SAMPLERS.

I mentioned I had taken pictures of samplers to a friend who wanted to know, "...is that like people who eat lunch at Costco by sampling all the little bites of food they put out to try and get you to buy them?" We both laughed. No. It was a reasonable assumption, I had just returned from a trip to Costco. But, she had never heard of the type of sampler I meant.


This one is a cross stitch sampler, with a clever verse, and signed. Most likely a pre-stamped pattern to work. Samplers were designed to teach young girls how to embroider or cross stitch in homey designs that also taught them the alphabet and sometimes included numbers from 1 to zero.


Samplers are highly prized and my cousin had them hanging under glass in a bathroom and a somewhat poorly lit bedroom. Since I love collections, I had to photograph them.


Few letters, and no verse, the scene is appealing and tells a bit about the times and gave the person a lot of practice making stitches. Needlework was considered a necessary skill for young women to learn.


Most of the samplers were unsigned.


This is an embroidered sampler, much harder to work than cross stitch. This one from a modern era and most likely hand drawn. A full story in pictures and words. And, the misspelled GUEST?  Curious.


My mother prompted me to make a sampler when I was young, but when I got to the "dime" store to pick out a pattern, I opted for more practical pillow cases to embroider instead.


An unusual statement, almost biblical.


A wry truth.


A sampler  high on the wall, under glass, in poor light. Many photos didn't turn out, but I had to include this blurry one because the spelling, so quaint, suggests someone of German descent.

I was more tomboy than girl and while I did learn to sew and work quilts, my mother did excellent crochet, a skill I never mastered. I'm grateful to have some of her doilies, another collectible item you can find in the thrift stores.

LOGGING JAMBOREE

When I visited the Logging Museum, the annual Logging Jamboree was going on.


The driveway up to the museum was lined with big honkin’ pick-up trucks with guys tenderly cleaning and priming their chainsaws. But, lest you think this is all about manly competition, think again.

When I arrived the women’s sawing competition was in full swing.

From start…

…to finish with a guy and a stop-watch standing by.  These gals can cut a mean log. Straight, too. I’ve used a small chain saw for small branches, but never could handle a huge saw like these women do.

The mens elimination rounds were held before I arrived.

The next task was the light-weight axe throwing contest. The competitor tosses the axe at the target. It must stick within a marked zone around the bulls eye, though this is not about accuracy. It is about speed and strength.

Then the competitor races to the target, removes the axe, races back to the starting point and throws again. He races to see how many hits he can make in one minute. The scores were all in the 30′s.

A gray-haired competitor beat some of the  younger loggers.


Speed and agility matter.

The axe doesn’t look light-weight. Axe work is not much in demand for today’s logger, but the thrill of competition is. I’ve attended  the Jamboree other years and a heavier axe is used for accuracy throwing which is done slowly and precisely. All of the events are fun to watch, so if you ever have a chance to view them, the event is held every Labor Day Weekend.

On the way back to Murphys, the Arnold Library was holding its annual book sale. Several thousand  paperbacks and hard covers to choose from, all organized by genre. A great sale to pick-up a “find.”

The Cedar Center in Arnold hosts a crafts fair with about 70 booths. All manner of food, gifts, artwork and what-nots available for sale. The best thing is meeting people you haven’t seen for years.

If your feet get tired, you can take a load off and sit a spell and listen to the music or the comedian crack jokes. Or simply rest and eat your lunch. Hey! Its like one big party wherever you go, something to do and see.

This booth made me wish I had a cute little granddaughter. I had planned  to attend a Mexican Rodeo in Burson on Sunday-there are events all over the county-but I opted to work on my ancient sprinkling system instead. Maybe next year.

THE TEMPLE OF HELL.

We fly to Chonquin, a big city in the Szechuan area of China. The food in this province is known for its use of chilies and  we will have spicy food. Szechuan is known for the best curries both fruit and meat. From the city we are bused to our ship landing at Fengdu.

On the way, the bus stops at  an electric car charging station. China doesn’t mess around when it comes to foreseeing where the future is taking us. They have so few cars on the road yet they are building infrastructure of the future-now!  And, they do it with charming detail in the last-forever roof.

From the bus parking  lot we walk down 100 steps to the landing, then cross this pontoon bridge and enter the belly of the ship.  Porters haul our luggage, and once settled we walk back across the bridge to the parking lot and climb another 200 steps up to visit the Temple of Hell. We joke that the climb is what gave it the name.


As we get close to the temple, we see grotesque, moss-covered figures lining the stairs.

We can’t read the inscriptions, but Viki explained to us that this Tang Dynasty Temple is reversed from a Ching Dynasty Temple. Everything here is backwards, like Christianity, you suffer for bad behavior and are re-incarnated to a higher plane (or heaven)  for good behavior.

There were so many of these figures, I wish I had taken pictures of all of them and learned what each one means.

From the temple plaza, you have three stairways to choose from to enter the grounds of  the temple. One is for women, one is for men and the other is for the monks.

The roof details and even the colors are different from other Temples we’ve seen.

We walked the garden which had odd shapes and unusual colors, twisted arches and tests of skill.

The first test of skill was the Xing Shen Stone. The idea is to balance a 90 pound stone on top of a 200 pound stone.

Mark Maurer, a big strong guy from our group, gave it a try.

He succeeded but nobody else wanted to give it a try. His success will heal a broken heart. The tortured sign in English describing the feat was a hoot.

We tried a balance feat.

You try to stand on one foot on a ball on a hard flat surface for nine seconds. To succeed is to give you a long life. None of us could do it.

The pagoda was beautiful but had none of the markings we’ve seen on others.

In the dungeon, figures behind bars are in hell and suffering. We realized that this temple would not be painted and prettied up for the 2008 Olympics. Even so, it was enjoyable and definitely an unusual place.

From the temple garden we could look down at our ship below through the mist. Another phase of our journey was about to begin. The fabulous Yangtze  River.