Thanksgiving

It was a lovely weekend. All three daughters, and our son in law, were home for the weekend, and my sister visited with her family. We ate our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, all fourteen of us, so as to leave Thursday open so that Shelagh and Liz could spend time with husband's and boyfriend's family. This left me time to do a lot of cooking and prep work ahead of time. After I put the turkey in the oven, there was not much left to do, so I left the rest to the kids, who whipped up appetizer plates while Richard opened wine.

I had sweet potatoes, part of my experiment in adjusting to climate change by learning to grow warm weather crops. The peanuts were a flop, I had little bit of okra, but the sweet potatoes did quite well. I had seen a recipe in the Penzey's catalog for curried sweet potatoes, but I had no garam masala. I sent all the kids down to NJ's to get last minute stuff, and Liz asked Dave Chugh, one of her Leland classmates, who went in back and dipped out of his mom's spice containers. It was only fitting because I had split my okra crop with his mom last summer.

The whole weekend kept folding back on itself like that. The younger kids tumbled around from parlor to stairwell, to the other parlor, to the kitchen, to the first parlor, and then all around again. The girls played piano and challenged each other at Scramble. On Saturday they all rolled out Christmas cookies and decorated them while my sister and I went to pick holly.

Now it's Sunday. The college kids have left and I must get ready to go to work.

Sworn In

Today I took my oath of office down at the town hall, swearing to uphold the Constitution of the United States, th Constitution of the State of Michigan, and the laws of Leland Township and the county of Leelanau to the best of my ability.

Wildfires as Weapons

We had a wildfire up on Popp Road last week. It burned about 50 acres and threatened our friends' home and farm. In the end, with all county fire crews responding, it was contained and our friends lost only their woods and a row of peach trees. I didn't think that the fire danger was that extreme, but the source of the fire, a brush pile, seems to have smoldered for a week or more until the wind shifted to the east and whipped it up again.

I can't imagine how it feels to live in dry country when the wildfires come up and move fast. This was the terror that the Japanese wanted to turn on the US during WW II, using a simple, ancient, but remarkably effective technology -- paper balloons capable of drifting across the Pacific on the jet stream and then igniting wildfires when they hit the dry land. The fire balloons were kept secret by the US government, both to prevent fear in the US and to deny the Japanese any evidence that their plan was working. But it did work surprisingly well -- over 300 fire balloons landed in the US, one nearly reaching Detroit.

My brother Tim found this WW II training film in the National Archive and posted it with comments about the research for his new novel. Red Rain, based on the stories of the fire balloons. He first heard of the fire balloons while working on a fire crew when he was in college, and he incorporates some of his fire fighting experiences into the story.

Getting the film from the National Archives was, in Tim's words, "Another adventure."

Building Community

This is a poster that hangs in Mr. Evans' music room at Leland School. I liked it so much that I had to find it on the web. The text reads as follows:

Turn off your TV.
Leave your house.
Know your neighbors, Look up when you are walking;
Greet people; Sit on your stoop; Plant flowers;
Use your library; Play together;
Buy from local merchants; Share what you have;
Help a lost dog; Take children to the park;
Garden together; Support neighborhood schools;
Fix it even if you didn't break it;
Have pot lucks; Honor elders;
Pick up litter; Read stories aloud;
Dance in the street; Talk to the mail carrier;
Listen to the birds; Put up a swing;
Help carry something heavy; Barter for your goods;
Start a tradition; Ask a question;
Hire young people for odd jobs; Organize a block party;
Bake extra and share; Ask for help when you need it;
Open your shades; Sing together;
Share your skills; Take back the night;
Turn up the music; Turn down the music;
Listen before you react to anger; Mediate a conflict;
Seek to understand; Learn from new and uncomfortable angles;
Know that no one is silent athough many are not heard.
Work to change this.

Mr McFluffers Goes to School

The second hand store cage was too small, so our raised-from-egg chicken, Mr. McFluffers, will be appearing in this weekend's production of Fools in this lovely brass cage complete with a stick perch scavenged from the playground at Leland School. You can see from the photo that the cage was originally topless, but we wove a new top for it from fishing line.

Life in the theater is not all glamor and makeup. Here Mr Mc Fluffers sips some water amid the hubbub of final carpentry work on the upturned cow prop downstage and Mr Cox tuning the piano upstage.

Fools will be presented this weekend only:

Saturday, November 15 at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm

Sunday, November 16 at 7:00 pm

Leland Public School • Performing Art Center

Tickets $8 adults, $5 students – available at the door or in advance by calling 256-9857.

As mother of the chicken, I had a special seat at the dress rehearsal. I was impressed by the expressive and tightly knit cast, hilarious dialogue, and one very talented hen. Don't miss it!

Fools

From the school newsletter:

One weekend only! • November 15 & 16

Leland High School Drama presents Fools, by Neil Simon. Directed by Jeremy John Evans.

Saturday, November 15 at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm

Sunday, November 16 at 7:00 pm

Leland Public School • Performing Art Center

Tickets $8 adults, $5 students – available at the door or in advance by calling 256-9857.

This story, by Neil Simon, takes place when Leon Tolchinsky, an ambitious young school teacher, arrives in the village of Kulyenchikov, and discovers that the town is suffering under a 200-year curse of stupidity. The curse was cast on them by none other than Vladimir Yousekevitch, after his son’s fiancé was forbidden to see the younger Yousekevitch by her father, who found out the boy was illiterate. She subsequently was made to marry another man. If Leon can’t educate the fiancés descendent within 24 hours of his arrival in Kulyenchikov, he, too, will fall victim to the curse. The curse can only be broken if he can educate Sophia…or if she marries a Yousekevitch!

Hilarity ensues as this fast-paced comedy with quick and witty banter takes place on our Leland Performing Arts Center stage. As always, our Leland productions are brought to you in part by the generous donations of the Verdier Circle of Friends.

The Och family's contribution to this production is......a chicken. Jeremy called me a few weeks ago to ask if they could borrow a chicken, in a cage, for the character who is trying to teach a chicken to talk. The chicken is easy to come by, if a bit challenging to wrangle, but a cage suitable for a Russian village is something else. I think I found a candidate at Jaffe's consignment shop in Lake Leelanau, a cute ornamental cage. Now if the chicken will only fit inside.....