Summer solstice, the observance of the longest day of summer, or the beginning of summer, is cause for celebration in many cultures. Five thousand-year old Stonehenge is mobbed on June 20th with people hoping to see the sun, at its highest point, shine through the altar stone. I skipped the evening program, but I enjoyed the afternoon  music, wine and food at Quyles. Bear and Summer Moon Dyken played one slot of three in a beautiful setting, under the trees on a  beautiful Saturday afternoon.


Bear and Summer Moon are multitalented and well-known in the Mother lode for their music and instrumentation.


But the real star of the venue was Jill Warren, a newcomer to our area. WOW!  She can make her guitar talk. And, her rendition of old favs, like Summertime?  Amazing. I couldn’t get enough. I tried to buy a CD?  She hasn’t got one. If you are looking for an entertaining, very talented musician, Jill Warren is a great choice. I don’t often do this, but here is her phone number (599) 280-9123. And,  http://www.jillwarren.info. She is also on facebook. Jill Warren rocks. I’m hoping the Arts Council will pick her up, but their schedule for this summer is already filled. Hey, Mary Jane, take note for next year.


So, between events, I poked around Quyle’s to see what’s new or interesting. The blacksmith forge was up and running.


They have lessons the first Saturday of the month. And then meet and play the third Saturday of the month.  These two boys are the youngest practitioners I’ve ever seen at the forge. They were surrounded by people watching them.  I’m guessing 9 years old and 13?


Marlene Bradford teaches at the pottery. And this unfired bust is drying before firing. This is her signature talent. Don’t know who made her. Jim Bass was giving lessons on the patio, but he was gone when I returned to take pictures. Always something going on.


People travel with their dogs, these days. This well-behaved pooch was, I’m sure, glad to be out and about, and not in a backyard. Quyles has several old dogs that found  rescue here.


I stopped this woman for a picture because her boyfriend was hassling her a bit. I told him she was cuter than he is.


I want my feet to look like hers. Love the colors.

This bug isn’t real, but I found  two horn worms on an anise plant in the garden. Dolores Quyle, who planned the women only singers for this venue, since the sun-god was a female, told me everything is organic. They even buy organic compost put together from Diestel Turkey Ranch droppings with organic mulch. I once got straight turkey poop for my orchard and it stunk so bad the neighbors held their noses when they walked by my place. Voila!  Now I know where to get good stuff that doesn’t stink. Of course, I’ve neglected my orchard these last five years, one can hardly call it an orchard. Well, maybe someday it will be again.  It was a fun day. Night time revelers were invited to bring a tent and stay the night if they don’t mind sleeping on the grass. Too cool!

THE SUN IS SHINING SOMEWHERE.

Despite a bad news day, we woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and it behooves us to remind ourselves that the sun is always shining somewhere.


I told Jim I was hungry to see some green but we left early for Los Algodones for Jim’s eye appointment and I caught a group harvesting kale as we drove by. That isn’t enough green for me. I’m remembering when we stayed here for two months in 2008. I need to make up for our brown winter in Murphys.


We ran the gauntlet of hawkers trying to get you to use their eye doctors or their dentist. Every few minutes someone sticks a card in your face. Algodones was practically empty from what we saw two years ago. The town has five hundred dental offices with two to three dentists in each one. The biggest concentration, so we are told, in the world.


The streets and alleys are like one big bazaar, with goods hanging everywhere for sale, to bargain.


Much of it stuff you don’t need but talk about colorful and fun.  I did buy a scarf.


The economy in Algodones is affected by the drug cartel mess and less people making the trip. We were amazed at the five-minute wait to get back across the border instead of the 40 minutes it normally takes.  So people here are suffering for business as well. This courtyard at one time held a fountain and a lot of sales goods. Now it holds tables for strolling musicians and multiple restaurants in a circle to choose from.


