SHADE in the Shade

The saying goes that "the road to a friend's house is never long", and I do tend to believe that is the truth. In my case, it can also be said that the road to a cemetery is never long, for all my life, I've lived less than a mile from an old cemetery.

Saturday, I left home to go to friend's house, and as I turned the corner near our farm, the gorgeous flowering trees in the nearby cemetery were clamoring for attention, prompting me to make a mental note to stop there later to take some pictures.

My friend and I went together to visit another friend of ours whose mother is very ill with metatastic brain cancer. (I've known these two friends since kindergarten.) We went to the farm where the mother lives, as her daughter was there caring for her on Saturday. I wasn't sure what to expect, but there was no need to worry, for my friend's mother was sitting on the sofa and seemed comfortable and cheerful, although not quite with-it, mentally. It was a pleasant visit; the woman's family is taking very good care of her.

On my way home, then, I stopped at the cemetery. Mostly, I was concentrating on the beautifully blooming trees, but then noticed something rather special.........this shaded tombstone engraved with the name "SHADE"! (I should have cropped the photo differently, but click on it, if you wish, to see the name better.) The SHADE family resting in the shade.

I've walked through this cemetery a handful of times over the years, mostly to browse for ancestors' graves-------I have a set of great-greatgrandparents buried here-------but I don't recall taking notice of this name SHADE before. There are no people by that name living around here, and I took a look in several phone books, also finding no one by the last name of SHADE. The family name must have died out in this area.

Near the large SHADE tombstone was this little, old one.......Samuel W.G., son of John & Hannah SHADE, died May 31, 1884, aged 10 months. Yesterday afternoon (Sunday), I went back to try and read the inscription etched at the bottom: "Sleep on, dear......God called thee home......He thought it best", were the words that could be deciphered without much trouble.
Obviously, a cemetery is a quiet, peaceful place to spend time in, and I thoroughly enjoyed my interlude there on this sunny Sunday afternoon. A very friendly cat showed up and followed me around amongst the tombstones, managing also to get into several photos! As I roamed around, more and more interesting things became apparent, and I hope to fit some of these tidbits into blog posts as Memorial Day approaches.

Alpha & Omega Window

From my church to you.........another stained-glass window, this one depicting the symbols for Alpha and Omega, mentioned in the Bible, in the first chapter of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament.

I have The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, edited by Jay P. Green, Sr. I acquired it in order to have a literal, and possibly more accurate translation of the NT from the original Greek.

Here is the literal translation of Revelation, chapter 1, verse 8: (Jesus, speaking through an angel in John's vision [v.1]): "I am the Alpha and the Omega, Beginning and Ending, says the Lord, the (One) being and who was and is coming, the Almighty."

Click to read the Wikipedia entry for "Alpha & Omega". The two words signify the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet in the era when Revelation was written. Our letters "A" and "Z" are comparable.

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Today is Trinity Sunday, for those who follow the traditional Church Year calendar, as my Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod does.

Thus, a blessed Trinity Sunday to you!!

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Update: IF only I'd had my act together with enough foresight to have posted this Trinity window TODAY on Trinity Sunday instead of a couple weeks ago. Oh, well.

Today, as on Trinity Sunday every year, we recite the ATHANASIAN CREED. Yikes.......do any of you know what that is?? Its got to be the lengthiest creed in the whole world. For whatever reason, to counteract a heresy, no doubt, somebody back in the 4th century A.D. came up with this wordy creed in an attempt to clearly define the Trinity. It contains lines such as:

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".......we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance."

"......there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty."

".......there are not three Gods, but one God."

".......there are not three Lords, but one Lord."

"......the whole three persons are co-eternal with each other and co-equal."

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Perhaps you can tell that this creed is very repetitive. I grew up knowing of the Trinity......God in three persons, and didn't think beyond that very far concerning the subject. That's one gripe I have with the orthodox Lutheran faith.......it dissects everything concerning faith, like a surgeon studying the human body, or a mechanic taking apart a car's engine. They must examine the concept of the Trinity, and tell you exactly how to believe it.......the same with the bread and wine of Communion; according to Lutheran doctrine, you must view it exactly a certain way: the Body and Blood of Christ exists IN, WITH, and UNDER the bread and wine. Got that? And does it seem strange that Jesus Himself simply said, "This is my body.....this is my blood." That's what I believe, and my mind doesn't delve into it any further than that.

