Hidden Deep in the Woods

                Two hundred and five years ago, this area was a thriving center of activity. People were chipping on stones, cutting them into shape to lay them into walls and to make a furnace, built into the sides of the steep hills. Dirt roads would have been cleared to allow wagons filled with supplies and men to easily access the area.  Buildings would have been built to protect the equipment to house the support facilities such as food and an office for the owner and the bosses to work from.

                Now, the area is quiet, the only sounds noticeable are of the stream running through the valley and the birds, that and the occasional tree falling down. Frank and I were hiking into the site of the old Center Iron Furnace. Built in 1815, there are still a few walls and remnants of what used to be there. It would be our second trip into it, my third. (This furnace is sometimes incorrectly called the Dunbar Furnace which actually sat closer to the town of Dunbar)

                After the furnace was built, workers would be working on chopping down trees and digging for coal and iron ore to put into the new furnace.  Running an iron furnace was a multi-man job, not to mention a 24 hour a day, seven day a week operation. There were a lot of jobs that needed done. The valley would have been filled with smoke and the sounds of industry.

                Iron furnaces were only operational for a short while. Some only lasted a couple years, especially the older ones. Some of the later furnaces lasted for decades.  The life of an iron furnace would be determined by the availability of the ingredients necessary for making the iron. Coal, limestone, trees and of course, iron ore would be needed. A lot of furnaces in Pennsylvania were shut down because all the trees in the area had been cut down to make charcoal.

                It eventually became cheaper to build another furnace rather than shipping the supplies in. When building another furnace they could incorporate newer technologies. They could also build it in a more advantageous spot, closer to roads and other forms of transportation and also closer to other faculties that would use the ingots they made.

                Once the furnace was shut down the owners would remove any useful equipment and then the furnace was left to nature. Quiet returned. Any wooden buildings would eventually rot away; no foundations would have been built since the furnace's lifetime was so short.  Any sign of these buildings disappeared over the years. Stones from the furnaces were scavenged for foundations and walls.

                At this site, the waters of the stream knocked down most of the furnace. The stones here fell into the stream and were pushed away as time marched on. Newer furnaces were built out of stone that had been cut to size and were built further away from the destructive forces of flowing water.  Water was an important part of furnaces; it powered bellows which helped increase the heat of the furnaces. Most of the earlier furnaces are now nothing but piles of rubble, Mother Nature having worked her magic on them. Rain, snow and the roots of trees are marvelous tools for destroying stonework!

                This site, at the juncture of the Glade Run and the Dunbar Creek is where the remains of the Center Furnace lies. Built in 1815, it is one of the earliest in this area. The furnace was built into the hillside. Stacked rocks can be seen but most of it has been washed away by the stream. Beside the remains of the furnace is a nicely built stone wall. There is an opening behind it, between it and the hillside. I am guessing it might have been a waterway. There are nice square corners on it, still sharp after all these years.

                On the hillside above the furnace, about 30 yards up the steep hillside are the remains of the charcoal house. Built out of fieldstone and into the hillside, it is amazing to see how much of it is still standing. This structure is very similar to the charcoal house standing near the Alliance Furnace on Jacobs Creek.      https://bookman56.blogspot.com/2020/08/walkin-into-past.html

                The front wall is approximately 50-60 feet long with an opening at the end nearest the furnace. Two walls at either end, each about 20 feet long work into the hillside. The fourth wall is the hillside itself.

                Trees are growing inside the structure. The walls are various heights with the far corner the highest, approximately 15 feet high. Stones are missing in many places and some are hanging off the top, waiting for nature and gravity to do its work.

                I can’t help but be impressed that these structures are still standing after over 200 years! Was it good construction techniques or was it the absence of visitors who might harm or destroy the site?

                We will be back! There was what looked like a cave near-by that Frank found and on an earlier visit, I saw a stone lined trough in the valley across from the furnace. My curiosity is calling me back! We were both tired when we got back to the truck but this soon passed. Not bad for two old guys! We were both satisfied with our hike and what we saw and we both have the idea of a future visit festering in our minds.

                Till then, the ruins remain hidden deep in the woods.

Off to the Library and an Iron Furnace

 

  

 

The day was beautiful, the sky blue and the temperatures were perfect for being outdoors. That was exactly what Ann Marie and I had in mind.

