Cardinal Nation

The baseball season has started!!   Go Cardinals!

All over Cardinal Nation, from Oklahoma City to Danville, Illinois, and from Little Rock to Iowa City, Cardinal fans are listening, watching, and reading about their team. 

The photo above is from 2008.  My mother was almost as big a fan as my dad. 

We can watch every game on television this year.  (Only a couple of games were not televised last year.)  When I was a kid, we followed the Cards mostly by radio or in the next morning's newspaper.

I easily identified with the family in John Grisham's novel, A Painted House.  They listened to Cardinal games on the radio through the static.  Our house had paint, but I heard many Cardinal games on my transistor radio.  Linda's dad listened faithfully on the radio when she was a little girl.

I have some friends who don't like baseball.  They prefer the face-paced action of basketball or football.  But to me, the pace of a baseball game alternates between "relaxed" and "crazy".  I like to say that since there is no game clock in baseball, time stands still.

Whitey Herzog wrote a book with the title of "You're Missin' a Great Game".  To appreciate the game of baseball, you have to watch the "game within the game".  You have to watch what the fielders do on each pitch, what pitch is thrown, whether the batter is swinging or taking, the length of lead the runners take, and then....when the batter puts the ball in play, the action picks up to the "crazy" level.

I really believe my buddies are missing a great game.  But...I am concerned about what big money is doing to Major League Baseball.

I hope this is really spring

Today's forecast is for 80 degrees.  The last two weeks have been up and down.  Some highs in the 40s and some in the 60s.  All the cool-season grasses are bright green, but the Bermuda grass on the golf course is still "white". 

Forsythia and daffodils are flowering, but that may not prove anything.  The redbuds are starting to show a little color.  So there is hope.

A sure sign of spring:  I've had to mow the lawn twice. 

I Spoke Too Soon

Last night we got 4 inches of snow.  I spoke too soon. 

Now the forecast is for more snow on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. 

Here's a photo of our current snow. 

We even have sledders on our hill. 

We Dodged a Bullet

Everyone is saying, "We dodged a bullet".  They, of course, are referring to the monster snow storm on Tuesday that stretched from New Mexico to New England. 

Here are some snowfall totals:  Tulsa 14 inches, Springfield, MO 14 inches, Columbia, MO 17 inches, Chicago 19 inches.  I-44 was closed through the whole state of Oklahoma.  I-70 was closed in Missouri for most of a day. 

But all we had in Mountain View was about one-fourth of an inch of ice with a dusting of snow on top of it. 

This photo shows what ice can do.  These are 25-year old white pines.  One is severely drooping and the other came crashing down.  Many smaller limbs are down around town.  But I've heard of no power outages here.  A little more ice and some strong winds would have been disastrous. 

The second photo is in our back yard.  My "precious" short-leaf pines are looking sad.  We lost a few limbs. 

I'm ready for some melting.  The streets and highways are no problem, but I don't want to lose any trees. 

Our predicted high temperature today is 21 degrees after an overnight low of 4.  So melting may be minimal today.  Springfield, MO, set a record overnight with -9 degrees.  Just last Saturday Springfield had 68. 

That's the way the winter weather goes in my corner of the Ozarks.  Last Friday we played golf when the air temperature was 57.

Stay tuned.  It will change. 

My Rocky Ozarks

The late Mountain View banker used to tell a story on my grandfather.  Grandpa David was a real estate agent for many years.  The banker said Grandpa would tell the city slickers to whom he was showing a rocky farm, that the price of the land was such-and-such, but if you want the rocks included it will be a little higher.  Grandpa denied ever saying that to any prospective land purchaser, although he never said that he was above a little "honest deception" when it came to city slickers. 

Actually, there are rocks everywhere you go in the Ozarks.  The soils are shallow, well-drained, and very rocky.  Limestone and dolomite underlay half of southern Missouri.  These sedimentary or layered rocks are found abundantly in bluffs, creek beds, and on hill sides.  Chert is a fine-grained hard rock that occurs within limestone formations.  Flint is a dark-colored chert that was used by Indians for arrowheads. 

