Ross & Kin, a Ross Genealogy Reprint by Vera Dean-Ross and Kathy Tibbits

Ross & Kin 

Ross & Kin is a compiled genealogy of the descendants of John Wesley Ross, who shows up in the Ozark Mountains having been born perhaps in the 1820s.  There are mysteries about where he was born, and there are stories about his possible origin.  Even today in Newton and Pope County Arkansas, many of the families are descended from this original settler family.   Granville James (Jim) Ross published this book in about 1982 and it is out of print.  Over the years his wife Vera Dean-Ross kept margin notes in her copy, which refine and enlighten the original... sometimes adding a new generation of information or correcting things or adding clues.  Recently, Kathy Tibbits sponsored the edition's reprint.  It is essentially a photocopy of the original with Vera's margin notes, albeit sometimes faint since these were in pencil.  Now today, it is an essential tool for the next generation of Ross Family genealogists because of Jim & Vera's meticulous work.  Some day it may be revised to add the generations which have been born since about 1980, more photos and the fascinating history of the Old Settler Cherokee ancestors as they came west by wagon to settle there, as well as missionaries to the Cherokees who intermarried.    $28.87  plus shipping, available only at Lulu.com.  

After costs are recovered, half of profits go to a scholarship fund for Ross heirs.  

Surnames:  (among others) Ross, Standridge, Blevins, Meek, Meeks, Martin, Phillips, Goates, Hull, Carter, Jones, and hundreds more.

Geography:  Carroll County, Missouri Territory; Treat; Jasper; Newton County; Pope County; Dover; Russelville; Clarksville; Arkansas Territory; State of Arkansas; Green County Missouri;  Clay County Missouri; Dardanelle; Summers; Box Oklahoma; Vian Oklahoma;  California, and many more places.

Quilt Top For Sale

Before it is even listed on Etsy, here's a great new quilt top for sale.  For $450, you can select a border color (Black?  White?  Stripes?  Cherry?) and choose the solid color you'd like for the back (Cherry?  Black?).  You can pick between batting of  natural cotton, loftier 80/20, or several fluffy lofty thicknesses.  And you can choose a contrasting dramatic thread color, a variegated, or a blending monochrome white or black thread color.  You can pick freestyle quilting or a more orderly pantogram design.  And your order will be shipped in time for Valentine's Day.

Just contact me by calling 918 787 5016.

Gracie Kisses The Camera

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.   

~ Howard Thurman

 Gracie Kisses the Camera

Gracie Piddlewhiskers

from Lyricurls Cattery 

Meet Gracie.  She's a Selkirk Rex.  Here she just kissed the camera with her nose.  She's very sweet and affectionate.  She comes to us from Lyricurls Cattery.  She has one sister, Daphne, who is just darling and is ready to get a home.  Special thanks to Delaina Jones for letting us become Gracie's humans.  Lyricurls also has a long-haired cute black and white kitten available.

Avatar, The Movie

Saturday, Friedrick and I had a fun date to Fayetteville, where we saw Avatar in 3-D and ate at Fayetteville's most acclaimed Asian restaraunt, Taste of Thai.

Mike Pinkerton, Stilwell Pharmacist, and I were in first grade together, in the classroom of Mrs. Duvall and intern Delores Sumner at Cheorkee Elementary in Tahlequah.  He owns Stilwell Pharmacy now.  He couldn't put into words why I should see Avatar, only, "YOU JUST GOTTA."  I had been pushing that movie to the back of my list for a couple of reasons.  It is cold winter, and thus the convenient movies are the ones on Pay Per View.  Pay Per View costs less, too.  That was a fact not lost on me as a woman newly out of work.  Never before have I been a housewife or full-time artist.  I've always had a demanding, more-than-40 *real* job outside the home mostly.  Besides, I couldn't get over the fact this movie was an animation.  I'm a computer geek from back in the days when a Radio Shack TRS-80 had 16k of ram and you programmed all morning to finally play pong on a black and white TV.  And Friedrick is a gamer, so I'm weary of animation because it seems too clunky almost always.

All I can say is "WOW!"  The animators in this movie have done a credible job of creating a seamless fantasy world of beauty with lots of causation and insight about nature.  There's a long history of movies themed around travelling in and out of different realities.  Avatar does something different though.  Everything happens in just one world.  So, as in Wizards and Lord of the Rings, the action takes place with animated characters and model real warriors in one spot.  One of my fave movies from the 1990s was Ferngully, and Avatar has some commonalities with that simple, sweet storied film.