                I had read on-line that the Carnegie Libraries were open! Can you believe it? After nearly a half year they have finally reopened again! I called a local library and was told that they were still closed. So, it looked like AMB and I were heading towards Oakland and the Main Branch.

                We stopped at City Books to say “hello” to our friend Arlan, the owner, on the way. We stood in the door and talked to her behind the counter. There were customers in the store so we stayed outside. The store limit is currently four customers at a time. By staying outside we allowed the paying customers to go inside.

                While we were there, two girls and their mother brought some books up to the counter to buy. There were three Nancy Drew books amongst them. While checking the prices on the inside cover, Arlan discovered that one of them used to be hers. It was given to her for her birthday by her best friend! (“She had red hair!”) I always think it is cool to find out some of a books provenance, if it were me, that book would become special because I knew its background! I had met the person who owned it before me!

                The three of us discussed a couple books and Ann Marie put one on order. We discussed some astronomy stuff that would be happening later in the evening and then, as more customers showed up, we left for our next stop…the Library!

                In Oakland, we found a parking spot a short distance away from the library, right in front of Caliban Books. Since we were there, we stopped in. This store has a 6 person limit. The door was locked, we had to knock to be allowed inside. I’d tell you the “secret knock” but you know what I’d have to do if I told ya!

                We wandered around a bit, listening to the conversation between a customer and the salesman. We couldn’t help but hear it; there was no one else there. So we ended up adding our own two cents a couple times. We both found something to take with us. Putting the books in the car we walked over to the library.

                Walking around Oakland we saw lots of students laying out in the grassy lawns and swinging in hammocks strung between trees, sitting together in groups on the walls and playing Frisbee and softball. Ann Marie said it felt like we were walking through Ground Zero. Masks were both on and off, we felt a little nervous.

                Arriving at the main entrance of the library building, there was a tent set up outside of it. A young woman sat under it and asked us how she could help us. We told her that we’d like to go in and look around to which she replied that it was only open for computer use and to pick-up books that had been ordered. That and the restrooms were open. Of course we were upset, we had been led to believe that they were open for business. There wasn’t much we could do about it. They were open, just not for what we wanted to do in it…use it as a library, look at and get some books! Instead we settled for a quick visit to the bathrooms.

                It was sad, employees stood around directing us where to go and making sure we didn’t go anywhere else. We looked into the main room, the shelves filled with books that we couldn’t touch.

                Returning outside, we took a short walk around the area and then returned home. Some beers and a game of Scrabble welcomed us back. We sat under the tree out back and ate chicken sandwiches covered with homemade BBQ sauce on fresh bread, drank a few beers and played our game. (AMB beat me by 100 points!)

                Later tonight the moon and Mars will be rising together, we had a nice drive around the city this afternoon and the weather has been wonderful, the holiday weekend is turning out pretty nice, even though we will have to wait a bit longer before we will be able to browse the racks again!

Moon and Mars- 11:24PM, 9/5/20

                Monday morning, Labor Day, the two of us headed south to West Virginia. (Sounds a bit odd doesn’t it?) We visited Coopers Rock State Forest where we walked on the edges of high cliffs and then hiked down to see the remains of the Henry Clay Iron Furnace. It was only a mile downhill on a rocky dirt road, to tell the truth, going up was easier than down, as far as my knee was concerned.  It was nice being in the shade while we hiked, we found it quite enjoyable.

Our first view of the furnace

                The Henry Clay Furnace was built between 1834 and 1836 and operated until 1847. While it was in operation it employed about 200 men. There were about 100 houses, a church, a school and a store. Now, about 173 years later, nothing remains of this industrial complex except the stack of the furnace. The buildings that stood around it to support the process of making iron have all disappeared over the years, leaving this pyramidal structure sitting alone in the woods.

                The corners have a step like edge because the stones were cut as rectangles. On other furnaces we have seen, the stones on the ends were cut on an angle to match the sides. There are a fair amount of cracks visible in its sides but it still stands strong!

Inside the stack

                On our trip we stopped at an antique and book dealer we had read about. Sadly the store was closed.  Maybe the next time! We returned home about 8 hours after we left and the rain started not soon after. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend!

 

The Most Beautiful House In The World

                Every so often I find a book that is exceptionally good, to me at least. A couple weeks ago while rummaging through a couple boxes of books at my favorite book store, (City Books) I came across a book with a nice looking dust cover, pebbled paper with a watercolor of a house on it. It was entitled The Most Beautiful House in the World. It was written by Witold Rybczynski. (1989) The paper was ivory colored and there were small pencil drawings that accompanied the story. I added it to my pile, never realizing that it would be the best book in the pile.

