I'm nestled in my favorite chair, watching firelight create interesting shadow-pictures on the walls. They make me reflective. What a year it was! One memory remains particularly vivid. I lived in England for the first half of 2010, to be near David, my late mother's English husband, who'd had a stroke. (He died in August.) Last February he was temporarily transferred from huge Hereford County Hospital to a small facility 40 minutes away, because Ross Community Hospital, much closer to home but plagued with a virus, needed disinfecting from top to bottom. That done, David would be transferred. Meanwhile, I motored to this faraway facility.
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Dee Blair: The View From Sunnybank
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Blair
View From Sunnybank: Input-starved minds
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View From Sunnybank: 3-day gremlin fest
Gremlins haven't irritated me for ages.
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View From Sunnybank: Overweight to just pudgy
The weather's been unusually cold, so a week ago I trudged up to the (normally summer-hot) attic again, determined to relieve it of more weight. My firm rule: If an object hadn't been used in a long time I'd make someone else happy by selling it for a very reasonable price. Goal: Lose the weight, and the dust the tonnage was gathering, and gain the enormous satisfaction of knowing my children won't have to face "fat attic" syndrome when I pop off.
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The View From Sunnybank: A mute mallard
I spent yesterday afternoon removing mountains of finished forget-me-nots from my flowerbeds. A sitting duck is in my bin. Should I pluck him out? Was he chilling after a fowled relationship? He's an odd duck.
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The View From Sunnybank: Pondering fur coats
The Cherryland Humane Society is dangerously close to dying of monetary starvation. Lately, donations — its lifeline — have been way down. I love that organization. Once, many years ago, the humane society rescued Fred, an abandoned 8-week-old puppy who was a beautiful combination of cocker spaniel and collie. They scrubbed him clean, wormed and inoculated him, then tied a tiny red bandana around his neck. We were chosen, actually, as he sat on the cement floor and studied us with a long, quiet look I got to know very well.
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View From Sunnybank: Diary of delights
Anyway, I'm zipped into my faded blue, long-sleeved overalls, purchased 20 years ago when I was learning flowers. They're made for a man, so I slog around with rolled up pant legs (which collect and save dirt) and paint-spattered sleeves.
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My hands are, of course, ruined. Gone are my winter nails, and the clear polish that made them gleam.
It's still chilly out here so my nose tends to run, so I absently wipe it, leaving weed-flecked black facial streaks.
Mustn't forget my feet. My blue Wellington boots have a long rip near the toe because — well, I don't know why.
The only thing clean and reasonably white are my teeth, which show most of the time. I love this life. -
Dee Blair: Gardener's diary of delights
Hooray! Two weeks ago in an antique shop I found my expired straw hat's successor.
Continued ... - Sunday, May 22, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Sensible musings
I'm on familiar ground again, back from visiting Utah's world-class, half-mile deep canyons in arid, tree-sparce country. Here in Traverse City a moist breeze is teasing our street's avenue of maple trees.
Continued ... - Sunday, May 15, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Dead Horse Point
- Sunday, May 8, 2011
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The View From Sunnybank: Twisted silver, gold
The Utah Juniper gets twisted, but it doesn't waste energy whining: it's learned to adapt, and often lives more than 500 years, in practically non-existent soil, 5,000+ feet above sea level, under intense (115-degree) summer sun, with very little rain, in winter's sub-zero conditions, and oh, yes, battered by excoriating winds that would kill, quicker than instantly, every tree or bush that lives practically anywhere else. Seeds that manage to establish a foothold in this environment often mature to more than 10 feet high and wide.
Continued ... - Sunday, May 1, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Moab's madness
We're in Moab, Utah, to hike the magnificent Arches National Park, just north of this town of about 5,000 people.
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Two days after our arrival Moab's suddenly crammed with visitors. At least 4,000 participants and 1,400+ registered jeeps have hit town for the 45th annual Jeep Safari Festival, which lasts nine days, ending Easter Saturday evening. Children hang out car windows hooting as they head to reserved campgrounds and motels. Everyone attending this family-oriented event is eager to test their skills, and their jeeps. - Sunday, April 24, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Utah's revelations
Yesterday, from well before dawn to 6:58 a.m., Joe and I watched the earth move.
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We're in Moab, Utah, (maybe twice as large as Elk Rapids) for a week of hiking in Arches National Park, five miles north of town. - Sunday, April 17, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Odd souls
Editor's note: Dee Blair is off on an adventure that she will write about soon. Meanwhile, this column originally ran in 2006.
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Sunnybank Garden welcomes many visitors. Sometimes, though, I encounter some truly strange folks.
