All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
Food, The Baboon Congress

The First Tomato

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

My first tomato of the season! It’s small – a variety of grape tomato known as the Santa.  I noticed it starting to turn a couple of days ago and was hoping some critter didn’t get to it before it was perfectly red and ready.  There it was last night when I got home; it didn’t even make it into the house before I had popped it in my mouth. I try not to say “OMG” too much but OMG!

I’ve always loved tomatoes. I love big fat tomato slices on open-faced cheese sandwiches. I love little tiny tomatoes in pasta salad.  Chunks of tomato with orzo and basil.  Salsa with tomatillos.  Spaghetti w/ tomatoes, olive oil and spinach. Bruschetta with diced tomatoes and garlic.  Hardly a way you can make something with tomatoes that I don’t like.

FirstTomato2

For many years I tried, unsuccessfully, to grow my own. The garden plot was decimated by dogs; the “hanging” contraption was too heavy and kept falling over.  Plants just never grew in big pots.  It was so demoralizing that for many years, I didn’t even try.  Then, thanks to someone mentioning it on the Trail, I read Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook, an exposé on the tomato industry.  It was horrifying and I came away from the book with a new determination to grow my own tomatoes.  It was this determination that led me to straw bale gardening – finally a way to have my own home-grown tomatoes.

I know I’m probably not saving any money by growing my own (cost of bales, cost of water, cost of seedlings, etc.) but I do love picking a tomato, taking in the house and eating it for dinner. There is nothing like it in my book!

What summer produce can you hardly wait for?

Science, The Baboon Congress

Team of Eight

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

I’m one of those folks who can’t quite get over the fact that Pluto has been demoted from planet to dwarf planet. I’m not a complete fanatic; I haven’t cried over it and I haven’t written any poison pen letters to Neil deGrasse Tyson whose Hayden Planetarium was the first to build an exhibit with the Pluto demotion for all the world to see. Although to be completely honest, I DO own a t-shirt that says “Pluto. Revolve in Peace. 1930-2006.”

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I was not thinking about Pluto this morning until I went to the post office to replenish my postage stamp stock. They know me pretty well there and know that I’m always looking for new and fun stamps. When I said I needed stamps today, the clerk said, “Oh I have some new ones to show you.” and pulled out some national park stamps and also a sheet of stamps with the eight planets. They’ve very pretty but I couldn’t resist a “poor Pluto” comment.

EightPlanets2The clerk laughed and said “Wait, you’ll appreciate this” as he disappeared into the back. A minute later he returned with a four-stamp sheet with Pluto and the New Horizons spacecraft (the one that did the close flyby of Pluto recently). At this point I was laughing as well, knowing that I am clearly not the only one out there who is still mourning the loss of Pluto from our team of nine. Of course I had to buy a sheet of those as well. I’m not a stamp collector or saver but I might have to make an exception for the Pluto stamp!

What can’t you just let go of?

The Baboon Congress

Castle Danger

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Today’s post is by Verily Sherrilee

When Chris from Owatonna announced on the Trail a couple of months ago that he had published his novel, I was thrilled – as a member of our blog community and as a reader. I couldn’t wait to get a copy and when Chris mentioned he was having a kick-off signing I asked for the afternoon off right away.  tim and I  both went down for the occasion.

It was a perfect day for a drive down to Perfect Day Cakes where Chris’ signing was held. The bakery was all set up, including a delicious-looking array of cupcakes and fancy doughnuts.  Chris signed several books and then spoke a bit about how he got to today.

During fundraising for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, an organization he has volunteered with for many years, Chris used to write long letters describing his own experience and the progress of his Little Brother.

Danger4Many of the recipients of those letters commented on his writing ability and eventually several folks encouraged him to write a book. While he was writing he was also researching the independent publishing industry which has evolved greatly over the past decade. Now that he is published, he hasn’t forgotten how he got his inspiration.  For every book that he sells, $1 goes to Big Brothers/Big Sisters; after he re-coups his hard costs, then he’ll raise that to $2 per book.

Castle Danger is a thriller with mystery, suspense and romance set in northern Minnesota during the height of blizzard season.  Chris is thinking about re-visiting an earlier unpublished book that will be a pre-quel and then maybe a sequel to Castle Danger as well.  Eventually he’d like to spread his wings a bit more and try some tween fiction as well.

I can’t wait to finish this blog piece so I can start reading my personal signed copy!

What author would you like to meet and get an autograph from?

