Changing Seasons

The corn fields are brown and soy beans are yellow. Our son-in-law Brian is already harvesting, and that means Mary Ellen too is busier than ever trying to help out as she keeps working hard at her own job. I will worry knowing their sleep will be shorter than ever.

Everything seems to be changing during this season. At the first of the month, we learned that our granddaughter Tara and family are moving back to Illinois as she became pitching coach at Illinois State up at Normal. This will place their family closer to her husband Bryan's parents too, so I'm sure they are happy as we are. (And Bryan will be closer to his firm's headquarters.)

For Gerry and Vickie, Tara's move wll take away the close geographic association with those three Archibald grandsons. That will be a tough adjustment, but it probably helps that they are overly busy themselves adjusting to changes of their own.

Our month started with Gerry and Vickie's quick visit over Labor Day weekend coming up for the surprise 80^th birthday party for Vickie's mother. Gerry also needed to pick up some dogs he had bought in northern Illinois. Aidan and Payton both had baseball games, but since Maddux's fall soccer had not yet started, he was able to come with them. They drove all night to get here for a few hours sleep before the party. There was time, however, for Maddux and me to have a long grown-up conversation at the late breakfast table about their family's upcoming move. And besides getting to play with his Johnson family cousins, there was time for him to drive the Kubota and to play in the lime pile Gerald provides for the great grandsons' diggings. Since Nelly, the Boykin spaniel, was also with them, we enjoyed a couple of demonstrations of Nelly's enthusiastic expertise diving into the lake to swim and restrieve the ball she loved having Maddux throw out for her. Gerald went with Gerry to get the dogs upstate, and Vickie had the opportunity to visit again with her mother before another all-night drive back to College Station, where Gerry had to be on the softball field at A&M on Labor Day.

That Wednesday night Tara arrived after the long drive from Texas, and we had a brief visit before we all fell into bed. In her honor, I set my alarm to be sure I was up in time to make the morning smell good with cooked bacon for our breakfast before she left for the drive up to Illinois State's ball field and to start her search for housing for their family. The university was furnishing her a room until Bryan and the boys can join her this weekend.

We were still adjusting to that big family change when we got the word this week that Gerry had accepted a new job as hitting coach and recruiter down at Auburn University in Alabama. So he is in the process of moving dog stuff, trailers, and such to various destinations on the way down to Auburn after a quick visit with Vickie, Erin, and Caroline in Belton. Vickie will keep her plans to care for Caroline while Erin teaches, so I am sure this year will be filled with lots of trips between Belton and Auburn.

Our adult children are not the only ones who have been busy. Gerald continues bringing in garden produce, and he had his second cataract surgery last week. Mary Ellen wanted to be with us and drive us home, so we had a good visit and after-surgery breakfast with her at the neatest restaurant up at Thompsonville. It was good to hear how excited Brianna is with an observation class for young children learning to speak English. She will be student teaching next semester. Fortunately, Gerald's eye is healing faster than the first one, which gave us some concerns. (The optomist kept assuring him the eye was alright and that his meds may have caused the slowness.) He is down to two eyedrops a day again on this second recuperation.

However, during all this busyness with eye drops and garden produce, Gerald also had a big exciting project going. In order to get better Internet reception, he bought and assembled a 70-foot tower out by his shop. Roy Walker's crew came with a boom truck to set the tower up on the concrete pad. We sat and cheered as the machine took it skyward. Our neighbor Scott even came over to admire that event. For Gerald perhaps the best part of this project was visits with his friend Roy where they talked and talked about their youthful days in Wolf Lake down in Union County. Both their fathers were in Woodman of the World Insurance Fratenity, and they shared many memories and old photographs of long ago acquaintances.

Katherine was pleased this week to see the letter from Sam's summer intern supervisor that came to her house–a very long letter critiquing in detail his successful first teaching experience this summer in Austin. It will be forwarded to Sam, but I made her a copy. As a former teacher of inner-city kids, Katherine understood just how valuable his work had been. Sam's girl friend had also phoned her about starting her student teaching this semester, so Katherine gets to stay involved as these two young adults change from the teens that used to hang out at her house into professionals prepared to make the lives of young people better. As a third generation teacher myself, I am pleased to see yet another generation preparing for this important work.

So the season is changing, and our lives are also changing in many ways . And that is way it is supposed to be.

Autumn Leaves and Other Things

Driving to Katherine’s house on Saturday, I was finally seeing yellow and light orange leaves on the trees along the roadway. Bright red was very rare. The next day, however, as we drove to church, there seemed to be considerably more scarlet, and the orange was brighter. But there is still much green on the trees, so I hope the color has not peaked yet. Does anyone know why the coloration comes almost two weeks later than it used to? For many years, I counted on fall beauty by the middle of October—not the end.

