A Full August

Grand kids, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, okra, cataract eye drops, guests, eclipse, dirt dobbers, national softball championship! Our house and lives did not stay empty long after baby Caroline's departure—partly because of the continued sweet photos of her on Facebook, which Gerald prints out for us but also because of other summer events and endings.

Erin still has time for photos and videos for Josh in South Korea even though her school year has started in Texas. As much as she is going to miss full-time with Caroline, she will not be worried about her because her mother Vickie will be Caroline's week-day caregiver. I wish every working mother had it so good!!

School starts early these times, so like Erin, the other grand kids and great grandsons are already back in school again after the end of their summer jobs and activities.Tara no longer teaches except softball there at the sports complex, but those three sons' school schedules are probably as difficult to keep up with as their summer ball games.  Grandson Elijah is the only one whose school starts after Labor Day, but he is already working in his Chicago classroom preparing for his second year of teaching kids with vision impairment. He was down to catch up with other cousins, and I was able to hear a bit about his last eight weeks of teaching one mainstream class of writing to 8^th graders, which happened by accident and won't be part of this year's duties to my disappointment.

Sam was also at Woodsong briefly since he had finished his summer internship located at the University of Texas, where he too taught language arts with a junior high age group in a special program. He loved teaching and delighted his mother by having some of his students call her. He was able to go with his cousin Brianna and her brother Trent to the Saint Louis airport to meet Rachel, Trent's lovely red-headed girl friend from New Jersey. They managed to stick in a Cardinals baseball game before they came back to the Taylors. Next, after Elijah came down, they were off to visit Brianna in her apartment at Murray, where she has already started her senior classes. From there they were off to Nashville, where our granddaughter Leslie was featured as a soloist at a festival there. Then they were back to the Taylors in time for the eclipse mania here.

We did get a very brief visit from Geri Ann when she was here to be in a friend's wedding this summer, but she is already at work at her new job with autistic children out in Portland, Oregon. I have yet to have a summer-end visit from our youngest grandchild Cecelie who spent a month in India helping with children—so I still have something special to look forward to. She has started college already at the community college near Freeport. Rachel had to return home the day after the eclipse, so I was very glad Trent brought her over while we were watching Gerry's Scrap Yard Dogs in the finals of the National Professional Fast Pitch (NPF) softball final tournament. This was not televised, and we had to watch on Gerald's computer screen, so his office was crowded with us, Trent and Rachel, and our eclipse guests Bob and Sylvia Mountz from Arizona.

We had watched Thursday and Friday as the Dawgs won the semi-finals against Akron Racers. Then rain delay made the first game of the finals against Florida's Pride quite late, and sadly we lost 5-0. After church on Sunday, we were soon again glued to the computer watching Monica Abbot lead the Dawgs to a 2-0 victory in 125 degree heat. Although Monica Abbott is considered the best softball pitcher in the world, no one could imagine being able to pitch another complete game in that heat to win the final. Megan Wiggins' lead off home run certainly was not a good beginning. Yet the lead went back forth between these two great teams, and we won 5-2. There was much celebrating at Woodsong. Let me include a quote a sports writer used from Gerry about Monica Abbott:

"You can follow softball for the next 30, 40, 50 years, and I don't think you'll see another performance equal to her performance here this week," Scrap Yard coach Gerry Glasco said. "The heart and the guts she showed, the tenacity on the mound in the heat, in the humidity, weather delays. It's a phenomenal performance, and, I think, one of the greatest performances in the history of softball."

The next day was the much anticipated total eclipse, which our area experienced for the longest period of totality. Naturally there has been great ado about it here with Southern Illinois University Carbondale opening facilities to NASA. Visiting public were welcomed to their stadium and even to a large high-rise dorm that is due to be torn down. Other area towns and campgrounds were packed. Locals were warned that some grocery shelves might be empty and highways crowded. The first was true for me when I shopped before the crowds were supposed to come. Area folk had been stoking up. However, since people came to the area over a period of days, the roads stayed clear—until everyone left at the same time.