                At home, I started looking through the books reading a little bit of each of them. When I picked up this book, I stuck with it until I had finished it. The others were forgotten.

Witold had a vision of building a boat, something a bit larger than a row boat or a canoe, something seaworthy. He had spent years drawing up designs, changing them as his desires changed. He decided that he would need a place to build this craft and so, being an architect he started designing a boat house.

                This wonderful book takes from his early days of designing his boat through the design and construction of a place to build it and eventually, the changing of the shop into a home. As he tells this story, he also tells us about how buildings are designed and how they are made to fit into the neighborhood He also explains how some designers make buildings which don’t fit into the neighboring structures. He tells to us how cathedrals are basically just large barns. He explains about feng-shui and how it is important to make a house that fits into the landscape, spending 5 or 6 pages describing it and giving examples. He tells us about famous architects and how they put their ideas onto paper and eventually into the ground.

                While he builds his shop, he changes his ideas about how it should be built frequently. This is all part of the process of designing a proper building. Usually when he is working he is filling someone else’s desires and this can become frustrating, not so much for him who needs only an eraser and a pencil to change things, but for the builders who might have to remove something already built. There are times while building his boathouse when he has to do just that.

                In the end, once the shop has been built and he drags out the boat plans he had drawn years ago, he realizes that he no longer wants to build a boat, he has already built something with his hands, the shop. He and his wife decide to change it into a house.

                During this process, he explains the things that make a house a home. It isn’t so much the size, shape or design of the building as it is the way it is lived in. He writes about how houses are personalized and eventually start to resemble their owners. He takes us to a small house built by a man in Los Amusgos, Mexico. The place was small and it started out just a concrete slab in a tight community. The owner and builder slowly started with walls and a roof, some of the walls just plastic. Over time the house became more solid and the outside was decorated with plants, spices and flowers which helped give the house a lived in look and also shielded it from the street that sat beside it. The inside was decorated with pictures of the children and by the children. Over time, the house was personalized. The house is still being built, it is a process in the works but still, it is a beautiful house, it is a home!

                In this book Witold has taken us to Ludwig’s castle, Neuschwanstein, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a small house in a crowded city and to his own house, not to mention many, many others.  Cathedrals through barns, he covered it all. In the process he explains quite elegantly how a house becomes a home.  Witold also has a great way of tell a story, it was a book I didn’t want to end!

Not only that but the copy I got really looks and feels nice also, I put those things high as part of my appreciation of books!

Unavoidable

In this world, for that matter, in this life, there are some things that you just can’t avoid. It is just the way life works. We run into things that we are unable to prevent from happening. We might try to thwart them by being safe, pre-thinking our activities or by being constantly on edge, but still, things happen, usually when we least expect them!

                For instance, I was going to work the other day and had stopped at a stop sign. Looking both ways I saw an approaching car starting a turn into the street I was sitting on. Cutting the corner wide the driver didn’t see me until she hit me.

                There was no way I could have known that was going to happen, no way to prepare for it. I did have my seat belt on and I had stopped at the stop sign but these things did nothing to prevent her from driving into me. Luckily, no one was hurt, other than our pocket books.

                Some things are just unavoidable and there is nothing we can do about it.

                How about the “Pandemic”? Real or not, we are still affected by it. Businesses have shut down, some for good, people have lost jobs and others have experienced pay cuts. We now live in a world of masks, social distancing and working from home. Some people are afraid to go outdoors, we couldn’t even fathom this a year ago. Sadly, it is unavoidable.

                People are effected by stress, fears and anxieties we never imagined. Who would have envisioned ever becoming sick of hearing about masks?

                The dog left me a present on the clean carpet, nicely centered in front of the TV. Unavoidable.

On a more serious note, death and the feelings of sorrow and depression after losing someone close.  We all know that life is a fatal condition but the feelings we encounter after the loss of someone is unavoidable.

The important thing to remember is, there are some things that are unavoidable which are good! Not everything unavoidable is bad!

Such as, picking up a random book and falling into its spell. Wanting to find out what happens, caring for the characters in it, knowing that this is a book you’ll read again!  This doesn’t happen all the time and because of that, the pleasure of it is that much more intense!

