Holiday Shopping and Thanksgiving Dinner with Compost

So after Wednesday's trip to Michaels, where I bought three "Pounds of Love" (blanket yarn) with the giftcard because the cotton I wanted was priced higher than it is at the other stores, I did some other things and then cooked Thanksgiving dinner. Having written a short story in which a character serves something similar to my Rice a la Garbage to visitors, I did that. It doesn't seem to have made anyone sicker than we were already. Here is the recipe.

That's not the color I bought. Amazon is not showing a picture of the color I bought. The company call the color chestnut; it's not the color of chestnuts or of chestnut wood. Yarn shoppers now know which color I mean.

Equipment

1. A Dutch Oven type of cooking pot with a nice tight lid. Both sealing in the steam and sealing out the compost are crucial for this recipe. Don’t use the pretty, enameled kind of Dutch Oven for cooking directly in a frugal fire. Plain, heavy metal is good.

2. A secure container for a small cooking fire—either a barrel, or a pit in the ground, or a grill, that allows 6-8 inches (about 20cm) around and below the pot.

3. An average day’s supply of junk paper—junkmail, newspapers, manuscripts, wrappers, etc. About 50 pieces of paper will do. If you use canned vegetables or packaged rice, add the wrappers. One or two pieces of thin flimsy plastic (wrappers, photos, supermarket shopping bags) can help get the paper going in damp weather. Plastic that won't lie flat in a stack of papers burns poorly and releases toxic fumes, so it should be sent in for professional recycling.

4. Dry wood or charcoal: Rice can be cooked over a big fire, of course, but what I’m describing is a frugal little fire designed to get rid of trash and economize on fuel. By cleaning up what your hedge, shade trees, and fruit trees drop on the ground you should have a nice collection of dead wood in your shed. Trees shed lots of twigs and sticks, relatively few logs. For this recipe you don’t need to use up any logs. Take a scant handful of twigs and sticks, about a foot long and not more than an inch thick.

5. Contents of your Sun-Mar toilet, the drier the better. (Remember, you’re meant to put as much dry organic matter as possible—vegetable scraps, garden prunings and clippings, paper, peat—in the Sun-Mar to help soak up and dry out liquids. Even the sand or commercial litter that sticks to cat excrement won’t hurt anything in a Sun-Mar toilet, although it certainly would in an oldfashioned water-flush toilet..) Recognizable food scraps or excrement will dry out and burn slowly, making lots of foul smoke. Burn only well carbonized, peaty looking stuff that will char further and retain heat.

Ingredients

1. Meat, fish, beans, or those soy-wheat “vegetarian meat analogs” if you can eat them, are optional. For this recipe the important thing about any protein you add is that it needs to be fully precooked so that it warms up as the rice does. Grilling over a trash fire? Urgh. So use leftovers from the refrigerator if you have them, or use a can of your protein of choice.

2. Packet of quick-cooking rice. For cooking over a trash fire, Success Rice, Minute Rice, and Zatarain’s rice mixes are ideal. The company has been relatively proactive about glyphosate, so the rice is relatively safe, and the packets take just about as long to cook as an average day’s supply of burnable garbage takes to burn.

3. Water to cook the rice.

4. Vegetables, spices, and nuts are optional. If you like, or don’t hate, garlic and turmeric, they’re rich in trace minerals and good for blood pressure and immunity.

Mix & Match Variations

* Some Zatarain’s flavors are quite spicy (several with turmeric). You can extend meals, add fibre and protein, and also mellow the flavor by combining a packet of flavored rice with a packet of plain brown rice.

* All Zatarain’s flavors go well with canned chicken. If using fish, other canned meat, or “meat analogs,” test to find your favorites.

* All rice, with or without meat, goes well with any member of the Allium family. I like wild garlic in season. I live close enough to Georgia to have access to Vidalia onions in summer; they’re worth paying for.

* All rice, with or without meat, goes well with any kind of beans.

* Zatarain’s Jambalaya Rice goes well with a little extra water and okra, when you have a safe source of okra.

* Zatarain’s Yellow Rice goes well with green peas—fresh, canned, or frozen--when you have a safe source of peas.

* Zatarain’s Spanish Rice positively begs for tomatoes, when you can trust your source of tomatoes.

* Zatarain’s Long Grain & Wild Rice goes well with fish.