Old Vine & Deer

Here's a vine photo I posted a few months ago when we were in the midst of a different season. It clings to barbed wire and a fence post along my neighbor's field, and caught my attention one day as I was walking down the road. The contrast of the wiry tangles against the snowy field in the background was intriguing to me.

This next photo shows how the same vine looked last evening, as the sun was low in the clear sky. The field behind it is freshly plowed, providing poor contrast to the vine, hence the reason I ventured through the ditch to get a photo from a vantage point which allowed the sky to be the background. Wouldn't you know, right as I was crouched down in the weeds aiming my camera at the vine, a pickup drove by on the road. I have no idea who the people were, but they slowed considerably and offered friendly waves, probably also wondering what that crazy woman was up to.

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Once I had climbed back out of the ditch, I continued walking and noticed the neighbor's heifers were suddenly running around excitedly kicking up their heels in their little pasture lot near the road. Squinting, I then saw there were two deer bounding through the field adjacent to the heifers' lot. Hurriedly, I snapped the picture below, which also shows my neighbor in his tractor (far to left) out in his field, most likely oblivious to the bit of excitement I had just witnessed.

(Hopefully, you do know that you can click on the photo to see a much larger image of it.)

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Enjoy your Saturday!!

Tonight's Moon & Today's Amish

"I see the moon

And the moon sees me

God bless the moon

And God bless me"

AND, GOD BLESS YOU, TOO!!

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Today's trip to the Amish community, with my friend and three of her little daughters was enjoyable, although I always come away from there with renewed thankfulness at not having been born Amish.

My camera stayed hidden in my purse, since I had not the heart to take any photos, knowing how Amish folks dislike being photographed. I wished so badly to capture several scenes.......one being an Amish man------dressed in the typical deep green shirt, black suspenders making an X on his back, and straw hat on his head------out in a farm field, riding on a tillage implement (a disk) being pulled by SIX big, beautiful workhorses harnessed together side by side!

The other intriguing scene was a crew of men and boys (green or blue shirts, black suspenders, straw hats) cleaning manure from a barnyard. With pitchforks they were filling several small, green, horse-drawn manure spreaders.

One of the bulk grocery stores we stopped at was near a farm place where a young woman was hanging laundry out to dry.........the clothesline ran on pulleys from the back of the house to the top of the barn. She stood in one spot, pinning the laundry on and pulling the line to advance it along. Cute sight, with the laundry flapping there in the breeze.

Every farm place we drove by had a huge garden, of course, which took up most of the yard around the house. It made me feel exhausted just thinking about it.......BUT, then I realized the Amish live by the adage, "Many hands make light work", and this would apply to their gardening, too, I presume. At each place, we saw many people going about their daily tasks----- men, women, and children of all ages, planting in the gardens, pushing manual, rotary grass-cutters, feeding livestock, hanging laundry, etc. The houses are large, with many rambling rooms added on for growing families and grandparents. Lots of togetherness going on........very different than most of our living arrangements in the regular, modern world.

Despite all that seemingly warm, fuzzy scenario, I still remain grateful to not be Amish. For one thing, I wonder if they ever go to dentists. Today, the girls and women that waited on us in the bulk stores appeared to have rotted off teeth. That's just really too bad, I think. In contrast, many of them do wear eyeglasses, so evidently they don't balk at going to the eye doctor.

One of the girls was maybe fifteen, soft-spoken and sweet.......probably finished by now with her eighth-grade education........working in the store for awhile before she marries, I imagine. Another one was maybe around eighteen, and an older woman brought a baby to her while we were there, so she must be married and nursing a baby. The Amish have very large families, of course. I've heard that at times the Amish communities shuffle their young people around so as to prevent intermarriage amongst relatives. I'm sure that's probably true, because this Old Order community is not that large, and if they didn't move some to other settlements once in a while, it would be impossible to avoid intermarriage.

Anyway, I observed everything today, thinking "What a life. I wouldn't want it!" And those Amish women we interacted with today were maybe thinking a similar thought about my friend and I!

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Several years ago, while at an Amish dry goods store, I witnessed this funny little scene between the older man and his wife who were the store's owners: They were working at a desk near the rear of the store, and I was browsing in the boot and hat aisle nearby. The couple seemed to be in a heated argument......they were speaking in their Amish language, some sort of German, I think. All of a sudden, the woman stopped and blurted out in English to the man, "Oh, stop being so crabby!" And then she resumed talking to him in the Amish language! It was cute. Almost as if she wanted any hearers to know that it was her husband who was being the difficult one of the two!

