Rhubarb leaf bird bath

I play with wet concrete and a rhubarb leaf.

Last summer, our Bible study group made rhubarb leaf bird baths. The basic idea was to take a rhubarb or other large leaf (hollyhock leaves would probably work, too), press it into a dome of concrete and make an impression.

Marilyn (front), Iris and I (back) mold our concrete into our leaves. Note the concrete bucket next to Marilyn.

Everyone else made theirs into a bowl as they were supposed to. I don't know how it happened, but mine turned out flat.

Six concrete blobs in a row. Note how rounded they are. All of them except mine (at the far end).

Once the shapes were made, we painted them. I went for a naturalistic look and carefully painted in the major rhubarb leaf veins. Others were more impressionistic. Once painted, we sealed them.

I didn't quite know what to do with my flattened leaf. It doesn’t hold water, so it was worthless as a bird bath. Then I remembered how butterflies need to warm themselves. OK, so I intended to make a bird bath, but ended up with a butterfly warmer. I can deal with it. But I didn't know where to put this warming stand.

I said something about my dilemma to Hubby's father. He said that he had found a bird bath stand without a bowl. It was too nice to get rid of, but he had no use for it. I certainly had a use for it.

Now my rhubarb leaf butterfly warmer stands on top of a bird bath pedestal. Ironic, isn’t it?

Having a father-in-law who shares my taste for turning trash to treasure is a pleasure.

The finished product awaits butterflies’ arrival.

iHanna's Creative Space has more complete instructions on making a rhubarb leaf bird bath.

Tara's gone to the kitchen

I've been asked what to do with tarragon. Since I love to find answers for people's questions, I searched Google, that fount of all information. (What did we ever do without search engines?)

Tarragon is most commonly used in bearnaise sauce and in the herb mixes herbes de provence and fines herbes.

About.com's Home Cooking site gives tarragon history, storage information and, most importantly, recipes.

In My Kitchen Garden talks about tarragon, too. Make sure to read the comments.

TheBigOven.com has a recipe for chateaubriand with bearnaise sauce. Reading their recipe brought back good memories. Last year, we won a trip to Vail, Colo. On our trip's first night, we ate at The Ore House. We chose to split chateaubriand. Was it ever delicious. We were stuffed at the end and our stomachs were very happy!

Hubby at The Ore House the morning after we gorged ourselves there.

Chaising the lounge

In a previous post, I told you about our oft-repaired chaise lounges. saw wood rot on one leg, but couldn’t tell how much was rotten.

The wood rot on the leg was so bad that Hubby finally amputated them both. This drastic solution is not one that we can repeat, but drastic problems do require drastic measures.


The chair looked very sad without either of its front legs.

We also took the opportunity to add backer boards to strengthen the frame. We also wanted to add a piece to the front of the chair to both lengthen it and give it more stability. Previous front piece was so rotten that it nearly fell off in my hand. Since it was between the side frame boards, I thought that perhaps the lack of airflow might have hastened the rot. Hopefully leaving the ends exposed to air will prevent or slow rot in future.

Hubby cut the scrap wood to size. We had salvaged some boards from a construction site, including some 2x4s that had been screwed together. That gave me an idea. I decided to screw together two boards for the legs, giving them more stability.

I painted and primed all the boards. Original builder only painted and primed the surfaces that showed. I hope that priming and painting every surface will at least slow the rot.

I had nearly finished painting when I ran out of paint. The paint company had changed the paint color to something more like blood red instead of our signature brick red. Even though the color difference does show, I just didn’t feel like repainting everything. I am very meticulous, but sometimes a person has to decide what amount of effort is just too much.

Original builder had used carriage bolts to attach the legs, which proved impossible to remove. The nuts merely spun around instead of coming off. We used 6-inch long socket screws instead. We attached the replacement slats and the end piece with deck screws.

After all that work, we surely did enjoy lounging in front of our fire pit! Enjoying our outdoor living room again (below) is such a pleasure.

How to be a frugal gardener

This is Marilyn’s reworking of Hubby’s idea. We replaced our grill, so planted a garden in the old one. She saw what we’d done and did it herself. Hers looks better.

I owe this list to Nature Moms Blog.

