Monday, February 23, 1998 - The Cranes are Back

Tens of thousands of Sandhill cranes are back, and a whooping crane, probably a juvenile, is among them. Snow geese hunters’ warnings abound, although to mistake a whooping crane for a snow goose is such a miscalculation, I wonder if a person that does so really ought to be allowed a gun in the first place. After all!--a whooping crane is nearly 4 ½ feet tall, while a snow goose isn’t even 2 ½ feet. There are only 182 whooping cranes in the wild in the whole world.

Did you know that if you are caught disturbing a whooping crane, you can get yourself a $100,000 fine and nine years in jail? They ought to impose sentences like that on people who are nasty to other people. And how do they decide whether or not you disturbed one? I mean!--what if you sneezed??!--and one squawked and took off like a turbo-charged whirlybird? Right while the game warden was looking?! There you’d be, then, slammed into the brig, all on account of a kazunteit! (How do you spell that, anyway?) Gesundheit?

Hmmm…Microsoft Word says that’s wrong, too.

Monday I worked all day on my brother’s and his wife’s 30th anniversary plaque, after which I finished Norma’s for Teddy (the one that says ‘G R A N D M A’). The next day Larry brushed them with first a natural stain, then sprayed them with a shiny acrylic. They turned out quite beautiful. Now I’m going to glue some little mushroom birds and butterflies and some feather butterflies on Norma’s. My brother and sister-in-law’s has already been given to them.

Aren’t babies cute when they first learn to stand up, on chubby little legs that are only about a foot long? That's a description of Victoria.

She likes to brush her hair, after which she always wants somebody to lift her up to the mirror. Now she tries to put on her socks and shoes.

One day Dorcas decided to make banana bread with two rather mature bananas--just the amount needed to one loaf. But she’s so used to doubling everything, she accidentally doubled the flour (but nothing else).

“This stuff is too stiff!” she complained, trying valiantly to stir it.

I peered in the bowl. “You doubled the flour.”

“Oh,” said she.

So she had to double everything else, using the only two bright yellow bananas, which I’d been drooling over. This blending blunder did not bring about a Better-Blended Batter. Therefore, the bread wound up with small chunks of this and that throughout; not, however, detracting from its flavor.

Victoria was sick last week; Wednesday night her temperature went up to 103°. Her ears and head hurt. The poor baby would try to play; then her face would crumple up and she’d put a little hand up to the side of her head and say sadly, “Head!” So I’d scoop her up and cuddle her, which, other than baby Tylenol, seemed to be the best medicine. She’s such a jolly little thing; it makes me feel so sorry for her. She rarely cries, and practically never fusses. Today she is back to her old self, and aren’t we glad.

Hannah, Hester, and Joseph all had the same virus, with earaches, sore throats, fevers, and splitting headaches. Joseph thought he had a migraine, took an Imitrex, and discovered it didn’t help in the slightest. Hester and Joseph are quite a bit better; Hannah’s worst day was Sunday. She was either in bed or the recliner most of the day. She’s been crocheting a soft, delicate, light blue sweater for Esther Wright, Bobby’s ten-year-old sister, for Easter. The sleeves are tightly gathered into shoulder and cuff, the neck and cuff have lacy ruffles, and the front will have several different shades of pink and ivory flowers, crocheted from fine thread, and scattered in clusters.

The little girls have been winning prizes at school right and left, and making sure to choose items they can give as gifts to their siblings whose birthdays are this month. Lydia, for winning the Addition Bee, won a large stuffed bunny with a cute set of clothes, which she’s giving to Victoria. Hester won a bottle of Gardenia bubble bath, which she is saving for Hannah. Lydia won a giant, green, rubber praying mantis. She put it inside Joseph’s Tonka horse trailer, making him yelp when he opened the rear doors, which, in turn, made Lydia dissolve into giggles.

Dorcas needed some help with a large drawing of the outer, middle, and inner ear she was making for her biology class. Upon its completion, we decided, just for the fun of it, to add an eye in the proper location, with a big tear dripping down, color the ear red, and make a few stars shooting out from it--poor bloke had an earache. The teacher thought it was quite funny.

Lydia’s mint green satin and ivory lace dress is all done, and it’s one of the fanciest dresses I’ve ever sewn. Now I’m making a turquoise taffeta jacket with black striped satin trim.