We walked around town for a an hour or so waiting for Jim’s glasses to be finished and we visited my dentist to have a new mouth guard made. His prices went up from thirty dollars last time to eighty dollars this time. I probably won’t go back to him. San Luis is cheaper, about 25 miles down the road. There is the back part of town not so pretty. A lot of places closed and for sale.


This cute little dog was irresistible and not for sale, of course.


We always eat at the same place, Birrias, where they sell you a whole chicken or fish and shrimp tacos for lunch with a beer for seven dollars. I usually order the chicken but talked to an American woman who said the tacos were as good as the chicken. And, they were.


They give you gobs of condiments as well. Yum.


Birriras doesn’t have musicians but we listened to musicians at another restaurant. We had my Little Siamese clock fixed and and picked it up before we got back to the motor home. Jim found out he has cataracts, which is also fixable, but not in Algodones. Mexican border towns are not dangerous during the day time. It is at night you don’t want to cross over. We did border crossings in January of last year when a local cop told us, don’t worry about drug activity during the day. Go, enjoy your dinner, and we did. Algodones has not had any drug violence like other places, anyway. So if you are worried, don’t be.

KENTUCKY HIGHLANDS MUSEUM, ASHLAND

I loved this museum. It took you from mammoth teeth to the current crop of famous musicians that hail from Kentucky, and it was beautifully organized and easy to understand. The first surprise was a hand-operated elevator.

I always look for something I’ve never seen before, and this was it.

They did a wonderful job on Victorian clothing and habits. Above, some men’s hats. But the women’s clothing were spectacular. This museum had a tea where locals dressed in the old clothing and showed them off.

They could do this because the clothing is in such good shape.

A painted feather fan.

And, the language of fans. How repressed women were is astonishing.

I laughed out loud when I read that men took the time to make laws about hat pins. It shows their fear of women.
Another example. Men organized against women’s suffrage, but turned their back when it came time to take their pictures. It kind of reminds me when I was a journalist, I published that the local Rotary had refused to accept women as members. This was in the 1980′s. Rotary members castigated me at a public Merchants Association Meeting for making it public. Now, they love having hardworking women on their team.

There are beautiful quilts in this museum, many of them.

As always, a section on wars. The posters were not all the usual ones, and good copy. A small section on the Civil War and Korea, Vietnam and WWII.

They had the full story of Jean Thomas, this talented and courageous Kentucky woman who gained the trust of Kentucky hill people, hauled a piano into the deep woods and recorded and saved for posterity their wonderful music, unwritten and handed down from generation to generation. I saw a television special about her some years back.

They had a big section on Kentucky’s musicians that made it big, the most obvious, Billy Ray Cyrus who was born nearby and still maintains a house in Ashland. His daughter, by the way, is Hannah Montana.

And the Judds. Polly, second from left, is Naomi’ s mother, Wynona’s grandmother. She still lives here. The locals call her Polly.

For my interest, I chose to concentrate on women’s suffrage which really started in 1840 with Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth.

Forgotten are the many women who followed the original heroines of the battle. From every state they marched.

Some of these women were beaten, jailed, and force-fed. In 1917 suffragette Jeannette Rank was the first women in congress.

The press vilified them as humorless old maids.

State by state they fought and made progress.

By the 1920′s, they were ripping off their corsets and demanding freedom to be something other than baby machines and servile wives.

They went from beautiful clothing like this, but, covered from neck to ankles…
To “seductive” clothing like this. OMIGOD! Later, women cut their hair and wore slacks. I still have a small rug my mom made that included the worn material from her first pair of slacks. This was such a hoot to look back on, without taking away the seriousness of the movement and how much we women owe to those early women who suffered and paved the way to freedom for us. It still astonishes me when I see it.

Later in the afternoon, I met Dr. Amy Litteral of Moxie Massage here in Ashland. She is also a chiropractor and I learned so much about body mechanics from her and had the most intense and therapeutic massage from her that I’ve ever had. I  can’t praise this woman enough.