Ready or Not

We finished the last of the outside Fall “stuff”…we are as ready as we can be for winter and I hear it may look a lot like winter soon.  We put away patio furniture, washed the last two windows, cleaned up the sauna, mulched leaves for the very last time, put away the lawn mower and the three wheeler for the winter, drained the water hose and put it away.

We took one day off to visit our former brother in law.  We had a good last visit with him.  He has multiple myeloma and has hospice care at his daughters home.  He told us he was tired and felt he would be leaving this world soon. Heaven will be his home.  Our hearts are breaking for our niece and nephew, their spouses and children….they are so young and both have recently become new parents.  Both little grandboys were there and they made their Grandpa smile…one is a year old and the other is just five weeks old and came all the way from Japan to meet his Grandpa.

Ready for winter or not…ready for another death or not…God is in charge and we best remember that.

Minnesota Weeps

We weep for a child we never knew.  One who went missing near his family home in 1989.  We have been waiting for news of Jacob for 27 years.  Finally this weekend Jacob’s family was notified that his remains were found.  The family can finally put their son to rest, Jacob’s brother and friend can finally go on with their lives. All three boys were told by a man with a gun to lay down in the ditch and tell him their age…he told the other boys to run into the field and not look back or he would shoot them. He took Jacob.

How can this happen in small town Minnesota?  How could this evil man escape law enforcement for 27 years?  He can never be charged with this heinous crime…how can that be?

Jacob was 11 years old.  Jacob’s parents started The Jacob Wetterling Resource Center in his honor, to give others hope that their missing children would be found someday and they were also instrumental in getting laws passed so that Sex Offenders must be registered.

Until now there was always hope that Jacob would be found alive.  Instead his remains were found in a field near Paynesville Minnesota. Such sadness for his family.  His parents will go on with the work of the Foundation to give parents of missing children hope.  Jacob’s hope.
Over the years I often thought about Jacob.  Being a Mom I guess you do that or you pick out some little kids to think about often and pray for even if you don’t know them.

Leeanna (Beaner) Warner was just five years old when she disappeared from her home near Chisholm Minnesota in 2003…perhaps her mysterious disappearance will be solved someday.
 

Wistful Wednesday: 1957

The summer of 1957 I was almost six years old…I was a Fall baby…September… one of those Virgos that likes everything in place and everything in it’s place…a perfectionist.

Just so you know most of the perfectionist part is slightly worn out.  I no longer scrub the kitchen floor everyday…or double check that all the hangers are facing the right direction along with the clothing hanging facing right.  Mostly my money is helter skelter in my billfold…it doesn’t all face the correct way.  I still have a need to clean the kitchen after a meal…some people can stack dishes for the next day…not me.  I also have a sick compulsion to face all my can goods exactly so in the pantry.

It is hard to be perfect.  I no longer strive for perfection. Perfection is exhausting.

Most days I like dogs better than people, I think that was probably true for most of my life. 

Here I am in North Dakota in the summer of 1957.  Hair all done up in pin curls and straight as a stick bangs cut kinda short.  I am wearing shorts and a blouse that my Mother probably sewed for me.  The puppy was all wrapped up in some kind of rag/blanket that had seen better days.  It was not a puppy that belonged to me or my family.  Every summer when we went with my Dad where he was working our dog/dogs had to be given away or “dealt with.”  That was very hard for me.

Those years 1955-1958 in Minnesota were horrible farming years, Army Worms and drought took their toll.   We were lucky my Dad had a job, but it was still difficult for me to leave home and the farm for the whole summer.

Prairie Birthday's !

Sometimes it is the little things that inspire me the most. Things that others may pass, are they too busy to stop, don't they care? It is a "Prairie Birthday" for so many plants..especially the little wildflowers in June. Some are blooming along the drive, others are found out on the edges of the fields where corporate farming takes place. They are survivors, they are blooming, so it must be their birthday! Every year I notice some plant, that I never took the time to identify before. Some only bloom for a few days, if you are not at the right place at the right time..you will have missed it completely.

Hello Hoary Puccoon! You certainly are yellow, those cars travelling by at the speed limit probably just think you are a dandelion.. I know better. If they looked closely they would see that you are really yellow/orange, and look nothing at all like a dandelion.

Common Chickweed really shines like hundreds of tiny stars in the grass at twilight. They must be having a private celebration every night.

Wild Blue Phlox, I noticed a whole ditch full of them, vibrant, fresh into their birthday duds in the afternoon sunshine. Far Guy would not stop. I knew that I would never catch that scene again. Even though I was desperate to go back, it would not have been the same as THAT moment. The light would have changed...the moment was gone. I had to settle for the few along our driveway. I had waited patiently for him to do his errands, I rode along, to make sure Chance wouldn't get to hot in the car. It would have only taken a minute. His hours were way more important that day than my minute. Ten miles later he did offer to turn around and go back..but the moment was lost.

Wild Iris, she might have escaped from a pioneer housewife's garden years ago, she shows up in some of the strangest places. These have escaped from the cemetery into the ditch, were they running for their lives? Or just going to meet other Irises for a bigger party that would be noticed. There is a Stop sign here at this corner, some people actually stop here, some don't, some just do a pretend stop. While I was at the corner..they stopped, I may have even slowed some of the traffic "What is that old woman doing in the ditch anyway?"

Blue eyed grass, such a sweet little thing, she is teeny tiny. She usually blooms earlier in June, this year she was a little late for her party..but had one anyway. She is a real challenge to photograph.

That is just five, I am sure that there were more. My Friend Aldo says ten per week, maybe even more ..well he would have been my friend if he had not up and died two years before I was born. I was not even a twinkle in my Fathers eyes yet..when the world lost a great Naturalist, who just happened to write my favorite book "A Sand County Almanac" Since I know this is not a book for everyone, I will just quote from it.

Prairie Birthday: During every week from April to September there are, on the average, ten wild plants coming into first bloom. In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of the anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them. He who steps unseeing on May Dandelions may be hauled up short by August ragweed pollen; he who ignores the ruddy haze of April elms may skid his car on the fallen corollas of the catalpas. Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education. " Aldo Leopold

What a guy! I bet he would have stopped for just a minute..a moment:)