Look Up

When I was a girl, my family had a little business venture making maple syrup. Making maple syrup is a labor intensive job. It takes 40 gallons of sap from the maple tree to boil down to one gallon of syrup. There are different methods used to collect sap but when I was growing up, we tramped through the woods to each tree and collected the sap from the pail hanging from a spigot that was drilled into the tree. We poured the sap into a five gallon pail, and then transferred it to a really large barrel in the back of the pickup. From there it was taken to be cooked down into syrup. When you have a syrup making business, it’s helpful to have a lot of kids to help with sap collection.

I didn’t mind collecting sap. Maple sap runs in the spring when the days are above freezing and the nights are below freezing. It was usually a nice spring day when we went out to collect sap.

The thing I HATED about collecting sap was that sometimes, I would see a snake slithering around in the woods. I have a snake phobia. I can’t even type the word “snake” without getting the heebie-jeebies and feeling a shiver down my spine. I think I got it from my mom. We scream like little girls when we see a snake. So does one of my brothers.

One day when we were collecting sap, I saw a snake. I screamed, dropped the pail of sap and took off running. My dad came over to see what was wrong. He was probably mad that I dropped the sap but I don’t remember; my dad’s anger didn’t scare me, snakes did. He asked me what was wrong and I told him I’d seen a snake. And then, my dad gave me some advice that has stuck with me my whole life, although I’m sure he never knew. He said “Mary, if you don’t want to see snakes, don’t look down at the ground, just look up”

Look up. It was simple, when I stopped looking at the ground for snakes, I didn’t see any snakes

I found that “looking up” works for lots of things: dancing, staying optimistic, focusing on goals, keeping my heart where it should be, greeting the sun every morning. The Bible says when certain signs appear we should "look up" because our redemption is drawing near. When people want to encourage each other, they say “keep looking up” Looking up seems like the thing to do. It’s funny that out of all the advice my dad gave me (and he always seemed to have an opinion on what I should do) this stuck with me most and has seeped through so many areas of my life.

Thanks Dad for your advice about snakes, it was some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.

Spring Sprang

Today is my favorite day of spring. It was the day that everything turns green. Yesterday, there were patches of green here and there but today there is green everywhere. I love this day. It happens every year, overnight. Earth turns green.

I worked in my garden today, cleaning after winter and looking at the flower spouts that I wonder about each year. Will those flowers come up? Did the maple tree make it through the winter? Will my lilac bloom this year? I tried to remember what color those clump of tulips would be when they bloomed. My dog, PD and I worked in the gardens for a few hours and played ball in the sun. It was a good day. Today was the first day that it felt like summer might actually get here. It reached 80 degrees this afternoon.

But then....

The breaking news on the on-line newspaper says "Cold front moving into region"

By this evening, the wind was blowing and he temperature had fallen over 20 degrees in a few hours.

It might snow.

I'm so anxious for summer and warm days that I might cry if I see snow. At the very least, I'll be a little bit crabby.

So don't try to talk to me tomorrow. I'll be unmerry Mary.

Jingle Dancer

If you guessed that this is a jingle cone, you are right!

It's a jingle cone for a jingle dress worn by Native American dancers in a powwow.

The jingles are made from rolled tin lids of chewing tobacco (snuff). The jingle cones are sewn to the dress and when the dancers move, the cones hit together and make the jingling sound.

And, why do I have a jingle cone?

This week I made a jingle dress for a coworker's daughter. She picked out the fabrics and I sewed the dress and apron and put the jingles on it. If you want to sit down, you just take off the apron so you don't sit on a jingle. The apron is pretty heavy, it has over 80 jingles on it. It was an involved project for my limited sewing skills. This is a very simple style. Some of the outfits and moccasins the dancers wear are truly works of art.

This is also definitely a jingle dress for a little girl..... it is pink and purple and has Hello Kitty ribbon above the jingles. The owner of this dress is not yet 3 years old.

She wore it today at the powwow. She walked in for the opening ceremony in her jingle dress but didn't do much dancing!

Here is the opening ceremony and presentation of the flags.

It is a beautiful sight to see the dancers come in behind the flags.

The presentation of the flags is very respectful. I've only been to a couple powwows but noticed both times the honor they paid to their military veterans and all veterans. It was very moving.

Here are some young jingle dancers. Look at those pretty moccasins!

The clothing the dancers wear is referred to as regalia and I loved the bright colors in this regalia.

A powwow is noisy with the drums beating and the jingles and bells the men wear around their ankles. The steady beat of the drum is very soothing in the background.

This young man could really dance; my daughter took a picture of him dancing but it didn't turn out well. He moved around too fast. His outfit had a lot of beading on it; it was very beautiful.

See what a blur he is when he danced - so fun to watch.

I loved the headdresses these two men had on - I couldn't stop looking at them and wondering how they got all those feathers to stand up like that.

All of the regalia was unique, every outfit had something interesting whether it was feathers,beading, mirrors, sparkles, etc. I would have loved to have studied them close up to look at all the details.

This was my favorite regalia. It was so bright and full. Many of the men had feather sprays on their backsides but most of them were natural colored feathers.

So, there you have it. Now you know that it was a jingle cone.

What is it ?

If you know what I've been doing for the past couple days, you can guess what this is and what it is for.

If you don't know what I've been doing for the past couple days, can you guess what this is?




Tomorrow's post will have the answer and pictures of how this little item is used.

Stay tuned....

Life is Sweeter when you Share

I was browsing through my pictures on the computer and found this one that I took last summer.

Life is sweeter when you have someone to share it with....