing dream last night. I seemed to be at Englewood, Ohio and walking in the parking lot of a big box store like K-Mart or Wallmart but it was near or close to a large schoolhouse. I saw a small, young, girl sitting on the ground holding a dog, and when I approached she said she was lost and cold and sick and her dog had a bad front leg. I looked at the dog's leg and you could see the bone was exposed on the foreleg but it wasn't bleeding or broken. The dog didn't seem to be in any pain.

I asked the little girl if she was OK and she said she was but she was cold and had to go to school. She said she was hungry and she was worried about her dog and pointed out the exposed leg bone. I tried to write her name down but she barely spoke and as I would write a letter and ask if that was in her name she would nod yes or no. I remember writing "K" and she said it was in her first name – Kay, Karen? No response.

I thought I should call 911 but had no phone. A total stranger came up to us and said he was a teacher and but he didn't know the little girl with the dog. I asked if he had a phone and he said he did and I asked him to dial 911 and we could let them rescue her and her dog and get some help for her but he couldn't see to be capable of dialing 911 on his phone and when he got through all we could hear was a bunch of people in arguments as background noise.I woke up back in Brookville, Ohio.

Thanksgiving Day, 2013

What Patty does on Thanksgiving Day — carves the turkey

It will be different this Thanksgiving day (Thursday) at our house. Most of our kids will be celebrating in Florida out along the ocean and from their condos. We will miss them but Melinda and Noah and Melissa and Audrey will be here to help us eat our turkey and have a chit chat. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

Our Home

Our home a dozen years ago with trees. Weeping crabapple remains.

The Pin Oak was removed first

The Sunburst Locust was removed and the front yard was landscaped

Squirrel Eats Orange

Squirrel eating an orange

Notice the dowel rod stuck in the fence post? I drilled a hole at a 45º angle for the dowel rod to fit in. I have used them to stick half an orange for birds like the Baltimore Oriole and was surprised to see this Gray Squirrel eating the orange.

The Baltimore Orioles make a sometimes make a rare appearance here in my backyard. I have found they love very old and tall trees like those growing along Greenville Creek at Bear's Mill. My trees are all small but this particular Oriole landed in the big old maple tree behind our backyard and must have been there when I cut the orange and stuck the halves on the dowel rods. As I was walking away, going back into our house, I heard some sound that caused me to turn and there was this Baltimore Oriole eating this orange. I must have taken 50 photos with very little variation in any of them.

I have no doubts that someone will wonder why I took so many pictures of this bird or why there are thousands of photos of Coopers Hawks in my archive and I would have to tell them because I was suddenly able to take photos without film; no thanks to Eastman Kodak, but thanks to those who created a revolution in picture taking with digital cameras: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic Lumix, Sony, and many others.

Dwarf Bamboo

Bamboo clump about 3 years old

When we first planted the bamboo it was a mere sprig not much taller or larger than a tomato plant. It is a dwarf plant and is not supposed to get taller than 8-10 feet. 

After 3 years it has grown and is even larger than the example above but it has a long way to go to reach 8 feet.

The rhubarb seems to get along with the bamboo. The rhubarb was planted in the spot first and existed there a year or two before I planted the bamboo. The bamboo is larger than it was and partially covers some of the rhubarb. I love rhubarb pie almost as much as apple so I am hoping in another year it will be large enough to give me enough rhubarb to make our first pie.

Our House

The Sunburst Locust and Pin Oak after about ten years.

This is our home in the spring of 2013 – we miss the shade the locust provided

The house we bought has gone through many different "looks" and the landscape has changed significantly over the years: From two silver maples out front the builder planted that were cut down and used as firewood for our then new fireplace. We have added a Plane Tree, Sunburst Locust, and a Pin Oak. Now, however, those are all gone and replaced with a landscaped front that cost $2,200.00 at the time it was done. Do I like it? Yes, but we do miss the shade the Locust cast over our house in the summer. It kept that sun from raising the temperature in the house by shading the roof and front bay window. Trees take a long time to grow and the 10 to 15 years I sat and watched the trees grow and getting the shade I wanted, was eliminated in minutes by the man with the chain saw. The only tree that survived is the weeping crabapple and it never was much to look at.

Autumn at Twin Creek

The colors are beautiful with the sun is just right.

Creeks and some rivers are nice to visit and the smaller creeks are often roaring rivers when we get a lot of rain. But this creek is no Mississippi River either and like the Ohio River, Twin Creek is often a slow, meandering body of water that drains fields and villages in this part of Ohio. Brookville, where I live, has Wolf Creek and our creek does the same and their waters are eventually combined in other streams and rivers that empty in the Ohio and it, as large as it is is a trickle when compared to the mighty Mississippi. We have larger rivers near us like the Stillwater River and the Little and Big Miami Rivers always associated with the Native Americans who one lived there — the Miami primarily but also the Shawnee and the remaining 800 Potawatomi were forced to leave their homes and were marched to Kansas where they were, more or less, left on their own.

Wolf Creek Trail