Happiness Book

We remark on how green everything is. 

We say this every year at this time. It's an annual comment. 

The comment, like the look of the lawns, is as fresh to us as if green was never seen before.

Our grass is May green and green is the color of hope. Green may also be a description for happiness. Anything can be, I'm learning from my new book.

The new book is 14,000 things to be happy about. At a library book sale in Florida the book fell into my hands.

The author is Barbara Ann Kipfer. She's a favorite of mine going back to 8,789 Words of Wisdom. I like the way she gets her hands around life. 

Her particular brilliance is the ability to break down life into interesting and manageable size. She has the knack for organizing life into helpful units. Her little books cover instructions, possibilities and happiness. 

Her lists teem with the energy of the unstoppable creative one. She lays out her offerings for us to take in, take from and add to. It's a nifty thing she does.

At the library I thumbed through the book making up my mind that there was room to pack it along home. It struck me as a fun read as the pages were flipped quickly. 

My payment went into the slot and the book got tucked in as you make extra stuff somehow fit within your luggage. It makes a good souvenir was my thought as it was slipped in between some folded lightweight tops.

Books like this don't require starting at the beginning. Jump in, explore. I did go first to the author's preface which I'm glad I did.

Kipfer describes me when she says she began as a sixth grader with a spiral notebook recording things that made her happy. 

The same pleasure in putting ideas to paper was in me. I picked up happy times and ordinary moments and set them down in letters. It was happiness to write to people. It was my way of hugging life to me.

Some days I remember the book. It's by my reading chair as an intent to keep it in mind.

The bookmark tells me where I left off. It may be quite awhile before I think of the book again. There's no hurry with it.

Perhaps one of my 14,000 things to be happy about is the gift for savoring. I take easily to spinning out, and not finishing too soon, the restful minutes.

Kipfer says that the book, published in 1990, represents twenty years of recording the little things that have made her happy. 

This is some of the charm for me. Her list covers the years that have been my years. It recalls events, trends, TV shows, even people that defined our era as young and maturing women. From all of this our generation was choosing our happiness route, each one of us.

It pleases me when she and I concur on happiness. Apparently we mutually feast on vivid images. Write down my happiness definers and they match hers on page 110 - "flamingo coral, sunny red, sunflower pink, pink orchid colors."  

With her I'm made happy by sun-touched shoulders, a tiny plant in a little clay pot and wandering the fairgrounds (page105).

"Scanning a star-filled sky on a still winter night" (page 69) would figure on my list too. Then there's breakfast "with fresh-baked breads, granola, eggs, juices, steaming coffee and tea" (page 92). 

Indeed, happiness is food and food is in happiness. Food easily could make the first thousand listings if we go down that particular happiness path.

Some of Kipfer's happiness items leave me puzzled or in disagreement. "That wouldn't make me happy," I muse. "How did that get on the list?" I stumble on another. It causes me to think about happiness all over again.

This is possibly the point of a happiness list. Compose your own or study another's,  it's pretty much one and the same. 

You see yourself more clearly as you record happiness items (or read somebody else's). You grow as you examine each happiness in light of its effect on you (or the other). 

A better personal understanding is achieved. The breadth of happiness, taken from all perspectives, can blow you over.

"Last  Train to Clarksville" by the Monkees (page 81) was never a favorite song. The Monkees weren't my kind of group. They and their music were left alone.

Still, it's good action now to revisit "Last Train to Clarksville." It's an invitation into Kipfer's happiness which I don't wish to decline. In the long run, when we "get" another's happiness, we change ourselves.

I don't need to judge the song or the group from youthful experience but rather view it as from hers. Another's happiness - this I've learned for sure - can become yours as you let yourself wear it.

My happiness list (if started) would by now be very long. Experiences of happiness are everywhere for us to name and see. Just look around. Just feel. Just be.

Here are a couple for starters. 1) Lilacs in the house corner looking so pretty and smelling so good. Evenings in late spring the fragrance of lilacs comes in and is pure pleasure to inhale.

2) Memorial Day - official start to summer. Move this one up where it belongs. Without question it's my Happiness #1.

Happy Summer!

Ro Giencke - May 23, 2012

Lines

It's the Minnesota Fish Opener which, in this state by long tradition, shares the second May weekend with Mother's Day.

