Happy Father's Day

Happy Fathers Day!

My father has been gone for four years, but he is in my memories every day. Below is a retelling of one of these memories.

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The Baby

When we were growing up, my father looked like the traditional father from the 1960's. He worked hard as a lineman to provide for us while our mother did more of the childcare and housework. In addition, he was a man's man, who excelled at all of the things that men did in our rural area—hunting, fishing, boating, and marksmanship.

The new baby and her sisters

However if you looked a little deeper, you found that he was more than he appeared to be. Not only was he a man's man, he was a family man and did more than just bring home a paycheck. For example, when I was a baby, he did all of the cooking for my sisters while my mother tried night and day to get me to stop crying. He let us hang out with him after work while he played cards with his buddies and held our hand as we walked home. However, there was one time in particular that he showed a sensitive and wise side that I will never forget.

I was four years old, the baby of the family, and the world revolved around me as far as I was concerned. That is why I was so shocked when my father woke us one morning and said, “Your mother had a baby last night.”

How could that be? I hadn't heard anything about a new baby coming. Of course, my mother later said that we had talked about it and I had even gotten a new bed in anticipation of the coming baby. But none of that had registered with me. I guess that's how things worked in my self-absorbed four-year-old mind. At any rate, I wasn't too sure how I felt about this new situation.

That changed, however, the day they brought my sister home from the hospital. We were all gathered around the door and I was sitting on the steps out of the way. My father was the first to enter carrying the new bundle and he immediately put her in my arms. He didn't wait until my mother was inside. He didn't hand her to my older sisters, he gave her to me. I felt a little scared with this responsibility but also felt very special. While holding my new sister, I decided that having this baby around might not be so bad after all. Years later, I realized what an important gesture this was from my father.

Over the years, this tenderness continued to shine through my father's stern, no-nonsense exterior. Maybe that's why I never stopped calling him Daddy.

Thankful Sunday--June 11, 2017

I am thankful for Mr. B and his love for gardening. 

Mr. B was the elderly man who used to live in our house with his wife. He moved in when he was in his 70's and lived here until he passed away at 96. The neighbors say he had a passion for gardening and used to plant a huge vegetable garden and fruit trees. He also planted flowers. Some of these things didn't survive his 25 years here, but many of them did for us to enjoy. So for Mr. B and what he left behind, I am thankful. Below are a few of them.

We were't sure what this tree was until it started blooming and producing fruit. Turns out it is a sour cherry tree. The cherries are now ripe and we've picked a few. We hoping for a sour cherry pie sometime soon. In the meantime if we do very much of this, I'm getting a cherry pitter.

The back corner bed continues to surprise as I find new things emerging from the intertwined ground covers.  This week I found these yellow flowers. I haven't figured out what they are yet.

And these daisy-like flowers. Name, anyone?

The apples are still small enough that they are hard to spot on the tree among the leaves. However, several are on the ground like this one.

There are two large nandinas on the side of the house. They are now budding and it turns out they are two different colors. I have never seen pink flowers on one like this.

I am more familiar with white ones like this.

A Second Look Revisit

As a housewarming gift, a friend brought me several mammoth sunflower plants he had started from seed. This was a much appreciated gift as I love sunflowers. The only problem was we didn't have a ready made place to plant them. All of the existing beds were either full or didn't get enough sun for the sunflowers to thrive. We decided to clear a strip in front of a fence leading to the backyard to plant them.

If all goes well, these sunflowers will grow 10' tall.

This should have been an easy job as we were only clearing a 2' x 12' patch, but it didn't seem that way to me while we were working. Ward and I worked together for at least two hours to clear the sod and break up the dirt. That was grueling because the sun was really intense that day, something the sunflowers would appreciate later, but something I didn't appreciate then. However, by the end, we had a nice bed all ready to pop the plants into.

I tackled planting the next morning. And once again what I thought should have been an easy job, took much longer than expected. By the time I gathered my tools, raked in fertilizer, cleaned a few more rocks and weeds out of the bed, it took me almost an hour to plant 5 plants. Ridiculous, I thought! I'm glad I don't do this for a living because I was so slow.

I fretted for a while about my lack of productivity, but then tried to shift my negative thinking. My attitude was ruining the time I usually enjoyed outdoors. I decided to reexamine the sunflower experience. First I thought about how I enjoyed talking with Ward as we shook the dirt off the sod. Next I thought about how I really did like combing through the dirt making piles of rocks I thought were interesting, separating out the grubs. making sure that all of the earthworms were returned to the soil, and breaking up any remaining clods we had missed. The process had been time consuming but interesting to me. So when I didn't worry about how much time it took to plant five plants, I realized that the whole thing had actually been an enjoyable experience.

There are plenty of times when I need to be efficient and accomplish tasks in a timely manner. But not always. Sometimes I need to slow down, enjoy the process, and appreciate what is around me. Just like I try to do in my Second Looks. However, somewhere along the way of working on our new house, I had forgotten about this. It's time to go back to my roots. Time to explore my yard and look past the work that is calling me and to see things with a different set of eyes. 

Here's the original post that inspired my Second Looks  Now let's see if I can remember it next time I go outside.

A Second Look--May 31, 2017

We've been concentrating on the inside recently and I haven't been spending as much time working outside as I'd like. Besides an inside focus, poison ivy has been the other limiting factor. It's presence prohibits exploring and working in most of the back of our yard. However, I've contracted someone to come in and treat it. Now if he can only find time to do it. In the meantime, the poison ivy is very happy and growing like crazy.

Despite this, I have spent some time with my hands in the dirt. What can you do when a great friend shows up with plants, tools, and a suggestion for a perfect place plant them?  You can get down to work with her and be grateful that she got you away from your perfectionism of doing everything just so. If she hadn't initiated the planting, I may have spent a long time figuring out where they should go and made it a much larger production.

There has also been some bird drama going on. At the feeder, the house finches have been entertaining us with their mating rituals. The males perform, fight with each other while the female enjoys it all. Just like we're watching the Discovery Channel. In the back, something has been raiding nests. It's disappointing to see broken eggs, but such is life in the jungle.

I"m not taking as many pictures these days, but here are a few.

Yellow star flowers have joined the coral bells.

There are a few poppies blooming among the ground cover bed. Their bright color can be seen from far away.

My friend helped me plant Lilies of the Valley and Strawberry Begonias. Both of these plants can spread, so when they do, I plan for the lawn mower to help maintain them. The strawberry begonias took me back to my college days when I had them as houseplants.

I also planted marigolds, celosia, and a few herbs along the back of the house. Most of the plants are starting to take off, but the celosia still look a little anemic. Hopefully, that will turn around soon.

Cherries are forming on the cherry tree. Not sure what kind they are, but time will tell.

Apparently, pears are also forming. We had the apple and pear trees severely pruned a few weeks ago. They have leafed out well, but I hadn't seen any fruit forming on them. But then I found this small pear on the ground and concluded that maybe the fruit is just too small to see among the leaves. It will interesting to see how much is really there as it matures.

I don't have any pictures of the house finches doing their dances, but this goldfinch certainly is sporting his courting colors.

I was very excited when the bluebirds built a nest and laid 4 eggs.

The mother bluebird actually let me take her picture while she was sitting on the eggs. Unfortunately, the next day the nest was empty with no birds or eggs in sight. A couple of days after that we found a dead bluebird near the box. It looked to be a young juvenile and I don't think it had anything to do with this nest.

A few days later, we found this robin's nest on the ground with broken shells in and around it. One shell was about 20 yards away.

Then we started to question what happened to this nest we found on the ground a couple of weeks earlier. We thought if had been blown out of a tree on a windy day. Maybe or maybe not...
All of this needs more investigation. Unfortunately, it is in the poison ivy area which limits our access. Maybe we should just let nature take its course, but I did so want to see baby bluebirds.

Memorial Day-- A Remembrance

On this Memorial day, I am rerunning this post from three years ago. It's an important family story for Ward. 
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 Memorial Day--Leo's Story

Today is Memorial Day in the US--the day we remember the men and women who died while serving their country in the armed services. There are many different stories about these people and I'm going to tell one of them here about Ward's grandfather, Leo.

Leo, 1941

Leo was the son of Polish immigrants and as a young man joined the army is 1929. He became part of the Army Engineer division. Later at a dance, he met a smart and pretty young girl, LeeAnn, and married her in 1932. They soon added a baby boy to the family and two years later they had another. After renting a small home, Leo built a house for his growing family. Being an enterprising young man, he used discarded lumber from a railroad yard for much of the house. (By the way, the house that he built still stands firm today.)

Leo's and LeeAnn's happy life was not affected much when World War II broke out in Europe in 1939. However, the Army started to send units to Iceland to build defensive fortifications to be ready just in case. At the end of 1941, his unit was assigned to go to Iceland to help in these preparations. While they were in New York waiting for their boat, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The US immediately declared war against Japan and her allies, including Germany. The US was officially in World War II.

Leo and his unit continued with their orders to go to Iceland, but they didn't make it. Their boat was attacked in the Atlantic by a German submarine and had to be repaired before it could go any further. During the month that the repairs took, the soldiers got to go back and spend time with their families. No one knew that this would be the last time they would see each other.

Their boat was repaired, and they were finally on their way. They made it to Iceland and completed their work. However, on the way back to the states, the boat was attacked by another German submarine and this time it sank. The seas were rough which made it difficult for many to survive. Most went down with the ship. First Leo was declared missing at sea and later he was declared killed in action. It wasn't until several years later that his family knew the details of what happened because much of the information was classified.

LeeAnn was suddenly left with two young boys to raise on her own. A few months later, the unthinkable happened and her younger son was killed in an accident. Despite the terrible losses, she kept going. With various jobs, hard work, and the help of family she carved out a good life for her and her son (Ward's father).

When I met LeeAnn, these events had happened over 40 years ago, but it was like they had happened yesterday for her. She talked about the surprise that Leo was going to bring her when he got home from Iceland and still wondered what it was going to be. She showed me some of the subflooring that Leo built where you could read writing from the railroad cars. She talked about how long it took for them to declare Leo dead and how that affected her benefits. But mostly she talked about the surprise her husband was going to bring her. She thought that it was going to be something to do with their tenth wedding anniversary that they were going to celebrate when he came home.

On this day and everyday, we remember Leo and the sacrifice he made for his country. We also want to remember all of the other men and women who have died in service and hope that their stories have been told. But most importantly, we want to thank each and everyone of them and their families. Because of their sacrifices, we can live a good life today.