On the Horizon: Heart of the Community

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Soma fast delivery no doctors For centuries, a community’s downtown has been the heart of the city. With unique shops and restaurants populating the area, downtown offers its citizens and visitors a taste of the community.

soma free saturday delivery Studies show that if a downtown is prosperous so is the community. Growing up in a tiny community, I was able to see our town go from struggling to vibrant. The reason for the change was our community decided to focus on our main street area. Now people can find unique shops, restaurants and a lot of culture.
In today’s video blog, we take a look at how Stillwater, OK, is focusing on revitalizing its downtown area. From apartments above shops to one-of-a-kind restaurants, the downtown district is getting a makeover.
Andy Barth

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On the Horizon: Education Funding

I had the chance to sit in on a meeting with educators and legislators at the state capital and quite frankly, I learned quite a bit about our state’s education system.

Interim Sessions are held each Fall at the state capital and they are done in order to help legislators gain a deeper understanding of the issues that are facing Oklahoma. I didn’t realize there was concern between higher education and CareerTech centers and the problems their students are facing. Now that I have witnessed the discussion and have done my research I can see that a change needs to be made in order to give these students a more even playing field when entering into the workforce.

Take a look at this video blog to get a better understanding of the issue at hand.
Kela Kelln

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Rachel’s Little Winter Victory Garden

We stood in her backyard, surveying the fence line.  Which side got the most sun, or the least? Where would the shade be too much for young plants? What would the soil prove to be worth when we dug under the Bermuda grass?

The answers to these questions came to my daughter and I over the first thirty minutes of our work this evening.  We were starting her yard with a winter garden.  Depending upon the weather, some vegetables like lettuces, spinach or green onions could grow through much of the winter.

When we turned over the first shovel-full of soil, we found a nice dark color, three worms and a couple of rolly pollies.  And we smiled.  In my head, I thought: “It’s wick.  She’s got something to help get her started…it won’t be all from scratch.”

Four bags each of composted manure and cottonseed hull mulch, several bags of seeds, and a good deal of work later, Rachel’s garden is well on its way.  I have a feeling it will be cleared out, built up, seeded and tucked in before you know it.  After all, she is my kid…and her grandparents’ grandchild.

Happy gardening, Rachel.  I promise you…you’re about to witness miracles.

***

excerpt from the Secret Garden

Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.

“Will there be roses?” she whispered. “Can you tell? I thought perhaps they were all dead.”

“Eh! No! Not them–not all of ’em!” he answered. “Look here!”

He stepped over to the nearest tree–an old, old one with gray lichen all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches. He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of its blades.

“There’s lots o’ dead wood as ought to be cut out,” he said. “An’ there’s a lot o’ old wood, but it made some new last year. This here’s a new bit,” and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

“That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive quite?”

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

“It’s as wick as you or me,” he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that “wick” meant “alive” or “lively.”

“I’m glad it’s wick!” she cried out in her whisper. “I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there are.”

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

“They’ve run wild,” he said, “but th’ strongest ones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th’ others has growed an’ growed, an’ spread an’ spread, till they’s a wonder. See here!” and he pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. “A body might think this was dead wood, but I don’t believe it is–down to th’ root. I’ll cut it low down an’ see.”

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not far above the earth.

“There!” he said exultantly. “I told thee so. There’s green in that wood yet. Look at it.”

Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might.

“When it looks a bit greenish an’ juicy like that, it’s wick,” he explained. “When th’ inside is dry an’ breaks easy, like this here piece I’ve cut off, it’s done for. There’s a big root here as all this live wood sprung out of, an’ if th’ old wood’s cut off an’ it’s dug round, and took care of there’ll be–” he stopped and lifted his face to look up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him–“there’ll be a fountain o’ roses here this summer.”

They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green life in it. In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell too, and when he cut through a lifeless-looking branch she would cry out joyfully under her breath when she caught sight of the least shade of moist green. The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful. He showed her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade and stirred the earth and let the air in.

They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of surprise.

“Why!” he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. “Who did that there?”

It was one of Mary’s own little clearings round the pale green points.

“I did it,” said Mary.

“Why, I thought tha’ didn’t know nothin’ about gardenin’,” he exclaimed.

“I don’t,” she answered, “but they were so little, and the grass was so thick and strong, and they looked as if they had no room to breathe. So I made a place for them. I don’t even know what they are.”

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One Thousand Blessings – The RDC Sends Out Our 1000th Post

Yesterday when I was sending out my “Starbucks line standing” post, I noticed that we had just hit number “one thousand”… one thousand posts since the RDC was started 2.5 years ago.

1,000 posts, almost 225,000 visits, about 500,000 words and about 18 different contributors over that time period = wow!

I’m not sure how many t-shirts we’ve given away, or how many messages we’ve posted or answered on FB.  I’m not sure how many Tweets have gone out, or how many times the information or essays on our blog have been shared, or ridiculed…we just can’t know.

What we can know, however, is that the mission of the RDC – – to write about Oklahoma culture – – is made better because of you.

Thanks readers and our RDC community.  Even when we’ve waxed and waned with family commitment, school, failed experiments, and sometimes just really cool stories, we have always appreciated you.

Take care –

Red Dirt Kelly, and the RDC Contributor Team from day one until now

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The Human Tolerance Thresholds for Starbucks Lines in the Morning

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As a social researcher, I observe as much of my surroundings as possible.  If I notice a pattern that raises a question in my mind, I start testing it when I have the time.  If my pilot tests begin to pan out, then I spend some intentional time on the same question for a cross-sectional, qualitative investigation.

Such is the case with Starbucks lines in the morning.  Having spent many a day at the back of the line, I’ve been privy to comments such as, “Oh Holy Mother of ____, this line is too long…never mind…” or, “Hey, not bad.  I think I’ve got time to wait.”

Some of the funniest people to me are those whose body language clearly shows conflict between the need for a coffee fix and their next obligation.  I’ve actually seen people almost spin in place – stop, hesitate, mutter to themselves, turn back around…and eventually make a decision.  Sometimes their decision is reversed in the middle of the line.  I’ve even seen a “struggler” decide to stay, then get through half the line, then decide to leave, THEN come back and ask the person she was standing next to if she could have her place back.

Having already observed this line-length tolerance threshold pattern and conducted a few pilot tests, I’ve been using this past two weeks as my actual cross-sectional study.  For this post I’ve included five Starbucks stores in the mornings: 2 in a hotel, 2 in a southern regional airport, and one in a north central regional airport.  Here are my findings:

The range of persons standing in line in these collective sites ranges from 8 to 26.  The shorter lines (8 and 9) were in hotel establishments, the longer lines (15, 19 and 26) were in airport sites.  The tolerance level on length of line seems to be positively correlated with the actual amount of space available.  For example, the areas within the hotels were smaller, one was cramped, and people were in very close proximity.  The line in the Atlanta airport was long, had families and strollers camped out (see my two photos) along the way, and there was no “self-negotiation” going on at the end.  It appeared that people could clearly Continue reading The Human Tolerance Thresholds for Starbucks Lines in the Morning

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Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.