Chert accumulates in abundance in stream beds as gravel and on hillsides within the soil and on the surface.  There is so much chert lying around because it is so hard.  Water and weather erode it very little.  Every square foot of our front lawn contains dozens of pieces of chert. 

Ozarkers have always been good at "making-do" with what is available, including rocks.  Pre-historic Indians made stone shelters and shrines, mostly from sandstone.  Clearing fields for farming by settlers usually resulted in fence-rows of rocks which sometimes grew tall enough to form a fence barrier for cattle. 

The pasture edge at right shows an old row of rocks, probably gathered from the pasture.  It may never have been tall enough to contain livestock.

The original homes in the Ozarks were log cabins.  Most had foundations and chimneys made of local stones. 


A more modern use of rocks gathered from fields is the wire basket corner post, as shown on the left. 


In the 1920's and 1930's Missouri and Arkansas Ozarkers made use of field stone for home construction.  Some builders specialized in constructing stone houses.  As you might imagine, these buildings were very sturdy and most persist. 

These "three-in-a-row" stone houses (right)  are on Third Street in Mountain View, Missouri. 

The structures on Third Street must have been developed all in the same era, because there are several stone houses along that street. 



This is a different view of that same Third Street stone house (left). 

At the corner of Third and Elm is a stone building that has been a auto repair garage for many years (right).  And a block west is the original Mountain View fire station (left below).  More modern exteriors were added to the fire station in later years.  

Native rocks were commonly used for retaining walls (right below). 

 Many rural school houses were built with native stones.

 The building below was the Trask School at one time. 

Rural homes were also often constructed using local stones.  The house pictured below (center) was built by Earnest LeBaron, my great-grandfather.  My grandparents lived there all their lives and my mother grew up in that house.  All the rocks were gathered right on the farm. 

Rocks are usually a nuisance, especially to farmers.  But in the Ozarks, where we have plenty, our rocks sometimes have been quite useful, and beautiful. 

Hall of Fame Illinoisans

We moved from Illinois to My Corner of the Ozarks in May 2004. We are "back home" where we met in the 5th grade. But we left behind many wonderful friends in Illinois. We lived in or near Gibson City for 30 years. We honor those brave Illinoisans who made the trip to the Ozarks to visit us. So here is the Hall of Fame.
Our first visitors from Illinois were Ron and Marti in July 2004; sorry no photo.





December 2004
Although they were technically no longer from Illinois, we first knew Chad and Wendy at Gibson City. We had a fun visit with Coplea, Callie, Caris and their parents.






February 2005
Del and K. brought news of Gibson City Bible Church and endured the Mountain View tour to see our "roots". Del could find no suitable fields to raise corn in My Corner of the Ozarks.






April 2005
Paul, Connie, and Aaron checked us out. It was probably some kind of "spiritual test". We never heard if we passed or not. We toured all the local sites, springs, mills, etc. All our visitors also got to visit Gene and Thelma, Larry's parents.





April 2005
Errol and Marlene no longer lived in Gibson City, but they still lived in Illinois. Marlene's sister now lives in Howell County, our county. So they visited My Corner of the Ozarks frequently. Alley Spring is in the background. All visitors got to see Gene, Thelma, and Alley.






May 2005
Can you believe that Wendy hauled cattle to West Plains, only 25 miles from our house. We had a short visit with Whitney and Wendy on that trip.






May 2005
Can you believe that we ran into Wayne and Carol at Silver Dollar City? They stopped by our house on their return trip to Illinois. I think Wayne, the Arab, got along okay with the rednecks in My Corner of the Ozarks.







June 2005
This was the first visit by Dean and Julie. They have been faithful to come for a canoe trip every summer. They are busy people and we are glad they put us on their calendar.






June 2005
Dean and Julie have progressed in their canoeing ability. But they have damaged some trees and rocks in doing so. In the Ozarks we don't call it "canoeing", we call it "floating". I think that's because we know to go "down stream".






July 2005
This was the first visit by Derald, Sunita, and Sunila. As far as I know, they have never lived in Gibson City. But they have tried most other towns in east-central Illinois; currently Cissna Park.