* Zatarain’s Mexican Rice with Pinto Beans is better with additional pinto beans, when you have a safe source of beans.

* Wild greens picked out of your garden or pesticide-free not-a-lawn are best, to my taste, when they’re nibbled raw, leaf by leaf until your body tells you you’ve had enough. Non-wild greens go very well with rice and any form of chicken or turkey, but they soak up glyphosate and other nasty residues; I've gone off them.

* Venison is special. Deer are one of those species that nature really seems to have intended us to eat; they will overpopulate, and the consequences of deer overpopulation are nasty. As deer populations are increasing, I'd rather see male deer on a grill than on someone's grille--or beside the road. However, some alarming diseases have been found in local deer. Others ate my share of the venison that was consumed at this Thanksgiving Dinner. After age 80 I plan to eat venison.

Method

1. Clear fully carbonized residues away from fireplace. Make sure the Dutch Oven has a solid support. If not using a grill rack, put a flat stone, brick, or log in the center of the fireplace and surround it with compost. Compost should not touch the Dutch Oven.

(Important: In Virginia a barrel fire is almost idiot-proof—scraps of paper will occasionally blow out of the barrel on the updraft, but 99% of the time they’ll burn out harmlessly even if they land in the woodpile, because nothing ever gets dry enough to blaze up the way wildfires do in California. Barrel fires are legal even during drought-related bans on outdoor fires, but even on the East Coast we need to have a few jugs of water around a fireplace. Someone should watch a fire as long as flames are visible. I once talked to an old lady who once saw a scrap of paper blow out of a barrel and ignite dry vegetation in the yard.)

2. Wash hands thoroughly, combine ingredients in the Dutch Oven, and set it in its place.

3. If cooking in a barrel, you almost have to use a modified tepee-type fire-lay. Arrange paper, twigs, and sticks in a circle (more or less) around the Dutch Oven, letting them stand up vertically to maximize draft. Ignite. Continue adding pieces of tinder as the first few blaze away. By the time the paper's used up the twigs should be, too, and the sticks should have burned down to ashy coals.

4. If the weather is right you may be able to hear the rice boiling in the Dutch Oven. If not, rice will cook anyway. Know your pot. When mine feels too hot to hold, the rice is hot enough to cook. Once the rice is hot, the tinder is burned up, and the wood is smoldering nicely, leave them alone for 20 to 25 minutes.

5. Carefully remove the pot from the fire. It may or may not still be too hot to hold. It will be dirty. Dust off ashes and wipe off soot before lifting the lid to check the rice. If weather conditions are right it will be perfectly cooked and ready to eat. In cold weather you may need to burn another handful of sticks and let the rice simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes.

Thanksgiving Day was sunny and warm, over 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon. A good time was had by all, apparently including Burr and Samantha, though they didn't contribute anything to the dinner.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Yarn Shopping I Must Go

Thanksgiving Day? Actually, if we think about it, it's more like a week. The holiday is officially observed tomorrow, but anyone looking at my town can tell that a holiday is being observed.

What we used to call Thanksgiving Wednesday, I'm told, some schools now call Dead or Blackout Wednesday, from the look of a dormitory with all the window lights turned off. It's similar to the way some Seventh-Day Adventists and Orthodox Jews observe the Sabbath: The day of rest starts at sunset on Friday, so at least Friday afternoon and sometimes Friday morning are reserved for doing all the work people need to celebrate their day of rest in the way they believe is appropriate. Shopping and cooking and cleaning and driving and putting fresh sheets on the guest beds have to be all done and out of the way in order for the celebration to begin.

My morning walk down to the paved road is usually a quiet reflective time. Not on Thanksgiving Wednesday, it's not. The woods are full of visiting relatives hoping to bag a deer, because why bother with a turkey if you can have fresh venison for Thanksgiving dinner. The hills resounded with gunshots all the way. I put on a fairly loud (for me) orange sweater and thought, as I walked, that the cotton has faded to an unhelpfully well camouflaged shade of cocoa-brown...

Whatever people are doing, they're not shopping. Some people shopped yesterday. Some will shop tomorrow. Today I've seen a total of three people on the sidewalk, and one of them was a sick patient out for the exercise.

So certain storekeepers, of whom I'm one, are about to close up and make our last runs to the grocery store before we start making merry...I was thinking about how much updating a pre-written blog post needed when someone else said "I want to go home." Right. I want to go home too. I'll update that post on Friday.

