Flag Book- In memory of Lallie

 I have an old "Desk Calendar" from 1961 that belonged to my Great-Aunt Lizzie Ballard.  She used it to write down recipes people gave her and she copied them into the book.  She also pasted recipes she cut out of magazines and newspapers.  What I love about the book is her hand written recipes and the notes she wrote about who gave her the recipe.  I never have used this book as a source for recipes because most of them are ones I already have in some version or other.  But I love looking at her beautiful handwriting.  Lizzie Ballard, or Lallie as my brothers and I called her, was a school teacher for most of her life.  As was the case for many women of her day, she started teaching school pretty much right out of high school.  And she taught for probably 50 years.  Mostly she taught 7th grade or at least that's what she was teaching when I came along.  Lallie never married.  She lived with my widowed grandmother -her sister-, helped raise my father and was our next door neighbor throughout my childhood.  We shared meals together frequently, both at her house and ours.  She also was a built-in "babysitter" for me and my younger brother. I think I got my love of crafting with paper from her.  She made her own "library paste" and scented it with cloves.  She would have little projects for us to do when I would spend time with her and she taught me how to make snowflakes and paper dolls out of folded paper.  She also would repair books that had started to fall apart.  She made projects of paper mache.

So, for various reasons I decided to cut up the desk calendar and try to preserve the best thing about it which is the beautiful hand writing and the names of family and friends and food that were loved by all of us.  The flag book I made is able to stand open on a table and so it's easier to appreciate the treasures inside.  I hope Lallie forgives me for cutting up her book but I'm sure she and my mother can find all the versions of the recipes they need from the many other old-fashioned cooks hanging out with them in heaven.

I'm writing this a couple of days before Mother's Day.  Lallie was a mother to so many even though she never gave birth. Happy Mother's Day!

Watch out for the trees!

 Driving from Davidson to Montreat on I-40 on Friday afternoon I ran into a severe rainstorm.  I was around Marion, NC when the rain was coming down so hard I could hardly see the road.  Others had slowed down and so did I.  Some pulled off the road onto the shoulder.  I find that not a very comfortable idea since it is then really hard to get back on the road so I kept going.  Besides the rain, the wind was blowing and as I was getting near Old Fort  I noticed leaves blowing horizontally across the road ahead of me.  Then I saw a tree up on the right was falling down across the road and I had little time to do anything except try to stop and hope the cars behind me would slow down and not plow into me!  I stopped right up against the tree.  I was not rear ended but I was stuck in the right lane with cars coming around me on the left.  I was shaken up and didn't want to do anything but sit there.  I had braked hard and things in the car had "shifted" forward but all seemed well.  The car wasn't damaged as far as I could see and I was ok.  The air bags didn't deploy.  Whew!  I sat there for a few minutes and then started looking behind me for a chance to get into the lane of traffic moving through.  Finally someone must have seen my situation and let me in.  By then the rain had lightened up and it felt safe to move on and get to my destination ASAP. I didn't even think about making a picture of my view of the tree and the road but trust me there was a tree that was all the way across I-40.  The cars had to go off the shoulder to get around it.  I assume someone let the highway patrol know of the problem.  I felt like my job was to get home.  

I was reminded of an incident about nine years ago when I was driving from Davidson to our son's house in Pittsboro, NC.  In Siler City on Highway 70 I encountered a log truck heading in the opposite direction. It came up from the other highway at an intersection and the logs shifted and spilled out across the road.  There were these huge logs rolling toward me!  All I could do was stop and hope they didn't hit too hard.  I was not injured but the SUV I was driving was declared a total loss by the insurance company.  At least one other vehicle was severely damaged.

So, both times I was not injured and the vehicles held up although in the eyes of the insurance company one of them was damaged severely.  I am thankful that both of these SUV's provided me with protection. I can only imagine that if I had been in a car like my beloved Honda Civic or my current Ford Fusion I might not have come through so well.  I try not do dwell on the "what ifs" but situations like this do make me think about wanting to drive the sturdiest car I can find. 

I also think about what amazing things trees are.  They can be massive!  I think the one that fell in front of me this past Friday was very tall but not so large in circumference.  The ones on the log truck nine years ago were very big.  They had been harvested to become lumber for construction projects I imagine. Anyway, I have worked on some projects to try to preserve the tree canopy so I would hope trees might like me and want to keep me around but that's probably a pretty naive idea.  You just never know what's going to happen.

Progress on Beaty Park and the Pond

 It's wonderful to be seeing the progress that is made as Beaty Park is being developed.  Besides the trails and the other features of the park the leak in the dam is also being repaired.  I have told the story before of how the leak in the dam was threatening the whole future of the Beaty St. property.  The claim was that the expense of repairing the dam again was a game changer that would make the whole project impractical.

