Rambling Words

Does anyone else see the resemblance? (Click picture for better view)

"Do not write me studied letters but ramble as you please." ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, March 14, 1816, to his granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph. The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson

I am going to do a rambling post. Perhaps a list would be good. Just everyday happenings to catch up. Here goes!

• I have been in contact with Nyssa, the rambling gnome above. Her summer has been jam packed already with the Geology trip to Hawaii and Physics in summer school session. The picture on the left is on her return from the camping trip. Now she is in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi on a three week service trip.
• The hardest hit areas were Waveland and Bay St. Louis along with Pass Christian. New Orleans has gotten most of the media attention. Nyssa says some places look just like they did last September. The spirit of the people of the coast is not squelched.
• What has she been doing, this not very handy person? Two ditches to bury air conditioning cables, she dug them. She learned to drive a fork lift. Used that skill to load and stack plywood in a storehouse. Then each day, as the job needs, it is loaded onto trucks and sent to the sites. She helped move a shed to a property and get it off the truck. She has been helping install sheetrock and plaster. And odds and ends around the volunteer bunkhouse facilities.
  
• Is is all work? No, the churches of the area hold get-togethers on the beach at night and the community put together a big Cajun shrimp boil with Cajun roasted corn-on-the-cob, for all the volunteers. She says another large church group is expected this week. Oh yes, and she managed to con someone into peeling her shrimp for her just like I did when she was a baby. (Yes, this child liked cold boiled shrimp when she was a year old.)
  
• In general, the organization of churches in the area is working to build homes where they were lost and bring hope.
• She is going to spend tonight with the mom of her best friend Margaret, in Pass Christian. Margaret's parents lost both homes. Now, Miss Becky has bought another home and when the fight with the insurance company is over, she will build a rental beach home at the previous site. Margaret's dad is uncertain now. He will probably get a teaching job in Jackson and move. Her sister applied to Mississippi School for Math and Science since her high school was destroyed. She was accepted and so will be in Columbus for the next two years.

In other ramblings:

• I have crops!!!!! This is from someone who has never had a crop before! I have cherry tomatoes, two big tomatoes (ripe) and cucumbers. I had a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich for supper! YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!
• We have new occupants in our plastic makeshift robin nest..... more later.
• The pumpkin vines are taking over the neighborhood. (I haven't posted about this yet.)
  
• It is in the 70's with low humidity.... I am going to walk around outside for a few minutes to enjoy it. This weather will likely be going away tomorrow.
• Two more weeks until I go to New York for two weeks. Apartment and cat sitting. We have tickets to see Wicked and The Producers. Anything else was just too expensive.

That is all I can think of now. The flowerbeds call and Max is hungry. Nyssa is supposed to send pictures of the forklift. Somehow I can't picture her driving one, at least successfully. Wonder how many mail boxes she took out in learning how to drive it?

(end of post)