Weekly update: wildflowers, new projects, and reading

Spring wildflowers on my walks this week:

(clockwise):  skunk cabbage leafed out (the flower is the purply-brown "horn"), violets, swamp buttercup, white trout lily (aka dogtooth violet -- "trout" because the leaves are mottled brown/green like a trout); bloodroot. 

Saturday morning:   six of us from Illinois Beach Sunrise Rotary joined other District 6440 Rotarians at a warehouse in Northbrook. We sorted the shoes our clubs purchased through Operation Warm -- new sneakers for kids in our communities.  IBSR's share was 92 pairs that will be distributed through two local agencies.  

Operation Warm also provides new winter coats for kids.  Our club participates in that autumn event.

Saturday afternoon the magic of Zoom allowed me to attend two events:  the AAUW-Illinois state board meeting and the annual P.E.O. Lake County Round Table Founders Day.  Had these been in person I would have had to choose to attend one or the other, and I might not have been able to get to the shoe-sorting.  

The Founders Day program included cameo appearances by three women who have benefited from P.E.O. philanthropies.  One received  Program for Continuing Education Grant (PCE) in 2010. It enabled her to finish her college degree and get a job at a university where there was tuition reimbursement for both her children. As she said, PCE provided not one but three degrees.  The second recipient was working two jobs and trying to complete high school.  A Lulu /Corkhill Williams Friendship Fund grant allowed her to quit one job and concentrate on her studies. She will complete her AA this spring and enroll at UIC this fall.  The third recipient received a Star scholarship, a very competitive award for first-year women college students. She's pre-med at Penn State.  Hearing from these women helped all of us (the 55 in the Zoom room) realize that our contributions make a difference in women's lives!

# # # # # # # # #

I'm serving on the Illinois P.E.O. Home Fund Advisory Committee. The Home Fund provides grants to Illinois women over age 65 who need housing assistance (rent, mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, major appliances like furnaces).    Last year I made house-block mug rugs for each chapter that sponsored a HF recipient -- but the state convention was cancelled and the mug rugs were not given away.   This year the convention is virtual and our committee got the go-ahead to give the mugs rugs to this year's sponsors. I had 12 from last year  . (Fortunately I could just peel off the fused-on labels dated 2019-20.)   I need to make 8 more but I may make 10 just in case.   

I started a batch of waffle stamps blocks using 2" squares and 2" strips. (The three waffle stamps quilts I've made used 1-1/2" strips and squares.)  Maybe these are jumbo waffles?  

The blocks are 8" unfinished/7-1/2" finished.  I'm aiming for 72 blocks.

# # # # # # # # 

It's interesting that there are boycotts of many products that are grown, harvested, pumped, mined, extracted, etc., under working conditions that are unregulated, dangerous, unethical, or otherwise exploitive.  Though diamond mining isn't "clean," I'm not aware of huge outcries about the product. Perhaps one reason is the De Beers monopoly's "diamond are forever" campaign. Whatever-- diamonds are a valuable commodity. The vast majority of the world supply comes from southwestern Africa.

Matthew Gavin Frank conducted an independent on-site investigation of that territory. Working conditions are still terrible. Labor laws and safety regulations are routinely ignored. As long as diamonds have been mined they have been smuggled.  Homing pigeons are very effective carriers of those gems.  The birds are secreted in lunchboxes or the folds of clothing. They are bred and trained to go back to their roosts. (Frank explains pigeon anatomy and behavior.)   What happens after the diamonds are gone? Frank travels to ghost towns that were thriving company towns just a couple of decades ago.

Frank takes the story beyond just reporting to include personal reflections, not about diamonds but somewhat about pigeons. It's somewhat distracting but it intensifies the narrative.   

Last week I wrote about my discovery of Idaho writer Kim Barnes.  I read another of her books this week. 

Barnes ended her widely-acclaimed 1996 memoir In the Wilderness at her high school graduation. Hungry for the World picks up where that left off .  At age 18, legally an adult, she rebelled against her parents' conservative lifestyle and Pentecostal faith. She didn't go far -- an apartment in her hometown of Lewiston, Idaho. She got a job at a bank. She partied, drank and smoked* a lot. The most dangerous behavior was her two-year liaison with Dave, a man who emotionally and physically abused her. Through it all she maintained a visiting-day relationship with her parents and her beloved grandmother. Eventually she escaped from Dave's controlling orbit and found a new future for herself as a college student.  (*She refers to cigarette-smoking so often in the three books I've read that I wonder if she's still a smoker, or if she's quit.)

Barnes is now in her 60's, married for many years, mother of three children. How do they react to her recounting in detail of her wild days?  

Illinois Beach State Park on Sunday afternoon

Linking up with  Oh Scrap!  Monday Making and  Design Wall Monday