This Friday is what U.S. merchants like to celebrate as "Black Friday," the day they traditionally started writing the day's total in black (income) instead of red (investment). My home town has a long tradition of using Black Friday for road trips to Kingsport, Bristol, Big Stone Gap, or all three...but, for those who want to spend money at home, I have a tradition of joking about Black Friday by offering discounts on all black merchandise. Person who was fingering the black sweater, please take note.

There's another...it's not really a tradition, because the weather is hard to predict, but it's happened several times...kids always hope that the Monday and even the Tuesday after the Thanksgiving weekend can be celebrated as First Snow Days. Currently the weather is sunny and warm, but the young can always hope.

Anyway, I just picked up my Michaels giftcard in the mail from Yougov, and I can't miss a free ride to Michaels. I'll add an Amazon link "tomorrow," whichever day that means for the web site, probably Friday but who knows.



Happy Thanksgiving, Gentle Readers.

Flash Fiction Poem: Teacher

Happy Thanksgiving, Gentle Readers! Posts at this site appear when they're funded, so here's the first of three posts for the holiday weekend.

This bit of Bad Poetry was written a few weeks ago, before glyphosate awareness took over my entire online life. It's a mash-up of two different writing prompts: poem using five particular words (see the ongoing poetry challenge at http://www.obheal.ie/blog/five-words-poetry-competition/ ), and true story about a K-12 teacher...the first time I remember being able to imagine an Older Person having ever been young. She giggled at the Frenchified way "schottische" was pronounced on the record, like a kid, and then demonstrated the dance step, like a teenager.)

The pallid teacher drawls and drones,

a slug of flab that shows no bones.

We children lean back on our spines

considering how many lines

of penalty prayer might incur—

“God, let me never grow like her.”

To set a mood of long ago,

she puts a disc on the stereo:

Dalglish and McCutcheon join

to clap and whoop and toss a coin

when Old Mike plays his concertina

and tells of colder times and leaner.

Lights ripple on the flat black disc.

Though Mike is old, his tunes are brisk.

He played such tunes in cheap bars where

the drinkers breathed more smoke than air

while dancing on the peanut shells

that helped soak up the spills and smells,

pipe and suspenders, swirling skirt,

they drank so much they tried to flirt.

The teacher demonstrates a step

and for an instant verve and pep

enliven her; she might be tall;

her forty-inch waist might be small,

her hair both thick and dark again;

her eyes flash to long-gone young men.

Her worn-out sneakers have both springs

and pivots that the music brings.

The old were young once, I’ve heard said,

and now believe.—The moment’s fled.

The woman stands again, and slumps.

Her back forms secondary humps

above, below; her clothing’s puckered;

eight quick steps each way leave her tuckered.

Louder our little prayer wheels whir,

God, let me never grow like her,

who for a moment showed that she

was pert and musical as we.

It was a pleasant surprise to find copies of the album featured in this reminiscence on Amazon--for prices Michael Kennedy would never have believed.

Morgan Griffith's Thanksgiving Message

From U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-9), to whom this web site wishes a good Thanksgiving too:

"
Friday, November 16, 2018 –
Two Churches and Thanksgiving
Most Virginians and most Americans are familiar with the words of Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Fewer are familiar with where he said it.
When he uttered his famous declaration to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, Williamsburg was still the capital of Virginia, but it remained under control of the British authorities led by the King’s representative, Lord Dunmore.* So to meet freely, delegates to the convention gathered at St. John’s Church in Richmond.
I thought of this son of our Commonwealth, and his meeting place in particular, while attending a recent Congressional Prayer Breakfast.
A guest at the breakfast was Tunne Kelam, a citizen of Estonia who today represents his country in the European Parliament.
Estonia celebrated its 100^th anniversary of independence this year. As a small nation in the Baltic region, Estonia was long a part of the Russian Empire. In the wake of World War I and the collapse of Russia’s tsarist regime, Estonia declared its independence and repelled an attempt by the newly-formed Soviet Union to subdue it.
Unfortunately, Estonia would find itself twenty years later caught between the socialist Nazis and the communist Soviets, two of the worst tyrannies ever to afflict humanity. During World War II, the Nazis and the Soviets would both occupy Estonia, murdering thousands of its people and sending thousands more to the death or labor camps.
Yet these calamities and the ensuing decades of Soviet oppression following World War II did not crush the spirit of the Estonian people. They rejected the attempts of the Soviets to eradicate Estonian culture and sought to restore the independence they had once enjoyed.
Mr. Kelam was one of the Estonians determined to see his country free again. In 1988, he joined with others to form the Estonian National Independence Party. This was a milestone on the road back to independence, and he was at the meeting that formed the party. Just like that meeting in Richmond over two hundred years before, these patriots met in a church.
There are other links between this story and our American one, too. Mr. Kelam told the prayer breakfast that they drew inspiration from the fact that the United States refused to recognize Soviet rule over Estonia. He took comfort that the greatest democracy in the world didn’t accept that they had been extinguished as a nation.
One of the things we celebrate on Thanksgiving is that we became that greatest country ever based on democratic principles. Over the centuries, people have come to our country for the same things the Estonians who rejected Soviet rule wanted: the right to govern ourselves, to speak according to our consciences, and to live in peace with whichever faith we practice, among others.
In our country, we have flourished while securing these rights, so taking a national day to give thanks is entirely appropriate.
While Virginia’s Thanksgiving occurred in 1619 at Berkeley Plantation, many of the famous Thanksgivings in our history have occurred during momentous times for our democracy. The Pilgrims were celebrating the survival of their colony in 1621; George Washington issued his Thanksgiving proclamation in the first year of the Federal Government under the Constitution; Abraham Lincoln instituted the annual custom of Thanksgiving amid the Civil War. Perhaps it is during trying times that we should be most thankful for the blessings we do possess.
Tunne Kelam’s story certainly caused me to reflect on the things we can be grateful for in America. I hope you will reflect on them, too, when we join our family and friends around the table this Thanksgiving. The words of the classic Thanksgiving hymn “We Gather Together” still say it best:

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
the wicked oppressing now cease from distressing;
sing praises to His Name, He forgets not His own.

During the Thanksgiving season, I hope that each and every one of you will have safe travels, find those things for which you can be thankful, and remember that in our nation of broad and diverse beliefs, we can celebrate America by giving thanks for the things which bind us.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. Also on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.

*Lord Dunmore would be chased from Virginia the next year by the Ninth District’s own Andrew Lewis.
"

Did You Get That Post-Election Survey, Too?

This is only a status update. Real blog posts, on topics suggested by sponsors, cost $5 each and are waiting to be funded.

I'm online live from the real-world Internet Portal store on Jackson Street. We buy, sell, or trade, but so far today all I've done is be harassed by a person who's stopped paying for hack writing and seems upset that the person's stopped getting it.

Cold November rain washed away most of the business in town yesterday. The rain seems to be stopping now, while people are still in town. Come out and shop, people. You are not limited to buying what you see in the store; you can order things online here, and we're looking for more suppliers of hand-crafted merchandise. Not secondhand goods. Lots of other stores sell secondhand goods, some of it quite nice. We are looking for new, handmade goods. If you paint, sculpt, carve, sew, cast, knit, crochet, embroider, tat, quilt, forge, or wire, we want you to be part of this store.

I've shared my Yougov link here before; since nobody's used it I'm guessing all US readers are already members of Yougov US. This is a legitimate paid survey site. No phone numbers, no spam, no obnoxious e-mails where halfway through a survey you're notified that you're not the demographic someone was looking for and will not be paid for your time. When you get Yougov surveys, once in a while you may get one that shuts you out, but if so it will be attached to one that doesn't; you do get some points for opening each survey link. The cash value of the points is low. Nobody gets rich at Yougov. Everybody who fills out a few legitimate sponsored surveys, mostly about shopping and brand recognition, earns a giftcard every few months at their choice of Amazon, Target, and various real-world chain stores. They have a social page where you can discuss unsponsored brands of your own choice on Disqus, if you have time; a gifted "marketer" could use that feature to promote a new product. Since I'm a knitter I've always opted to let Yougov buy me yarn at Michaels. Currently, I'm watching the mail for another giftcard to buy some yarn in time to knit something for Christmas.

If you're not already a member of Yougov, and you are in the United States, you can join on your own, but both you and I get points if you use this link:

https://today.yougov.com/refer/brglBv6yISldXGeAQbYXBg/

Yougov has pages in other countries too; I'm told that each one has different rules, and not all are as user-friendly as the US, UK, and Canada versions. On the other hand some may in some ways be friendlier. In some countries Yougov reportedly offers the option of cash payouts, which are not available here.