 

Baboon Blog Redux, The Baboon Congress

Baboon Redux: Zorie Story

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Today’s re-post comes from Verily Sherrilee

A 2016 note from the author:  My company is doing its usual “Summer of Love”.  The dress code is relaxed and flip flops will be an acceptable footwear for the next three months.  I don’t really have anything new to say about my massive flip flop collection, but if you’re looking for things to re-run for the holiday weekend, we could re-run my flip flop bit from a  couple of years ago.

My father’s sister, Joan, spent a couple of years in Japan, teaching English. I was four when she came home, bearing exotic gifts. One of these treasures was a small black enamel chest of drawers; since it wasn’t to my parents’ taste, I lucked out. For reasons that I’ll never understand, it was always referred to as “the Chinese chest”. I still have it; it lives in my dining room and now I’ve raised another generation to name it incorrectly.

The most enduring gift, however, were the zories; she brought 2 pairs for me and 2 pairs for my sister. I had never had anything like them and nobody else I knew had them either – not the older, traditional Japanese style with tatami soles on wooden platforms, but plastic zories. White. If my mom had let me, I would have worn them everywhere.

My parents were ecstatic because they discovered a perfect gift for me for any occasion. Zories weren’t popular foot ware when I was growing up, but they did manage to find zories in places like Ben Franklin and Woolworth’s. I didn’t know anyone else who wore zories; in fact, I was in college before I knew that everyone else in America called them flip flops!

The last 15 years have been zorie-heaven for me. These days you can get zories in any color, any design and they are CHEAP. I have an Old Navy account so that every year I am eligible for their $1 flip flop sale. I have white zories, blue zories, purple, yellow, coral. I have fourth of July zories, Halloween zories, Christmas zories, flowers, stripes. Four years ago my company started a super-casual summer program – the dress code is pretty much thrown out. This means I can wear my zories to work every day in the summer.

As the Old Navy sale was approaching this year, I thought I would do an inventory of my zories to see what colors I could add to my collection. I pulled them all out of the closet, paired them all up and laid them all out, beginning with the white and finishing up with the black.

Then I made my fatal error; I counted them. THIRTY-EIGHT!!! I own 38 pairs of zories. 38! I didn’t go to the sale this year.

I may not go next year either.

What do you have too many of?

 

The Baboon Congress, The Future, Travel

Road Trip!

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

I’ve been thinking this about California becoming the first state to legalize self-driving cars.

I was thrilled to hear this when it was first in the news, although careful attention revealed that it’s just the testing of the cars that became legal.  We still have a way to go before self-driving cars will be chauffeuring our kids to their ballet lessons and baseball games without us.

Where roadways are concerned, I am the most directionally-challenged person I know.  A friend of mine loves to tell the tale of the time I got lost in a church parking lot.  In my defense it was dark when we came out from the concert and the parking lot had quite a bit of one-way directional signage.  It’s always been this way for me, but the advent of MapBlast and GoogleMaps seems to have made it worse the last few years, as if having the printed paper in my hand somehow eggs on the traffic/street sign gods.

I keep a 3-ring binder in my breakfast room with printed directions to most of the places in my life. I grab the sheets out of the binder when I need them and put them back at the end of the trip.  Some of these directions are not used anymore; I have finally memorized how to get to the Teenager’s pediatrician and it got too dangerous for my pocketbook (& my waistline) to go to St. Agnes Bakery once a month.  Some of them were used once and have never been used again, like the gym in Big Lake where there was a gymnastics meet 3 years ago.   I’ve added quite a few pages in the last couple of years:  BiR, BiB, tim, Jacque & Lew, Steve, Caroline.   Many of the sheets have been spindled and mutilated from repeated trips in the car; some of them have coffee stains.   I even added alphabet tabs to the binder last year to make it easier to find the directions I want.

I expect that I’ll have this disability the rest of my life. I just hope that self-driving cars will come with GPS!

Where do you want your self-driving car to take you?

 

The Baboon Congress

Derby Day!

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

One of the bylaws at my workplace is that it be a fun place to work. Every summer we have a splendid program called “Summer of Love” with some afternoons off, food trucks out on the lawn, bands and a relaxed dress code.  We even have a party room in Building 2!   The rest of the year is sprinkled with other fun events and this week we celebrated the Kentucky Derby.

DerbyDay1To get ready for the event, my department decided that we wanted to make Derby Day hats for the celebration. Instead of our regular department meeting, we gathered in one of the rooms here with our hats, silk flowers, ribbons, toile and glue guns.  An hour later, we were transformed from everyday worker bees to queens (and kings) of the hive.

