Easter in the Ozarks 2011

This year Easter Sunday falls late in April, and the flowers in gardens and countryside are a magnificent decoration to the season.

I went shopping at Pannacle Hills Promenade Mall last weekend. It, too, was decorated for the season.

 I also noted advertising for the Komen Race for the Cure and Mercy Health Foundation Annual Golf Classic (May 2 at Pinnacle Country Club). Both provide great outdoor activities for good causes. Another charity race is this Saturday’s (April 23) Cow Paddy Run at Gulley Park for any of you running enthusiasts out there. Fayetteville Public Schools will benefit from this year’s race.

There are many celebrations underway for Easter weekend. Here are a few links to help you find what is going on in your area:

Northwest Arkansas Community 

NWA Motherlode 

 Northwest Arkansas Events Online 

Macaroni Kid Fayetteville 

Fayetteville Flyer Calendar 

As you celebrate the most joyous day in the Christian calendar, remember that Easter Sunday would never be possible without the cross on Friday. The cross on Golgotha gives us a firm foundation for the empty garden tomb on Easter morning. Without the empty tomb there would be no validation of Christ Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Either is meaningless without the other. Praise God for both! Wishing you a joy-filled holiday!

Ben Bulben, County Sligo, Ireland, by Jon Sullavin

Irish Dreams and Night Photography

The swans flew low overhead. Their great whit bodies seemed to fill the sky. The thunder of their wings took Father Tim’s breath away. He stood transfixed with his mouth open like a boy. His Irish vacation dream had come true!

This delightful scene comes near the end of Jan Karon’s In the Company of Others. I just finished this story about Father Tim Kavanagh (a retired Episcopal priest) and his artist wife, Cynthia, who are vacationing in the Irish countryside. It seems appropriate to listen to this Father Tim story so close to Saint Patrick’s Day.

Many of the people who first settled the Ozarks were Scotch-Irish, giving us a deep Celtic heritage. Our rugged ancestors are celebrated in a number of ways North of the Tunnel. Here are a few excellent institutions that offer exhibits and experiences of Ozark history and folk heritage: the Visitors Center at Hobbs State Park; Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, Springdale; and the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View. Why not put a visit to one or more of them on your spring calendar?

An author who speaks from a Gaelic perspective is Alexander McCall Smith whose wide ranging works include at least two series of books set in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although best known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books featuring the beguiling Botswana (Africa) detective, Mma Ramotswe, and her “assistant detective” Mma Makutsi, McCall Smith has lived much of his adult life in Scotland. He is labeled a “Scottish writer.”  I have just begun his The Unbearable Lightness of Scones but will have finished it well before he comes to Fayetteville in April. This world-renowned author will be speaking at the Fayetteville Public Library on Friday, April 6, 7 p.m., as part of the library’s 5th annual Adult Reading Festival. Best of all, his talk, “The Very Small Things of Life,” is free. Be there early for a good seat!

A Monte Ne Hotel photo by Jade Morgan

P.S. In this morning’s newspaper is an account of a daring rescue at Monte Ne. This past Wednesday a young man (20) managed to get stuck in one of the old hotel chimneys still standing beside the lake. According to the account, he and a cousin had been taking pictures and, in trying to achieve that “perfect pose,” he became wedged in the chimney. After receiving a 911 call at 3:45 a.m., the local firefighters (Hwy 94 East Fire Department) responded. Failing to free the man, they called in the Rogers Fire Department.

After much consideration the chief decided to lower a rope from the top of the three-story chimney rather than break a hole in its side. Unable to get a truck close to the structure, the firemen took their ladders to the spot, lowered their gear, and extricated the erstwhile photographer from his “prison.” It’s been some time since there was that much excitement in Monte Ne!

This incident raises some interesting questions. Among them must be: What in the world were they photographing so late at night? Were they armature “ghost hunters” or …? What do you think?

Crocus, Kites, and Windmills

Spring is coming. The first daffodils and crocus are in bloom. Buds are swelling on the maples, and some leaves have already opened on bushes in the back yard. The peeper (frogs) chorus is in full voice, and mourning doves coo in the late afternoons.

Last week was National Severe Weather Week. NOAA weather radios were available at a reduced price as part of a program to help the public understand and prepare for “Tornado Season,” now through May. (KFSM, Harps, and the Midland Weather Radio Company were one of the partnerships making this offer.) For more information about storm preparedness, check the National Weather Service site. 

Wind, hopefully not the destructive kind, is a part of the mystique of March. Visions of the conclusion of Mary Poppins where the children and their parents are flying a kite to the strains of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”  merge with the sight of local children racing to get their kites airborne in parks and playgrounds on a windy afternoon. If that sounds like fun, you might want to take part this Saturday in the 10^th Annual Cain Hill Kite Festival.

Not only is March remarkable for its windiness, it ushers in a new wind turbine (a newfangled windmill) on the John Brown University campus in Siloam Springs. Put through its paces for the first time Wednesday, the turbine will power lights on a cross-campus walking trail. This is part of a statewide effort on the part of colleges and universities to both use green energy alternatives and prepare students for jobs in the field of renewable energy resources.