Our favorite thing about the eclipse was that we were going to have a visit from Bob and Sylvia. Sylvia had spent her early childhood at the State Forest Preserve west of Jonesboro where her father Ralph Fisher started the tree nursery there. The Fisher children went to the same country school that Gerald and siblings went to. Mrs. Fisher would volunteer in the classroom to identify trees in a wonderful project where the children brought in leaves and bark and nuts for a huge display. (That school was treated to teaching by a young woman, who later taught at SIUC, and was the object of much admiring email conversation by former students from little Miller Pond School and some from Anna Junior High.) The Fisher family lived in a big house on the hill by the park, and I vaguely remember Mabel Norris taking some of us down to play with the Fisher children one day. One of my few memories of the Fishers in Southern Illinois was a huge bill board with the painting of a beautiful stallion that Mr. Fisher owned. But Gerald's family were next door to the Forest Preserve, and the two fathers coon hunted together and worked together on many projects, often with kids along.

Soon after my mother-in-law died, we took Dad Glasco down to see Ralph and Catherine Fisher, who at that time were living in retirement village at Belle Vista, Arkansas. The first thing I saw when I walked into their living room was a very large photograph over their fireplace of the nine Fisher children. For a long time, we've enjoyed Christmas letters from Fenna Lee, the oldest of the daughters, as well as from Sylvia and Bob, and Mr. Fisher himself used to write long letters to Gerald telling of their children's educational and other achievements. With the great letters and two or so visits from Bob and Sylvia down through the years, we have felt close to them, so nothing could have pleased us more than to have them visit us to enjoy the eclipse together. And we did.

In preparation, I had found the chairs for the deck in the garage, and they were full of hardened dirt dobber nests and debris, so I was glad I did this job a couple of days earlier. My first plan was to have a picnic set up on the deck since this two-hour eclipse experience would be during the noon hour. Then as realism hit, I remembered why we have never eaten as many meals on the deck as I thought we would. It is hot out there at noon day! So we had our picnic on the air-conditioned side of the doors to the deck. We were going in and out with our eclipse glasses and watching the black area grow on the bright orb. It was fascinating to watch. We experimented with punching a pin hole in a piece of paper to watch the image on the paper below. And with a colander. I was amazed at how much bright light the sun gave even when almost covered. Then the temperature began to noticeably go down, and then things begin to be slightly less bright. Although at night the deer are often around our lake and even in the garden, usually during the day they stay far away from us. Gerald and Bob saw a buck cross the dam at tne end of the lake, and later a baby deer appeared going into our nearby woods where its mother must have been.

As the two minutes, forty-two seconds of totality was soon to arrive, it was now quite comfortable to sit on the deck. And then the predicted total eclipse came. Because of the word “totality,” I really expected it to be pitch dark. It was not. It was beautifully and eerily dusk. The lake and the clouds above the lake became a lovely soft gray and the frogs were singing to us. It was a couple of magical moments until the moon began to move on.

Bob and Sylvia went on to visit other friends in Union County, and Gerald went back to harvesting garden produce for us and others he gifted with it. He is celebrating that finally he now only has to put drops in his eyes twice a day. On Tuesday, students went back to their college classes that had been canceled for the eclipse. As the crowds left the area, life returned to normal except for the multitude of photographs appearing everywhere of the moon's trip past the sun. People in our area are excited, however, because in 2024, when the path is from the northeast to the south, our exact area will again be given a total eclipse.

Gerald is continuing to fight the dirt dobbers in our garage as Sylvia saw him doing. She was delighted when he gave her a ball cap with one of their dirt nests firmly attached on it. This was her souvenir to take back and wear to show off to her retirement coffee gang. “We need the laugh,” she proudly explained.

July Blessings at Woodsong

Our month started with gratefulness for the safe arrival of our grandaughter Brianna from her month of required study in Spain. Trent was home for the Independess holiday weekend, so he and Bri's parents drove to Chicago to meet her plane. Her cousin Elijah was there to join them while they were in town. They drove home in time to invite us to celebrate the Fourth with them and with Brian's mother Dot. Brian's grilled steaks and sweet corn and Mary Ellen's side dishes were good, but being with their family to hear about June's activities was even better. That gang went onto see the fireworks in Marion; and in deference to our age, Gerald and I went home to go to bed.