Friday evening Lawrence and Norma came with cookies, ice cream, and Keith’s present--a large replica of the Santa Maria. Joseph gave him the lighthouse picture, and Larry and I gave him an iridescent foil picture of deer and mountains, and two paper replicas of currency used during the Civil War. The rest of his presents, he had to wait for until Sunday--his birthday. My mother gave him--guess what. A large replica of the Mayflower. And a K-bar pocket knife which used to be my father’s. Keith is quite sentimental about things that used to be my father’s; he dearly loved his Grandpa. Larry and I gave him a bench sander and a shirt.

Lawrence and Norma gave Victoria two adorable dresses, which she wore to church Sunday. She takes note of new dresses, and is immensely pleased when one is brightly colored, such as the one she wore last night--red and green plaid, with a white peter pan collar trimmed with red piping and green pleated ribbon.

Now it is long past bedtime, and I’d better skedaddle, or I’ll fall asleep tomorrow while I’m sewing, tip over, and sew my nose.

Sunday, February 15, 1998 - Wood Burning

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Last week we went for a ride through the hilly ranch and farm country northeast of town. Down in a wooded valley along Shell Creek, we saw what we thought was a snowy owl. Several crows were diving at it, cawing loudly. Finally, the big bird flew off along the tree line, making strange little high-pitched noises and sounding distinctly un-owl-like. Then it turned, and we saw that its back was dark brown, and the underside of its tail had a reddish cast to it--it was a red-tailed hawk. All this, we saw through our binoculars. Larry has a new set of auto-focus binoculars, and they really work neat. The focus changes smoothly and quickly as you pan across the countryside.

Hannah put together a photograph album of reprints of pictures of herself from the age of one day to about age twelve, I think, for Bobby for Valentine’s Day. She’d planned to go through every last one of our albums, picking out all her favorite pictures up to now, but reprints, you see, are not cheap. She saved the last few empty pages in the album, and will put more pictures in them and give them to him for his birthday, which will be in July.

The card she gave him was made with pressed roses--the roses he’d given her the day of their first date. It was really neat; it had lace sewn around the oval opening for the roses, and the flowers, along with baby’s breath and a small ribbon bow, were laminated.

And guess what Bobby gave Hannah!--an amethyst ring with two diamond chips. It’s beautiful and delicate, and Hannah was enchanted. Bethany, Bobby’s mother, gave Hannah an amethyst necklace--an early birthday present--to go with the ring.

Hester’s and Victoria’s dresses are all done now, with oodles and caboodles of ruffles and rows of lace. They turned out positively adorable, if I do say so myself. Now I am working on Lydia’s.

My nephew, David Walker, bought the school two more computers! Also, he told his mother (my sister, and our principal) to keep the one in her office especially for herself, since it has hundreds of Bible concordances, reference books, and commentaries on it. The school children (particularly two by name of Teddy and Joseph) are tickled pink.

Tuesday night Lawrence and Norma came visiting. We were just trying to make a batch of cornbread, and finding ourselves short of all sorts of things--flour, for one thing. But we did have whole wheat flour, so we decided to go ahead and make it with that, adding an extra egg to make it a little bit lighter. I threw in a handful of Italian seasoning for good measure. Having no Crisco, we used butter instead. And you know what? It was good.

Lawrence and Norma wound up with their cupboard doors looking a wee bit different than they had intended: somebody mistakenly told them they should use water-based paint. When they put the varnish on, the paint bubbled and lifted, and that’s when they learned they should’ve used oil-based paint. Feeling queasy from all that paint and varnish, to say nothing of all the hard work they’d gone to, they went off and bought some white marbleized contact paper and covered all the cupboard doors and drawers. Their kitchen looks bright and new and quite fashionable now, especially with the freshly shined brass hinges and handles, which are probably valuable antiques.

Joseph decided he wanted to make a wood-burned picture for Keith’s birthday. Since his board was tall and narrow, he concluded that it was just right for a lighthouse; and Keith’s room has a nautical motif anyway. He launched confidently into his project, taking advantage of neither ruler nor copy paper; and the lighthouse was soon closely resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa, to his immense dismay. He went off to bed, all prepared to discard of it and begin again the next day. But rather than waste the wood, to say nothing of all Joseph’s time and effort, I thought I’d see if I could overhaul it and set it to rights, although I truly am no artist. But by making the outlines wider, and by use of much shading, I came up with an acceptable picture of a lighthouse. An almost-straight lighthouse.

