Saturday afternoon dog wash

Despite the warm day, the water was cold!!  Jubilee suffered through it.

Meanwhile, in search of some ingredients for an Umbrian Peasant soup, we ventured down to the Strip in Pittsburgh.  Though you can find most anything there, we were unable to find a meaty veal soup bone! 

 Flowers are sold everywhere now ...

 Not sure if these look good or not ...  Regardless, food is plentiful.

wild flowers

These are the flowers that grace our path these days.  I couldn't decide which photo I like best so I'm posting them all.  A chilly 36 degrees this morning.  I think this must be the last cold morning ...

Keeping things updated

Just an update on what's going on ...  Probably boring to anybody but us, but we often use the blog(s) to keep track of where we were at a particular time and what was going on.

John's motorcycle is in the shop.  A little place down on the other side of the Ohio River ...

Getting some rain,

 enough so that the creek at Knob Hill is finally flowing ...

Everything is filling in (so much difference in just the 2 weeks that I've been back) ....

 and the mayapple patch at the top of the hill is back.

View from the window ...

Harmony PA

A somewhat rainy afternoon, we decided to explore a little nearby site - Harmony PA.  Harmony was first called "Murdering Town".  Evidently George Washington came through the area in 1753 and was shot at by the Delaware Indians, hence the name.  The area was settled in 1803 by a German religious group - the Harmonites - and called Harmony.  They stayed and farmed the land for about 10 years, then sold the land to the Mennonites and moved on to Indiana, and the New Harmony settlement.

Unfortunately, the museum and shop were closed, even though they were supposed to be open on Sundays from 1-4.  Maybe because of Mother's Day, it was closed.  We were the only tourists around.  We walked around some in the rain and saw what we could see.  This was the door to a little log cabin.

The eyes of the little Harmonite opened when you lifted the knocker.

 A bakery that was open.  John got a cookie and coffee.

Some interesting places (all closed) ....

 This reminded me of the cellar doors in my childhood home in KY.

 In fact, a lot in Harmony reminded me of Bardstown.

We found a little park at the end of the street that overlooked the Connoquenessing Creek - Wood Street Park.  Since 1999!

Anyway, the Harmonites came back to Pennsylvania a few years later and founded another town, New Economy, which is on the Ohio River closer to Pittsburgh.  We'll check that out.

An amusing fact: the Harmonites exerted a major influence on the economic development of Western Pennsylvania. But since the group chose to adopt celibacy, they eventually died out when John S. and his wife Susanna C. Duss, the last surviving leaders of Harmony Society, died in 1951.

another bonsai bites the dust, etc.

Sadly, the bonsai that John has been nursing for the last year, is failing.  I don't think it will make it.

Yet flowers abound.  There is a sign for "Greenhouse" that is on the way to the park.  Today I decided to follow it down and around the Pennsylvania back country.

Lovely flowers, herbs, and plants of all kinds...

 I decided on a little cactus dish, thinking that perhaps this could survive in Florida as well.

Meanwhile, Jubilee is spending the afternoon at the Lucky Paws getting a grooming as well as a "butter massage".  Her scratching is markedly reduced in this northern atmosphere, and perhaps a little skin conditioning will make her totally itch-free!

And the greening of Pennsylvania continues ...

strolling through heaven, shadows, and 50 shades of grey

Besides giving Jubilee and I a major event around which to build the day, our daily walks at Knob Hill bring a welcome respite from worry and too much thinking.  I can literally lose myself to the surroundings here - (I think that the solitude accounts for a lot of that) - and become nothing but eyes that drink in the shapes and colors of this simple little woods.  I know it sounds weird, but it really does seem like I am outside of time and gazing into eternity, in its myriad and infinite detail.  Like a stroll through heaven, it's quite miraculous.

Looking around

Some things from a walk today at Knob Hill.  It's warm but not really summer, despite the ever thickening foliage.

 Jubilee making her famous leap over a log after getting a drink from the creek...