Heritage in Yard and Stitching

It's a lovely flower. The purple of the bud is quite distinctive. It is native to the Mediterranean and north to Scandinavia working east to Asia. It's impossible to miss as it's about 3 feet tall with large branching leaves which are covered with intimidating looking spikes. It blooms pretty much anywhere although it prefers disturbed soil. It's considered a biennial although much depends upon when its seeds sprout. These seeds are spread usually by the wind although humans and animals will also spread them. Finches love the seeds and will land on the plant to pick the seed heads clean. Studies show seeds can lay dormant for 5 years but it's not considered unusual for seeds to germinate up to 20 years. Clearly, this is one tough plant.

It's called the Cotton Thistle or, more notably, the Scottish Thistle, the national emblem of Scotland. I have one growing in my yard.

I didn't know that's what it was until it bloomed. It's off a corner of my neighbor's fence and it was out of sight until the purple blooms showed up.

I remember helping dad weed these things on the farm. They are tenacious and I thought they had it in for me. You must wear heavy, heavy gloves when handling them. Dad would cut the plant down and I'd be responsible for picking it up and tossing it onto a pile we were making. He'd then take the pile to the burn barrel and torch them. Cattle will not eat these unlike other thistles and a row of them is almost impregnable, due to the thorns on the leaves and stems.

I noticed today that the first blooming flower has gone to seed. I should probably snip off this seed head and all the rest of the flowers, put them in a paper bag and dispose of it. This really isn't something I want in my yard regardless of the connection it has to my heritage. I should also probably spray the remaining plant with Round-Up to make sure it dies and doesn't flower any more this year. Given that there is one plant here, that probably means there will be others sprouting in this location so due diligence will be needed.

And yet, I'm a bit torn because I used to have a goldfinch family in the yard and this is just the kind of plant they love. Given all the flowers on it, I could feed a couple of families or more than just goldfinches, (wince) but it's a noxious weed. Really.

For a number of years, I made these pins for the women in my clan. I found the thistle pattern in one of my cross-stitch books and it was clear to me it would make an excellent pin. I haven't made any in a few years as the backing was quite costly and I haven't been able to find anything cheaper.

How did the thistle come to represent Scotland and the Scottish people? No one knows. It's the stuff of a good legend. The story goes that a group of Scotsmen fell asleep while defending the country from attacks by Norsemen. The Norsemen came ashore at night, preparing to rout the Scots and claim the land. One of the Norsemen happened to step on a thistle in his bare feet, as boots were a luxury for the fighting man back then, and screamed in agony. This awoke the Scots and they routed the Norsemen and sent them home.

Whatever the real story, the thistle growing in my yard is synonymous with Scotland. Given the anguish I know it causes in a yard, can I summon up the will to remove it before it becomes a pest?

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

Are they really friends?

I know this is an odd photo to attach to a post about friendship, but bear with me.

Jessie posted a musing in her blog about the nature of friendship. She realized that the people she calls friends have usually been accumulated via church or work. She felt she was missing friends but was unsure how to find them.

I've been stewing on this topic since she made her comments. It's a gutsy comment to say you don't feel you have enough friends. The ones you do have can feel "Well, I guess I don't matter". I have to say I sort of felt that way after reading her post. But, like I said, I've taken some time to stew about this.

I am not an overtly friendly person by nature. I'm an introvert and we are energized by being away from people. I don't like walking into a situation where I know no one and have to make contact with people. I would rather stand at the wall or over by the punch and people watch. If you come up to me and engage me in conversation, I'll listen and talk and we'll find things we can talk about. But force me to do it and it's excruciatingly difficult.

The friends I have took me awhile to make. I have no friends from grade school, middle school or high school. I thought about going back to my class reunion this past August but, the idea of walking solo into that room of people, many of whom have never left the small-town insular life, filled me with dread. I like to think I am beyond initial judgments. I like to think I give people a chance to show they have a boatload of issues and I should run away. I like to think I've grown up from the small-town everyone's business is my business mentality. Yes, I didn't give these people a chance to prove me wrong, which is my fault. I just couldn't get past the judgmental attitude some of my former classmates had. Oh well, I have 5 years to get myself to the point of wanting to go to the next reunion.

The close friends I have, the ones who know everything, to whom I bare my soul, were made later in life. Our bonds were forged through some painful, some happy, some peaceful and some angry periods in our lives. We just happened to be walking the same road at the same time. There are quite a few I trust to be there, even with simple words of encouragement, when my life appears to be filled with potholes. And this takes me to the photo at the top of the post.

That's Gauss. He plays World of Warcraft as I do. He plays a "tauren", which is an upright walking cow, or, to be anatomically correct, bull since he plays a male character. His character is of the opposite "faction" than my little dwarf. His character is also much better geared than mine.

