FORCING SPRING TO COME

When the kids were growing up in Alaska, we made a big deal out of looking for signs of spring each year. In fact, we still do, even this year when the unending cold and rain have made it a most discouraging activity. Still, there are trees in blossom now, and yesterday, for the first time this year, I worked outside in a t-shirt. Robins have produced their first clutch already, and tulips are in full riot around the neighborhood. Among other things that made me ache and groan in the yard yesterday was the annual planting of tiny tomatoes for the grandchildren.

Three kinds sort of chose themselves this time. At the Idea Fair Friday out at the county fairgrounds, in the displays and sales areas of the specialty nurseries, I found the usual Sweet 100s and Yellow Pear varities and this year, for the first time, a Grape Tomato. Each was $1.00 a plant.

Here they are, fresh in the ground, freshly watered, and not a weed in sight. Let's see what they look like in about 85 days when the lable promises the first fruit. I'm more realistic about such stuff. Given time for the weather to warm, I think the first tomatoes ripe enough to eat won't be ready until the first week or two of August, just about when my grandson will be coming to see me.

I can't wait!

CATARACT SURGERY (Right Eye)

**Everything we do, including the seeking of medical services, is a test of faith and should be accompanied with prayer. Yesterday Betty had cateract surgery in the hope and reasonable expectation that a new synthetic lens would improve her vision. We appreciated that her surgeon took a moment to pray with her moments before weilding his tools. The thoughtfulness had an immediate visable effect as Betty physically calmed and her tremor was no longer apparent to me.

**Today we returned for the check-up and all the carefully planned future appointments for doing the left eye next week were scrapped to allow some additional time for her right eye to heal further. We we told yesterday that the procedure had been "difficult", and today we gleaned a few more details as to why it did not go perfectly. The doctor(s) still expects that with a little time everything will be turn out all right. Alternatively, remedial hospital based surgery has been mentioned - twice. The next check-up will be the morning of May 2nd.

**Will you add your prayers to ours that no further intervention will be required and that Betty's eye will mend properly with God's help. Ask that the newly implanted lens will provide clear vision and make reading possible without that huge magnifying she has had to use lately.

FIRST TRIP TO MARKET THIS SPRING

LOOK !!

Signs of Spring at the weekend market.

Finally !!

TALKING ABOUT BOOKS #3

**Here (at last some may say) is the final section of this series on books I have/am/or will be reading. I realize there are "threads" or "streams" of themes and topics in what I gather to read. As my interests wander across the years, I will sometimes spend months or more seeking out anything ever published on the subject in my focus at a given time. That's a trait I got from my mother who was similarily driven when she got hooked on a project or area of research. It is admittedly a compulsive behavior, but always results in interesting and educational or enjoyable books to read. I have never begrudged the search as it too has been enlightening. The rest of my reading materials is gathered through general shelf browsing in bookstores or estate sales, by reference in my other reading, by recommendation of friends and family,or by random serendipity. Feel free to route the titles of good reads my way at any time.

**One observation I have of the upcoming batch is that a number of biographies are showing up. This is partly because I have trouble getting into biographies because they take so long to get to the good parts, i.e. the adult lives and accomplishments of the subjects. Consequently I tend to put them off. Oh, well, I'll read them eventually, I'm sure.

**Books that are High on the “Read Soon” List:

**1. Unveiling Glory; Visions of Christ’s Transforming Presence. – Jeff Childers and Fredrick Aquino. [Another offering in the “Heart of the Reformation” series; this one considers Christ more as being an ever-present companion than as the topic of academic search in an ancient text.]
**2. Only What We Could Carry; The Japanese-American Internment Experience. – Edited (and Forward) by Lawson Fusao Inada. [A compilation of accounts, most gathered in California, of the disruption of lives and the subsequent impact upon Japanese persons and families roughly and ruthlessly impounded in rude, inadequate, and hastily assembled detention camps between February, 1942 and March 1946. Here are personal accounts, annotations, historical materials, and newly documented finding of what 120,000 Americans experienced because of war-borne fear by others.]
**3. Rabbi Jesus; An Intimate Biography; The Jewish Life and Teachings that Inspired Christianity. – Bruce Chilton. [Hailed as a new and perceptive look at Jesus in the context of his Jewish times and traditions, with contrast between “Galilean” Judiasm and the political forms by which national leaders encountered the Roman Occupation. Some content expands upon the role of key figures in bring Jesus to execution, an intense interest of my own in studying the sacrifice and resurrection of my Lord.]
**4. Mockingbird; A Portrait of Harper Lee. – Charles Shields. [I taught “To Kill a Mockingbird” for years in high school, both for its merit as a brilliantly crafted novel and for its powerful social message. It ranks in the top five among my most favored American Classics, and I treasure my copy which has Harper Lee’s extremely rare signature. She is such a private person that I strongly suspect this book is an unauthorized biography.
**5. Sandy Koufax; A Lefty’s Legacy. – Jane Leavy. [A Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the late forties, I was elated when the Boys in Blue moved to California to play in the Coliseum just a few miles up Vermont Avenue from my college dorm room. Sandy Koufax was awesome to watch as he dominated every batter he faced during in the early years in the new stadium in Chavez Ravine. What a guy! What a career! What a team it was!]
**6. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (#8). – Alexander McCall Smith. [Here is the newest in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency. The series of eight is cultural fiction at its mysterious best with wonderful characters and intriguing solutions to unique problems. Check out Smith’s other books too; he’s an all-around delightful writer.]
**7. The Innocent Man. – John Grisham. [A non-fiction, true-crime book in the genre of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood”.)
**8. The Suspect. – John Lescroart. [Here is a mystery author who can present a complex crime, detail the intricate investigative phases, generate a believable and readable trial, all with characters so realistic and appealing, I would like to meet some of them.]
**9. Witness the Passion; Discover the Hope, Embrace the Power, Experience the Grace, through the Eyewitness Accounts of Those Who Were There. – Richard Exley. [Another addition to my collection of books and materials concerning the Passion Week and the eternal impact in our behalf of Christ’s sufferings and victory on the cross.]
**10. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. – Barbara Kingsolver. [I’m pretty sure this non-fiction text chronicles the author’s experiences in feeding and maintaining her family on locally produced, sustainable foods and other goods for a year – and beyond.]