 There's another timely theme:  Wes Studi plays the (animated) Na-vi Chief.  It sort of delighted me to hear some Cherokee words in the movie.  I think they were describing the stream of exterminators coming for them as "Uktena."  That is a Cherokee cultural concept--- a simple way to talk about it would be a huge giant snake.  A cool thing about Cherokee is that there is a lot of attitude or worldview in each speaker's conversation.  To call it an Ukten when a stream of troops is marching in to kill you, is to bridge a huge culture gap in the thinking of people.  

(Here's an aside:  Cherokees, like a lot of indigeous peoples who survive at least somewhat intact (albeit, assimilated to survive) have groupthink.  Its a way of looking out for each other and valuing the good of the whole group.  Cherokees aren't too tuned-in to being the Chiefs of various things.  Cherokees are mostly about getting stuff done together.  THAT'S all I'll say about that.)

Anyway, this movie does a breathtaking job of lining up indigenous people against global capitalism-- a faceless ideological opposite which is an enemy too nebulous to take-on except vicariously thru its shock-troops.  Is it fantasy?  I'm sad to report no.  This conflict is playing out in Brasil and Venezuela, where forest tribes are facing venture capital projects about drilling for fossil fuels or clearing rain forest to plant plantations.  It isn't even a new story.  Indigenous people have been giving way to evolving social darwinism since hegemony began.

More about that, some time.  See this movie, Avatar.  See it because it is fanciful.  See it because it will make your heart ache with unkept promises.  See it to remember what heroes are like.

Why Animals Matter

Leader of the Pack and dog whisperer Ceasar Milan, has a wealth of understanding about dog psychology, some of which also applies to humans.  Why do we have pets?  They give unconditional love and give our lives a predictable routine and rhythm. 

But the pet world is a frontier of uncertainty evocative of the orphans in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.  Sometimes, we think of pets as not as good as humans.  Pets are not always respected.

There’s much to learn about ourselves from the nature of animals.  They make a fascinating study in group dynamics.  We can gain insights about our own emotions and cognitive functions, from those of other species.  Lakota people say “All my relations” as a way of describing knowing their place in what Elton John sang reference-to as The Circle of Life.  As humans we fit into a system of life, and the Bible says we are the stewards.  Noah was a steward in that first story about species preservation at God’s request.  Dominion and control over the natural world is sort of a technical job.  Its not just the ability to think of ways to keep a goat in the corral or a dog inside the fence—though it seems to be a great gift that we’re the most capable thinkers of all species (at least in some respects).  It is almost as if we have this intelligence because its our job to take care of the Earth.

There’s a Cherokee story that starts out like this:  “Way long ago, when the animals could talk and we could understand them….”  It reminds me that over the ages we have an ever-changing worldview, and when two ideas seem mutually exclusive then we choose one.  Cherokees didn’t have just a talking serpent.  Animals expressed their own nature and worldview in the things they say in Cherokee stories.  Artist Murv Jacob and storyteller Debbie Duvall understand that each species has its own nature and qualities.  Visit www.jacobandduvall.com ebooks to see.

Advice columnist Dear Abby said, "The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back."  (I seem to think the original quote was from Golda Maier.)  Expand that principle to all creatures, and we can understand a metaphor for how valuable we are to the planet.

We can get through life without tuning into the connection with other creatures.  But we can be enriched from what we learn observing them, and we can better understand ourselves as sentient beings.  It helps us find our place in the scheme of things, while making the world a better place.

You’ve seen Sara McLachlan’s astounding commercial for humane treatment of animals.  Visit www.HumaneCherokeeCounty.org and you will be compelled by the complete little simple souls who are wishing for a human they can count on.  Its not that hard to have a pet, if you dedicate some time each day for your routine. 

There are also dozens of other ways to connect with the animal world.  Be a foster parent, by volunteering to help with exercise walks or feeding.  Recycle aluminum cans at Wal-mart parking lot, to help with costs.  

(This was submitted for publication in the past to The Current.  It is written by me, Kathy Tibbits.) 

Urban Trends

In Europe, more people live on every square mile of land than here in America.  In Jamaica, there are vast unoccupied areas of beautiful lush jungle habitat, and yet people there also surround themselves with an intentional urban landscape.  It is a beautiful and functional landscape. 

