WELCOME TO BLACKBURN HOLLOW

This is our secret place (ok, maybe it's not so secret) where we can do the things we love to do and share them with anyone who's interested. I'll write about family, art projects, making movies on Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere Elements and a number of other things. Please comment, respond and ask questions. If you are familiar with WMM and APE, please join me in discussions.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Tinkerbell and Baudelaire

Tonight I wrapped a young brown thrasher in a Target bag and gently set it in the dumpster next to my five-year-old's battered, straw cowboy hat. I refused to give the act meaning but I couldn't help imagining a touching service in which we all gathered around the Japanese Maple in the front yard, sang a few spirituals and buried the near weightless mass of feathers nestled inside the matching brown cowboy hat.

I imagine the bird and the hat were hatched at practically the same time. Reeves birthday was several weeks ago and since shredding the box in which the hat arrived he has worn it every day. He's worn it to play croquet as well as cowboy and last Saturday he wore it to the county fishing lake with his pirate sandals and Spiderman shirt. Today he decided that the hole worn through the back was the final insult to the hole worn through the front and he let it go without curse or complaint.

So here I am at what must be a rare juncture in an artist's life when Tinkerbell carries as much weight and social significance as Baudelaire. My children, victims of late parents (late to parenthood), have rallied around death enough. They can afford to be spared another opportunity.

On Thursday, our lucky and briefly loved cowboy hat and our tiny, less fortunate visitor will travel together through the streets of our clean and lovely town. Together the hat and the bird will find their way to a dump on the outskirts of the county, past the fishing lake and past abandoned barns and airstreams.

That's if Daddy and I don't wake again at 3am, ghost-poets in a painted ranch, and dig past the remnants of dinner to salvage a funeral from a can full of meaning after all.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

But doth suffer a sea-change.
Into something rich and strange.


Shakespeare From The Tempest
(But I know it from Lori Anderson)

Blackburn Hollow has experienced a sea-change.

We have borne the dark night of the dirty diaper and emerged nearly seven years later with three children who actually know how to use a toilet. Simultaneously and no less ceremonially, we have sent Gama downstairs where she too can use her own toilet.

In the midst of my manic attempt to get my mother into her basement apartment and out of our bedroom, I almost failed to notice that Anna Frances had been put to bed in her “big girl” Tinker Bell panties instead of being switched into a diaper. I also almost failed to notice that Anna Frances had woken the next day dry, dressed herself and used the potty without prompting. This is no small step. In our home diapers have had a place at the table for almost 7 years! At one point we had three children all in store-brand disposables. It was, as many of you know, a major investment. It was a way of life. It was almost always on the grocery list. But it appears we have sailed the stormy seas frothing with copous quantities of baby waste and landed on the shores of a dry, self-sufficient tomorrow. (Can you hear that sign of relief through all the melodrama?)

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Boys and Girls Club Special Edition



Just finished this video promoting our Boys and Girls Club Special Edition coming out August 4, 2009

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Mary's Tribute Video



This is the Tribute video I made for Fleming's Mom discussed in the entry yesterday. It goes from her infancy until about the time she and Fleming Sr. divorced. Nobody was around to take pictures of Mama anymore.

I produced this video using a combination of effects and transitions from Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere Elements. I still have a lot to learn about keyframes. It's also too long. I need to learn how to use music more effectively and be able to edit it without destroying it! Let me know if you have any tips or favorite sites that might help.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Mama's Buick

Mama’s Buick

Mama’s Buick was shiny and pretty and blue. It rolled down the highway long and lean leaving strains of Mozart and Chopin in its wake. Mama’s Buick was clean. It had four cd’s neatly clasped in the armrest between the front seats. It had a package of tissues, a tiny bottle of lotion and a steno pad in case Mama had an idea. And Mama had ideas. Mama thought about Keats and Wordsworth. Mama noted novels mentioned on the AM Radio. Mama thought of gifts and projects and journeys to make.

Mama rode the Buick all over town and sometimes to Nashville to see her brother John. Once she carried a wicker chair strapped to the roof all the way from Memphis to Birmingham. Once she sideswiped a mailbox and thought she might be arrested for destroying federal property – even though it was an accident. She paid for the damage out-of-pocket for the shame of it.