Joseph, finding it the next morning, was pleased as punch. He promptly took up wood-burning tool, wrote on the back, “To my favorite oldest brother, Keith, from Joseph with love”, wrapped it, and affixed card and bow.

Meanwhile, Larry was trying to breathe new life into a small heart box which Teddy had begun for my mother; he’d quit, the box not turning out to his liking. After taking it to his shop and using his belt grinder on it, Larry sanded it to silky smoothness with fine-grade sandpaper. Then, using one of Teddy’s fancy wood-burning tips, he made a pattern all around the sides. When he was done with that, I took over, etching a tiny hummingbird on the top, with lily of the valley, bleeding heart, and clematis along the edges.

And after that, I wanted it. Fortunately, I’d already scrolled “To Grandma Swiney. Love, Teddy” on the bottom, so greedily keeping it was out of the question. Teddy gave it to Mama for Valentine’s Day. He was so tickled over that box that he made another one for my sister, this time making the top hinged, and gluing two tiny gold hinges on it. I drew a little picture of two Canada geese swimming among some rushes, and this time Teddy did the wood-burning. This wood was softer, and easier to burn.

Now we are working on a leaf-and-vine-rimmed plaque for my brother and his wife, reading “30^th Anniversary”.

Mary Clarice is home again! My brother went to Minneapolis to help the family come home, planning to let the little girl lay on the bed in the motor home. Well, she did take a two-hour nap on it; after that, she had a jolly time bouncing on it. She has a little walker with wheels on it; two days after the surgery, she was not just walking with it, she was running. The child is two inches taller than she was before the operation!

She just has the sweetest disposition you ever did see. One day she was talking with her nurses: “I help Mama fold clothes!” she told them happily. “I fold Daddy’s jeans,” she continued, then added “and I fold Timmy’s jeans, too!”

The nurses were duly impressed. “How old are you?” one asked the child.

“Two!” she replied.

“My goodness!” exclaimed another nurse, “You’re a big helper!”

Mary Clarice nodded her head in agreement. “I throw clothes at Mama!” she concluded.

Ruth came in about then to find the nurses all in stitches, with Mary smiling at them, well pleased with herself.

Thursday evening when I arrived at church for Jr. Choir, lo and behold, there was Penny, who, you’ll remember, had surgery last week, too. Her mother, aunt, and uncle from Chicago had come to visit, and they had brought Penny to the school to see her classroom and the rest of the school. I turned the mike on, and we gave them a short, impromptu concert. Penny was soon getting tired, so they took her back home.

Penny’s family are Russian Jews, and Penny, I think, is the only one who has converted to Christianity. They all remain on good terms, however, and Penny was overjoyed that her mother finally came to visit her. Penny has lived in Columbus for about 25 years, and has gone to Chicago to see her mother once each year; but this is the first time her mother has come here.

When Penny was eleven, her well-beloved father was killed in a fire in the clothing store he owned. He’d gotten out safely, but kept going back in for more clothes. He went back in one too many times: the floor collapsed, he fell into the basement, and was trapped in the flames. The family, meanwhile, had seen the newscast on television, and were all watching in horror, wondering if the father was safe.

Then an uncle called and told them all was well, everyone was fine. And he knew all along everything was not fine! Why in the world do people do that?! I suppose they’re trying to do the right thing; but good grief! The people are going to have to know eventually! Penny and her mother and sisters and brothers were really hurt that the uncle would tell them such a thing, knowing otherwise.

Friday evening we went to Lawrence and Norma’s to give them an anniversary (their seventh) present: a ‘Taste of Home’ cookbook, published by Reimann Publications. Any recipes from Reimann Publications have got to be good. They have a large kitchen at their office in which some first-rate cooks try the recipes readers send them.

Larry helped Lawrence put together a dresser they had just bought for Norma to store some of her crafts and supplies. That done, and big bowls of ice cream down the hatch, I played the organ and everybody gathered ’round and sang. It’s a fine and dandy way to spend an evening, we all think.

Yesterday the girls made jelly jewel cookies for Caleb to pass out to his little friends for Valentine’s Day. Victoria was given several balloons, one of her favorite toys.

“BuhWOOON!!” she exclaims.

Every now and then I ask Larry if he can check Victoria’s diaper. He pats her on the bottom and informs me, “It’s still on.”

