Bear hunt in CR

Last weekend we had the egg-venture in our community (last blog). Yesterday and today James and I were on a bear hunt. Residents had been asked to "hide" (display) a bear. We were provided with a list/addresses so we knew which of the 745 houses/units were participating. Walking in the fresh air is encouraged in these quarantine times. Everybody adheres to the social distancing when we meet on the streets.

The bear hunt was actually a very nice idea. We walk every day and by now we seem to know every crack in the streets. So having something else to do was lovely. There were 49 addresses on the list. Here are my favorites from our Friday walk:

This one says "quarantined too long". Ha-ha, so many empty bottles ... and it's not coke or juice.

My friend Becky's bear things of nicer times reading "'twas the night before Christmas".

It was a "hunt". It took us a while to find the bear here. In the street light!

The same house also made free books available. Great idea.

Almost didn't see these bears.

Amazing of the many ways our neighbors thought of.

This bear was quite big ... and I discovered it had a bird on his head. When we met Linda several streets over and told her that we liked it she was happy that we had noticed the bird.

This was only one of the patriotic bears.

Who doesn't want to ride on a heron?

Several of the bears were looking out of windows, even from the upper story. This one we almost didn't find. Do you see it?

Last one on the way home: two bears with face masks are showing of that yes, they have toilette paper.

Stopping here and there and everywhere takes longer than just walking. We left some to do for the next day. Today (Saturday) we continued the hunt. Yeah, lots of face masks. 

Meeting this neighbor was wonderful. We had the address but didn't see the bear. He sits quite often on his bench and reads. He saw us and pointed to the stuffed animal sitting next to it. We walked closer and had a great talk with him. The "bear" was actually a monkey but who cares. And a great story went with it. He told us that when he was dating the girl who later became his wife, it all started with a monkey. A gorilla-gram in his office gave hime the idea to send a gorilla-gram to the girl. And then many more monkeys, cards of monkeys for birthdays and all kinds of events, etc etc. We walked around the block and when we came past his place again from the other direction he stopped us quickly to show us a book of all the scanned cards he had made. Printed and bound. So special. What a great guy. 

And the walk continued.

A U.S.Mail letter carrier bear between these mailboxes. How cute is that?

How creative are our neighbors! I didn't think there was an appropriate bear in this household. No chance to borrow one from our grandsons. Well, to be honest, I was a bit of a scrooge. The call to participate didn't reach me early enough. And then I kind of regretted it. Thank you to our neighbors. We had fun on these walks.

Happy Easter. The Lord is risen.

He is risen indeed!

And this poem arrived this morning in my emails.

How the Virus Stole Easter 

By Kristi Bothur

With a nod to Dr. Seuss 😊

Twas late in ‘19 when the virus began

Bringing chaos and fear to all people, each land.

People were sick, hospitals full,

Doctors overwhelmed, no one in school.

As winter gave way to the promise of spring,

The virus raged on, touching peasant and king.

People hid in their homes from the enemy unseen.

They YouTubed and Zoomed, social-distanced, and cleaned.

April approached and churches were closed.

“There won’t be an Easter,” the world supposed.

“There won’t be church services, and egg hunts are out.

No reason for new dresses when we can’t go about.”

Holy Week started, as bleak as the rest.

The world was focused on masks and on tests.

“Easter can’t happen this year,” it proclaimed.

“Online and at home, it just won’t be the same.”

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the days came and went.

The virus pressed on; it just would not relent.

The world woke Sunday and nothing had changed.

The virus still menaced, the people, estranged.

“Pooh pooh to the saints,” the world was grumbling.

“They’re finding out now that no Easter is coming.

“They’re just waking up! We know just what they’ll do!

Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,

And then all the saints will all cry boo-hoo.

“That noise,” said the world, “will be something to hear.”

So it paused and the world put a hand to its ear.

And it did hear a sound coming through all the skies.

It started down low, then it started to rise.

But the sound wasn’t depressed.

Why, this sound was triumphant!

It couldn’t be so!

But it grew with abundance!

The world stared around, popping its eyes.

Then it shook! What it saw was a shocking surprise!

Every saint in every nation, the tall and the small,

Was celebrating Jesus in spite of it all!

It hadn’t stopped Easter from coming! It came!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the world with its life quite stuck in quarantine

Stood puzzling and puzzling.

“Just how can it be?”

“It came without bonnets, it came without bunnies,

It came without egg hunts, cantatas, or money.”

Then the world thought of something it hadn’t before.

“Maybe Easter,” it thought, “doesn’t come from a store.