(Brian's mother Dorothy is here with him and Mary Ellen not only to escape the hot Arizona summer but to visit her Illinois family and pursue her camping enthusiam. Dot has a small camper behind her car that she sets up herself. I find that very impressive, and she has camped in most national and many state parks. When she is not away camping this summer, she is comfortably encounced in the Taylors' air-conditioned larger home-away-from home camper in their back yard. I have not yet seen her as much as I'd liked with all her camping activity, but we did enjoy that holiday feast.)

Mid-month Jeannie and Rick made an unexpected trip down because of a college friend's funeral. That gave us an opportunity to catch up a bit with them. Jeannie was working on plans and painting a huge wall decoration out in our driveway for a women's conference at their church the next weekend, and I enjoyed hearing about that. Of course, she did some bycyling while here.

One Saturday afternoon on a “just to get out of thehouse” car ride, Gerald took me up and down country roads skirted now with July's deep green trees and shrubbery. Some of these roads were familiar, but some I had never been on before. Gerald remembered them from childhood trips from their farm on the edge of the Mississippi bottom area up to the very hilly roads where his relatives lived in the same county. Most of these roads had begun long ago by early pioneers getting to their farm homes that were beloved even with the lack of electricty or an in-house water source. Now the few homes that remain are lovely and lived in by people who work in town but like being close to nature. Despite the roads' narrowness, they were all in good shape in this 21^st Century. On the rare occasions that we met another car, it only seemed as if there might not be room for two cars to pass. We always made it.

Another pleasure this summer has been watching a mama goose and her growing babies, which are now almost as large as she is. At the beginning, there was no male goose with the family, which was unusal. We wondered if he had been killed since male geese are very diligent fathers. Later in the summer, she has been joined by a male, so we had to conjecture how that has happened. When they are not swimming in the lake, they are gorging in the middle of our neighbor's soybeans across the lane. Much like the deer we frequently see, if they are on one side of the lane when our car approaches, they seem to think they will be safer on the opposite side. So we have to slow down to let them cross.

Seeing deer is so common that it is not as big a thrill as it used to be. However, I love this summer's memory of seeing a mother doe on the road to Katherine's house one evening. She was followed by her young triplet fawns.

When I cut through the country to go to town, there is a small piece of shaded road through a swampy area just west of New Dennison. (New Dennison used to be a railroad destination with a general store but is now a cluster of houses and a church building built by early German farmers and much later used by Baptists and now called Living Stone Community Church. The country doctor who delivered babies in this rural area lived opposite that church house, but his home has since burned near the end of his daughter Marguerite Lashly's life. Dr. Burns would meet the Presbyterian minister who came on the train from Carbondale and drive him with his family in his buggy to Shed Church. After Sunday dinner with the doctor's family, the minister would catch the train back to Carbondale.) But I digress.

This rural road west of the village has trees that meet over head, and I love driving through there. This road is sometimes closed after heavy rains with a creek going under it and thick woods and swamp area bordering it. Marylea Burnham told me how bad the mosquitoes used to be when she'd ride her horse down that road. However, now I frequently wave at dog walkers there. New lanes off the road lead to a couple houses and one lot preparing for a new house, so I hope the mosquito population is less. It seems like the perfect place for deer, but in all the years that I've gone through there, only once did I have a deer cross in front of my car. Recently, however, I saw a fawn way ahead crossing at the far end of the road by the stop sign joining the Old Creal Springs Road, so I now remind myself to stay alert as I drive through. What I did see one late night coming home from Katherine's was four tiny animals crossing single file to get to the north side of that swampy woods. I have no idea what kind of animals they were, but I now own an indelible mental photograph that I enjoy while I hope to see them again sometime.

Garden produce has also been a summer pleasure. Gerald brings in zuchinni and blackberries and now big round red tomatoes. Three zuchinni plants produce way too much for us, but if Gerald had planted only one or two, they might have died and we'd had none. So we are kept busy shredding them for the freezer to make zuchinni bread next winter or giving the away. Gerald came home from his latest breakfast with Union County family with a huge container of sweet corn from his brother Garry, who carries on their father's tradition of growing give-away vegetables. Garry also sent a supply for Gerald to give to our sister-in-law Opal, and that visit resulted in a large crock pot full of her garden's abundant supply of green beans at our house. Some of those went into the freezer.