What has the winds of March blown your way recently?

 Inside a Snowy Record

There is a picture in a local history book of a locomotive up to its cowcatcher in snow. It dates from the late 1800’s. My imagination has always been sparked by that picture; I wonder what it would have been like to be IN it. Well, now I know. We are in the midst of a record setting snow storm. The old one day Arkansas record was set back in 1918. Once it is officially validated, the new one will be 23 inches! This on top of 6 inches and more we had last week – almost all melted away before our record breaker this week.

I am sitting at my computer watching the snow continue to filter down. Earlier I went out to refill the bird feeders and sank nearly up to my knees, way over my boot tops, in snow. I measured 9 and ½ inches out by one feeder, 12 on top of the car hood, and my ruler went down below the snow level at least an inch or 2. I will measure again once it stops snowing.

This snowy February has provided a lot of photo opportunities. I have pictures of deer checking for dropped seed under a feeder, the woods dressed in white, and icicles nearly to the ground. I got some grand pictures this morning of snowcapped objects in the yard. But the best picture of the storm has to be this one from my nephew’s trail camera near Lowell. What kind of canine do you think it is? 

A Surfeit of Good Things

‘Tis the Season … to be jolly, hurried, exhausted, and exhilarated. Thanksgiving, arguably the least high pressure day of the Holiday Season, has come and gone. My family enjoyed a fine dinner and good conversation. Of course the next day was Black Friday. Some of them slipped away early to get into position for wild times at the mall. 

Personally, I try to avoid going into a shop on the day after Thanksgiving whenever possible. Not everyone is of the same opinion. I was talking to a teller at a big box store recently who loved the rush and bustle of the day so much she would have volunteered to work if she hadn’t been assigned. To each her own!

I am caught up in the events of the season from going to the Lights of the Ozarks with my family to decorating my own front porch with lights. There is shopping, parties, church services, special projects, and presents in need of wrapping. There is much to delight and inspire be it the gentle flicker of the advent candles as week by week we count down the days to Christmas or the simple pleasure of a mug of hot chocolate at a favorite café as I watch the crowds go by.

All the bustle of Christmas makes finding time to blog more challenging. I haven’t forgotten you, and I hope you are enjoying all the excitement of the season. Have fun, and I’ll check in with you again soon!

Shoe Boxes and Bird Feeder

Each year my church participates in Operation Christmas Child. This program sends shoe boxes of toys, school supplies, and other gifts to children around the world as an expression of the spirit of Christmas and the truth of the Gospel. Monday morning I took our boxes to the local collection point at Calvary in the Ozarks where an enthusiastic crew unloaded them for me. I filled out the paperwork. A friend who coordinates the pick-up told me about her plans to go to Peru soon to do Vacation Bible School during their summer. Talk about reaching out to the world from our little corner North of the Tunnel!

Back in October my mom got a bird feeder as a birthday present. My sister dropped by a week or so later and asked if she had decided where to put it. With that motivation, Margo and I undertook the project. It took us a few weeks as we gathered all the things we would need.

I found a length of old pipe out behind a shed that was threaded on one end. We discussed its merits and short comings and decided it would do. Then I measured it and paid a visit to the hardware store. I found pieces that would work and carried them home. I took the tee fitting out to check that it would work, and it just slipped over the pipe with room to spare. I had measured the outside of the pipe rather than the inside diameter. So back I went. This time I found even better fittings. Soon I had all the parts assembled. When my sister came last Saturday we got out the tools and worked away until we finished the job. We were proud of ourselves, and the birds seem to like it too.

What adventures are you having this November?

Election Day

President Abraham Lincoln said in his well-loved Gettysburg Address, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” No where is that equality more evident than in the polling place on Election Day. Each and every citizen, provided they meet the basic requirements, is entitled to cast a ballot if he or she chooses. No one will force you to vote; no one can compel you to vote one way or another. Much blood, much sweat, and many tears have been shed over enlarging and protecting this right of the citizenry of this nation to cast a free and secret ballet.

You may choose to be a well informed voter or not. You may vote a straight ticket or vote for as many different party candidates as there are represented on this year’s ballot. You may be satisfied with the range of choices you are offered or you may fervently wish that you had a better “choice.” It makes no difference to your right to vote this November Tuesday. Provided you are a registered voter, your only limitation is whether or not you want to exercise the equality of the ballot box.

If you do, you may even get a nifty little “I Voted” sticker. I did.

Just a few upcoming events:

November 6 and 7, Washington County Fair Grounds

Northwest Arkansas Fantasy Faire

November 6, 7 p.m., East Square Plaza, Fayetteville

Unzipped Fashion Show, benefit for Seven Hills Shelter's programs for Veterans.

November 6, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Little Flock Fire Station

Fire In The Flock Chili Cook-Off & Silent Auction