Maybe Easter, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

And what happened then?

Well....the story’s not done.

What will YOU do?

Will you share with that one

Or two or more people needing hope in this night?

Will you share the source of your life in this fight?

The churches are empty - but so is the tomb,

And Jesus is victor over death, doom, and gloom.

So this year at Easter, let this be our prayer,

As the virus still rages all around, everywhere.

May the world see hope when it looks at God’s people.

May the world see the church is not a building or steeple.

May the world find Faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection,

May the world find Joy in a time of dejection.

May 2020 be known as the year of survival,

But not only that -

Let it start a revival.

🙏

Sarah forwarded an email from Wade who had received it from his mother who had received it from his Aunt Carol. I love it! I read it aloud to James trying the Dr. Seuss rhythm. I would have named the poem "how the virus didn't steal Easter". Or "how the virus tried to steal Easter".

Let the virus start a revival!

We had a good Easter. It is always a joyous day. The message of Easter is so wonderful. Yes, we are so blessed. All we have to do is believe. We are so lucky.

When I think of it, in all this crazy time, it has been the most meaningful in a long time. We still had Sunday services. We had daily compline (evening prayers), also from our church but of course via internet. Lots to read. Lots to think about.

Good Friday

James missed his hot cross buns, a tradition in England, to be eaten always Good Friday morning. In the best of years they are difficult to find where we live. No chance this year. Even Helen called from Nashville that she misses the tradition. And it is not really about the sweets.

The service in the evening from St. Martin's live FaceBook was meaningful as always.

Saturday

We had a great walk today. Our walks always depend a little on the weather. We live in a 55+ community. We get regularly emails about what is planned and going on in the neighborhood. For Saturday and Sunday an "egg-venture" around the gazebo was announced.  We had not planned to go there but on our walk we come to it. It was actually quite funny. Signs with quiz questions were posted around the gazebo. Here are the ones I liked best. I think the first one must be Helen's favorite. It took a while for me to understand the last.

In the photos you might see the blue (plastic) eggs allover in the grass. In each was a candy and a typed sentence of wisdom. I thought the whole thing was very cool. You were allowed to take one or two. In the email we were assured that they had used gloves when they put everything out.

After the walk our next door neighbors Linda and Bill asked us over for pizza in the evening, of course all outside and with social distancing. They had asked us and two other couples, so we were one couple for each corner of the driveway. We brought our own little table, chairs and drinks. We had a lively conversation. It was very nice until it got too cold.

While we were there Sarah happened to call with FaceTime to show us what the boys were doing ... having a dinosaur excavation. 

 

In the little frame in the top left of the above photo you can see that I showed her our little driveway gathering (I cropped the photos).

Every year our church has a special service on Holy Week Saturday, the Great Vigil of Easter. Grace Church in Paducah used to have it too. One of my favorites. I thought I had to miss it. But Helen sent us a link to a Lutheran Church in Hendersonville, TN. It was at 8 pm our time. We were prepared with our two computers and Bose loudspeakers. On one computer the service, on the other the service bulletin from their website including the prayers and a couple of hymns. We will have figured out how all this works by the time we are back to "normal" times. The service was excellent.

Easter Sunday

A memorable day. At 10 o'clock we had the St. Martin's Easter service. Later I found the children's Easter sermon that Father Lee had prepared for the day. And when I looked further I also found a children's Palm Sunday sermon. Father Lee's children's sermons are the best! 

Sarah's boys wanted to do FaceTime with us. I managed 2 photos. They wanted to know what the Easter bunny brought to us. Oh well. Quick thinking. Papa got one of his Cadbury eggs. 

I cropped out the little frame in the above. This shows that Papa had to unwrap it.

They made him eat it to show the inside and of course it dribbled down his cheek. They loved it. I thought I should not enlarge that little picture. Then they showed us what the bunny brought to them. 

William will turn 10 in May. He is "informed" about the Easter bunny and Santa. Helen told me that recently.

After the FaceTime we went for our walk because the nice weather was not supposed to last forever. 

We have some crazy fun when we are walking. I seem to be taking smaller steps so have more steps than James for the same distance on the Fitbit count. As a result we play "ice skating". James always walks the wider curves. We have lots of cul-de-sacs in our neighborhood.

When the curve changes we do a "change-over" like the speed skaters do. Silly fun. Hope this brings a little smile on your face. 