Many grills sit forlorn on patios and decks this weekend. Kitchens go cold for a day as we take our moms to Sunday brunch or dinner.

Fire up the grills for Father's Day all you will. With the opening of the game fish season, and Mother's Day too, we have other fish to fry right now as the saying goes.

Such grilling as happens this weekend is often in the nature of a question. "Any luck?" fishing parties are asked as they come off the water.

"Where do you fish?" is a question some feel pressed into answering. They're the ones who like to keep their fishing hot spots secret. "Lake No Name'Um" has more than once been given as a reply.

Fish Opener results are covered in the news. A big catch or general lack thereof gives local color to the event.

With the fishing report any one of us can feel we sat all day in the boat. We can imagine reeling in the fishing line and perhaps a trophy walleye on one of the casts.

Opening day has been somewhat slow. A cold front yesterday might have had its effect on how the fish were biting. 

Whether on the lake or basking in the backyard there was luck with the weather. Today was an excellent catch. Bright skies, light breezes and temperatures around 70 degrees made this Saturday a keeper.

April, by now a couple weeks behind us, is a month of promise. It sometimes but doesn't always deliver. It teases as much as it pleases. It can act as if it steered by two left and two right feet. It has a goal but is apt to flounder on direction.

May is the expansive friend who throws a party. May wows with verve which is fresh and candid. This is carried through in May's important role as catalyst for summer.

It's the sense that May is the throttle on summer that makes me appreciate a certain line from the short story "Freeze-Out." The story, from 1931, is by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald's St. Paul stories are a number of short stories written before he hit it big as a published novelist. The short stories appeared in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post.

The early writings showcase his talent for exposing society and the times through the filter of his characters.

You can't help but take a shine to his cast of youth introduced in the St. Paul stories. They may be creative inventions of nearly a century ago. That doesn't matter at all.

Fitzgerald's agility in depicting his own boyhood through these kids makes them alive with longings, the joys and betrayals of friendship, dreams and the obstructions to their dreams.

They prepare for college in the East or return faintly conscious of the odor of exclusiveness upon them.

The book is The St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. My favorite of the young people we meet is Basil Duke Lee.

He's the neighbor boy we all know down the block or would know if we lived on a leafy quiet affluent residential street in the green heart of St. Paul. We feel like we could even point out his house.

It was while spending time in Fitzgerald's old St. Paul that I read the line from "Freeze-Out." He writes, "On the day spring broke through and summer broke through - it is much the same thing in Minnesota" ...

As little as the author would see Minnesota after his youth he sure got it correct in this one line. The Minnesota warm season arrives like this.

It arrived like this one hundred years ago in Fitzgerald's experience. It arrives like this in modern day. It's not uncommon to have one big spike of heat. Cool to hot is immediate. Some of us cheer it on. Not so fast, others complain.

Fitzgerald is perhaps best known as the author of The Great Gatsby (look for it as a film in December 2012). I'll be at that book next.

Some people reel in fish, fighting and bending the rod, on their lines. Some of us fish using a slightly different method. We fish for lines, speaking of life, to reel in.

Good luck, fish responsibly and may the big ones leap into your net.

Ro Giencke - May 12, 2012

King of the spring fish feed

Having two small kids gave family vacations a more local twist for a time. 

One year we visited Paul Bunyan at the theme park in Brainerd.

This trip is remembered because Paul the mighty woodsman spooked one of our children. The statue talked.

Every summer in those years of modest vacations we went home to see Al's parents. 

My folks lived closer. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we got there without a stop for a diaper change.

The visits home were appreciated both for a chance to be together and for our two to substitute their grandparents for us for awhile.

An opportunity to accompany Al to Duluth when he had some conference to attend was therefore, with big vacations on hold, a considerable treat. 

A change of place, a change of pace is my motto. I'll gladly take any new mileu and Duluth, if you're from Minnesota, is like a fast trip to San Francisco.

We had a motel near Miller Hill Mall. Our daughter, fourteen months old, was still taking naps. While the mall could be seen from the motel room, as a good mom I sat with my magazines in an easy chair while she had her afternoon snooze.

Shopping with young ones, I already had learned, isn't so easy. I enjoyed my own sunny corner of the room as she got her sleep and my son played quietly with matchbox cars on the floor.

Our daughter hadn't reached the walking stage. She was still crawling. She took some preliminary steps in the motel room that day which earned her hand claps and encouraged her to more.