Mama’s Buick was a gift Mama gave herself when Grandmama died and left 20-thousand dollars. Mama said she was gonna get herself a new car with a pretty French name in a glorious, blue color. So she did. She also got a second-hand Yamaha Baby Grand and a trio of Swarovski Crystal Swans which she kept in the breakfront next to her dining table. Mama had some port and Cheese-its every afternoon and admired the light dancing yellow, blue and pink off the backs of her tiny, fragile creatures. Then she’d drink half a cup of coffee, watch Jeopardy and read a mystery from the library.

Some said Mama ought not be riding that Buick back and forth across Alabama and Tennessee. Some said a lady her age should settle near her grown children or let them drive the long hours to her.

76 and getting lost on the back roads to Auburn.

77 and taking an extra day to navigate that Buick home to Mobile.

It wasn’t fitting or safe.

Mama had a gentle ignorance of other’s opinions. She could pretend to miss the point or get distracted by a bluejay in the sweetgum tree. Mama knew a lady didn’t argue. A lady simply ignores.

And so when Mama gassed up the Buick on a Thursday in Birmingham and died the next Wednesday of heart failure in a Nashville Hospital, it didn’t much surprise anybody that Mama took her leave on the road, making one last trip in that fine, singing Buick.

What did leave a few jaws wide was the 60-thousand dollars in credit card debt mostly run up shoveling Mama’s grown girls out of chaos. What did surprise the expectant survivors was the swift foreclosure of her three-bed, two-bath condo with all the equity exhausted keeping Sarah Nell and Katy drunk and out of jail.

And so the Buick came to rest in my driveway and became my chariot to and from work, to and from Kroger, to and from countless pediatrician and vet appointments. As the legal wife of Mama’s only boy, also the executor of her last will and testament, I suppose I am entitled to enjoy the smooth sailing, luxury of Mama’s Buick. Believe me though when I tell you that Mama’s Buick will never be my car. Though it sits in the parking lot outside my office full of the children’s debris, dirty socks, a bucket load of sand and a weeks worth of newspapers, it is still Mama’s Buick. When I get home tonight, my husband will wonder why I haven’t washed the windshield and removed the too-small baby clothes from the trunk. One day, a month or so from now, he will say something quietly, as though he has spotted a bluejay in the sweetgum, that lets me know I may be driving Mama’s Buick but I’m not Mama.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Reeves Is FIVE!


Tomorrow that is. My 9 pound, ten ounce, way-more-than-a-baby boy is turning five tomorrow. He announced this morning that daddy and I could get him anything we wanted for his birthday. "You can pick Mom, whatever you want...but I want LOTS of presents!," he said. And he meant it. The middle child syndrome - never enough - a nagging sense of desperation - cans of corn and pears hidden under his bed. That was our solution after we found out he was storing fresh fruit and candy in the back corner beneath his pillow. It has helped. If all our other worries were so easily solved...

Happy Birthday, Reeves! You are a glory and wonder and we can't get enough of you either.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Is There Anything Worse Than Having To Set An Elegant Table?

Could the universe have sent ole' brer rabbit anything more miserable to do today? Did Santa Claus come up with this wicked scheme to give me a day at work DECORATING A TABLE? Are you kidding? Would you like me to eat a Toblerone and drink Prosecco with strawberries too? The only thing that might have made me more unhappy is if Peter Rowan and Tim O'Brian had been playing live at Flip Flop Foto today. Yes, poor me had to do two table settings for the Red Cross "Summerscapes" fund raiser. They are both terrific -- if I do say so myself. Following are the imaginary menus for my two hypothetical table settings.

At the Blackburn Hollow table a couple would
have a romantic Mediterranean-style meal.

Tilapia with Calamata olives and cherry tomatoes
(From Kevin and Drew's garden) in a citrus-garlic broth
Served over couscous with Young Asparagus sauteed with lemon, butter, slivered garlic and olive oil, Daddy's homemade Sunday French Baguettes
and for desert...Summer Figs marinated in red wine and baked into a firm, rich chocolate pudding. (I had this at a Greek Restaurant in Chicago in 1997 and again in 1999 - AMAZING. Find this recipe and I will love you forever!)