Most of us who have lived in this area forever refer to the Amish as the "Hookies", of course, because of their use of hook-and-eye clasps on clothing instead of buttons. That's what my parents always called them......."The Hookies" or the "Hooks". To the Amish, any unnecessary ornamentation is prideful......they have a word for it, "hochmoodt" is how it sounds (I'm not sure of the spelling.) Buttons would be "hochmoodt", you see.

The Amish do use cell phones for business purposes and they use gasoline engines to power certain farm equipment such as generators for milk cooling. I know there are Amish construction crews who build houses, etc., which makes me wonder if they own trucks for hauling equipment and supplies. I should ask around about that. About fifteen years ago or so, we had an Amish crew erect a cement-stave silo here on our farm.......it was a used silo which had been taken down from another farm. That Amish crew hired a regular person to drive them here in a van each day.

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P.S. - That moon poem has been in my mind for years........I googled it and found this website of moon poems . It is listed as "a nursery rhyme", without a named author.

Here's the second verse to it:

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"When I see the moon

And the stars so bright

I thank the Lord

For day and night"

Dandelion Constellations

Got to do a fast post.......my friend who has the seven daughters just called and wondered if I could ride along with her to the Amish community about 15 miles from here, to shop at the bulk food store. She doesn't know the way, so that's why I'm going along. It should be fun; I haven't been there for several years. Maybe I can sneak my camera along, to get a photo of the workhorses or some buildings........the Amish folks don't care to have their own pictures taken, for religious reasons........they consider it a "graven image".

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Yesterday, Miss Kitty basked out in the lawn for awhile, enjoying some leisurely time away from her ever-hungry four kittens. I'm sure she can't wait for them to be weaned........I don't blame her.

The bounteous crop of dandelion blooms were scattered throughout the grass in designs similar to constellations of stars. Hmm.......what could we name this constellation below? I've never understood, really, how star constellations were recognized or named........it rather random........one person may see a certain image in a grouping of stars, and someone else might see a different image. So how were the constellations decided upon?? That's something I've always wondered about.
As Miss Kitty basked and I pondered deep thoughts, Tux was sulking in the shadow of a rusty barrel. He was mad because I didn't take HIS picture when he was lying in the dandelion patch. Oh, my.......its just impossible to keep everyone happy at all times. Why even try!

Silo Vines

The far side of the earth I cannot show you, nor the dark side of the moon. However, I CAN show you what lurks on the back side of one of our silos:

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What's that you're saying?.......Speak up, please........you would like to..........what?.........CLIMB THE SILO LADDER!.........well, okay.........if you really feel thus compelled, I'm sure we can arrange it. (You won't catch me climbing a silo ladder, but I'll be happy to stand below and be your spotter!!)

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The past few days I've been remiss in reading other blogs.........I've been all wrapped up in myself, and am not going to post again until I've caught up on the blogs on my list. The first one I'll visit is Sherry at "A Feather Adrift"........I truly enjoy the ongoing installments of her autobiography, and she was the first blogger I somehow connected with.

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Plus, Husband just informed me he needs me to drive tractor in the field again today. He offered me a choice of running the "one-pass" or the field cultivator with drag attached behind. I don't do choices like that.........he will have to choose. You blogger and reader friends will be fondly in my thoughts out there in the field!

Have a super good day!!

Birds & Bees of Trees

Sorry, I'm rather hung up on this red-budded tree today. After a short search on Google, I think the tree might possibly be a picea rubens, AKA "Red Spruce" , native to eastern North America, and the wood of which has been traditionally used for making guitars.
The Red Spruce tree is (as are all conifers, I assume) "monoecious", meaning it contains both stamens and pistils as separate flowers on the same plant, meaning it can reproduce on its own. (Surely, you remember the words "stamens" and "pistils" from science classes when you were a kid!) If I read the info correctly, the red pendant bud-like flowers are the males, and the green ones are the females. Right now, a fine dust, which is the pollen, I presume, billows from the male buds when the branches are shaken.

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Since I was in the conifer-observing mood today, I had to snap a few photos of other evergreen trees around our yard.

Here below is a Colorado Blue Spruce, I think:

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We have a windbreak row of the pine trees whose buds and cones are shown below. They sigh beautifully in the breezes, providing good reason to open the windows of our house........as did Heidi in the famous story.......she loved the sound of the pine trees around her grandpa's cottage.