  And then early in the pandemic many of the neighbors were wandering in the woods and around the pond and discovered the leak was caused by a pipe in the pond, not some structural problem with the dam.  I actually have a photo from when the dam was repaired the first time that shows the offending pipe.  And I have a fun video that shows little baby fish swimming around and going into the pipe! So, as the park is being developed the pond is being repaired.

The park will have lots of trails as well as a more open area with gardens, a playground, picnic shelters, restrooms, and open space for play.  It will be a delightful place that the whole community will enjoy not just the immediate neighborhood as some have claimed.

It's hard to capture the scope of this project in a few pictures.  Remember, the property is at least 17 acres, probably more. 

Visit to the Pollinator Garden at Chatham Mills in Pittsboro, NC

We were fortunate to visit this beautiful spot on a really hot day in July.  Chatham Mills is a former textile mill repurposed to a multi purpose building with many different businesses and offices.  It has a pretty large parking lot and all around this parking space are plantings of pollinator friendly plants, mostly native.  It's quite showy on a hot summer day.  I will share a few photos with you below.  I love how they plants are mixed and mingled together.  A wide variety of colors and textures.  This garden is several years old so it has mature plants in all their glory.  There are also a couple of areas that are newer and are still growing into their space. Enjoy the photos below and if you are up in the Triangle area any time stop by for a visit. 

Update on the Backyard Garden

We are having a great year in the garden.  Besides the Native Plant garden I started in the back of the yard, Al has worked hard to create raised beds for vegetable gardening.  The earlier part of the summer was pretty wet which I think was a great thing for this new gardening adventure.  Right now, mid July, it's getting really hot and dry so we are having to do some extra watering.  

These are from a few weeks ago.  Since then we've harvested beans, cucumbers, squash and one tomato.  Things are growing fast in the vegetable garden.

And here are a few blooms from the Native Plant garden.  I'm happy with how it's going but it will be a while before it's really full of blooms.  The coreopsis and the mountain mint are doing really well. I'll keep you posted!

Lost a tree but gained sunshine and a garden.

The very large white oak tree in our yard fell down in a hurricane in the fall of 2018.  It was huge and left a huge hole in the yard and in our hearts.  We had hoped maybe the wood would come to good use but because of complicated circumstances that has not happened.  After we were able to have the root ball removed and the majority of the trunk moved back from our lot onto town property we were left with a sunny space we had never had.  I waited through last year's growing season to give some thought to what to do next and came up with the plan to put in some cedar trees on the back property line and a pollinator garden in the strip that runs across the back where the tree had been.  So, this week as we were faced with the impending stay at home order, I went shopping for some native plants to add to my collection.  I had already bought and planted the cedar seedlings along with some shrubs. Now I have this collection of plants that will produce blooms from spring through fall, hopefully.  I spent some time thinking of the best way to arrange them and now I'm in the planting mode.

                                                             I'll share the flowers and what they attract as the year goes on.

Al and I took a visit to Spencer Woods Park today.  The official name of the preserve is Fred and Alice Stanback Educational Forest and Nature Preserve.  It is a lovely and simple place that I believe could serve as a model for the Beaty St. property.  And the best thing is that the citizens of Davidson already own the property.  The property in Spencer was almost lost to clear cutting and development but because of some clear thinking people the property was instead put into conservancy with the LandTrust for Central North Carolina and donated to the town.  What it has become is a beautiful place for citizens to enjoy.  It is a passive park.  There are no ball fields or tennis courts but there are walking trails, picnic shelters, a pond with a floating dock, and a parking lot. There is room for wildlife and for people to enjoy nature’s beauty. The park is within walking distance of the business district of Spencer and the NC Transportation Museum. It is surrounded by residential neighborhoods.  The process used to design the park is similar to what has been proposed here in Davidson: opportunities for citizen input led by a professional.  Here’s a link to the report about the proposal for developing the park. http://www.ci.spencer.nc.us/vertical/sites/%7BB85238E8-43CC-4172-AB03-A2E1A50D5927%7D/uploads/SpencerWoodsReport_PARTF.pdf

I encourage you to drive to Spencer for a visit.  Spencer is located in Rowan County and only about 50 minutes away.  You can take a back road route and avoid I-85 to see some lovely rural countryside. Like we did, you might stop for some good barbecue for lunch. Put Fred and Alice Stanback Preserve, Spencer NC in your google maps or other navigation device and let us know what you think.