1. Grow Your Own Plants from Seed — Seeds are cheaper than nursery-grown seedlings so growing your own will save you some green. Local seed exchange programs and community gardens might also provide you with free seeds.

We overdid on seed starting last year and were overwhelmed with eggplants, something I don’t even like that well! We didn’t get around to starting any tomatoes and peppers this year, but I intend to try again next year, just with a more reasonable amount.

2. Don’t buy peat pots when you can use your leftover toilet paper rolls, eggshells, or newspapers for free.

I don’t use peat pots. We throw our eggshells in the garden for fertilizer. As I’ve written before, newspaper makes wonderful mulch. We generally burn our toilet paper rolls in our fire pit. Toilet paper isn’t romantic, but the fire is.

Marilyn remodeled her kitchen last summer and used the old sink as another container. In her yard, container gardening even includes the kitchen sink!

3. Instead of buying containers for container gardening, why not recycle household stuff like old boots, buckets, baskets, metal tins, old toys, apple barrels, wheelbarrows, broken plastic tubs, etc. A few years back, I took two old wheelbarrows and stacked them on top of each other in my front yard and planted in them. The result was so gorgeous that a picture of it ended up in a small local newspaper.

I’ve never gotten my planter’s picture in the newspaper, but I have used all sorts of objects as planters. Someone in town has put a bike in their garden, lined its basket with moss and planted annuals in it. I love that. However, the work of continually watering containers in our semiarid climate wore me out last year. I’m taking a break from most container gardening this year.

4. Make your own pinwheels. I use pinwheels in my garden to deter critters and while they are not that expensive (usually only $1 a piece at the store) I can save $10 or so and have a nice time crafting with my kids by making my own — and they aren’t plastic, which is a plus. I just love the look of pinwheels blowing around in the garden; it is lovely. Ribbon attached to a stake works well too.

The link above shows how to make paper pinwheels. I wonder how well these would hold up in our lovely High Plains winds. They do look fun.

5. Look for open bags of soil at your local gardening center and seedlings that are past their prime. You can usually get some steep discounts on those items. Ask the cashier if they can cut you a deal.

We recycle our potting soil, dumping it into a metal trash can we salvaged. And we shop end-of-season garden sales.

6. Re-purpose broken watering cans by using them as planters or by cutting off the spout and using them as refill containers for bird feeders.

I never thought of using a watering can to refill bird feeders.

7. Do you or any of your neighbors have fish tanks? When it comes time to clean the tanks use the water to give your plants a tonic they will love.

No fish tanks here, but it’s a great idea for those who have access to one.

8. Use a plastic garbage can to collect rain water by putting it under a drainage pipe. Then just scoop out water as needed instead of reaching for the hose to water plants.

Rain water? What rain water? I keep a dish under the spigot to catch the water that inevitably drips from it. Mr. Kitty loves to drink that water.

9. Use kitchen scraps to make your own compost and put banana peels under your roses to give them a potassium boost.

We also throw our coffee grounds in our rose bushes. Vegetable kitchen scraps go straight into our garden.

10. Cut down on fanciful flowers and plant some drought-tolerant plants instead, like one of my personal favorites, hens-and-chicks.

I could definitely do a better job of this.

11. Grow food and you won’t have to buy as much at the grocery store! You can even grow your beauty products.

Last year we made our own salsa and spaghetti sauce. This year I want to make both of those again, plus our own pesto. I did a poor job of bean picking last year and intend to remedy that this year. I feel virtuous when I look at jars full of our own produce.

12. Put old saucer or plates under your pots to collect water run-off.

Unfortunately, these old saucers catch just enough water to breed mosquitoes. Nasty things.

13. Line your pots or containers with 6-8 sheets of newspaper to help them retain moisture so they won’t need to be watered as much.

I had never thought of this. I do lay down a heavy mulch blanket over my containers. When I started doing that last year, I was amazed how much watering I saved.

14. When it rains, scoop up your indoor plants and set them outside for a little while to get a drink.

Rain has wonderful nutrients that tap water doesn’t have. Definitely give those poor indoor plants a drink.

15. Shop for gardening tools, containers, and lawn and patio furniture at yard sales, garage sales, and barn sales.

Or fish them out of the trash!