The couple across the street, who was at the pizza party the night before, had told us about their children. They have three living in different places, only one of them locally. For the first time their children (the grand children) had the same spring holiday scheduled. They were all going to visit this week. Of course it was cancelled. A few days ago though our neighbors had received a huge parcel. From one family they had received life-size cut-outs of the grandchildren. This morning those were standing on the storm door. So cute. 

Almost back home from the walk we passed Julie's house. She had "hid" some Easter eggs. She was in the garden and we quickly decided and told her that we were coming in the afternoon with something baked if the weather stayed as it was ... if we could sit on her or Irma's back patio ... with plenty of distance between us. Both Julie and Irma thought it was a good idea.

Our Easter lunch was Shepherd's pie and had been prepared the day before. We always have lamb for the Easter feast and this was the best I could do this year. It was very nice if I may say so myself.

The cranberry bars baked in the oven while we had lunch. I packed up some portions when it was done and at 2:30 pm James and I walked between the back yards to Irma's patio. We kept good distance and had a very nice time. We laughed a lot. Bad news was forbidden. 

The rest of the day we took it easy.  I make a little progress on the puzzle from Helen and ate some chocolate. After all its a holiday. And, oh yes, I once again lost the card game with James. 

The forecasted rain has not come yet. Most likely we will have bad weather with strong winds and possible tornados tomorrow. 

Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday

Every year this would be a very special time. But of course, it is very different this year.
Palm Sunday!
The bishop didn't want the churches to distribute the palms this year so I went into the woods and tried to put some sign of this special day into our front yard. I don't think I quite succeeded.

It was a glorious day though. After the online service (!) we went for our daily walk. We ventured into the next neighborhood and onto the grounds of the High School. Not a soul around. But it was very interesting. Lots of areas signed as wildlife protected. And lots of sport fields. 

Couldn't help it. Thought these were cool photos. A healthy crop of dandelion.

Our church St. Martin's Episcopal has live services on FaceBook on Sunday and Wednesday mornings with communion. Suddenly I had remembered that we had an open bottle of red wine and ancient baking wavers. It made it more meaningful for me and James agreed. 

So, I dug for my recipe from the times when we provided St. Matthew by the Lake Lutheran Church in Benton, Kentucky, with communion bread. It must be easily 30 years old. I found it but it asked for wheat flour which I didn't have on hand. So ... google.

This is what I found on allrecipes.com. Very easy:

"This recipe has been used for years in our church for Communion bread. Easy to make and stores well in fridge. Watch carefully when baking, ovens vary in time needed.”

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil   (I used olive oil)
• 1/3 cup water

Directions

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Mix flour, oil, and salt together in a bowl; add water and mix using a pastry cutter until dough is soft. Form dough into 6 balls and press into disks onto the prepared baking sheet using your hands.
• Bake in the preheated oven until bread is cooked, 8 to 10 minutes.

When you mix the ingredients you might think in the beginning that this can’t be right especially when you add the water. I mixed it with a fork and pretty soon it was perfect. 

I divided it into more than 6 balls. I just pinched off something less than a ping pong ball and flattened it. As there is no yeast the size will stay the same. You can lay them fairly close together.  

Success!

Since our visits to the grocery store are very limited one has to compromise. Instead of fresh greens a white cabbage salad is a good alternative. One head will do for many days. Shredding with my German "mandolin" and we have suppers for a good number of days. Pepper, oil, vinegar, halved grapes, diced stop-light peppers, whatever is on hand. Nice!

And then there are pleasant surprises. A present arrived from Helen. A puzzle. We started the same day. See the edges all around? I will share the progress later. It occupies most of our dining room table.

And then Sarah stopped by with flowers. Can't help getting teary-eyed about my sweet daughters.

More humor on FaceBook! The recommendation now is to wear face masks when out in public.

Of course there are also serious notes which make you think!

And then our priest contacted me with this and whether I could sew some of those masks for people in the congregation who needed them. He liked that quilting fabric had pretty good results. Yes, I already have the pattern because ... see last blog. We are a very close-knit little congregation. We are all friends.

Today I was busy all day sewing. It feels good to be productive. The church had announced in today's weeklies to contact me if you needed a mask and I already got requests. We agreed that there will be a box outside the back door (with the brick on top) where I can leave things. James and I ventured out to drop it off. 

A quick walk through the church's memorial garden made us happy too. So beautiful. We were happy to get to see it.

And then there was the Maundy Thursday service. We are ready.

And we are grateful. We have so many blessings ... including all our gadgets. We can talk with our family members in Europe. We can worship over the internet. We are old enough to know how it was without telephone and even without TV. Imagine that, grandchildren! I don't think they can. Ha-ha.