respublica

A visit from the grandsons and their parents and dog

Friday evening the Bailey's rolled into town and we've been going every since.

Right out of the car Ferdie and Sidney greeted each other. Checked each other out.

The next morning we all went to youngest grandson, Nick's, soccer game. Cousins reunited

Later that day (Saturday) Katie and I took Jake and Drew to Soulard Market

And a trip to the Demun Candy store across the street from the seminary

They then spent the night over at Lizzie and Darren's for a sleep over.

Honestly, taking photos vertically just does not translate onto websites.

Today (Sunday we were all at the Lutheran Church of Webster Gardens.

Servant event

Yesterday the seminary had its annual servant event in which the new students are taken to various community gardens and a couple of St. Louis city churches to do clean up. So many neighborhood gardens begin with good intentions but by mid-summer they have been ignored and terribly overgrown which becomes eyesores. It was hot of course, but our people worked hard without complaint and made some good progress.

The students have a group photo taken before getting on buses and off to their assigned place. Dale and I worked the garden at the corner of Tamm and Manchester, the Dogtown Community Garden. This is fairly big and borders on a public sidewalk and you can tell this is well loved by all the little garden statues and other things. But it was a nightmare of over-growth.

There are always a lot of people taking pictures at the start. You can click the pictures to make them larger.

The new class of first years' lined up for the photo, but had to wait for Dale who was late.. Shocker. The new students wore yellow, veteran students as team leaders and faculty/staff wore green.

Yes, it was supposed to be 9:00.

Ferdie got himself in the picture as always

Then ten groups onto ten buses and off to the assigned areas around St. Louis.

Dogtown Community garden

Can't even see the actual plantings in a lot of this area.

There were way too many sunflowers in my opinion. They're cool flowers but they should be in a stand alone place because weeds grow under them and the seeds will sprout even more next year. We made some headway and worked there from about 9:30 til almost 1. It was very sweaty and dirty work but a lot of weeds and vines were taken out, paths suddenly appeared and it was much better. More needs doing, but that should now be up to all those who have garden plots in there.

Here is what we do each night before dinner

We head over to the Academic Quad with Ferdie and clean the pond filters. One filter means actually getting into the water, pulling out the pump to clear debris off the bottom intake hole. the other three pumps and filters can be cleared from above the water by pulling them up and out. It's amazing how much gunk slows down the flow each day.

Lizzie happened to be on campus last night and decided to document this. Ferdie always sits and watches.

A warning over what should be obvious

Suburban police in Chicago have begun warning residents in their towns about the danger of leaving their cars unlocked and their key fobs inside the cars. One police chief said, " On any given night, I can head out to Oak Brook, Hinsdale, or go up to Lake Fores and drive off with an unlocked Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes or, if I'm lucky, a Maserati."

These are all upscale suburbs where you'd assume the people who live there have some smarts, but it seems they do not. They not only leave their cars unlocked, but they leave the key fob in it. Key fobs are the most recent type of key for cars these days. We have one that came with Dale's car. It doesn't have to be put into a slot on the steering column, in fact there is no slot. You can put it just about anywhere in the car and by pushing a button on the dash, the car starts. One friend of ours told Dale when he got this car, "just leave it in your pocket so you won't be tempted to forget it in the car."

St. Louis has its own issues with car thefts and the local Clayton police often put out notices on Facebook and neighborhood internet pages about car thefts which occurred because the owner left the car open and the key in the cup holder. Again this is an area where you'd think people were smarter than this.

This from a member of a former auto theft task force about the sense of entitlement coming from many whose whose cars were stolen: "People just don’t accept responsibility today. They ask, ‘Why are there not more police around?’ When the real question is, ‘Why didn’t you take your keys with you and not leave them in an unlocked car?"

One terrible story headline

The Riverfront Times posted a story today with the headline: "Where to get Drunk in St. Louis if you're Broke"

Quite honestly I did not click on or read this story because it's mostly click bait, but with a terrible idea for encouraging someone to get drunk.

"Want to wet your whistle but have more thirst than money? Here are our ten go-to spots for when we're getting blasted on a budget."

100 years of Kruta Bakery

The history of Kruta Bakery has been written up in many news reports the past week, 100 years in the same family. The best part is, the bakery goods are the best of any bakery. Oh, I know lots of St. Louis food writers get taken in by fancy stuff piled on top of donuts or danishes, but it's still the taste that matters and Kruta's beats them hands down.

Yesterday the family put on a birthday party for the community at their bakery. Several streets were partially closed, a band was brought in, and local restaurants were there passing out samples of their food. The crowd was huge and filled the area well before the official start time of noon. The number of people who came are a testament to how well loved that bakery is.

This is what it looked like when we walked up at 11:55 thinking we'd be early.

About half an hour in, a sudden downpour got everyone running for whatever cover they could find. But no one left and the rain lasted about ten minutes.