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And this final photo shows the buds on a soft-needled pine tree.......one of several white pines we dug up and moved from a Christmas tree farm in our area a few years ago. The owner needed to get rid of trees that were growing too large to sell at holiday time.

Rosy Pine Cone Buds

Right now, we have one evergreen tree which looks like this:

It is covered in these rosy-colored buds which will form into pine cones. I'm thinking this tree is a Black Hills Spruce, but we have many trees of that variey whose buds are not rosy-looking, so who knows. If I remember correctly, I bought this tree on clearance at Walmart for $2 many years ago when one of our kids was little and in a stroller. My grandma was along on that shopping trip, too. Grandma passed away in 1991, meaning this tree was purchased several years before that.
Honestly, I'm not sure where my mind has been sometimes over the years, for I don't recall seeing these colorful pine buds in previous springs. Other bloggers have said the following, and I will echo it..........getting into the habit of taking pictures makes a person more observant and aware of details in the surroundings. Not that there's anything particularly great about doing that, but it does seem to make daily life a bit more fun, in my opinion. There's an excited hint of anticipation that underlies each step you take, as you wonder what interesting thing will show up next. At least, that is how it seems to work for me!

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Enjoy your day today and notice the little details around you!!!

Ruffled Feathers

Ever have one of those days when the breeze manages to ruffle not just any feathers......but, the really WRONG feathers???

Mothers' Day Flowers

This lovely white rose was from my son and his fiancee:

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Colorful tulips nodded here and there in my mom's yard on Mothers' Day:

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Below is a bright yellow "gerbera", a flower variety I'd not seen before. Its nicely showy; I wonder how long it blooms?

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The rain over the weekend will keep farmers in our area out of the fields today. Hopefully, tomorrow, corn planting can resume. Husband just spoke to the guy who will plant our corn; he's thinking maybe Thursday or Friday will work for him to be at our place to plant, weather permitting.

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"hAVE A GREAT DAY!"

(Translation of webdings: Have a great day!)

Pentecost Window

If you attend a church which follows the traditional Church Year, then you're aware that today, May 11, is not only Mothers' Day, but more importantly for the Church, "Pentecost".



This window referrs more to Baptism than Pentecost. Lutherans believe the Holy Spirit comes upon a person at Baptism, thus the window shows the Holy Spirit, symbolized as a descending dove, coming down above a baptismal font. Lutherans use I Peter 3:21 to uphold their position of baptismal regeneration.

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Our church service on Sunday is at 8:30 a.m., and I'll weary you again by saying that time does not work well for dairy farmers........its too early. Husband for sure could not make church this morning, and I was exhausted from spending all day yesterday outdoors at the district track meet. I couldn't find the energy or will to exhort my son------- who was also worn out from yesterday-------to get up in time to accomplish both milking chores and attending church. (We are hoping the service time will move to its former later hour, once our new pastor gets here.) Thus, it appeared none of us would be in church on this Mothers' Day.



At about 8:10 a.m., I was half-dozing, while waiting in the milkhouse to begin washing milkers, when a light-bulb suddenly blinked on in my brain.......CHURCH CHOIR IS SINGING THIS MORNING, and CHOIR MEMBERS ARE TO BE THERE AT 8:15 TO PREPARE, because we sing right at the beginning of the service!!! I was horrified......how could I have forgotten that??!! Our choir has a whopping six members, so everyone needs to be there, and that includes ME!



Strangely and suddenly very much awake, I dashed to the house and changed into semi-good clothes and a leather car coat to hide a mulitude of sins (if only it could have covered my topsy-turvy hair, too!) and speeded down the road to church, fortunately only a few miles away. Its on a gravel road, though, and that road is a rutty mess right now, so my Envoy is now completely mud-splattered!



At exactly 8:29, I arrived, out-0f-breath, in the church balcony, and took my place in the choir line-up. There was no chance of sneaking in unseen as I'd have preferred; on the way through the narthex, it was necessary to breeze by well-coiffed, well-dressed ladies, and several severe-suited men (thats the style at our church......very dressy), and a couple solemn-faced deacons who oversee the morning's proceedings. I longed to say......"Lighten up, guys"!!!



