The HayRide

 We were invited quite a while ago by Erika and Paul to go on a Hay Ride on Saturday.  I’d been looking forward to it and imagined a tractor pulling a wagon loaded with hay.  I wondered how all 20 of us would not fall off the slippery hay.  Paul and Erika won the event at a Silent Auction at the E.L. Public Library.  We were to get there at 4:30.  Paula drove Bob and me and her visiting scholar, Alberto, out to the Peacock Family Farm.  We’d been there several times before for picking pumpkins and for cutting their Christmas tree.  It’s a real old-fashioned Mid-Western Americana place, teetering on the edge of ticky-tacky.  We wandered about until a plan was made.  The plan:  we’d go on the Hayride at 5:30 and have dinner at fire-pit number three at 6.  Until then, we all wandered about the big place going through the petting zoo to the pig races.  The pig races were really cute. children were called up from the crowd to help.  They were supposed to chase the pigs around the ramshackle track.  It ended up the five or six little pigs chased the kids who never did quite get the point.  It was very cute even with the tiresome announcer counting slowly to 10 before each race began.  There were old farm vehicles in various states of decay to climb on and photograph.  There were stands to buy donuts and other sweet treats.  There was a play ground and a huge pile of hay bales with a slide attached.  And a couple of trains pulled by tractors for going on rides.  Erik, Bob and I wandered off to the edge and found a serene and peaceful wedding venue complete with a dance site and games.  

At 5:30, we all gathered for the hayride.  It turned out there was no hay and it wasn’t quite what I imagined.  There was a tractor though, pulling a big wagon with benches on both sides and a plastic roof.  It was the same setup that took us out to the fields at Christmas time to find the perfect Christmas tree.  I enjoyed the bumpy ride through the fields.  It was fun to seeing Sonja with her friends, all sequestered up in the front corner away from the others with their heads close together.  They dropped us off at the fire pit.  The food hadn’t come yet.  The tractor driver stoked up our fire with more wood and a big squirt of gasoline.  The food arrived hurried in by a gnome like old woman with an oversized  jacket so that all one saw were her tiny spindly legs and the bulk of the top.  Once the food came:  boiled hot dogs and baked beans with kettle chips to supplement.  I immediately looked for sticks to roast the hot dogs and soon everyone was roasting the hot dogs.  Sonja and her friends staked out the nearby fire pit.  Erika and her friends happily sat in a long row chatting and just enjoying each others’ company.  I found myself moving close to the teenagers.  I enjoyed talking with friends of Paul and Paula.  As it got dark, Paul appeared with a big bag of marshmallows and some chocolate and we all began to  roast marshmallows.  I don’t know if it was the mellowing effect of the hot dogs or the full moon or the marshmallows, but I think everyone really enjoyed the evening and the event.  I know I really did!

    

Grandparenting High Schoolers

 Friday was the day of the Regionals for the East Lansing High School Cross Country team.  It was Sonja’ last meet for the year and for grandparents, nothing is more important than to cheer her on.  It’s why we came, to watch and support our granddaughters any ways we can.  So we headed North on Highway 127 to the little town of Shepherd, Michigan  about an hour away.  Along the way I enjoyed the scenery as we drove through mid-Michigan’s farmland.  We passed Papa John’s Cider Mill and many cornfields with brown dried stalks standing like ghosts.  We went past many red-barns and tall silver silos.  There were miles of plowed fields dotted with many huge three bladed wind mills, their blades moving ever so slowly.   At Shepherd High School we found our way to the Meet which was in the fields way off behind the football stadium.  There were 16 teams from all over Central Michigan there for the meet both boys and girls, so the place was a buzz with activity and excitement.   We followed the crowds trying to figure out where we should stand for best sightings of Sonja as she ran by.  We heard that the starting time was moved back to 2:45.  We found a good spot way out by a beautiful forest at the peak of color where the path lead into the trees.  As we waited, I regaled over the beauty of the perfect oranges, yellows and reds of the changing leaves.  I almost missed Sonja in her first pass because she had her hair up in a new style.  There were 86 girls running and they come by so fast and all in a pack.  It was exciting that on the second pass, I saw Sonja coming and could tell she saw me and that made me very happy!  She knew we were there rooting for her!  In the end, it wasn’t a great race for Sonja or the E. L. Cross Country team. They came in second to last.  Her injuries caught up with her and as it turned out she was also sick. It’s amazing she could run 3 miles in such shape.  She was visibly upset after the race when we saw her.  I felt so badly that I didn’t know how or have the opportunity to console her.  I’m proud of her no matter how she does.  Winning is always great and not having a good race is really hard after committing so much time and energy and heart to the team.  