That evening, with Al done with his part of the day, we drove to the Lester River. The river, in the north part of town, is one of the North Shore rivers that are so pretty in the Duluth area.

It was the time of the smelt run. We went to watch the smelters with their buckets and long-handled nets at the mouth of the river.

The rivers dropping from the hills to the Lake Superior shore are cold and swift in spring in most years after typical snowfall. The volume and speed of water going by was part of the excitement as we walked over to stand near the smelting activity.

These several years later I don't remember if the evening was mild or chilly. I hadn't packed for the kids to be outside. This was a spontaneous decision to drive over and see the smelters at work.

We didn't stand on the river bank for long. We were out long enough to feel the combination party atmosphere and concerted effort put into catching the smelt as dusk deepened to darkness.

Of the night I recall flashlights. Possibly it was the opening and closing of many car doors that makes this memory of light. It could have been interior dome lights coming on as the curious like us and smelters arrived and left.

There was a sense of adventure observing and, dare I imply, participating in the annual smelting rite.

As a girl my hometown had a smelt fry at the Armory every spring. We looked forward to it. Like the circus and 4th of July parades that perk up small towns, annual events are the community glue.

Men in white aprons, laughing and gesticulating, worked behind a counter. I don't recall if they were the cook crew or the staff who helped dish up the lines that came through.

We held them in awe. They were the ones connected to the smelt that came from the cold country up north. 

These guys were directly linked to the fish which were caught so differently from our local catches reeled in on rods using live bait or lures.

We loved the crisp bites of the smelts, deep fried in coconut oil I imagine, and disappearing fast off our plates. Potato chips and possibly cole slaw and buns were the sides. 

We got up from the table replete. We patted our stomachs and sighed in deep satisfaction. It was quite a meal.

The heavy oil smell clung to our outer wear announcing to everyone for at least the next day or two where we ate.

The night at Lester River connected me to the Armory smelt feeds of my past. We were at the spot where the smelt runs actually happen.

In those prior days the vision of smelts in their silvery, flashing numbers in cold rivers and lakes was as much a part of the Minnesota story as Paul Bunyan, about whom every student in our grade school knew by sixth grade, the year Minnesota history was studied.

While Paul Bunyan was noted by our teachers as Minnesota legend, smelt is something we had to discover on our own. 

Some of us knew smelt from eating it. Some had visited the northeast portion of the state from which smelt comes. But overall smelt wasn't of our world.

It took being there, absorbing the vigor of it, for me to thoroughly appreciate it as sport and tradition.

It becomes real as experienced, as can be said of our children's unforgettable visit with Paul Bunyan.

Ro Giencke - May 5, 2012

Bouquets for great mentors

There comes a time when you start really to think about those who shaped you.

I'm not talking parents here or necessarily teachers or traditional molders of youth.

The shapers, as I shall call them, appear throughout our lives. 

They're the ones you look around for someone to admire or you receive powerful learning or insightful wisdom from being in their presence.

Mostly you don't even know you're looking for that person. It's just that they stand out immediately, or their lesson does, or the little things they do add up and come to influence you or your thinking. 

This can give you new standards, ideals, outlooks or even turn you in a new direction.

Sometimes it's someone with qualities you wish were yours. You see their poise or kindness or humor or adroitness or physical strength or leadership skills and it strikes you. There! That's who/what I want to be (or be more like).

We start young. We look up to older brothers or sisters or neighbor kids. They're doing something we want to do. At two and four and six we already intuitively understand the concept of cool.

It might be the freedom to go outside and play while we're kept back being too little. It may be watching them hop on a bike or executive a perfect dive off that - to us - long walk to the edge of the diving board.

We observe teens, the enviable tribe which are like demigods to their juniors. They giggle in their groups. They strut with peer confidence. 

They pull away sleekly from the curb in cars they're old enough to drive. Their hands rest lightly on the steering wheels. 

We'll do this some day we're told. Or we just know. The ones we admire are the ones who point the way. The promise is that it's all doable.

Celebrities and risktakers are role models for many of us. There's something about being rich and beautiful or living dangerously that has universal appeal. 

Idols of our own making can strike chords of jealousy within us. These folks seem to have it all and perhaps even flaunt it a bit or outrageously.

The possibility of everything is in their flashing moments as they parade before the adoring public.  