Our choir singing went...........well, it went. Not too bad, not too good. We had to sing two stanzas of a Pentecost hymn, to a very unfamiliar tune.......an old-time chanting style of some sort (I didn't care for it at all), and we had trouble matching the words with the correct notes, even after practicing several times. When you have to sing one syllable on three notes, and then one syllable on one note, then two on two, etc., in a seemingly random way, it gets very confusing. Our eyes were absolutely glued to the page of music, trying to correctly sing words with notes, meaning there was little hope of anyone watching the director. So it goes, and so it went. I surely felt stupid, though, that I had nearly forgotten we were singing. Evidently, age-related forgetfulness is creeping in.

I hope you all had a very pleasant Mother's Day and Pentecost! It was chilly and windy here in Iowa, but that's nothing compared to the bad storms in Missouri and Oklahoma last night. I pray you and yours were safely out of harm's way.

Mum's Day Mum

My eldest child gave her mom this mum for Mum's Day! Wasn't that sweet of her! She said the clerk who waited on her at the flower shop even had a British accent!

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If we are mothers, the memories of our childrens' births naturally occupy a special place in our minds, and within that place, the memory of our first child's birth will stand out simply because it was the first one.

Husband and I had been married around two years when we found out we were expecting. It was a bit of a surprise.......I had just finished LPN training and had started a job at a hospital. Here's the first inkling I had that something was going on......the smell of meat frying started to make me feel queasy.

I remember going to the doctor's office for a pregnancy test, feeling quite sure that it couldn't possibly be true. After work that day, I called the doctor for the results........I was standing at a pay phone at Eagles Grocery Store when I found out I was pregnant. This will sound terrible, but my heart just sank for a moment........I thought, "Oh, I'm not ready for such a thing! I don't want to be a mother yet." As the pregnancy progressed, my attitude did an about-face, however! I told someone later, "Its a good thing we have nine months to prepare ourselves for what's coming."

One other thing I distinctly remember from that fall of 1980, after I found out I was pregnant.........one day I went hickory-nut-gathering with Husband's mother, his grandma, and his aunt. It was a lovely, warm autumn day and we were in the woods, rustling through the dry underbrush, searching for fallen hickory nuts. For some reason, the thought of carrying a new life inside made me simply feel at one with the hum of nature surrounding me that day.......like we were vibrating at a similar frequency. Sounds corny, I know, but the feeling was very strong, and it made me almost giddy.

The months flew by, and one morning in late May of 1981 I suddenly awoke to a sopping wet bed.........the breaking of the waters! ALL four of my labors began that way......with the water breaking in the middle of the night or early morning while I was still in bed.

That first time, we phoned the hospital and told them about the water breaking, and they said to come right in even though contractions had not started yet. By late morning, they still were not coming very strong, so the doctor suggested induction to speed the labor up. Yeah.....that did it......before I knew it, contractions were coming hard and fast, all but overwhelming our Lamaze efforts. Finally, I was wheeled into a delivery room.......oh, my.......memories of pushing, and feeling everytime like I was doing it all wrong. Forceps finally were used......fun, fun. And then, our daughter arrived, after which I felt empty, sore and exhausted, but, also, satisfied and happy.

The empty feeling did stay around for awhile, and several times I burst into tears at the sight of my flattened stomach. Weird, huh? Did any of you mothers ever feel that way?

At that time, 1981, new mothers stayed in the hospital for four days. Personally, I didn't enjoy that time at all.........it was nearly impossible to get any sleep, and if I did happen to doze off, before long I was awakened by a nurse bustling into the room carrying my squalling daughter in need of a feeding.

Let's see......I was 22 years old.......and knew precious little about taking care of a baby! Sometimes, I think its a miracle my daughter survived that initial round of my mothering attempts.

Somehow, for whatever reason------probably simply because I'm a believer in doing things the way nature intended (when feasible)-------I was determined to breast-feed, and it definitely took determination and commitment, because it wasn't always a pleasant experience, especially in the early weeks, but I felt deeply that it was the best thing for the baby. One memory I have from that summer of 1981 is of being awake to watch the live broadcast of Prince Charles and Lady Diana's wedding.......it was at around 3:30 a.m. one morning, and I was up nursing my daughter.

So, anyway.......long story short.......that baby daughter is now all grown up and married. Part of my problem in life is being too sentimental, and in a tiny part of my mind I grieve that my babies grew out of themselves and are now almost all adults. That's how its supposed to be, I know, but its alot of change to adjust to over the years. And all mothers go through it, so I'm not trying to single myself out for sympathy.

