09 21 - Fireworks Friday

Fireworks Friday at The K, otherwise known as Fireworks Friday after the Royals game at Kaufman stadium.  Tonight was the last Fireworks Friday for this season so I tried to take pictures.  I need to take a class to learn to take better pictures because I obviously don't really know how to take night pictures.  Since this was the last Fireworks Friday, the show was longer and better.  They obviously spend some money putting on these fireworks and the crowd likes it.  It was also Buck Night so we got hot dogs and peanuts for $1 (each).  Plus, we won the game so it was a good evening.

09 20 - Grindin' meat

Today, I fixed an old favorite family recipe called Grindin' Meat.  Most people would probably call it roast beef salad, but not in our family.  It has always been called Grindin' Meat, probably going back to the days when my siblings and I were so little that 'grindin' meat' was probably the only thing that we could say.  Whatever you call it, we love it.  When I got my Kitchen Aid mixer, we even got the meat grinder attachment to make this easier.  To make Grindin' Meat:  start with one very large, very cheap piece of roast beef.  Cook.  Serve one meal as roast beef and potatoes.  Take all of the left over meat, run through a meat grinder.  Add several chopped boiled eggs, pickle relish and Miracle Whip until it looks about right.  Add either celery seed or chopped celery.  Now, make a sandwich and enjoy! 

09 19 - Lady Bug

Is this not just the cutest 'bug' that you have ever seen!?!  It was in the parking lot at the hospital today.  I have no idea who owns it.  It was so cute that it just had to be my picture of the day.

09 18 - New Grass

Not much going on today.  Just standing around watching the grass grow.

Actually, yes, I go outside every day and check the progress on my new grass.  Last week, I put down about 50 lbs. of new grass seed on the front and back yard.  I put it really heavy on the bare spots and it is about 1-3 inches tall in many spots.  You can see a lot of seed still laying on the ground.  Having the watering tractor is helping with the watering.  Yes, this is a new tractor.  We have worn out the two cute John Deere tractors and this is the only kind available now.

09 16 - Happy Anniversary, Cherokee Strip

Today is the anniversary of the Land Run and Opening of the Cherokee Strip in Indian Territory, Oklahoma, on September 16, 1893.  In Enid, Oklahoma (next town from where I grew up in Garber), there is a museum, the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center.  They have built a 'community' of mostly donated or recontructed buildings from northwest Oklahoma.  This is the actual Land Office from Perry, Oklahoma, reconstructed in this building.  There were three land offices in Oklahoma Territory and this one in Perry is the actual office where my great-grandfather, my mother's grandfather, registered his claim.  (Guy on the left is the tour guide.)  My mother, Dorotha Naylor Keller Hoffman, is in the wheelchair, pushed by my sister, Becky.  I remember my grandmother, Rena Hood Naylor, telling the story about riding in the wagon on the Run while her daddy rode his horse across the Kansas line to stake his claim near Braman, OK.  Grandma Naylor was born in 1889 and was 4 years old at the time.  It is kind of strange going to a museum where you know half of the people featured in the museum.

09 15 - Series Manhole Covers: Old Water

This water cover is in the middle of a public sidewalk and looks to be significantly older than the other water covers.  I guess since it is old, they skipped painting it blue.  Or they just missed it.  Or the blue paint wore off.  Yet another Manhole Mystery.

09 14 - Series Manhole Covers: Blue Water

(We resume the fascinating photo essay series on manhole covers.)

Most of the water covers are small and have been painted blue.  Blue = water, I get it.  I don't get why they are painted in the first place.  Not all of them are painted.  Sometimes they paint the manhole covers so that the people replacing the sidewalks and streets can see them and not damage their equipment.  This one is in the grass so maybe someone ran over it with a lawn mower.  Who knows.  It is another Manhole Mystery.

09 13 - New doctor's office, new decorations

New doctor's office; new decorations.  The ceramic sunflowers caught my eye today.  (Same husband; same knee walker.)  Ray had to have an ultrasound doplar study on the veins in his leg to make sure that there was not a veinous problem causing the slight swelling in his leg and foot.  The test was fine.  No vein problems.

