What a chilly start to the day last Wednesday after several hot, humid days in the 80’s. It was merely 46 degrees at 6 AM and had only reached 50 by noon. Wednesday is usually my “errand” day, so I tripped around here and there and it was great to see a field of corn sprouting up out of the ground and several fields of fresh-cut hay. Windfall Grocery is usually one of my stops, and so I’m curious. When was the last time you saw a can of “BEEF TRIPE STEW” on the shelf. Me? Never before. Interesting.
The TV and radio were preaching a frost warning all week for Friday night into Saturday morning, so I took the time to cover the pepper plants and green beans, and brought in the other vegetable plants and annuals I’d not planted yet. We had a heavy frost indeed, and it even killed two of the pepper plants I had covered with a sheet! I’m really glad now I hadn’t planted any more than I had.
I know I’ve told you many times how much I love living here in “this neck of the woods”, and here are a couple of reasons why. I like getting up quite early in the morning – usually between 5:30 and 6:30. I get the coffee going and then sit and read my daily devotionals. In the quiet I can hear a woodpecker pecking in the distance, a morning dove cooing, a cow mooing, a horse whinny, and my chimes singing. How grateful I am to have the ways and means to live here out in the country.
There will be a chicken bar-b-que this coming Saturday, the 30th, at the pit behind the Alba Church. The FFA, along with their advisor Tom Hojnowski – Alba Church family member – will create a team effort to support both causes. Thank you for your support.
I tripped off to Canton bright and early last Saturday so I could go to the Farmer’s Market as I’d read in the Sentinel that the Garden Club would be selling plants. I hit pay-dirt! I bought a box full of perennials for a song! (Like a bird song – cheap,cheap!) I was even able to get advice on where to plant them, what they would look like when blossomed, and with the reasonable prices, it was a definite win-win situation.
What a lovely service held at our Alba Church last Sunday. They honored family and friends that had passed away in the last year. I received two long-stemmed roses: one in memory of my brother Art and one in memory of my nephew Cory Shoemaker (Art’s son). There were several other folks on hand receiving recognition and roses as well. There was also a tribute to all our Veterans, and each was presented with an American flag. Following the Memorial service was the playing of Taps – both near and off in the distance. How anyone can listen to that and not get a lump in their throat is beyond me. It was a very moving service and I appreciate all that was done to make it happen, including the dozens of red geraniums decorating the front of the sanctuary.
Saturday afternoon I made a trip to Windfall Cemetery to fill the crocks for my mom and dad (Max and Lucille) and for our daughter Lindsay. I also placed a pot of flowers at the marker of Ron’s great-grandparents on the Colton side. While there I saw my cousin Joyce (Greenough) Bixby decorating the graves of her parents (my Aunt Anabel and Uncle Lawrence Greenough), her brother Hugh, and sisters Barb and Kay, and so I walked over and visited awhile. We commented on how sad it was that so many of our loved ones were now departed and how time flies. However, it was still good to visit a bit with her and how we were looking forward to the Shoemaker reunion in August.
On Monday, my mother-in-law Beverly and I attended the annual Memorial Day program held at the Windfall United Methodist Church. As always, it was a lovely service, with beautiful special music and solos, and Bill Bower, US Navy veteran, giving a wonderful speech on his military experience, the meaning of the day, and the issues of today. It was a grand program indeed. We decided not to make the trek up to the cemetery but were still able to hear the Troy High School Marching Band play a wonderful patriotic song before they marched up to the grave sites. And yet another tear in my eye.
On May 29, 1932, the Bonus Army, a group of World War I veterans, arrived in Washington, D.C., seeking to cash in their bonus certificates, which were not scheduled for full payment until 1945. On May 30, 1868, the graves of Civil War soldiers were decorated at Arlington National Cemetery on the first official observance of Memorial Day. On May 31, 1884, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg applied for a patent for his flakes cereal, a ready-to-eat breakfast food later sold as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. Also on May 31, in 1889, heavy rains collapsed a dam in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The resulting flood claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people.
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863: …this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Food for thought: Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it stands than to anything on which it is poured.