Years ago I was directing a play at Marion High School--The Thread That Runs So True about Jesse Stuart’s rural classroom The students were to decorate the room with colored leaves. Right on schedule when the play was performed, the leaves were gorgeous and available for us. For many years our church went to Ferne Clyffe on the middle Sunday of October. Many couples camped there for the weekend; and then on Sunday, some wonderful volunteers cooked the fish, hush puppies, and potatoes for our noon-time feast, which we supplemented with other dishes and desserts. Always we were surrounded with glorious colors as we worshipped, and I am still warmed by those wonderful memories. Why are we now having to wait so long for the leaves to change?

Although we are still eating sliced tomatoes twice a day from the garden, they were gathered awhile back. Frost killed the plants over a week ago, and Gerald.cut down them down along with the tall blackened orka stalks. Now we can look out the kitchen window and see the flourishing and still green strawberry and asparagus that Gerald planted last spring. Green tomatoes are in the garage wrapped in newspaper waiting for later use after ripening there.

Most fields are bare now as farmers have finished up their harvests. I feel relief because I worry about our son-in-law as he stretches his days into the night making sure their crops are safely gathered. I hope he is catching up on his sleep, but he probably is catching up on other things neglected during harvest. Mary Ellen not only works hard for her real estate customers, but she is also there pitching in at the end of a day helping move machinery or bringing late night suppers to the field. I breathe easier when they do not have to work so long and so hard.

Gerald has worked for several weeks cleaning out ditches on the other farm so that the water will drain off freely. He has chopped and knocked down saplings and thick tall weeds with his tractor equipment and prepared the sides to plant with fescue. It is now up and ready to grow through the fall to hold the soil in place.

I no longer do much fall housecleaning although I have washed a few windows. I am most proud that I went through a box of papers in the garage that the mice had found. I have no idea why that paper mish mash and those magazines were ever put in the garage in the first place some years ago, but they were. Now most are in the trash barrel to be burned, and the field mice will have to find something else for nests when they come in during the cold weather.

While Gerald was in town yesterday, someone handed him a flyer announcing “Stand Up for Vets” on Saturday, November 7, at 1205 West Pleasant Hill Road in Carbondale. If you know a veteran in need, offer to take him or her there. Warm coats, blankets sleeping bags, and other items needed for the cold winter ahead will be handed out. There will be hair cuts and health checks, educational and resume information, hygiene and food items, applications for housing, drug and alcohol treatment information. I had been reading Susan Walmsley’s Facebook posts about collecting, laundering and filling racks and tote bins in her pole barn with clothing for these veterans. I am so grateful that people like Susan and Christ Community Church are using this fall to help people prepare for winter challenges. If you aren’t located to be able to donate to this cause, remember that all our soup kitchens are in need right now because of Illinois’ budget problems. Help the helpers get ready for winter needs if you can.

Busy Times with Harvest and Grandkids

Tonight we had fish and goodies from yesterday’s annual fish fry at our village church even though we did not make it there.  It was nice to be the recipient of the give-aways often sent to non-attendees.  I was at Katherine’s yesterday to give meds before and again after lunch, but away at the  noon hour to attend Brianna’s twentieth birthday dinner at Brian and Mary Ellen’s farm. 

Brianna’s birthday cake made by her mother was a work of art.  The chocolate cake with chocolate icing was surrounded  with upright Kit Kats and the top coated with M&M’s. A filmy orange ribbon and bow encircled the border  made from the globally popular confection of crispy wafers covered with chocolate that we inherited from Britain. That ribbed border madethe whole thing look like a decorated rustic candy bowl. On Saturday  Mary Ellen had shown me a photo of the cake on her phone when she took a very very quick break from a field near  Woodsong before rushing on to help with the harvest by driving a header to their fields near Harrisburg.  She said the idea came from Pinterest.  I did not even catch on it was a cake until I read that later on Facebook. 

With all the other colorful decorations, the table and room were quite festive to welcome Bri into her second decade tomorrow.  The huge platter of pork chops were tender and tasty and everything else quite delicious as both Katherine and Sam agreed as they enjoyed the meals Mary Ellen sent to their house. Today Bri is back at Murray before her birthday tomorrow.

One reason Brianna was home was to attend Sam’s Marion High School Homecoming coronation as that had become a tradition for her and Trent and their mom.  Her cousin Sam and girl friend Anna were MC’ing again this year. It had been an exceptionally busy weekend with the parade and senior night game on Friday.  Mary Ellen and I made the parade, which I missed last year.  I knew it was my last and only chance  to see Sam as a drum major since I am really not able to do the long hurried walk from over-crowded parking lot  to the stadium to attend a game anymore.

Katherine made the senior night game with David because a very dear and long-time friend and a friend of the friend had driven up from Nashville, TN, to help her get ready. Deborah and Ira had lived in the apartment below Katherine when she first moved to Nashville. During this fall season, Ira was too busy with their landscaping business to come up with Deborah, so her friend Laura came along to help.  Mary Ellen had brought in a complete meal for the kitchen table, and it was much appreciated with the time-crunch of getting to the game early enough  to see Sam and the band in the pre-game show. 