There were familiar faces and not so familiar, but all had a great time.

The food lines were long, but no one was bothered by this, the food was free.

Jim and Mary Kruta were everywhere, greeting and making sure things went smoothly.

At some point there were greetings brought from local, state and federal officials. All had proclamations in hand.

Mayor Miller

State rep, Jay Hoffman with two women state reps whose names and positions I have to look up.

The greetings by officials concluded with a prayer by Good Shepherd pastor, Michael Walther. Then it was on to more eating, visiting and listening to the band.

Cucuzzas!

The Cucuzza plants we planted early this summer behind our garage in Collinsville have gone crazy. They grew so big and so tall and so bushy they practically took over the back side of our yard. And, we did get some of the Cucuzza squashes although it appears as though many many of them were taken by squirrels and at least one raccoon. But that's ok, we plant these for looks. Cucuzzas are found most often in Italy where people eat them like we do zucchini. They can grow as long as baseball bats and can be dried and used as gourds. 

I put out two plants, this one traveled over to the fence behind the garage. You can see more squashes coming by the stem with small flowers. 

I picked these today, not pretty because I didn't get to them soon enough. But it's enough to see what they look like.

A trip through Pompeii

Last night the seminary faculty had a pre-school year gathering at the Science Center to walk through the Pompeii exhibition. Everything shown was from the city of Pompeii which ceased to exist after a volcano completely covered it. All the artifacts which were uncovered through the years were real and there were even animals and bodies of actual people who died there. The bodies of people had been so covered in soil and volcanic ash that they were preserved as if in a mold. Having those former living beings on exhibit bothered me no little bit. I couldn't bring myself to photograph them, it seemed wrong. I did take a picture of a dog who died in what looks like some agony.

The 'things' shown were in perfect condition and actually highly sophisticated and could be in use today.

Here is Dale standing next to what was a main street in Pompeii

In front of the city view was a sophisticated hydraulic valve system used by the Romans to adjust water flow and part of a complex plumbing system below the streets of Pompeii.

Pots and pans very similar to what ours look like today, even a strainer.

Fishing tools

Weights and measures

Theater masks

The dog. All that's left of his collar are the bronze studs.

After walking through the all of the artifacts and former human beings, there was a five minute movie about how being in Pompeii the day of the volcano would have looked and felt.

The Inverted Yield

The bond market must have fallen big time yesterday and the term 'inverted yield' is all over the news. What the heck is it? I have no idea because the entire financial world is a mystery to me. But a business editor named Heidi Moore has laid it all out. All being what the stock market means and how much more important the bond market is to investors. And thus the worry over yesterday's news.

Here is a sample but you need to click the link to read the whole thing:

So first the context: Why the bond market tells you more about the economy than the stock market. We all hear about the stock market every day. The S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average. What is the stock market? Think of it as a literary device.

The stock market is a way that people tell short stories about companies. So for instance: When a stock is up, people are telling positive stories about that company. When a stock is down, people are talking smack about that company.

When the "stock market" is up: Well frankly that is meaningless. No one knows why it goes up or what it means. When it goes down, yes everyone is cranky. But we still don't know why. It could be literally anything. It's never ONE thing.

So the stock market is actually a tiny fish. The big fish is the BOND market. TRILLIONS of dollars. What are bonds? They are how companies and governments borrow money. Every bond is a contract that says "we'll pay you back with this interest on this date."

Bonds ALSO tell a story about a company or a government. But it's a BETTER story, a novel rather than a short story. That's because selling stock is pretty casual but borrowing money requires a lot of proof and documentation. Bond investors are SKEPTICAL.

There's more to read and maybe very worth the time.

Better than a tie

A couple of ladders hit local highways yesterday afternoon one on EB 70 at Lindbergh and the other on WB 64 at Chesterfield bridge.

Ladders 74

Mattresses 72

Tearing it up and starting over

Today I plan to get into our vegetable garden and remove most of the stuff which has been destroyed by squirrels. I'll keep the tomato plants which have never turned red because the squirrels grab the green ones. But I still have hope. But the poor cantalope and watermelon vines which began with such hope have never had a chance to produce a mature fruit. The squirrels bit the small ones right off the vines. They also took care of the squashes and pumpkin plants. They would eat the flowers. For some reason they are also eating the flowers off of the jalapeno plants.

After I remove the remnants I plant clear the soil and then plant seed of in ground cold weather vegetables like radishes and beets and green onions. They grow under ground. We'll see.

It's been a ton of physical work for nothing this year.

Wettest year ever?

Weather guy at KSDK, Chester Lampkin, wrote this morning that St. Louis is on pace for the wettest year on record. "No year has recorded more rain through August 14th than 2019."

I believe it and that includes the snow we had this winter which seemed to come constantly.

