The weather here has gone from hot and sticky to cool and dry - heavenly! I could take an entire summer of this - high 60s to mid 70s and low humidity. It'll only last until Saturday though, just in time to get really hot for the Block Party.

The sweet peas are in full bloom along all the roadsides and ditches. They're so pretty. I'd like to dig some up and put them in our creek bank, but first I'd have to napalm the bank to get rid of all the weeds and sumac growing there. Maybe a project for the fall.

The folk's kitchen is painted, most of the ceiling fixtures are up, now just waiting for the baseboard to be installed. Then I get to get up on the ladder and paint flowers and stuff along the ceiling. I dunno, seems like every time I get on a ladder I get injured. It's either falling off and hitting furniture on the way down, or hitting some part of my anatomy on corners of countertops and getting BIG bruises. But hey, I'm keeping my chiropractor in business.

Speaking of artwork on the walls, I'll try to take some photos when I get things painted and post them here. No promises though.

If I don't get back here before the weekend, Happy 4th of July to all you colonists out there.

John Near 1795-1882

Independence Day Thoughts

Having several British friends, it pleases me no end to point out to them whenever possible that we, a bunch of back-woods, unsophisticated country bumpkins defeated them not once, but twice, in wars for our freedom from the tyranny of taxation by England. Not having learned their lesson during the Revolutionary War, starting in 1776, they tried to defeat us once again in the War of 1812.

Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for England, once a great empire with tentacles spreading worldwide. But then again, I guess I don’t. Think about it though. England is a very small country, about the size of Alabama. How came they to conquer the world? A bit of a Napoleonic complex if you ask me, although Napoleon came a bit after England’s conquests of the New World, Australia, India and other various and sundry nations around the world. Perhaps Napoleon got his delusions of grandeur from England.

This being the weekend we celebrate our break from the Mother country, I’d like to share with you a little of my family history in this regard. One of my ancestors, Conrad Near, emigrated to the United States from Germany sometime in the mid to late 1700s. He married and had a son, also named Conrad, born in 1773. During the War of Independence, Conrad Sr. was killed in the Battle of Klock’s Field, near St. Johnsville, New York. The boy Conrad, who was about 7 years old at the time, was captured by “Indians,” most likely the Iroquois led by Chief Cornplanter. Little Conrad and his uncle, Philip Empie were taken to Montreal, 225 miles away, and placed in a British prison. A British officer, taking pity on Conrad, ordered him released to the custody of a widow woman in Montreal, where he remained until the close of the war.

On his way back to his home in central New York State, in the company of several adults, Conrad was robbed of his shoes and a small amount of money during the night and awoke to find himself abandoned. What a grown man would want with a pair of shoes from a 10 year old boy is beyond me. But that’s how the story goes.

Happily, Conrad found his way back to Palatine, New York where he married and presumably lived happily ever after. So, to my ancestors, Conrad Sr, Conrad, Jr, John, Lafayette, Hercules, Winfred and William, a toast to you all and the freedom you fought for so bravely, from the War of Independence through World War II and Korea. Happy 4th of July – and thank you.

These little suckers are hard to photograph!


We’ve been watching the hummingbirds lately. I know many of you have hummingbirds at your feeders; probably dozens and dozens of them. But they’re new to us. We had some in Minnesota, but getting them to come to our feeder here has been a bit of a challenge. It could be because we have three indoor cats who love to sit at the window and watch them; or it could be because my husband can’t decide what and where to feed them.


Mr. Albright is a good hearted man. He likes feeding the wildlife and if enough wild critters aren’t showing up, he’s willing to buy them a hamburger or steak to encourage them to come closer – just kidding of course - sorta. His real passion, however, is for the birds. The hummers are his newest challenge. He boils the water for the nectar, adds the sugar and worries if he’s done it right. Someone told him he didn’t need to boil the water, just use it straight out of the faucet. So he tried that. He cools the nectar on the kitchen counter; he cools the nectar in the refrigerator; he tries all sorts of combinations. He heard on a television program about hummers that you shouldn’t use red food coloring anymore, “that’s so yesterday.”

But the real trick is finding just the right spot to hang the feeder. He tried it under the eaves on the deck and a few came, but not enough to satisfy him. So he moved the feeder to another spot under the eaves – still no luck. He moved a red flowering plant to a hook and placed the feeder next to the plant, hoping to lure them in. A bit more luck was had. But nope, not good enough yet. Bear in mind this all took place within a day or two. The poor birds can’t find the feeder! It keeps moving.

He’d heard you shouldn’t place the feeder in direct sunlight; but then again he heard from some other people that their feeders were right in the sunlight in the yard. What to do, what to do.

I bought him a bright ruby red glass feeder for Father’s Day and he hung it on the deck, in the sun, next to the other feeder he had. Eureka! The hummers are coming to feed, dozens of times a day.

But now we have a new concern. While watching a PBS program recently on hummingbirds, we learned that they cannot survive on nectar alone. They are bug eaters. What if we don’t have enough bugs around our place to sustain the little hummers? I have a plan, which I’ll share with my other half as soon as he gets done boiling more water. We should go to a swamp, scoop up some stagnant water where there are sure to be larvae of mosquitoes and other nasty things. Then we’ll bring the swamp water home, pour it into 55 gallon drums and let the little suckers hatch. That will ensure that the hummingbirds have enough food to keep coming back to our feeders. ‘Course, we won’t be able to sit on the deck anymore to watch them, with all those mosquitoes buzzing about. We’ll have to join the cats at the windows.

Happy Summer.

