Famer's Market

This week at the market I bought flowers, sugar snap peas, and sweet cherries. Life is good. I like to eat the peas raw, like snack food.

Institutions Designs for the Benefit of Society

Top: Adrian City Band
Bottom: My good buddy Mikkie after the concert. She plays French horn.
I know there are many out there that want to limit the government's role in daily life.
I get their argument. However, there are some institutions and organizations designed for the "benefit of society." Here in Adrian we have "The City Band." Our band is the oldest continually running city band in the nation. The purpose of the band is not to hold this title, but to grace our community with the rare and charming opportunity to hear live music performed in a lovely outdoor setting.
This little town I live in gets under my skin at times. I cringe when I see historic neighborhoods decaying, when the city "muthers" give permission to builders to raise structures that don't compliment the historic charm of our community, and when citizens don't maintain their sidewalks, but embellish their homes with cheesy Dollar-Mart goods.
Fortunately, we do have some lovely community treasures not least of which is a really nice park system which at Tressel Park includes an attractive pavilion for the Adrian City Band.
I admit that I don't get to the concerts like I want, but it's nice to think that community members have the wonderful opportunity to hear live music to salve and sooth their busy lives.
So, if there was anyone who thought the expense of a band pavilion was a bad idea they were wrong.

Winner!

A few weeks ago I won a drawing at the Farmers' Market. The prize was a day lily. Yay!!! Click on the picture to read my name on the winners board.

Flower Brides

My friend Shelly says peonies can be compared to Brides; they are fragrant and dressed beautifully. I'll add that in that fragrance is the essence of enchantment and romance. It has been a wonderful year for peonies. These fuchsia colored ones really showed off this year and swooned me. Randy and I take turns cutting bouquets and placing them around the house and in the bedroom.

Garden Riches

The rhubarb is from my garden, but the strawberries are from Gwen's. She invited me over to pick some and they are mighty good. Randy and I had strawberry margaritas two days in a row. The rhubarb was turned into strawberry rhubarb sauce and rhubarb cookies. I wasn't too impressed with the cookie recipe; the rhubarb flavor wasn't strong enough for my liking.
The queen of the garden this year is the hollyhocks. They have never been so pretty. I have to admit that I have been trying to get them to this stage for years. One plant became two, became five . . .
Finally, these beauties are the result. When I was a child my father would take a rural route on the way to grandma's. I would see hollyhocks growing on the side of the road and I would admire them. I am so happy to finally have a pretty patch of my own.

Art at the Wedding

I forgot to mention that were some artful things that appeared at Jennie and Joel's wedding.
1. Jennie's artist friend came with a sewing machine tattoo. Honestly it was one of the finest tattoos I've ever seen. My sister-in-law, Nancy (the seamtress), really enjoyed it, too. It's nice to see a tattoo of an uncommon image.
2. The same cool artist friend came with an EXTRAordinary duct tape purse that she created. Duct tape has never been so COOL!!!
3. I made the cake "topper." Aren't the Jennie and Joel newlyweds just cute, fun, and corky, I mean quirky? Yes, they are cork dolls.
4. The cake was a work of art, too. It was a chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling, coated in butter cream. I love a good cake.

Graduation Party

Here are some snapshots of Kadie's party decorations. The Martin Luther College cake was made by a local cake decorator. There were so many compliments on the cake. She made a Funfetti cake (Kadie's favorite) with the most extraordinary butter cream frosting. The cake was gone in no time at all. It was a great surprise for Kadie.

Science in Art

Art the King Wamba art fair was artist Robin Schultes. She creates Universe beads. I couldn't resist them. She made beautiful multicolored universe beads, however this black and white bead with a solar system on one side, and a pulsar on the other rocks my world.
Being an art and science teacher it was a perfect acquisition. I sort of feel like I am making a spiritual and religious statement when I wear it. The Bible says God created people in his image. I interpret that as God made us creators. Here the artist Robin has symbolically captured in a bead God's most amazing creation, the universe. The black and white reminds me of the complicated energy of life and death, good and evil, full and empty, color (white is all colors) and void (black the absence of color).