A tale of two sisters doing London and France

In January of 2018, the two daughters of our landscape director, Gayle, headed for Ireland and wrote very entertaining blog posts on their experiences. Now a year and a half later they are at it again, this time relating their trip to London and Paris. These two have the gift of gab and travel writing- Witty and informative. If you want a joyful read, take a look at A Tale of Two Gingers.  To get the most out of their trip you should scroll down to where they began and work up. Their first post this time is titled, "I see London, I see France".

This is August

It's not supposed to rain in August and especially not as much rain as its been dropping. The grass should be dry and browning, but, no, it's green and growing.

An unexpected mishap

This weekend Dale preached for a church's anniversary in northern Kansas. This church was in a rural area by itself, there was no town nearby. All the roads leading to it were gravel which meant the parking lot looked like every vehicle was white. When he left Sunday afternoon he was headed for my sister's in St. Joseph, Missouri a couple hours east. He decided to take a slightly different route back than when he went to that church because he thought it was a quicker way to whatever highway he needed to get to. Some miles down a gravel road he came across a sign which read, "Gravel road Ends". And he suddenly found himself on a dirt road, but kept going until he discovered the dirt had turned to mud. His car got deep into the mud and he was swerving and sliding until he was sure he was going to go into the ditch.

The problem here was, cell service was pretty slim to non-existent out there. If he went into the ditch he had no idea how he's get out with no way to call for help or even if he could call. Somehow he was able to stop the car, got out and found his tires covered with mud and the wheel wells were several inches deep in mud. He had to keep going, and got out of there, I haven't heard exactly how. When he got to a small town he found a self serve car wash and got the mud out of the wheel wells and off the tires.

This was one of the first times I've ever heard him say he'd been really scared. He is one of those who takes pictures with the phone held vertically which do not flip correctly when posting on websites. So, this is all I can do to show the photos he sent.

When I saw the tire photo he sent I thought at first his tire was shredded, but no, it was mud. When he called from my sister's I asked him if his GPS had sent him to that dirt road and he said, no. It had recommended a different way but he thought his way might have been quicker.  GPS almost always knows. Lesson learned.

Mattress unexpected

Here is a new mattress story which does not take place on a highway. "Someone threw a mattress out of a high rise window in Chicago's West Loop, nearly hitting a person on the street Sunday night."  It landed on a sidewalk barely missing a man walking past the building. He called the police who are now trying to figure out who did this.

Those mattresses, I'm telling you. You just never know where they'll show up. But my question is, how do you open a high rise window wide enough to shove a mattress out. Usually they are not meant to be opened for good reason. Also, what got spilled on that mattress which was bad enough to make a person want to get rid of it immediately.

I hope there will be a follow up on this story.

With crystal, it's all science

The past day or two it's been all about a learning curve trying to figure out the science involved in taking photos with a crystal ball. It really is a science-light, refraction, inverted images etc. So far I've had many more bad pictures as good ones. But I do like the good ones even if it is hard to explain what's going on.

It is written that the best times for taking these pictures, as with normal pictures is early morning or just at sunset and a bit beyond. The light should be behind you lending a softness that does not overpower the photo. So last night I went out sometime before sunset. I figured on this campus with all the trees and buildings blocking light, it would be better. This morning I went out again just at sunrise.

I rather liked this inverted image of Luther statue in the globe.

The base of Luther Tower

And the old bell

This morning was a different area

Sieck Hall in the background along Founders Lane

Chapel

 

It's a crystal ball

When my sister came over to St. Louis for a short visit this week, she brought me a Crystal Ball. This ball is not for fortune telling but for photography. It seems this way to take photos is gaining in interest by real photographers. So, I've tried it out a few times to get accustomed to the unique way this sort of thing changes the way you see things. For one thing, either the background or the image in the ball will be upside down. Or, the main image in the ball is clear and the background is blurred. Or for art's sake. It's kind of fun, but it takes some care to make sure the ball doesn't fall and crack or get too hot from the sun which will make it explode or get fingerprints on it.

We attempted a few the first day and then I went out this morning to try it again. I now have some idea of what I'm wanting to do, but it will take practice and this campus is perfect for that. None of what I'm posting are great, but it's just an early example of crystal ball photography.

This is a lily behind our back fence

These above are at the main fountain pond

Then this morning's attempts

 

 

Sandblasting

I guess what you'd call what has been happening on our street this week is sandblasting. Workers arrived with multiple ladders and saws and blowers in order to take out old grout in the brick work of a couple houses and then tuck point and then wash it all down. The ladders on the house across the street were like a ballet. It was hard, dirty work for the men doing this on a fairly hot day.

I watched one of the guys who came down from his ladder pick up a leaf blower blower the dust off of himself head to toe.

A field of Cleome

Our side yard is filled with Celome flowers right now. They are commonly known as spider flowers or spider plants. They will drop their seeds at some point and the seeds will be next years blooms. We've never seen so many and so beautiful as this year's edition.