This year’s batch of Uncle Slappy’s Wild Plum Loco Jelly is one for the record books. Never before have I picked too many plums and made too much juice. My ode to wild-plum jelly.
Before
After
Abby hosted a beach-themed birthday party in celebration of completing her 6th year of life. She and Gina put together a fun-filled afternoon of beach-type activities.
Some of the members of the geocaching outfit Team Jackass decided they wanted to go beyond just searching for geocaches and get into the cache-hiding business. Jodie, Team Jackass’s resident genealogy buff, had been on a so-far-futile search for the burial plot of our great-great-grandfather on our Dad’s side, John Rogers, and suggested we stash the cache at the Old Amity Cemetery. If we could find it.
Experienced flower girl looking for additional gigs.
Dad and I stood a few dozen yards from the creek bank looking at the worse-for-wear ladder with the metal bucket hanging from it and speculated on how such a configuration might have come about. The ladder had been there for awhile for sure. Vines of what appeared to be poison ivy entwined along and around the two remaining rungs. It seemed obvious that the bucket came later and we remarked that it was somewhat interesting that the bucket hadn’t already been removed by some passerby. But it didn’t seem odd that the ladder and bucket were together. Painters famously use ladders and buckets simultaneously all the time. What was odd, however, was the location of the ladder and bucket. In the middle of nowhere. In the bottom of an Ozarks box canyon miles from the nearest road of any consequence. The bucket had a single bullet hole in it, so that might’ve been a clue. Dad expanded the scope and began describing the ancient ladders he had seen still hanging high in the cliffs of the Grand Canyon. Then we continued with our hike. In an epic episode of failing to put two and two together, we totally missed the significance of the bucket hanging from the ladder.
No real good reason for the title of this post, except for this.
Saturday didn’t promise to provide optimum conditions for waterfall photography, but I went out anyway. I had not given Schoolhouse Falls serious consideration, despite its being relatively close to my house, because Time Ernst’s description in his waterfall book is not exactly glowing. That was a mistake.
Easter
I loves me some jonquils/daffodils. I think it has to do with my dislike of winter and these flowers being the first real sign of spring every year. I also love the wacky festivals with their weirdo crap for sale and the great people watching. So we hit one of our favorites a couple weekends ago: the Jonquil Festival at Old Washington State Park.