Today for dinner we had our famous Supah-Dupah Tacos, homemade Italian bread, and cherry cheesecake, done in a couple of heart-shaped pans, which I’ve wanted for a long time, and which I bought myself for Valentine’s Day yesterday (at least, I think that’s why I bought them). They taste better in heart shapes; did you know that?

Hester has had an earache for the last few days; if she isn’t better by tomorrow, I’d better call the doctor.

Victoria just sprouted her fifth tooth. This one is on the top front, and she’s discovered she can grind her teeth together. Aaaaarrrggghhh! That sounds awful!

I yell, “Heeeyyyy! Don’t do that!”

She wrinkles her nose, grins at me, and quits--for a little while.

And that’s this week’s news.

Sunday, February 8, 1998 - Valentine's Day Preparations

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Last week Keith’s boss and coworker went to Arkansas for the week to show a group of engineers how to put together the cement wall and floor forms which they make to build hog confinements. So Keith, having the week off, spent his time at Larry’s shop working on his GMC Sonoma.

This evening Larry made chicken noodle and vegetable soup for supper. He got a wee bit carried away with the spices, and the potency of the garlic powder in the recipe hit an all-time high, percentage-wise. Wheweeee! By the time Bobby came to walk with Hannah to church, he informed us that he’d had the devil’s own time trying to make it up the porch, the garlic breezes blowing out the front door were so stiff. He happily downed an entire bowl full, however. We tease him and say he’s just like Dagwood: tall, thin, and with an insatiable appetite.

Monday, it misted all morning; then it froze; and then it snowed. There was a very long line of vehicles, including several semis, that couldn’t get over the viaduct (‘viadock’, according to some of our police officers, who must be expecting tall ships in the harbor). Keith scooped our driveway and the school parking lot with his new snowblade, practicing up so that when he got a job for somebody, he wouldn’t bury their classic VW Bug or decapitate a fire hydrant or put somebody’s shed on the other side of the lot line or something.

The next morning, he scooped a filling station lot and several residential drives, making $40 in about an hour and a half, which quite pleased him.

Tuesday I worked all day on the bookwork, completing both the month-end and the year-end work. It is now ready to go to the tax man, I think. It took me about thirteen hours, give or take a few milliseconds.

Hester and Lydia brought home their second-quarter report cards; once again, they got all A’s. Lydia’s lowest grade was a 97%--and most are 99%.

Hester said sorrowfully, “I didn’t do so well; I got a 91%.”

All the other grades were 96% or above.

“My goodness!” I exclaimed, “What a dumb little bunny you are. We might have to disown you, we might! A 91%; for shame.”

She made a face at me, giggling. She took a reconsidering look at her card. “Well. . .” And then she grinned at me and confided, “I think I got the highest average in the class.”

Wednesday Penny Golden, our blind history/literature/English/vocabulary teacher, a wonderful singer and musician, and one of my very best friends, had a tumor removed. The doctors had been afraid it was cancer. Everybody was overjoyed to learn that it was not; and she is going to be just fine. Penny, as you may recall, won Wal-Mart’s Teacher of the Year award.

Thursday little Mary Clarice had the operation on her back. The surgery went better than expected, and the doctors were able to get her back straighter than they had thought they could. She is in a body cast which covers her from shoulders to hips. She is now out of intensive care, and, if all continues to go well, she should be able to come home this week. The operation was done in Minneapolis. This has been rather traumatic for all of us; it is so wrenching to see a child suffer, and more so, I think, when it is one so sweet and dear. But I guess we should be thankful there is the technology and medical know-how to accomplish such a feat, for the little girl could not live long otherwise.

Today at church, when Loren thanked the congregation for their prayers (we had a special prayer meeting Wednesday night) and told us how Mary is doing, he just couldn’t keep the tears away.

Part of the family was around the child’s bed when the anesthetic wore off. They hadn’t been saying much, just looking down at little Mary and feeling a bit frightened that she wasn’t breathing deeply enough. (Anesthetic will cause that, you know; and they couldn’t see her chest rising and falling because of the cast.) After some time, she awoke, and started to cry--something she rarely does.

The rest of the family started to cry too, in relief as much as anything.

“Where’s Mama?” wept the child.

But Ruth had gone to care for her baby, Kurt.

Bill leaned down to give his little girl a careful hug. “Will I do?” he asked his small daughter.

