Roadkill Crossing

Sadness fills a beautiful, peaceful valley

Rock Doves, pigeons, barn roof — Pigeons roost atop Ivan’s barn. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

By Bruce Stambaugh

Sadness has come to my favorite valley.

Now, there are plenty of beautiful valleys in our area. For me to say I have a favorite sounds a bit selfish. It’s not. It’s personal.

To be sure, I don’t own the undulating acreage. I just enjoy it.

You can’t find a name for my favored hollow on any map. I’ve never heard anyone refer to it by name in the three decades my wife and I have lived here.

Amish school, one-room school, Drushel Knoll School — Drushel Knoll School. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

An Amish one-room school, Drushel Knoll, might come the closest to naming this wide-open expanse of land surrounded by wooded hills. Drushel was a pioneer landowner where the school sits. The knoll is nothing more than a rise in a sweeping pasture.

To call it a valley might even be a stretch. A quiet brook lazily meanders northwest through this productive, fertile ground. For the longest time, the land was all farmland. Farmsteads dotted hill and dale. More recently, a few residences have also popped up along the skinny township road that rises, falls and rises again east and west.

This is the sacred place where I take my physical and mental exercises. When the weather is decent, I love to walk this humble road over to Ivan’s farm.

Amish school children, scholars walking — Students walk to the Amish school in the valley. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

I will continue to do so, but Ivan will no longer be there. As he fixed his lunch bucket for work one recent morning, he collapsed and was gone. He was only 65.

Ivan would bicycle by our home on the way to and from his job at a local business we can see from our home. Not long ago, he had turned the hard but satisfying task of farming over to his energetic son, whose wife was one of my former students.

As my wife and I entered the farm building where Ivan’s body lay at rest, friends and warm handshakes greeted us. We paid our last respects to this quiet, hard-working man, husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend.

Tears flowed as we bent to share our condolences with Ivan’s widow and family. In the Amish tradition, family members sit in rows of facing chairs as mourners quietly pass through, shaking hands left and right, nodding heads, sharing moments, memories, and sorrowful tears.

summer sunset, Ohio's Amish country — The pond behind Ivan’s barn reflected a beautiful summer sunset. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

Wife, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends, all expressed grace in the Amish manner, through their quiet, reverent presence. It was a communion of sorts, tears for wine, a gathering of steadfast people its bread.

I marveled at the strength of the family, their genuine kindness and positive comments even in the face of their grievous loss. As I scanned the forlorn faces, I saw folks I had not seen for years. Our spirits mutually embraced without actually hugging one another.

When you live in a rural community for decades, you take for granted the integral connections of one family to another. Being among those assembled mourners, the closeness and goodness of our common kinship washed over me.

Ivan was a good man, a quiet man, a respected man, a man of peace. To a member, his family mirrors his pleasant disposition.

It seemed impossible that such sadness could hover over this lovely setting, home, family. And yet, it did. It does.

A different kind of beauty flooded my favorite valley. The loving grace of community responding to a stricken, grieving family surpassed that of the basin’s enchanting pastoral physical features.

Even in death’s darkness, the light radiated in my beloved valley.

Amish farm, walking — My grandsons check out birds on the fence and phone line on a summer’s morning walk. Ivan’s farm is in the background. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

“Plain” geometry

Amish farmstead, farm buildings, Ohio's Amish country, — “Plain” geometry. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

I have lived among “the plain people,” as the Amish are sometimes called, for more than 30 years. Over the years, I have marveled at the groupings of their nondescript buildings, the simple beauty of the textured angles. Of course, I am likely romanticizing their architectural practicality.

This farmstead is a good example. The combination of a fresh snowfall in the foreground and a bright blue sky in the background nicely framed this cluster of farm buildings at this Old Order Amish homestead.

“Plain” geometry is my Photo of the Week.

Illness reawakened appreciation of life’s little things

Pileated Woodpecker, bird and shadow — A mere shadow of himself. © BruceStambaugh 2014

By Bruce Stambaugh

I had a lot of time to think and reflect over the recent holidays. It wasn’t what I had in mind. In the end, it may have been what I needed the most.

Like so many other folks, I got the flu. Mine hit just before Christmas, not good timing with the family gathering for the holidays. We had a lot planned, too.

I’ve learned that plans sometimes have to change, whether we like them to or not. I isolated myself from the grandkids until I was no longer contagious and felt well enough to participate. Even then, I kept my distance and paced myself. When the chill subsided, I snapped a few photos from the house.

This current flu outbreak has been particularly bad, spreading fast and furious. I got my annual flu shot, but medical officials said this strain had mutated, rendering the vaccination no defense against the illness’s manifestations.

grandkids, grandchildren, pajamas, Christmas morning — The pajama gang on Christmas morning. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

The other problem was that the initial symptoms behaved more like a head cold than the flu. This strain was more a respiratory influenza than an intestinal one. Consequently, most people were out and about unknowingly spreading more than good cheer at the holidays.