Following them even at a distance is more of a dreaming for most of us. We peek into their lives and in our hearts they're not our first or even foremost role models. 

Lots of us want the more substantial hero and often we want that hero cut from our own cloth.

As I reflect on the people I earliest admired several come to mind. There would be surprise on their parts that they made that kind of impression.

Often these people hardly knew me. Or I them. But what was seen was taken note of. These encounters have led to a lasting sense of connection with them because of some admirable quality or action that touched me.

There was Joyce, the mother of a classmate. Naturally we didn't call her Joyce. In elementary school days mothers were Mrs. along with whatever the last name was. 

If you knew the person very well you might use the first name. This was seldom for moms of kids in your grade at school.

She was pretty, young and gracious. She had the finesse that comes with having money and being at ease with it. I adored her. 

Of course that's too strong a term. I admired her as an eight or ten year old girl does who identifies with a woman who's not her mother.

It's the continuing application of contrasts that helps us find our own way. Other people, we soon discover, work very well as contrast material as we pinpoint who we are. We can often determine what suits us and what doesn't by the examples others demonstrate for us.

Joyce represented my sense of the unfolding world. She was of the bigger horizon. Her friendly cheer and smile gave substance to adult life beyond my experience of the home or familiar people. 

Unknowingly she was role modeling traits that I was tagging important for when my adult years came.

Then there was Stella (again, not a name we used). She was our substitute teacher in third grade. 

Our regular teacher was a pro at teaching. She had her rules. She was firm and she was fair. We paid attention and learned right along.

The few days she was absent during the school year, however, and her delightful young substitute came in, we all wiggled with pleasure at our desks. Stella made everything so interesting. 

She was vivacious. She brought a fresh style of teaching into the classroom. She was invigorating. She was the one who taught our class that Niagara Falls is a traditional place for honeymoons. 

Say what you will, it's the one solid piece of information I can positively declare came out of my third grade education!

When I was a teen, and worked part time at the local paper, as a walker I walked to the job and walked elsewhere a lot. I got to many places in town by walking. My brothers and I all walked. 

During this time I got to know a woman who also walked. I admired her because she dared to walk.

She was the wife of an attorney. She ran in a far different set. But there we were, heading in the same direction, our steps falling in with each other's. We visited as we moved along.

It seemed to me she wasn't afraid to buck convention by walking. Being seen walking wasn't what many of us wanted said of us. 

Owning a second vehicle was becoming more common. If you walked it could appear you weren't one of the two car households. Who wants to fall behind on that score it was thought then.

I appreciated this woman choosing to get around town on foot. She was doing her own thing and obviously enjoying the independence it gave her.

She was friendly and nice. She noticed me and spoke as an equal. Young people know when an adult is being genuine with them and she was that.

Don and Carol are a couple who stand out for their sheer likability. They ran a small seasonal antique shop. As a neighbor I helped out in the summer. 

Don was a prince of a fellow. No one finer. Both were hospitable. In Carol I had someone I could relate to and visit with and enjoy. 

When you find kindred spirits there is a special relationship and this best describes the affinity between Carol and me.

Two senior Board Directors from the Historical Society I joined as a young married new to town epitomize the welcoming that can make a young person bloom, grow and feel at home. They welcomed me warmly as I came aboard as a new board director that first spring. 

You don't forget such kindness. Both were Scandinavian in parentage. They had what I consider the Swedish manners and civility that I was accustomed to through my mom's side of the family. 

That town always felt like home to us. It was a cinch to fit in. In great part it was because of ones like these two men who knew how to say, Hi, glad you're here.

It brings to mind something I once heard, that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. 

This may suggest, in regard to role models, mentors and benefactors, that it's as if their radars and your own are lined up to meet. 

When you cross paths the interchange can be a short time. In many cases the effects, however, last forever. 

With an open heart gratitude is the end result. It deepens as you more clearly recognize the multiple kindnesses received along life's shared pathway.

Ro Giencke - May 2, 2012

Best Meal Possibly Ever Eaten

The last day of our California vacation gave us the best meal I've possibly ever eaten. 

When you think California you think fresh and organic and food brimming with vital nutrients. It is some of this which made the meal special.

The other surely bigger part of it is that Al and our son put the meal on the table, having caught the salmon that was the star of this final supper of the trip.

