SUMMER AT HOME

 Except for one week, we have been at home on the Island since May 19.  This has enabled us to grow lots of vegetables and flowers this year.  We have eaten tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, cucumbers, onions, carrots and other things. No corn because we don’t have enough room for that.  Even more than the vegetables, our eyes have enjoyed the flowers.

Every year we learn more about what likes to grow here and what does not. Last summer we had a kind of hybrid cosmos that outgrew itself.  This year it reseeded itself but returned to one of the parents of the hybrid. So, we got this beautiful new yellow and brown flower that reproduces itself intermixed with the yellow and red gillardia that really likes to grow all over the island.

In back of the house all kinds of zinnias intermix. We gradually get a mixture of new plantings and some surprise reseeding from earlier plantings.

The best surprise of the year has been caladium.  We had one bed that is constantly shaded and stays a bit damp even without being watered.  We filled it with caladium this year and it loved the place.  We will save these “bulbs” and use thrm even more next summer.  

Both Trish and I equally love playing in the dirt!

King Tut Treasures

 Every year when Trish and I go to the Biltmore Estate, there is some special exhibit we see in addition to the house itself.  One year it was Downton Abbey sets and costumes. One year it was Monet art work. Last year it was Dale Chihuly glass work.  This year it was the Treasures of King Tutankhamen.

These artifacts are exact duplicates of the originals as the originals are housed and protected at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The interpretation here was excellent beginning with the entire story of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon’s teamwork over the years.  Then we get to walk through the artifacts with excellent interpretation.

We started with the gigantic shrine that almost totally filled the burial chamber so much so that it was nearly impossible to figure out how to disassemble and remove it.  

Inside were four more shrines until in the very center came the sarcophagus container with its series of inner containers.

Inside the gold sarcophagus was placed the inner casket and then the mummified body itself. 

In the final room of the exhibit were displayed all of the additional artifacts found in the tomb including tools, weapons, food, and other things to care for the Pharoah in the life to come.  Our minds and eyes were full by the time we got to the end!

Biltmore House Christmas

 From San Antonio we drove to LaGrange, Georgia, where each year I tell Christmas stories in an event called Deck The Halls.  We then went to Dublin, Georgia, where I tell Christmas stories each year at the historic Carnegie Library building. 

We are now in Asheville where we usually stop in the Christmas season to visit the Biltmore Estate. Last evening we visited the upper floors of the Biltmore House. 

We usually take an audio tour, but, after doing that several times, Trish and I decided to wander in our own so we could soak as long as we liked in each room rather than being pushed along by the recorded guide.

We learned that there are thirty-one trees in the house itself and more than seventy on the entire property.  Beyond the trees the whole house seems to be one huge Christmas decoration.

It was a very nice thing to move slowly.  We say little details never noticed before realizing that even the tiniest stone or hinge was crafted with care as the thousand workers put this place together in the 1890’s.

One of our favorite rooms is the library where each of us wanted to curl up with a book and stay for a while.  There are 22,000 books here as George Vanderbilt was, from childhood, a voracious reader.

From upstairs we could look out the windows and see the vast spreading front lawn and its single tree.  Today we will return to the house and go deeply downstairs.

San Antonio

 When we leave Midland, we are headed to LaGrange, Georgia, but we have three extra days getting there. So, we often stop over in San Antonio to enjoy the Riverwalk at Christmas.

We like to stay right on the Riverwalk where we take the elevator down and are right on the river.  On the other side of our hotel, the Alamo is right across the street.

We do three things here: eat, rest, and ride the boats.

During this season the city puts up over 200,000 lights over the river.  They are in long strings, weighted on the end, that hang down from the gigantic cyprus trees that line the river. 

The boat rides take about an hour and each one if different because of both time of day the the different captains.  They are very reasonable in price, so, we take two rides each day, one in the day and another after dark.

There are waterside restaurants all along the river.  Fun places to eat!  We will surely keep coming here as it is so beautiful and restful.

Midland Storytelling Festival

 In 1992 Rex Ellis and I traveled to Midland, Texas, to work with teachers and begin the Midland Storytelling Festival.  Thirty-four years later I have not missed a single year being there.

At this year’s Festival, we had a wonderful lineup.  Tellers joining me included Antonio Rocha, Bil Lepp, Mary Hamilton, Charlotte Blake-Alston, Laura Pershin Raynor, and Barbara McBride-Smith.  We had a wonderful time.

