New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures, Special Day

We were so excited to receive our new revised, updated Bibles, released simultaneously in all English speaking countries and on the web jw.org and as an app JW Library, free.

Christy

Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, Doylestown, PA - Part 2

So many different tiles to choose from.  When I brought Rob here as a little boy they had a Tea tile which I bought and they still make it, Jean bought one.

If I had money to have the kitchen of my dreams, it would have an Aga, an old English style farmhouse kitchen sink with a wooden draining board, like the old lady who lived down the road from us had, when I was a child.  Old hutch/dresser from the thrift store sanded and painted up, or just use the one I have from Romania, big old kitchen table that you could scrub down and a tile floor.  I would love to incorporate some of the large pieced tile work that you see below, the candle maker and the birds, the Indian in the field.  How lovely that would be.

The little round kiln above was originally used to fire false teeth.  Mercer purchased it and used it as a trial firing kiln.

Christy

Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, Doylestown, PA - Part 1

The Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown was founded by Henry Mercer.

Henry Chapman Mercer, the visionary who traveled the world and pedaled a bicycle to direct construction of his museum? To many he was an enigma.  He was historian, archaeologist, collector and ceramist -- a Renaissance man of the early 20th century. He was born and died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, at the heart of historic Bucks County. His one-man building boom, leaving a legacy of three structures on the National Historic Landmark register, began when he was 52. Mercer traveled the world on the largess of a devoted aunt and studied law and ancient history. He graduated from Harvard and was curator of American and Pre-historic Archaeology at the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania from 1894 to 1897. Mercer conducted site excavations in the Yucatan Peninsula and in the Delaware, Ohio and Tennessee River valleys.

In 1897, while searching for fireplace tools in a junk dealer's barn, Mercer found a jumble of objects made obsolete by the Industrial Revolution. He realized these pre-1850 work related implements might one day be the prized findings of future archaeologists. Mercer seized upon this priceless opportunity to preserve the endangered artifacts and display them in their diversity.

Mercer himself went to work on his collection, which he called "The Tools of the Nation Maker. " He pledged it would be "worth its weight in gold in a hundred years hence. "

Jean and I set off on our first full day together.  When you have limited time to show someone the sites in your area what do you pick out, things unique to the area and this is one of them.  Here we are in the gift shop where you buy ones tickets for the tour.

This in itself is just lovely to wander around and look at the tiles, and the different finishes on the tiles.

Jean very much likes the arts and crafts movement as I do, such as William Morris and has visited his estate.

When the State Capital Building Rotunda was built in Harrisburg, they used his tiles.  He made a series of 400 mosaics tracing the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, see here they are just lovely.

His works can also be found at Rockefeller's New York Estate, Grauman's Chinese Theater and  the Casino at Monte Carlo, along with many other buildings in the area including our local library in the entrance foyer.

The light in this building is spectacular as you can see.  Mercer had a fear of fire and all his buildings are concrete.  Many of the windows are poured concrete muntins.

Christy

Vestibular Disorder in Our Cat Tink

Our little Himalayan is always cute, but honest to goodness with the head tilt she was so cute, but I felt so bad for her.  Fortunately it cleared up in two days, she has a tad of a head tilt to one side, you wouldn't even notice it.  Much better than in these photos, taken within 24 hours of her getting the condition.

At first I thought she had had a stroke, but did a little research on it.  She was happy, had strength and was eating and puring and showed no signs of being in pain.  It seems the condition can come on suddenly within one hour, which it did, and usually goes away within 48 hours, which it did.

Vestibular disorders in Cats here

I am so happy.  She is getting older, we've had her twelve years from the SPCA and she was full grown then, they did not know how old, only guessed at three years old.  So if she was that makes her fifteen years old and she might be older than that.  My last cat Baghera lived until he was twenty.

Christy

Fall and Friends

Fall is a beautiful time of year here in Pennsylvania, in fact it's my favourite time of year, except for the fact the I am allergic to ragweed which starts about the beginning of September just when the lovely weather kicks in and does not end until the first frost.  My eyes seem to have been especially bad this year, probably a combination of allergies and all day work on the computer, but there you are that's life.  One day there will be a lovely frost and it will be gone, then we will get an Indian Summer, joy of joys.

I use the words Fall and Autumn intermittently as I think in both English English and American English.

My friend Jean has been visiting from England and we have totally exhausted ourselves with a whirlwind of site seeing, NYC New York City being the most exhausting and therefore the next day we had to cancel any activities because we were just plain pooped.

I have lots of photos to download and stories to go with them.  Thursday was Doylestown and the Moravian Tile Works, plus a visit to New Hope and some great French Onion soup.  Friday was a day in the Amish Country and Saturday was NYC so no Sunday in Cape May; which I really wanted to do, but our bodies told us no, plus I had to go back to work on Monday.

Litlle Tink is almost totally better, I am so happy, and will post some photos of how tilted to one side she was, what a peculiar decease Vestibular is.

I am so happy with all the work I did on the garden, before my friends came, so worth it and now I am ahead of things for the Fall, for once in my life.  I am looking forward to raised bed gardening next spring, maybe even now with a quick winter planting.

My friend Jean told me about a great Blog in the UK named A Girl Called Jack here

It seems she was a single mum with a little boy and only ten pounds a week for food, which is not more than about $17.00, she came up with great tasting simple off the shelf meals, not all this high folutin stuff, where every other ingredient is an expensive trip to the super market.  A great resource for inexpensive meal ideas, we've managed on as low as $45.00 per week for three adults for several years, but I have noticed that recently it has crept up considerably, so maybe these food recipes will help us pull it back on track again.