Adventures in fence fixing

As my [Marilyn’s] dad grows older, so does his mind. His mind has gradually drifted off the regular straight and narrow path that it once took. Our family has decided to roll with the punches and look at Dad’s mind-drifting as a kind of road trip for us!

My brother has definitely gotten to take Dad’s road trip more than once.

“Didn’tcha see me wave back?”

After long, hard High Plains winters, with our snowfalls, winds and blizzards, each pasture has at least a small portion of fence that needs repairing before we can put our cattle out to pasture for the summer. Tumbleweeds need to be pulled out of the tangled barbed wire and new fence posts put in the ground. This is a hard job, with many miles spent walking behind the pickup, which is loaded with all the tools and equipment needed to fix fences.

One particular spring day, Brother and Dad were in the far south summer pasture, the pickup loaded with fence repairing equipment and their high work boots on. Brother does most of the manual labor these days, and lets Dad drive the pickup.

Their game plan was for Dad to drive about four fence post lengths, then stop and wait for Brother to wave at him. Once he sees Brother wave, Dad can move the pickup to the place where Brother is waiting. For most of the morning, this seems to work fine. Brother walks ahead of the pickup, waves, Dad stops, waits until Brother moves up four more fence post lengths, and repeats the process over and over.

Then Brother waves at Dad and nothing happens. The pickup doesn’t move an inch. Brother waves again. Again, nothing. Brother is straining his eyes to see if Dad has some sort of problem. Since he couldn’t tell, he strode back to where Dad is sitting in the pickup. Brother arrives at the pickup and asks Dad, “Didn’tcha see me waving atcha?”

Dad says, “Yes. Didn’tcha see me wave back?“

Time to call it a day.

Snakes in the grass

The days are warming up, which means that a fence fixer must watch for snakes in the tall pasture grasses.

On this particular day, Brother is walking alongside the pickup as Dad drives beside him. With a hot south wind blowing and the morning growing ever warmer, Dad had rolled up his window to soak in the air conditioning.

As Brother walks the fence line, he realizes that he has stepped on something that is moving. He looks down and sees that he has stepped on a snake’s head. He does not move. He knocks on Dad’s window and says, “Get out and get me the shovel!”

Dad asks, “Why?”

Brother says, “’Cuz I’m standing on a snake! Now get out of the truck and hand me the shovel!”

Dad rolls up his window again. Brother knocks on the window even harder.

Dad rolls it down a tad, saying, “It’s hot out there!”

Exasperated, Brother shouts, “GET ME THE SHOVEL, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

It’s definitely time to go home.

Getting some exercise

On another day, Brother is riding on the pickup’s tailgate as Dad drives along the fence row. The game plan is that when Brother needs Dad to stop, he will pound on the bed of the truck. Brother will get off and repair the fence. When repair is done, he will pound on the truck bed, signaling to Dad to again move forward.

This process goes on for some time. As the morning stretches into mid-day, Dad’s foot begins to get tired of holding down the clutch as he waits for Brother to do the fence repair. Just as Brother is about to sit on the pickup bed, he sees the ground beneath him begin to move. Instead of sitting on the pickup, he sits on the ground.

The truck continues to move forward. Brother picks himself up and catches up to Dad.

As Dad continues to drive, he says to Brother, “Why are you walking?”

Brother says, “Guess I needed more exercise.”

Home sounds very good right now.

Bells will be ringing

When I [Marilyn] was little, my mother’s father rang the bell in our old country church every Sunday morning. How I loved hearing that big old bell ring, beckoning all within hearing distance to come and worship! Back in those days, a rope was attached to the bell, as it hung way up high in the belfry. The reverberation caused by pulling that rope would make a slight vibration in the building. I always shivered pleasantly when I felt it. As a small child, the ringing of the huge bell made a lasting impression on me. I was always amazed at how loud the bell sounded!

Listening to the church bell ring gave me a lifelong appreciation for bells and chimes. I love them. I have wind chimes hanging all around my yard in the summer time. As the High Plains winds blow, as they so often do, I can stand in almost any spot in my yard and hear wind chimes in the background.

Some churches still ring their stately bells, announcing the start of their services. As I work in my yard on a Saturday evening, I can hear the bell ringing in the middle of town at our local Catholic church. That sound can wing me away instantly to a time long ago as I stood watching my beloved grandpa pull that bell’s rope.