Thank you for your posts and comments on these book-driven entries. If you would rather not comment here on the blog by using the "comments" button, please e-mail me on the side. Either way I appreciate the feedback. It keeps me posting new offerings from time to time to know there are actually readers out there. Your thoughts and questions help keep me focused on presentable topics.

TALKING ABOUT BOOKS #2

**One of the follies of trying to do current lists is that the lists are always changing: I finish a book, or my interests change before I obtain the book (or get around to reading it), or newer or more urgent titles bump a book way down the list. One thing that rarely happens is that I do not finish a book I start. Once in a while a book is so disappointing or so poorly written, or offensive that I bag it midway, but that's unusual. I might stop reading a book that is not as advertised, or not what I am seeking in terms of useful content, but that's rare too.

**So when do I read? Many mornings each week begin with a few minutes of reading the newspaper and a few pages in a current book before spending some time in Bible study. On and off during the day, when I stop to rest, it's usually with a book in hand. In the evening, from the news to bedtime, most "dull" TV moments are redeemed by reading the book in hand. Finally, after all other lights are out and my home companion (who gets up every morning at 5:00 am) is dozing at last, I may read in one or two more books until 1:00 am.

**Books Currently Being Read:
1. Salt. – Mark Kurlansky. [Long on the best-seller lists, this is a well seasoned look at world history through the impact of salt in economies, food preservation, and politics.] ** Just finished this one Tuesday the 8th. Change lists again (-:
2. Oil Painter’s Solution Book: Landscapes. – Elizabeth Tolley. [After benefitting from books on color theory and technique, I finally found an instructional text that speaks to my perceptions of plein air art and what I always feel I am seeing in what I am trying to paint. Just what I need at this point in my learning curve. It's ideas were quite helpful in painting class this week.]
3. Color Choices. – Stephen Quiller. [ One of the tomes that is more for the watercolorist, but which includes the names commercial paint companies assign their colors and put on their paint tubes. Best of all, the book displays this data on a huge, and very useful color-wheel.]
4. Alaska; Tales of Adventure from the Last Frontier. – Edited by Spike Walker. [ More wonderful Alaskan literature. These selections are passages from the complete works which have held readers of Alaskan stories in thrall and astonishment over the years.]
5. Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul; 101 Healing Stories About Those Who Have Survived Cancer. – Jack Canfield, et.al. [I have so many friends fighting cancer; this is for my own insight. It is helping me know how to talk, and what I can say to a person who has this wicked disease.]
6. Plein Air Painters of California; The Southland. – Ruth Lilly Westphal. (History of 1880 to 1940) an inter-library book on loan. [ The leading painters of the era are presented with selected works and an essay of their specific contribution to the plein air movement in California.]
7. Plein Air Painters of California; The North. – Ruth Lilly Westphal. (History of 1880 to 1940) also an inter-library book. [This second volume continues and expands upon the first with additional artists from Santa Barbara to San Francisco and more essays explaining the development of color and techniques they employed.]
8. In Search of the Old Ones; Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest. – David Roberts. [Modern awareness of the American Indian dwellings of the Southwest is still less than 150 years old, and understanding these cultures and their histories is still a developing revelation. For example, the Mesa Verde of my childhood visits in the early 1950’s is a vastly different experience and set of understandings than an encounter today.]
9. Wings of Madness; Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight. - Paul Hoffman. [ Son David shared this book with me. Balloon flight was common before the Wright Brothers and this pioneer, a truly unique and eccentric genius, had experience and insights that lent much to modern manned flight.]
10. National Geographic Magazine; May 2008. [OK, I know it’s not a book, but it is the only magazine left now of which I have read every published edition. Some years ago I finally had to drop Reader’s Digest because I just could not find the articles any more hidden among the advertisements. NGS, be warned!.]

**Again, I challenge you to share your own lists. Examine your current reading and post the titles of your books in progress, and tell me where to find them. (At least e-mail me your findings.) Watch for the remaining list, #3, my "Read Soon" list, which will be posted in three or four days.

