Two Geologically Inspired Quilts by Martha Ressler of Hamburg PA

Western PA: Oh What a Relief by Quilter Martha Ressler of Hamburg PA

Eastward Ho by Quilter Martha Ressler of Hamburg PA

Being a fan of maps, geology, and quilts... how could I not adore these two quilts.  Discover more about Martha Ressler

Celebrating Plant Diversity: Artist's Acanthus ~> Acanthus montanus

Artist's Acanthus Acanthus montanus

The last time I walked about Longwood Gardens with my camera, I tried to be patient, to wait and see what plants would jump out at me. Artist's Acanthus did just that and now I am trying to imagine a slug causing damage to such a fierce looking plant. To learn more about Acanthus montanus, a plant native to Tropical Africa, check out this site.

Artist's Acanthus Acanthus montanus bloom

 

 

Eating Out in Lansdale: A Seafood Shout Out to Shellfish Sue

Shellfish Sue
Lansdale PA

It seems most of our eating out these days can be done within walking distance. Thai, Vietnamese, Lebanese, ... see my top ten list.

So we often walk by a new place coming into being and ponder what it will be like. A new Greek place is opening soon. So for months we walked by a place that promised to bring seafood dining to within walking distance. And when it finally opened we stopped in and have been back a few times since then to be greeted warmly by the owner and treated to an excellent meal. 

So this is to say that I am glad it came to Lansdale even if I have a hard time saying their name. Would love if this place prospers. [Sadly they closed after a couple delicious years.]

My Garden drives A Hard Bargain

My garden has told me to back off with any camera, unless I have come to take care of it. So there I was coming home from DC to plenty of new blooms, but it told me to stay away. A painful thumb was my excuse (though it didn't seem to keep me out of the studio).

Today I went out. So it seems best to do it this way. Garden for a bit, grab the iPad take several photos of one plant, sit on the porch. garden, photo, garden...

These photos were taken before vacation. Spiderwort greeted you, below is Yarrow, Begonia, Echinacea, and the annual Rose with Buddha moment.

 

Unfolding Outward From a Quercus Alba ~ the interconnections of a Pennsylvania forest

Every year we are asked to place something on a table and/or wall to celebrate learning in our classroom. So last week, my students entered my room to see Quercus alba written in the center of a large piece of paper. I told them I had an idea. I told them it wasn't that clear.

And so it happened. We discovered the ecology of a forest in Pennsylvania.

I said ~ Tell me organisms that connect with White Oaks.

They began to tell me things ~ Humans, and many others eat the acorns. Gypsy Moths eat their leaves. Great Blue Herons nest in them. And the forest unfolded.

What shelters? What eats? What parasitizes? What competes?

I would say ~ choose this or that organism? Find me five connections.

If they told me something general like, frogs, then In most cases I would tell them to find me one living in Pennsylvania. If I wanted a connection between two organisms, I told them to search one out. We discovered new organisms and strange connectors.

I need to do this again.

 

for my 900th post ~ RevGals five on Ground Hogs

From the Rev Gals ~ 

I have to admit: I never thought much about Groundhog Day.

Then I saw that movie. And an odd holiday that seems to be a remnant of an obscure Pennsylvania German custom took on all sorts of new meaning.

So, in honor of the movie and the day, I present you with this Almost Groundhog Day Edition of the Friday Five!

1. The Holiday: On a scale of 1-5 (with 1 representing, "Hey! Stop hating on the most awesome season ever!" and 5 representing, "Green. NOW."), how much are you hankering for spring? And what is, to you, a true sign that it is actually on its way?

• Always ready for spring, but after the crazy warm winter last years that had garden and forest plant spinning their heads in confusion, I will be a bit patient.

2. The Film: Seen it? If yes, Love it? Hate it? Meh?

• Saw it and enjoyed it.

3. The Meaning: If you could relive one day of your life, what one would it be?

• Any of the days which Mosaic Woman and I explored the Oregon coast. That coast is so amazing and so far away.

4. The Meaning, Part 2: If you had to relive one day of your life over and over until you got something right (a la the Bill Murray character in the film), what day would that be?

• Hmmm, thinking of days in my youth that were filled with poor decisions. Maybe the weekend before midterms that led to my dismissal from a college, but my life would have been so different if I had chosen to focus on academics that weekend.

5. The Meaning, Part 3: If you had to design a life-changing experience for a fairly despicable human being (as is, for example, the Bill Murray character at the film's start), what would it be? How, given all sorts of unlikely powers to bend time and take control of another person's personal growth, would you do it?

