Weedy Lawns

Our friendly baby rabbit sitting in a patch of clover in the lawn. They love it.

People never, ever, fertilized lawns, and rarely cut the grass until it was almost too high to cut (Are you kidding me? Fertilize a yard? Never heard of such a thing). Then children used a sharp metal whip that was swung back and forth in violent arcs and that action trimmed the high grass so a reel lawn mower could be physically pushed through it. It wasn't easy to do but that's the way it was done during the War.

Weeds were not killed if they grew in a lawn. Dandelions were used for salad greens and dandelion wine. My mother cut dandelion leaves and cooked them with bacon and we ate them like spinach. Everyone had weeds and nobody seemed concerned about them. Buckhorn and Plantain were common weeds that spread because their seed stalks were not cut off when mowed over with a reel mower. Sometimes the weeds were the only growth that was green. Everyone had clover that was fed on by honey bees. The best clover also looked the best. It was Little Dutch Clover with the white blossoms. The bees liked it too.

© Abraham Lincoln - All rights reserved.

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Publishing

Publishing is one of those things I tried and was disappointed in that older magazines like, American Artist, and others, do not take kindly to upstarts like me, trying to elicit advertising and subscribers from them. But I did it anyway because I wanted to learn all about getting started in publishing. My first requirement was to have some meaningful comment. This is an example of a carbon pencil drawing by one of my four daughters, Rebecca. It is one of my favorite mediums and I learned how to do it by watching a Japanese lady make drawings of soldier’s wives and sweethearts from photographs. Amazing the only two tools are a Wolf Carbon pencil (made with willow charcoal) and a paper stump.

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From the Estonia, USSR

This is an envelope I received from Estonia when it was still part of the USSR. The stamps are interesting as it was the thing to think about in those days. I am not sure of the year but think it was around 1975. It contained a book which I still have.  Villu Toots, the artist and professor from Estonia who sent it to me has since passed on.

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He wasn’t God

One of the papers I wrote in the early 1970s. I was doing research for another project but I wanted to publish these facts before I forgot them again. These are not the Gods expected but they had the power of life and death and used it.

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Carpe Diem

Flowers and seeds and stuff—
This is the time to plant seeds. This is the time Nature plants and to scoff at that and plant in the spring is folly. If you plant when Nature does your plants will be superior to anything you might remember to plant in the springtime.

My mother used to save seeds for next season. She saved all vegetable seeds and dried them in old newspapers. When they were bone dry she put them in small glass jelly jars saved for the purpose.


Turkey dinner and fixings—
I am a sucker for turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. I know the friends of mine who are real turkeys don’t much like the whole idea but then they don’t have a choice in their holiday meals.

Ask your butcher to sell you the favorite part of the bird or, better still, tell him to fix it for you. If they want to stay in business it pays to do things the big box stores don’t do.

 Religion and politics—
There is a direct connection between God and politics – if you have studied your Bible and are not just a Bible-thumper, then you know that George W. Bush served and God allowed it.

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