Mary Clarice smiled at him. “Yes,” she replied, sniffing, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Saturday she was able to sit up, so they were allowed to push her around the halls in a wheel chair.

One of Hannah’s Easter dresses is now done, and there was just enough material left to make a gathered skirt for Lynette, the little cousin who is so much like Hannah was at that age. Hannah is crocheting a bright pink vest to go with the dress, and will make one for Lynette, too. I took apart a purple corduroy jumper of Hannah’s which was too big, and totally redid it. That’s always a big job, and one of which I am not particularly fond, but the jumper now fits perfectly and looks quite cute.

After altering a beautiful suit my sister gave me for Christmas, I sewed a pocket back on one of Joseph’s shirts. Shirt and pocket had a parting of the ways when the boys were playing football: Teddy made a wild high-dive for the ball, missed, tripped, flung out a hand to catch himself, and came up with Joseph’s pocket. Joseph kept getting all tickled over the expression on his brother’s face when he looked down at his hand and discovered he was holding a pocket, sans shirt. A neat little well-turned pocket.

Hester’s sea-mist satin and silk jacquard and lace dress is done except for connecting skirt to top and putting in the zipper. But that had to be put on hold because . . . . Valentine’s Day is coming. And Hester and Lydia needed Valentine boxes or baskets or bags. So Saturday we rounded up a couple of pretty baskets, and decorated them with red velour lining, pink flowered ruffles, ribbons and bows, silk flowers, and decorative pins. Really getting into the spirit of things, I offered to make stuffed hearts (polyfil for the girls; beans for the boys) with embroidered sayings for their classmates. They took me up on it with great enthusiasm, and were soon, with Caleb’s help, poking stuffing or beans into hearts. We made 25 hearts.

Wednesday night after the prayer meeting, we were having a treat of ice cream with all sorts of toppings, including honey-roasted peanuts, Oreo cookie crumbs, Hershey’s syrup, caramel fudge, etc. I picked up the butterscotch jar.

“Yuck!” I exclaimed. “Who got this jar so sticky?!”

Larry immediately replied, “Bobby.”

Bobby was momentarily nonplussed, but of course everybody else was soon laughing. Used to be, it was always assumed that Joseph was the culprit. Now-a-days, it is more likely to be Hester. Goodness, she’s a slapdash little messy!

Last week Ohio got a foot and a half of snow. They don’t want it. Why can’t we have it?? I like snow!! It’s supposed to snow tonight. But it’ll probably be like the snow that fell once in the Peanuts comic strip:

Linus stood looking skyward, watching a lone snowflake drift down. It landed on the sidewalk and melted. Linus looked amazed.

“I declare!” he exclaimed. “It went right through the cement!”

Victoria can identify eyes, ears, nose, mouth, toes, hands, hair, etc. Pointing to her dolly’s eyes, she said very quietly, “Be cayco!” (‘Careful’--that’s what I tell her when she points to anybody’s eyes.)

Tonight she was crawling along pell-mell, then suddenly she was up on her hands and feet going lickety-split, then back down to knees and hands. Still going flank speed emergency, she popped back up on feet and hands, bottom up. Now that looked funny! We laughed so hard at her, we had tears running down our faces. Once she put her head down suddenly just as she lurched forward, and she very nearly did a somersault.

Today she had a 102° temperature, so I didn’t take her to church. Caleb, Hester, and Lydia had such bad colds that I kept them home, too; but the little girls were able to go tonight.

Friday afternoon Hannah and Dorcas made oatmeal cookies with chocolate-covered raisins. Hannah made a big heart-shaped one for Bobby. That evening, Bobby, Hannah, and Dorcas went to the Fremont hospital to visit Penny. Hannah heard the nurses tell somebody that they’d never had a patient have so many visitors.

Now here’s Caleb, hunting around for an attachment to his kooshball slingshot. “Hmmmmm..... now where’d it go?” He looked around. “There’s a shot that goes with this sling,” he told me.

In CountRy magazine there’s a story about a four-year-old who’d broken out their front window with his new slingshot, where, he’d been given explicit instructions, he was not to shoot it.

“It went off accidentally when I wasn’t ready,” he explained.