**I can see already that I will be seeking out some of the same books you have been enjoying.

**Thanks.

TALKING ABOUT BOOKS: #1

**My daughter, among others, never seems to have difficulty finding a new topic for her blog (look for her blog in the side-bar.). I agonize every time. What can possibly be interesting enough for me to impose upon potential readers? Half the time it’s based on whatever is in my camera and the rest of the time from suggestions or recent conversations. Now someone says, “Write about yourself”.

**OK. Well, I’ve always been a reader. I even took on the Public Library and the city council (with Mom’s help) when I was eight or nine years old because there was an unfair six book per week limit on children’s books. I could read six books a day plus the newspaper, some Bible, part of an encyclopedia, borrowed magazines, or anything else I could find in print. After a few challenging meetings that limit was lifted and I began to check out ten or fifteen books a couple of times a week, and continued at that rate for years. Overall, I probably have averaged reading at least two or three books a week for nearly 65 years. I love all kinds of book collections, book stores, book sales, and gravitate bookward whenever possible. I've had a library card since I was five and sometimes have carried several at once.

**In recent years however, I think I have slowed down somewhat, being busy with a lot of other interests and responsibilities. To compensate, I have taken up reading multiple books at the same time. I’ll pick up a book, read a few pages or a chapter, or for an hour or two and set it down to continue later. Consequently, there are books at bedside, by my easy chair, in the garage, upstairs, and sometimes in the cars. A few here, a stack there, another tucked on a tool shelf and a couple in my barrister case. As I finish one, it is soon replaced by another keeping several going at the same time. It’s sort of a parallel, time-conservation approach to deal (1) with many conflicts, interruptions, and a busy schedule, (2) with an attention span which gets shorter every year, and (3) with soooooo many books.

**Over the next three blogs I’ll share an annotated inventory of books recently read, currently being read, and on the “Read Soon” list. I limited the lists to ten each or this blog would never end. Besides these texts, I have hundreds of books in boxes and on shelves in the attic which I have read and liked and kept, and books I plan to read or reread someday, or books I keep handy for research on topics of interest. The following lists are in no particular order.

**Books Recently Read:
1. The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature. – Cathy Johnson. [I’m taking oil painting classes now so I’ve been reading a lot of art books lately.]
2. Flags of our Fathers. – James Bradley. [ This book, like “Flyboys” proves war is truly hell, which makes the accounts of heroism in it even more poignant.]
3. The Art of Gaman – Arts and Crafts from the Japanese-American Internment Camps 1942-1946. - Delphine Hirasuma. [We saw these beautiful, ingenious and practical artifacts made from junk, cast-off, and found materials at a recent exhibition, and I had to buy the book because photographs were not allowed.]
4. Galileo’s Daughter. – Dava Sobel. [Anything written by Dava Sobel is a rich read.]
5. The Bonsai Art of (Mashike) Kimura. – Kashito Onishi. [My collection of bonsai books now numbers about seventy texts. This is a wonderful addition.]
6. The first seven of twenty (Alaska) Kate Shugak mysteries by Dana Stabenow. [Well written and full of Alaskan culture, places and experiences. I've got the other thirteen and I'm eager to read them all.]
7. All the (Alaskan) Sue Henry mysteries about Jessie Arnold and Maxie and Stretch. [This is another great series also pointed out to me by my book-loving friend Ted P.]
8. Fearless Men and Fabulous Women; A Reporter's Memoir of Alaska and the Yukon. – Stanton Patty. [An awesome book about remarkable pioneer Alaskans. Unfortunately, it’s Out of Print, but hunt for it in on-line bookstores. It will be worth the effort!! I know the author, a retired and revered newspaper journalist whose beat was Alaska, so if you would like to pass along your appreciation, I’ll get your comments to him.]
9. Looking Like the Enemy; My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps. - Mary Matsuda Gruenwald (Family #19788) [An intense personal diary of living through a terrible experience when 120,000 Westcoast Americans were imprisoned and banished to concentration camps just for being Japanese during WWII.]
10. Proverbs. [I should also mention this Old Testament book which has been this year’s study in the Senior Saints Class I teach.]

**Now, What books have you read recently? Either e-mail me your list or tell me where to find it on your own blog.

ARTISAN BREAD

It's a kick to turn a couple of cups of all-purpose flour, some warm water, and a sprinkle of dry yeast into a golden loaf of artisan bread with a crispy crust and a well-textured interior.

This a no-knead variety which only requires mixing, 12 to 24 hours for rising, a couple of folds and a moment of shaping it, and baking in a Dutch Oven or similar pot in a conventional kitchen oven at 450 degrees for about 40 minutes.

The slices reveal an evenly distributed field of bubble pockets which formerly held the pockets of carbon dioxide gas as the yeast caused the sponge-batch to ferment. [Oh, relax. All bread goes through the same process.] It's hearty and lends itself to the addition of seeds, raisins, and other similar favorites. And... it make great toast too.

I'm wondering how this recipe will work when I use my 140 year old Alaskan Sourdough as leavening instead of granules out of a foil packet.