Hardy Begonias

These lovely, seemingly wild flowers begin blooming in September. They thrive in shady spots in the garden or woodland and reseed themselves year after year. I found them at Old Londontown, Maryland, some years ago. They are truly hardy and can tolerate a lot of shade and still bloom. They are supposed to tolerate the cold between zones 6-9, Northern Virginia is zone 7, so they do fine here. They get quite tall, sometimes about three feet if exposed to sunshine. Those in deeper shade stay shorter. They produce bubils so if you don't pull them out of the ground, the clump will get wider every year. They die back to the ground in winter and come up in the spring. During mid-summer they display their begonia leaves. The species name is "Begonia Grandis." Their pink blooms appear at the end of summer. The flowers rise about another six to eight inches over the foilage. This is when the bulbils form. You will find them in the crook where the leaf attaches to the main stem. Let them fall to the ground and you can collect them and scatter about to increase your clump for next year or to transplant.

HAPPY SQUIRREL APPRECIATION DAY

Mr. Squirrel, a photo by Edna Barney on Flickr.

RECIPE: Fried Squirrel and Gravy

1 Squirrel cut into 7 pieces
1 Cup Flour; seasoned with Salt and Pepper
1/2 Cup Crisco for frying
Chicken Broth

Melt Crisco in cast-iron skillet. Place seasoned flour in a paper bag. Add squirrel to the bag, one or two pieces at a time, and shake to coat with flour. Carefully add squirrel pieces into the hot Crisco and brown on both sides. Reduce heat, cover skillet, and cook for about 20 minutes, or until done. Remove fried squirrel to rack. Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth, SLOWLY adding flour from the bag - one tablespoon at a time - while whisking the mixture, until gravy thickens.

Save this recipe so that when Squirrel Week rolls around, April 8th through 14th, you can celebrate again.

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day. May you find yourself surrounded by nuts.

Geraldine 'Geri' Nyman 1920-2011

Geri's full name was Marylene Geraldine Elder Lamphere Nyman.

Geri's Story -- as found at the Beatitudes Campus Blog. April 05, 2011 at 12:00 PM -- Introduction: Geri Nyman, who turns 91 this month, is a Beatitudes Campus resident. She received the Congressional Gold Medal for serving in the U.S. Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP during World War II. This story originally ran in the Beatitudes Campus Roadrunner Extra! newsletter, a monthly publication "for the residents, by the residents" created by the volunteer Writers' Group.

The commanding officer at Ellington Field in Houston didn’t really know who had been assigned to his base when 25 young women aviators—civilians—reported for training. These experienced lady pilots were some of the best in the country and could fly circles (literally) around their instructors, freshly commissioned lieutenants just out of basic flight training. That in part probably explains the chilly and less than chivalrous reception given these future founding members of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots—the WASP.

Geri Nyman, now a resident at The Beatitudes with her husband Van, was one of that adventurous group. They all had been recruited by aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran to join "Wings for Britain," but Cochran finally convinced our military (with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt) that their skills were needed right here in the U. S. Geri tells us what happened when they arrived in Houston.

Finally in 2009 members of the WASP were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor actively and posthumously for their service to our country.

By Geri Nyman, Beatitudes Campus Resident

Twenty-five women from all over the U.S. headed for Houston. For this first class Jackie Cochran had selected members who had lots of flying hours. She said if this first 25 didn’t make it, the whole program would go down the drain. She warned us to expect "bad stuff" in Houston.

Four of us from New York drove to Houston in two cars. We headed for the municipal airport--not Ellington Field which was next door. We would be given $150 a month and had to pay our own room and board. We were told we had to find our own housing. A lot of the girls went into town to a hotel because they had to take a bus or cab to the airport. Eventually the base found an old cattle truck without seats to transport the girls from town. Magda Tacke and I found a nice room in a private home near the field and fortunately had a car to drive back and forth.

Even though we were using the only nonmilitary field in Houston, the brass did not want anyone to know what we were doing. We were to tell anyone who asked that we were a basketball team. With two five footers and three close to six feet, it was truly a comic opera.

Our headquarters were an old shack at the end of the field. That’s where we were to do all our studying and training. If we wanted to eat or go to the bathroom we walked a half mile up to the terminal. They did eventually put in a porta potty for us. In the lunchroom the commanding officer and the instructors would sit in the middle of the room eating their steaks etc. We sat on high stools at high tables eating starchy foods that were really bad. We asked for salads for lunch. So they gave us beans on a lettuce leaf. To show their good humor they gave us brown beans one day and white the next.

One of our girls was a stunt pilot. When she got aboard for her qualifying run her young instructor asked her if she could really fly. She answered, “Do you really want to know?” She took off down the field, turned and flew back over the field upside down, righted and flew straight up in the air until she stalled out. What a performance! The young lieutenant staggered off the plane and vowed he would never get on a plane with one of those wild women again.

We really had a comedy when the PT’s (trainers) arrived. Two of our girls were only five feet tall. Those girls required two pillows tied to their parachute and another pillow to sit on. Otherwise they could not reach the rudder pedals. In January it was so cold in the PT’s that we complained. They brought in several boxes of cast-off winter gear from Ellington. Not a suit was under size 44, and the smallest boot was size 11. If we used the boots we could not feel the rudder.