A little while ago, Hester, Lydia, and Caleb were ensconced in my bed, electric blanket on. I was in Victoria’s room. The little girls, feeling cold, kept turning their respective blanket controls higher, and higher, and higher…never realizing that the reason they needed it up so high was because Aleutia had burst in the back door (the latch is faulty) and neglected to shut it behind herself. When I came out of the baby’s room, an Arctic gale was whistling down the hallway.

* * *

Monday, February 9, 1998

My nephew, David Walker, just bought the school a new computer. Teddy and Joseph have been at the school this evening watching as he set it up and explained how to use it. There are certain programs which are voice-activated, and its bubble printer is far superior to the printers on the old computers. There is even a Britannica Encyclopedia on it.

Now, back to the sewing!

HAPPY

VALENTINE’S

DAY!!!

Sunday, February 1, 1998 - Taking Large Couches out of Small Doorways, and such

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Last week was spent mostly at my sewing machine or cutting out material at the kitchen table. Dorcas’ white satin skirt is done; a shiny blue vest with white seed pearl buttons down the front and on the welt pockets is done--that was for Hester, to go with a red, white, blue, and yellow flowered skirt I made out of a large economy-sized ‘skort’; and a white-with-black- polka-dot blouse/petticoat for Victoria to go under a red corduroy jumper that my friend, Martha Haddock, got at a Salvation Army in Lincoln for 25¢. The jumper has a little ruffled peplum around the waist which is lined with white and black polka dots; there is a polka-dot bow on the bodice, and a Dalmatian puppy appliqu

-->éd on the skirt. And I just happened to have a piece of white and black polka dot material, just enough. I cut out a mint-green satin dress and a turquoise taffeta jacket with black satin trim for Lydia. Hannah’s flowered single knit with crochet-overlay collar is just about done, and she is crocheting a bright pink vest to wear over it.

Did I ever tell you that Lawrence and Norma got Kenny and Annette a stove with convection oven just like ours? Well, now they got themselves one, and they seem to like it just as well as the rest of us like ours. They’re really nifty, they are! I made thirteen pumpkin chiffon pies yesterday, and I could bake six large pie shells in that oven at once. In the meantime, in my largest pan on top of the stove, I was cooking the filling. On the side burners were two more large pots, one full of corn on the cob, the other full of steak soup.

Wednesday evening, Bobby brought us a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. So I made oatmeal/chocolate sandwich cookies. They were pretty good, but we had to go rent an ice pick and an air chisel to get them off the cookie sheets.

One day I drew the letters “G R A N D M A” onto a board for Teddy to cut out with his scroll saw. Larry drew leaves around the edges, which Teddy will cut around, too; and I got several of those birds and butterflies made of mushroom that look so real and some butterflies made of feathers to put around the plaque after Teddy stains and varnishes it. He’s now engraving vines and the veins inside the leaves, which will be stained a darker brown. We are going to give it to Norma for her birthday.

Wednesday night I got stuck at the computer after everybody went to bed, playing a dumb game of Tetris and trying to beat the boys’ scores. I did, too!--and wasted an entire evening, during which I could’ve gotten a whole lot of sewing done. Bother.

Victoria now pulls herself up, then lets loose and takes wild lunges, not seeming to have the foggiest notion that calamity awaits. So far, somebody’s caught her every time. She finally has a tooth on top, making a total of three, and a fourth one is trying to peek through; but they are not middle uppers; they’re the ones to the side. Caleb thinks it’s lots of fun to see Victoria pulling herself up. He was really laughing at her today when she was crawling along lickety-split with a small tube of hand cream sticking out of her mouth. And she did look funny. She knew it, too.

Thursday, Norma called. She started somewhat hesitantly, “Some time ago, one time when you were out here, you said something to me--” so quick as a click I interrupted, “No, I didn’t!”, which caused her to laugh so, she had to start all over again. Anyway, she thought perhaps, from something I said once, that I would like to have their couch, should they get a new one. Well, I don’t know about that; I don’t recall saying anything like that (but I am getting a bit senile, I think); but Lawrence and Norma had gotten a new couch, and we now have their old one.

Actually, it was Grandma Ruby Berry’s (Norma’s mother) a long, long time ago. Norma had it recovered about seven years ago, and it still looks very nice. It’s extra long--eight feet, which is just what we need. We went to their house after Junior Choir; Keith drove his pickup with which to bring the couch home. Lawrence and Norma have all their cupboard doors off; they’re going to paint the cupboards white, and Larry is going to spray the doors white at his shop.