I also still have my own mother, a blessing from God, of course. I love her and am thankful for her role in my life but, as a daughter to my mother, I am a failure in many respects. I'm way too sensitive to what she says and does, her facial expressions, etc., meaning I read far too much into them, leading my thinking to be affected adversely. Actually, I'm that way with many people, which is why spending time alone is crucial for me in order to maintain a balanced state of mind. But, today, on Mothers' Day, I will be with my mother for awhile, and we will have a wonderful time.......I've made my mind up on that already.

Whether you happen to be a mother or not a mother, God's blessings to you on this Mother's Day!! Here's my blogpost from last year concerning Mothers' Day; it includes info about the origin of the holiday we know as Mothers' Day, which has morphed into something other than originally intended.

Memo To Self: Do Obituary

Just a random photo of a random bee on our late-blooming daffodils by the barn:

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There was a funeral at our church today-----for an elderly woman-----which I attended and then stayed afterwards to help with the lunch. Like I've said before, I don't mind doing that, but it basically shoots a day. I help with many, if not most of the funeral lunches at our church, because I don't work outside the home like many other women of the congregation, meaning I'm available during the daytime. Hooray. Usually, I'm the youngest server there, even now at my youthful age of 49!

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Our church congregation is divided into three groups for doing funerals. My group was not in charge, but we had to provide the desserts this time. For some reason, I'm of the opinion that funeral lunches need rich chocolate items for dessert, so I baked Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake Marbled Brownies. The pan was still warm when I got to church. I was too late to view the casket in the narthex, and somehow managed to get yanked into the Ladies Aid Group which was just walking into the sanctuary to sit en masse in order to sing a special music number later in the service. Fine, no problem, even though I officially dropped out of Ladies Aid a couple years ago........because I just couldn't stand meetings anymore.

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The funeral service was nice and meaningful, though the pastor was long-winded. Our Ladies Aid hymn sounded weak, I thought, but people said afterwards that it sounded fine. What else would they say, really?

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At one point during the service, the pastor read the obituary, of course, which included these words which seem to be a part of all our church womens' obituaries: "She enjoyed cooking and quilting. She made quilts for each of her children and grandchildren."

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As could be said of any of us, I could keel over dead at any moment.......I don't expect to for awhile, and I hope its a long way off, but who knows. Thus, maybe I should think about drafting an obituary for myself. What would I want it to say? Hmm. Let me think.......maybe, "She enjoyed reading, walking, blogging, rockhunting, taking photos. She gave each of her children rocks, books, and photos; and she prayed for them on her walks." But, it just doesn't sound as motherly and homey as, "She enjoyed cooking and quilting."......does it?

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Actually, I think maybe I exist on the demarcation line between those women of whom it can be said, "She enjoyed cooking and quilting.", and those women, younger in years, of whom it probably CANNOT be said, "She enjoyed cooking and quilting." Hmm. What do you think? What will your obituary state that you enjoyed??? Cooking and quilting??? If so, I salute you!

Beautiful Day

"Its a beautiful day

Don't let it get away"

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And I didn't let it get away.........I chased it down on my way to and from getting this flat tractor tire fixed (that's what Husband gets for having ME drive the tractor in the field.......a flat tire!!)

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Today was absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, lovely........with a stunning blue sky hovering benevolently above it all. I sat on a park bench to eat a sub, next to a weeping willow tree holding vigil over the river. With the pleasant breeze combing her tresses, the willow seemed to be laughing rather than weeping.

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On the way home, getting lost on a country road wasn't difficult to do. This rock-studded piece of pasture land looked rather intriguing in contrast to the cloud-studded sky.

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As said above........I was lost........pleasantly lost........in the spring greenery!

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One last treat for the eyes, right before I found the main road again was this little patch of Virginia Bluebells in residence in an Iowa ditch.

I've tried to start bluebells here on our farm a couple times over the years, but they didn't take. Maybe, I should try again......although.......

"What you don't have you don't need it now

What you don't know you can feel it somehow

What you don't have you don't need it now"

"Its a beautiful day!"

(For U2 and you, too!)

Hearts A' Bleedin'

Kind of strange-looking.........these "Bleeding Hearts" of springtime. It appears they bleed white! What a goofy flower.

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If your heart must do so today, may it bleed contentment and joy!!!

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Kitties & Postscript

Here's three of Miss Kitty's kitties, now one month old (read of their arrival):

Cooperating by sitting still for the camera was not something these kitties were interested in doing!

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Here's a postscript concerning yesterday's blog post: I wrote that post around 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6, shortly after coming in from the field. That evening, after supper, I opened the newspaper for a quick glance-through, and listed there on the obituary page was the death notice of the woman from my telephone story! For several years she had been a nursing home resident, and passed away there on Tuesday morning!

