This week, some very good friends of ours, Sam and Nancy, had twins: two new baby girls!!!--(as opposed to two old baby girls). I think twins are exciting, don’t you? I always wanted a twin; I could imagine all sorts of marvelous adventures I could have--if only I had a twin. Samantha Janell and Susanne Nichole...and they each weighed over five pounds. Susanne: five pounds, five ounces. Samantha: five pounds, nine ounces. They are not identical. Everyone is healthy and well, even the father.
This is a solace to us and all of our friends, after losing so many dear ones recently. I remember that when our friends Carey and Martha had twins 16 years ago, my father told them, “God has given you a double blessing.” It seems every bit as much so now.
Monday, Hester made two loaves of banana bread. She took a couple of slices to Mama and Dorcas, still piping hot from the oven. Teddy bought us Runzas for supper that night. Runzas and banana bread go together nicely, did you ever try it? {Not . . . really.}
After Larry came home, and I went with him to O’Reilly Auto Parts and Ace Hardware while the kids played outside. It was chilly that evening; the children all came back in for their jackets. At O’Reilly’s, the man who bought Larry’s brother Kenny’s Suburban was there, preparing to buy a Freon kit for $30, recommended by one of the workers there. But when he saw Larry, he began asking him if he knew why his air conditioner wasn’t working. Larry made several suggestions, and the man put the $30 kit back. He went outside to check on the air conditioner as Larry had told him to do, then came back in to tell Larry the compressor wasn’t working. Larry went out to look at it, and wound up telling him what to buy at Wal-Mart--for $6. The man was very appreciate.
Larry came back into O’Reilly.
“Let’s see now,” mused Larry, wandering down an aisle, “What did I come to get?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “But you can be sure you’re not going to get a discount on it now.”
We continued on to Ace Hardware, where I found the poppy seeds I wanted to go with a cute little ceramic watering pot I’d bought for a gift for someone. I also got baby’s breath seeds.
Some items with the brand name of ‘Wright’ caught my eye, and I saw that they were those automatic door-shutters such as are found on screen doors. We promptly bought one--for Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron. Not just because they’re ‘Wrights’, but because they need one on their basement door so that Aaron doesn’t go tumbling down them. Yes, he is almost walking; he’s taken a couple of steps all by himself.
That night, Caleb, Victoria, and I went to the grocery store. We saw a man buying I-don’t-know-how-many cases of pop; I can’t count that high. Must have been around fifty 12-packs, I guess.
“Wooowww!” breathed Caleb in awe, “He’s going to get pop-logged!”
Victoria asked in amazement, “Do you think he has enough pop?!”
“Almost,” I replied. “He’s a thirsty man!”
We purchased the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted. On the two-quart box was printed, ‘The Best Berries In The World.’ Guess that’s one time they weren’t just a-spoofin’! Mmmmmmmm. (Drip drip drip drip drip) (drooling)
Tuesday, we cleaned the kitchen, mopped the floor, and then went for a drive to Osceola via country roads. We drove through an old, pretty cemetery there, reading a lot of the old tombstones. We started later than I’d wanted to, so we couldn’t stay and let the children play at the park, for I knew Teddy would be home, if not Larry, too, with their stomachs a-rumble. We took a different route home, managing to scare up a pheasant that took flight right in front of us. I like driving through the country, especially this time of year. The corn is finally coming up nicely. It’s gotten a late start, on account of the drought. Beets and beans are coming up, too; some sugar beet fields had to be replanted because of the lack of rain and the wind blowing away topsoil and seed. I took videos of a dickcissel singing his heart out.
We got home a little before 8:00 p.m. Teddy was home, but not Larry. He didn’t get home until 9:30 or so, because he was fixing a broken oil line on the old boom truck. It had gotten so bad that it sprayed oil all over the place--including on a customer’s house the other day. Larry had to put on a raincoat to use it one morning.
That evening, I pulled lots of weeds and cut down volunteer trees--and wound up cutting the middle out of one of the trumpet vines, leaving a big cluster of trumpet vine at the top of the drainpipe with no means of sustenance. Botheration!