Hannah looked around the kitchen in amazement: “Look!” she exclaimed, “All the doors are off--and everything is staying in the cupboard!” (I think that was a commentary on what would happen at our house, should we ever remove our cupboard doors.)

Larry sanded the cupboard frames for them, and, Saturday morning, Teddy and Joseph helped Lawrence sand the doors.

Getting that long couch out of their L-shaped doorway was indeed tricky. Norma said they’d have to take the doors off; none of the men thought so. Men, of course, find it of imperative necessity to contradict anything a woman is silly enough to be adamant about, especially when it concerns something they are doing.

Larry hoisted one end of the couch, Keith and Teddy the other. Lawrence stood manning the doors. They lifted the couch, twisted it this way and that, lifted one end high, the other low, . . . and then, only just slightly stuck in the small ‘L’ comprised of closet, hall, and door, they recruited Teddy to rush around under the couch, removing the castors. Another attempt to exit the room was made, nearly resulting in the demise of several innocent ceramic and porcelain figurines on a nearby bookcase; and the hapless grandfather clock, in its tight quarters behind the door, had a distinctly anxious look on its face.

Forthwith, Larry brought the ‘davenporten’ (as one of my nephews used to say), back into the living room.

“Just like I thought,” declared he, “we’ll have to take the doors off!”

Norma promptly pulled his ear, Larry howled, and the kids laughed.

Arriving back home with our newly acquired divan, we set about making room for it. The only place it fit well was against the front window, so the love seat and chair had to be moved across the room to a place against the wooden rail dividing music room and living room.

Moving all this furniture around in this living room is rather like working a slide puzzle--those that have pieces all mixed up, and you slide them around to come up with a picture of a cat or a soccer player or a treasure map or something. The old couch is now reclining smack-dab in front of the hearth, and the computer desk in the northwest corner.

In Jr. Choir Thursday evening, one of the songs we sang was ‘The Gospel Express’. Some of the stanzas read, “‘Pheeep pheeep pheeep!’ goes the whistle! ‘Toot toot toot!’ goes the train! ‘Chug chug chug’ goes the engine! And we’re off on the Glory Train!” (Yes, yes; I know it’s nonsensical.) On the ‘pheeeps’ and ‘toots’, I make the piano sound like a train whistle, which makes the children all start to smile. On the ‘chugs’, I make an awful, low-pitched chug noise which never fails to reduce them to laughter. We sing the first verse at a moderate speed, and then we do verse two at top velocity, so that by the time the song is through, children and leaders alike are in stitches.

In the piano bench, Penny Golden, the blind teacher who sings with the children, keeps a wooden train whistle, and when we sing this song, I get it out and let somebody blow it at the appropriate moments, preferably somebody who hasn’t had the chance to do it before. Thursday night, it was Katie’s turn. Now, Katie is a rather timid girl; but she’s part Tucker, you know, and part Jackson. When we got to the first ‘pheeep’, she let loose, as best befitting her heritage, full force: “PHEEEEEEEEEP!!!!”--after which, frightening herself out of seven good years of growth, she jumped out of her skin and concluded her stint with one meek little “peep”, which tickled her friends’ funny bones something awful.

Friday morning, a lawn service came and cut down two very tall, very old trees between my sister’s house and ours. Every time we have a small storm, several branches break off and come crashing down; we were afraid it was only a matter of time before somebody happened to be under it when it fell. We were sad to take away a squirrel family’s home, though; and numerous birds will soon be looking in vane for their summer abode. Oh, well; there are plenty more trees around here; but not plenty more Teddys. Or Josephs. Or Hesters. Or Lydias. (etc.)

They also cut down an old dying tree behind my mother’s house, and they gave us all the good wood from these trees. I declare, our back yard looks like we are going into the logging business! They had to turn our electricity off from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., because the electric line went right through one of those trees. It wound up getting quite cold in here, and I couldn’t start a fire because the old couch was in front of the hearth, and it’s too heavy for me to move. If there was any place to move it to. So I kept Victoria’s blanket sleeper on her until the electricity came back on, and even wound up putting a little fleece coat and hood on her.

She got all excited, thinking we were going somewhere; when that didn’t seem to be materializing, she grinned at me, pointed at the front door, flapped both arms, and yelled, “’et’s DOE!”

“We’re not going anywhere,” I informed her.