The party room was set up with a photo both, bean bag toss, beer pong and ping pong. We had mint juleps (a little strong – I could hardly get through just one), finger sandwiches and little pecan pie tartlets.  There was also a fun set-up for “betting” on the Derby horses.  The top ten forerunners each had a sheet with their picture, their stats, their jockey, etc.  Then they each had a big glass vase; there was one glass vase for all the long shots together as well.

DebryDay3 As we entered the party room, we each received two tickets to bet on our choice.  I bet one of my tickets on the long shots and my second on Destin, a three-year old gray born in Kentucky.  His jockey is Javier Castellano.  I chose him because I follow a science-blog done by a guy named Destin. If there had been a woman jockey I would have chosen her or if there had been a really interesting jockey name, I could have dumped a ticket in that vase.  So even though I was adorned like I was ready for a day at the races, I still placed my bet based on the name of a science jock.

How do you pick `em?

The Baboon Congress, Travel

The Day of the Wild Dogs

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

The safari experience in South Africa is amazing. At most camps there are two “runs” a day, one right at dawn and one as night falls. They pile you into large stadium seating jeeps and head off into the bush, complete with blankets and sometimes hot bricks for your feet. The drivers and guides know a tremendous amount about the animals in each of their reserves, including where the “cut line” is – the seemingly invisible boundary of each park.  They constantly radio back and forth with other jeep drivers about what animals they’ve seen and where they are.  It’s quite a ride.

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On the last day of my trip back in 2007, the client wasn’t feeling well and decided she didn’t want to get up for the last run before we had to pack up and head back to Johannesburg. That left just me and the program Account Executive on the jeep. As we were heading out, our driver Million said that he had heard some chatter the day before from another reserve just to the north of our reserve that they had seen wild dogs. Solee Wild dogs hadn’t been seen for a couple of months on “our side” of the cut line but did we want to take a chance?  Million was very clear that #1, we’d have to hightail it up to the cut line in order to make it back in time for breakfast and #2, we absolutely could not cross the cut line so if the wild dogs were in the next park then we’d be out of luck. Account Exec and I both agreed we should go for it.

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Luck was with us. We actually saw some animals on the way and then the whole pack of wild dogs was on our side of the cut line. As this wasn’t enough luck, the pack had quite a few pups. Million parked the jeep about 20 feet away and we sat still and quiet for over an hour, watching the dogs come and go from the clearing.  Some of the pups were very curious and advanced pretty closely on the jeep. All of my pictures were taken without a view finder as I’d dropped the camera the night before and damaged it; I just kept holding it out and clicking away.  My luck continued to hold as I managed to get several fairly decent shots that morning.

We practically flew back to the lodge and tried SO hard not to gloat to the client about our morning’s experience. I don’t know how successful we were.

When has luck been on your side?

The Baboon Congress, The Future, Travel

Show Me the Money

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

(Part 2 in a Baboon Fantasy Series)

I’ve heard many people say “I know money doesn’t buy happiness but I’d like to be part of the test group.” Everyone can point to lots of examples of money being the root of all evil but still think they could handle extreme wealth better than others.

In my fantasy dog-free world, I do not want to win a billion-dollar lottery and have to hire an entourage the first week. Give me just enough cash so that I can #1: not have to work, #2: travel to an exotic place at last once a year and #3: write some nice-sized checks to a variety of my favorite causes.

I love my job but if I didn’t have to sit in a cube and arrange things for others, I don’t think I would miss it. Having no job would give me more time for gardening, reading, volunteering and maybe my house might get clean.  I already volunteer at a few places, but I’d love to volunteer at the library and maybe an animal shelter.

Although I’ve traveled quite a bit and been to some fun and exotic places, it’s always been on the client’s agenda; I’d love to do my own thing and take Young Adult along with me sometimes. Australian Outback, Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Alaska, Rio de Janiero, Prague…. this could go on for a bit.

One of the reasons that I volunteer a lot is that I don’t have much cash to spread around to some of my favorite causes. But I know that in addition to volunteers, organizations need money to keep them going. I’d like to be able to write a nice check each year to both of our zoos, Planned Parenthood, Feed My Starving Children, UNICEF, Haiti Mission, malaria prevention, Cantus, my daughter’s education.

I could probably add on to all these lists easily but I don’t want so much money that I have to spend a boatload of time managing it and I certainly don’t want to have to hire someone to manage it. So add a bit more for some meals out and a bit for my stamps/glitter/ribbon and I should be good to go!

