The Cat and the Deer

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I hope this video and song are published as I intend with this blog message. I've watched it several times and enjoy it every time! It is a wonderful world and listening to Louis Armstrong sing it always melts my heart, especially when combined with these tender images of unlikely woodland friends cuddling together.

Yes, we all put our own imaginings into what is going on in the minds of creatures such as this cat and deer in this episode. The mere fact that we're moved by the scene is an indication to me that we are all at one with One even without the words.

For God's Glory....Let's try this again.

Okay, so here is the link, I think! Let's hope it will work this time.

http://christianscience.com/blogs/daily-lift/2009/11/16/for-gods-glory/

Glory to God

Does this link work? The message is simple but very clear. Hope it comes through.

Hey, I think I added a widget, or was that a gadget?

Actually it was my picture, but I need to get current with my new vocabulary and Facebook jargon. Oh boy! What have I gotten myself into with signing up with Facebook? It is quite time consuming. I am trusting that will settle down once I have my friends established, accepted, liked, and whatever else....oh yea....poked? Don't know how to or even if I've poked a friend(or whether I've been poked). No, I don't know what that means....much I don't know about Facebook.



I responded to a request for listing family members from one of my nieces (with whom I am now an official Facebook friend) who has asked me to list all of my family members on Facebook, so then she'll know who else she may be related to. I was directed to another whole area for family info. I did fill out some at that section but then decided that might be more than I'm ready to jump into right now.

It is fun seeing pictures of everyone....have seen pictures on my own children's facebook page that I have not even seen in person. Seems a bit odd don't you think? Here I am talking to my kids through texting messages on my cell phone and now writing to each other on Facebook....in a language that I didn't even know how to spell just a very short time ago. Oh well, This is one grandmother that's working at keeping up with the times. I remember that I did send out that message to the universe for help with better recognizing and connecting with love. And then Facebook shows up and opens up a whole new universe of old friends, new friends and family reconnections. How can I not be happy with this?



I continue to learn more about the intracacies of Blogger, and so what with now adding more entirely new language skills with Facebook, I will need to learn balance with this whole learning processes plus re-examining how I used to approach my day to day life. My sister says she's not ready for this mode of communications and time consumer, but I think she may change her mind once she hears about all the fun photos of her grandchildren that I am now seeing on her kids' Facebooks.



This is really moving up, up and away, isn't it? Fun, but not up there with the travelling part, especially to the beaches of St Maarten.

View of gorgeous fall flowers

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I wasn't successful in publishing this gorgeous video of brilliant fall colors and flowers to my Facebook, so let's try my Blog. Hope the sound comes through when you click on the link. Enjoy the view.

More Butterflies, Garden & Trains

As part of a community beautification project called Greening of the Depot in Seneca, SC, our local Reading Room adopted a garden plot. It's been an ambitious garden, 80 X 40, filled with plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and has been a labor of love. Initially there were many hours of hard work donated by various volunteers from the community and church that all came together to make the Depot project a success. This area is now filled with beautiful gardens with our garden in the center of what was previously a neglected field along the railroad tracks. The beautification project had many facets that included encouraging Norfolk & Southern Railway Lines to repaint the historic train depot in lovely paint colors, local businesses adopting portions of that once neglected area, replacing with unique and colorful gardens and plantings, and that also included a planting of a new park across from the library on another abandoned lot and that local garden clubs continue to maintain. All in all, a huge success.

It has been a joy and pleasure to watch the plants maturing and adding to the beautification of the area since it was started. The Reading Room garden has experienced a bit of neglect the past couple of years. As assistant librarian when the garden was started, I had been delegated as the main gardener and each year seemed to have fewer helpers able to help out. Some life events kept me away as well from spending much time in the garden, and so for the past couple of years the garden has looked rather neglected and overgrown with weeds. Many plants have grown into beautiful, large specimens. Some have died away. But many, many weeds have tried to take over, obscuring the steppings stones with some growing up as large as some of the plants.

The cooler weather and more available time have inspired me to work once again in the garden. With the help of two workers we mowed the weeds, dug up dead plants, planted new ones, sprayed, spread new mulch, replaced the stepping stones, did lots of pruning of various overgrown plantings, we were able to restore order once again to our garden.

I'm grateful to have had occasion to spend many quiet hours working in the garden this week. This afforded me opportunities to take the time to watch and enjoy the many butterflies that love to drink the nectar of the large Lantana plants that have grown into large shrubs. These butterflies that hatched from large caterpillars that fed on the caraway plants we planted years ago that they so love are now those brilliant orange flights of joy. Plus the watching of the many types of birds that played, flying in and out of the branches, especially the mockingbirds, and also discovering the many types of insects (including two praying mantis!), plus enjoying the warm, fall sunshine, all added to my overall enjoyment and pleasure this week as I worked each day staying present with each moment filled me with awe.