Anyway, following the election, I received one of the very few Yougov surveys that don't focus on brand-name merchandise. I suspect it was sponsored by the Democratic Party, because it began with questions about the voting experience.

My voting experience this year was totally normal. I went in after work, waited for one other voter to be signed in, showed my card, was signed in, and didn't even have to wait to go to a booth and vote. I voted for one winning candidate and one losing one. 

There were several other questions, some of which bordered on being insulting. Still beating that dead horse of "Republicans are racists," the D's asked which races (people guessed) their congressional candidates belonged to. 

They might have done better to have remembered their own rhetoric. In 2010, the D sponsors of former Congressman Boucher of Abingdon advertised in Gate City that then Candidate Griffith of Christiansburg was "Not from here. Not for us." Now, apparently, the same party operatives are under the impression that "Flaccavento" is a Gate City name. It's not. "Rossi" is, and arguably "Adenolfi" is, now, but nobody's even mentioned what town Candidate Flaccavento does come from. Either Abingdon or Christiansburg is more than a day's walk from Gate City but in view of recent D sloganeering, "Not from here. Not for us," kept coming to mind.

The survey went on to ask some more questions, including questions of foreign policy, about which I have no opinion. I think my final comment on the survey was worth sharing. It has been revised slightly for clarity.

"
Sponsors should try to avoid forcing choices on questions where respondents have no informed opinion. I could support either blocking immigration (or travel) due to a situation of special danger, or screening all foreigners thoroughly before letting them enter the country. I cannot imagine why people from one country, not at war with us, should be treated differently from others. That doesn't mean there can't be reasons; it means I've not been there and have no way to evaluate anything I've heard. The question is what people intend to do, not where they come from or what they look like.

This relates to the questions about race relations in the U.S. in a way...I think special problems that used to face Black people have been (mostly) resolved. Apart from individual relationships, which can be serious problems when the individuals involved are bigots, the special problems currently facing Black people are the ones they have in common with poorer people of any color. A more centralized economy makes it harder for people of any color to raise their standard of living. Young Black people deserve not empathy, but sympathy, from older White people because those of us who aren't wealthy face most of the same problems.
"

To which I'm sure regular readers are adding, "...And bigger government is not the solution."

Correspondents' Choice: October Book

My correspondence is so far behind that October's book e-mails started to pour in while September's were still open as links...so after that long list of book links, here's a "list" with only one book link.

First to come in was a promotion for a nationwide reading/discussion program featuring, among other things, Moby Dick and The Handmaid's Tale. Those stuck in my memory because the one by the U.S. writer was a favorite my Canadian husband always recommended, and the one by the Canadian writer is a favorite I always recommend. Does anybody not already have copies of both?

But the first one that made me rush to open October's book links list was one of those heartwarming collections of poems by students. This should be a pleasant way to learn Black American History; each poem (free verse, rhymes, or acrostics) tells the story of a famous Black American. Because the book's been published by Lulu.com, it's not in bookstores or on Amazon yet; by the time this post goes live, that may have changed. You can order it directly from Lulu, or order it from this web site to show support. I'll add an Amazon link when I become aware of an Amazon Store selling copies.

Correspondents' Choice: September Books

This is a pure-D disgrace: I was so busy, in October, that I never got around to posting this post. Well, one of the Amazon links had been sabotaged, so that was a problem. Also, Paypal.Me stopped working for this site, so that was another problem. I regret any loss of support these authors have suffered.

Note...correspondents are recommending these books because they're new, and new is how this web site recommends buying them. It's encouraging to read that, due to sellers of used books going online and using Amazon and the Internet as resources for programs like our "Fair Trade Books" system, publishers generally are offering better terms to authors (although they're also slacking off on the actual work of publishing, after they've printed new books). On the other hand they're allowing much less time to determine whether or not a book will sell, and, by extension, whether or not the writer's next book is worth marketing to those who bought the current one. So, most of these writers are in a position where you readers can really boost or hurt their careers, by buying their books new, or borrowing them or buying them secondhand. I recommend spending whatever you earn for one hour's work, each week, on new books. If you're self-employed, like a writer, and what you earn for one hour's work is not necessarily enough to buy even a used book, you can still click on the pictures to look for used books at a discount on Amazon--but if you could afford to buy the books new, and you don't, your conscience will get you.

