Drummond Island 2014

Last year I wrote about my long lost friend that I reconnected with via Facebook.  We met in Michigan when our families were on vacation at the same resort in 1981. We've lived within 8 miles of each other for the past 32 years.  You can read the story here. For the past year we have all spent time together, mostly going out to dinner and found that we have a lot of the same outdoor interests.

This summer Andrew and I and my long lost friend Tracy and his wife Robin all went on vacation together back to the place where he and I met all those years ago. We had an amazing week of fishing, and sightseeing and just relaxing.  I felt like I was in a time warp.  We all agreed that we couldn't have been more compatible ...and we've already booked our cabins for next year.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.  Anais Nin

Vintage Dolls

A friend dear friend of mine, who is in her mid 80's and a part of our ladies wine group, recently gave me a couple vintage dolls. One is a little 6 in tall French or German girl and the other is German or French marotte.  The music box in the marotte does not appear to be original and it is also not functional so I am searching for a replacement and then would like to put it back together. The head is an Armand Marseille.  There is very little information on the internet about marottes. There are lots of images for them however. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term- a marotte " is a prop stick or sceptre with a carved head on it. The word is borrowed from the French, where it signifies either a fool's (literal) "bauble", or a fad/craze.Typically carried by a jester or harlequin, the miniature head will often reflect the costume of the jester who carries it. Modern marottes typically have music boxes or other machinery built into the head. Older marottes may utilize swivel heads with bells." I've been having fun researching these dolls and hope to learn more about them. I'll post an update on the marotte once I get it back together.

 Side view of head

 Head with no markings

 Hat and Dress Outfit

Music box and stick; note that tines on music workings are broken.

Another Vintage Find

DH and I went uptown today on our lunch break.  After lunch we stopped in to A Gal Name Cinda Lou, a speciality shop that sells 60, 70, & 80's clothes, record albums, jewelry, housewares and other interesting knick-knacks.   I found this really cool necklace and earrings to go with a blouse I just bought a couple weeks ago that has the same flowers on it.  Unfortunately it is not marked so I don't know who the maker was but I plan to do a little research on line just out of curiosity.  It's always fun to find little treasures like this.

Combining Forbs

I asked Andrew for a narrative on these photos last night. He said-"we're just combining for forbs".  I told him a needed a descriptive narrative.  Twenty minutes later after I wrote the following. he said, "well I guess it's not just combining for forbs is it"?

Combining forbs (wildflowers) at Pearle King Savanna with a 1973 Gleaner combine that was bought used and has paid itself off numerous time with the forbs that have been picked with it. Jack M. (RIP) and Gordon M. started picking seed at PK in the 80's and used that seed to start parts of the prairie restoration effort at Darby. As the plots at Darby got larger, the resource management team and a variety of volunteers including Inniswood and Jack's family picked seed from those plots over the years which has further expanded the prairies so there was enough seed to bring it back to Pearle King in 2007. That year Tommy S. and Andrew planted a 6 acre buffer around the original savanna remanent. The process has now come full circle as last month James J. and Andrew harvested forbs from plants that may have been part of the original remanent savanna that helped started it all. The forb seeds will be dried and used to expand the Darby Plains prairies even more. At one time the prairies covered most of Madison County and provided habitat for a wide range of wildlife. Come out to the prairies at Darby and see the bison, the savannah sparrow, bobolinks, and even for the first time this year the sand hill cranes have stopped by in the Kulhwein wet prairie. You never know what you are going to see. It's just beautiful.

 Forbs

Seed drying area

Long-lost Friend

I met this young man on our annual family vacation in 1981. We spent some time together that week kicking butt and taking names in the fishing department. Wrote letters back and forth a couple times and then lost touch.  Never saw each other again.  Cross posted on a Facebook page of mutual interest about a year ago and "found" each other-had a short conversation and did a bit of reminiscing about the past and catching up on each others lives.  Found out that we have lived 8 miles apart for the past 24 years. This September decided we needed to get together.  Met at a local restaurant and had a blast.

It was like yesterday and not 32 years later. Anyone who didn't know better would think that the four of us had been life long friends-we had that much in common.  There are some people who cross your path in life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I guess we get a bonus on this one.  We're all talking about going on vacation together next summer to our favorite place. You guessed it.  D.I.

  

Forty Six Years

That's how long it's been since we have all been together.  My brother Bob and I had childhood friends named Sally and Sandy who lived three door down from us.  All us kids in the neighborhood played together.  This 1967 photo was taken on my birthday in August. I was 4.  The 2013 photo was taken yesterday at Pasquales Restaurant here in town, where they have a kid sized picnic table, incidentally just the thing we needed to duplicate our vintage scene.  Sally and Sandy live in northern Ohio now and they came south to see us (and Sally's son and their sisters) as Sally is moving to South Carolina to retire with her husband and Sandi will be following as soon as her daughter graduates from college. It's really pitiful that it has taken us this long to do this. Sandi and I went to school together in kindergarten and 7th grade. They moved from our neighborhood when she was in first grade and we got reunited in junior high but alas only for a year as their parents decided to retire to Florida.  Sally 2 years older than us and my brother two years younger grade wise in school. Don't ya love it?

 1967

2013