Roadtrippin'

32°f, 0°C, windy and flurries. Cold and cloudy until early evening, when the sun finally broke through.

Photos from a few road trips in the past week or two.

Middleport, Ohio, is a dying small town on the Ohio River. With no major highway through the area, there is little growth or opportunity,  and most storefronts are empty.

I told stories several times in this lovely "opera house", as these old performance theaters were called.

At 9am in the morning, the town looks deserted, when it should have been busy with traffic.

A barge pushes an unidentifiable load downriver.

This gorgeous bridge was built about 20 years ago, and there was great hope that it would somehow bring economic growth to Middle port and its sister town across the river, Mason, WV. Mason saw modest development with  a Walmart and small strip mall, and Pomeroy, Ohio, just 1.5 miles uprivee from Middle port also saw a small bump, although frequent flooding of the downtown of Pomeroy hampers any riverfront development.

More of Middleport:

Seen in a window in town:

On the road in Mason County, WV:

Flood marker

Larry laid brick in huge ovens in this metallurgical steel plant back in the 90's. Back then it was owned by a Russian company, but I don't know who owns it now. Larry said communication was a problem, as the bricklayers didn't speak Russian and the Russians didn't speak hillbilly!

A "quilt trail" barn.

Big bend of the Ohio.

An old homestead, where Larry remembers the owner having a Model A in that garage. The car is no longer there. 

The Funny Farm, which used to be a camping and entertainment venue. I don't know if it's still in operation.

This old house probably had a porch on the right side, facing away from the road. I think the house was there long before the current highway.

I believe this may have once been the post office at Letart Falls, WV. There is little left of the community now,

although this stately home still sits proudly on its hill overlooking the river.

Another vanishing community, West Columbia, still has the remains of a coal tipple, where coal from a local, now-defunct mine was processed. My friend and fellow storyteller Donna Wilson told me her father and uncle once worked in that mine.

In the distance, can you see the tall stacks of a power plant? A rare straight stretch of West Virginia road!

Enough for today! I will post a few more tomorrow.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Biscotti and Not Much Else

55°f, about 13°C this morning, quite a change from 21°f yesterday. Rain overnight but skies are clearing now.

I have been cleaning for the past two days. Dusting, mopping, sorting, changing wall art from winter to more Spring-like pieces, etc. It feels good to feeshen the place up. In my workroom, I cut down boxes, lots of boxes, and stacked them out of the way. I keep almost all boxes we get from our online buying; they will be used later for shipping ebay sales. I will continue cleaning today, as there is much more to be done. 

My biscotti came out pretty well. This recipe if for chocolate orange hazelnut biscotti. You make the dough, divide it and add melted chocolate to one half and orange zest to the other, then twist them together. Now, I have made this for the past 10 years, I think, and that twisting together thing does not work for me-- the biscotti just falls apart after baking into the chocolate half and the orange half. So I don't bother twisting them, I just bake each rope separately and end up with some chocolate and some orange and that suits me just fine.

Recipe:

The cookbook: as you can see, it's a favorite.

Other than that, not much to talk about! Larry changed the oil in the truck, yay. Of course it meant an extra trip to town because as usual the filter we bought was the wrong one. So he took it back and got the right one, dropping off a large bag of stuff to Goodwill while he was out. He has been repairing a stake-side child's wagon and has it ready to wax. He had to replace the wood bottom of the wagon, which was rotted out, and do some general tightening up. It looks pretty good now.

I spent a few hours pricing for the booths,  an ongoing job but a necessary one. I am finding stuff in the house that needs to go, like a couple lamps, and some small framed mirrors and art prints--things I thought I would use, or that I exchanged for other decor while cleaning. So far I have 4 full totes, and probably enough to fill another, ready to go. That should be enough for a couple weeks.

I did not watch the speech last night. Larry and I had agreed not to mention that man all day, a good break. I knew the speech would be full of lies, which apparently it was. I did have to laugh about his comment on the 2019 trade deal with Canada and Mexico, in which he excoriated the fool who signed it....himself. Seriously.

Reading: I started two books last week. One by Rita Mae Brown, which I thought I would try even though I have never liked her books. Two chapters in on The Hounds and the Fury and I just can't.  It's her animals having conversations that I can't tolerate. This book has so many characters and so much foxhunting jargon that I felt my mind go numb. I don't like foxhunting anyway, think it's a cruel "sport", so this book will go to my booth bookshelf.

I am having better luck with Jodi Picoult's The Book of Two Ways. It too, delves deep and immediately into subjects I know little about, archeology and Egyptology.  This, however, is interesting to me, so I will continue reading, I think. This author certainly has done her research.

---------------------------

Well, after starting this post I went on a tear and decided we need to finally paint the bedroom. We have been talking about it for, ummm, 2 years, and it desperately needs to be done. So, after all my cleaning, I am making one big mess taking everything off the walls, etc. But it will be nice to have clean, new paint.

I better get back to it. See you soon, friends.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Some Good Things

19°f, or -7°C, clear, but clouding up later in the day, with a high of 46°f expected. 

My last post was so angry and depressing that I felt the need to focus on a few good things, just to restore some balance to my soul as it seems more and more bad stuff is coming down the pike. We have to remind ourselves, don't we, that in the midst of this mess there are bright spots of joy. So in random order, here's some of what made me smile this weekend.

Yesterday (Sunday) we drove to Charleston to see a couple shows offered as part of the annual Celtic Calling festival. First was a fine concert by the group Mountain Thyme, who were joined by fiddler extraordinaire Jenny Allinder. This performance was held at a new music store in town called Folklore Music Exchange, and it was standing room only. It was good to be there, among people who shared our love of Celtic music, and to see a few people I had not seen since I quit performing. 

Loved the display of instruments, including a few that looked like they were made from suitcases or something.

The second event we attended was held at Second Story Brewing Company, and was advertised as a reader's theater of 5 one-act plays that were winners of the annual play-writing contest. I love plays do i was looking forward to this, but unfortunately the combination of loud customers and actors who didn't use the mics correctly meant we could hear only bits and pieces, and we left halfway through the 3rd play. Hopefully next year they will have a better venue, or find ways to address these issues.

We had a good time there, anyway. Larry sampled a flight of the brewery's offerings and I enjoyed a glass of wine while we talked, before the show, with a gentleman from Hawaii. He, amazingly, comes to Charleston every winter to care for his elderly parents, who are now 92 and 94 and still living on their own. Other siblings take their turns the rest of the year. 

A little gift to myself arrived Saturday. This is a Royal Albert teacup, decorated with the Canadian flag! So I will be drinking my tea from it and thinking of all of you in Canada as I cheer on your boycott of US goods.

Another bright spot: the forsythia i cut the other day for forcing opened its first blooms today.

Tbere is nothing like forsythia to bring a smile!

I chose to wear this tee shirt to Charleston. It makes me smile too. Do you know what it means?

Ending today with a short clip of the music yesterday.

Now, I must get my biscotti out of the oven! Yet another smile-inducer.

Til next time, friends!