My yard without wind chimes would be like a church’s bell tower without a bell. Empty. Soundless. Lost. Sad.

As my wind chimes gently jingle and sway in the breeze, peace enters my heart. Precious memories from days gone by and loved ones passed on surround my soul in love and peace.

When other people's trash talks

Hubby is an amateur chef who loves to cook outside. Food tastes great and heat stays out of the house! But we really needed more work space out there.

One morning last year, Marilyn and I were driving alleys. We saw a battered wooden cupboard that was obviously headed for the landfill.



















Even though the cupboard didn’t look very promising, I immediately knew I had to have it. It was telling me that it wanted to be part of our outdoor kitchen. When other people's trash talks to me, I know I’ve found a treasure.

We loaded into Marilyn’s truck and took it home. Sometimes Hubby does not see what I see in other people's junk, but he knew immediately what this piece was saying. It must have been yelling. He was excited.

We replaced the rotten wood with sound wood — all scraps of course —, primed and painted it to cover the icky crayon marks on the front.



I didn’t quite know what to do about the top. It was made from two boards and had a gap between them. Gaps are not good in an outdoor cupboard. I got some free large tiles that a home center didn’t want, but I hated the way they looked. Another friend suggested that we use black and white tiles in a pattern. I loved the idea. I already had the tiles, which were left over from someone else's project. She cut the tiles and helped me grout them. I later sealed them.

Hubby was delighted with the final results and started using the cupboard as soon as it was finished.

I was delighted that he was delighted.

Cinnamon Sweet Pickles

No pickles taste better than this recipe Mother got from her neighbor. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or really the space to do this recipe. I sure hope someone who reads this does.

When we went through our mother’s possessions after she passed away, my sister-in-love said, "We'd better enjoy these pickles while we can because I doubt that either of us has the time to make them again."

Start recipe on Thursday for scheduling.

Day 1 – 2 gal. cucumbers, peeled, seeded, cut into strips. Dissolve 2 C. dehydrated lime in enough water to cover pickles. Put in roasting pan. Let stand 24 hours with tight cover.

Day 2 – Drain and wash with cool water. Soak in cool water 3 hours. Drain. Mix 1 C. vinegar, 1 T. alum, 1 1 oz. bottle red food coloring, enough water to cover pickles. Pour over pickles. Heat and simmer 2 hours. Drain. Mix 3 C. vinegar, 3 C. water, 10 C. sugar, 8 sticks cinnamon, 1 lb. cinnamon red hots. Boil. Pour over pickles and reheat. Let stand overnight.

Day 3 – Drain, saving juice. For three mornings, reheat juice and pour back over pickles.

Day 6 – The fourth morning, reheat pickles in juice. Pack and seal in hot wide mouth jars. Water bath 5 minutes. Do not use aluminum or stainless steel pans. Makes 11-12 pts.

Mother’s notes: For Day 1 lime and Day 2 cold water, I found the big square Tupperware [cake taker] worked well. Day 2 on, I used the rectangle roaster when it was time to cook. I prepared the red hots solution in the Dutch oven and poured over cucumbers. For Days 3-5, I drained the juice from roaster into Dutch oven, reheated it and poured it back over cukes. Day 6 I just heated in the roaster, put in juice, water bathed after treating lids in aluminum pan.

Now I feel nostalgic. I can just see those red slices in one of her relish trays. I can taste them, too, a kind of sweet, hot, crunchy sensation in my mouth. Sigh.

Spectacular Frozen Corn

This is my mother's recipe for the best frozen corn ever.

17-18 C. corn cut from cob
1 lb. butter (do not substitute margarine)
1 pt. half-and-half
Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Stir occasionally. Requires LARGE roasting pans to make. Spread out on cookie sheets and freeze until solid, usually 2-3 days. Then put into freezer containers and freeze until ready to eat.

I am hungry already. Bring on the sweet corn!

Don't Fence Me In!

Marilyn's post yesterday reminded me of the truck farm my brother and I worked when we were at home. (This picture was taken in 1994, after we were both married. Truck farm was much smaller by then.) We didn't live on a farm, but my mother had grown up on the farm. She was still a farm girl at heart. She could not and would not abide laziness. She had the world's longest to-do list and she intended for it to be completed.

