Let the Planting Rush Begin, Santa Wall Hanging, & Putting A Face On Joplin

The sun is finally shining and the corn has grown over an inch since last week.  The hail certainly didn't hurt it.

It's nice to get up in the morning and seeing the sun instead of the clouds and rain.  This has been the wettest May I have ever seen.  Dean started planting beans on Thursday.  We had the 3 inch rain and hail last Wednesday.  He wanted to plant corn, but that field was still too wet.  

I helped fill the planter boxes, which is no easy task.  The bags weight 44 pounds.

Saturday, Dean finally got his wish of planting corn.  Now I feel we have a new hope of a harvest.

The wheat has hail damage, but it doesn't look bad. We really won't know how much damage there was until we harvest it next month.

I finally finished my Santa wall hanging that our quilt club decided to do at a meeting. 

 We all had a great time together learning from each other.

I did do a little bit of thread painting on his beard, eyes, and nose.  

Joplin, Missouri has been on my mind because we have relatives that live there.  It really puts a face on a disaster when there are people there that you know.  Their lives were spared and their home, but I know it's been a really rough time for them.  Below is one of Carolyn's emails in her own words:

"This will touch many of you who went to Moundridge High School in 1960. Vaughn Lippoldt was the chorus director the year I was a freshman.  I re-established contact with him when we were planning the 2003 reunion and found out that 1) his mother was in a nursing home in Joplin and 2) his brother Victor lived less than a mile from where we now live in south Joplin.  I’ve just learned from my brother Dean (who used to sing in a barbershop chorus directed by Vaughn in western Kansas) that Victor’s youngest daughter and her husband were both killed in the tornado.  This was Vaughn’s niece, but I didn’t recognize her married name.  I had been checking the lists every day looking for Lippoldt.

On Tuesday I saw in the obituaries the names of our piano tuner’s wife and his 14-month-old son.  I didn’t know them, but the last time I saw David was in January when he tuned the piano for a chamber music concert for which I was arranging the reception.  Tom and I were talking about how we know that someday there will be a day when the front section of the paper will have a non-tornado related story and when the obituary listings don’t go on for pages and pages, but right now the cycle of grief seems unending.  One of Tom’s friends said he’s already been to three funerals this week. 

The New York Times has posted a couple of very graphic illustrations of the damage.

This one allows you to rotate 360 degrees around five different locations in town.  If you’ve never seen this kind of panoramic image before, just grab the picture with your mouse and pull to the right or left.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/27/us/joplin-panoramas.html

This second site is a series of aerial photographs.  This one allows you to zoom in or out by moving the +/- arrow on the right, and then you can adjust the before/after bar from right to left by dragging it.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/25/us/joplin-aerial.html?ref=us

There is progress, though.  When you drive through town now, there are huge piles of debris piled at the curbs in each block, and the serious heavy machinery clean-up by the National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers has already started.  It really does help to see small changes in the landscape.  It means that even though the task ahead seems immeasurably huge, every small step gets us closer to some sort of future that just has to be better.

I really appreciate all of the messages from everyone.  Thanks to all of you."

Check out the links that Carolyn sent me--they are unbelievable!
I just can't imagine the grief, survivor's guilt, and trauma they are going through.
My prayers and thoughts are with all the victims of this strange weather season around the world.

Happy Quilting


Kay Lynne