Teddy unearthed three mulberry trees, digging up a big bunch of roots, each as big around as his leg. No wonder those things were so stubborn! He also dug up several large handfuls of my daffodil bulbs. Aarrgghh.
Joseph replanted them; we’ll see next spring if they survived, I guess. I cut a bunch of dead branches out of the rose bushes. Teddy and Joseph gathered up all the weeds and branches; now what shall we do with them? None of the menfolk around here ever get off work in time to take stuff to the dump. And I don’t recall that hauling yard and lawn refuse to the dump was in my job description when I hired on.
Wednesday, I put a zipper in a dress for Dorcas. She wanted to wear it to church that night, but there were a few little things left to do, and she didn’t have time to finish it, because she was embroidering the twins’ names onto a pair of pretty little bibs, and crocheting matching blankets for them, too. She wore the dress Sunday, instead.
Thursday, we took an excursion to Fremont to the Goodwill. Caleb hit the jackpot: he found a pair of brand-new--and I do mean brand-new--skates, in his exact size. Hockey skates, even. He was delighted. He immediately started counting the months until the skating ponds freeze.
He got to his sixth finger, stopping with December, when it may or may not be cold enough to freeze the ponds. He sighed deeply.
“It’s at least half a year until wintertime!” he lamented, making several ladies turn and stare at him in disbelief.
I headed for the china and pottery shelves, looking only for new items that would be suitable for gifts. We got several pretty mugs and a couple of little handled soup bowls with lids, with pink and blue flowers painted on the sides. The kids got shallow buckets of toys for a dollar a bucket, and we got two pairs of jeans for Caleb. Two dresses for Victoria...a little alabaster jewelry box ...a book and glasses case for Victoria...brand new white tennis shoes for Lydia--tags still on...brand new brown leather loafers with a fringe for Hester for school...black church shoes for Caleb...hair clips and headbands (only brand new, thank you; we don’t want to take home used cooties with used barrettes)...
We drove back home via country roads, turning north of Ames and continuing through the country until we were north of Schuyler, when Victoria informed us that she needed to make a pit stop. So we turned south and went to Schuyler. My coffee mug needed a refill, anyway.
Larry wasn’t even home yet when we arrived; he didn’t get home till about nine. Bobby and Hannah were there, however; Hannah had just gotten a new bike. They had also purchased a little cart for Aaron, and Bobby was busily putting everything together so they could go for a bike ride--but it started raining, and the bike-ride plans were suspended and adjourned.
I started washing clothes, thankful Joseph and Teddy had each washed a load already. Every now and then, teen-aged boys do something useful! (I don’t mean that, really; they do useful things right along, such as unscrew jar lids and put light bulbs into sockets I can’t reach and air up my bike tires and mow the lawn and water my flowers. And sometimes, they even managed to keep from mowing down my Clematis.) Some ignoramus had put wet towels and dishrags down the clothes chute, and everything smelled musty and stale. Aauugghh! It’s at times like those that I think I need an entire wall of washers and dryers, just like in a laundromat. Good thing I didn’t wait a week before doing the laundry, eh?
I wrapped a few Christmas presents, and then wrote the corresponding photo album volume number above my scribblings. I was writing about Caleb as a new baby, which correlates with Album #42, which is chock full of pictures of him from fresh-hatched to about three months old. Imagine--that was more than 8 ½ years ago!
Friday morning, Hester and Lydia went with Hannah, Dorcas, and Aaron garage saling (sailing?), coming home with all sorts of bargains and totally unnecessary doodads, the sort of things I take to the Goodwill when I am cleaning house.
Joseph dug up some dirt for me to put into two pink ceramic baby booties, and then I planted 1 ½-inch zinnia shoots in them and scattered baby’s breath seeds around the zinnias. Then we took them to the new little twins Samantha and Susanne.
Nancy greeted us, and I put the planters down on the table, where they were dwarfed by the huge bouquets already there, including the biggest, most beautiful roses I ever did see, the fragrance of which permeated the air.