09 12 - New Bells, Big Bells

Yes, I have joined another handbell group.  This is the 'morning group' of the Heartland Ringers, called the Agapes.  Since I am going to be traveling so much this fall/winter, I am a 'permanent floating sub'.  Today, I played the first four bells in this picture which are in the bass clef.  I read bass clef just fine, but the bells are so much bigger, my hands were really tired and sore after practice.  I love handbells.

09 17 - Hymnody

Today, the Heartland Ringers played at Southminster Presbyterian church at  a Hymnody.  The more accurate description of the event is:  A Festival Ceremony of Hymnody, sponsored by the Kansas City Chapter of The American Guild of Organists.  (The bell choir combined with the choir for two pieces.)  I can tell you that I do not think that I have ever seen the word ‘hymnody’ let alone used it in a written or spoken sentence.  I can tell you that ‘hymnody’ does not rhyme with ‘body’, as I have been pronouncing it.  Mr. Webster tells me the pronunciation and definition is:

hym·no·dy 

noun \ˈhim-nə-dē\

Definition of HYMNODY

1: hymn singing

2: hymn writing

3: the hymns of a time, place, or church

The first song on the program was, When in Our Music, God is Glorified, which just says it all for me. 

 

09 11 - Camo Crocs

Ray has new shoes.  Crocs!  and they came in Camo!  That is probably the only reason that I talked him into getting them.  Actually, he needed a pair of shoes that are low-cut on his ankle to not rub on the wound.  Also, the bottom of his foot hurts when he walks.  I told him that these would be really cushiony as he walks.  Now, he believes me.  He has worn them every day since he got them.

Croc World, we have a new convert!

09 10 - Series Manhole Covers: The Street

Now this is what I expected a manhole cover to look like - simple, nothing, cross-hatched, plain.  About half of the covers in the street are about half covered with asphalt.  This is just a basic manhole cover that you would expect to see.

09 09 - Series Manhole Covers: Traffic

Who knew that Traffic has their own manhole cover!  Yes, it was right there on the corner by the traffic signal.  I guess this means that a bunch of the stuff that controls the lights is actually under the street.  The picture would have been better if I had taken it straight, but people were slowing down and staring at me taking pictures and I did not want to cause a wreck.

09 08 - Soil Testing

I have temporarily suspended the Manhole Cover Series to bring you a few other, timely pictures.  I bought a home pH soil testing kit at the Family Tree Nursery to test the soil in our yard.  I have always heard that if you have oak trees (yes), that they leach the good stuff out of the soil and leave it too acidic for your grass to grow.  We paid our lawn services company to test it last year, but this year I decided on the do-it-yourself home kit.  I carefully read the directions, assembled my materials, sampled my dirt, measured my dirt, mixed my dirt and chemicals and waited for the test results.  All of this time, my chemist husband, who did things like this for 40 years at work, just about fell out of his chair laughing at me.  He kept 'volunteering' to do this for me (in about 1/10th of the time), but I pointed out to him that if he did the test, then I did not learn anything.  I am the one that has to do the yardwork, so I was going to do the test.  And yes, the soil is still out of balance, so now I get to mow the leaves, then break up the ground in the bare spots, then put down the new grass seed, then put down the lime.  Woman's work is just never done!

09 07 - The Titanic Iceberg

This ended up being such a cool picture that I had to give two days in my blog to the Titanic exhibit.  We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I justified this as we did not take a picture of any of the artifacts, just the ice.  (Plus, there was no guard in the room.)  This is an actual huge hunk of ice with a sign that said 'touch the iceberg'.  I wonder how long it took them to make it, is it the same piece that they started with?  Now, it is about 6-8 inches thick and still taller than me (more than 6 ft.).  Another interesting fact about the Titanic iceberg is that salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water.  Icebergs are frozen freshwater.  Therefore, the sea water where the ship went down and 700 people survived was actually at -1C, or below freezing.  I set my camera to 'no flash' and Ray took the picture of me.