Then later that day, Erika’s Marching Band played at the E.L. Play-off football game.  The Band didn’t march, but were all dressed up in their uniforms.  They played the National Anthem before the game, played at Half time and of course played the “fight songs” and “triumph songs” when the team scored a touch-down.  They played that song six times!.  Paul and I walked to the game.  He got me a hot dog, nice and burned just like I like them.  It brought back memories for me of high school football games.  We went to the stands down by where the Band sits in the bleachers.  Erika saw us and gave a smile.  The game itself was exciting football, with E.L winning handily.  It was a beautiful night warm with a full harvest moon peeking through striated clouds looking appropriately spooky.  It was fun to see Erika playing her clarinet. She was so happy sitting by her friend in the bleachers.  It’s wonderful that the Marching Band has been such a fun and important part of Erika’s high school experience.  And how great it was to have two events in one day to see both granddaughters in their elements.  It’s why we came!

Halloween Tradition

 A Halloween tradition here in E. Lansing at the Winke-Stokstad household is making a trip to Greenfield Village, the old timey village at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan for their Halloween celebration.  Paula organized this treat for us once again this year.  She got the tickets, she rented a big monster van so we could all be together and she had a big bucket of Halloween costumes we could choose our costumes from.  Saturday afternoon we all gathered at 3 and piled in the van and took off.  It was drizzling rain, but as we drove East, the rain let up and the gray sky lightened.  The weather has been better in Detroit!  Once there, we all donned our costumes.  One of the treats is seeing children and grown ups in costume.  Of note was a 3 year old child all wrapped up in gauze as a mummy, a family of hot dogs including the toddler riding along in a Weiner-Mobile also dressed as a little hot dog costume.  Paul had found his people!  This year the old houses seemed more interesting, the pumpkins lining the streets seemed fewer and we encountered more costumed volunteers dressed as 19th century people and witches.  There were so many witches which I liked since I was dressed as one too.  They all had stories to tell.

The park is large so it never seemed too crowded.  There’s lots of food for sale—-sugared nuts, cotton candy, gooey cupcakes and donuts.  At dusk, we got on the train and rode around the park.  It was a great time with the fading light because everything seemed more spooky.  At a couple of places, the train shot out huge blasts of steam which hung in the air and slowly sank to the ground.  I sat next to Erika and felt nostalgic.  Next year she’ll be in college and Paula and Sonja will be in Innsbruck, so even if we go, it won’t be the same.  I enjoyed our time together there more than I ever had before perhaps because of its bitter sweetness..  At 7:30, we lined up and went into the Eagle Tavern, a restaurant made up to look like one from the 1850’s.  The menu was also one from long ago.  The wait staff were all dressed in period costumes and a fiddler strolled through the candle lit room playing old timey songs.  The host came to our table and recruited Sonja to be his “bell ringer.”  After a time, he got Sonja and they marched in with Sonja ringing the dinner bell.  He welcomed us and gave us a history of the tavern.  It was the first stop in 1850 for a trip in a stagecoach from Detroit to Chicago.  That was an 8 day trip!  Then he gave us our blessing: “May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future.”  And then the food came out.  The first course was a sweet thick pumpkin soup with lots of cinnamon. Then a platter of chicken with root vegetables and greens and then came a second platter with pork loin with stuffing and it was topped off with a piece of moist dense pumpkin cake.  After dinner we walked around some more.  Nobody wanted to leave.  It was a time to remember to be altogether at Greenfield Village for Halloween.  

Planting Daffodils

Every October for the past three or four years, Connie has organized a group of her friends to go to Detroit to plant daffodils.  This year we went to a Detroit branch library on Grand River in west Detroit.  The library is boxy and made of cement, looking more like a prison than a library.  It is in a poor neighborhood and was definitely in need of some daffodils.  The date was set a couple of weeks ago and I was happy to be in town and to help.  As the day came, rain was predicted and three of the ladies bailed for various reasons.  We dressed accordingly and I suspect were all worried a bit about mud and general sogginess.  But as we got close to Detroit, the sky lifted and lightened.  Annette, the librarian, came out when we got there.  She was so enthusiastic and happy about our job and seemed genuinely happy we were there to plant flowers in front of her library.  She wanted the daffodils all to be planted in the large raised flower bed in the entrance patio.  We had 170 daffodil bulbs and probably 60 grape hyacinth bulbs.  So we got to work.  First we laid out all the bulbs in groups of three around the bed, so we could see where there were to be planted.  Then Connie and I set out in the raised bed.  Viji and Anne-Marie began digging in the side bed where the hyacinths were to be planted.  We got into a rhythm.  It was good work.

After an hour, my knees were creaky and I could tell I’d been squatting too long digging holes.  Annette came back out and insisted we take a break and go behind the library where they had planted a garden.  It was beautiful—-productive tomato plants, basil, thyme, marigolds in a line at the edge of the garden and tall beautiful sunflowers standing guard over the beauty.  Connie knew it was inspired by our group planting daffodils there last year. The garden’s beauty completely changed the energy of that space.  We noticed and were inspired to get back and finish our job.

It is good to plant daffodils.  We all imagined their yellow cheer greeting people as they enter the library next April, smiling because of the beauty unexpected in this place.  It was good to plant daffodils there.  As soon as we got into our cars, the rain started.  We were all a little tired and happy as we went to lunch at an Indian restaurant on the way home.    