“Oh,” I said, and made a chagrined face, “You already have a flower.”
Sam guffawed.
“Do you want to hold one of the babies?” asked Nancy.
Of course I did.
She carefully put baby Susanne into my arms. I looked down at that tiny, precious baby, and wondered how on earth Hester could ever have been even smaller--she had been only five pounds, two-and-a-half ounces.
“Look at this baby, Hester,” I said to the daughter who is soon going to be bigger than me; “Can you believe, you were littler than she is, when you were born?!”
No, the babies don’t look alike; but, as Robert told the congregation Wednesday night, you can sure enough tell they are sisters!
We returned home, and I pulled all the weeds in my shade garden--and probably several flowers, too, by accident--while the children helped me water flowers and the lawn. I planted a bleeding heart bush Dorcas had given me; I hope it’s not too late in the season for it to get a good start. Flowers on the north side of my house rarely see the sun, and blossom much later than flowers on the other sides.
I decided to make beans and wieners for supper--or ‘weans and bieners’, as Teddy calls it--using dry pinto beans that have been in the cupboard for several decades. It wasn’t turning out very good (I could tell this, by smelling it)...so I added milk and flour...then butter...then milk...then salt...then potato flakes ...then butter...then milk...then salt... It was finally edible, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was good.
Lydia made a pound cake, because it was Hester’s birthday the next day. Why do the girls’ pound cakes always turn into ton cakes?! It was over-baked, for one thing, which was the fault of the instructions, not Lydia. I went to the store for chocolate frosting.
While we were gallivanting around town Friday afternoon delivering baby gifts, doling out birthday presents, and buying frosting, Larry had been trying to call us: he’d taken Saturday off, and wanted to go camping.
We stopped with the gallivanting and frosting, and got on with the packing.
I printed lists for everyone, and they found bags to put their things in. I got my things, Larry’s things, and all the other supplies, including the food. Larry was later than he’d expected to be, because as he was on his way home from Fremont, Charles called and asked him to pick up forms north of Schuyler. So he didn’t get home till 9:30 p.m. He sure enough has put in enough hours to make up for taking Saturday’s half-day off!
We left at 10:20 p.m. and headed for Willow Creek State Recreation Area northwest of Fremont, near Pierce. The girls all fell asleep halfway there. It started raining just past Madison, 35 miles north of Columbus. It wasn’t raining much while we set up the pop-up camper, but it rained steadily all night long. Joseph slept in his tent; fortunately, it’s quite waterproof. Lightning-proof, too, I guess, as he didn’t get struck. (That proves it, doesn’t it?)
And then suddenly it was morning, with the sun was shining down warmly. And...it was Hester’s 13th birthday! She is now a teenager, think of that. I brought her presents along, so we gave them to her before breakfast.
There were three pairs of dress shoes, three resin bears in cute clothes, and lots of jewelry in a couple of straw and wicker boxes. Lydia gave her a little glass ‘sack’, white with heart balloons painted on it, and inside she’d put a beanie baby monkey. Hester promptly affixed it to the wallet/purse she’d bought the day before at the Goodwill.
Meanwhile, Larry decided to fix eggs for breakfast.
“Hand me the butter, please,” he requested, and Caleb handed him the carton.
He opened the lid--and looked in dismay at the pineapple residing therein.
“Uh, is there another carton?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes,” I assured him confidently. “I told somebody to put it in, and I was the one who put the pineapple in.”
Caleb looked again. “There’s not another carton,” he said.
“Yes, there is,” I insisted. “It’s in there!”
Lydia peered into the cooler. “I don’t see it,” she said.
“Well, it’s there,” I said adamantly, fearing it wasn’t.
Hester took a turn. “There’s no butter in here,” she announced with positive irrefutability.
“But I told somebody to put it in there!” I protested.
“Here, you can use this,” suggested Joseph, and I turned to see what it was.
He was holding out the bottle of liquid Joy detergent.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, you.”
He shrugged, grinning. “Well, it’s the right color.”
Still thinking that that butter surely must be somewhere, I conducted an exhaustive search for it; but it did not miraculously turn up anywhere. It was nowhere to be found.
The trouble was, Anybody who heard me tell Somebody to get the butter--practically Everybody, I think--hadn’t thought they were Somebody, so Nobody had done it.
Either that, or Anybody who had started to do it had spotted the carton with the pineapple inside, and had thought, “Oops; Somebody already did that,” so Nobody did it, because Everybody thought the same thing.
“Just use milk instead of butter,” I told Larry, “and don’t turn the flame up too high.”
He looked highly skeptical, but decided to give it a try. Then, being highly skeptical about the general state of affairs in the propane lines, he ordered every one of us outside while he lit the burner. The little blue flame started promptly with no accompanying ka-blooies, so those of us who had been expatriated were allowed to file back in.
Larry poured a bit of milk into the pan and then cracked several eggs into the milk. “Could somebody hand me the salt and pepper?” he asked, holding his hand out expectantly.
Everyone looked blank.
“Uh, there isn’t any,” I told him. “I forgot them.”
Larry grimaced. “But I just don’t like my eggs without salt and pepper and butter!” he howled, crumpling his face up in an exaggerated pout.
Victoria tapped him on the leg. “You behave yourself, Daddy,” she instructed him firmly.
“I don’t want to,” he wailed. “Boo hoo hoo!”
Victoria giggled. “Well, just make some for me, then,” she ordered.
The eggs were extraordinarily bland that morning, but Larry did a remarkable job of cooking them without singeing a single egg. Come to think of it, perhaps the eggs would have been better, singed. Still, no one but Larry and I wanted oatmeal--and it was the scrumptious, flavored kind in little packets, too. They act like they don’t like it any more, the dumbies. We had peaches and cream oatmeal, and it was really good.
Especially after those tasteless eggs.
While Larry cooked breakfast, the park warden(?) superintendent(?) ranger(?) keeper(?) officer(?) official(?) dignitary(?) functionary(?) bureaucrat(?) chief magistrate(?) burgomaster(?) doge(?) deputy(?) authority(?) marshal(?) panjandrum(?) (he seemed to consider himself a combination of all of the above) came by, all bent out of shape because a) we had neglected to put our campsite number on the ticket we’d left in the dropbox on account of it raining, and we hadn’t wanted to go back and do that, in case we might melt; and b) we didn’t have an up-to-date park sticker, which was a severe infraction, worthy of death at daybreak, I believe, to judge from the panjandrum’s general demeanor. (Shall we call him P.J. for short?)
Well, we had to go to town for worms, anyway (evidently, the earth had no worms, hereabout the lake); and we needed jelly and coffee (imagine! I forgot the coffee!); so off we went to Pierce for all that and the park permit, too. We got a year’s pass, which should easily pay for itself soon.
Hester and Lydia started up a volleyball game with two young girls in the next campsite. Lydia was the instigator; she makes immediate friends everywhere she goes, I think. The girls had a little sister who was about a year younger than Victoria. Upon spotting Victoria, the child rushed for her little purple ‘director’ chairs, sitting them side by side at the perimeter of the volleyball ‘court’. She plopped down in one chair, then patted the other one and looked hopefully at Victoria. Victoria smiled at her and sat.
The trip to town interrupted the game, and it didn’t get itself started up again until several hours later, when Lydia tired of fishing on the other side of the lake and came back to the camper.
Would you believe, the little store we stopped at didn’t have coffee?!! Sooo...I got instant iced tea, instead. That was more sensible, anyway, I guess, in view of the heat.
On our way back to Willow Creek, I spotted an unknown bird on a fence post.
“Oh, stop, stop!” I cried, grabbing camera and 600mm lens.
Larry stopped and backed up while I frantically focused. I managed to get two or three shots before the bird flew, and hoped the pictures were good enough that I would be able to identify it from my bird book.