What would you use a little extra cash for?

The Baboon Congress

Well, I’ll be Dog-Gone

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

(Part 1 in a Baboon Fantasy Series)

At Blevins Book Club yesterday, tim said if I couldn’t think of anything interesting in my life to write about, I could just make up an interesting life. So here goes.

First and foremost I would like to be dog-free. Not dog-free as in “I never want to see another dog on the planet” but as in “I don’t want to be responsible for a dog in the house”. I adore dogs; I always have. My first dog was a mutt named “Mister” that my family acquired when I was four years old. Unfortunately when I was five we moved to an apartment and Mister moved to another family. When I was six and we were back in a house, Princess the Wonder Dog joined our family. (She wasn’t actually a wonder dog until after her death, when my father’s stories of her exploits became increasingly more epic.)

CIMG2525I talked my family into an Irish Setter in junior high and I’ve had Irish Setters ever since then. I even traveled to California once to get “Tristan” after searching over hill and dale for an Irish Setter locally! My current Irish Setter is 11 and my plan was to not get another dog after she was gone. I have friends in lots of places and I’d like the freedom to be able to visit more often.  I’m not joyfully anticipating her demise, just looking forward to a time when the house is quieter and cleaner.

59Of course, this plan has taken a detour with the arrival of Young Adult’s puppy last year, so now my “plan” seems more like a fantasy. In my fantasy world, I’d wake up hearing the birds singing out the windows, not the barking of a dog that sees another dog out the window. I’d be able to walk to the bathroom without having to avoid stepping on dog toys.  I’d go down the stairs without reminding any four-legged beasts that “I got first” so they don’t barrel into the back of me.

I could let the pizza delivery guy onto the front porch without fear of them jumping all over him. I set out a muffin on the kitchen counter, leave the room and have the muffin still sitting there when I return.  I wouldn’t have big muddy paw prints all over the place when it rains.

Since Young Adult (and her dog, Krakatoa 2) will most likely be living at home a few more years while she finishes school, I don’t see my dog-gone fantasy coming to pass any time soon. But I can keep dreaming!

What would be your perfect pet?

 

 

 

 

 

The Baboon Congress

The Troupe

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Header photo by Tambako the Jaguar via Flickr
Today’s post comes from Sherrilee

As the emails fly back and forth this week about straw bales and manure, I’m reminded again about what a wonderful community has sprung up here. When we first started hitting the trail, some of us were immigrants from the Trial Balloon blog; we were fans of Radio Heartland and before that the LGMS (Late Great Morning Show).

As the months and years have gone by, we’ve lost some and gained some. We’ve written more as Dale has amped up his activity in other areas. We’ve developed some verbiage of our own and the days we talk about food, books and music are usually run-aways.

But what I love most about this group is its spirit of community. Here just SOME of the things that we’ve done over the years:

  • When a baboon needed help around the house, a couple of us showed up to do some chores.
  • When another baboon was in a car accident, a dozen of the troupe showed up to do spring gardening at her house.
  • When a HUGE tree fell over during a storm at someone’s house, we had chain saw party and got the tree chopped up and hauled away.
  • When one of our own was in an ice cream development contest, we all voted and when she won, we had an ice cream social to toast her victory.
  • When a baboon’s child was needing some help with math, another of us tutored her.
  • When a baboon’s husband was traveling west for a project, another baboon offered her home for part of his stay.
  • A kitten became part of another baboon’s family after being found on the farm of another baboon.
  • We started a book club. Meets every 2 months and still going strong.
  • When a founding member decided to move to the West Coast, several baboons helped get everything sorted for the estate sale and then helped pack up what needed to go to Portland.
  • We’ve had more than one “plant” transfer – plants from one baboon home being transplanted to another baboon home.
  • One baboon has given heirloom seeds to others in the troupe (and also provided multiple gardening tips over the years).
  • Carpooling to various baboon fetes has been arranged

I’m absolutely sure that I’m missing quite a few interactions between baboons over the years and I’m not even including all the various social engagements and field trips that we’ve organized.

Although we are a social group most often convened in virtual space, we may still be a worthy subject for study by some enterprising anthropologist. Just as Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees in the wild, someone with a grant to document the behavior of Internet baboons would find plenty to write about here.

Goodall’s groundbreaking book carried the rather dry title “The Chimpanzees of Gombe – Patterns of Behavior.”

What title would you give a scholarly study of the Trail Baboons?