Love! Finding that special person that you just fit together with. When you least expect it, suddenly there they are. The happiness that comes from the relationship, we don’t plan these things, they just happen. Often if we are attempting to find them, we never do, it is when you aren’t thinking about it. Someone enters your life and you realize how wonderful your life has become! When you least expect it, it can’t be avoided!

Some other things are the wonders of chance encounters, things that cause your heart to flutter, such as coming around a bend in the road and seeing a breath-taking view in front of you.  Unavoidable. Seeing the sky painted with the colors of the rising or setting sun.  Walking down to a stream and seeing a heron waiting for its dinner to swim by, and watching it and its reflection flying away from you after he spots you. Gasping as the view in your telescope sharpens and you see something you’ve never seen before. Smiling as a person says a random nice comment to you. Feeling your heart beat as you listen to your grandson’s laughter. Our lives are filled with wonderful things which can’t be avoided.  Good and bad, our mission, (should we choose to accept it) is to concentrate on finding the good in our world and not stressing over the bad!

Granted, it is easier said than done. I am writing these things not only as a comment on today’s world, but also as a reminder to myself that there is good out there and no matter how we sometimes get depressed and under the weather, it will get better! The sun will rise again tomorrow and chances are it will be accompanied with a beautiful sky!        We can’t avoid it!

Walkin' Into The Past

                With the promise of a beautiful day, AMB and I decided to take a drive. We ended up on the border of Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, along a nice stream called Jacobs Creek.  We parked our car at a gate to the State Game Lands and followed the dirt road downhill to the stream.

                We arrived at the edge of the game lands, about 4-5 miles above the small community of Jacobs Creek around 10:30. The temperature was comfortable but I knew it would be rising as the sun got higher in the sky. We took our hiking poles and some snacks and something to drink along with us. It goes without saying, the camera came along also!

                We met a nice couple coming up the road who had been picking elderberries. We BS’d a bit and then continued on. The road into the valley is about a mile and a half long. DOWNHILL! There was plenty of shade as we strolled along. Butterflies flitted between the wildflowers and grasshoppers flew in front of us as we neared them. The wildflowers were rather scarce; Queen Ann’s Lace, Brown Eyed Susan and some Chicory were the most prevalent. The dried and browned remnants of other flowers showed how the summer was advancing.

                We encountered a set of Railroad tracks and followed them for a ways until we could go under them. A huge iron bridge carried the tracks over the stream below. At the far side of the valley the tracks entered a short tunnel. The hill is appropriately named Tunnel Hill. On the far side of the tunnel is another, even taller iron RR bridge which crosses the Youghiogheny River. We had driven under it on our way up to the Game Lands. It would have been nice if a train had crossed it as we were near-by but none came along. I have yet to see any trains on this section of track in all the times I’ve been here. The tracks are shiny so they are used!

                Underneath the bridge, we passed a portion of road that had fallen away into the valley below. This is probably why the gate remains closed. The first time I had come here I was able to drive all the way down to the stream. Now, we need to use foot power rather than horsepower.

                The road increases its slant for the final section into the valley, luckily it isn’t far. Near the bottom we took a path off to our right which led us to an old road. This might have been made back in the late 1700’s when the valley had been used to make iron. Following the dirt path (I hesitate to call it a road) brought us to an old stone wall. It was the remnants of a charcoal house, a place to store fuel for an iron furnace situated in the valley below it. The wall was over two foot thick, in fact closer to three!  Two walls were still standing,  the back wall was a cliff and the fourth wall was just a pile of stones. The front of the wall was over 15 feet high and surprisingly in quite good shape, considering that the wall had been built over 200 years ago

                Across the path from the charcoal house ruins was a retaining wall built out of the same type of stone. It couldn’t be seen from where we were, it was only after we continued into the valley that it could be seen and appreciated.

                We returned to the dirt road and continued down into the valley bottom. Underneath the stone retention wall, which could just barely be seen through the foliage, was a triangular pile of dirt. Coming around to the stream side of the pile, some of the rectangular stones used to build the furnace came into view. If we hadn’t known the furnace was here, we would have walked right past it!

                This is what was left of the Alliance Furnace. Built on the Fayette County side of the stream, the furnace was first fired up in November of 1789. It was also named The Jacobs Creek Furnace and Turnbull’s Iron Works and Colonel Holker’s Iron Works, depending on who owned it at the time. It was the first iron furnace erected west of the Allegheny Mountains.