Because refinishing the outdoor furniture on our front porch and then the door has not been enough to keep Gerald busy despite all the grass mowing he does, Gerald husked all the corn Garry sent us and has become an expert on shredding zuchini. I am grateful for his help and glad these two activities kept him out of the extreme heat we have been experiencing at least for a little while. He also spends considerable time following the Scrapyard Dawgs softball team by reading about their games and Monica Abbot's piching and discussing this with Gerry. And we both follow photos and bits of information about our new great grandchild Caroline, who is scheduled to come for a visit next week.

Mary Ellen has been able to see Caroline before us. At Erin's baby shower here last spring, Vickie's high school friends Connie Dahmer and Joan Mangan met up with her. Together with Connie's younger sister Brenda and Mary Ellen, they plotted for the group to visit Vickie in Texas. That happened this week and resulted with many photographs on the Internet. Bill and Beth Jordan were in Houston at this time, and so this Crab Orchard gang were able to attend one of Gerry's Scrapyard Dawgs softball games. We have enjoyed their trip vicariously, but it will be more fun as they come home today and we get to debrief Mary Ellen on these Crab Orchard adventurists.

We have loved hearing about Brianna's Spain journey and seeing all her really gorgeous photographs gathered in a photo book, which she is pleased has room for many more travels. She took these photos with her phone, which just goes to show that exponential progress in technology that Thomas Friedman wrote about. When I told her and her mom about my Internet friend Anne Born's walk through Spain, they started exclaiming because they had just been talking about that walk that Brianna would like to do someday.

Yesterday we picked up Brianna to go to worship with us, and it is always a joy to sit in a church service with a grandchild. At dinner afterwards, Brianna asked questions, and Gerald recounted for her some of our adventures and hardships getting started farming. One of his professors had told him it would be impossible to start farming without $10,000 capitol; and though he had saved well during his four years in the Air Force, that was much more than Gerald's savings. It was also commonly said in those days, as it is today, that you needed to inherit a farm to make it farming. Gerald proved all the naysayers wrong, and I bet there are some young farmers out there today also proving negative folk wrong.

It is indeed a blessing to receive phone calls and hear about our grand-kids' and great grandkids' activites. It is also a blessing to have them ask about our histories because we know how almost everyone requets when it is too late to ask loved ones about their lives.

Well, it has been a good July so far, but I need to stop now and go upstairs and fix some of those garden veggies for our lunch.

September Starts with a Visit from Gerry

Together Gerald and I stood at the garage door and watched our son depart down our long driveway in his rented white van with a trailer full of dogs behind. He had called Gerald that he was coming on bird dog business and invited Gerald to ride up north with him, but Gerald could not accept because of a dental appointment. So Gerry only came by Woodsong on his way back from northern Illinois.

Sometime after 2 this morning, he arrived after long journeys to Louisiana and then up north with little sleep, and he fell into bed where I had left the lamp on for him. (I was in bed but still awake at 2, so that is how I know it was after 2.) Gerald had gone to bed early as usual but then woke up and was up when Gerry arrived. I slept until after 9 as usual, but Gerald and Gerry had already been up early taking care of the dogs and visiting a sick friend of Gerry in another town and back to the farm before lunch. Gerald had already brought in tomatoes from the garden to send with Gerry to Texas. Tomato recipients keep telling us they are the best tomatoes they’ve ever eaten. (I am inclined to think that enjoying delicious garden ripened tomatoes is sort of like every year believing your Christmas tree is the most beautiful one yet.)

Sliced tomatoes were on the lunch table with spaghetti that I’d planned before I knew Gerry was coming. But in his honor, I did slice up okra, dip it in cornmeal, and fry it in oil the way my mother-in-law taught me and the way our kids and grandkids like it. Gerry’s response was gratifying. And we had Gerald’s watermelon for dessert.

Then Gerald and Gerry picked the okra to send home with him and loaded in the tomatoes, watermelons, and cantaloupes. Knowing our three great grandsons would be eating the melons was very pleasing to Gerald since he had heard how much they liked the ones in sent home with them after their visit at the first of August.