Pictures from Sue's Visit to America

Mom, Dad & Sue

Sue at her favorite American diner

Robyn & Sue

Language Barrier

There is an old saying about two nations separated by a common language, and this is particularly true when it comes to British English and American English. This past week while my guest from London was here, we had several instances where we didn’t understand what the other was saying. Well, more so me than Sue. Brits watch a lot of American television and tend to understand us much better than the other way around. Sue was telling me about a trip she’d taken to Kinzua where it was “chuckin’ it down.” I thought about it for a moment and asked what she meant. Turns out it was raining very hard, chuckin’ it down.

A Tasty Freeze is a foreign concept to her. Tasty freeze has become a generic term, like Kleenex, but in any case, she can’t have dairy products. It wasn’t until the night before Sue left that I remembered that they also sell sherbet, but by the time we got there the place was closed. I guess I figured since it was Saturday night things would be open later than 10 p.m. Silly me.

The British can seem a bit formal at times. They use words like “hand-bag” when referring to a purse. When talking about a woman’s wallet, that’s a purse to them. But then again, when they need to “go” they ask for the toilet, not the restroom or bathroom. When I was in England and asked for the restroom my host assumed I was tired. He didn’t really, but they like to point out that you neither rest nor take a bath when you’re using a certain room. The British can be very literal at times and totally out there at others.

A swede is a rutabaga; minced beef is hamburger; cheeky means sassy, and “taking the mick” is to tease someone. It was the pronunciations that really amused me however. Someone asked Sue to say “Oliver.” I can’t even phonetically type how she says it, but it’s all said in the front of the mouth and comes out something like Ah-live-fur. It’s very precious. Ever notice how we say the word “city?” We say sid-ee. The Brits say sit-tee, with a definite division of syllables. We use cell phones; they use mobiles (mob-aisles with a long “a” sound.)

The British have a blatant disregard for the letter “r.” They are forever putting it into words where it doesn’t belong, such a “harf” an apple and leaving it out of words like “harm” which comes out something like “hahm.” Henry Higgins of My Fair Lady fame complained that the English weren’t taught to speak…”why cahn’t the English learn to speak; there are even places where English completely disappeahs, in America they haven’t used it for years!”

I think I’ve taken the mick out of Sue long enough. She’s knows it’s all in good fun and she’ll do the same to me when I return to England. We miss you, Sue.

Through the Eyes of a Stranger

My friend Sue has been visiting from London, England all week. Living in London, Sue is accustomed to bright lights, congestion and a plethora of choices of restaurants, stores and cultural events. In anticipation of her visit, I fretted a little about what to show her, where to take her. Having lived in a city much of my adult life as well, I couldn’t focus at first on what we have here that she doesn’t have. So I started making a list of places to show her.

Luensman Overlook Park was high on my list of places to show. If you’ve never been there, you should check it out. It has a spectacular view of Lake Erie and the surrounding area. I waited three days until we had a clear day with no haze to take Sue there. Even so, Canada was experiencing a bit of smog, contributed no doubt by the Nanticoke Refinery, so she had trouble picking out the smokestacks and buildings over there. But the view of the lake was awe-inspiring. I hesitated showing Sue a Great Lake since she lives on an island surrounded by oceans and channels, but she was taken by the view. I’ve been to the English Channel and there is a similarity but it’s just not the same.

London has several open air markets, most notably Leadenhall Market which is stunning with its glass ceiling. It was the most beautiful market I’d ever seen and much larger than anything we have to offer. But I thought it would be interesting to visit Ripley’s new Country Market, Westfield Farmer’s Market and Cross Roads, as well as the “new” Tops market in Westfield. It’s hard to tell sometimes with Sue what she thinks of things. She has a tendency to take it all in and mull it around for awhile before saying anything. I think that’s part of her “English reserve.” But she found each of our markets interesting and was intrigued by some of the products offered there, particularly the size of jars and boxes. “I’ve never seen such a large jar of peanut butter,” she commented while perusing the aisles of Tops.

The highlight of her visit so far (although I’m sure by the time you read this, there will have been others) was the day we spent having lunch at the pier in Erie, hiking a short distance through the woods at Presque Isle, watching the sun set over Lake Erie, having a bonfire and watching the stars come out. Sue’s assessment of the starry sky from my uncle’s backyard was, “A friend of mine was in my garden (backyard) in London and said what a lot of stars there were. I don’t know what she was seeing, but it wasn’t this!”

I’m glad she was here for the Memorial Day weekend. My father and I made our annual pilgrimage on Saturday to the cemeteries in Sherman, Slabtown, North East and Quincy in Ripley with Sue in tow. Of all the flowers we set out, the one most touching to Sue was the one we put at the grave of little Mabel Schoss in Quincy. Mabel was born in 1908 died in 1909 and is marked by years only, so there’s no telling if she was months old or an almost 2 year old. But she is separated by a large gap from her parents’ graves, with no one in-between. My dad feels sorry for her, being all alone like that, and always puts a flower on her grave. I’ll continue the tradition after he’s gone I’m sure.

Sue rode in the Memorial Day parade in Ripley in our ’57 Cadillac, waving and throwing candy in good old fashioned American tradition. It may be England’s tradition as well, but I’m claiming it as our own for now. As we passed the announcer for the parade, Dave Blackman, she was given a warm welcome, “We have a special guest with us today in the parade, Sue MacDonald, all the way from London, England. We’re pleased to welcome you.” Not an exact quote, but thanks Dave. She was touched and pleased. We are pleased to welcome her and wish her many more trips to America. Seeing our little corner of the world through her eyes has been a wonderful experience.