(Unknown date)

                Scrambling up to the top, the glazed inner stack is still visible. I find it fascinating to see these structures still standing so many years since they were last used. It was last fired in 1802, thirteen years after its first use. These rocks have been standing here for over two hundred and thirty years!

                While poking around I found a geocache hidden near-by. This was a pleasant surprise. The log had a lot of family names in it and a lot of the loggings mentioned the pandemic and how this was such a nice way of getting their minds onto more positive things! I know that AMB and I enjoyed the hike down to it, we haven’t been out as much as we used to in the pre-covid days.

                The climb back to the car took us a bit longer. The sun was high in the sky and the shade we had walked down in had disappeared. We took our breaks in whatever shade we could find. One foot in front of the other, break, repeat… Eventually we looked up and saw the gate above us. We had cold drinks waiting for us in a cooler, Gatorade never tasted so good!

                We took a different way home, enjoying the beauty of the back roads of Pennsylvania. Before we knew it we had found Rt.79 and were speeding towards home. Surprisingly enough, my knee wasn’t as sore as I thought it would be. It is the power of Peas! I put a bag of frozen peas on it when I got home, that and I took a Tylenol.

                The day was made for a drive and our hike made it even better! Blue skies with puffy white clouds hanging above the beautiful scenery of Western PA! Does it get any better than that?

Circles

 

Watching as the lunar orb

Slowly drifts through

My circular window to the sky.

 

I look on as craters,

Mares and mountains

Seem to pass beneath me.

 

The half lit disc shows

Mountains sitting

In darkness,

 

Peaks illuminated by

The sun, their bases

Waiting for the sunrise.

 

The bright area slips away, darkness appears.

A darkened disc against

An even darker sky.

 

 

Observing the surface shows

A faint star sitting

A short distance from the sphere.

 

 Slowly it nears, not rushing,

Taking Natures’ time,

Towards its’ inevitable disappearance.

 

It isn’t the star that moves.

The moon orbits the earth,

Earth spins round the sun.

 

Together they pass in front

Of the lone star,

Located light-years away.

 

It is a wonder from a higher power,

One of the many wonders

Circling around us, nightly!

Bitchin' About Lights

 

 I haven’t bitched about lights for awhile. Maybe it’s time once again.

I went outside last night and the sky was pretty clear. The seeing was OK, I could see a fair amount of stars and the moon wasn’t due to rise until nearly 11. Being ¾ illuminated, it would be hiding the stars as it got higher. (The moon is one of the world’s largest light polluters!)

Looking around the neighborhood I realized that it would be fruitless to take the telescope outside. Two neighbors on the right of my house had their porch lights on, shining right where I would set up my scope. To the left, the neighbor a house away from me has a light that is never off, sitting in their front yard, illuminating houses all around it. Luckily there is a row of RoseASharon which hides it from my front yard. But if I need to move the scope onto the street, I’m right in its glow. To make matters worse, across the street from me, the dining room light was on, this also shined right onto my observing spot.

I recently cut my hedges down a bit, they were getting a little out of hand. When I did this, it exposed myself to more lights.  I took the dog for a walk around the street and enjoyed what I could see. Everywhere I went, I ran into someone’s porch or walk light. Being a Friday night, there were 3 or 4 parties going on, bonfires were burning and laughter was heard. It reminded me of summers in the past, back in the care free days. I tripped a few light sensors during my walk and cursed under my breath.

If you know me at all, you’ve heard me talk about the problem of light pollution, or an even better term, light trespassing! Simply said, lights hide the stars with their glare. Lights also make our pupils shrink and because of that we can’t see the fainter stars in the sky. Exposed to a light, such as a car headlight or a porch light, it can take up to 20 minutes before our pupils open up again. To an astronomer, these are 20 LONG minutes!

 

            We as a population rarely see the wonders in the sky above us. The lights on the highways, parking lots, shopping centers and the cities hide these tiny gems from us. Most people have never seen the Milky Way! They don’t know what they are missing! It is important that our children see the stars above them!

 

I remember a time I was in West Virginia, camping near Seneca Rocks with the Explorers Club of Pittsburgh. A huge fire had been built and everyone was surrounding it with beers in hand. Meanwhile, I was about 25-30 yards away gazing at the sky. I could see Messier Objects by eye! The Milky Way was spread across the sky in all its glory. Try as I might, I couldn’t drag them away from the fire…their loss! The next time I went down the telescope went with me.