She is soon to release a book of one hundred of her recipes.

Well no pics in this post, some to follow.

Christy

The Keys John Pennekamp Carol Reef

This is the evening after our Miami adventure.  With all that driving all I wanted to do was chill out.  This is in the John Pennekamp Park, in the first of the Keys. As it was early evening most people had left the little beach area and we were able to park side ways to the beach, which is even better as you can sit in the camper and look out the open side door, so nice.

People kept stopping by, chatted and wanted to have a look, so we had fun talking to different folk.  Some even brought their children up and said my parents used to have a camper like this when I was a child and they wanted their children to see it. There is a big US Base on the mainland and I think a lot of folk from there come to this park either for the day or for the weekend.  We were there Sunday night so I think a lot were packing up and leaving, just having a last walk by the beach.

Cooked up a little dinner, had a cup of tea and read my book.  The campsites are a little close together in this park but by the time we got back to our spot it was almost dark in anycase and we had enjoyed our time here.

Christy

High Line New York City and Old US City Rail Lines, Changing Space, Changes Lives

Philadelphia and other US cities are revamping their old derelict city rail systems.

See here for Philadelphia's Reading Viaduct.

The High Line in New York City has been so popular bringing communities together and quite a focal point that this idea of using old city rail lines is being planned and implemented in numerous cities throughout the USA.

I don't have a photo but plan a trip up there this weekend so hope to walk the line.

Christy

My Armchair By The Window A Busy WeeK

This week will be busy.  Tomorrow the Pair of Jeans arrive from England.  My friend Graham is picking them up from the airport in Philly and then on Wednesday they will be coming over to stay with me until the following Monday, then back to Graham's.

Have some things planned, to visit the Amish County, New York City, possibly the shore Cape May, and local things in between.

So I have been busy doing all those things you like to get done before guests come.  Cleaning up the garden and getting some of my raised vegetable beds made, although maybe that is not included in the usual things you get done before guests come, but I was eager to get going on them.  I have three made and four to go.  I bought some mums which are so colourful this time of year.  Most things are dying off in the garden now, but the Japanese Maples always turn a beautiful colour, they are no there yet.

Cleaning of the Boys bedroom while he was away,  sorry dear cleaning does involve moving things, such as stacks of paperwork, CDs and wires.

Routing around in the linen cupboard and finding all sorts of things which were neatly jammed in the back, if I only had more room, but 1920s houses were not built with big cupboards or closets.

On a worrying note Tinkerbell I think has Vestibular disease.  Her head is cocked to one side all the time and she keeps falling that way and staggering.  There is not much you can do for it, so hopefully she will recover from it, or recover some what, we wait and see.  But she is still her loving self, purring and wanting to be with you, eating and drinking which is good.

We first noticed it last night when Rob came home, she jumped down off the sofa behind my head and went over to the other sofa to greet and sit with Rob, then we both noticed that her head was to one side.  She was fine earlier in the evening, it's something that can come on very suddenly and I read online, predominantly more in the NE USA in autumn, but no explanation as to why more prevalent then, just thrown out there.  She is getting older and is a dear little being.

I moved my passion flower plant.  It was producing lots of greenery, but no flowers, then it came to me that it was probably not getting enough sun and sure enough after I moved it to near the back door, it has not stopped flowering since.  So now I can pop my head out and see it and it's a happy passionate little plant.

Just wanted to catch the view from my new seating area by the window.  Here are my asters, not quite as nice now as I took this photo well over a week ago.  At least I caught them before their end.

Christy

P.S.  I'm drinking at work, India black tea with berry and rose, organic, I can smell the rose umh!

Thank you Candyce.

Cheese And Chutney

In a previous post I gave the recipe for this Zucchini and Onion Chutney,  Above you can see the hot wax that I use to seal the tops.

Above are a salt and pepper set.  I always come back from a vacation having passed by all the expensive touristy things, only to find them in the thrift shop at a fraction of the price.  I think these are older in anycase and you probably would not even find them now.  I like the pearly finish.

Remember I won a drawing at work for a delivery of cheese every two months.  This is my first shipment.  Caerphilly, Grafton and Westminster Cheese.  I love cheese so this has been really fun and will continue to be so.

The Grafton cheese is from Vermont, from the Grafton Village Cheese Company.  Vermont cheddars are some of my favourite cheese over here in the USA.

The English Cheddar is from Barbar's West Country Farmhouse Cheddar and they have been making cheese for six generations starting in 1833.  This cheese won a Gold Meal in the 2011 World Cheese Awards for Best Mature Cheddar, the only entry from the UK to make it to the finals.

The Caerphilly originally a cheese made in Wales, dates back to the 1830 was made on small farms. Welsh miners would wrap the cheese in cabbage leaves to take as a handy self-contained lunch "down the pit" Today it is mainly produced in Somerset and this Caerphilly is from Abbey Farm.

From top to bottom.  Grafton Cheddar Vermont, center is the Westminster, West Country Cheddar, Somerset and at the bottom is the distinctive Caerphilly also from Somerset.

And as my grandfather would say, "where the cider apples grow"  he was from Somerset.

I have two homemade chutneys here the dark is an Apple and Raisin chutney made last year, the lighter chutney is the Zucchini chutney made this year, the red is a pepper kind of tapas from Trader Joe's,along with tomatoes from my garden.  Assorted crackers from Aldi's.

Just love this kind of a lunch.

With a nice glass of vino.

Christy