Hopkinsville, KY: Eclipseville

New mural in Hopkinsville celebrates
the August 21 eclipse

In case you haven't heard, North America will experience a total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017. And Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is the place where the eclipse will last the longest.

Our local officials tell us that visitors will be coming here from all over the world and around the nation -- scientists, sun-worshippers, and adventurers of all sorts. How many visitors? Estimates vary from 50,000 to 200,000.

Every law enforcement officer in the county will be working, with backup support from the Kentucky National Guard and Kentucky Emergency Management. Medical facilities will be staffed to the max. Stores and restaurants are bracing for big crowds and hoping for big profits. School will be dismissed for two days. Some non-essential workplaces will close for the day because of the heavy traffic that's expected.

Eclipseville mural

Months ago, I asked for a week off that included the eclipse, so I don't have to work. (My co-workers are not so fortunate.) My husband and I are planning to stay home until it's over. We have our eclipse glasses, and we can watch it from our own yard. I'm going to get my groceries a couple of weeks in advance while supplies are still good, and I'm going to keep my gas tank full.

• Hopkinsville, KY: Point of Greatest Eclipse
• NASA: Total Eclipse, 2017
• Total Solar Eclipse Over Kentucky

Swamp Milkweed

Monarch on a milkweed flower

Some years back, swamp milkweed had taken over a little field near a neighborhood creek. The monarchs loved it! That's where I took this picture.

I want to plant some milkweed seeds in our yard for the butterflies and hummingbirds. The seeds aren't expensive and aren't hard to find. There are several different types. None of them are supposed to be hard to grow, though they do need full sun. It's best to plant them in the fall, in the place that you want them to grow.

I will need to talk sternly to my husband so he will stay away from the milkweed patch with his weedeater, lawn mower, and Roundup sprayer.

If you want to see something beautiful, take a look at this link:

Images: Monarch butterfly on swamp milkweed

Bottle Bush

Bottle bush

This is my quick and easy substitute for a bottle tree. I usually call it a bottle bush. Sometimes I call it a bottle garden. Some might call it a clump of tomato stakes with bottles on them. (A bottle bunch?)

I've wanted a bottle tree for a long time, not for superstitious reasons, but because I love to see sunshine through colored glass. I enjoy stained glass windows for the same reasons.

This spring I collected colored bottles at the thrift shops, and soon I had enough to "plant" them. When I first put them out, I had two red bottles and one each of violet, pink, and orange. I loved having lots of colors!  But after a couple of months, they lost big patches of their color coating, so I removed them. And all the replacements I've found have been blue or green.

I have a hard time identifying bottles that have their color painted on. A Goodwill clerk told me to hold the bottle up to the light and look inside for scratches in the coating. That works well -- except for painted bottles that are in perfect condition.

The real test is a few months in the sun, wind, and rain.

Zucchini Stories

A large zucchini

My garden grew this big zucchini in about 2005. I was extremely busy, and didn't go to my garden for a number of days. When I finally had time to get out there again, I found this whopper and half a dozen more that were nearly as big. They looked like small green logs, sprawled on the ground around the zucchini vines.

I don't think this zucchini was a record-setter, by any means. I see bigger ones at the county fair every year. But my husband thought I should photograph it, so I made him and my son pose with it. The slightly-pained look on my son's face makes me smile. Bless his heart! He was doing his best to tolerate his nutty parents!

The first year I ever had a garden, I planted eight hills of zucchini with four or five plants in each hill. In about seven weeks, a bountiful harvest began, and I soon realized that we couldn't eat all the zucchini the garden was producing.

I cooked zucchini this and zucchini that until we were just tired of it.  I canned lots of zucchini relish to give away at Christmas. I gave zucchinis to friends, took zucchinis to church with me, and sent zucchinis to work with my husband. One day, when I had to go to Walmart, I took a few zucchinis with me and gave them away in the parking lot. ("Excuse me, ma'am. Could you use a zucchini?")

It was a mercy when those plants finally died. The squash bugs and/or the wilt always gets them eventually.

Zucchini Relish

I came across my zucchini relish recipe (that's what started me thinking about zucchini), and I decided to share it in case anyone needs it. It's very good.

Zucchini Relish

4 to 4-1/2 pounds zucchini squash
2 medium onions
1 sweet red pepper
2 tbsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
2 tsp celery seed
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Cut up vegetables and grind coarsely. Add salt. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Rinse in cold water and drain well. In 4 to 5 quart saucepan, combine vegetables with sugar, vinegar, water, celery seed, turmeric, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil; cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often. Prepare lids according to manufacturer's instructions. Ladle hot zucchini mixture into clean, hot jars, leaing 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe jar rims and adjust lids. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water bath (15 minutes after the water begins to boil.) Makes 4 pints.

A Big White Oak

Beautiful old oak near a creek

I took this picture about 20 years ago with a film camera. The huge white oak tree in the photo grows a hundred yards or so above a creek.

The big old tree is still there, but the house in the photo is gone now. A Mennonite family owns the property, and, having outgrown the little house, they built a big new house several years ago and tore the old house down.

Their garden has grown with their family, and some of the garden has now extended pretty close to the old tree. I hope the cultivation is not tearing up the feeder roots of the tree.

I don't own this tree, but I have an affection for it, and I wish it a long and healthy life! That's why I am concerned about its well-being!

Edgar Cayce's Gravestone

RIP, Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce was from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, but I have never been interested in him. Or maybe I should say that I have never allowed myself to be interested in him. I know the basic facts of his life, but I've never studied him. I've always felt that dark powers gave him his knowledge and enabled him to do what he did.