Another time, in the 80’s, we had gone to Lewes Delaware for a week. One night we went to a small bridge crossing a back waterway to fish for crabs. What a great way to get a cheap dinner! Tie a piece of chicken on a string and drop it off the bridge, a crab will grab it and not let go. All you do is pull it up and drop it in a bucket! Anyway…the sky there was fantastic, stars went from horizon to horizon. It was easy to get lost in them, the familiar stars we all (?) know were hidden by all the fainter stars that we usually don’t see from our light polluted skies. I doubt if this darkness could be experienced there now.

There was one other time which sticks in my mind. I was heading back home after visiting friends in New Hampshire. The Space Shuttle was due to cross the sky about 10 minutes after I left. I pulled over on the side of a small two lane road and got out to watch for it. The morning sky was filled with stars. I was in shock, I nearly forgot about the shuttle pass.  The absence of lights shows us so much! Even though this happened a decade or two ago, I remember it like it was yesterday! Wonder has a way of engraving things in our minds!

The astronomy club I belong to has two observatories, the closest one to me is in Deer Lakes Park. It is a twenty minute drive from my house. It is amazing to me how many more stars are visible from a site that close to where I live.  Sadly the darkness at the observatories is slowly disappearing, people just feel the need for light.

After walking the dog, I sat in a chair in the glow of the neighbor’s lights and looked at the stars I could still see. I have a light shield I built for this very reason but to set it up would take time and it wouldn’t hide all the lights anyway. I settled for the chair in the darkest spot I could find and enjoyed the stars I could see. Maybe I’ll try again on Saturday night I thought. Perhaps they will forget to flick their switches!

On Saturday night, I returned to the front yard around 10 and surprisingly, most of the neighbor’s lights were off. There were still a few problems though. Across the street, the front porch light was on along with two garage lights. They shined on my house and her neighbor’s house. The people beside me had their porch light off but they have a light on the side of their house. It illuminated the house beside them which in turn, shined on my observation site.

Light pollution along with Saturn & Jupiter and some of the stars of Sagittarius to the right

My light shield is to the left

I brought up my light shield and set it up, hiding the glow of the house on my side of the street. My hedges and my car helped block the light from across the street. Jupiter and Saturn were in a perfect spot for observing. I brought the 8” Newtonian out to allow for some closer views. After it became acclimated, the views were spectacular, even with the lights below the pair.

One of Jupiter’s moons was getting closer to the planet as I watched. It took over an hour for Europa to disappear behind the disc of Jupiter. It was sort of like watching paint dry…slowly it got closer and closer. I would observe Saturn for awhile and then go back to see how it was progressing.

I feel as if it took about three minutes from when it appeared to touch the planet’s surface till I couldn’t see it anymore. Watching the four bright moons move gave me a good perspective of what their orbits were like.

Saturn was as wonderful as always. By spending time watching the planet you can see things that a quick glance would miss. The seeing was rock steady! As I watched every so often it appeared to sharpen even more. I saw marking (though faint) on the planets disc and could see individual rings and a nice dark shadow on them from the planet. The planet had a definite 3 dimensional look to it!

I had an early call for church the next day so I started tearing the set-up down after watching Europa disappear. As I was writing down a couple notes, using my red flashlight to protect my night vision, a truck pulled into a parking spot down the street. His high beams caught me right in the eyes. Some very bad things drifted through my mind…a couple minutes later the lights went off and I heard his door close. I took another look through the scope before I put it in the house and DAMNED if his headlights didn’t come on again.

I had a good couple hours. Even with the lights surrounding me I still spent some time with the two large planets. I didn’t realize it then, but I was looking in the same area that the dwarf planet Pluto was in. Hmm, how did I miss that? I saw an occultation of one of Jupiter’s moons and I saw some great views of the ringed planet Saturn. Looking back, it almost makes me forget about the lights.

Mars and the Moon on Mateo’s first birthday

I took the telescope in and then watched the Moon and Mars rise up out of the trees. It made me think of my grandson Mateo. I was out observing the moon the day he was born, one year ago today! I will always have that mental connection of him and the Moon!  Happy Birthday Mateo!

Nocturnal Conjunction

The lights are off

Curtains drawn

Except one window,

Five stories up.

 

Silhouetted in it

A man, hands in pockets.

The hotel room behind

Exposed by the light.

 

Watching cars below

On the overpass.