Gerry told us at lunch that those three little guys were surprised at the seeds since their store-purchased ones had been seedless. I have smiled all afternoon guessing what three little boys were going to be doing with stray watermelon seeds in their mouths. Fortunately, their parents handle three boys beautifully and understand mischief like that. And fortunately, these three have good manners and kind hearts as well as all-boy energy and normal brotherly aggression.

Our social life this summer has included a trip to see friends in Ziegler and being invited to enjoy an area-famous loose beef sandwich at Maid-Rite in Christopher, visiting new friends and touring their antique-filled home including their bedroom with her wedding gown from over 50 years ago displayed on a manikin, and then seeing lots of friends from near and far at Katie and Alan Ozment’s 50th wedding celebration. Of course, Gerald regularly goes down home to Jonesboro to join brothers and nephews and others for breakfast at JR’s. (He takes any house guest willing to get up at 5 a.m. to make this gathering.) And a dear friend from down there phoned when their classmate and wife came down from Peoria for the McClure reunion; so once again we joined this group for supper in the back room at Anna’s Mexican restaurant.

Another summer highlight came last Friday when Gerald was caught up with all his projects and invited me to take off for a late lunch at the restaurant at top of Pirate’s Bluff looking out over the Ohio River at Cave-in-Rock State Park. The thick greenery beside the road and the deep summer green of the trees on the hills and in the hollows of Shawnee National Forest made the trip there especially lovely. I had never before seen hummingbird feeders held by rubber suction cups, but those feeders on the windowed view of the river and the large potted flowers on the deck outside brought hummingbirds and butterflies to enliven our lunch with their beauty. We spent the rest of the day driving along the river and enjoying the river towns we both find charming. Soon we may be returning as we often do to enjoy the fall coloration so abundant there, but I was grateful to be able to see this season’s green glory.

Tranquility on the Farm

Life has calmed down, and we are enjoying the in between season with summer winding down and cool days hinting of autumn almost here. Gerald is bringing in tomatoes, okra, cantaloupe, and watermelon from his garden—far more than we can eat with the company gone. So he is taking excess to friends and the soup kitchen.

At the beginning of last summer I filled the hummingbird feeders as usual, but after an unexpected several days in the hospital with blood clots, I could not keep up with preparing the sugar water and cleaning and sterilizing the feeders, so I gave it up. This spring I decided to not even start although I knew I would miss the busy little creatures. And I do.

However, that decision gave me one of my most delightful moments this summer. Sitting at the kitchen table and looking out the glass doors towards the lake, I observed a very large dragonfly sitting on the top of the wire hanger where the one of hummingbird feeders was supposed to be.

Seeing a dragonfly always carries me back in memory to the ones I loved at our small pond over the hill from our house at Mount Airy Farm, where we spent summers. This pond is where we swam and even took baths sometimes despite having muddy feet when we left the pond. The far side of the pond was edged with cattails, and the dragonflies flitted among them. I can almost be there again and smell the damp aroma of the sticky mud when I see a dragonfly.

The dragonfly visiting our deck was using the hanger as its post to catch its meal. It would sit perfectly still with its lovely wings spread out. Then it would dart off I assume to catch a gnat too small for me to see, and then return to rest again. I would pleasantly relax and rest with him as I waited for his next flight. I was mesmerized, and I am not sure how long the dragonfly and I shared this time together. I had hoped it would make it a habit to sit there, but I have not seen since.

Most of us in Southern Illinois always feel a surge of pleasure when we see deer despite the damage to crops and the danger on the road. Late at night as I come home from Katherine’s, it is not uncommon for a flock to be scared by my car lights as I come in our long driveway, and one by one they leave the lake running and cross in front of me heading into our neighbor’s field. I stop and hope the last slowpoke has crossed before I go on. My favorite sightings this summer included a single large buck running bedside the road at the edge of our son-in-law’s corn field and then the time that twin spotted fawns ran beside my car before turning into the woods there. Family members have seen triplet fawns in our fields, but I haven’t yet seen them. Nor have I seen the albino deer that our next door neighbor posted a photo of on Facebook. Two neighbors further away chimed in they had seen her, and I am keeping my eyes alert in hopes of a sighting.

Small pleasures are important mood elevators, and they are plentiful during this end-of-summer season.