I remember Katherine’s first New Year’s Eve at that apartment when she and I went back after her Christmas vacation at home.  We could hear the much loved somber tones of Martin Luther King’s famous speech as it drifted up from a recording in their apartment below. Later they became close friends, and even when they all moved to other living quarters, Katherine drove to Deborah’s beauty shop as her token white customer.  So Friday night Deborah lovingly slipped back into her former cosmetology role and did Katherine’s hair and make up for Sam’s senior night.   After the game before they drove back home to Nashville, they and a local friend Wendy helped put Katherine to bed, and Wendy was back to help on Saturday while I was out of town most of the day for a presentation at the Genealogical Society of Southern Illinois..

This afternoon I had just finished finally having time to read last Sunday’s newspaper (October 12) when I went downstairs and saw an email note  from Mary Ellen asking me to save yesterday’s paper since there were photos in there of Trent in John A. Logan College’s first cyber security team. I quickly located that paper beside Gerald’s recliner  and searched for the story and photos.  I could not have been prouder seeing Trent’s picture with the team and knowing he will be among those who will work to defeat the cyber criminals who wreck havoc on our communication and economic systems. 

Heading Toward Harvest

A few weeks ago the gloriously green corn stalks along our lane pleased my eyes each time I went out.  Then the tall tops and the very bottoms near the roots turned brown, but the green was still preeminent. Slowly and gradually, the length of the green was lessening. Now only a little green remains.

Around the corner onto the main road and down a bit, another experimental corn plot was evidently planted earlier—or perhaps it was a variety with a shorter growing period. Those few rows have been completely brown from top to bottom for a week or two.  Yesterday when I drove to town, I saw that swath of corn was deleted with only the stalks remaining.  (Patches on that farm are small because our neighbor’s fields are all research plots, so there is great variety. We have a standing smile that Gerald cannot keep from feeling some horror that planting weeds is sometimes one of the experiments carried on next door.)

Mary Ellen brought over all the fixings for Reubens the other evening and fixed supper for us.  Brian came over a little later because he was getting his combine ready for harvest.  He arrived all showered and clean shaven with crisp sport shirt on, and we teased him that we expected him to arrive in dusty work clothes. The days ahead will be long and hard, and dirty clothes are the proper prideful uniform of a successful farmer.  Although slack seasons had their advantages, the excitement of those over-busy lengthy days of spring planting and fall harvest were always my favorite farm times. Now in retirement, we can only participate vicariously.

I had not realized it had been a month since I had blogged. Gerald told me the other night that he did not know what was going on here at the farm since I had not blogged in so long.  I often wrote a partial blog in my head as I drove back and forth from farm to town, but once I was home, neglected duties always awaited me and I might not get to the computer.  Or if I did, I was too tired to write and would end up surfing on Facebook. 

I do enjoy getting bits of news, gossip, and updates from local people I seldom see in person anymore, and it is amazing to see photographs and news from far away loved ones and distant friends that I used to only hear from at Christmas. I was able to enjoy the first birthday party of my great great nephew Jace down in Amarillo the other night because of all the posted photos. And last night I enjoyed my friend Lois’s trip to Ireland because the beautiful photos posted out in California made me almost smell the Irish air and I could definitely feel the love of her family group traveling on this adventure together.

I notice that private messaging on Facebook has almost replaced emails and often times phone calls.  There was a time in my life when I spent most Saturday mornings phoning far-away kids or other loved ones for hour-long conversations. Now with our cell phones going with us wherever we go and sometimes with reception poor or calls inconvenient if driving or going through a store check-out line, telephone habits have changed.  I still enjoy occasional hour-long talks with my brother and sister, but otherwise our house phone seems to be used mostly for recorded messages from the pharmacy, politicians, or sales  people.

I have been trying to write a family history essay on my great great great grandfather Cedar Billy Martin down in Tennessee.  I am getting close to finishing and admit I will be glad when I complete this project.  This is the third time I have tried to write about him.  In late 1998, I had just retired from the brief career I had in family literacy, and I was trying to learn to use the Internet on Gerald’s new computer. I accidentlaly became involved with distant unknown cousins here in Illinois who had just discovered this ancestor.  

As emails flew back and forth connecting with researchers from other states, my brother’s son offered to hook us all up by creating  an e-group. So for all these years we have shared information on Cedar Billy, his siblings and children, his neighbors, and several collateral lines. Eventually I had a dozen or so notebooks about various family members. During that time, some in the e-group have died, others learned they really were not related, others gotten sick and had to drop out, others lost interest as lives got busy elsewhere, and some of us have gotten old.  Emails to the group with new information has dried up, but all our exciting discoveries and all our mistaken speculations about whose siblings or children went where are still stored in the e-group’s archives. I have been reviewing those archives and my many notebooks attempting to have this essay ready for my children for Christmas.  I like to imagine that 200 years from now some descendant will find out about Cedar Billy and be as excited as I was when I learned of his existence.

In the meantime, I hope to blog a little more faithfully so that you and Gerald can know what it happening here at Woodsong.

Into Browning November

The large artistic pumpkin that grandson Sam and his girl friend Anna created  and left on our front porch had to be turned around.  Now the rotting edges of their cut art does not show. Earlier I had enjoyed the magic I always feel when a jack-o-lantern is lit.