The two have fished together just as, in previous turn, Al fished with his father. Their best times, which have centered around the boat and fishing, are too many to count. 

When career moves took our son to far places Al gamely continued fishing on his own. Accustomed to a fishing buddy, and then without one, you adjust but the catches are perhaps never again quite as fun.

The spring visit was a chance for Al and our son to do some sea fishing. They've talked of doing this for a long time. They missed a chance some years ago and resolved to make up that lost opportunity.

On this fishing expedition they were after salmon. The only day that could be fit in was the day before we flew back. 

The forecast originally called for rain. We hoped for pleasant conditions. The weather, waffling back and forth, decided to go for perfect. 

There couldn't have been a nicer day to be on the water with the itch of fish to catch and the ocean breezes blowing soft.

The two started out in the dark to get to the charter boat for early departure. They were a fishing party of six. Everyone was as excited as school boys on extended recess.

The king salmon were biting that day. All caught at least one, some two. Our guys did well for themselves. They phoned to say it would be salmon steaks for dinner tonight.

Our son said he'd take care of the meal. Setting the table was easy to do. We wandered onto the deck while the kitchen filled with activity. 

I call the deck the orangerie. There may not be such a word but deck doesn't begin to cover the delight of this outdoor space with citrus trees in tubs and the potted herbs which I diligently watered and turned toward the sun during our visit.

The call to dinner came shortly. Salmon steaks don't take long. Our son brought the platter to the table. 

Next he came with a Rice a Roni hot dish with broccoli and cheese. Raw sugar snap peas, crisp green counterpoint to the steaks, arrived in a separate bowl.

The meal was a pleasure. The steaks were sublime. We ate, laughed, helped ourselves to seconds. Give me the recipe I implored. How did you do this? You got it just right.

It made me feel like a question asked of Bon Appetit. "Can you get me the recipe for _______. We were visiting ______ and my _______ took me to ________ for my/ our __________. Everything was delicious but I can't get my mind off the ________. You have my forever gratitude if you can get them to share the recipe with me."

Bon Appetit goes to work and procures the recipe from the restaurant or inn or B & B where the 5th or 50th anniversary or birthday celebration or business trip meal for one or girls weekend away was had. 

The recipes, generously delineated by those contacted, are a treat to read. The full directions make it easy to imagine the finished presentation which has so captivated the diner.

This is how directions for California King Salmon Steaks might look if a request to the magazine had actually been put in and the recipe had gone into print.

 "Dust fresh salmon steaks with bread crumbs. Brush lightly with dijon mustard and place on cookie sheet on rack in preheated oven. Bake until done."

To assist in gauging oven time think of it as "the length of approximately one glass of wine or bottle of beer or two."  No timer was set. There was no paying exact attention to bake time. All seemed to be ready when we were.

Eat healthy and enjoy. Bon appetit!

Ro Giencke - April 25, 2012

Of monarch butterflies

Constancy of weather is my idea of perfect.

Switch on the sun machine, hold the temperature at seventy-five, wall off the wind and you have one happy girl. It's pure and simple bliss.

All this is the antithesis of a typical Minnesota spring. April, for instance, exhibits almost every possible combination of weather.

To make things even more interesting these conditions can be concurrent with each other. Like this past weekend, which ran the gamut of tornado sightings to snowfall.

A habitual early riser I'm "up and at'em" as was the call that my dad woke us to on Saturday mornings when some of us would rather have slept in.

It was this early training to shake a leg and get up, or my own general makeup, that gets my feet on the floor fast well before the others.

That's most of the time. There are mornings like today, however, when it takes easing into the day to get the motor running. I attribute this to the weather.

I learned long ago that I'm susceptible to weather changes. My body regards shifts in weather disruptive. It bears with but doesn't enjoy rapid turnabouts. In the Midwest where weather is mostly variable it can make for some disjointed days for me.

I take my cue from how I feel. Don't push the river, a phrase heard long ago, and leaving me puzzled then as to what it means, now is very clear.
 
There are times to go with the flow. Move with the day and it gets me to the end just as I wind up doing every other day.

This was such a day. I was going at it easy like. It occurred to me to look through my folders where ideas are saved for reviewing.

Al and I have been talking about creating a butterfly garden. I was sure we had material put away that addressed this subject.

Our interest in butterfly gardening goes way back. This latest enthusiasm stems from our trip to California.

