A Year With the Fairies: The Insect Orchestra

The Insect OrchestraWhen we with our horns and out trombones appear,
All the birds gather round us to see and to hear;
While we're scraping and squeaking an picking the strings,
They applaud us all loudly by flapping their wings.

When the music begins they shout "hip,hip, hurrah,"
As they hear Strauss's waltz that goes "tra la la la,"
And the grasses enchanted are bending and swaying
To the swing of the music our orchestra's playing.

from A Year with the Fairies by Anna M. Scott, 1914

+++++

It is that time of summer when the insects have taken over.

We have been deluged with Japanese Beetles, especially attracted to our new beautiful yellow rose. The buds and flowers of the second flowering have been eaten away. We also found the Japanese Beetles eating our flowering quince and apple trees.

The other evening a giant Stag Beetle was settled on the screen of our patio door. Lightning bugs flit about in the dusk.

It's hard to believe we are halfway through July. The kitchen remodel, and consequent trips to get away, have caused time to fly so quickly.

It's time to stop and listen to the insect orchestra. Apparently they play Strauss.

Kitchen Remodel - Just a Few More Days!!!

This week has been exciting. We have a sink and the dishwasher installed. The back splash tile behind the range is up. The undercounter lighting and one ceiling fixture is up. The pendant lights are giving the electrician problems; they cost a pretty penny but are from China (I didn't know this when I ordered them) and have plastic parts that are already stripped. Tomorrow the hood and range will be put into place, and Saturday painting will be done. It is looking SO GOOD!

Just a little glimpse....waiting now for the big reveal!

Tales and Legends, History and Truth: Daisy Turner's Kin by Jane C. Beck

Jane C. Beck, founder of the Vermont Folklife Center, has preserved the remarkable journey of one African American family from the shores of West Africa to the hills of Vermont.

Daisy Turner's stories covered 178 years of her family history, her father's stories dating back to his father's life in Africa. Beck spent several years interviewing Daisy, resulting in the 1990 Peabody Award winning documentary film Journey's End: Memories and Traditions of Daisy Turner and Her Family.

After Daisy's death Beck continued her research, investigating the authenticity and recorded history behind the stories.

Daisy's father Alexander (Alec) Turner (1845-1923) told tales of the family history every night after dinner. His father Alessi was the grandson of a Yoruban chief. His mother was a European woman who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Nigeria. Alessi traded with Europeans; around 1830 traders kidnapped him. After a torturous and eventful passage he landed in America and was illegally sold into slavery to the wealthy and sporting Jack Gouldin of Port Royal, Virginia. Gouldin made Alessi his champion in boxing and cockfighting. Alessi married Rose, who was Cherokee and was knowledgeable in herbal remedies.

Alec felt a strong connection to the Gouldin family; he later named his daughter for the kind granddaughter of his master. But he longed for liberty. During the Civil War he ran away when he was fourteen, and took the name Turner. He was mentored by surgeon and Northern Abolitionist Ferdinand Dayton. As contraband Alec could not join the army but worked as Dayton's personal servant and orderly, carrying wounded men from the field of battle to the hospital. After the war Dayton helped Alec get an education and found him employment. Alec fell in love with a frightened, newly free fourteen-year-old refugee, Sally Early, and she became his wife.

Alec's work took him to a slate mine in Maine and to the lumber mills of Grafton, Vermont, where he established bought land and built his house.  He employed the knowledge gained from his plantation life, patterning his home on the Gouldin manor.

The Turners were extraordinary people. Alec had pride and charisma and ingenuity. He was resourceful, and his strength was legendary. His work ethic and honesty garnered respect from white society. He held a deep Christian faith and taught his children to face trials with "contentment and understanding".

The Turner women were also hard working, proud, and upright. Alec's wife Sally has a strength beyond imagining. And she could write poetry. Daisy learned her facility with words from her parents; she could recite from memory improvisational poems she had created years before.