She sighed. Then, brightening, she pointed at the front window. “Ninno!” she said. “Ninno?”

So I helped her up on the couch so she could look out, which was quite satisfactory, she decided.

Since I couldn’t type or sew or curl my hair with the electricity off, I decided to clean off the table (a major undertaking, after noon) and cut out Victoria’s ‘pettiblouse’.

I told Hannah, “The instant this table is clean, the lights will come back on, just you see.”

They did.

Joseph’s virtual Pooch is 23 years old! One day it had to go to the vet, because the poor old arthritic critter couldn’t even get to his feet. The vet must’ve given it a dropper-full of the Fountain of Youth, because it improved so immensely, it could even play catch again.

I have been helping Hannah prepare a Valentine’s present for Bobby: an album with reprints of somewhere around 150 pictures of Hannah, from the time she was born, up to about age twelve or so. I helped the man at Walgreens fill out several packets in which to send the pictures; most of them have since come back. One packet, however, was returned with no reprints. There was a note inside the envelope stating that they could not copy prints from a studio, as this would infringe upon the studio’s copyright. Now, how do you like that? I’m feeling rather proud of myself--they thought some of my snapshots were studio prints! We wrote a note informing them these were not studio photos, and sent them in again.

Victoria absolutely loves oranges and orange juice. “A da da da!” says she, looking at the juice/orange.

If we get a bite first, she grins widely, flaps arms and kicks legs: “A DA DA DA!!” she exclaims. She immediately gets a bite. Or a drink. “Num num,” says she in satisfaction.

Yesterday Hester, with Hannah’s help, made peach streusel muffins: one dozen for supper yesterday; one dozen for dinner today. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, they were delicious. I made a fruit salad with peaches, apricots, pears, and apples; the dressing was cherry vanilla yogurt and whipped cream. Mmmmmmmmmmm some more.

While the girls and I were doing this, Larry was cutting the boys’ hair. About the time he was carefully running the clippers along the bottom edge of Keith’s hair, I dropped a metal bowl onto a couple of cookie sheets--not exactly a soft sound.

Larry nearly sprang out of his boots. “AAAARRRRGGGGHH!!” he yelled, as is his custom when suddenly startled.

After coming safely back down out of the upper stratosphere, he looked at Keith. His eyes widened in horror, and he glanced down at the clippers in his hand, then back at Keith. “Oh, no!” he gasped. “Keith’s bald!”

Keith began to look concerned, but his siblings had gone into gales of mirth, and nobody seemed particularly worried over the state of his hair, so he settled back down into the barber chair. (Yes, we really do have a barber chair, and it makes things lots easier. We got it from a customer of Larry’s; a leg was broken off of it. Larry fixed it, and it’s as good as new.) (Well, maybe in its former life, it was a bar stool.) (But don’t tell anybody.)

Keith got a new motor for our log splitter, which we’ve been needing for over a year. Larry’s been splitting logs by hand with a wedge and sledge. Larry helped Keith hook it up yesterday, and they split a cartload of wood. Larry made the log splitter several years ago. The motor, which was used, went on the fritz several times before giving up the ghost entirely.

Last week Larry sold a pickup, taking a rather old one in on trade. He allowed the customer very little, because they both thought the vehicle needed a new motor. Well, for once we were on the better end of the deal. All it needed was a $25 lifter (whatever that is). It is already fixed, up and running, cleaned and ready to sell.

The little girls are all pleased and tickled: they’ve learned to shampoo their hair all by themselves.

“Hester is the right age to shampoo her own hair,” Lydia began (where do children learn important facts of life like that?), “but I am only six!” she finished triumphantly.

Yesterday when we were doing all that baking and cooking, Caleb set up shop on one end of the table with a large collection of pickups and trailers and cars and trucks with car-hauling trailers. Every now and then, he came ’round on my side of the table offering his stirring services, which I, of course, took him up on. And then, of course, he was rewarded with the privilege of licking off the spoon, which, of course, had been his design all along. He thinks you ‘roll up’ pie dough and ‘stir up’ muffin batter.

Time for bed! Next week I must keep that sewing machine turning smartly; Easter is only ten weeks away! And after that . . .I have great plans to create wonderful flower gardens around this house. Well, at least better than last year, when I did nothing more than peer out the window at a flower now and then, I think.

. . .

P.S.: I lied. It was a weed.