09 06 - Titanic Exhibit

Ah, what a cruise we are on!  Wait!  It is a fake picture.  Actually, we went to the 100th anniversary Titanic Exhibit at Union Station.  We are trying to make an effort to go to things around town.  They had a lot of artifacts actually recovered from the ship, but alas, not the Grand Staircase.  This picture is the result of good digital imagery and software.  They had a lot of posters explaining the building of the ship, the voyage, and the recovery efforts.  I think that we viewed the exhibit a little differently than we would have before we started cruising.

The Titanic had a 'poop deck' and while I have always heard that term, the ships that I have been on did not have one, nor did I know exactly why it was called the 'poop deck'.  Ray guessed that maybe it was the deck where the animals were and the poop was shoveled off of this deck into the ocean.  Wikipedia set me straight with this explanation:
          "In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear, or "aft", part of the superstructure of a ship.  The name originates from the French word for stern, la poupe, from Latin puppis. Thus the poop deck is technically a stern deck, which in sailing ships was usually elevated as the roof of the stern or "after" cabin, also known as the "poop cabin". In sailing ships, with the helmsman at the stern, an elevated position was ideal for both navigation and observation of the crew and sails."

And now you know more than you probably knew five minutes ago!

09 05 - Series Manhole Covers: OP Storm

This is the manhole cover for the City of Overland Park Storm Sewer drainage system, not to be confused with the Johnson County Sewer system nor the city of Overland Park utilities covers.  The subtle, but significant feature of this photo is the two leaves at the top of the picture.  The storm sewer system is really a network of underground tunnels connected by curb cut-outs and drains.  It is a huge fine if you dump used oil or trash down the storm sewer.  Another amazing fact is that they have a special van with remote control camera that they (the City) drives around and puts the camera down the drains looking for blockage and stuff.  Property owners that are lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a drain on the curb by their house, are supposed to keep the drain free of leaves.  Hah!  I have seen small trees take root and grow out of these drains, but the city will clean that out.  All in all, it is an effective system to collect rain water run-off.   I was impressed that the cover has the City of Overland Park logo with the trees on it.  Someone went to a lot of trouble, and probably expense, to order custom manhole covers.

09 04 - Series Manhole Covers: The Sunflower

As I take my walk around my neighborhood, sometimes I notice the common things that are really not so common.  This manhole cover in the middle of the sidewalk caught my eye.  Why is it in the middle of the sidewalk?  Why does it have a sunflower on it?  Who does it belong to?  Then I started noticing other manhole covers.  So I decided that this week, I will do a photo essay series on -- Manhole Covers.

And the burning question -- why are manhole covers round?  Or just, why, the series?

For the Sunflower Cover, I still am not sure who it belongs to, but I suspect the city (Overland Park) or county (Johnson County, Kansas).  I finally saw one of the covers in the middle of the street with a sunflower so I suspect it must be for access to city utilities.

Check back tomorrow to see what other manhole covers have been discovered!

09 03 - Butterfly on a flower

I have zinnias and a few black-eyed Susan flowers in my flower garden on the south side of my house.  The flowers have had a hard time surviving during the heat of this summer.  A couple of weeks ago, when watering the flowers, I noticed that I had butterflies in the flowers.  Today, I was able to get a picture of this butterfly as it moved from flower to flower.  It looks like it is half monarch butterfly, half something else, so I don't really know what kind it is.

09 02 - Happy Birthday, Ray!

Man and his best friend --
I took this a couple of years ago, but it is still one of my favorite pictures of Ray.  We actually have this picture on a mouse pad.  At least, I can take comfort in the fact that the 'other woman' in his life is the four-legged variety.  Happy birthday to Ray, and dumb butt Sally in their favorite chair.

09 01 - Enough Rain

I have heard that we have had 6+ inches of rain since it started on Friday.  The remnants of Hurricane Isaac are just parked over Missouri.  We needed the rain, but enough already.  This is standing water in my back yard where the neighborhood drains into this corner.