Zelo zelatus sum

Happy Feast of St. Elijah!

For some reason, this is my book that seems to be selling lately. (Not in big numbers, trust me!) Maybe it has something to do with the proximity of the feast day.

Tom designed the cover, using traditional Eastern Orthodox iconography and a more modern Western-style raven feeding the prophet. He said he did this because the book is an effort to combine elements of an older traditional approach to reading scripture with spiritual issues of the present century.

FYI: For those who do not recognize the title, it is the Latin for the first few words of Elijah in I Kings 19:10 -- "I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts." The motto of the Carmelite Order is Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum.

Happy Fourth!

Here's hoping you all have a safe and happy Fourth of July. Tom will be marching in the famous Witwen parade along with the Flag Ladies. We are expecting a temperature of about 100 (37.8 C), so I hope the ladies don't collapse in their patriotic gear.

We are still in our drought -- although cruel weather forecasters keep mentioning the possibility of rain -- and fireworks have been cancelled all over the place. The state DNR has even said no open flames outside, so no grilling. I suspect that will be largely ignored, and individuals will probably be shooting off fireworks on their own. We can only hope no fires get going.

Chessie/Sundance

Chessie was a popular cat character used as a symbol of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Derived from an etching by Viennese artist Guido Gruenwald, the image first appeared in an advertisement in the September 1933 issue of Fortune magazine with the slogan "Sleep Like a Kitten and Wake Up Fresh as a Daisy in Air-Conditioned Comfort".

When the ad generated a positive response, the railroad developed an advertising campaign around the image and chose the name Chessie as a derivation of the railroad's name. The promotion proved widely popular and, in addition to national print advertising, grew to include calendars, clothing, and even two children's books about the character. Chessie acquired two kittens named "Nip" and "Tuck" in 1935, as well as a mate named "Peake" in 1937. During World War II, the Chessie character was used to promote War Bonds and support for the war effort, depicted as working on the home front to support Peake, who was off to war. The Chessie image continued to appear in advertising until 1971 when passenger train travel was consolidated under Amtrak.

When in 1972 the C&O merged with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Western Maryland Railway, the newly formed company was named the Chessie System after the popular image and adopted the "Ches-C" logo, which incorporated the silhouette of the kitten into the "C" of the railroad's name. The Chessie System later merged with other railroads to become the CSX Corporation. Though the Chessie logo is no longer found in advertising and was phased out of usage on trains, Chessie is still the mascot of the CSX Corporation, and there are many examples of rolling stock that still feature the kitten logo, having yet to be repainted.

Before he left on Sunday, Michelangelo spotted Sundance lolling across the back of the sofa in a strikingly Chessie-like pose and snapped this photo.

 It is even more obvious when flipped.

Desert? Cacti? In Wisconsin?

Looking for something to pass a few hours with Michelangelo today, we considered visiting one of the state's designated natural areas. We wound up going to Spring Green Preserve, known as the 'Wisconsin Desert'. It features a rolling sand prairie on an old Wisconsin River terrace and harbors a unique flora and fauna that are adapted to the hot, droughty environment.

Given that we are in a bit of a drought these days, Tom joked that this would give us an idea of what the whole state will look like by fall. 

The dry sandy soils contain many desert-like plants including prickly pear cactus which seemed quite abundant. Several sand blows, with shifting dunes and open sand, are scattered throughout. Bird life is diverse and includes large numbers of rare open country birds, but the bugs are the most unusual of the Spring Green fauna. Several of the spiders and insects are not known from any other site in Wisconsin. Of special interest are the black widow (!) and wolf spiders and predatory (!) wasps. A large pocket gopher population has created patches of open ground where short-lived plants grow while the tunnels are used by many of the reserve's 10 species of snake (again, !)

It was a bit beastly hot when we got there at midday, and we did not walk the entire 3 mile path. Nor did we see any of the more dangerous fauna, although we heard a couple of quite distinctive bird calls. Michelangelo and I tried unsuccessfully to spot an Eastern meadowlark, said the be common there. We thought perhaps that was one of the birds we heard, and I checked it out later on Cornell's bird site. Could be, could be. My sound memory is not that great, making it hard to know for sure.

So in one three-day weekend, Michelangelo got to work on the railroad, take a boat ride on the river, march in a parade and visit a desert. And all within a short distance of our house.