Turner heirs include Rev. Veronica Lanier, the first African American Baptist minister in New England. During the 20th c the family demanded equality under the law and continued to break down racial barriers.

The Turner family will amaze readers.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Daisy Turner's Kin: An African American Family Saga
by Jane C. Beck
University of Illinois Press
Publication date July 15, 2015
ISBN: 9780252080791
$24.95 paperback

Row By Row in Michigan

This is the second year for the Row By Row Experience and I am gathering blocks from Michigan quilt shops! 149 shops in Michigan have designed an original 'row' to sew with a water theme. Having gone 'up north' twice in the past few weeks I have been able to visit quilt shops far away. And I have discovered some great shops along the way.

Shops I have visited so far:

AuSable Fabrics and More in Grayling. Their design has a river scene with a canoe and fish swimming in the lake.

Caroline's Sewing Room in West Branch. Their row includes Rifle River and their famous Smiley Face water tower.

Elm Creek, Ltd in Farwell has another river scene with Michigan wildlife on its banks.

Front Porch Quilts in Troy has created an amazing sunset Detroit riverfront scene with the skyline and a freighter. I love love love this one!

Heritage Quilt Shop in Gladwin's row has pieced 'waves' with little sailboats appliqued in the water.

Northern Hearth Quilting & Sewing Center in Cadillac offers a colorful sunset over the lake with silhouettes of a fisherman and a sail boat.

Patches & Petals in Cadillac is a four block row with a tree in each season's colors and a river flowing in front.

Quilted Memories in Montague uses an Attic Window setting to show a vivid sky over the water, with silhouettes of lighthouses and sailboats.

The Quilter's Garden in Fenton features a wood duck in a lake with cattails between two pieced blocks.

Surry Rd. Quilt Shop is a pieced flour block pattern with colorful fish. This shop is cash only and caters to the Amish/Mennonite community. They had amazing hand made rugs. I can home with one and want to return and buy another.

Suze's Stitch'n in Houghton Lake has a scenic river with a black bear between two Bear Paw pieced blocks.

See more shops blocks at
http://www.thequiltersgarden.com/Master%20Alpha%20by%20Shop%20final%20PDF.pdf

PLUS, I bought last year's blocks from two shops.

There are a few more shops I plan to visit before Sept. 15. There is a challenge to make a quilt with 8 rows. I am planning to make smaller quilts with perhaps 3 rows together thematically.

To find participating quilt shops in your state visit here.

Last Week of the Kitchen Remodel

WOW, things are at the interesting stage!

We went to the cabin again while the flooring was installed. The countertops were installed today

 Betty by Wilson Art is a new laminate with a retro vibe. The Koehler top mount Vault sink can be used with laminate countertops and retrofits into any existing cabinets.

The cork floor is amazing to walk on. It is plank and can be taken up and removed to a new locale, still under the 35 year residential warranty.

The quartersawn cherry cabinets have  metal finger pulls that hardly shows.

The cork floor extends into the family room now. Photos of that later--when that room is cleared out.
The kitchen carpet had been glued onto the red oak flooring in the hallway off the bedrooms. It was refinished and looks amazing, too.

Hawaiian Red Herrings: Wings in the Dark by Michael Murphy

The cover is amazing. The comparison to Dashiell Hammet and The Thin Man protagonists Nick and Nora intriguing. It involved Amelia Earhart! I went out of my usual genres to request Michael Murphy's Wings in the Dark, the third of his Jake & Laura mysteries but the first one I had read.

Jake & Laura are no Nick and Nora, and Murphy's writing can't compare to Hammett or the other great Noire writers of the last century. How I hate blurb writers who resort to easy comparisons to some iconic work.

To be fair, I will toss aside those comparisons and judge the book on its own merit.

Jake and Laura were childhood sweethearts in Queens, NYC. Jake was a detective, now he writes mysteries, and Laura is a famous movie star. Finally married they are honeymooning in Hawaii. It is 1935 and Amelia Earhart is in Hawaii preparing to fly across the Pacific Ocean. Laura happens to be an old friend so when Amelia finds herself a murder suspect she calls on Jake to help.