• Would not call them despicable, but what comes to mind are students I have had over the last 26 years, but hey, hitting rock bottom helped me... so I have hope for them too. I have seen one small event spiral out of control.. What if the event didn't happen, what if the spiral was stopped from unfolding. 

Check out others who played

Not all about the food: A walking Tour of Lansdale featured Wilson's Hardware

Wilson's Hardware ~ brand new sign

Yesterday I gave two walking tours of Lansdale, one planned the other when a dinner guest got restless so the men folk took a walk down Main Street while the women folk moved from the dining room to the living room.  The tours, which were 11 hours apart, were heavy on pointing out where we enjoy eating, but I did point out Wilson's Hardware Store.

One day I walked into Wilson's knowing the problem but not the solution.  I left with a turkey baster.  The problem of how to remove excess water from the glass grinder (with clogged drainage tube) solved and that is a wonderful thing.

scrap containers next to grinder

And then there was the problem of attaching wings to a commissioned angel, I knew what I needed and they had it...

Thanks for being part of our downtown...

On the Way to Silence: a stop at the Ugly Oyster Drafthaus

I saw some tweeting about a garden gnome and the next thing I know was in the passenger seat being driven by a jazz loving, pie making friend who happened to be the father of 2/3 of the 20 somethings in the back seat,who for some reason call me uncle.  We were headed to see some minor league baseball.

So I was reading the directions and saw a list of restaurants at the bottom.  The Ugly Oyster Drafthaus and as the night unfolded it became a bit of an obsession, especially when one of the young ones checked out their website.  This is what it claimed...

Ours is the Oldest Pub in the county. The Ugly Oyster was built in Yorkshire England by Traditional English Craftsman. It was disassembled, transported and reconstructed by those same craftsman at it's current location. The authentic Celtic atmosphere projects feelings of warmth and welcome.

I knew it would be visited when I went to Wernersville and it is where in the midst of the hand crafted beauty, I ate lunch on the way to some silence ~

Shopping Local: Buying Perlite and Vermiculite at Rhoads

Wayne Stratz in 2007 at Rhoads Gardens

It was in 2007 when I last gave Rhoads Garden a shout out, and what is a bit scary is that most of that time they have been preparing for and witnessing road construction on route 202 where they are located just south of the intersection with Route 63. 

This week in a moment of frustration with myself (Yo fool, you had off for over a week and did you get to Rhoads) I posted something like this on facebook:  "I really really really need to buy perlite." 


So today I supported my favorite local nursery and got myself some perlite.  Why, well at work the aloes clearly desire to be re-potted, the marjoram seedlings need to move on, and seeds will need to be planted.  So I walked through the gift shop and went back into the deserted garden center and re-emerged with 10 paperwhite bulbs, and big bags of vermiculte and perlite.

If you want a variety of plants, friendly staff who love their workplace, and quality gardening supplies:  check out Rhoads. 

Wordless Wednesday: Tulip Mania at Longwood

click to enlarge

Acadian to Marcellus on Science Mondays

photo credit


It was 390,000,000 years ago and mountains were forming around where the Hudson River flows today. This was before dinosaurs at a time when the first vascular plants were considering life on land and with any major disruption there was erosion. As the Acadian Mountains rose, they began to erode.

As the runoff hit the sea it floated and as the heavier stuff sank, the lighter load floated farther away from shore. But it too eventually sank joining with some dead aquatic plants on the way to an ocean floor devoid of oxygen, and thus the carbon content. Those dead plants did not decay properly. The muck became shale with a high carbon content.

Pressure and heat caused the carbon to be transformed into methane and a the slate above and below the shale kept in place. Eventually it would become buried deep below ground except for a few outcroppings including one close to Marcellus, NY.

It would be folded into the Appalachian Mountains.

And then a nation developed that needed energy to live their life style and the geologists saw so much natural gas potential that the Marcellus Shale is now one of the top rocks in the news.

I told my students about all of this, then explained the politics, the environmental concerns, and the daily news that broke.

The problem is the drilling has exploded with very little regulation and close watch. We know things can go terribly wrong. We don't know if things can be done safely.

It is in my state and while I would love for it to go away, the truth is it is here and unless we all decide to live in a much different way I have a hard time saying drill in another backyard. But can we please keep a closer eye on this and determine its true risk before we rush ahead any more? Can we clean up the mess we have made? Can we help those who have been hurt?

I would hope so.


...

