Full Moon with Raven

                                   This is more a wall hanging, even though it’s in the basket
                                   tradition.  The raven was originally woven into an earlier
                                   basket, but needed something more. 

Three Moons or The Spirits of My People Are Sleeping

I carried the carved piece of wood around through many moves, wondering why I still kept it.  I even gave it away for a while to my brother, but it kept coming back to me until I put it into a design. 

                                                       Raymond Water Tower 1917

                                                                 Town Square 1929

City Water Comes to Raymond

Looking back at all the old photos of Raymond, that Mr. James Lewis was so kind to share, I found a photo of the old water tower, dated 1917.  The other photo is of the town square in 1929, where you can see the foot of the tower.  Today, the tower and the town square are still there, but thanks to our mayor, Ms. Isla Tullis, it is landscaped beautifully, and a pleasure to see on a summer’s day. 

Although I don’t know the exact date of when city water became available, I can definitely tell you that it was very long ago, based on the water pipes leading from the street to the underside of our house which was built in 1890.  I just about pitched a fit over getting a dishwasher, and Bill finally gave in an bought me one.  The day came where he was ready to put in a new sink (got that too!), and that’s when the plumbing nightmare began.  It started off with a snapped pipe, and went from bad to worse. At some point,  I realized that we were looking at a plumbing bill in the thousands.  So I got down in the mud and worked along side Bill as we dug and boy, did we dig. The pipes were in such bad shape, that the more we uncovered, the worse it got. As a last resort, I dug up the area (3 feet deep) around an outside faucet that was about 50 feet from the street, and lo and behold, there was another cut off value, hidden year ago, forgotten by many seasons.  And then, of course, it  started to rain.  Buckets of rain,  Filling all the holes we had dug. We stood there in the rain, rather stunned, and tried to fathom what had transpired. What were we going to do without water?

 But we were in luck.  After throwing ourselves around for a while, we realized we now had the ability to bypass the old pipes to the house and join the water connection under the house directly with the outside faucet. Bill went to the store and bought a 75 foot hose.  We hooked it up and once again we had water in the house.  However, I kept smelling this awful plastic smell in the water, and slowly but surely, the light went on upstairs and I remembered and realized that drinking from a hose is a dangerous thing to do since there is lead and another chemical I can’t pronounce. Bill went to the store again and bought hoses that were safe to drink from.  We ran the water for about an hour until all the traces of the garden hose smell were gone. Thank goodness for my sense of smell.  It may be a curse in most situations, but this time, it saved us.  I have absolutely no idea what we’re going to do about water lines in the near future, but I can tell you that I have never been so exhausted from an ordeal, except the time that I almost drowned, and the time that I had to ski up a 10,000 foot mountain in Colorado. But I now have a dishwasher.  Tonight we turned it on for its maiden voyage, and much to our relief, it went smoothly – no leaks! 

Perfume Pollution 

The other day, my neighbor and I stopped at the liquor store so she could buy a bottle of vodka (if you’re a Baptist, please feel free to skip this essay). I waited in the car while she went into the store. Upon returning, as she got back into the car, the most horrendous floral odor started to prevade the car.  She told me that the lady in the store had on lots of perfume, but by now, the smell was so overpowering, she put the bottle on the back seat.  We hadn’t gone but a quarter of a mile before she had to pull over, retrieve the bottle, and put it in the trunk. We were laughing all the way home about it, amazed that something that powerful could follow us home. When we did arrive home, she had to put the bag in the trash before she went inside.  I think she washed the bottle down as well. 

And now I want to talk to you about the people who think more is better.  The ones who suffer from Anosmia. Anosmia is the inability to perceive smell. These are the people who pour on the cologne, thinking more is better until they themselves can actually smell it.  By that time, the rest of us are incapacitated.  I didn’t start out hating perfume, but thanks to technology, chemical perfumes are ubiquitous.  They’re everywhere.  Just like you have to pay people to keep chemicals out of your food, you now must pay to keep perfumes out of every imaginable product.  I don’t want to be overpowered by the fresh hint of spring in my dishwater.  I just want to do the dishes.  I don’t want soft scented tissues.  I just want to blow my nose without choking. Every day when I walk through Raymond, I can smell people’s dryers – everything thing from pine forest to bubble gum dreams!  The assault on the nose is eternal.  I have been cursed with a good sense of smell and I truly regret it.  It makes me long for the remote communities where the people hang the mail on the clothes lines for a few days before they open it.  Where there are no chemical smells or smelly plastic anything – just Nature. Now Nature is good, but not at volume 10. 

But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn't, didn't already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad

Just in case you didn’t recognize the above lyrics, they’re from a very famous pop song. 

Along the route of my current walk, is a Tin Man, that I pass every morning.  He never says much, but the owner who built him, definitely has a fantasy world where the Tin Man lives.  There was another Tin Man in town, but his owner died and her children happily carried him off to some unknown place.  Maybe Oz. 

 

Greek Seasoned Chicken

Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning
2 Breast Halves -cut into bite size pieces
Olive Oil
1 Medium Zucchini
1 Can of Diced Tomatoes
Kalamata Olives
Purple Onions
1 TSP. of Red Wine Vinegar
Salt
Pepper

or (my favorite):

Greek Seasoning
2 Breast Halves - cut into bite size pieces
Olive Oil
Kalamata Olives
Capers
Purple Onions

Serve with brown Basmati rice/wild rice

Note:  The Greek seasoning comes with salt or without.  MSG is added to the one with salt, but not the one that is unsalted. Wonder why...   Most grocery stores carry both. 

                                                                        Time Flies

Found these watch parts in an old junk shop, added a few junk jewelry parts, and now you can watch time fly away.