The honeymoon is over.

There are several red herrings along the way, each revealing a larger political plot. The murdered man's ex-mistress was at the scene of the crime. Secret societies of Royalists want to end American imperialism and reestablish the monarchy. The murdered man wanted Hawaiian statehood but his brother was a Royalist. Japan had motive to sabotage Amelia's flight as a way of preventing America from establishing air flight across the Pacific. This part of history is not well known and is quite interesting.

Typical of the genre, the plot is the thing. There are enough twists to satisfy. There are action scenes, too. We have a femme fatale, strong-arm goons, a bar in the wrong part of town--all the stock devices. Laura's beauty and fame bring her constant sexist attention, including from her hubby--Very 1930s.

I was irked by information dumps and name dropping without any real characterization. Amelia never seems real; she is a talking cartoon of that famous photo of her in a flight suit, hair tousled, a smile on her sun weathered face. J. Edgar Hoover and George Patton appear without any real reason for being in the book. The humor is so-so, with too many clichés and old chestnuts.

A look at reviews of the previous Jake & Laura books comes up mostly with 4 or 5 stars. So readers do like the series. For me, this is a two hour beach read for when you just want to veg out.

I received a free ebook for a fair and unbiased review.

Wings in the Dark
Michael Murphy
Penguin Random House
Publication Date July 14, 2015
214 page ebook $2.99
ISBN: 9780553393378

Girls Who Wear Glasses

In I Haven't A Thing to Wear, 1968 fashion guru Judith Keith offers advice to us gals who wear glasses.

Keith begins, "One way of falling flat on your face is by not wearing eyeglasses when you need them...Don't be near-sighted about the opportunities for a fashionable look with eyeglasses. Broaden your vision to include a wardrobe of frames to magnify the importance of even the simplest look."

More seriously, she advises on choosing glasses according to face shape:

• Oval: you can wear anything.
• Round: slender, up-tilting lines break up the roundness of a round face. 
• Avocado shaped faces need width at the brow to counterbalance a large jaw. 
• Square faces need curves and round shapes.
• Rectangular faces needs the illusion of width. A straight-across-the-top wide frame with rounded lower edges will do this.
• Heart shaped faces do well with square frames.
• Diamond shaped faces need frames wider on the top.
• A long, narrow face needs large round frames.

Keith notes that she had a friend who had glasses made with fabric swatches to match her outfits. Now that is a slave to fashion!

My first glasses were cats eye shaped in clear plastic with pink and blue flakes. Mom had identical ones. We both had permed Bubble Cuts, like the second Barbie doll. And wore matching mom & daughter plaid shirts. I was about six or seven. I suppose we were 'fashionable'.

I come from a family of girls who wear glasses.

My grandmother Emma Becker Gochenour wore round glasses in the 1920s. 

My grandmother Gochenour in the 1970s

Mom in the early 1950s

Mom in the 1970s. I can't believe Dad dressed that way!

Me in glasses around 1960; that's my lil' brother next to me

Me in cat eye glasses around 1962

Early 1970s. I married a guy with glasses, too.

Me when glasses were BIG and so was hair.

This 1968 ad suggests that eyeglasses were sexy. I missed that message.

1968 was the year Mom got me contact lens. Hard and weighted, they were mighty uncomfortable. I was told I could have them tinted brown, blue or green. I went with green! After a few years I gave them up.

In her book Keith wrote, "My first contact lens reminded me somewhat of my first girdle. I hated wearing them! They were uncomfortable, cumbersome, and I always wanted to remove them in the middle of an evening. Today, however, foundation garments and contact lens are geared for both color and comfort. The plastic lenses may be tinted to any shade you wish and Lycra, a modern man-made fiber, makes a modern woman firmer."

I tried the gas permeable lenses later, but they moved with every blink and made reading hard. I gave them up. I have never wanted to try them again. Glasses suit me fine.

Are you a girl who wears glasses?