Sneezing and coughing were the first signs that all was not well. Then came the chills, aching and sore throat. Many people had fevers, too.

I pitied children and older folks. Both groups had little resistance to fight the flu’s harshest effects, fatigue, and fever. Unfortunately, some even died from this infectious infirmity.

Not only did this sickness spread rapidly, it stayed with people for days on end. Often, it morphed into other physical issues, like strep throat, sinus infection or laryngitis. This exponentially extended the time of sickness.

It respected no boundary lines either. People all around got sick. Health officials declared this influenza occurrence an epidemic. It certainly was in my family. The flu bug spanned three generations among my close relatives.

As I lay shivering beneath warm blankets, all I could think about was how lousy I felt. Then I heard of someone else getting sick, and I felt even worse. Not that it was my fault, but I felt bad for them.

It wasn’t until I reached the end stages of my round with the flu that I began to recognize just how thankful I was for life’s little things. Yes, I had missed some traditional gatherings with family and friends. But the times of solitude gave me opportunities to reflect on the good that had come into my life.

I appreciated the homemade Moravian ginger snap cookies paired with warm mint tea my wife fixed for me. That and the bubbling sodas and the clear, cold water kept me hydrated.

Amish horse and buggy, Amish buggy, New Year's Day — Our neighbors headed out for a New Year’s Day gathering towing a load of presents. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015.

A rare bright, sunny morning bathed the dormant earth in radiant beauty, and warmed at least my soul. So did notes of encouragement from others that came via phone calls, texts, cards, and emails.

I found great comfort in those thoughtful gestures. They helped me heal. I wanted to return the favors.

When I discovered another person had the flu, I relayed what information my own doctor’s office had given to me. It was about all I could do. For once, my message was pretty short. Rest. Drink. Eat. Take your medication. Repeat.

Of course, you don’t have to get sick to be thankful for the random common occurrences that better and brighten your day. Just embrace and enjoy them as they occur. And don’t forget to say thank you.

Winter postcard

Amish farm in snow, Holmes County Ohio, rural scene, Bruce Stambaugh — Winter Postcard. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015

Winter arrived in earnest this week in Ohio’s Amish country. Once the snow quit, I went out to shoot some snow scenes. This one took the prize for me. And when a friend asked me where he could buy the postcard, I knew I had my Photo of the Week.

This current polar blast is hitting a lot of the country. I hope “Winter Postcard” will at least warm your spirits.

Don’t let the gray skies get you down

gray day, dreary day, Bruce Stambaugh — Gray day. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015.

By Bruce Stambaugh

It’s not easy living in the third cloudiest location in the nation. Like it or not, that’s just what the residents of Northeast Ohio have to do.

That’s not good for people with Seasonal Affective Disease (SAD). Recurrent gray days negatively affect their daily outlook. Folks with SAD have to suffer through as best they can. I can’t imagine how they do it. It’s hard enough to wake to one gray day after the other without that affliction.

I speak from experience having been a Buckeye all my life. Strung together like a necklace of discolored pearls, these series of overcast, dull days, can get us all down if we let them. We shouldn’t.

I will be glib and say there is good news anyhow. Minute-by-minute, daylight is increasing. That’s little consolation to all those overcome by the seasonal dreariness.

Winter mornings in Ohio seem darker and colder than ever. A minute of daylight tacked on a day at a time isn’t all that inspiring, helpful or meaningful.

We can always hope for an Alberta Clipper to roll through with a few inches of snow and frigid temperatures. The passage of the front usually brings clear, crisp days.

eastern bluebird, songbirds, Bruce Stambaugh — Songbirds like this male Eastern Bluebird can help cheer up any dull day. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015.

In addition, the fresh coat of light, fluffy snow brightens the dull, dormant ground. A million diamonds sparkle day and night, as long as the moon shows its face. Even if it is cloudy, I find a certain joy in the crunch, crunch, crunch of each step to retrieve the mail or fill the bird feeders.

Indeed, these dreary, damp, cold days are what they are. They don’t have to keep us from keeping on. We have to remember that each day is a gem of a gift to treasure all unto itself.

For me, that is an important reminder. The start of a new year means we enter winter’s hardest times. The season’s coldest temperatures, harshest weather, and often the worst storms are likely yet to come.

All things considered worse scenarios than depressing weather abound in this world. Can we look beyond our personal life space to see them?

A friend of mine has terminal cancer. He unabashedly asks others what they think about each night before they go to sleep. Do they believe they’ll awake in the morning? Are they ready to pass on?

Those are blunt, but necessary questions for each of us at any age, healthy or ill. At the end of another day, what do we contemplate? Can we accept dismal skies or broken relationships, or unsatisfying vocations?

