Peace Park Dedication

Cascade Township officially opened "our" park last Saturday. The tent roof was put to use as a drizzle started falling along with the speeches.

DH Charlie talked about how his parents' interest in nature began his interest, and it made a nature park a good way to use their charitable trust money. [Our donation only got the ball rolling. The township passed a dedicated millage, and got a grant of $1.2 million from the Michigan DNR Trust.]

Charlie also gave a prayer of invocation quoting Chief Seattle.

I read "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry.

And a large group of folks cut the ribbon which was across the pathway. My scissors didn't work.

The next day we went to the park again to show it to some friends, and we were delighted to cross paths with two other families hiking the meadow!

Now the quilting pictures:

Lynne's quilt -- "Letter box" or "Kleenex Box". Her choice of design and fabrics. I put the center of the top together up on Beaver Island. Now I am using parts of extra blocks for the border. Gotta make it big enough for a Queen bed with 16" drop.

And this is the other top I finished on B.I. I will take both tops to the retreat tomorrow and get the borders finished. Then I will hand them over to Catherine for quilting. Both of these were started THIS year, so I don't count them as UFOs yet.

Additionally I will take only real UFOs as retreat projects. I am behind schedule for getting two done a month. I hope I can finish some small ones completely. Or at least make a lot of progress.

Three nights/four days of quilting retreat at a 4 H conference center, which provides all our meals! Yea!

I will report on Monday.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Peace Park is in use!

BLTs for dinner

Made four packages of pesto for the winter

Back to Peace Park

We walked for an hour yesterday, and the snow is all gone. Just up from the road, following the two-track, you arrive at this rolling meadow.

And then the two-track goes into the woods. There are so many oak leaves on the ground that it is hard to pick out the two-track in some places. I think there need to be some trail markers!

But we found our way back to the beginning eventually. That was a pretty long walk for me-- next time I am going to stick a granola bar in my pocket for when my energy fails.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Charlie gets me out each day for this exercise routine

Charlie lets me hold his arm when I am worried about falling

Out for one free birthday dinner at Marco's

Spring IS coming

See. here are the eranthus bulbs trying to bloom next to the snow in the garden.

With that encouragement, we set off to the nature park.

It is not yet officially open, we knew that. But this is pretty UNwelcoming!

And the walking was not very good. Good thing we had our overshoes on. Every steps meant breaking through the crust on the top of the snow. After ten minutes I had had all I could do, knowing I had to walk the same distance back to the car.

Next two Fridays we will be away in Arizona, so the THREE weeks, we will see how much snow is left. NONE I hope.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Sun, sun, sun for several days in a row--nice for walking

Met Opera on the radio while I sew

Finished a sock

Recent quilt on a bed

Well, I should have used this photo before. The one I used had the quilt crunched together, and one person mistook it for an Art Quilt! Goodness, it's just a flannel cosy quilt.

And here is one corner to show the narrow border and the golden backing fabric.

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Charlie and I have been working with others in our township to create a nature park for the last five or six years. Now it is getting ready to open. We were involved in the naming and were inspired by a poem by Wendell Berry "The Peace of Wild Things" to name it Peace Park. The Township Board suggested that we should"post" the poem in the park, so we are looking into a bronze plaque affixed to a stone.

We went out to the "stoneyard" behind Tom's nursery to day to look for a local ROCK yesterday.

These are some possible stones because they are flat, but they are not really from our part of Michigan. They are from the U.P. [Upper Peninsula], not down here "below the bridge".

Here's Tom himself with the stone we would prefer to use. He has laid a piece of plywood the same size that the plaque will be to check the size of the surface. This one is really local granite. It will have to be stood up on end and buried about two feet in the ground at the park.

Now we wait for the monument company to say if this rock will work for them.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Tom's enthusiasm and love of nature

Brussels Sprouts more palatable when served with spaghetti

More exercise means sounder sleep at night