And the TRAINS! You don't realize there are as many trains using those tracks until you spend several days working alongside them. It was fun to have the excuse to stop trimming for a few minutes and wave to the engineers (who always waved back), and then count the number of cars moving down the tracks behind each engine.....68 on one heading north, 98 on the one heading south a short time later, then another heading north, this one with double engines and travelling especially fast, pulling 102 different cars! All of the trains. All filled with various types of commerce, travelling up and down this north/south railway that until spending time there alongside, I had not appreciated their numbers. It all evoked a real nostalgia within me filling me with peaceful feelings. Sounds a bit strange to say peaceful all the while standing so close and listening to the loud clickety-clack of their wheels moving down the tracks plus the very loud, plaintive peals of the train whistles blaring as they roared past me, but that's what I felt.....peaceful.

I'm glad to have the garden neat and trim once again, and very grateful for the at-one-ment experience with nature and trains.

St Maarten butterflies & history

This isn't a postcard. This picture was taken from my condo balcony on my recent visit to paradise. I invite you to come, sit on this balcony with me as I share a few insights that continue to reveal themselves even after my return.

Join with me on my first adventure out of the US that required my going through Customs (which went quite smoothly); my first vacation taken by myself (but not lonely); my week of discovery of exotic places on this planet, (and also discovering some new places within)

That deep blue water is the Caribbean Sea alongside Simpson Bay in St. Maarten of the Lesser Antilles.....very far from where I call home where the skies of South Carolina may rival these for blueness, but where there is no comparison of these combinations of blues and greens of water and sky, surrounded by green palm trees, volcanic mountains, soft white sands, and oh so brilliant sunshine that was always present, completely seductive and captivating in casting spells for leisure that looked and felt quite like idleness and laziness, but never boredom.

My first early morning walk to a nearby deli for freshly baked croissant revealed millions of yellow butterflies accompanying me appearing as snowflakes of yellow fluttering all around. Each morning these beautiful fluttering creatures were present until about mid-day when I imagine the intense sun forced them into retreats of shade and shadows. Walking among them flying overhead and all around, I felt a more aptly descriptive name for them would be flutter-bys because of their flight patterns and ever so brief stops on flowers and leaves....so brief that I was unable to snap a picture that captured the magic of their presence.

On my flight, I read about and planned visits to many interesting sights and attractions on both the Dutch and French sides. As I read about the history of this smallest island in the world that was to be divided between two sovereign powers and where the current boundary is a result of numerous wars between great European powers in the 17th century, my curiousity was definitely tweaked.

St Maarten and St. Martin is one of the Lesser Antilles islands that lies in the vague border between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, has two different languages, and is ruled by two nations. Ownership of the island is split between the Dutch and French (my condo was on the Dutch side). Only 37 square miles, or about half the size of Washington, D.C., make this the smallest territory with the southern half, 16 square miles, is Sint Maarten, ruled by the Dutch, and the northern 21-square mile area is Saint Martin, the French side.

No rift exists between the people of these cultures. The partition remains to this day and the two separate life-styles--charming vignettes of their respective homelands--coexist in complete contrast but perfect harmony. The island's inhabitants are quite proud of their nearly 350-year history of peaceful co-existence. According to legend, Columbus discovered the island in 1493 on the feast day of St. Martin of Tours. During the 140 years that followed, the Spanish, French and Dutch disputed possession, or at least the right to use the resources, of St. Maarten/St. Martin. On March 23,1648, a treaty was concluded atop Mount Concordia delineating the boundaries of the island. The Dutch received 16 square miles and the French received 21 square miles, owing to the latter's superior naval presence in the region when the treaty was signed.

My visit to museums to learn more about the prehistory and archaeology of the Arawaks will have to happen on another visit. My visit to the Butterfly Farm will also have to wait, as will my salsa dancing at heaven Disco or the full-moon reggae bash till the wee hours at Kali's Bar.

My days were mostly spent reading on the beach, snorkelling in the area in that clear, blue water near the rocks where all the brilliantly colored fish were hanging out, or else I was floating on my raft while napping or sometimes enjoying the antics and activities of pelicans resting on the nearby rocks or diving for fish within 20 feet of right where I was floating. Other diversions were having lunch at the Tiki Bar on the beach or poolside while sitting on a stool in the pool, sometimes drinking a frozen Pina Colata, and watching the beautiful sunsets where the each night out performed the previous night's displays.

I thought I would paint, write, sight-see, adventure, and I did do all those things.....just not in the way I had envisioned. More about that in another blog entry.