Another Horse

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Exhausted Tulips

These aren't from our garden. I bought tulips at a Food Lion but of course they don't last forever.

Before I threw them out, I took them out on the deck and made a few photos in the late afternoon sun.

A Suiter trio in Michigan, 1998

Peggy S. F., Clarice S. R., and Linda S. J. in Rose City

Music Festival 2009

The Shenandoah Valley Music Festival has published its initial schedule for this summer. The concerts take place in the outdoor pavilion at the charming village of Orkney Springs.

• Friday, July 17th @ 8:00 p.m. - Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul
• Saturday, July 18th @ 8:00 p.m. - The Dixie Hummingbirds
• Friday, July 24th @ 8:00 p.m. - "Charlie Chaplin at the Symphony"
• Saturday, July 25th @ 8:00 p.m. - "Romantic Passions" The Fairfax Symphony with Valentina Lisitsa playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
• Friday, August 7th @ 8:00 p.m. - Béla Fleck and Toumani Diabaté
• Saturday, August 8th @8:00 p.m. - Preservation Hall Jazz Band
• Saturday, September 5th @ 7:00 p.m. - An Acoustic Evening with Travis Tritt and very special guest Jerry Douglas
• Sunday, September 6th @ 7:00 p.m. - Cherryholmes

Keep in mind that rental homes are available nearby in Bryce Resort. (Our family members, of course, should stay with us. We'd like to see them more often anyway.)

For THIS I've been washing out jars?

Shenandoah County does not recycle glass.

A local paper reports that our county no longer crushes glass. The landfill still takes in our glass bottles and jars, but instead of recycling them they break them up with a bulldozer and spread the shards over layers of garbage to keep vultures from feeding off it. Apparently the birds don't like getting cut with sharp glass so they go elsewhere.

Shenandoah County used to have a glass crushing machine but it broke down so they sold it to Page County (who fixed it and used it).

Now I am a fairly faithful recycler. I rinse out jars, bottles, and cans, separate and store them, and drive to the recycling bins every few weeks. We don't have curbside pickup of recyclables here.

I've long had some doubts about whether recycling really saves resources when we have to drive an extra eight miles just to put it in dumpsters. And washing the containers uses water (which takes energy to purify and dispose of) and electricity, so the only way I am really doing any good is if the materials get recycled very efficiently. Plus supposedly we are saving landfill space. But not with glass, it seems. It is going in the county landfill.

Well, I may continue to recycle my clean glass, such as Perrier bottles. But I don't see any reason to wash out anything that takes hot water or detergent anymore. Jars that held peanut butter, kim-chee, or even maple syrup will go straight in the trash.

A Warm Day at JMU

Last Weekend at the Carrier Arboretum
Harrisonburg, VA

We had some hot weather last week. Right now the heat has been replaced by cooler temperatures and the sunshine has been replaced with rain.

I was at JMU for a plant sale. (Speaking of JMU (James Madison University), take a look at their Dog Statues.)

Their arboretum has other plant sales scheduled.

May Day 1958

At Hollin Hall Elementary School, May 1958

It's hard to believe it's been 51 years since I took this photograph in the fifth grade. When I look at it, many of the names come back to me: Margaret Smith, Fran Lawrence, Paul Beighley, Roy Kanwit, Chris Renaud, Tina Knudsen, Kit Irwin, Dianne Johnson, Miss Vassos.

This was in Fairfax County, Virginia. Our school celebrated the arrival of spring with an outdoor event that featured folk dances including the ancient tradition of weaving ribbons around a May Pole.

Need more to worry about?

I hope that the fear about a flu pandemic turns out to be unfounded, but I have to admit I'm washing my hands more frequently when out in public places. In the meantime, here's something else to worry about:

Some studies indicate that Bt, a "natural" pesticide, might cause influenza to turn deadly! See this study about Bt and super-infections.

I came across that courtesy of a CSDA member who sent along information from the Maryland Pesticide Network regarding gypsy moth spraying.

Research on Taft Avenue

I was amused (and slightly) amazed to come across an archaeological survey of the Taft Avenue community [PDF] where I used to live.It's linked from this page on the Alexandria Archaeology website.

The survey was done long after I moved away from there and stopped volunteering for the archaeology program. As I mentioned before, our house there has been demolished to make way for a fancy subdivision.

