I grew up in the northern woods where violets were absolutely everywhere - the main species (if indeed it was just one) was a woolly blue wood violet that is apparently considered to be just a variant of Viola sororia (but after growing V. sororia, I beg to disagree!). The only thing they lacked was scent - and being into herbs from a young age, I knew that sweet violets were supposed to have a rapturous fragrance, and that I had never experienced it. Several attempts to procure the real sweet violet met with failure - gratuitous mislabeling is rampant in many local nurseries, and I ended up with the real Viola sororia (weed extraordinaire!) that way as a birthday present. A tiny white native violet from particularly moist and cool spots, maybe V. blanda or perhaps one of its relatives, did have a wonderful scent like clover blossoms and honey - although it was a sparse bloomer, and it took about 10 flowers to make a thumb-sized bouquet, I did cherish it. Finally, on a serendipitous trip East to scope out potential colleges (and stopping at every nursery and garden on the way), we bumped into a man selling plants by the roadside in upstate New York; he had a pot of violets labeled "sweet violet" for sale, and I recognized the leaves as V. odorata instantly. This was summer; it wasn't until it bloomed the following spring that I realized it was quite a rare variety.

What beautiful stories....thank you, kindred spirits! My own love of nature began in childhood, when my parents' 2 acres of woods and creek seemed to hold unlimited possibilities for discovery and adventure. I knew no names of things, only the richness of sensory experience.....the scarlet of Virginia Creeper in September, the trilling of Spring Peepers in March, the smell of honeysuckle in June. I loved the strangeness, the vast mystery, the invitation for exploration that the woods represented. As a teenager, I drew away from nature, absorbed in the usual teenage activities. Then in college I needed a science credit of some kind and impulsively chose Field Ecology. The choice changed my life! I learned, for the first time, the LOGIC of nature, the amazing harmony of ecological interdependency. It just blew me away that 'nature' wasn't just some hodge-podge of living things, but that each component......from rocks to soil type to plants and trees to insects to birds and mammals....each were intertwined in marvelously balanced, perpetual cycles which made sense, made more sense, in fact, than most human activities. I learned to identify the "22 natural communities of Missouri," the limestone glades and granite balds, the oak-hickory forest and the ox-bough slough. For years after I could go nowhere without drawing a companion's attention to the natural community we were passing. Then I moved away. But I came back some years later. It seems I am as hopelessly native to this region as an indigenous bird or wildflower. I could not feel at home anywhere else. Having returned here, I've made an ongoing project of identifying trees and birds, fossils and wildflowers. I'm rehabilitating my family land to (hopefully) return it to its natural state, and I've volunteered with wildlife and wild bird rescue groups. These have been very educational experiences, but the scientific aspects of nature hardly represent the full picture for me. As an artist, my aesthetics are almost entirely inspired by nature, the seasons, the textures, the colors.....these define my personal sense of soul and spirit. Alone on a walk in the woods, I experience a peace and larger perspective, profound feelings of awe, respect and gratitude. Much, much gratitude. I guess, as Frank Lloyd Wright would say, "Nature is my church." I've also been very involved in local efforts to curtail development that would destroy the last refuges of nature here, both in zoning of private land and public parks. Because if you love something, especially something that cannot defend itself, sometimes you have to fight for it. This activism has also added enormous richness to my life, for I have learned the fascinating protocols and structure of community politics, and through it met my closest friends, including my dear, sweet boyfriend, a nature lover like me. But where did I get my love of the woods? I don't know. It seems to have been there forever...

I did it, on a banister that hadn't been refinished since 1924. I thought I was going to still be doing it, until the day I died. I'd love to give you advice but the trauma has affected my memory. What I can remember is: - Sanding to death. You need to waste a lot of money at the sandpaper store, not only because you have to keep decreasing grit (I started rough, taking off thick old varnish) but you'll need to experiment with various sanding sponges and other doo-dads to find one that fits into the little intricate details. - Dampening and re-sanding - Applying a wood conditioner. I was staining oak. One thing to understand about a staircase like the one in the Centsational (that name!) blog is that the surface is many different grains of wood--edge, end--depending on where the curve hits it. You want these to blend. - Staining; I think I used Zar and it was plenty dark. Don't rub off too much - Dewaxed shellac; I wanted to use a water-based poly (long story) so I needed a barrier between the oil based stain and the water-based poly - Wipe-on poly. Here I either would've used something different or done more coats. Other work was going on in the house, though, so my work got cut off. HTH.

Grandad..... no..... though I answer to Grandma to a couple of sprogs. Frieda, you are very partly right in that'Dido' is from classical legend of course - Queen of Carthage - and I love references like that; also poetry, yes, and I particularly love Purcell's opera 'Dido and Aeneas' with her dying lament, 'When I am laid in earth' before she climbs her funeral pyre as her lover sails away to found 'another Troy on Italian soil'. The opera also has a very beautiful viola solo - I used to be a viola player and have played it in several productions, up and down and here and there. But also, in another life I was a Diana.... let's not go into that, shall we..... but when I had to change, I realised I can't seem to let go of my name totally - it's me. So 'Dido' was one of the closest I could manage: even so, simply Dido was already taken so I had to put a 1 after it. Reallly, I should have registered as Dido Jones which I now consider to be my alter ego, though at first it seemed strange. For a while I felt like a different person, having a different name. Now I've just reverted to my old, grumpy, usual self. And, to cut a long story short, I suppose I look fairly Welsh (what I am - hence the adopted surname 'Jones'), being smallish (5'2", 56lbs), with dark-brown eyes, ex-dark hair (now white) and of an 'excitable' nature (have been known to throw things like ashtrays, in the olden days when there were such things lying around in any old places) Dido