Not too long ago, I stayed at a little cluster of cottages in Jamaica.  The owner’s dad was sitting on the step one morning as I went for a walk to find a vendor selling nice local Blue Mountain coffee.  “124 mangoes ripe,” this elder gentleman (in his late 80s) informed me.  He gestured toward the big fruit tree which shadowed overhead like an umbrella, and to the ripe fruit all around on the ground.   He was inviting me to breakfast, in a Jamaican casual way.  There was something verdant and abundant about a tree lavishing big ripe mangoes for as many as 124 passers by.  Fruit trees are like that.  

(My daughter, sitting outside Mikey's at Green Leaf Cabins in Negril, Jamaica.  Local men sit around and play dominoes there, faster than I can do the math.  If you visit Seven Mile Beach at Sun Beach, stop by and see my tiedye fashions for sale in Jennifer's Gift Shop there at Green Leaf Cabins, on Norman Manley Boulevard.  And don't miss one of the best roadside jerk chicken grills called "Best of the West." ) 

By urban landscape, I’m not talking about skyscrapers and utility lines, and parking lots.  Outside of America, most of the people living in fertile regions with a moderate climate, surround their homes with an edible, or otherwise useful, landscape.

Driving down Mexico’s Emerald Coast on a road trip, you can still see people living in modest little homes who use horses or mules to press sorghum in their front yard.  The animals, strapped to something like the horse exercise carousels in Oklahoma, go round and round.  This cinches and presses the canes, which are like bamboo, to crush out the juice.  A family member or neighbor with a big paddle stirs and cooks the sap over an open fire in the yard, making the sweet and iron-rich molasses which will be used for cooking or as a table condiment.

Further South, visit the Mexican village (now a city) of Papantla and you will find a culture of vanilla there.  It is grown by many.  Seller after seller features their vanilla beans in the local farmers market.  Some grow extra, and trade it for other needed things such as tools and labor.

Other places yet, one may find an informal guild of  weavers or potters, silversmiths or luthiers.  In families and among neighbors they hand down the technology of their craft. 

In America, we have some analogies.  SPIN farming is small-plot intensive gardening.  It is a new trend in Oklahoma.  People share learning so they can grow food on small patios or in a small but rich deep garden plot.  Even smaller, one can  buy a little kitchen nanogarden taking up less than 2 square feet of space and capable of yielding fresh herbs year round.  And in rural places dotting the Oklahoma roadsides and backroads, the landscape still has vestiges of subsistence farming from the past— some farmhouse amidst fruit trees often with the signs of a past garden plot.  These are landmarks, whispering a bit of the history of the past or future. 

Revitalizing urban homesteads, I predict, will grow more popular as more and more people  reach a point of change and authenticate their consumer consciousness.  We seem to be ‘regionalizing and localizing’ in our preferences.  Local food.  Regional music.  Shopping as an adventure to find unique and individual things instead of things mass-produced machine-made disposables.

 

Maker Fairs are springing up as a weekend happening in large urban areas.  People go to see Indie artisans and gadgety inventor geeks at work and play.  Visitors can sometimes pay to make their own stuff there onsite at some of the booths.  What girlie girl would not love to make herself a purse which illuminates inside with LED lights when opened?  At a Maker Fair, Guys can punch leather, rig a little robot for the coffee table, or make a bookshelf that appears to have no visible means of support.  There, you might find  a floating MP3 speaker inside of a mylar balloon.    

Sooner or later, we have a hankering to live in a world with our imprints.  Learning to do cool stuff is a dividend in customizing an intentional lifestyle.  

Resources:  Read about the pole diving religion of Cempoala Totonacs at http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totonac ;   Yardify your food at okspinfarmcoop, a yahoo group.  Make stuff:  www.instructables.com .  Get bits here:  http://store.makezine.com/  See that speaker:  http://makerfaire.com/pub/e/554

Establishing a Cluck-Free Barrier for the Illinois River

Weeks and months of testimony in the Big Chicken Lawsuit in Tulsa have established that there is a huge phosphorous problem in the Illinois River Basin, and because everything from water to litter rolls downhill, it eventually becomes a River problem.

