Tag: summer fun

JoAnne swims another lake

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date September 3, 2011

Congratulations to my wife, JoAnne, on accomplishing another of her summer goals. She likes to swim across lakes. I bet not many people have that on their list of things to do before school starts. Yesterday she swam the length of Eaton Brook Reservoir; it took 47 minutes. That makes two lakes this summer. She uses flippers and varies her strokes. Since she exercises regularly, she also is careful to pace herself so that her heart rate stays in the training range. She is a natural swimmer, able to float easily, so she can use most of her energy to move forward. By contrast, I would have to use most of my energy to stay on top of the water. And I would probably last about 2 pool lengths without a big rest; beyond that it would soon be time for the rescue squad.

Thank you to Tom Bundle and his friend Marge for graciously hosting her swim at Tom’s beautiful cottage on Eaton Brook. We also used Tom’s bass boat to accompany JoAnne. That’s much easier for me. Usually I have to row or paddle there and back when she swims. Tom says she swims too fast to troll for walleye. He estimates the distance JoAnne swam as a “good mile.” Having an accompanying boat is essential for protection from other boats who do not expect a swimmer in open water. After we were all back at the cottage, Marge served a great wild blackberry pie to celebrate! Hmmmm!

Tags summer fun, swimming

Journal Joy Notes Who Am I

Daylily Summer Joys

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date August 26, 2011

Summer Joy

One of the true joys of summer for me is growing daylilies. They don’t require a lot of care and they reward me with many blooms, each one lasting only one day. When I spoke about that detail in my sermon one Sunday, I was surprised how few people realized it. I guess we are so used to mums and dahlias, orchids and even African violets whose flowers last for a week or even weeks that the idea of a flower lasting only one day seems strange. But as I mentioned that Sunday, the fact that the bouquet in my garden is different every day gives it an invigorating charm. I go out looking for the new blossoms every day that I can. The light patterns, the dew on the blossoms, critters hiding or not all add to the interest.

Collecting too

I have developed a little of a collectors mentality about it too with over 30 varieties now. I have some daylilies just because they are odd—one blooms at night, another that I just planted is unusually tall, another is a double named Yellow Submarine. Some are fragrant. Several are spider daylilies, which means they have narrow petals rather than usual fuller round ones. Some varieties have ruffled edges. Colors range from a very dark maroon – inherited from Grandma Isaman–to a white one I bought called Nanuq. I seem to prefer the orange and gold hues, though I have some striking red and yellow mixes now that will almost take your breath away. Except for the picture of me visiting Grace Gardens, all the daylilies in the slides are from my garden.

Grandma got me started

When I was a boy, my Grandma, Jessie Isaman would pay us boys for helping her pull the quack grass from her large flower garden. Her garden featured eight or ten different dayliles among the many other perennials and I grew to love their annual display. Grandma died the same year I became a pastor, and my Mom encouraged me to take a small division from most of her daylilies with me when I moved to my first parsonage in Bentley Creek, PA. I built a tiered daylily garden in the back and the daylily clumps grew well. When I moved to Kirkville, I took part of each clump, threw them in a crate and stuffed it in the tractor trailer with my household goods. Later that summer I unpacked the crate, planted the brown clumps and every one grew. So I have most of my Grandma’s daylilies as the beginning of my collection. One of them, Frans Hall, is still sold today. Another is a fragrant yellow that I think is as fragrant as any newer cultivar I have.

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Tags daylilies, gardening, joy, summer fun

Americana Journal

Stony Brook State Park

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date August 16, 2011

Once a year or so, JoAnne and I like to return to another place we remember from our youth, Stony Brook State Park. It contains a glass-clear stream that tumbles down an impressive glen. It is located between Arkport and Dansville, NY and it can also be easily reached by going over the hill from Haskinville. So my home church often held its annual Sunday School picnic there. This entrancing park was also the site of a very special double date when JoAnne and I were in college. Last week, JoAnne and I took a few hours off to visit it while we were visiting our parents. We discovered to our sadness that it is one of the state parks that have been partially shut down by the NY state budget crisis. What a loss to the Hornell-Dansville and eastern Alleghany County area. It is a little gem. I recently saw a copy of an antique postcard showing the Pittsburg, Shawmut and Northern Railroad Bridge that crossed the top of the glen years before I was born.

$It\'s a cold stream$

$they don\'t seem big enough$

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Tags Quiet spots, railfan, state parks, summer fun

Church Leadership Journal Joy Notes

Taking time to celebrate

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date July 23, 2011

When I was a young pastor, I didn’t understand the importance of celebration. I guess I must have ignored the fact that the OT has a regular schedule of feasts for the Israelites to be involved in. Maybe it came from the the everyday nature of dairy farming where I grew up. Maybe it was because celebration in our culture often has an unhealthy and unnecessary association with drinking alcohol. But over the years, I have discovered the importance of the Bible’s example of taking time to celebrate in wholesome ways.