At the Opelika-Auburn News Table

A Creamy Crab and Corn Chowder paired with
Fresh Mesclun Greens topped with crisp Parmesan corn bread croutons and thick cut bacon served with homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette
Warm Sourdough Bread
Baked Pears with a Bourbon Glaze and shaved Dark Chocolate for Dessert

Next year I think the Red Cross should pair the tables with restaurants in town and auction meals at the tables. I think they could double their money!
If you want to vote for one of my tables visit

All the proceeds benefit the Lee County Red Cross.

Yes, I have already voted for my own tables. Despicable, I know. But what do you expect from Brer Rabbit?


Tuesday, June 30, 2009


I've spent the evening working on a "Tablescape" for the Clara's Circle Red Cross Fund Raiser at Flip Flop Foto. I'm a last minute entry but I think it'll be pretty (and a little weird). Here's a preview...

Monday, June 29, 2009

Wow! I learned how to do something. This may be of interest to some of you. Instead of uploading the flash video I created on Adobe Premiere Elements, (which took a long time to upload, by the way) - it is much easier, faster and higher quality to copy the embed code from YouTube and paste that into the HTML code of my blog post.

Just yesterday my best bud and I were joking about my husband's favorite qoute, You have a choice of high-quality, fast or cheap. You can only pick two. A carpenter's mantra.

Guees what...this was all three. It was faster, better quality and cost me less time. Compare this version with the one below which took half and hour to upload and looks like...well, crud!

Yea, YouTube. Now some egg head is going to tell me why it's a bad idea. OK - bring on the eggheads.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

This is what I do for fun...the kids are asleep, the afternoon is lovely, a bird must be born...never mind it took another 3 hours to make the video. Am I crazy?
Music by John Peterson. Catch him at the Gnusroom.
http://www.myspace.com/alabamahog


Is This Normal...No, Seriously...

There a six of us in about 1470 square feet. Yes, we're trying to renovate the basement and add a few hundred more but that dream seems to get farther and farther away. Mind you, I feel blessed because many don't have it as great as we do. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that we didn't have it a great as we do. Just over two two years ago five of us co-existed in 900 square feet. Even with the addition of Gama and her yelping 14-year-old Jack Russell, Molly, my mommy math says we have all experienced a 30% increase in living space. A lot to be grateful for.

None the less, there are days.... like today, yesterday, the day before that and probably tomorrow... that I just wish we could add a bathroom, close in the carport, extend the end of the house and build a 16 x 20 out building in the yard. Somehow I know even that would soon fall short and I'd be right back here blogging about a lack of physical and personal space.

So I'm going to stop complaining about that and start complaining about this...

With so many people and personalities in the house, there are varying ideas about how stuff (and I mean physical stuff, not philosophical stuff) should be managed. I tend to ignore things unless I have the time to put it where I believe it should go (the closet, the puzzle box, the proper drawer); my husband will kick, shovel and sweep everything into piles in the corner of a room; and my mother will get up in the middle of the night and organize every little object into every available container. I know that none of these approaches is ideal and that my habit of denying a problem until I'm ready to deal with it surely bothers them as much as their approaches bother me.

But now we have a new problem. A problem I like to call...receptacle disease. (See photo). All over the house there are objects that are intended to be decorative, discarded or recycled that have become the happy holders of things that are supposed to be somewhere else. This problem seems to grow exponentially. We live in a forest of containers. It makes me want to throw out every bowl, pot, pail and cup I see. Is this normal?

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Mose Tolliver and Daddy Blackburn


Back before the baby Blackburns... Daddy could shift gears and roll in any direction he wanted. Sometimes he wanted to go vist Alabama Folk Artist Mose Tolliver. Here's a picture of Fleming on one of those visits. We now have two Mose Tolliver paintings in the house. I think the one in this photo may be one of them (I hate to say it but I'm not sure where it is right now...) and the other I can see just over my computer monitor. It's a turtle painting. Thank God for Mose T and thank God for the days when a man could just go where he needed to go.

Saturday Morning at the Hollow

Brin and Reeves are up and the Saturday rivalry has begun. Reeves turns 5 on Friday and Daddy wants to take him to see some horses today. Brin doesn't like that idea. He thinks we need to do something more fun for him.