We were in butterfly country. Central and southern California are wintering grounds of the delightful monarchs who add so much to our northern summer in their short adult span with us. 

The sign we read at a California state beach told about the overwintering monarchs. Nearby on private property a colony of monarchs, or cluster as they're referred to, hibernate in a eucalyptus grove.

Monarchs make the trip of some 2500 miles from Canada and northern and eastern United States to California and Mexico in the fall. They rest in the southern climate for six to eight months.

This qualifies butterflies as long term snowbirds. In comparison the rest of us are lightweights. There's nothing too strenuous about our getting there. (No wing fatigue at any rate.) And we don't stay nearly as long.

The butterflies - arriving well before most of us show up - are among the last to leave. They're great tourism promoters and wonderful guests.

The eucalyptus tree in California is as essential to the welfare of the monarchs as the lowly milkweed is in the Midwest. In their summer home the caterpillars, also called larvae, feed upon the milkweed plant.

The eucalyptus tree and the milkweed, taken as symbols of the monarch butterfly, will either help ensure their survival or, by their loss and eradication, hasten a diminished population.

Wintering monarchs mate in the new year prior to their return voyage in the spring. In the north they lay their eggs which hatch as caterpillars. Then comes the pupae stage before their metamorphosis into butterflies.

It's an amazing generational sequence. I'm glad it's their butterfly DNA and not ours that's at work here.

Monarchs alight on our imagination with their handsome appearance and airy grace. These orange and black butterflies are so beautiful with their strong soaring flight.

We're disarmed at their agility. They float and flit among summer blooms in our gardens. They epitomize freedom and spontaneity as they cartwheel through our yards on fine summer afternoons.

We marvel at the instinct that propels their flights. We fear for their vulnerability as they complete the distance through the elements, their energy sucked up in the mission which is to arrive safely. Not privy to human logic they follow nature's rule within them.

We're concerned as their habitat shrinks exponentially. The milkweed plant everywhere is disappearing.

Cities push out at the edges where fields once grew and weeds like milkweed flourished. Homeowners tidy their lawns with chemicals.

Dandelions (which Al calls the urban rose) are among the weeds we seek to oust. Only in certain places do they remain to weave sunshine into the green blades of grass.

Herbicide-resistant crops, pesticide use and zealous lawn care may or may not be factors in the dwindling monarch numbers. Studies are being done.

Certainly changes to butterfly habitat and bad weather, which has occurred in large outbreaks in recent years, play a part.

These insects - for such they are - are valiant. But they're not indestructible. Their armor is mighty thin. 

Driving Pacific Coast Highway 1 earlier this month we stopped at awesome Ragged Point. The clifftop setting, with the ocean surf thunderously white and blue far below, and the plunging California slopes on the other side of the road, take your breath away.

We took in the views and walked the serene landscaped grounds of the classy inn. We could have settled in for a week and chucked the rest of our itinerary.

I was looking outward to the Pacific. Al with his camera was looking upward. He was seeing butterflies.

He said the monarchs looked bedraggled. They were doing half-hearted semicircles around some of the tall flowering beauties he had first put his camera lens on.

Maybe it was the coastal wind that was giving them a hammering. Perhaps they were preparing for the flight north. They were testing their wings.

They might have wondered if the long haul was worth it. Yet they'd be ready when the signal went out.

"The butterflies are beat," I echoed Al's observation. "It stands to reason." I surveyed this southern gateway to the Big Sur. I was mentally turning the pages of On the Road, the mid twentieth century classic by Jack Kerouac.

The Beat generation, epitomized by Kerouac through his life and writings, is powerfully associated with Big Sur country. He and others spent time here finding themselves or losing themselves and maybe some of each.

Their lives were as heady as the redwoods and as deep and dark as the canyons that run with spring torrents.

The stories punched out on Kerouac's typewriter delivered a new literary style. It fit with the seismic shift of American consciousness as post-war became the cold war era.

I read that Kerouac is the one who said his generation was beat. The Beat Generation name took hold for this group of poets, darers, dreamers, defiant roaring types who lyricized, lived largely and loosely and were part of the watershed for change.

If these Ragged Point monarch butterflies were beat I shall choose to believe it was the coastal winds and not social angst wearing them out that day. 

Delving into my files the material on butterfly gardening was never located. It doesn't matter. Everything is online these days.