So, for example, this last weekend at Community Wesleyan, we took time to celebrate. It was the Celebration Sunday of our 50th Anniversary Makeover Campaign. So we took time out to celebrate. We put up the tents outside, had chicken barbeque and brought in the watermelon and ice cream. It was a great picnic and it lent a air of festivity to our event that it would not otherwise have had. Everyone enjoyed themselves.

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Tags celebration, Church 50th Anniversary, summer fun

Americana Journal

Baseball Hall of Fame

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date July 21, 2011

Cooperstown visit

I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, but as is often the case, I’m having difficulty making a clean break. Worked today and yesterday, but Tuesday we took off for Cooperstown. I have always wanted to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown is a delightful old lakeside village with much in common with CNY and Fingerlakes gems like Cazenovia, Penn Yan, Watkins Glen, Hammondsport, Skaneateles and Geneva—classic architecture, restored houses, not too wide streets, quaint shops, flower beds and boxes, and places that just make you wonder what stories they could tell if they could only speak. It is also blessed with more places to eat – including good ice cream—than most towns its size.

Two sections

The Hall of Fame has two sections, the Hall of Fame itself with a formal plaque for each one recognized; and the museum part where the clothes, bats, lockers, etc. of all the inductees are displayed and where stories of famous players are told via posters, videos, print and displays. Of course everyone was drawn to the story of one of the most famous players of all time, Babe Ruth; but I found myself fascinated by a side story. The museum had a display that focused on the black leagues or “colored leagues” as they would have been called. I viewed that story and then took special note of early black players who were instrumental in breaking the color barrier in baseball; men like Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron. Their courage, patience, character and humility, were just as essential to their success as was the overwhelming athletic talent that propelled them to baseball greatness.

Another interesting section was the comparative stats area; it answered questions like who has the most hits; the best batting average, the most hits in a row, the most strikeouts, the most home runs, etc. I also enjoyed the room that told the story of the Cooperstown museum itself and also the movie theatre baseball theme presentation. Outside the building was a hand kept major league standings scoreboard up-to-date for that day. Baseball souvenir stores are abundant – a ball autographed by Hank Aaron – about $350 – I didn’t buy it.

I highly recommend it!

It took me about 3 hours to go through the Museum and Hall of Fame and I could have spent longer. I highly recommend it to any baseball fan.

I wore my Syracuse Chief’s hat and one person even noticed and mentioned that they had recently seen the Chiefs. Unfortunately, I haven’t been to a game yet this year but hope to attend soon. However, I follow them on the internet several times weekly to keep abreast of their season.

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Tags baseball, Cooperstown, summer fun

Journal Joy Notes

More strawberries

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date June 17, 2011

DSCF1915 (640x417) — The joys of lots of strawberries!

What a patch of strawberries! It’s been so long since I filled my homemade basket tray that I forgot when the last time was. This year I’ve had the joy of repeatedly filling it – we are up to 80 quarts at this point and I’m still picking strawberries. We’ve given away nearly half of them. That’s what many gardeners like to do. It helps even out the feast and famine nature of gardening. You give away some of your bumper crop, and someone else will likely give you some of their next bumper crop.

Tags gardening, strawberries, summer fun

Journal Joy Notes Who Am I

Strawberries: I’ve been waiting for this!

Post author By pastorkelvin
Post date June 12, 2011
1 Comment on Strawberries: I’ve been waiting for this!

As a hobby gardener, sometimes it is a while between good harvests of one particular crop. That’s the way it has been with me and strawberries. For several years I nursed an old patch hoping for a good harvest; only to be repeatedly disappointed. The old plants never seemed to put out runners like they should have. So two

DSCF1903 (2) cropped (640x479) — Lots of strawberries, at last!

years ago I planted an entirely new patch hoping that soon I could fill my strawberry tray with fresh strawberries. But waiting was still the name of the game. The first long year I was advised to snip off all the blossoms and just encourage the plants to get stronger. Then last year we did harvest some strawberries, but not enough to fill my tray. The meadow voles ate as many as I did! But the plants continued growing and I kept weeding the patch and I added a little manure for fertilizer too. The plants multiplied and filled in the patch completely.

A week ago Saturday, I brought a handful of ripe strawberries into the house and said to my wife, “I think we will be picking strawberries on Monday.” Little did I guess how many. My small patch overflowed with berries; six quarts on Monday, 24 quarts on Thursday, and 21 more quarts on Saturday! Lots of strawberry shortcake, strawberry jam, strawberries for the freezer, and hopefully a strawberry rhubarb pie too! And lots of strawberries to give away to friends—another favorite thing gardeners like my wife and I like to do.

Just call it a banner week for a hobby gardener—a strawberry banner that is!

Tags gardening, harvest, strawberries, summer fun

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