New from Glenn Beck and team: Addicted to Outrage.

Bread? At a gluten-free site, bread? Why not? Everyone doesn't have to go gluten-free; when it's not been marinated in glyphosate, wheat in reasonable amounts will be a healthy source of plant protein for nine-tenths of humankind, the way it always used to be. For fans of Loulou, the Cat Sanctuary's adorable Tuxie e-friend, here is Her Human's bread recipe book:

And here's the general cookbook:

Reuters reporter Carey Gillam's new book is a must-read.

 

For those who can't get enough of the idea of a School of Magic, Joan Dempsey recommends Christine Grabowski's:

Robin Hutton considers the animals who fought alongside our Greatest Generation:

This one ought at least to be funny...

If you liked the "micropoetry" I retweeted one day in September, you might like the book those "micropoems" were posted to advertise. (Amazon will try to sell you the "e-book" version.)

First novel by the author of that short story collection that Google might not like, though Reese Witherspoon does:

Recommended by Jee Leong Koh:

Does Paul Krugman ever seem like Paul Smugman? Should somebody refute him? Somebody has:

First recommendation I found in the e-mail was this popular picture book, recommended by Penguin. There's a "grandma" sequel, and both are currently on display at Roberts & Jones in Gate City.

Full-length short stories from Alfian Sa'at, author of Malay Sketches...pricey at the time of posting, but demand should generate U.S. publication for a more reasonable price.

Beyond Crazy Rich Asians:

Alphabetically at the end...Clueless was fun, and I think one of the sequels may actually have tackled remixing Pride and Prejudice too, but what about a change of flavor? What if Pride and Prejudice were transferred to a Black city neighborhood? Then you might get Ibi Zoboi's Pride:

Phenology: Gather Roses While You May

This phenology post is brought to you by a sight I've not seen before, in my fifty-plus years, and don't expect to see again.

Trees on the Blue Ridge Mountains are just starting to show bright colors, many still waiting for a real frost. Air temperatures dipped below the freezing mark last week, but not for long enough that anything actually froze.

At the same time, flowers, fooled by a long cool summer and that freaky last late frost, think it's spring.

This morning on the way into town I saw asters and convolvuli, calendulas and ladies' bedstraw. Those flowers normally bloom until frost. It's unusual, but it's not the first time I've seen them in early November.

I saw honeysuckle in full bloom. I've seen honeysuckle bloom twice in a long summer...I think this web site noted that in 2011 or 2012?

But I also saw two old-fashioned irises, blue-and-white ones. And I saw roses. I saw several different kinds of roses. I'm particularly appreciative of the ones in front of the retirement project, sometimes known as Bedbug Towers; the background of white gravel reflected enough light that even the cheap cell phone photo makes them look like roses. I assure you, the other blobs you may or may not recognize are roses, irises, and honeysuckle, all blooming on the first of November, as the first maple leaves begin to fall.

This is actually a mushroom--a very large mushroom. That's my foot in the picture beside it, showing that the diameter of the mushroom is just about the same as a woman's size 7 shoe.

In real life the smaller flowers and ground cover in this floral border do not actually swirl in a circle around the Iris germanica. 

"Wild" roses accompanied by vines...in real life they grow up at about the same angle as the porch posts on the house. The Tracfone never ceases to amaze me.

In real life you can see from the Jackson Street side of this home site that two of the bushes on the Park Street side are rosebushes, one pink and one red, and both are in full bloom this morning. In the background, behind the houses, you can't see the railroad track but can see the ball park, with a few trees turning orange among the green ones behind the park. Blobs of color in between the camera and the rosebushes are painted rocks. People on Park Street got tired of looking at the bare rocks and painted them in colors.

It's hard for me to recognize these blobs, too...the white blobs are honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, almost covering the bush that supports the honeysuckle vines.

Roses and other pretty things.

Roses in the gravel patch.

It cost me about two dollars to snap and download these pictures, but it was worth it because I don't know whether anyone else is documenting them. The normal autumn flowers, and autumn leaves, are similar to the ones professional photographers have documented using good cameras.

Today will probably be the only chance anyone gets to see them all at once. The edge of the storm is expected to wipe out both flowers and maple leaves tonight. If you are a school child or parent, be sure to schedule some time for leaf and flower peeping on the way home from school...after supper could be too late.