Our "friendship", if you will developed over a period of months. He runs, on weekends, an event where his faction tries to kill the leaders of my faction. I try to put together a group to stop him. He likes to keep tabs on the number of tries and his successes have been 87 while his failures have been 12. Of those 12, I know I led at least 5 of them, maybe half. I love to try to stop him. It's just a lot of fun for me.

It was after a particularly rewarding stop that he contacted me. We got to talking and I realized that he was well award of my little guild and what we are trying to do within this big, broad game. Since that time, he's been a cheerleader for us, a thorn in our sides, a helpful ear when I'm frustrated and simply what I would call a friend. He has his own blog, the link is to the right, and I'm always very flattered when he posts something about me in his blog. Last weekend was this little comment about my attempts to stop his weekend raids.

I've never met him. I've talked to him a few times on the voice over Internet program I have, but he lives in Toronto, Canada and that's not a place I'm liable to go soon. We may never, ever meet. How can someone like that be counted as a friend?

I have a lot of people like that, people whom I've met through this game. While you can play solo and never talk to another person, I find myself more gregarious when I have the anonymity of the computer screen in front of me. I've met a few of the people I play with, but most are, at best, a face on Facebook or simply a voice rather than a real person. Yet, I call them friends.

I think of my ancestors, traveling from Scotland or Germany on boats, at sea for what was probably 3 months at a time. Chances are they met people who became friends for the duration of the voyage. I don't see those friendships as anything less than what I have established through the Internet, just a different medium. There may have been comments of "I'll stay in touch" as the boat docked and they went into different lines to be processed. Maybe some stayed in touch. I would suspect most friendships forged on the sea dissolved on land simply because there was no social network to find someone who went to the left while you were told to go to the right.

Do I want more friends? Absolutely. I would love to have friends to craft with, play games with, go to movies with, explore the Chicagoland area with, figure out how to fix each others' homes with. I think life conspires against me because joining a group with a like interest generally means dues and I don't have extra money for anything like that. The dating service was supposed to be a way to meet guys, not necessarily for matrimony, but for friendship. You all know how that turned out.

I don't wish to make any of my current friends uncomfortable with the amount of time you can devote to me. That's not the point. This is not a pity post either. If you know me, you know my stance on pity. I merely say that I wish there were more of you in my life. I know exactly where Jessie's root point dwells. I know the feeling. I'd just like someone or a handful of someones to hang out with. They don't have to be tauren. I'd hang out with an orc or, gasp, a human.

Beverage: Dr Pepper

Deb

Thinking about roots.

It's getting close to the Illinois St. Andrew Society's Highland Games, June 18-19, at the Oakbrook Polo Grounds. I'll have a brand spanking new tent to set up. If the weather looks even remotely dicey on Friday, I won't go. The memories of last year are still fresh.

As I mentioned, I visited my old hometown last week when I went to Decorah on business. I stopped by my dad's grave and told him everything that has been going on. After that, I walked among the headstones in one of the older parts of the cemetery looking for relatives.

We know where my grandparents, Archie and Eltha, are buried. We know where my grandfather's parents, Lawrence and Minnie, are buried. We know where Lawrence's father, Andrew, is probably buried, but we don't know where his mother, Anna, is buried. Andrew came to America with his uncle, Matthew, and aunt, Jean. We know where Matthew and Jean are buried.

I should have brought along the hand drawn map I received several years ago when I was doing more digging into the Thompsons than I do now. But I honestly didn't think I'd have the time to stop so the idea of bringing along my genealogy materials whooshed through my head like a stiff breeze. When I walked through the older section of the cemetery, I had a vague remembrance of where Anna's grave might be but no clear image. I didn't find Anna but I found another Jean and Janet.

My camera died after taking these two photos. I need to come back and photograph the stones from all angles. In the top photo, I think the small marker on the right side had a name that began with "M". There was, I believe, a Margaret. Again, without the stacks of information I have, I couldn't remember.

These markers are exciting to find. My mom and I have talked about meeting at the cemetery some weekend day with cameras and paper and pencil, to decipher the aging stones and document their location in the cemetery. I took a look at the Google earth view in the hopes that we could use that to mark where everyone rests. It's not the clearest. Still, it's better than nothing and, 5 years ago, we couldn't do that so we will make it work.

Jean, the top marker, was born in Scotland and came over on the boat, the British Bark Sterling. Janet was born shortly after the family arrived in Northeast Iowa.

Time is not a friend to headstones. I wasn't sure if I could scrape that orange stuff off or it I should leave it. I would like to do something that the names and dates will still be visible for years to come. I guess the first step is contacting the cemetery association to see what is and is not allowed. Then, what would it cost to clean these and do some preservation work.

My father rests to the left of the building in the background. He's got a wonderful view of a cornfield and it's peaceful.

Beverage: V8

Deb