Menno House, the romance began

If you take our romance back to the origins, you get to Menno House in New York. The house itself celebrated its 50th anniversary three weeks ago and we went. Here (photographer unknown) we take our seats at the Saturday evening outdoor banquet.

At my left elbow is David Wenger, one of our friends in the dating days. At his left is John Rempel who was pastor in a later decade of the Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship, the church which now owns Menno House.

When we met there in 1976, it was owned by the eastern mission board and used to house volunteers and students.

funereal detour

Out of the blue, Dorcas' sister, Rachel Yoder, died suddenly, on Ascension Day. Rachel and Monroe lived in New York. On their way to Grantsville, Maryland, she took sick and died in a Harrisburg hospital.

On Wednesday the funeral was held at the Maple Glen Mennonite Church, Grantsville, and the burial was in this cemetery beside the church.

For over forty years their church was Seventh Avenue Mennonite Church. A good two dozen members and friends of that neighborhood and church and others from the Bronx attended.

wikipedia must read

Bedtime reading got me this in New York Review. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131 .

Kind of goes with my idea of how humans can help each other out.

Did you know that more people check wikipedia than google?

Plus, wiki is easier to spell than encyclopedia. I've still got emotional feelings about a whole set. My brother and I together won a set of encyclopedias from Lancaster Newspapers when I was about in 7th grade.

I'll see if I can find that photo.

Flagstone walk

Two property projects finally were done the same week--a new walkway and a new roof.

Here's the walkway torn up and the new curved path for the flagstone. Stacked up like books on a shelf are the squares of Pennsylvania Blue, the flagstone quarried in northeastern Penna. and across the border into New York state.

Maybe machines have replaced most physical labor, but not here. The Kilgore Landscaping crew just dug in with plain old shovels. They had only a few more feet to dig and they said to me, This is amazing! All this digging and we still haven't hit a rock.

That's good old Monterey.

Spider picks barn

Charlotte Web, the spider outside our door, has a friend or relative spinning a web every evening at the barn. And here's the picture.

I think they are both right-handed, because they build in the right corner of the openings, looking at the spider from their backbone.

These two spiders are just the tip of the iceburg of the spider population at our Monterey home. Walk anywhere after dark and you're sure to hit some web. I can guarentee it under the grape arbor or around the dogwood tree.

I have no idea how web strands appear out of nowhere, in the middle of the lawn, far from any vertical. I guess it's a bungee cord instinct in all creatures: let's drop this rope down, hang onto it and see where it goes, especially in this nice breeze.

Profounder than the fear of walking into a web in the dark, is the angst that spiders could possibly take over the world in a few short summers. Haven't I read that New York City, totally evacuated by humans, would revert to wilderness in a few years. I can picture the evolution of spiders in Manhattan: twenty-five pounders pulling skyscrapers into each other, helpless ensnared rats screeching like baby mice for help.

What's bringing the Halloween out of me already?