One spring morning a few seasons ago an elderly lady visited. She moved confidently along the path, her bulky, expensive coat enveloping her small, slightly bent body, her white hair a halo of soft waves that framed her face in the spring sun.
I watched with astonished fascination as she opened her coat (baggies were arranged in rows along the front interior panel) to gently insert each cheerful little annual flower, dirt and all. - Sunday, April 10, 2011
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The View From Sunnybank: Soupy science
Here's the first column (slightly tweaked) that I ever published, in 2005. As soon as the temperature remains consistently warm, consider these three recipes again. I bet your plants will respond as well as mine do. Most plants thrive on good dirt, and good food, even if some of it stinks. Here are three practical potions that have always produced excellent results for me.
Continued ... - Sunday, April 3, 2011
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The View From Sunnybank: Savannah spice
In just under two jet-hours, we'd exchanged our freezing Michigan winter for Georgia's oh-so-southern springtime charm. Everyone, even street cleaners, had an endless supply of genuine smiles. We felt welcomed, accommodated, and coddled, by even the pedi-cab guy.
Continued ... - Sunday, March 27, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Southern comforts
A hundred years ago the vigorous Savannah River was barely 10 feet deep. Dredging is constant, happening even as I scribble this.
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A lady wearing a crooked blond wig, jeans and a light coat, and toting a teacup-sized dog, plopped down next to us. Her pop-eyed pal, wearing a teeny shamrock-green sweater, curled his lip at me and snarled. His chatty owner, oblivious, settled in.
Savannah food's marvelous. Seafood just doesn't come fresher. - Sunday, March 20, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Savannah Gumption
We stood alone under one of these ancient oaks, at a bus stop by Chippewa Square, next to the country's oldest working theater. Suddenly, a man whose voice I knew well said, clearly, "Hello, I'm Forrest — Forrest Gump." For the second time in 48 hours, Joe and I had seamlessly interfaced the Twilight Zone.
Continued ... - Sunday, March 13, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Surreal coffee break
We've flown the coop! Joe and I are in Savannah, Ga. Plane tickets (out of Flint) were cheaper than dirt, the flight took less than two hours, and we arrived here just after noon, for some sun and fun. But actually, our adventure began early this morning, at a Michigan McDonald's.
Continued ... - Sunday, February 27, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Jeepers creepers
Gremlines routinely mess with my appliances. But one summer morning, they pulled the ultimate disappearance, a spectacular coup.
Continued ... - Sunday, February 20, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Sinking feeling
Writer Bill Bryson's friend, an archaeologist, explained to Bryson that England's churches were sinking. Its churchyards were rising. "A country parish like this has an average of 250 people in it, which translates into roughly 1,000 adult deaths per century, plus a few thousand more souls that didn't make it to maturity. Multiply that by the number of centuries that the church has been there and you can see that what you have here is not 800 or 100 burials, but probably something more on the order of, say, 20,000."
Continued ... - Sunday, February 13, 2011
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The View From Sunnybank: Catty lessons
Cat antics amuse throughout the colder months. A well-trained human is the perfect foil for a crafty feline. Then there's reading, including "The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill," with droll comments regarding even more animals.
Continued ... - Sunday, January 30, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Excellent adventure
In early December, (over)fed up, I dragged myself kicking and screaming to White Tiger Kung Fu headquarters on Eighth Street. I'd passed this place countless times walking to the library, but had never investigated. I imagined instructors doing a lot of army-style yelling. I'd certainly yell back, and get booted out. Also — not to put too fine a point on it — being flung around for fun put me off, too.) Would it be like those Bruce Lee films, featuring flying karate-bodies?
Continued ... - Sunday, January 23, 2011
- Sunday, January 16, 2011
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The View From Sunnybank: Lost in space
On Monday morning, Jan. 3, at 4 a.m., I left Saginaw, where I'd rung in the New Year with my husband, Joe. I had an important 8 a.m. appointment in Traverse City, and so allowed plenty of extra time, just in case, though the Weather Channel predicted only a few scattered flurries and light wind — nothing to worry about.
Continued ... - Sunday, January 9, 2011
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View From Sunnybank: Service, firelight
Bring on a blizzard, with a wind that freezes my thermal-undies and steals my breath away — followed by icy silence. Bring on fluffy deep powder that smothers every sound.
Continued ... - Sunday, January 2, 2011
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The View From Sunnybank: Bigfoot bumpkins
After our friend's splendid wedding in Phoenix, we flew home to snowy Traverse City. Joe and I needed an outdoor adventure to more fully appreciate our winter wonderland.
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