Change and Adventure

 Here in Berkeley, it’s been a quiet couple of weeks.  Perfect warm fall weather with just enough fog to cool us off if it got too hot.  I’ve enjoyed three concerts: one at the Botanical Garden in the idyllic Redwood Grove (it was so terrible we left after half an hour); a San Francisco Symphony morning rehearsal and a piano concert at a local church.  I’ve enjoyed going out to lunch with friends.  Now all my walking friends have stopped walking so Bob is my one walking partner.  There was a violent murder on one of my walking routes, just a few blocks from our house and so I find myself hesitant to go out alone.  Tuesday and Thursday are our gym days and I’m enjoying our classes a lot.  Arne and Liam have come over a couple of times and it’s always great to see them.  Arne picked 4 shopping bags full of apples from his tree.  I’ve been making applesauce like mad with apples I picked.  The Asian pear trees have produced a bountiful crop of delicious pears which I’ve been taking everywhere I can think of to share the bounty.  When I asked our new neighbor if he wanted some apples, he said he’d take some only if he could make a pie for us.  What a nice neighbor we have! Life is moving along gently and uneventfully here.

But in Israel, wow, it’s not.  I’m enormously saddened from the terrible attack and killings that happened 10 days ago.  I’m still taking in the horror in stories that keep coming.  For my Jewish friends, this is terrifying, so reminiscent of the Holocaust horrors.  Jews have suffered under discrimination and violence for 6000 years.  As President Biden said, all people, especially the Jews deserve to be treated with respect and fairness.  I love Israel and had a very happy time living there so long ago in 1977.  It was a peaceful time then.  I remember with our French friends, we drove through Gaza going to a beach (I think it was called El Arish) in the south of the Gaza Strip.  Even then, it felt scary to be there, I remember, like I was where I shouldn’t be.  As we ate our picnic lunch and swam in the Mediterranean, children came by selling trinkets.  It is such a complex situation.  Old Testament ways of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” but that only leads to blind toothless people.  The humanitarian disaster happening in Gaza now also breaks my heart.  Half the population of Gaza is under 15 years old and now suffer from being displaced.  I wish there were another way, a way of negotiation and peace.  I have been wrestling with this question.  I say, I want to be kind, but kindness can be taken for weakness.  After such a horror, who could be kind and forgiving?  Sweet words with a dream of peace sound hollow such violent killing.  War is truly hell.

We leave tomorrow for nearly a month in E. Lansing.  There’s been a lot happening there in recent weeks.  Erika is a Senior now and working diligently on her college essays.  She’s been on the Honor Court at Homecoming and marching in the Marching Band at all the football games.  And Sonja has been running fast like the wind at the cross country meets.  In her last one, she was first and beat her best time by 30 seconds!  The football will be over, but we’ll get to go to a couple of cross country meets.  There’s lots planned there while we’re with them.  Mostly though, I just want to be with them.  It is a bittersweet time, the last year Erika will be around as she’ll be in college.  Next year the family will be in Innsbruck Austria as Paula has a sabbatical year.  So it’s a special time to be with them for these weeks.  

Berkeley Art Works

 Yesterday Bob and I went on a tour of Berkeley Art Works, a Berkeley Foundry.  I didn’t exactly know what a Foundry was, something to do with metal I thought.  We got to the place a bit early.  It was down in southwest Berkeley, near the Berkeley Bowl market on Heinz Street.  There was a large parking lot with beautiful sculptures in it and I wondered what we were in for.  We went into the building and waited with the other milling people for the tour to start.  It was sponsored by the Berkeley City Committee to promote manufacturing in Berkeley.  

We learned that this Foundry is really special, one of the few remaining ones on the West Coast.  It has clients from as far away as France, England and Belgium as well as artists on the West Coast.  What they do there is make bronze sculptures.  We saw the wax being poured into a rubber mold to make the sculpture form, the first step.  However most sculpture forms now are made on a 3-D printer they have.  Either the wax mold or the 3-D sculpture are dipped over and over into a silicon based slurry to form a crust over and within the sculpture mold.  Then, this is put into a huge big kiln (many sculuptures are huge) and heated to a very hot temperature.  It is taken out of the kiln and moved near to a pit where the bronze is melted and heated to a temperature of 2100 degrees F.  Three workers suited up in silver suits to reflect the heat, with thick leather gloves and a welding type helmet.  They.moved the hot hot bucket with the melted bronze over to the sculpture mold and poured it carefully into the mold.  It was exciting to see the red flow, like lava, of the pouring metal.  After a while, it was finished and the bucket went back into the underground pit where it resides between pours.

After this the sculpture is cooled and the forms come off.  Then they are welded together, if they are big and need that.  And then covered with a glaze, rather like a pottery glaze. There was a display of all the various possibilities.  We saw a huge sculpture,like a giant chambered nautilus made from many welded pieces of bronze.  It is to be installed at the Ashby BART station a a couple of months.  The art was beautiful.  It was fun to see son of a friend from church working there.  Overall, I was impressed to see such an operation right here in Berkeley.  It’s been here all the time we’ve lived here, 44 years and I never knew a thing about it.  Good to keep learning new things about how exceptional Berkeley is.