Will we wake in the morning to a new day or a new world? None of us, regardless of our situations, knows. I do know this, however. Time is fleeting, gloomy skies or clear skies.

How will we use each day we are given to the benefit of others no matter our personal station in life? Will we let the weather get us down, or will we radiate sunshine that warms and enlightens others?

Regardless of where we live, that is always a challenge, isn’t it? I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions. But at this stage in my life, I only want to be helpful to others, those in my household, my family, my community, and even strangers I encounter in my daily duties.

My personal challenge this New Year is not to let the gloomiest weather dim the day at hand. What’s yours?

Amish farm, fresh snow, rural landscape — A fresh layer of snow helps brighten rural landscapes. © Bruce Stambaugh 2015.

Morning Blues

Eastern Bluebird, bluebirds, birding — Morning Blues. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

I was contemplating long and hard about what to do for my last Photo of the Week post for 2014. I thought about picking out the best photo I could find to cap off the year. When I looked out the window yesterday morning, I changed my mind. The small flock of Eastern Bluebirds that frequents the peanut butter suet feeder in my backyard had arrived. So had the bright sunshine, more a rarity in northeast Ohio than the secretive bluebirds.

I grabbed my camera and was fortunate to capture this stunning male sitting atop the feeder, basking in the morning’s sun rays. The sun illuminated the already beautiful bird all the more. I found the iridescent tail feathers incredible. I searched no more.

“Morning Blues” is my Photo of the Week.

Happy New Year!

Another year, another round of human folly

Amish buggy, rural road, Holmes County Ohio — Down the rural road. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

By Bruce Stambaugh

Each year I record some of the more arcane, inane, and maybe even insane happenings that tend to escape headlines. Here are a few of the highs and lows of human endeavor from 2014.

Jan. 9 – An off-duty Houston, Texas firefighter extinguished a fire in an 18-wheeler by using the truck’s cargo, cans of beer.

Jan. 31 – Sparked by static electricity, methane gas from a herd of dairy cows in Rasdorf, Germany exploded, nearly blowing the roof off the barn.

Feb. 22 – Released state records showed that a Spirit Lake, Iowa man was fired and lost his unemployment benefits because he used a forklift to retrieve a candy bar from a malfunctioning vending machine.

March 19 – Greentown, Ohio, volunteer firefighter Justin Deierling proposed to his girlfriend, Megan Zahorec, an elementary teacher, during a scheduled fire drill at her school.

March 24 – Former TV Judge Joe Brown was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee for contempt of court.

April 16 – A three-year-old toddler was reunited with his mother after he was found playing with toys in a claw machine in a bowling alley across the street from his home in Lincoln, Nebraska.

May 5- A Loveland, Ohio man, whose job was to collect coins from parking meters, pleaded guilty to stealing $20,000 in quarters over eight years.

May 15 – The University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio announced that it was replacing 75 percent of its lawn because a weed killer had accidently been used instead of a fertilizer on 54 of the campus’ 72 acres.

June 4 – While participating in a drill about what to do if a gorilla escaped, a Spanish zoo worker dressed in a gorilla suit was shot with a tranquilizer gun by a veterinarian, who didn’t know about the exercise.

July 9 – An 80-year-old American agave plant acquired and housed in the botanical garden at the University of Michigan since 1934 finally bloomed.

July 26 – The Colorado Rockies baseball team gave away 15,000 replica jerseys of All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki with his last name misspelled.

August 25 – A masked gunman robbed three people riding in a horse-drawn buggy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

August 31 – Leandra Beccera Lumbreras of Mexico turned 127, the oldest living person in the world.

West Virginia, ginseng hunting, — Ginsing country. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

September 1 – Ginseng season started in West Virginia with the herb expected to bring more than $700 per pound.

September 15 – To celebrate the anniversary of the Suez Canal, Egypt published a commemorative stamp, only to realize that the canal pictured was the Panama Canal.

October 8 – A study released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development rated Mississippi as the U.S. state with the worst quality of life.

October 13 – Police in Akron, Ohio said that they arrested 50-year-old David Scofield of Lancaster after he pulled over an off-duty police officer using a fake police car and uniform.

October 20 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was named the winner of Gawker.com’s Worst Accent contest.

November 11 – Police in Oslo, Norway responded to an apartment where screams were reported only to find a man upset because he lost a game of chess to a computer.

December 3 – A pet cat survived for more than a month when it accidentally stowed away in a moving box when its human family relocated from Norfolk, Virginia to Hawaii.

December 15 – The Merriam-Webster Dictionary named “culture” as its word of the year.