Right: the snowy scene shows the view from our patio at that house. The stream valley in the background was part of Fort Williams Park.

Oh, the survey found some minie balls from the Civil War but nothing else. We weren't around to show them where there may have been a well and a ghost (according to a premonition that Lynn had).

Making a Natural Sweetener Unnatural?

Stevia leaf has been the source of a natural sweetener for a long time, but until recently could not be marketed as such in the U.S. It was available as an herb and many of us happily used it to add sweetness to tea and such.

Finally big corporations found a way to use it as a sweetener without the USDA objecting. They extracted the sweet part, refined it, and added other ingredients. Some of us who tried this new version (as Truvia) found that while the taste was good, something about it gave us side-effects like gas pains. I looked up the other ingredients and found they were erythritol and unspecified "flavors."

Beverage Daily just shared The Science of Stevia, explaining that the extra flavors were added to cover a "licorice" taste in stevia that some find a bit bitter. Personally I didn't mind the taste when used in herbal teas or cocoa since they have a slight bitterness anyway. I didn't like the taste in baked goods though.

The new stevia-derived sweeteners are being marketed as natural, but I think the meaning of natural is being stretched a bit far in this case. To me something natural is something you could make in your own kitchen. And nowhere have I found the identity of the other flavors that are added.

A Work-around, then another...

A few months ago I posted a file for CSDA at the request of a board member. Later someone realized it might cause a problem so I removed it. Well, today another board member noticed that it was still in Google's cache and wanted it out of there. Fortunately he is web-savvy and suggested creating a new file with the same name, posting it and then getting it indexed by the search engines. Sounded good, except that the old name had spaces in it and our web host no longer allows us to upload files with spaces in their names! (I think they tightened up the rules after getting hacked.) I was ready to give up but the web-savvy guy suggested uploading the file without spaces in the name, then trying a change-file-name on the file manager menu to old name, spaces included. It actually worked!

See my replacement page here. I even made it pretty.

Our Dogwood is Blooming

I love the way dogwood brightens up the woods in spring.

We've had some very hot days lately. At first, spring was cool and often rainy or windy, but it suddenly changed to very warm, more like July than April.

Third Winchester Tour Posted

I'm finally posting the Battle of Third Winchester pages on my Civil War Field Trips site. I put off doing it because I use a multi-page format for each trip and it takes a long time. This trip report actually took less time than the others because it was shorter than most so I got all the thumbnails on a single page.

Dr. Poland shortened that trip because a rain storm was approaching. We barely made it to Winchester as rain started. But we had enjoyed a pleasant morning in Harper's Ferry and en route to Winchester.

Another Pic of Lynn Holding a Dog

Here is Lynn as a child holding a little dog. She has always liked dogs. This one was at Aunt Boots's home in Bath County.

• Recent Photo of Lynn holding Flash
• 1972 Photo of Lynn Holding Spotsy

Overlooking Lake Birdhaven

This photo is from about four years ago. Lake Birdhaven is sometimes shown on maps as Beetle Run Pond, after a creek that runs into it. That's Great North Mountain in the background.

Marie and Me

A View from Ridge Hollow Road

Springtime near Columbia Furnace, VA

Details of 2009 NVCC Civil War Tour

I received details on our upcoming field trip from Prof. Poland, starting with:

• Bring lunch for May 15th and snacks and water for the 16th and 17th. For all three days bring rain gear, clothing and footwear for extensive walking.
• Rendezvous; May 15 - 8:45 a.m at Stonewall Jackson Museum on Hupp's Hill across from the Virginia Saving Bank on Rt. 11 on the right side of Rt 11 as you enter Strasburg.
• May 16th - 10:30 a.m. at Fort Harrison. Take exit 22B off Rt. 295 to Rt. 5 and proceed west. Take a left of Battlefield Park Road and drive to the parking lot of Fort Harrison.
• Reservations: We will spent Saturday night at the Holiday Inn Express, 5679 Boyton Plank Road, Petersburg, VA.

If you are a fellow student, you can find more by signing in to your NVCC email. We are covering a huge territory in one weekend - Shenandoah Valley on Friday and Richmond to Appomattox on Saturday-Sunday.

Park Service Description of Fort Harrison

Visit my Civil War Field Trips site.

Linda in 1975

Marie and Lynn in 1975