Post-midnight traffic

Rushing home to roost.

 

Contemplating his past

Or his future, perhaps

His children, or

Missing his wife.

 

I’m tempted to toot my horn

Or flash my lights

But he’s gone…passed by

Now, only a memory.

 

 

                                                     Phil Breidenbach

 

Skater

Here is a little something to take our minds off of the present times. Forget the heat and the humidity and all those other things weighing us down. Soak up a little cool air and enjoy the ability some people have of superbly putting words together to take us to other places!

The Skater

by Ted Kooser

 

 

She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
she began to braid a loose path that broadened
into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
at the woman she'd been just an instant before.

 

 

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press 

Seven and Eight Letter Words

                Quality has seven letters. So does Quinces, Quickly and Quasars. Hmm, how about Require and Quantify, no that has eight. But that would be even better if you could use it. I’m thinking about the game of Scrabble.

                I have been playing Scrabble on my Kindle and on the weekends with Ann Marie. It gets me thinking which I suppose is a good thing! While walking the dog the other day, seven letter words kept popping into my head. Most had the letter “Q” in them. One would lead to another and then that, to another. I was thinking seven letter words because in the game, if you use all the tiles in your holder, you earn another 50 points!

                When the game starts, if you would be lucky enough to get a seven letter word, with a Q or a Z in it and you could put either of those on a double letter space, that letter now becomes 20 points instead of 10.  Then the total gets doubled, so your 20 points now becomes 40! Then you add the extra 50 for using all your tiles. This gets your game off to a great start.

                To hit the double letter space you only need a five letter word. Q’s & Z’s, those are the big letters. Zithers, Azaleas, Zippers and Zoology. Request, Quarter, Quieter and Quietly. Oh there are so many of them, why can’t I think of them when I’m playing?

                What I’d really like to do is hit two of the triple word spaces in one turn. They are in the center and ends of the edges of the board. They are eight spaces apart so one letter (at least) would have to be already in-between the bonus spaces. Just imagine getting the letter score times three and then times another three since you hit both triple spaces. Then another 50 points on top of that since you used up all the letters in your holder. Oh it makes me drool just to think of it

                The problem is, I usually get seven vowels or seven consonants sitting in my holder. Four or five letter words are my average starting pick. A lot of this game is luck of the draw. Knowing some weird, odd words helps also. OK, a little strategy helps too.

                I walked a bit further, waiting for Red to do his business. I watched the sky above and thought about words…Quixotic, Barbeque or how about Zwieback, now that would be a good one! Or how about this seven letter word, Removal, which brings me to another topic.

 

                One of the conditions I have to abide by at work is the wearing of a mask. While working at our machine we can remove it but we have to put it on every time we are talking to someone or if anyone is close by. I’m not going to get into the pros and cons or the reasons why or why not we should wear them. During this pandemic, our employers have decided it is what we have to do. Since they are the ones paying me to come in and enjoy eight hours of fun and excitement, I’ll go along with their requirements. (Just a small bit of sarcasm there…)

Yesterday, after eight hours of work, covered in a fine layer of cast iron dust, I was more than ready to head home. The building is air conditioned but the mask I was wearing causes sweat to gather underneath it and with the moving it on and off, the hair of my goatee was getting pulled and tangled.  This caused the skin of my chin to get sore. Every time I pulled it back over my mouth and chin the hairs pulled again.

When I got home I went into the bathroom and took a pair of scissors and started chopping. I was just going to thin it a bit but before I knew it, I was going for it all. Hairs fell into the wastepaper basket, on the sink and all over the floor.

I am guessing that it has been about 30 years since I last shaved my chin. Back then it was black hair, not all this white and grey stuff. For some reason I seem to think it might have been Halloween when I did it. I do remember that my daughter Chelsey was not impressed. I believe a bit of crying might have happened, she didn’t recognize me and it scared her.

So, there I was, looking at a stranger looking back at me in the mirror. This wasn’t how I imagined I’d look. I’d like to think there was a bit of my dad looking back at me but mostly, it was a person I didn’t know.

Today, I was much more comfortable at work. The mask is still a pain in the ass… (yeah, I know what that implies…) but it feels a lot better than the day before! I’ll keep shaving it for awhile, but I miss it already and it has only been one day. Meanwhile, I have to make friends with that stranger in my mirror! That and think of a couple more seven and eight letter words! Success, Victory or Champion!