Butterfly Wings and Gentle Breezes

Sometimes when hot July days drive me indoors where cool air and soft chairs greet me with a welcoming nod, I think I might like to be a butterfly.  What would that be like?  I have lingered in my flower garden for long minutes waiting for one of these beautiful gifts from Nature to light near enough so I can take its picture.  I observe their long tongues probing into the inner sweetness of the blooms.  Antennae gracefully feeling for purchase on the stem, they move with ease over each blossom, searching for nectar.  Wings folded neatly at rest, and then lifting them to flutter to the next offering nearby.

Gentle breezes make the flowers move in the wind but the butterfly holds on until it has drunk its fill.  If  the wind blows too strong the butterfly just flies away to a protective tree branch and waits until conditions improve.  So fragile.   So light.  What must it be like to be able to float on the gentle breezes and move with butterfly wings?

48

This month marks the 48th year that Andy and I have been married.  A long time.  But a short one too.  Looking through my wedding pictures I laugh as I remember that day.  It was hot for summer in New Hampshire.  I think it might have been 78 or 79 in the shade.  Everyone was fanning and thinking cool thoughts while they waited in the little 1800's church in Eaton Center.  All the windows were open as I recall.  And the minister was sweating too.  It was his first wedding.  

Andy and I were cool as cucumbers.  

Later when the cake had been cut and served, sandwiches eaten and coffee and punch passed around, we retired to the living room of our summer home on Horse Leg Road to open gifts.  Andy and I had surprised our families by deciding to get married that summer after I graduated from college.  He was in Maine, prospecting for asbestos for Johns-Manville.  I was being trained in Tempe, Arizona to be a VISTA volunteer to the Navajo nation...midway through my language training when Andy phoned me and asked me to marry him.  Of course I said yes.  That was in mid-June.  We were married in mid-July.  No problem for us.  But thinking back on it, I can only imagine what a scurry this sent our families into.  A wedding in a month.  Sure, we can do that?

I love this picture.  I am unwrapping what Andy and I fondly call the 'wedding blanket'.  It was pink, thermal weave, light weight.  My Aunt Pearl and Uncle Dave gave it to us.   From JC Penneys, it withstood the test of time.  I think the last I saw it Nina was moving to California and it was packed with her bedding.  You couldn't wear that blanket out.

And isn't that the perfect metaphor for my marriage?  Tough.  Soft.  Made to last.  Forty-eight years and counting.  Couldn't be happier.  

Cooling Off

One of my favorite pictures is this one of my mom and her sisters Rosa, Taty, and two friends taking a dip in Panther Creek near Panola, Illinois.  My mom is in the middle.  Taty is on the right and Rosa is on the left.  Do you see the smiles?  Can you almost imagine the sparkle in their eyes?  Kids are kids.  Water is water.  And hot days in the summer just naturally draw the two together.

I love the handkerchiefs tied in knots on four corners that they have on their heads.  I have another picture of the same crew on the same day....out of the water. It appears as if they are in their bloomers and undershirts, shaking the water out of their eyes and wringing the last drop from their clothes.  I wonder what my Grandmother did when they arrived at the back door, dripping wet and laughing?

I know how hot it is in Illinois in the summer.  And we all know the sizzling days we have here in the Ozarks as the hot and humid weather makes us yearn for cool water and soft shade.  This picture was taken in 1920.  And I do believe I could go down to the creek here at home and find a similar scene any day.  Kids in the water.  They may not have handkerchiefs on their heads or be swimming in their underwear.  But they are laughing and calling and dunking each other under that cool refreshing water.  Some things never change.

Sidelined

This is a picture from long years ago when my hair was mostly brown and I could fit into size 10 jeans.  How I love to dance.  Always have,  Always will.  It is just part of me, like breathing or walking or smiling.

Unfortunately, my dancing days may be over.  It all started last fall with a pesky ache in my right hip.  Went to the doctor.  The MRI showed a considerable amount of fluid in the joint causing pain and aggravation.  The solution was easy.  Fluid drawn off the hip.  Cortisone shot injected in the area.  Good as new.

Well, not quite.  Fast forward to January of this year.  Clearing brush I strained my lower back.  Major pain for some time but nothing I had not experienced before.  I knew it would get better in a few weeks with rest and relaxation.  

And then the hip started to hurt again.  Was it my back?  Was it my hip?  I hobbled around as if I had suddenly added several years to my life.  And as you well know, that is not me.  I tried exercising.  Painful, painful.  Not at all the thing to do, said my body.

Another visit to the doctor.  Another MRI.  More x-rays.  The news was not good.  My hip had developed more fluid.  And the worst was that actually the joint was now practically bone-on-bone.  The fluid was drawn off again.  And I decided to get a second opinion, not liking the recommendation that I needed a hip replacement.  No! my mind screamed.  No!

My appointment with another doctor is in the beginning of July.  I am anxious to see what he says.  Maybe there is an easy fix.  Maybe I won't have to have surgery.

But now the festival in West Plains is coming up.  Jig dance contest, three hours of square dancing for two nights.  Lots of friends that we only get to dance with a few times a year  will be there.

But I can't dance.  I will be sidelined.  Not my idea of a good time.  Sitting and listening to dance music is not what I want to do.  But that is what will happen.  

Tapping my toes, I will pretend that I am dancing, hearing the sound of shoes keeping time with the fiddle.  And I will be sitting there.....waiting for the day when I can dance.  Hopefully.  With fingers crossed.  Waiting to dance....again.