There are a number of unpalatable solutions, the greatest of which would be to ban poultry CAFOs from the Illinois River Basin.  That's probably not going to happen.  In fact, the unintended consequence of giving riparian easements and CREP payments for farmers to conserve land, is that more and more poultry producers find it affordable to practice their agriculture in this watershed.  So, what about halting the practice of giving money to riparians who own chickens?  We could mandate, "You can't put a CAFO within 1.5 miles of the Illinois or a tributary."  It would reduce the prime spots for chicken houses, but Fate and Transport research shows that when you put the houses farther from the water's edge, it takes longer and fewer phosphorous molecules reach the river's flow.

Why phosphorous?  Because it becomes suspended in water (or settles to the bottom bound with iron) and makes something akin to Algae Miracle-Gro.  Algae is bad for many reasons.  It robs the water of oxygen, damning fish populations... especially those lil tiny very cool darter percinas endemic to Ozarks bioregion streams with pebbly bottoms.  The bacteria in chicken poop is a health issue.  Downstream towns treat the water for domestic use.  But when you've got all that e. coli and stuff to neutralize, it takes a lot of disinfection.  The disinfection process then makes risky toxins-- and it only has to be so concentrated because the bacteria levels are so high.

Sign the Petition if you'd be fer the notion of setting the poultry industry back from the streamsides in this Jewel-Of-A-River.  We need a thousand signatures.  We have more than those shown online--- about 500 from river visitors and from that day when Dennis and I had bought ourselves a pair of kayaks and floated the river, getting signatures from other floaters on the water.  *That* was fun!

Shadow, King of Cats

Last September, our darling elder gentleman cat passed away.  He was briefly ill, and it gave us the opportunity to say our final goodbyes to him.  His name was Shadow, and he was a huge British Shorthair classic blue neutered tom cat who lived the good life and dominated the rhythms of our house.

Each morning he waited somewhat patiently until Dennis donned his shoes, then he'd yeow loudly and the both of them knew it was time to go to the kitchen to fix Shadow's breakfast.  Toward those latter years, I'd taken to feeding wild cats we couldn't pet or vaccinate, but which would at least eat on the back deck (thus saving my songbirds here).  Shadow was King of Cats, and these outdoor cats were his subjects.  They would peer in the door when hungry, and Shadow watched for this.  I swear it, and witnesses have heard it... Shadow would say this when the outdoor Cats were hungry:  "Hellow?  Hellow?"  It was loud and clear.  Most unusual and remarkable and rare.

Arms Of The Angel

For ten years I worked for the Cherokee Nation until last week.  In 2000 I was practicing law when a friend who worked for newly-elected Cherokee Nation Principal Chief invited me to apply for a post in Policy, Planning and Development.  I was hired on and worked as Planning Analyst V,  Strategy Researcher/Writer, and then Environmental Programs Researcher/Writer.  Last week I got the bad news (at 4 a.m. one morning) that my mother had leukemia.  By the next day, the security of a steady paycheck and a predictable routine was overshadowed by the realization that each and every day of life is profoundly precious and irreplaceable--- thus we have a chance to savor it.

Since I resigned, I've gotten over the feeling that the days are flashing before my eyes as if under a strobe light.  Would it be awesome to be a professional artist, and let creation flow thru my fingertips becoming bright cheery warm tactile quilts???  Several years back I wrote an article for fiber artists, "Don't Quit Your Day Job," about the economics of art and how we live in a wage-world of globalism where the markets are seeking a level, and dollars are draining from us on the deep end, toward  shallower countries where labor is often still uncommodofied (my theory anyway) by a shift abandoning subsistence farming as a fall-back.  Here I am not taking my own best rational advice.

 I'm a quilt collector.  Its a rather bad hobby left over from a time when I lived in a huge house.  Now I live in a modest home, and quilts bulge from the cedar chests and trunks, linen cabinets and stacks.  With no great camera at this moment, I'm promising some day that you'll find a gallery of the seven-pointed start quilts I have acquired over the years.

So these days I am now in the financial care of my beloved sweet smart funny talented husband, Dennis Tibbits who is a Speech Pathologist, educator, business man, musician, dragon slayer, and Cat-Daddy.  I am beginning to get legal work already.  

In the Beginning...

This is my first blog, newly created.  My expectation is that it will be a place to dock cool stuff, give a bit of legal advice, maybe show off some fiber arts and quilts and tiedyes, route folks to the ways I will be making a living now, and point out neat things I find.

Jump in, and use the comment feature to invogorate the discussion!  My coffee pot is always on and the door is always open to ideas.