The Festival itself is held beside Centennial Park in Downtown Midland at the Bush Convention Center and it is free to all comers.  In addition, the festival is live-streamed on Basin Public Television and on the Festival Facebook page.

On Friday all the tellers go out to schools for an education impact day.  Some of us were at Bowie Fine Arts auditorium where we had two groups of 480 second graders who were bussed in from a number of schools. In addition to the children, we got to see the Fine Arts Center where the lights in the hallway looked like glass blown by Dale Chihuly but were actually made by the students from soft drink bottles.

There is a strong student storytelling program here run by Festival Director Sue Roseberry. On Thursday evening, at the  Bush Convention Center we were joined by several of these student tellers in a program live streamed on Basin PBS.  We were all on the stage in the end.

On Saturday we had programs for children and adults both morning and evening.  Before the evening show started, we enjoyed the West Texas Gospel Choir for Carols and Cocoa in the vestibule of the Convention Center.

I always have a good time telling here, and, we will be back next year on December 3 and 4.

Back On Track!

 For those of you who are regular readers, let me apologize for being out of touch for a few weeks.  Our schedule this fall has been extremely heave with one nine-week trip followed by an eight-week trip after only a week at home.  

After Memphis, we did take a riverboat ride down the Mississippi River from there to New Orleans.  Most of the way we had very spotty connections to the world and also our days were filled from end to end.  We ended our trip at the beautiful Oak Alley Plantation before departing in New Orleans.

Imagine looking from this porch down to the River and watching steamboats go past!

From New Orleans, we drove to Roanoke, Virginia, for Trish to have eye surgery the next day.  No, it was not caused by the river trip, it was already planned.  The recovery took both of our time for the following week until she was released by the doctor.  (No photos of this!)

We then headed for Midland, Texas, for the thirty-fourth Midland Storytelling Festival.

I had always been fascinated by the Natchez Trace Parkway but had never had the opportunity to travel it. So, we drive from Roanoke to Nashville and from there took the Trace all the way to its end in Natchez.  This was about 400 miles spread over two days and we were very glad we took the time for it.

The original road was a series of Native trails that made a short cut from the Natchez area to the Nashville area overland rather than by the River.  When early Europeans arrived, the Trace was their way back to Tennessee and Kentucky after taking boat loads of trade goods to New Orleans…they even sold the lumber from which their flat boats were made and traveled back to start over.  

The Trace was the main route used by American forces to and from the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.  This historic marker tells the story.

A bit farther down the road we came to the death site and burial place of Meriwether Lewis.  

After co-leading the Corps of Discovery along with William Clark when he, Lewis, was only twenty-nine years old, he was appointed by President Jefferson as the Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory at age 32.  At age 35 Lewis was traveling down the Trace when he stopped for the night at a tavern.  In the  night the proprietor heard loud voices, gun shots, and someone calling for help.  She looked out the door and saw someone crawling back toward one of the cabins in the back, BUT DID NOT INVESTIGATE!. 

The next morning Lewis was found dead, shot twice and with his throat cut.  Because he was said to be suffering from depression, the story arose that he had committed suicide, but a closer look at the record clearly seem to dispute this.  This is the place of his burial.

We loved making this drive in the winter time.  With all the leaves off the trees, you could see far into the woods where much of the original trail parallels the new parkway.  On the southern end, there were beautiful swamplands.

We ended our trip right back in Natchez where we had been on the riverboat a month ago.  Now it is on to Midland!

Memphis Pumpkin House

 Every two years we have a weekend of storytelling at Balmoral Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee.  This event started twenty-seven years ago when my good friend, Bill Jones, was pastor of this church.  After Bill’s retirement the event has continued.  We love the people in this church and the whole community that have there.

Arriving early this year, we were taken by our friends, Fran and Phil Shannon, to see the Pumpkin House at the Dixon Museum and Gardens in Memphis.

More than twelve hundred pumpkins and large gourds are used in building the Pumpkin House.  As we approached, we could not believe what we were seeing!

The House is about sixteen feet square with plenty of room to go inside.

Even the chandelier is made of pumpkins and gourds.  There are pumpkins in every imaginable shape and color.

The “thatch” roof is made of corn stalks!  Our visit was the last weekend the House was open before taking it down.  On the day we were there, it was so beautiful and warm that we wondered why it was not left standing until Thanksgiving.  Three days later, when the temperature dropped to 29 degrees, we understood…if the pumpkins stayed until freezing weather, it would make a terrible rotten mess!  We are glad we got to make this lovely visit.