Monday, December 1, 1997...Turkeys & Deer & Kittens

December already! Imagine that! This year seems to have absolutely flown by.

Lydia’s dress is now completed, and I’ve begun on my white chiffon and satin skirt. Then, a vest for Caleb, and three more dresses for Hester, Lydia, and Victoria, and I’ll be all done. Can I ever accomplish all that? Lydia’s dress has three tiers, sleeves with a very puffy top tapering to tight, V’d wrists, in large black/white/red metallic check taffeta; the piping, sash, and bowed cummerbund are in red metallic; and the bodice is black velvet. Teddy’s britches are all hemmed, and the waists taken up smaller, too.

Tuesday a good customer of ours left a huge turkey in the refrigerator at the shop. The next day my niece and her husband gave us two five-pound roasts. That evening a friend of ours brought us a big Christmas tin full of homemade oatmeal/chocolate chip/raisin cookies. The urchins rushed off to the kitchen with it, and were prying the lid off before our friend ever got back out the door; and, just before the door went shut, the lid hit the floor with a resounding CLLLLLLAAAANNNNNNNNGG!!

Goodness! He’ll think we’ve not taught anybody any manners around here. Or he’ll think we’re starving our children. Or maybe he’ll just tell his wife we are wild about her cookies.

One night we heard on our scanner that somebody had hit a deer out on Deer River Road (where else?), so we called the sheriff to inquire as to whether we could have it. After being told we could, we drove out to retrieve it. We’d been told it was still alive, so Larry took his twenty-two. Finally arriving at the destination, Larry climbed out of the Suburban and walked toward the sheriff and the lady who’d hit the deer. It was a very dark night. Caleb stared out the back window, trying to see what was happening, which was rather difficult, what with the lady’s lights, the sheriff’s red and blue strobes, and his headlights and emergency flashers on, too.
Caleb’s eyes were very large. In a soft, horrified voice, he asked, “Is Daddy going to shoot that lady??”

We hastily apprised him of the circumstances.

Unfortunately, we learned that the deer had gotten to its feet shortly before our arrival and staggered off into the nearby woods, in spite of its broken leg. Larry hunted for it for a little while with his flashlight, but it was nowhere to be seen. The next morning he looked again, but the only thing he found was a considerable passel of wild turkeys, all trying to out-gobble the other. On one side of the hill were dozens of hens; on the other side were quite a number of toms. And were they ever setting up a racket.

Well, so much for deer meat for the freezer. Too bad for the deer; too bad for us.

Victoria now gets up on her hands and knees, lurches forward (or, sometimes, backwards), and collapses.

When I finish feeding her, she clasps her hands together, wrinkles her nose, and loudly announces, “Aw done!”

This week I passed out all the Christmas poems and scriptures to the children who will be reciting them.

Caleb asked, “Will I get to say a poem for Christmas?”

I said, “Sure!” (He won’t, of course.) “It’ll be: ‘Hickory dickory dock! The Christmas mouse ran up the clock! The clock struck one! Opening presents has begun! What fun! What fun!’”

Caleb, eyebrows high, responded, “I can’t say that!”

“Why ever not?” I asked.

And he answered, “Because all the people would come up there and tickle me!”

(I always knew the audience was scary; but I never knew just exactly what they might do to you, should you get your poem wrong.)

Thursday we had our annual Thanksgiving dinner at church, with everybody bringing lots of food, as usual: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, cranberry jello salad, orange fluff salad, rolls with jelly, and our choice of pecan, pumpkin, or apple pie. Our little band and orchestra played a medley of several songs, which is always toe-tappingly inspiring.

That evening we went for a drive north to Tarnov, watching several falling stars along the way.

Sunday afternoon we drove west to Monroe, then north toward Lindsay. They are creating a new wetlands out in the country, and it was already covered with hundreds of mallards. The wildlife people must have good press agents.

We drove to a television tower out in the hills, one of the tallest such towers in the country. The children climbed out of the Suburban, the better to look at it, having to fling their heads right back to see the top; every time Caleb did so, he staggered forward several paces and nearly fell flat.

Our first Christmas practice was Friday evening. I tell you, it sure takes a long while to get everybody situated, not only according to height, but also according to singing parts. Age matters, too, since we don’t want somebody short to wind up in the Jr. Choir when they’re of Sr. Choir age, nor do we want somebody tall to wind up in the Sr. Choir when they’re of Jr. Choir age. So it took at least half an hour to get everybody seated and arranged on our none-too-big platform. Anyway, we got all the songs practiced at least once, and several two or three times. We’ve got a good start!

Now I need to type up the order of the program and make inserts to go between the songs in all the children’s notebooks, so they know the order of events. The notebooks are not all the same, because of different singing groups singing different songs. It always takes me one entire day to get it accomplished. Thank goodness for word processors and copying machines!

Saturday was spent writing music pieces for different instruments. Alto saxophones, tenor saxophones, and trumpets are each in different keys, and they are also different from the piano. So each part must be written separately. Many of our better players will accompany the singers during the program, in addition to a 15-minute instrumental of favorite carols at the beginning of the program.

Somebody dumped a kitten near Larry’s shop, and Teddy has adopted it. (Actually, I think Larry has adopted it, too.) They bought cat food for it, and give it milk periodically. Every day after Larry arrives, the kitten comes rushing, meowing a greeting. Larry thinks it has been sleeping in a wrecked car outside the shop. We daren’t bring it home; Aleutia would have it for breakfast; so the children have been making inquiries at school as to who would like a cat. The poor thing needs a loving home; we don’t want it to get run over or otherwise hurt at Larry’s shop.

And now we are going to visit my brother and his wife, and Victoria needs to be fed. Supper is ready, and my stomach is growling!