Shockingly, G is for GLASS

1. the blue-green glass that called out to be a mosaic got some wonderful compliments during the spring shows ~ more mandalas in my shop

2. Glass City Jazz:

3. Mosaic Woman's highly favored Glass... G is for Gold Smalti

4. Our Favorite Museum: Hate to shock you again, but we dig The Corning Museum of Glass where you can see:









5. Recently I taught my students about how the natural resources of the state influenced its development. One mentioned locale: Pittsburgh became king of glass by the 1800's because of the right type of sandstone and plenty of cheap fuel to transform it into glass.

6. Can I talk about glass without saying: Youghiogheny?

Nope. Which by the way is also the name of one of the best white water rafting locations in PA.

7. and why we call our newsletter (sign up here) No Bare Feet:

Science Mondays--- flashback to 1979

photo by Todd MacDonald

I guess it was soon after the doctor visit when I discovered Springsteen. I remember a sunset. I had forgotten it till this weekend.

There was a crisis which was unexpected to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Our power plants were built with so many safeguards that they thought of a meltdown was impossible. But the fear was on the mind of others. Twelve days before Three Mile Island became known around the world, this movie hit the big screen.

The best place to see a sunset in those days was to cross route 512 and walk behind a clothing factory. I remember watching a sunset. What day of the crisis was it? Surely not the first two when all reported that all was well on the Susquehanna River. Our governor having seen an evacuation plan that would have caused chaos (each county was to evacuate into the other) was at a loss when after days of all is well got a call to evacuate.

Seven years later in the worst case we have seen, Russia reports all is well.

So this weekend I wondered how well things were in Japan, they seemed to be telling more than we did in 1979. Maybe it is their history, which has led to a respect for radiation. Maybe it is respect for the citizens.

Peace to all those who have left their homes, all those living just outside the radius of evacuation, and to all those who know the whole story and are trying to prevent anything else from happening to a devastated nation.

This morning I introduced my students to an island they had never heard of, what is it they say about the reason to know one's history... if you have an hour:

By the way, the safeguards did work at Three Mile Island, except it shocked someone in the control room and they turned off the emergency cooling system.

Fridays in PA---- East Branch of the Monocacy Creek

Back in the Day, Christmas time 1994

Every Wednesday I am to send an e-mail to the four people who are in my spirit group (see here). The first week I turned to a long favorite quote by Buechner. The second week I turned to a verse of scripture that jumped out at me a few days earlier. But, I had no plan and Wednesday was slipping away, so I grabbed Annie Dillard's A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and found this:

"My God. I look at the Creek"

By 1994 Mosaic Woman and I had ventured through our years in Massachusetts and Oregon. We were living in Illinois and came home to Pennsylvania for Christmas. I took my young nephew for a walk that I had made often as a teenager. We ended up at the East Branch of the Monocacy Creek. I love flowing water.

We need to keep in touch with what we love and over the years I have visited many a place where water runs. My visits these days are too far apart.

I made a list of hopes for 2011. Let me add another. I want to stand and look down at light bouncing off dancing water molecules and say:

"My God. I look at the Creek"

Fridays in PA--- Digging The Merrymead Farm

Not that far down the road from Lansdale is a local dairy. Merrymead Farm is a cool place.

It is a place to go to buy real ice cream (OK, I grew up not far from a now dead dairy store, which was run by relatives, who made the best black raspberry ice cream in the world, so I may be biased). However, enough folk who live around here agree with me that I can say this is the place to go. And yes, on a busy day a gaggle of young folk will be there to greet you and take good care of you.

But I also love Merrymead because they are small and the farmer speaks of his cows with great love. They proudly have chosen not to use rBST hormones.

There are plants for your veggie and flower gardens in the springtime, local veggies for your kitchen in the summer, pumpkins and a corn maize in the fall, and eggnog for the holidays. And ice cream all the time. The creative use of the land and store has kept this local treasure going.

How cool is it that for over 100 years the same family has kept this dairy alive and well.

I hope you can visit it one day. If your not from around here, may you be blessed with a family dairy farm that brightens your life wherever you call home.

Fridays in PA: Youghiogheny Glass Company

This is not my studio floor:

glass scraps outside the Youghiogheny glass company

Last June I went to Cleveland to meet up with a friend. I swung low on the way home to take the southern route across PA in order to meet up with a friend in Pittsburgh. Part of the plan was to also stop at Youghiogheny Glass when I left Pittsburgh. My waning spirit, which can be more concerned about distance and time, was leaning towards skipping the glass. But the Pittsburgh friend fueled the enthusiasm and so there I was headed south away from the turnpike. I blew pass the no trucks detour sign and hit a massive amount of construction and a long trip across the Youghiogheny River. I navigated through the town and walked into the old train station. Glass variety was a bit skimpy and nothing appealed to my eyes.