We have enough information for a butterfly garden start. Butterflies need flowers that produce nectar. Basic stuff but hey! now we know.

Flowers that require sunlight attract more butterflies. (I take note of this tip.) Butterflies are attracted to flowers by their color. Plant swaths of flowers of similar hues and you make it more inviting for them.

Provide milkweed plants (necessary for the larvae). Introduce Joe Pye weed which butterflies plain like.

Salvia works, so does bee balm. Asters and zinnias in the late summer and fall. English lavender draws butterflies. Lantana does too.

Monarchs are liquid feeders. Besides nectaring on flowers they appreciate a water source in the vicinity.

Certain shrubs and fruit bearing trees have a place in butterfly gardens. They're food, shade and protection from rain and wind all in one.

We have a garden spot picked out. It's where we took the big cottonwood tree down. For our shady yard it's the sunniest area we have to go with.

The overgrown daylily bed may have to go. This in itself is a good thing. It has run rampant over the other plantings.

In its place the cosmos and purple coneflowers will grow. And monarch butterflies, adrift on gentle air currents, will pause to refresh at the colorful buffet.

Ro Giencke - April 17, 2012

Pride of Madeira

We've been in California. A friend, hearing of our plans for Easter, understood how ideal the timing was going to be.

She said she always thought it'd be neat to be somewhere you can walk out of church in your Easter finery into the sunshine with kids waiting on the green grass for the Easter egg hunt like the movie Steel Magnolias.

She's a poet. She catches the essence of things. She catches, too, the hunger in the northland at this time of year to be seasonally caught up with the rest of the world. Blooming time is necessary to the proper feeding of the soul.

We arranged the family visit to include some California travel. We enjoy going back to favorite spots. We add new places each time, widening the familiarity which makes the West seem more and more a second home.

The coastal hills are green or getting there. A wet March, following a severely dry winter, was turning hills a Celtic green. The brilliant color, with wild golden mustard intermixed, was mystical in appearance as if seen in a dream.

The weekend storm which followed our arrival kicked up high seas, some of the roughest in years. Al was pleased to get pictures of some really high waves and seabird shots. Throw in a Pacific sunset and a full moon at night and the proverbial cup was pretty much full.

Knowing my liking for local history my son gave me a book which tells the California story through a combination of archaeological, documentary and oral history research.

It was through this gift I learned that California as a name goes back four hundred years. It surfaces as a name less than twenty years after the first voyage of Columbus to America.

California was depicted as an imaginary island to the right of the Indies in a novel published in Spain in 1510.

When Spanish sailors came upon what is now California, distant and isolated from the Mexican mainland, with a geographical location they mistook as an island, it was put on the map as such.

It was given the name of the imaginary island - a place of fabulous riches - and the name California stuck.

The riches of the fictional island might be regarded as a prophecy of the wealth that was to shower upon its namesake. Gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill at Coloma on January 24, 1848 and the gold rush to California began.

The real richness of California remains its natural beauty. Come in April and you strike the Mother Lode.

California in April is an oasis of beauty. It's a composite of everything in flower. The perfume is heavy in the air even as you stand on a busy city street.

We delighted in primroses, pansies, snapdragons, geraniums, bright sprinklings of daisies, roses and calla lilies.There were California poppies, the fragrant California lilac known as ceanothus, lavender and rosemary hedges and cherry blooms.

One flower previously unknown to us took center stage on our travels. Considerable energy went into tracking down the name of this gorgeous flower seen in many coastal gardens.

Without actually ringing doorbells to query the homeowners we did buttonhole many others asking if they knew what this exquisite flower is.

The flowers are blue, or you might say blue-lavender. The blossoms are very tiny but tiered together in cone-like clusters they look like blue wands. They're gracefully erect and elegant as if knowing what scene stealers they are.

They grow to some height. They're great proportion for smaller plantings with which they share space. Finally, at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, we were able to find out their name.

Our cruise of discovery didn't lead us to the Indies but to Madeira, an island of beautiful aspect in the Atlantic off the coast of Portugal.

The enchanting flower called Pride of Madeira is native to this island. California is one of the few places that match the conditions found on Madeira for the flower to thrive.

Exploration can be in oceans or gardens or any place where curiosity is set free. The search to find the name of this plant, to give its beauty even more meaning to us, made our time in California compellingly complete.

Ro Giencke - April 9, 2012
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