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An interesting coincidence to ponder; that I would happen to see her son in the field next door prompting my thoughts of the telephone story, and this taking place close to the time she passed away! Were thoughts of her floating around in the air Tuesday morning, waiting to be picked up by a mind here and there? I've read that thoughts actually are waves of energy. All her family members would have been thinking about her, and praying for her. Her son in the tractor in the field next door was most certainly thinking about her. Did his thoughts travel?

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As my life marches onward and as more experiences happen, I have a growing belief that thoughts do travel somehow, and are perceived subconsciously by other minds. Light and sound are waves that travel and are picked up by our sensory apparatus, eyes and ears, and interpreted by our brains. If thoughts are waves of energy, too, then they could conceivably be received and interpreted by some part of us. We're simply not aware of such a sense, as we are with seeing, hearing, etc. Its not a problem for me to accept that God would have created peoples' minds to operate that way.

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Have a pleasant day!!

Awkward Moments In End-Rows & Elsewhere

Humor me, please, and tolerate one more post about spring fieldwork.........it really is fun driving the tractor!!

Yesterday morning, Husband asked if I would finish chisel-plowing a field that our son had worked on the evening before. No problem, so off in the tractor I went.

Here we are in the first round.......the photo below shows where field rocks usually end up.........in a pile along the fenceline. This pile is on the neighbor's side of the fence; I'll have to walk out here sometime and see if there's any pretty ones to put by our house. Also, there was a red-headed woodpecker on a fencepost by this rock pile, but I was too slow on the draw to get a shot of him with the camera.

The photo below was as the tractor headed down the hill during the first round. Our field ends where the plowing ends.......I kind of wish we owned that little stand of timber across the way........it would be fun to watch birds and other critters in there.
Before I headed to the field, Husband had asked me, "Do you think you can do the end-rows?" In years past, most of the plowing was done by Husband or his dad, and even if they allowed me to do some of it, they always wanted to finish the end-rows themselves. But, my father-in-law passed away late last fall, meaning I now step into his role as adjunct tractor driver.......poor Husband is scraping the bottom of the barrel to find help.....poor guy! Anyway, I replied "Yes" to Husband's question about the end-rows, figuring I could accomplish the task adequately, especially since I'd be way out there in the back of the farm where no one could see me make stupid moves and mistakes.

One thing Husband advised me to do was raise the loader bucket when turning around near the fence........so that's what I did, shown in photo below (the brownish areas are where cow manure has been spread for fertilizer):

When it came time to work the end-rows, wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden along came a tractor and planter in the neighboring field! Great......he would get to watch my awkward turnings and manueverings as I plowed the end-rows. The other tractor and my tractor drove along the fence together for a few minutes.......it isn't like meeting a car on the road, where you wave and then they're gone right away. No, this is kind of weird, to be driving a tractor in a field next to a someone else doing the same.......usually, a guy, of course, who's an expert tractor driver.......of course.

Actually, I wished I'd had a sign to hold up which said "WANNA RACE?"!!

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I tried to ignore him as I went through my awkward turns and starts and back-ups in the end-row plowing process. At least I didn't gouge out a fence. Finally, the neighboring tractor turned tail and fled the other way, leaving 12 rows of corn planted in its wake.......the tractor and planter are shown in the above photo.

The guy in that other tractor recently bought the farm adjacent to ours. He is several years older than me and has always lived in the neighborhood I grew up in. In case he thought I looked inept plowing end-rows, I remember him looking quite goofy back in the early 1970's when he would drive by our place with his big head of hair sticking out from under a farm cap.

He might not be aware of it, but one of my life's most embarrassing moments occurred when I happened to be talking to his mother on the phone years ago. That was in the days of party lines........if any of you are familiar with that. It was during my early high school years; my best friend lived up the road from me, directly across from where this guy lived, and their two farms were on the same phone line.

One day, I tried to phone my friend, and somehow got this guy's mother on the line instead. Just a couple days before, my best friend's sister, who was older and "in the know" concerning the latest neighborhood gossip, had told me that this guy and his girlfriend were soon going to get married (they "had to"). So, there I was on the phone, unexpectedly finding myself in a conversation with his mother, and I blurted out, "Congratulations; I hear your son is getting married." She replied, "Oh, really......I didn't know that."