I lived in Christian County for nearly 25 years before I ever happened to see Edgar's tombstone. I was at Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville for other reasons, when a friend mentioned that we were near the Edgar Cayce gravesite. I took this photo then, because I knew that I would never make a special trip to the cemetery to find his grave.

If you don't know the story of Edgar Cayce's life, check out his memorial on Find A Grave. It has a short biography.

A Strange Sky

Odd clouds in the north

These dramatic clouds stretched across the northern sky yesterday evening. I stopped along the roadside to get this photo.

When I got home, I read a weather alert about a storm front moving southwest (an unusual direction for a storm to travel) with a possibility of high winds and hail in its path. We didn't get any wind, hail, or rain from it. The high heat index that spawned these clouds is slightly abated today, thank goodness, but tomorrow is going to be another hot one.

I saw someone else's photos of this coral-colored sky on Facebook. They looked so much like mine that I could have sworn I took them!

WPA-Built Jail in Bowling Green, KY

Concrete poured by WPA workers

The old jail in Bowling Green, KY,  sits next to the Warren County courthouse. I think the courthouse uses it as an annex for some of the county offices. It was built in 1939 as a WPA project. Concrete was often used for WPA constructions because it required the largest number of workers. The exterior of the building has some Streamline Moderne features, including the smooth exterior walls, the prominent horizontal and vertical sets of lines, and the flat roof. I took this photo on a memorably hot summer day in 2008.

Backroad in Christian County, KY

This beautiful little dirt backroad in rural Christian County, KY, no longer exists. It has been widened and paved, and now it's a typical county blacktop road.

I'm not against progress, but I do now avoid this road. I'm sure it's better for the farmers who need to move wide machinery or bring in big trucks, but I remember and miss the pleasant, picturesque country backroad it used to be.

Fort Scott, Brick Town

Fort Scott, Kansas

When I drive out to Kansas to visit my brother, I always enjoy stopping in Fort Scott to visit the antique stores. In the downtown area, they've kept the original brick streets, as well as many old brick buildings.

Brick streets have several good qualities. They're extremely durable. They help keep vehicle speeds down because they're so bumpy. And when there's a problem, workers can lift up the bricks in a small area and fix whatever's wrong. Asphalt is smoother to drive on, but it wears out so quickly!

Cayce Cafe at Cayce, KY

The Cayce Cafe

I took this photo of the Cayce Cafe in Cayce, Kentucky, when I passed through there last fall. There's no doubt about which team they support there!

Cayce is an unincorporated village along Highway 94 in western KY, east of Hickman and north of Fulton. The population in 2010 was 123.

My son says the Cayce Cafe has great food, but they only take cash. No debit or credit cards are accepted.

Someone wrote an interesting Yelp review of the Cayce Cafe that tells a bit about its owners and atmosphere. The Cayce Cafe also has a Facebook page with a few posts.

Rails Through the Wilds

The CSX "road" in
northern Christian County

A few years ago, the Christian County election boards did some redistricting. Now, instead of voting with our neighbors in the neighborhood Baptist church basement, just a couple miles from home, we (and others) have to drive about 15 miles. It's very inconvenient.

The one good thing about the new polls location is that, once you get done voting, you might as well go to Crofton by the backroads and see what you need from the Mennonite store. On my way to Crofton after voting, a couple of years ago, I took this photo from a railroad overpass.

In old newspapers, they speak of train tracks as "roads," not "railroads." It's funny how language changes.

Baby Owl at Reelfoot Lake

Baby owl at Reelfoot Visitors Center

I saw this beautiful baby owl at the Visitors Center at Reelfoot Lake in western Tennessee. He was found on the ground as an infant, and the Reelfoot Park biologists are raising him. I believe he is a Great Horned Owl.

While I was trying to pin down that identification, I came across an interesting story about rescuing baby owls who fell from their nests. If this Reelfoot baby could have been returned to his nest when found, like those in the linked story, he wouldn't have to spend his life with strange humans taking his picture and talking to him.

I wonder if he will be returned to the wild someday, He has no owl parents to teach him how to survive. But at least, he wasn't eaten by a raccoon or a coyote on the ground after he fell from the nest. And because he was brought to the park headquarters, I got to see him, up close and absolutely beautiful.

Such a wistful little fellow

Spring Green

Verdant

One of the nice things about Kentucky is that there's usually some green in the landscape. Even in the winter, some of the grasses stay fairly green, and the fields of winter wheat are always refreshingly green.

But in the spring, the glorious spring, Kentucky becomes so richly, exuberantly green that ordinary words can't describe it. That's when I remember my daughter's description of an especially green field as "verdant." It was a good choice of words.

Best Sunsets

End of another day

I belong to a couple of huge photography groups on Facebook -- one for Nebraska photos and one for Kansas photos. I don't ever post anything. I just enjoy the pictures that everyone else posts..

One thing I've noticed is that the Nebraskans always talk about how Nebraska has the best sunsets and the Kansans always talk about how Kansas has the best sunsets. I've decided that the best sunset is the one you get to watch, wherever you are. We have some nice ones here.

Wild Strawberries

Wild strawberry

In the spring, wild strawberries grow in various parts of our "lawn." I use the word "lawn" loosely. We just mow what's there. Somehow the strawberries survive and come up every year. They have a very seedy berry.

Remember William Henry Harrison who led American troops at the Battle of Tippecanoe and later became President for about a month before he died in office? He supposedly said that there were so many wild strawberries in Indiana in 1811 that the feet of the soldiers' horses were red with the juice.