Ollie, ollie, oxen free.

Met this guy Gary at our Heritage Week festivities here in New Harmony last year. Lives somewhere near the Kentucky-Tennessee line. Used to be a museum director and now does this thing where he takes his beautiful team of four 6-year-old oxen around to these historical festivals, to show people how it used to be. He does other things, but this is the one with which I’m most familiar.

The oxen are amazing creatures. Rare to be around animals of their sort these days, unless one lives on a farm. He’s very kind to them, never takes to the whip, always praises good work. We could all learn a variety of lessons...

Gary looks a tough customer—visually reminds me more than a little of Picasso—but he’s actually a lovely, gentle man. Quiet force of nature. Not unlike his charges.

I didn’t photograph him last year. Friends Bill Steber and Pat Casey Daley were here and we had a great time talking and hanging out with Gary and the team. Wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by again when I found he was here this year (last weekend).

St. Looey.

We had a nice weekend trip to St. Louis recently. Got lots of good tips from a friend who just moved to NH from St. Louis a few months ago. Good bookstores, great meals, vintage records, wonderful architecture, the Missouri Botanical Gardens, oh, and that Arch thingy...

Like Brooklyn and Terry Molloy in On the Waterfront, St. Louis “coulda been a contender”—still a lot of fabulous energy to the place. Can only imagine what it was like in its heyday.

The nicest weather day, we mostly spent toodling around the botanical gardens. I didn't want to schlep my camera around, so these were taken with the trusty Olympus Stylus digital, little “Orangey.” Had just revisited some Dale Chihuly documentaries, so it was nice to have fresh eyes on three pieces of Dale’s work that the gardens purchased from a show he had there a few years back (pictured below).

Oh, and if you’re ever looking for a great but inexpensive place in StL., we stayed at a really great little weird mock-tudor 60s hotel called the Cheshire Lodge. On the southwest corner of Forest Park. Genuine (or at least well-intended) in a way that very few new hotels are. Themed without being “themey”—not exactly Ian Schrager.

Darth Tater.

Accessories for Mr. Potato Head are not what they were when I was a lad. But neither is Mr. Potato Head himself. Those bulbous modern shapes...pah! He’s come a long way from the time when he was an actual potato that you stuck ears and stuff into. This was sighted in my friend Holden’s room on our recent visit to Nashville.

Sai + Olive

Evansville Living, Pt. 1

A sweet young guy I just shot for Evansville Living. A painter named Clinton Bosler, who had work in the recent Mid-States Exhibition at the Evansville Museum. He’s been baking things and then painting them in his own sort of pop-art style (not to be confused with Pop-Tart style).

(Late) Holiday Miscellany.

Pictured here we have Lexie’s Christmas cactus which bloomed beautifully and prolifically right on time, and has the honor of being one of our longest-lived houseplants.

Lacking a real live Christmas tree since neither of us were actually going to be here for the actual day, we festooned our then-dormant wood stove with lights and used it as “the Christmas stove.” It’s pretty steadily burning wood these days, and has been relieved of its tree duties.

Lastly, Sküti von Buns, the Christmas bunny. She’s gotten pretty big, but the only reason she let me get this close with the camera is because I was down on the floor where she could keep an eye on me, where it didn’t seem like I could do any serious looming and threatening.

Good golly Ma, it’s a fire!?

For anybody who’s been following the continuing saga of our not being able to get the wood stove installed for one reason or another... it’s finally over! After one missing part, then another, all finally came together. Our guy came over and put it in last week on Friday, the only sunny and over 40 day we looked to be having for a while.

There’s a whole subculture to fire-building. Everyone has their own tips, preferences, etc. I was walking down the street past a neighbor’s house the other day after only a few days of keeping the home fires burning, and thought, “Man, that fence sure would make some nice kindling!” You start to look at everything wooden in terms of how well (or whether) it would burn.

We have a guy bringing a big load of wood soon. Meantime, we’ve borrowed what we have now from Tom & Caroline’s stash. They came by and helped us build the inaugural fire Saturday morning, and Caroline took this picture for us. (and Terri brought some more wood by to us yesterday!).

In the words of the old song:
The weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful!