Comings and Goings at Woodsong

Our three great grandsons were at the farm for the first time in a long time last weekend. About l0 Saturday morning, they had left their tearful grandmother and their little cousin Caroline who had come over to say that final goodbye in College Station. Bryan had stopped to feed the boys as needed and they had fallen asleep before they arrived at Woodsong about l0:30 that night, where they quickly tumbled into bed.

The next morning, however, they were up earlier than Gerald, which is no small feat. Since Tara, their mother, had a game to coach that afternoon, the plan was to visit here and let tbe boys run off energy before the trek upstate. After caring for their dog Duke and letting him out of his cage in the shop, they were fishing, driving the Kubota, playing football in the front yard, and for the first time getting to try out the kayaks that Gerald had prepared for them. I am not sure who had the most fun—Gerald or the boys. I was to go to Katherine's that morning, but I did get hugs and visits as they came and went to the breakfast table where Gerald bought toaster strudel pastries to add to my collection of cereals. I think Bryan was as delighted as his sons because these had been one of his favorite breakfasts as a boy. I don't think any of them wanted one of my 30-second eggs in the microwave but perhaps did eat a slice of bacon.

Early in the afternoon I met them at Cracker Barrel, where Bryan insisted on buying our dinner. I went to the farm for a break before I went back to Katherine's. The men folk all went by to visit her briefly and let her see the boys before they came back to load their stuff and Duke. They would get to see Tara that evening and stay at the hotel until the moving van arrived with their furniture the next morning. Tara had already enrolled the boys in school, and Aidan would start that same day. Maddux and Payton would meet their teachers that afternoon and start on Tuesday. I am sure their Sunday ended happily with that family reunion. Mine not so much.

Do you know what happens when you drop your phone in a full coffee cup and find it there later? I know. Cause I did just that. When I left Katherine's Sunday night, I consciously put my new cell phone (that replaced a very old one I dropped and broke a while back) in my pocket. Usually I keep it on the car seat or the middle cup holder where I can grab it easily if I hit a deer and have to call and wake up Gerald to come and help me. But for some reason, that night I decided I was not going to hit a deer. Putting the phone in my pocket would insure I did not forget to carry it into the house. But I had barely backed out of Katherine's driveway, which requires some concentration because of park traffic, when I noticed an amber warning light was on. What did that tiny wrench mean?

We had recently had a screw in a tire, and I knew from that experience that an amber warning light could be serious. So I decided I better call Gerald before he went to bed and ask advice. He did not know what the amber wrench symbol meant either, but the car seemed to be running well, so he said to come on home. Relieved, I dropped my new phone into the cup holder beside me. I had no trouble getting home and took the phone out only to discover I had forgotten I'd left a cup of coffee in that holder when I drove in to town.

I dried it off the best I could, but it would no longer charge or come to life. I got down the container with rice that I had used for a grand kid's phone that fell in the lake once. But two days stored in the rice did not help. So Tuesday afternoon I took it where we bought it, and the competent young man ruefully showed me tiny drops of coffee when he took the phone apart. I replaced it with the cheapest one I could get there. He asked if I wanted to insure it, but I assured him I did not plan to drop it in coffee again. The good news was he was able to save all my phone numbers, and I like it.

The next morning we had to go to Carbondale for an appointment to get our hearing aids checked out, so we ate lunch at Denny's, a sentimental spot from our college days and since then. After lunch, we went by Gerald's favorite hardware store where he found a couple of small pulleys for his newest project, which he promptly went to work on back at the farm although he did first phone our son-in-law Brian and helped him out by picking him up to take him someplace else in the field.

We have just now returned from our annual reunion of friends from BSU at Southern Illinois University, and it was a good two days. But I will have to write about that later, because Gerald is in the shop finishing up his project to load and store the kayaks neatly and efficiently between grandchildren visits, and I want to go see how that is coming along.