The field across our driveway in back of the garden, which I see through my kitchen window, is bare except for low brown stalks and debris. At the end of our lane, I have watched the soybean field turn from green to dappled yellow to all yellow to dappled brown to all brown.  Soon it too will be harvested and there will only be low tan stubs of stalks.

The little maple tree seen out the living room windows is a lovely vibrant reddish orange, but I know those leaves will soon be on the ground.   I strive to take in all the color and beauty of the changed trees as I drive to and from town because I know that autumnal beauty will  soon to be replaced with stark empty limbs, an entirely different aesthetic experience.

Nature is constantly changing in all seasons; but somehow despite all its glory, fall sometimes produces a melancholy as we consider that another growing season has passed.  New school years remind us that last year’s oh-so-important activities are fading from our memory. Last January’s brave resolutions won’t be accomplished now, and we are aware of other things that did not get done before winter comes. 

Endings have built-in sadness along with the hope and promise of new beginnings coming into view.  November is a satisfying month as we slow down from the hard hot work of summer and take time to evaluate the blessings we have received.  Crunching through the fallen leaves on sodden ground, we are winding up a year as we prepare for the approaching glad holiday season. 

Gerald and I have had our first pot of chili on a cold day. We are also often warmed both physically and emotionally as people we meet are exclaiming  over what a beautiful day it is. Catalogs are flooding our mailbox trying to tempt us to hurry and order gifts for our loved ones, and the stores are already full of holiday merchandise. I am still trying to put away summer clothes. It is a full season with both the remainders of the last season and reminders of the coming season of family and friend gatherings before the wintry blasts take over for a spell.

A Season of Change

As I looked out the living room windows, two scarlet patches of leaves were there in the midst of the green to delight me. A tree that Gerald planted over 11 years ago.    Looking out the kitchen window across the driveway and behind the garden, tall brown corn awaits the combine.  On down the lane, our neighbor’s lush green soybean plot is pleasingly speckled with yellow leaves. Everything is changing for the end of this growing season and  preparing for winter’s rest.

Brian and Mary Ellen are working as fast as they can to gather this summer’s corn crop with  its over-the-top yields.  After last summer’s drought, they are rejoicing over these abundant results from their hard work.  

Mary Ellen has learned to drive the pickup with the trailer behind pulling the golden grains to the market. This is not easy to do, and she was fearful at the prospect.  Yet that did not stop her from jumping in to assist in this way.  Brian put new tires on the trailer so that she did not have to fear a blow-out that might very well topple a wagon. 

I am amazed that she has been able to quickly learn this new skill, but I should not be.  One adjective I have used to describe her since she was a little child is the word “competent.”  Need rice crispy treats?  Little Mary Ellen was good at it.  Need your hair fixed?  Mary Ellen could do it.  Drive a tractor?  Mary Ellen did.  Sew a garment?  She did it all the time.  Make a gift?  Her craft skills were fine.  Need a pianist?  Yes, Mary would.help you out.  Or a soloist?  Sure.  She was always my helper in so many ways.

In college, she shone in ag communication classes and organizations. She even took one semester out to work as a secretary.  After graduation in the middle of a recession, she went right to work as a reporter on our local newspaper, and took and developed photographs as needed leaving the old Marion Daily Republican building in the middle of the night if necessary to meet a deadline. It scared me to death but did not faze her.  But, of course, she wanted a better job with benefits and advancement possibilities.

No agriculture jobs were available with the ag crisis going on, so she gave up looking for the  better job in Illinois, and she decided on a move to Nashville, where she  joined her sister Katherine.  That was a great place for someone who loved music as both those daughters did.  Temporarily she stayed in Katherine’s apartment and took temporary jobs, where I am sure she was appreciated for her competence by that agency.  Soon she was hired as a writer for Tennessee Magazine.  And eventually she was editor.  She was enjoying her success and the travels it provided her and all the fascinating people she met, and then her former boyfriend came back into the picture. 

I had it in my head that the boyfriend might be giving her an engagement ring that Christmas at Pondside Farm, but that didn’t happen.  What did happen is he gave her the ring down in Nashville; and on New Year’s Eve,  she called us to say that they were being married that night in the chapel on Music Row. They had just decided.

Should we drive down?  No, Brian’s mother was much too far away to make it from New York and maybe it would be fairer if we didn’t come either.  His cousin and fiancé were in town from Florida  to offer support, and her girl friends were helping her with flowers and cake.  She had time for a whirlwind shopping trip, and she looked gorgeous in her short two-piece wedding dress in the beautiful photos that they had to share with us.

We had an exciting family celebration  when they came up for the weekend at Pondside Farm.  From there, Brian had to go back to northern Illinois where he was working in his home area, and Jeannie sweetly drove Mary Ellen back to Nashville.  That long-distance marriage did not last long until phone and flight bills made it easy for them to decide they wanted to be together more than on the weekend, so Brian moved down to look for work there.  That did not last long either because Brian was offered a full-time job with DeKalb that he had been seeking, and were soon settled in Iowa.

As Brian advanced in his career, there were moves from Iowa, where their two children were born, to Michigan to Indiana to St. Louis, and finally to their country home five miles south of Waggoner and its population of 250 while Brian worked north of Springfield.  So there were lots of houses for Mary Ellen to decorate and settle in, many schools to help her children adjust to, family medical needs to be attended to, and eventually a successful real estate career that had to  be aborted with the move to Waggoner and then rebuilt in Springfield, where she continued developing her public relations skills and experience, which she always had a talent for. . 

Now with their two children starting their own adult lives, Mary Ellen is back in her home rural community with Brian working in an office in their home and driving into St. Louis when necessary.   For the moment, Mary Ellen is a homemaker and a truck driver, who still likes to help me out carrying in a meat loaf or slow-cooked ribs or sharing egg salad she said they would get tired of.  It is so fun to have her nearby to talk to and to see what new thing she has achieved with the home they have moved into. 

Until harvest is over, she is sharing this busy season with her husband.  Brianna was home for Murray State’s fall break, and she rode the truck with Mary Ellen while they caught up with Brianna’s news about life as a college freshman, What will be next?    More real estate?  She is good at that.  Another move if Brian’s work calls for it?  She’s good at moving too and making friends wherever she goes.  A completely different career?  Whatever it is, I know from past experience that she will be quite competent. 

Autumnal Tumbling

Red and orange are gradually being added to the green, brown, and yellow leaves in Southern Illinois. Only a few leaves are falling so far. Yet autumnal tumbling describes our recent life at Woodsong. We seldom finish one activity or thought until another tumbles in to interrupt or change our direction.

Harvest on our farm is finished thanks to the great efforts and management skills by our son-in-law Brian. He also has winter wheat sown already. He must wait awhile to harvest the rest of his acreage—rented fields over near Harrisburg-- which were sown later. I hope he has been able to get some rest before then to make up for those nights he was still working at 3 a.m. the next morning.

Granddaughter Brianna was down to help her dad over the weekend as well as to enjoy her cousin Sam Cedar’s first Homecoming parade on Friday afternoon, the football game that night, and the coronation the next night with her mom, who had also shown up on Saturday to help with the harvest.

Despite heavy traffic, I made part of the parade, which Bri was watching with Katherine and David, but I hurried off to attend (late) the Women’s Club meeting at the library since I had missed the previous month and I especially wanted to hear Jon Musgrave’s program and his latest research for his next book.

Gerald and I went to our first football game in years in order to see Sam march in the pre-game show and at half time. We left early since we had to park so far away and would be walking near the edge of the street on rough ground. We didn’t want to do that in heavy traffic. Although we walked a long way, many more people were parked further up that road than we were, and I am sure it was the same on the other side of the school. We heard the end of the game just as our car arrived in the garage—and Marion won by one point. It was Centralia's first defeat this season.

Before we left for the game, we had a message on our answering machine from my sister that their daughter Candy was in the hospital and might not live through the night. We found out she had made it, but she was still unconscious; we were still worrying about that on Saturday afternoon when my brother Jim and wife Vivian came by for a visit after being in Union County celebrating with the Class of 1946 the 65th anniversary of their high school graduation. It was a two-day affair and they also added the third day so they could visit friends, Vivian’s sister Ruby, and us.

On Sunday we were enjoying all the photos posted on Facebook of Sam and his beautiful date for the Homecoming dance. We came home from church to find that Mary Ellen, Brian, and Brianna had carried in dinner for all of us from Kentucky Fried Chicken. So we had a good visit over lunch with no effort on my part before I drove in for an afternoon visit with Katherine to hear all about Homecoming from her perspective and their anniversary celebration the night before. Before David got home from his friend’s farm, where they are making preparations for hunting season, I got to take Sam to his youth meeting—that was after he came home from a friend’s house. My sister phoned that afternoon on my cell to give me an update on Candy while I was still at Katherine’s.

Katherine herself was still receiving intravenous antibiotic every twelve hours by home health aides and David. On the previous Monday, various complications at the Cedar home kept happening so that we helped out by taking Katherine to the ER at the Carbondale hospital for tests and to be given the right antibiotic with the insert of a receptacle left in her arm so that she was given the antibiotic every twelve hours at home. Since the extreme busyness at ER that night kept us there seven hours until 2 a.m., we were thankful we had taken her and that David was home with Sam. Katherine had been told that they were dealing with three heart attacks and the arrival of four ambulances.

It was a strange experience because the waiting room was filled with weeping people, and the crowd kept growing as the night progressed. The grief was so raw and intense that I wondered if a child was dying, but it was such a diverse crowd that I could not figure it out. We were shocked and very saddened ourselves when we learned that a kindergarten teacher in a local school had hung herself in a classroom after school and was found by another teacher. As the word spread, her fellow teachers were coming in praying she might live and trying to comfort one another. She did live until the next morning when organs were donated. The school, as shown on the news the next day, was in mourning and tried to help with counseling for the students, but who can explain suicide, let alone to children.

We were so pleased with the very sharp ER doctor that night. Katherine knew from previous infections what was needed and he listened carefully and was not threatened by questions by an intelligent patient. Instead he called her urologist and found out she was right, and consequently everything was done correctly. It is difficult for patients to advocate for themselves, but a good physician appreciates it. There was the sweetest and most understanding nurse taking care of Katherine in the ER that night, and it made the long tiring experience much less difficult.
On Tuesday afternoon this week, a visiting nurse came to remove the receptacle for the antibiotic and to write the final report. And this home nurse was so intelligent, informative, and supportive that I find myself really high on the medical profession right now. We have had some bad experiences with doctors and ER people in the past, and so has Katherine, so that makes you really appreciate the good people.

Some people are scared of any kind of government employees and, thus, are scared of government involvement in medicine. I am convinced that competent and caring people work in the government bureaus just as they do in private situations. And unfortunately incompetent, arrogant, ignorant, lazy, and cruel people also work both in private businesses and in government bureaus. All of us, whether we want to be or not, are at the mercy of other people. Most of us are not unfortunate enough to be in a beauty shop, on an air plane, in a church house, or at a political rally in a supermarket parking lot when a crazed individual shows up and starts shooting. All we can do is try to encourage one another to be one of the giving people and do what we can to prevent incompetents and crazies from hurting others.

Meanwhile down in Amarillo, Candy is better though still in the hospital, and her daughter is up from Florida to visit her. Her Oklahoma sister is coming this weekend. Her local sisters are hosting their niece, and when Katherine talked to Rosemary this week, Rosie and Phil were fixing another family dinner in addition to their regular Friday night supper for their clan.

While all this family unhappy happenings have been going on, we are also carefully following and celebrating granddaughter Geri Ann’s high school softball career down in Georgia. She and her fellow pitcher Courtney Poole, both seniors, are continuing their winning ways on the mound and with their bats. Geri Ann has just broken both the all-time season record and career record for homeruns among Georgia high schools. The playoffs with several more games will continue for the next two weeks. Someone may catch up with her, especially since no one will pitch to her now, but her grandparents in Illinois believe she will finish on top.

We are also excited about our granddaughter Leslie down at Belmont University at Nashville. Her Facebook page is filled with congratulations on her stunning performance with the Rock Ensemble there on campus Wednesday night. We find it hard to believe that our little blonde is a senior in college, but we aren’t at all surprised she is winning praise for her powerful voice. Hearing her called a rock star by her band friends and Belmont audience is somewhat unexpected. Anyone who has heard Leslie sing in her high school musicals, with her guitar at coffee shop concerts, or leading worship at church would not think of her as a rock star. Yet this was the campus ensemble she was asked to perform with, and obviously her virtuosity includes rock. Here is a link to one of their concert performances now on You Tube:

Panic Attack by Dream Theater-Belmont University Rock Ensemble
www.youtube.com
From the Rock Ensemble's 2011 Show Written by Dream Theater

Tonight our computer is moving so very very slow. A slow computer in addition to all the busyness contributes to my not blogging in a timely fashion lately.

Harvest Time Thoughts

Our son-in-law Brian is down and working very hard at harvest. Gerald has helped him all day today by hauling grain. (It is usually too damp to start before l0; but Gerald did things here at this farm and then joined Brian, and he was ready for rest in his easy chair in front of the TV when the day was over.)

Brian works before and after time in the field in their camper analyzing crop results and keeping in touch with his home office at Stone Seed. (If he is lucky, he may even get needed sleep there.) At noon, I was fascinated that Gerald brought in a map print-out of the fields. Brian’s combine evidently records what it is harvesting, and Brian downloaded the information and took the chip into Twin County farm service to create this map. The same technology can be used for future fertilizing so that just the areas of the fields that need more fertilizer will receive it in just the right amounts. This is all over my head and my ability to understand, but I do understand that this is remarkable technology that is changing crop production in important ways.

The other Bryan in our family—granddaughter Tara’s husband--is now with his family in Georgia but continuing to work for his Illinois firm with the help of high speed technology that sends his work to his home office. I am amazed at these important advances in communication. I am so glad he able to be with his family now instead of depending on Skype to keep in touch with his wife and three little guys. A former Southern Illinois University football player, he was able to take Aidan, age 5, to a Georgia football game on Saturday afternoon, which was a dream come true for him. Of course, he will be making frequent trips to northern Illinois, but modern transportation makes that easily done also. Like most people, their family has been impacted by the recession since the house they purchased with high hopes and made improvements on has lost value and is awaiting a purchaser.

On TV tonight, I saw where a church in Oregon or somewhere in the Northwest had been given permission to create a tent city on their parking lot for homeless families since the city’s homeless shelters were full. While I am grateful to the church for providing this help, it is heartbreaking that families must go through this. Especially when many many beautiful homes all over the nation have been foreclosed on and are now standing empty marring their neighborhoods and often being vandalized by thieves stealing copper and other marketable items. I keep wondering why some innovative bankers cannot figure out a solution to these lose-lose situations. Again this is all over my head and my ability to understand, but I keep thinking there surely are some brilliant minds out there able to figure out a solution. As the world pays tribute to Steve Jobs, let us pray that some other creative geniuses and problem solvers will find ways to help us get families out of our present problems.

