Casper's Adventure

All In The Family...

Yesterday, Casper was beside himself with excess energy, so I took him out to the lawn for a while. He was exhilarated but wary. Every hair on his little tail stood on end for the entire half hour he was outside.

First, Casper jumped off the front step and the crackle of leaves under his feet surprised him. Then Skittles was excited and pleased to see him outside. She invited him to several wild chases around the yard, which she won each time by racing up a tree.

What an adventure Casper had! He sniffed, snooped, tasted, touched, stalked, pounced, climbed, frolicked and cavorted -- just to summarize!

I enjoyed his first experience of the great outdoors. It was fun to watch him, and I had to laugh at the poofed-out condition of his little tail. I'm sure it was an involuntary response to the unfamiliar surroundings.

I wish he could go outside freely and often, but we feed an old half-wild tomcat and we're afraid he would fight Casper. The old tomcat and Casper have spent long periods of time eyeball to eyeball through the glass of the door. We don't want them to meet without that barrier. So for now, little Casper has to be a house cat most of the time.







Technorati tags:

kitten

Winter Begins

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

One of autumn's last days

We've enjoyed some warm beautiful days of Indian summer this week. (The expression "Indian summer" has an interesting history; you can read about it at Wikipedia.)

While I was blowing some of the last leaves into the ditch today, an ice storm blew into the Kansas City area. Tonight, Dennis talked to his sister from K.C., and she said her boss had sent everyone home from work an hour early because the roads were treacherous.

The storm is moving this way, but no ice is predicted for us. We do have the word "snow" in our weather forecast for the first time. The last day of November (tomorrow) will be a rainy day, and tomorrow night, the rain is supposed to turn to snow. The ground will be too warm for the snow to stick, but the first day of December will be cold and windy.

Hopkinsville's Christmas Parade will be on Saturday, December 2. Some years, we've attended in sweatshirts, but it looks like we'll need coats this year. And with night temperatures in the 20's for the next week, it looks like winter is here.

I realize that the 20's don't seem that bad to folks from the north, but here in Kentucky, we consider it cold. I used to laugh about how folks here complained about weather that didn't seem too cold to me, the girl from northern Nebraska. Now after 15 years here, I whine right along with everyone else.

- - - - - - - - - -

A couple of quotes about winter:

• I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape - the loneliness of it - the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it - the whole story doesn't show. - Andrew Wyeth (artist)
  

• There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. - Ruth Stout (gardener and author)

Technorati tags:

change

Ironing Clothes in the 1950's

Another Trip Down Memory Lane... All In The Family...

I was born in 1951 and I have never lived without electricity, though in my very early childhood, our electricity was produced by a wind charger. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) lines hadn't yet been brought out south of Johnstown, Nebraska.

I never saw a sad iron in use, but there were a couple of old sad irons in our attic at Rose, Nebraska, where we moved when I was six. I suppose some housewife stored them there when she got electricity and an electric iron.

I do remember life before clothing care was revolutionized by steam irons, polyester blends and clothes dryers. In the mid-1950's (as early as I can remember), "wash and wear" garments made of a cotton-acrylic blend had just recently been introduced. Many garments were still 100% cotton and they required ironing, especially if they were dried on the clothesline as nearly all clothing was.

A few devices had been invented to help with the wrinkle problem. My mother had stretchers that were large adjustable wire rectangles. She slipped a stretcher into each leg of wet pants so they would dry with less wrinkles.

When it was time to iron, the clothes had to be sprinkled. My mother had a metal stopper with holes in it like a salt shaker top. She filled a soda bottle with water, put the stopper on top, and sprinkled water over the clothes that needed ironing. Then she rolled each garment so the dampness would diffuse and packed it into the clothes basket to sit for a little while before ironing.

I guess spray bottles hadn't been invented yet. Sprinkle bottles were used by all the housewives. You could buy the sprinkle tops for soda bottles at any dime store. They had a cork base to fit the soda bottle's opening tightly. If you were a fancier person, you could buy a ceramic sprinkle bottle with a whimsical shape.

I don't remember my mother ever keeping the sprinkled clothing in the refrigerator, but I've heard that housewives did that. The coolness delayed the mildew and sour odors that could develop if clothing wasn't ironed the same day that it was sprinkled.

I think I might have been six or seven years old when Mama taught me to iron the handkerchiefs and pillow cases. Keeping up with the ironing was a huge chore and it helped a bit to have me do those few things. She was a better woman than I am. I am not sure I would have bothered with ironing my husband's everyday handkerchiefs.

Technorati tags:

ironing
1950's
drudgery

Costume Rental in Hopkinsville

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

I noticed today that a new business has started in the old building across from the courthouse, at the corner of 6th and Main. I think the ancient paint on the side of the building says, "Klein's Department Store," and most recently, an antique store was located there. The building has been empty for a couple of years.

The owners of this new costume rental business are apparently involved in local theatre; some of the hand-lettered signs on the door are notes about practice times. At any rate, I wish the Grande Masquerade well.

Technorati tags:

Hopkinsville KY
Hopkinsville Kentucky

Blogger Attitude

Blogs and Blogging... And What I Think About It...

This is about blogging. Over the last few days, I've been looking through about 350 blogs (little by little) that I imported into my Bloglines account.

I've unsubscribed to roughly 100 of them so far. Some of them had subject matter that I don't care to read for various reasons -- they were boring, offensive to me, etc. Others haven't been posted in for a while -- they're dead blogs.

I can't help laughing about what one guy wrote for his last post before he moved his blog. I should have copied and saved it but I didn't, so I'll paraphrase:

• I'm moving my blog to a new address and if you don't know where I've moved that's because I didn't send you an e-mail. And the reason I didn't send you an e-mail is because you haven't written any comments here. You're just a lurker. My blog is for interactive users of the internet... etc., etc.

Well, then! That should get him a lot of readers, not. I'm sure I wouldn't have liked his blog anyway!

Technorati tags:

lurkers
attitude