The lone worker got off the phone and said they were closing down the shop but I might be able to get to the factory and buy glass there. The only road to the factory was blocked due to another construction project, back to the mess of traffic and back around, but not far enough around so back around again and through a parking lot to bypass the construction.


Every door to the factory was locked, and I was about to head home when some dude emerged from the adjoining business and said follow me. My glasses were plenty dark from the summer sun as he winded me through a darkened glass factory till we found a human.

And then there was glass. The best glass in the world to some folk. I will show you this Thursday how it has entered my pieces.

The photos are taken in the driveway along the side of the factory, not my studio floor

glass scraps outside the Youghiogheny glass company

Fridays in PA---- Tiffany Lamps Come to Reading Public Museum

10 weeks ago I was displaying my stained glass, while also being on my annual Walking with God Retreat, when I was told about an exhibit I may want to see. The Reading Public Museum had a display of Tiffany lamps. Soon a letter came in the mail from my new friend. It contained info on the museum and two discount passes. Then craft show delirium hit home.

With my winter break from teaching dwindling and the show ending date (1/234/10) approaching, Mosaic Woman and I took a day trip yesterday to check out the lamps. The museum put on a wonderful display and I was curious if it would spur me to finally design a Stratoz lamp. Maybe? To do it right it needs to be complicated and that means costly. The Tiffany Lamps sold for 1/4 to 1/2 of the average US salary back in the day. Can you imagine? Don't think I would charge that much.

I also was looking for a facebook profile photo shoot opportunity. The last two had been standing behind and peering through sculptures, so as I walked the museum I kept my eyes open for the location of my next profile photo. Mosaic Woman took the photo of me peering through a ceremonial table from the Philippines. The museum had much to look at other than the lamps and I got to say some glass caught my eye: A stained glass tribute to Irvin F. Impink, who donated land for the museum, which greets you as you climb the stairs.




Happy New Years!

Fridays in PA---- Gwynedd Friends Meeting House

CLezenby


I have ventured into Gwynedd Friends Meeting House more than any other house of worship, which I have not gone to worship on a Sunday.

I have gone to lead retreats on the spirituality of gardening, to listen to music at coffee houses, to attend retreats, to walk a labyrinth, but most of the time has been to be part of group spirituality. Friends have emerged from experiencing this for many years.

Tonight, I came into the group having emerged from craft show delirium--- 6 straight weekends. The delirium can get one more focused on making sales than the desire to create art with the talent God has blessed me with and then celebrate the connections it allows me to make with people.

So I broke out of the silence and spoke of delirium and then spoke of four of the many connections I made during the six weeks. Then closed my eyes till responses flowed toward me. I spoke of wanting to relax into the craft and not feel a need to "create sales."

The delirium is lifting, the spirit is descending.

I dig Gwynedd Friends and my friend, Connie Lezenby, who not only was the architect who designed an addition to the meeting house but also has taught me what I know about group spiritual direction.

Have yourself an arts and crafts weekend in Allentown

In July I started up a conversation with Paul Gretian whose amazing photos happened to be at the same show as our craft. Later in the weekend he invited us to apply to the show his chapter of the PA Guild of Craftsmen puts together and so we will once again be honored to have our craft in the same space as his.

What is art what is craft? No matter. I am inviting you to have an Arts and Crafts Weekend in Allentown, PA.

The Craft show is happening Novemeber 6 and 7 at the Swain School. details

What I suggest is that you make a day of it and head to the Allentown Art Museum while you are in town for the craft show. It is great to hear that the museum is expanding, but sad to report the big connection is falling flat. You see the museum purchased a room that was owned and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was at this moment in the blog post where I was to connect arts and crafts, but the museum's expansion has closed the room from the public view.

And here I was to point out the specific painting by Arthur Dove which Mosaic Woman loves so much, but apparently not everything is easy to find on the internet. But here is a cool Arthur Dove painting of a sunrise:


by Micah MacAllen

The painting we saw at the museum reminded Mosaic Woman of mandalas, which she just happened to blog about.

and let me end with this: as I was writing this post, I was chatting with a member of the Swingle Singers on Twitter. I may just meet her and hear them when they tour the US. They take on many a genre and you can explore that, but this one caught my eye and ear. Have a glorious day and see you in Allentown

Wordless Wednesday--- Mensch in October