I don’t know if there was much culture or not in the mumbo-jumbo of shenanigans during 2014. Let’s hope 2015 brings a culture of blessings, peace and civility all around.

winter sunset, December sunset, Ohio sunset — The sun sets on another year. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

Merry Christmas!

nativity display, nativity scene, quilting, wall hanging — Nativity display. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

Christmas is upon us. I thought this photo of a Nativity scene the best way to say Merry Christmas to my friends and followers of this blog. This shot of a quilted wall hanging, lighted candles and poinsettia plants is my Photo of the Week.

I wish each of you a Merry Christmas!.

Christmas: Where dreams and memories meet

Christmas morning, Christmas gifts — I found this black and white photo of Christmas morning 1956 at the Stambaughs. Apparently I wanted a guitar. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

By Bruce Stambaugh

Growing up in Canton, Ohio after World War II, Christmas was the holiday of holidays for our family. Christmas related activities ran the gamut of the Advent season. My earthly father saw to that, and Mom chimed in, as if she had a choice.

Our wonderful parents modeled the joy of the season for us. We didn’t have much money, but that didn’t seem to derail any of their holiday plans or enthusiasm. Given my father’s meager income, I don’t know how they pulled off the Christmas they did for us year after year.

Like most families, we had our Yuletide traditions. Shopping was one of them, and extravagance was not on the list. Consequently, shopping took a back seat to preparing the home place inside and out for Christmas. Dad led the charge.

Christmas decoration, pine tree — This is the corner pine tree Dad decorated with lots of colorful lights every Christmas. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

We lived on a corner of a very busy intersection in our mixed blue and white-collar neighborhood. Dad had planted a pine tree right on the corner to provide some privacy and help block the noise.

At Christmas, Dad filled that tree with multiple strings of lights, the nightlight-sized bulbs so popular then that glowed in all the primary colors. As the tree grew, so did the string of lights. Year after year, Dad wanted those Christmas lights to shine for all who happened by.

Then there was the family Christmas tree. Dad would round up as many of his five children as possible, and off we would go, sometimes tromping through deep snow, to select just the right tree for our household.

The tree always went up in front of the large plate glass window in the living room. Again, Dad wanted the world to know that his family had the Christmas spirit.

On went the ropes of garland, the fascinating bubbling light bulbs, and strings of regular Christmas lights. On went the fragile decorative ornaments, including colorful antiques from previous generations, and the simplistic arts and crafts ones we had made at school.

Next came real candy canes that somehow seemed to have totally disappeared by Christmas morning. Finally, we slathered the tree’s tender limbs with tons of silvery tinsel. There wasn’t an empty space on the tree.

The plastic church that illuminated centered the wooden fireplace mantel. A pair of red candles affixed in Mom’s cherished cut glass candlesticks adorned the mantel’s ends.

baking Christmas cookies, Christmas — My wife continues the tradition of making Christmas cookies with our grandchildren. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

Mom and her cherubs rolled, baked, iced and sprinkled sugar cookies in shapes of stars, Christmas trees, bells, and ornaments. Dad bought chocolates at the neighborhood candy shop.

My brothers, sisters and I were so excited we could hardly sleep the night before Christmas. All the while, Mom and Dad stayed up late assembling and wrapping gifts. We weren’t allowed up before six on Christmas morning. But younger brother Jim always started the countdown well before then.

Because of his hardscrabble childhood, Dad always wanted us kids to have the Christmas he never did. If Dad’s goal was to turn his dreams into a lifetime of memories for us, he more than succeeded. I think he wanted that for Mom and himself, too.

When Dad died five years ago just before Christmas, my brothers, sisters and I mourned his passing. We marveled, though, at the timing of Dad’s death, Christmas, his favorite time of year.

Christmas is for children. It brings out the youngster in all of us no matter what age we happen to be. That’s only appropriate, since the holiday started with the birth of a long-anticipated child.

May your Christmas dreams also be fulfilled, and may loving Christmas memories last a lifetime.

Christmas tree, Christmas, Christmas presents, Christmas decorations — Christmas at the Stambaughs. © Bruce Stambaugh 2014.

Wash day

No matter the season or the weather, Monday is laundry day in Ohio’s Amish country. That’s a given, since the Amish take seriously the scriptural admonition to do no work on the Sabbath. Other than necessary farm chores, the Amish do not “work” on Sunday. Consequently, it’s normal to see freshly washed clothes flapping on a laundry line every Monday. Given the size of their families, averaging about five children, laundry is done other days as well. But you can always count on seeing laundry lines on Monday all around Amish country.

As is evident in this photo, the Amish have become quite adept at stringing the wash so that it does not interfere with children, animals and implements can move freely around the yard. In this case, a sturdy line was affixed to a pulley high on the barn siding. The line connects to a similar pulley on the wall of the outbuilding. This makes it very convenient to hang the laundry without having to endure the wintry elements of a typical northeast Ohio winter. The pulley moves so that clothes are hung one garment at a time.

The pastel pieces of laundry really stand out against the solid red background of the barn. “Wash day” is my Photo of the Week.