Journal

"A tragic and sadfire has destroyed the personal library of President George W. Bush. Both of his books have been lost. The president is devastated, for he had not finished coloring the second one."

I hate stuff like that, making fun of the president... I'll wager there never was a fire or if there was it didn't destroy Mr. Bush's books and even if it did, he was probably finished coloring them and wasn't devastated. from columnist Donald Kaul

Come on now, right wingers, you have to admit that's a cute story!

Pat has started the big trek to the annual GQH - Great Quail Hunt - west of Bandera. TX. Apparently at one time the "hunters" really looked for quail, then the "hunters" talked about quail but I don't think even that happens anymore. Pat is in Wichita Falls tonight and then Austin tomorrow and onto Bandera on Wed.

Happy Hunting, Pat. You can tell us all about it .

Last week was spent working in Baltimore. Three nights in a row I had crab - not something I get often in Kansas. Even little hole in the wall places have great crab cakes.

I stayed in a funky area Fell's Point which is one of the oldest areas of Baltimore - the rowhouses which are now shops and restaurants were once home to sailors, workers and a red light district. I stayed at Admiral Fell's Inn which was a unique lodging and less expensive than most places in the area.

I didn't get to walk around much - work keeps getting in the way of my pleasures - but I plan to walk the cobbled streets when the weather is warmer and the days are longer.

A few blocks from Fell's Point is a huge, new Whole Foods. I didn't know they had Whole Foods on the east coast.

Because Pat had at one time tried to find some high quality Stilton Cheese when I saw the ad in Williams-Sonoma for Stilton, I thought this would be a nice little Christmas gift. It did seem expensive but after all this was Williams-Sonoma! I had it delivered to Elizabeth's house whose comment on recieving it was "Do you know how much room this takes in my refridgerator?" Of course I didn't since I hadn't looked to see what the quantity was - it turned out to be 2 pounds. 2 pounds of Stilton is a lot of cheese.

We ate some in Austin and brought the rest home and ate some more. We still had a lot of Stilton so I found a recipe for Stilton/Bacon puffs which used up a cup of Stilton. The puffs are actually quite tasty but I probably wouldn't go buy Stilton just to make the puffs.

We still have Stilton left but it is dwindling.

It started around 7:30 last night and this morning it looks like five to six inches have fallen and it is still snowing. When I first looked out, a male cardinal flew across to the oak tree - the red certainly stands out. It is beautiful to look across the fields and to look out the front and see the pine trees with their branches iced in white.

When I look at the limestone house, I again appreciate the hardiness of our ancestors - the wood stove does not make for the same coziness as our house. Of course, if you have ten to twelve bodies in there you'd have more heat. Still what did they do all day after the animals were fed - build snowmen and sled down the hills?

...and this is our new blog design. Playing around with this kind of thing could get to be a disease.

While cleaning and putting away books in our study, I found a tiny notepad that my dad had used as a diary in 1942. Haven't read it all yet, but a couple of entries I read...

Thursday, July 23, 1942 - warm, damp, rainy weather - two general alerts aboard ship yesterday - two planes took off of cruiser for 3 hour search yesterday - up to 7:00 PM - landed safely and taken aboard. Life is uneventful.

That's more uneventful than I would like.

Wed, August 5, 1942 - ...as we started into harbor, destroyer discovered a sub and dropped 8 cans (depth chargers) - think they got it but don't know.
Fri.,August 7, 1942 - official - got sub..3 bodies washed ashore and picked up.

This was the day Elizabeth was referring to in comments of 1/19. I don't know what "Buttons" means, but assume it is a code name for some location.

December 16, 1942

"Flew with Capt. H. P. Hinsley. 6 - B17 took off (from) Buttons, went to Minga Point and bombed each ship. Dropped 20 - 100 lb fragmentation bombs, encountered many Zero fighters. Our crew shot down 3 - I manned twin 50's in radio operators gun - used up both cases of ammunition - think possible hit a Zero - at least he didn't come in and peeled off in other direction.

Capt Hyalind plane was shot down, made a good water landing - I saw it. All men got out onto life rafts. No. 1 and 2 engines were shot up bad, gasoline pouring out. PBX picked up all men on life rafts about 30 miles from Minga Point and were down at Guadacanal by 7 PM. None injured seriously - just minor contusions and lacerations.

Flying time 6 hours.

... Hyalind plane broke in 5 pieces at junction of fuselage and radio operators room, at ball turret and in bombay.

5 bullet holes were put in Capt Hensley's plane - no one injured - one engine on our plane ? run away prop and was feathered. Zeroes do not show up when our bombers have fighter escort."

I know my dad could do this because he had a lot of internal strength, but it is hard to imagine because he was such a sweet, gentle man. Of course, being in this situation he didn't have much choice. An interesting point is that he did not have to go to WWII - he had previously fulfilled his military obligation - he enlisted in the Army.

It is -7 degrees this morning! It doesn't go into the minus column very often here. We had another snow yesterday which was lovely to watch. I rather enjoy the "forced isolation" the weather provides - no feeling that I should go do something - it is wiser to stay inside catching up, reading, baking cookies which yesterday were old fashioned oatmeal & raisin cookies. Turns out they're Pat's favorite cookie - never knew that!

...beware. I decided to add an entry on our Web Page for my Dad's diary. Unfortunately, I managed to replace our Journal "index" file with our Web Page "index" file - presto! no more journal access from our web page. Fortunately the behind the scenes man figured out what I had done and got it fixed. I'm about 2/3 finished with entering the diary - thought it would be good to have it written someplace so this way I can print a hard copy as well as share with others electronically. I've also greatly increased my geography knowledge of the South Pacific in attempts to find links.

Pat got liver dumplings today - I had already planned on having them today, before he bailed me out of my web page snafu!

After three and a half years in the heartland, I thought it would be nice to get to know some people in the area but wasn't sure how to meet anyone since I don't have kids in school, don't work in the area, don't go to church and don't want to join a group that answers a roll call with their favorite flower (I saw this in the local paper). Then I noticed some references to an AAUW group in Atchison and decided to contact them. I went to my first meeting last night; the informal presentation/discussion was on herbs. Turned out the herb expert used to be a labor and delivery nurse and had trained in England as a certified nurse midwife. She had made lavendar cookies - I thought you just put lavendar in sachets and your bath! It was an enjoyable evening - about 15 women of varying ages and varying occupations and interest.

I saw a great bird today! I was fixing my second cup of coffee and looking out the kitchen window toward the east field when I noticed a large bird flying over there. At first I thought it might be a great blue heron; it was about the right size and I have seen them fly over before. I grabbed my binoculars to get a better look. It was a bald eagle! I have only ever seen a bald eagle one other time, about 25 years ago in Wisconsin (Elizabeth might remember that. We and George and Terry were canoeing on a local river near the Smiths' cabin. Besides the bald eagle, we also encountered a hail storm.) It flew pretty low over the field, then flew toward the shop and disappeared. I was able to get a great look at it.

I keep a 2-liter soft drink bottle filled with birdseed out by the shop. There is a special fitting you can buy in hardware stores that converts the soft drink bottle into a feeder. The birds that frequent my feeder include: house sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds, bluejays, cardinals, slate-sided juncos, red-bellied woodpeckers, and white-breasted nuthatches. Other common birds on the farm are robins, bluebirds, hairy or downy woodpeckers, red-tailed hawks, crows, tufted titmice, house finches.