Many of us are losing our minds. We are entitled to do this. We live in a country where presidential campaigns last two years and cost billions of dollars. With a set up like this, we would be insane if we weren’t going crazy.

Fortunately, I have found an antidote to this madness. Browsing in a small art gallery and tea shop in Spring Green, Wisconsin, I discovered the art and wit of Minnesota artist, Sue Rowe. You might call her the bear lady, as droll bears appear to have taken over her artistic subject matter. At times her bears are accompanied by text. Sue generously gave me permission to quote one of her bears.

“I did finally get stuff figured out, but by then I didn’t care and I was hungry for pie.

So much for saving the world.

I will blame the power of pie…”

Now head to Sue’s blog (click here) to see her ursine creatures.

If you wish to follow the bear’s sage advice, I offer you this decadent recipe for pecan pie. We all may need it on election night.

Pecan Pie

1 unbaked 9 inch pie shell

1/4 cup soft butter

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

3 eggs, beaten

3/4 cup white corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup broken pecans

 

Cream butter, add brown sugar and beat until smooth.

Combine beaten eggs with corn syrup and vanilla. Add to the butter and brown sugar mixture.

Add pecans and turn into the pie shell.

Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes and then 300 degrees for 30 minutes longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The accordion is a much maligned instrument. Say the word and images of smoky beer halls and umpah polka bands might come to mind.

I almost married an accordion player but was saved by a hay bale. Let me explain.

My husband’s mother was an ardent fan of accordion music. She had three boys but could not inveigle the first two to take accordion lessons. Then came son number three, who was a quiet, thoughtful and kind boy. He was sent off to master the instrument with much hope on the part of his mother. The unfortunate facts that her son had limited musical ability and no interest in the instrument were overlooked.

Fast forward 55 years. My husband and I are enjoying a lovely dinner in a crowded but small European style restaurant. The large, happy family party next to us is being serenaded by a remarkably talented accordion player.

“That could be me,” my husband says. “As a kid I had to sit on a hay bale on the back of a pick up truck and play my accordion in a hometown parade. After that painful experience, I rebelled and quit my lessons.”

We live in a house without live accordion music. We do, however, not dislike accordion music. We both agree that the instrument simply needs to be put to good use playing zydeco music. Click here and then click the arrow to see if you agree.

Laissez les bons temps rouler ….let the good times roll!

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We are beginning to get a glimmer of understanding about gardening. Nature does most of the work and we are not in control. We do, however, have a role to play. For lack of a better word, we are tweekers.

Our gardening vision is of a large meadow with bird and butterfly welcoming plants, many of which are native species. Milkweeds, black-eyed susans, jewelweed and many others are volunteers, they plant themselves. We’ve added cone and compass plants, rose mallow, lobelia, bee balm,  prairie smoke, catmint, joe pye, anemones and asters to the mix.

Here’s the catch: we never know what is going to pop up from year to year. And here is where the tweeking comes in. We’ve learned not to let any one plant take over. Four hundred milkweed plants is probably more than we need, so I pull those that threaten to overrun the cone flowers. Queen Anne’s lace asserts herself as well, exactly like a real queen. We try to keep a delicate sprinkling of it, not a dowry. We are learning about biological diversity in the field.

Our first rule of gardening is to enjoy what nature and we have created every day and every season. We never look at our meadow and see work that needs doing…we see loveliness.

Paul Horgan, an eloquent writer and historian, offers this insight in his slim volume of stories, The Return of the Weed:

“Life runs inconstant, in a rhythm of change, tending toward growth.”

Click here to watch our garden unfold.

(Thanks to the Purple Martins for the music.)

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“If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

I saw these words on a poster in an art room where I was working. The quote was attributed to Einstein, but being a born skeptic, I looked it up and found he never uttered them. Nevertheless, I do like the sentiment the words convey.

One of our cultural problems these days is the expectation that we all must be experts on everything. Good students are devastated if they get a “B” in one subject. Stress is rampant in schools where it is now possible to get more than a 4 point average. As Garrison Keillor quips, “All the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average.” Woe be to those children that aren’t.

Kids’ jaws drop when I say in a classroom that I have always struggled with math. Since art and language skills are my strongest, I fail to see why I must be equally proficient in solving advanced algebraic equations. In my opinion, x has no business pretending it’s a number anyway.

Sharing and the common good are not currently in vogue.  The logical outcome of this thinking is the onus being put on each individual to be completely accomplished at everything.

Don’t buy into this kids. Your world won’t end if you get a B or even a C. A quick look back in history reveals very few Renaissance men and women. Most of us get by with the help of our friends and a pocket calculator.

Be a fish that knows it doesn’t have to climb trees. But strive to be extremely good at swimming or whatever your special thing might be.

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We heard them before we saw them. One morning last week as my husband and I were eating on the front deck, we simultaneously looked up from our granola and said, “Who is making those strange sounds?”

A glance in the sky over our neighbor’s field quickly gave us the answer. Two bald eagles were soaring, wheeling and conversing with each other. Their calls were unlike any we have heard from the birds who frequent our feeders and little woods.

Eagles do live along our lakeshore, but spotting them is not a daily experience….it’s an occasion to remark to a neighbor, “Did you see the eagle flying around in Fischer Creek Park yesterday?”

I said a silent thank you to Rachel Carson who wrote the 1962 book, Silent Spring,  which alerted America to the horrible toll the pesticide DDT was taking on our bird populations. Songbirds died from eating poisoned insects, but birds higher up on the food chain such as raptors, suffered shell thinning. Their nests were filled with deformed offspring or the equivalent of omelettes. A ban on DDT allowed our bird populations to rebound before it was too late.

We hope eagles will be a continuing presence along our lakeshore. We are already referring to our duo as “George and Martha”.

Click here to hear the surprising sounds these magnificent raptors make.

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