August 2005
Julie, Eunice, and Sue graced our home at the end of the summer. Julie and Sue floated. We should have given Eunice a canoe. I know she could have taught us a thing or two.








September 2005
Homer and Jane visited us before the river was too cold. We had fun showing them our roots and floating.







September 2005
Actually, Current River, shown here, is always cold. 60% of the water volume comes from springs, not run-off. Homer and Jane only got wet once.








February 2006
Dave's visit was a nice winter interlude for us. He brought many stories from Illinois. We believed some of them.







May 2007
Sue, Donna, and Susie made a quick trip to My Corner of the Ozarks. They saw all the local sites and took a float.






May 2007
The "Sue Crew": Sue and Susie. They were good. They both seemed to like adventure.









March 2008
Rich, Marlene, and Errol made another visit. Gene and Thelma came over to check them out.







July 2008
Is it "river rats"? Or Larry, Linda, Julie, and Dean? We probably stopped to eat. That's a necessary part of any float, no matter the length.







September 2008
Frank and Joyce included us on one of their Ozark trips. Frank brought us some "domino boards" from his wood-working shop.








October 2008
Jerry and Pat finally made it to My Corner of the Ozarks. Like many from Illinois, it seemed to be difficult for them to figure out how to cross the Mississippi River. Jerry diligently fished the Jack's Fork, but never landed any of those smart Ozark fish.






March 2009
Bob and Gloria came for a cool-weather visit. Although Bob is an experienced floater, we stayed on dry land. Next time?







July 2009
Derald, Sunita, and Sunila at Alley Spring. Isn't Sunila growing!









August 2010

Wendy and Kenny had to drag Ed kicking and screaming. But we enjoyed a brief visit with them.






July 2011
We first met Bill and Judy in Illinois in 1976, so they count as Illinoisans. 
So they came to visit us from Colfax, Anchor, or Long Beach, take your
pick.  They are the first visitors to be "inserted" into the Hall of Fame in
almost a year. 




July 2011

Eric, Amy and the boys made a quick trip to see us.  We spent the whole day on the Jack's Fork.  Only Linda and Amy failed to dump their canoe.  The guys are still trying to learn to operate their "hooey sticks". 






May 2014
It was great to see Kevin and Diana.  We enjoyed Alley Spring and a Jack's Fork float trip.

July 2014
Homer and Jane made an "all-too-brief" visit as they traveled through My Corner of the Ozarks.  It was their second visit, but we didn't have time for any traditional Ozark activities, i.e. no floats, no hunts, etc.

October 2015
Steve and Vicki stopped briefly to see us.  We had a hillbilly lunch and sent them on their way.









I have an "insert" key. We can add your photo to the Hall of Fame if you come for a visit.

Weather? Hot and dry.

This is a photo of our brown front lawn on August 19. In the center is the “stump” of our new maple tree that we planted in the fall of 2009. As you can see, our new tree didn’t make it. And our weedy lawn turned brown and ugly.
The news in summer included reports of flooding in Iowa, northern Missouri, Oklahoma, and western Arkansas. But Mountain View was in the center of a circle of low rainfall; drought really. Our soils are thin to non-existent. Ozark soils are rocky and very well drained. It dries out fast around here. We need about an inch of rain weekly in the summer to keep pastures and lawns green.
I’m so thankful that September rains came and also brought some cooler air. July and August 2010 were very hot and very dry in my corner of the Ozarks. We had 7.5 inches of rain in September which is almost twice the average. I thought the drought was broken.
But October brought more dry air, dry skies, and dry soil. We had only one measurable rain in October and it was only 0.3 inches. Nothing yet in November.
We’ve had a warm fall, which is pleasant, especially after a miserably hot summer. The heat started early. We had 15 days in the 90’s in June including 98 three times. In late July we had 17 straight days at 90 or above. From August 1-25 the daily high fell below 90 only two days. We had seven days in August with highs of 100 or more. Yuk!
What’s next? I guess I’m going to open up some persimmon seeds and go in search of wooly worms to find out.