Fairy Stone Park peaceful, now back to work

    We were probably the  oldest couple there-- in a tent, that is. But all ages can stay in a tent, one of those "pop up" tents (a metal bottom with wheels the car pulls, and the sides "pop out" so you have some sleeping space) or an RV. And our air mattress inflated to a foot high! And at Fairy Stone State Park (VA) recently we had all three! It was relaxing, coming during the middle of the week, mostly. Wednesday evening it rained and we had to stay in the tent and it wasn't that much fun. But the other days we lit out.
    Ranger naturalist Janette Lavier pointed out loads of info on one trail, from the fluffy orange mushrooms called "chanterelles" to the red eft (juvenile) newt she and I saw on the trail. If you know something about what you are looking at in the woods that makes it so much more interesting.
    We didn't swim "enough" (not in my opinion) but we went out in a rented rowboat and saw those slider turtles (what the ranger called them, as they have a red marking on the side of the neck/ear area and can easily slide into the water, though they look a lot like the painted turtle) sunning themselves on logs and also some cute, furry baby herons -- and I didn't have my camera with me!
    At the visitor center we saw a pile of "fairy stones" on display and also went to a site off Route 57 where you can look in a creek bed for the distinctive cross shaped pattern. Needless to say, we took some little rocks but they weren't at all cross or crisscross shaped!
    On the way back we stopped in Floyd at the "travel through time" shop for some nice frozen yogurt. And the cat survived our staying away (we left out water and dry food for her).
    Now I have to revise my syllabus somewhat and have to teach again very soon!

Naturalists Picnicking, Getting Back on dieting wagon, loads of cukes

    When you have something coming up, like a picnic or baking for the fair, then it is quite easy to dump all your precious dieting plans, in favor of, well, stuffing your face. I am afraid I had one piece of pound cake (someone tempted me with whipped cream to put on it and I gave in) too many, and we were sitting around talking and eating. As Master naturalists, we should have been also walking and hiking, though those who arrived much earlier also had jumped into the fast moving little river nearby before it started to rain. But we did have a canopy or two to keep out the rain.
    Fran(k) played a bit of ping pong with Will and Michael Williams, and I watched and stuffed my face too. I did talk to a few new people and I realized they had done a whole lot more volunteering than I did. I really need to get back to water monitoring and some other projects. And I am going to try to go back to my dieting!
    And my square foot garden is producing a lot of cucumbers with all this rain we've had this summer. I put them in the fair and they won nothing. But the zucchini bread took second place!

The Lone Ranger "is" a good movie, the wild west

     At the end of the movie we hear The Lone Ranger, John Reid, has just said to his horse "Hi-ho, Silver, away!" I believe he asks Tonto what he thinks of that and he replies," Never say that again!"
     There were a lot of humorous moments in the Johnny Depp/Armie Hammer movie (the names of the lead actors) The Lone Ranger, and I found the movie to be rather entertaining. That is why I can't, for the life of me, understand why it was unanimously panned by movie critics. What were they expecting with a Johnny Depp movie? Doesn't he try extra  hard to be "quirky"?
     Quirkiness was the great appeal of this movie, where we see General (Colonel?) Custer already trying to oppress Indian tribes and the railroad pushing its way through Indian territory in the American West. Without giving it away, you could say it was Indian legend that brought the great 'lone ranger' to life, and Johnny Depp in his wild face paint also has a tale to tell about why he always looks that way, and really, why he shouldn't trust a white man. And yet, he decides to help lone ranger John Reid (Armie Hammer) in order to help justice prevail, at least in Reid's world. The world of the native American is already on the downward spiral.
     I read an article in Smithsonian magazine, with its great emphasis on history, on how some Oglala Dakota Indians in So. Dakota are trying to reclaim their heritage, in spite of great poverty and a lack of a plains territory to live off of like their ancestors did. It is close to where the "Battle of Little Big Horn" took place and ol' Custer met his doom. But so many native Americans were uselessly killed during decades of "Indian Wars," and this special note is hinted at in The Lone Ranger. The critics didn't like the fact that the movie could be both serious and funny, but I thought that balance was appropriate, especially when you have Johnny Depp in the movie! He made the Wild West look interesting.

The Fourth of July happened

     Well, the town decided, with the local park partly flooded, to cancel the usual town festivities, except for the 4th of July fireworks. The spouse was a grump because we picked a different spot from which to watch them from, as I thought our spot near the museum on the hill was too close.
     This time, it was even closer! The fireworks filled the whole sky where we were, in a lot on the right side of Wade's Supermarket, and it was so loud I plugged my ears! Big sprays of orange, combinations of red, gold, blue and green were interesting, as well as gold shimmering and some "whistling" sounds. Today, July 5th, the water receded from the park so I can walk there later if I so choose. But it has already rained today again, at least in some areas.