My contribution to complete the harvest has been to be available a couple of times to drive Brian and Gerald to new fields after they finish one field and have to move machinery on to the next. My skill sets are still back in the 20th century; and unlike many farm wives, I never even learned to drive the tractors or combines back then. I am not dumb, but I never had adequate training to overcome my fears and limited aptitude, so I spent a life time caring for children, vacuuming, mopping, cooking, and washing dishes—all of which I consider very important work. I was not only where I chose to be, but I think I was where I should have been with the particular geographic opportunities and peculiar set of circumstances and abilities that I had.

Nevertheless, as technology keeps improving and growing ever more complicated, education and training is increasingly important and must grow more available to everyone and more effective. We must believe in our people. There are millions of young men and women in inner cities, suburbs, and rural areas that are not dumb just as I am not dumb—but because of their limited education and lack of the skills needed in today’s economy somehow appear that way to themselves and others. As a nation, we have to figure out how to use human potential all around us. There is plenty of work to be done, and we need to prepare our citizens to be able to accomplish all the work needing to be done.

TheCrops Are In!

Gerald says empty brown fields after harvest are the prettiest fields a farmer can see. Our son-in-law Brian finished his harvest yesterday. He completed his first crop on the new field he had bought from a neighbor on Saturday. We’ve enjoyed watching the thick soybean plants there growing taller all summer as we drove past them on the way to town. And we’ve made many side trips up to see his corn and bean crops on our other farm. On a recent trip upstate, I didn’t see any plants as pretty as Brian’s beans or corn.

But as Gerald says, the brown stubbled fields stretching as far as the eye can see until stopped by the next tree line is cause for appreciation and rejoicing. Not fire nor hail nor wind nor deep mud caused by heavy rains can now destroy all the work and expense put into the crops. The fields are resting ready for winter’s snow and promising another planting in the spring.

On Saturday on our way to Anna, I saw only one lovely tree with orange leaves. This morning one short sassafras beside the road had bright red leaves. So far most trees are only browning here in Southern Illinois. Many green leaves are darkening though a few are turning lightly red. Yet we know the colors will soon be deep and beautiful in a couple more weeks, and we anticipate autumn’s visual pleasure in advance as we relish the cool morning and evening air. We’ve had our first frost. And foggy mist rises from our lake each morning.

As I picked the few remaining pods of okra from in the garden, I enjoyed the loud music of crows cawing. Looking towards the sound, I saw large numbers of the birds beyond Scott’s trees where Brian had finished harvest. More crows were flying over my head to join the early birds already having breakfast on beans left behind in the stubble. They were glad the crops were harvested too.

Our tomatoes have been small all summer, and only a handfull remain for picking every other day. Our granddaughter Erin is with us this week, and she is trying to enjoy vegetables more, so I was picking these with her in mind. However, she and her Aunt Chris picked up her other grandmother at 4:30 this morning to take her to Mount. Vernon for cataract surgery. Very typically that grandmother already had Italian beef going in the crockpot. So Erin and all the Johnson family are gathering there for dinner tonight. There are still enough tomatoes for tomorrow though, but they are scruntly.

Tis the winding down season with stubbled fields and scruntly tomatoes. Should those words be added to the dictionary?

A Peaceful Sunday

There is a swivel chair in our living room by the window. When I read, I turn it from its conversational purposes facing inward so that I can look out over the deck and see the lake. At twilight today, a short border of blue sky was beneath the pale pink cloud cover almost like a soft blanket overhead. The lake to the left and right reflected the overhead pink but in the middle directly in front of me were the bright green trees of Gerald’s little home-made island duplicated in the water. A new moon was already bright in the western sky. I was torn between the book and the visual beauty in front of me.
It had been a peaceful Sunday. Gerald had his usual phone calls with his buddy Bobby down in Texas and with brothers. After church services, we ran into Marion to my favorite restaurant to enjoy dinner—the designated gift to us of a friend from Pennsylvania. Son-in-law Brian came down yesterday to their camper to spray their acreage east of Woodsong and readying for more corn harvesting at the end of this week on some other rented land he farms. So we phoned to see if he’d like to go with us, but he had already eaten.

Driving to and from town, we noticed Brian’s soybean plants are yellowing. Driving by neighbors Ryan and Megan’s house, we enjoyed the huge pumpkins decorating their lawn—the first fall display I’ve seen. The cool weather confirmed that autumn is almost here. I bought a mum from little Miranda—some kind of fund raiser in the community—and it is loaded with buds waiting to pop out soon. The roses seem to be showing off with bigger blooms in a last-ditch effort to celebrate the end of summer. Gerald’s turnips are two or three inches high. He and neighbor Scott are all ready to finish the harvest of the corn plot on the other side of our driveway tomorrow, Jerry Pirtle’s new truck is outside sitting there waiting for Gerald to use to haul off the corn, and Gerald loves few things better than driving a beautiful new truck. It is a busy and happy time of the year when the harvest goes well, and a restful Sunday is appreciated.