While everyone fished some distance away, Victoria and I walked back to the camper, and now I am inside typing at the table. It is too, too windy outside, and I have earaches. The kids have sunburns; they didn’t look for sunblock lotion until they were well burnt. ‘Medium to well-done’, as Larry says. And there was the sunblock, right in the Suburban all along. They finally applied lotion, but it looked like too little, too late, especially for Hester, who was masquerading as a lobster, near as I could tell. We have the camper stabilized with tiedowns on both sides, and it still feels wobbly from the wind. I imagine the gusts are 45-50 mph.
The table is all full of the colorful plastic dishes and dark-green-handled silverware I recently bought at Wal-Mart, along with all the gadgets such as can openers, measuring spoons, spatulas, etc., that I got at the Salvation Army, because Victoria was playing with them.
Larry & Co. recently stopped by to tell me they were heading for the other side of the lake. They’ve caught two fish so far, a catfish and a walleye. Lydia stayed with Victoria and I, and the rest headed off on a quest for greater and grander fish.
As I sit at this little table, I can look out the screens on all sides of our camper and see Victoria playing with the little sister of the volleyball girls, whom they call ‘Ally’. There are four girls, including a tall, skinny teenager, and a baby boy who has a feeding tube.
“Have you ever heard of a name, ‘Ally’?” asked Victoria.
“Yes,” I replied; “It’s probably short for--”
Here I was abruptly interrupted by Lydia: “‘Ally Oop’.”
I snickered. “Well, I was going to say ‘Allison’.”
I’ve killed two yellow jackets and a bee that had the audacity to come into the camper; in between sentences I type, I twirl the flyswatter and glare menacingly around the place.
Speaking of flying things, did you know that bats only turn left when exiting a cave? And did you know that all polar bears are left-handed?
What this means--using scientific processes of conclusion-drawing that are much too complex to explain to a novice--is that polar bears have bats in their belfry.
Just thought you’d like to know.
And now...time to find Larry and tell him the children need some sort of sustenance.
* * *
Saturday night
Well, that was an effort in futility. First, I tried calling Larry’s cell phone from the pay phone nearby.
No luck.
So Lydia, Victoria, and I walked all the way to one end of the lake, where I thought Larry had said they were going. It was perhaps a trek of two miles one way, and for a short ways I carried Victoria, because she got a first-class sideache. I tell you, carrying a child who weighs almost a third of one’s own weight is not easy, especially when one is plagued with arthritis.
Fortunately, she soon proclaimed herself to be cured, and went back to skipping merrily along beside me.
We walked far out on a rocky jetty to see if we could spot the Suburban anywhere, but it was not to be found. The wind gusted so strongly that it nearly blew me right off my feet.
We returned to the pop-up camper an hour after leaving it. By this time, I was getting vaguely worried about Larry and the children. So, leaving Lydia and Victoria at the camper with instructions to have their father come and get me if he should come back, I started off around the lake the other way. There are mown pathways all around the reservoir, and to walk the entire circumference would be a trek of over eight and a half miles. I suppose I walked five miles the second time, crossing the dike and nearly getting to the middle of the opposite side before I spotted the Suburban, driving slowly around a spinney near a fishing dock where I had been a half-hour earlier. I headed back toward the road--but Larry, not seeing me, went away again. Aarrgghh!
I had left both my cameras at the camper because I didn’t think I could walk so far with them, for they are heavy. But, oh, how I wished for those cameras! I was walking through short-grass prairies, with grass and wooded hills stretching out to my right. To my left was the lake, with tall reeds and cattails covering the marshy ground between me and the water.
Not far from the shore, Canada geese swam majestically, nine goslings paddling along between their parents. Sometimes the babies would boost themselves out of the water and flap their wings wildly, just as their parents do, but looking ever so comical with those short little wings of theirs. A mallard drake and hen suddenly burst from the shoreline, flying directly overhead with loud quacking and flapping of wings. Red-winged blackbirds dived at me, scolding. I must have been getting too close to their nests. When a female red-winged blackbird flew up just beside the trail, her mate right behind her, both of them uttering loud cries of alarm, I stepped carefully to the spot from where they’d flown. Sure enough, there was a longish nest, fastened to the prairie grasses approximately a foot off the ground. It swayed to and fro in the wind, and I wondered how such seemingly fragile moorings could hold it safely in the sometimes harsh weather of the Sandhills. The nest was completely empty, and perfectly clean. Hadn’t the birds laid their eggs yet? I have not seen any young so far this year, so perhaps they haven’t.