Rain, rain, (go away) -- Gardening pros and cons, canoeing for litter

     It's been raining for days-- is this good for tomato plants, to be rained on every day? They have grown fairly fast in the last week and are now sprawled on the ground, probably not the best place now that they are producing green fruits. So we bought these supportive "sticks" at Lowe's (sp?) and could have put them next to the tomato plants but guess what? It's raining again!
     Certainly being in the garden and taking in the luxurious, pleasing scent of the tomato plants is better than dealing with sibling  rivalry or the lack thereof (don't ask -- just say my friends  have been better companions to me than my siblings have been in the last 30 years). Gardening and planning and watching over the tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini plants -- they're like your little green children you want to nurture along. Too bad you have to eat your children when they become big and tasty.
     The other day I "helped" nature by canoeing along the lake coastline at Claytor Lake State Park to do a summer litter pickup. I really worked out my shoulders, and yet, they didn't seem achy the next day, paddling against the currents of outboard motorboats passing by as the spouse and I used the end of the paddles to lift plastic, bottles and other refuse off the banks of the park's lake. The news said many others did this and came up with 100 bags of trash in all. My, but there are some big litterbugs out there!

Square Foot Gardening, Gardening healthy

     Well, we have endeavored to put a "square foot garden" into practice. I'm not certain how I heard about it, but it may have been my naturalist friend Carrie, who was pointing out several different "sections" of her property devoted to planting various vegetables, mainly. And she loaned me the "new square foot gardening" book by Bartholomew  and it provided a lot of helpful info in it , as well as a workshop/meeting I went to on it.
     So we needed to get together the 3 ingredients necessary: compost, peat moss, and vermiculite (perlite if you don't have the last, but it's not half as fine). I put off doing this till the first week in June because we didn't have much of a compost heap -- it was mostly sod (which Carrie told me was a no no but my husband wouldn't listen to this), which had not been turned much at all. With compost you are supposed to mash it AND turn it. But the spouse had put worms in it so I couldn't do much mashing and the  organic stuff I was putting in (cut grass, vegetable peelings, tea bags, coffee, egg shells) was taking a while to break down. So I thought we could get the other "ingredients" to put in this garden later.
    A "square foot" garden is "supposed" to be square or rectangular in shape, and easy to maintain. The three ingredients are mixed together and are "supposed" to be loose in a square structure,  6 to 12 inches high, and the plants planted in squares in the 4 by 4 cedar wood (we got 2 kits from Home Depot we put on top of each other). I don't think our inner squares were exact and the following day we put them in they were a bit wilty looking because they weren't watered much. In some ways a square foot garden is like a plant out on the porch or deck -- it seems to need a fair amount of water. But we've had rain the past few days and that  has been a good thing.
     We actually planted it below deck because we have a wooden fence in back and an oak tree, neighbors' maple tree, and our own house providing a lot of shade. But the deck has this "black stuff" on it and now we can't blast it off, because of the garden below. Fran(k) has suggested scrubbing it but I don't know with what!
     There is another little garden on the other side of the wood fencing (it only covers part of the yard -- that's what the house came with, not my idea) and it seems to be getting enough sunlight. It has tomatoes with green "fruit" on them, pepper plants, zucchini plants and onions. And they are all really growing. I suspect the square foot garden will be our second crop, maybe the end of July or August crop. I hope to attend a "old water" canning workshop to learn more about preserving tomatoes if we get a lot.
     So, if you don't have a lot of space or only sun in a certain spot, maybe you should consider a square foot garden. The initial investment was great ($200+) for the container and 2 of the 3 organic materials and plants (some of the plants being on sale we got them so late). We could have bought materials on sale maybe sooner in the season, but we bought them when we needed them, so that was that. We'll see if it was worth it.

Cancer Walk, How do we solve cancer?

    They tried to be amusing, with kids singing and clogging and otherwise distracting those who had taken a respite from walking. It was supposed to be an "all night" walk, this RELAY for cancer benefit, but how many stayed that long? I certainly didn't. I was surprised to see that you had to walk "12 times" around our elevated indoor track in order to make just a mile, though others were planning on walking several miles. Though not me.
    I wanted to exercise but was not that ambitious. AND, the spouse was going to pick me up and was not all that ambitious about walking either. Of course, when you are walking around with an old high school injury to your knee, PLUS you are diabetic, then walking whenever and wherever you want becomes problematic --- for him, at least. But he was my ride so I couldn't stay all night (it would be past his bedtime).
    I think these fundraisers are a good way for former cancer patients like myself to come together, but where the heck does the money go? Into finding new, more targeted cures? Toward helping someone afford a wig or some of those 'yucky' health drinks ( I never found Ensure to be palatable when I was sick)? Where does all the daggone money go? How about helping me afford healthcare NOW, like seeing a nutritionist or someone to help me de-stress?
     Cancer funds should go toward alternative treatments and cures, and cancer prevention. Does the American Cancer Society even "try" to promote prevention? I believe it should be one of their goals.