Oops. There was an awkward silence, during which I wished to sink into the floor; I'm sure I quickly extricated myself from the conversation. This woman was not born yesterday......not only had I informed her of the wedding, but also that she herself would soon become a grandmother! Well, no matter......despite my untimely bout of Foot-In-Mouth Disease, this man and his wife have had a long marriage, with many children, and now many grandchildren. Having him watching my awkward and probably stupid-looking efforts in the tractor certainly brought back that memory of idiocy from my distant past, however.

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At one time, awhile back, I had stated the intention to try and use the "Dr. Dictionary Word of the Day" in my posts...........I've failed to keep up with that, but will try again: I hope my blog posts are not considered "fustian".

Inside Tractor Cab

Continuing with the previous post's subject matter......now we'll have a short tutorial inside the tractor cab. Each spring, I have to get reacquainted with all the levers and gauges.

Obviously, in the first photo we see the steering wheel and to its right is the shift lever for changing gears. I didn't use that lever at all yesterday.......it was set in fourth gear, which was where I left it. The steering is power, thus very easy to use.

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More levers shown below.......the orange one is my favorite.......the throttle!! Vroom-vroom......let's go faster......show off that power!! The lever above the throttle is for high or low speed, high being the one I used yesterday. So, I was driving in 4th gear, high range, C level, front-wheel assist, wide open throttle. Got that?? The other levers shown are for hydraulics......the far right one raises and lowers the chisel plow, into and out of the ground.

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Below are some necessities......my gloves, just in case......my cell phone, just in case......my camera case, duh, because I brought my camera along.......and most importantly, a Cherry Coke!

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The brake pedals are shown in the photo below. They are extremely crucial to know about when you are doing fieldwork, for they allow you to successfully do a sharp U-turn at each end of the field. There is a bar which will flip down to connect the pedals......you would use that if you were driving on the road. But, here in the field, we leave the pedals separated. To turn sharp left, you step on the left brake, which allows the tractor to sort of pivot on the left rear tire, helping to make the sharp turn-around. Ditto for making a right U-turn......using the right brake pedal. Let's see......I first learned about using brakes in turning, long, long ago when I was a kid driving a John Deere A. (That other pedal in the photo is a throttle pedal, I think......which I never use.) If you tried to turn in the field dirt without using the brake pedals, you would end up sliding into the fence or ditch, or whatever is at the end of your field. Not a good idea.****************************************

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One last thing........here's a couple more mirrors........one inside the cab, and one on the outside, allowing rear viewing from various angles. Absolutely, you must keep a close eye on whatever your tractor is pulling! You never know when part of your implement might become detached, or some other freakish thing may happen.......that seems to occur especially if you're not paying attention. I speak from experience!

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This is the newest tractor we own, although certainly not anywhere near new anymore. It is, however, a pleasure to drive, in my opinion. It sports a nicely working radio, and air conditioning, which was needed yesterday. The seat also is very comfortable, having shocks or something in it to absorb the rough bumps that are inevitably part of any drive across a farm field. This tractor cab also has an extra seat next to the driver's seat, in case two people need to be in the cab. I could have used that when the kids were little, but we didn't have this tractor then.

View From The Cab

If you thought it would be the view from a taxi cab, you're mistaken. Yesterday morning I drove the AGCO Allis 8085, pulling the chisel plow. This first photo is the view out the front window of the cab; the loader bucket is still attached, and the arms holding it flank each side of the tractor:

Next we have the view out the back window of the cab......looking down on the chisel plow, of course:

In this next photo, I have just pulled the hydraulic lever to lift the plow out of the ground during a turn-around at the end of the field. The tractor's rear wheel fender is in the foreground as the tight U-turn is negotiated.





Below is one of several mirrors attached to the cab, allowing the tractor driver to see what's going on to the rear. Mostly, though, I just sit side-ways and look back on a regular basis to make sure everything's working OK.......meaning I'll have a stiff, sore neck this evening.


There, we're done already. That didn't take long, did it. You can see what a lovely morning it was, with fluffy clouds dotting the sky. This field will be planted with corn eventually......we hire our planting done, so now it will be a waiting game until the guy has time to plant our fields.

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Moving along, rhythmically, in the tractor, back and forth across a field for several hours seems to project me into another dimension. I end up thinking about acquaintances, things, occurrences, that aren't normally on my mind. Its silly, but it almost makes me wonder if there are pockets or currents of thought waiting out there in the field for someone to pass through. Its rather like a dreamscape normally traversed during sleep.