One day some heavy equipment removed a section of fence between our field and Ellington. They shoved five airplanes through the hole. We couldn’t understand why they didn’t just fly the planes over. I got a call that night from a friend at Ellington who said the planes had been junked when termites were discovered in the wings. If we had complained they would have said we were scared, and it would have been a good way to get rid of us. So we flew them—the “Bamboo Bombers.” We had one minor accident with one plane when its wing gave way. Our girl was o.k., but the male instructor was slightly hurt.

They started a second and a third class and they stayed in a motel downtown for a few weeks and rode back and forth in the old truck with no seats. The Air Force realized this program was going to fly so it was transferred to Sweetwater, Texas to a great facility. We were the only class to graduate from Houston.

Twenty-three of us graduated. (Two dropped out for health reasons.) For the graduation ceremony we each flew a plane over to Ellington next door for the ceremony and formed a half circle around the podium. There we were presented our wings by Jackie Cochran. She had purchased the wings herself as the Air Force still didn’t acknowledge us as real Army Air Force pilots. We had no uniforms but our own tan pants and tan shirts so we at least had something to pin our wings on.

Geri's Hasty Wartime Wedding as found at Beatitudes Blog

The Seeing Eye

"He said the common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect." [Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Sieur Louis de Conte, pages 149, 150]

There was a time when we humans were able to view the spiritual realities that surround us. That gift fell into disuse with the advent of the scientific method of viewing the world where the only acceptable evidence of reality is that which can be measured by the human senses. As we lost the gift of the Seeing Eye, we began to doubt the existence of the spiritual. Those few remaining of us who could still view the spiritual world were looked upon with distrust. Those still possessing clairvoyance, became Witches and acolytes of Satan.

In 15th Century France, when the educated Sieur Louis de Conte saw an apparition appearing in a meadow to a 17-year-old peasant girl named Joan, he asked her about it. She replied: "I will tell you, but do not be disturbed; you are not in danger. It was the shadow of an archangel - Michael, the chief and lord of the armies of heaven." [Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Sieur Louis de Conte, page 76] After following her voices from Heaven and leading an army to free France from the grip of the English for "a thousand years," Joan of Arc was condemned to death and burned at the stake.

War Horse

War Horse - An anti-military statement from Stephen Spielberg. A shocking interpretation of the children's story.

I read the book and saw the play in New York City, so today I went to see the War Horse movie. I was stunned and disappointed with the gratuitous violence, blood and gore that was interpreted from what was a children's book. I did not like the movie's negative portrayal of the military. In the book, both the German and the British soldiers were portrayed respectfully and sympathetically. Some of the anti-military scenes in the movie were totally invented by Spielberg; not in the original children's book at all. In the story of War Horse, the Germans never executed the young boys who were not even portrayed characters in the book, and the British never told their men to shoot fellow soldiers. But Joey the horse was portrayed wonderfully in the movie, and there was not a dry eye in the theatre. I only wish they had given Emilee's story more coverage instead of ignoring it to stress the violence of the war.

The movie took a children's story and made it into an anti-military screed that contains too much violence for children.

The Christmas Bell

THE BELL

I KNOW WHO I AM

I am God's child (John 1:12)

I am Christ's friend (John 15:15)

I am united with the Lord(1 Cor. 6:17)

I am bought with a price(1 Cor. 6:19-20)

I am a saint (set apart for God). (Eph. 1:1)

I am a personal witness of Christ (Acts 1:8)

I am the salt &; light of the earth (Matt.5:13-14)

I am a member of the body of Christ(1 Cor 12:27)

I am free forever from condemnation ( Rom. 8: 1-2)

I am a citizen of Heaven. I am significant (Phil.3:20)

I am free from any charge against me (Rom. 8:31-34)

I am a minister of reconciliation for God (2 Cor.5:17-21)

I have access to God through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18)

I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6)

I cannot be separated from the love of God (Rom.8:35-39)

I am established, anointed, sealed by God (2 Cor.1:21-22)

I am assured all things work together for good (Rom. 8: 28)

I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:16)

I may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3: 12)

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13)

I am the branch of the true vine, a channel of His life (John 15: 1-5)

I am God's temple (1 Cor. 3: 16). I am complete in Christ (Col. 2: 10)

I am hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). I have been justified (Romans 5:1)

I am God's co-worker (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor 6:1). I am God's workmanship (Eph. 2:10)

I am confident that the good works God has begun in me will be perfected (Phil 1: 5)

I have been redeemed & forgiven (Col. 1:14). I have been adopted as God's child (Eph 1:5)

I belong to God

Do you know

Who you 

are?

Keep this bell ringing ... pass it on -- from the Internet :)

Lee's Stratford Landing of 1781

On 30 March 1781, two hundred thirty years ago, British sailors from armed vessels anchored in the Potomac River near Saint Clement’s [Blackistone] Island, and attempted to land at Stratford Landing as part of a mission to destroy and loot the plantation houses along both sides of the river. From his home Chantilly, which had a good view of the island, Richard Henry Lee, Lieutenant of the Westmoreland militia, watched the movements of the ships. The British launched smaller craft to approach the shoreline while the large ships fired cannons to cover the attack. Richard Henry Lee met them with a small, ill-armed group of local citizens. In the skirmish that followed, the Westmoreland militia repelled the attackers, killing one British sailor who was buried on Stratford beach.

The image, Lee's Stratford Landing, is subject to copyright by Edna Barney. It is posted here with permission via the Flickr API by barneykin, an administrator of "The Revolution ed" pool.