After Labor Day Weekend

Brian’s first harvest of corn is completed with good yields, Mary Ellen and Brianna were down to enjoy harvest with him and take meals to the field sometimes. Sam joined Brianna here at Woodsong, and Mary Ellen brought the tubes for them to enjoy on the lake—her latest enthusiasm. The kids may have enjoyed more putting the tiny dead garden snake on Mary Ellen’s car to scare her. I saw Sam flying out the garage door in order to hear her squeal.

The dining room table is cleared of first aid items put there after Gerald’s ulnar nerve surgery, and his doctor said everything is fine and come back in three months. My plantar fascitis is getting better.

Friends Bill and Mickey Tweedy arrived Sunday afternoon carrying a casserole and a bottle of sweet-smelling hand cream to be given to Katherine. Come to find out, Mickey had been in the hospital I guess until Saturday night. They also carried in a pan of apple dumplings from Flam Orchards, and I was glad the dining room table was cleared. The dumplings were beyond delicious, and we also had crackers and corn dip that Mary Ellen had brought to the farm.

Early medication seems to have held Katherine’s shingles in check although other MS complications have not been so kind. A Saturday trip to the ER because of continuing blood pressure spikes eliminated our fear of heart problems, and she is better. A visit at her house from Mary Ellen and Brianna yesterday afternoon had us laughing hysterically as Mary Ellen told stories in her inimitable way. (When ME was still a preschooler, I was convinced that Carol Burnett had a competitor.) We also had a few giggles from Jeannie and Leslie’s Facebook exchanges this weekend.

Gerry came up from Georgia last week to dove hunt with his dad only to find the huge flocks of doves already moved on to someone else’s fields, but they had a good time visiting anyhow. I enjoyed his presence and serving him meat, which made me think of my mother who always enjoyed planning meat for my brother when he came to visit her. Jim loves good meat, she would say. The men watched on television the first Georgia football game, and Gerry was back home for the final two days of Labor Day Weekend and pitched four hours yesterday. Vickie met Erin in Atlanta last night when she arrived home from Austria.

Another holiday weekend is over. There is more harvest ahead, probably more problems since problems mean we are still alive, and hopefully more laughter and giggles unless we can restrain Les and Jeannie, and that is never gonna happen.

The Last Day of Summer and the Beans Are in the Bin

Soybean dust hung over the empty fields like misty fog this evening in cooling air. Barren fields stretching into the horizon are a welcome sight to a farm family.

As Gerald and I drove by Wayside Farm on the way home from Geri Ann’s ball game, we had to appreciate the joy of having a crop safely gathered this early on the last day of summer. (I guess this was the last day of summer--one source said tomorrow is.)

Combines, tractors, trucks, augers, and wagons surrounded the one grain bin that Brian has there. Even the machinery looked pleasantly tired and relaxed to have the job completed as though they were circling round to celebrate a victory.

Gerald was delighted with Phil Anderson’s huge combine with its 30-foot head that contained not an auger but a conveyer belt instead. Beans will be less damaged. He could not resist an invitation for a short ride on the huge beast when Phil moved it out of the way of an incoming smaller combine.

I waited in the car and thought of past harvests that often ended on Thanksgiving Day or beyond. We have known harvests in fields so muddy the combines had to have tracks to keep from sinking. Gerald has harvested in corn fields flattened by icy weather. Brian and Mary Ellen said at the first of this season that they knew this might be the bad year for them--all farmers have them eventually. They were trying to be prepared.

They still know that eventually they will experience that bad weather. Many did this year. Brian had his crops out early, and the right weather breaks came. Today we saw the end of the harvest of the best crops ever grown on our farm. Brian’s hard work and good management paid off again. When that bad year comes and it will, he will be that much more ready for it.

We were already in a celebratory mood after seeing Johnston City Middle School win its regional tourney and earn the right to advance to the downstate “state” tourney at Pinckneyville a week from tomorrow. The skill with which these girls play is so exciting to watch. Almost unbelievable at times. Gerald's brother Ken was seeing Geri Ann pitch for the first time this season. He was amazed and compared her to someone he knew at an Air Force base over 50 years ago--not someone he expected to see at a grade school game.

Each game demonstrates an increase in individual player’s talent as well as an increase in team work. The girls’ hard work and good management of their lives paid off again. If and when a bad time comes, they will be confident in the knowledge that they have worked hard, excelled, and deserve to respect themselves no matter what happens next.

Having Ken with us was a special reason for joy and celebration. His color and energy have returned, and his head that was balded by the chemo now displays generous wavy hair.

Next day: I was wrong that the crops were completely harvested. Mary Ellen showed up down at Woodsong to borrow a tool for Brian this morning. While I did my hair and make-up for an appointment, we had a hurried visit in my bedroom, and I found out that there were still 20 acres of beans to harvest in a back field. That was accomplished early in the day, and the good dry weather let Gerald continue working on his ditch cleaning project.