I passed through a wooded area where the pale yellow blossoms of the linden tree lent their sweet fragrance to the air. Douglas firs rustled in the wind, adding a piney scent, and yellow warblers and common yellowthroats flitted amongst the branches. The yellowthroats, too, nest on the ground; but when startled from their nest, they flash swiftly away without a sound. A mother robin scolded loudly, and I stopped and looked around to see what was agitating her.
There in a crotch between two narrow branches perched a frightened baby robin, mouth downturned in their customary woebegone expression. One little foot was turned clear around backwards to grasp a thin twig.
I walked on--and the mother robin flew forward, keeping pace with me, still scolding like everything. I stopped and gazed around me again.
Sure enough, there was a second baby robin, same sorrowful little face, sitting perfectly still in a tree, hoping I wouldn’t notice him.
Ohhhh, where was my camera?!
I crossed a narrow creek on a couple of planks, standing still in the middle and watching the waterbugs whizzing about on the surface of the water. There were horseshoe prints in the path, and I thought longingly how nice it would be to be riding a horse right that minute...or, lacking that, to at least have my bike. But most of all, I wanted my cameras.
Finally I approached the end of the lake again, hidden from a nearby country road by a thick stand of cottonwoods and Douglas firs. I debated whether to take the road so as not to miss Larry, should he happen to drive by, or stay on the trail, which was the shorter route.
I chose the trail.
And missed Larry, who happened to drive by right then.
Isn’t that just the way?!
But as he turned onto a narrower road some distance behind me, he saw me. He turned around and came back, stopping as close as he could to the trail. He jumped out and came to meet me, carrying a cold bottle of Mt. Dew for me, evidently afraid I was suffering from dehydration after all that peregrinating about.
What I was suffering from the most was Lack of Photographical Equipment, accompanied by Optical Image Withdrawal Symptoms.
We went back to our campsite, where the girls were having a game of volleyball, Victoria and Ally Oopson were comparing the various traits of their dolls, and Joseph and Caleb were playing baseball. Soon we were eating potato soup, turkey sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peaches, pears, and the skulking pineapple that had once disguised itself as butter.
And then the camping trip was over, and we were putting the camper down and heading for home.
Between curling three heads of hair, I looked in my bird book and learned that the bird I had photographed was a bobolink. That was the first time I’d ever seen one, except for a couple of weeks ago when I thought I saw one and then erroneously decided I was wrong. (I'm fairly certain that made sense.) I now have 154 birds written in my Birder’s Life List and Diary, not very many, in comparison to some avid birders. If only I had’ve had these books when I was young, traveling to all four corners of the country with my parents, the list would have been much longer. And now, if I could just tell the hawks apart!
* * *
Sunday, June 9, 2002
Today Hester was sick, probably on account of such a dreadful sunburn. Her cheeks and nose are covered with blisters. Furthermore, on the way into the house last night, she twisted her ankle, and today can hardly walk on it. What a way to end a birthday!
I stayed with Mama tonight as usual. Larry had fixed beef stroganoff for supper, and I took her some. She behaved exactly like some of my children:
“This is really good,” wiping her mouth and scooting the soup mug back out of reach, “and I’m full now.”
haha
Ah, well; she ate a little bit of it.
A very little bit.
I went home to find Teddy and Amy in the kitchen toasting strawberry cheesecake toaster bagel pastries--two for each of us, compliments of Amy. Mmmmmm...I gobbled them down with all my might and main. Then the oven timer beeped--Larry had started baking blueberry biscuits before Teddy and Amy came with the pastries. So we all had blueberry biscuits, too.
And now it is 2:30 a.m., and absolutely and positively bedtime, as I am definitely feeling the effects of my long walk yesterday.
Good night!
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