Bears and bees

The night before last all was well with our bees in their new hive.  They were tucking themselves in for the night, humming as they cleaned up after the busy day, making plans for the coming of daybreak, knowing there was much to be done in their constant search for food and water.  Busy bees indeed.

But sometime in the twenty-four hour period between eight p.m. Wednesday and seven p. m. last night, a black bear raided our hive and scattered it across the green grass.  Andy found it first and came to get me to help.  I don't work with the bees but I can be an extra pair of hands on occasion.  I took pictures while he assessed the damage.  Thankfully, bees were clustered on the main hive body and the frames of comb were intact.  After suiting up Andy carefully put things back together.  I stayed in the truck, with the windows rolled up and mourned, trying to get an idea of what we might need to do next.

We have had bees before, in Illinois and in the Irish Wilderness.  It had been nearly forty years since we had fooled with them but we were delighted to take on beekeeping again.  Not so much for the honey but for the pleasure of seeing them work so hard.  They are fascinating creatures.

Andy worked hard last night, moving the hive to a new location and then he was up early this morning getting them settled in.  They are mad.  They are fighting mad.  Andy has been stung many times, but he is used to it.  Fingers crossed that they decide to stay where they are now.  I would be very unhappy if they swarmed and left us.  

But there is one thing we have learned.  Bees make honey.  Bears like honey.  And right there is one of those sad facts of life.  Bears and bees don't mix.  

Taking the back road home.

Today I took the back road home. I had finished all my town chores and was feeling in a mellow mood. On the radio Dolly Parton was singing one of my favorite songs.  So when I came to the junction I turned right instead of traveling straight ahead.

We take the back road when the creek is up.  It is very handy to have an alternate way out when the weather isn't co-operative.  But sometimes we opt to just take a little different way either home or to town.

What is so special about this back road detour?  For one, I enjoy seeing the birds perched on the telephone wires because they are different from our hilltop birds.  Scissor-tailed flycatchers, hawks, and other open grassland birds are always waiting for a meal to dart or crawl by.

I love to see my neighbor's fields full of rich green grass and sleek well-fed cows.  I love his straight fence rows and sturdy gates.  I appreciate all the hard work he does making his farm a pleasure to drive by.

I always look for another friend's home place, now long abandoned but full of memories.  Sometimes the road narrows and crosses close in front of a house or two.  I know most of these people and they know me.  Makes you feel good to be near people who care about you.

But the best thing about taking the back road home is that I can poke along just as slow as I please.  Perhaps I see a flower that I can't identify without pausing a minute and getting a closer look.  Sometimes I just glory in the waving grass and far-off purple shadowed hills.  Sometimes I just like to see the wind turn the leaves in the oak tree this way and that.

Down the road further it narrows into a special spot where you can see the view of Caney Mountain through the trees.  The way is rougher here but taking my time is not a problem.  I can drive and look at the same time.

What a joy it is to have a choice of how to go home.  And sometimes the back road is the best.

38

Thirty-eight.  A nice round number.  Not an extraordinary number, but of sufficient importance in our life to make note of this month of May.  Why?  Because 38 years ago we drove our red pickup into this small Missouri town,unpacked our worldly goods and set up housekeeping.  Andy,  Me.  And little Nina.

We bought the Grandma Harlin house, up on the hill, from Harve and Cora Blisard.  While we were remodeling  we lived across the street, in the old Jim Hale house.  Skeeter and Faye were our neighbors to the west.  Pete and Virginia Klineline lived down from us to the east.  All in all, a nice place to put down roots.

Erna Johnson came down the hill that day and introduced herself.  Said she had heard that a new family with a little girl had moved into town.  Just wanted to say hi and invite us to come and see her sometime.  And we did...many times.  Loved visiting and talking to Erna.  Arles and Ivy Walker lived across the street and up one house.  Arles came over, welcomed us to town, and said that his grandson's family attended church at Center Point, out in the country and he would be sure and tell Sandy, Gerald's wife, that there was a new family needing an invitation to church.  And invite us she did.  We loved that little church, on that windy country road, and all the people who went there.

One warm morning we hiked down to Skeeters for breakfast.  And there sat Pattie Strong in a booster chair, eating pancakes.  Nina and Pattie hit it off right away.  And they are still friends.  Nina was a shy child.  She stayed attached to my knee for at least the first two years we lived in Gainesville.  Try as they might, grownups couldn't get her to talk to them.  But, kids, now that was a different matter.  She would watch them playing for awhile and then walk up and start in with whatever was going on.  For part of the time before she went to school she attended Mother Goose Daycare and made many lifelong friends there.

My first order of business was finding a teaching job.  We had been camping and I didn't have anything close to good interview clothes that were clean or ironed.  Clad in jeans and a  T-shirt, I went to ask Benton Breeding if he might have a job for me.  Sure he did.  And he needed me right away since Joe Cissna was moving up to teach high school special education, taking Mr. Beach's place after his retirement that spring.  Signed a contract that day.

And bingo.  Everyone in town knew us.  But, as usual, we didn't have idea one who they were.  People would come up to me in the the grocery store and introduce themselves.  They were anxious to make us feel at home.

I guess it took.  Here we are 38 years later.  Of course, we no longer live IN Gainesville.  But it is still our town.  Wouldn't change it for the world.