We had plenty of chores, including lots of garden ones. After baking in the hot sun while doing tasks I hated, I decided I would NEVER have a garden when I grew up. No way. Not going to do it.

Never say never.

My mother was very frugal, partly from necessity and partly from preference. She hated waste and unnecessary spending. So she had a huge garden full of all kinds of vegetables. Being hyper organized, she kept a meticulous garden book, noting where she had planted each crop and what varieties she used. I prize that book now, but I don't keep one.

Her garden rows seemed infinite when we were pulling weeds or other boring tasks under the beating sun. And she could always find weeds that we never saw. I learned to love mulching because it suppressed those horrible weeds.

Late summer and early fall was canning/freezing time. She ran a regular factory in the basement, but putting up our produce was the reward for nasty tasks like weeding. I entered into food preservation whole-heartedly. Looking at neat rows of produce-filled jars was always a pleasurable experience. Eating them was even better!

How I miss eating her frozen corn recipe, which will appear tomorrow, and her very labor-intensive red hot pickle recipe, which will appear the next day.

When I lived in Virginia, a friend from upstate New York invited me to her house for Thanksgiving. I continually longed for farm country and she said we would pass through lots of farm country.

Our ideas of what farm country meant were diametrically opposed. We drove roads that were lined with houses. Their lots were long and narrow. Their houses sat next to the road with large gardens behind them. She said those were farms. What farms?

My idea of a farm is acres of corn, wheat, milo and/or sunflowers. Anything else is a just a repeat of my mother's garden. In my idea of farm country, the neighbors can't look into each other's windows just as they could in suburbia!

I thought of the Roy Rogers song "Don't Fence Me In".

"... Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in..."

My little farm

Marilyn is on a roll and adds her second contribution.

As a youngster growing up on the farm 22 miles from any “civilization,” I could hardly wait to leave that all behind me. I had dreams of being a city girl, of living a pampered life, quite opposite of the life I’d been raised in on the farm.

For some reason, those childhood and childish dreams never did come true. And for some reason, I never met a “city guy” whom I could relate to! Believe me; I tried! I made it a rule never to date any farm kids! Nope, I made sure the guys I dated were sophisticated, and knew nothing about hard work and farm life!

Ha! How silly that was! Sophisticated? Hardly! Hard work? Most of them had no clue what hard work meant!

I’d come home from working long, hard hours as a nurse’s aide, only to find my boyfriend still asleep, lounging around the house at 2:30 in the afternoon! He gave the excuse for not showing up for work that day, as “I just didn’t feel like it.” For some reason, that didn’t sit well with me! I found it to be quite disgusting, in fact, and the relationship would soon end. I would end up kicking these deadbeat men out of my home!

Yet I still searched for that dream I had as a child. Did I miss the farm? Oh, some. But my family lived close enough to town that on weekends I still visited them on the farm. But my heart still told me to stay away from dating farm boys.

As I matured, both in wisdom and in years, I discovered what made me so disgusted by boyfriends who had a poor work ethic. Why wouldn’t laziness disgust me? I was raised on a farm by parents who taught me to rise early and work hard all day! I was taught that nothing gets done by sitting around lazily watching the day go past. I was taught that at the end of the day, it was time to rest and play. But not before the work was done!

As I near my 50th year, there are days I long for those long-lost farm days. My heart aches for those times, for those memories to be relived once again! Just because my parents taught me to work long and hard, they also showed me how to enjoy the simple pleasures in life and to sit back and relax.

I have loved working hard forever. Well, at least ever since I was an adult, having to go out and make my own living in this world! I look back on my life as a young adult, setting out on my own in the big old world. Even as young as I was, as immature as I was then, I knew that I must show up for work unless I was truly sick. I knew that even though I may have stayed out too late with my friends partying up a storm, that when the alarm went off, it was time to drag myself out of bed and get to work. I never was one to call in sick for any reason other than if I was truly sick.

That sticks with me even to this day. As I grow ever closer to being half a century old/young, I find myself imitating my parents’ lifestyle. I am up before the alarm goes off, starting my day. In the summer months, there is always something in the garden or yard that needs attention. I like to be out there just as the sun rises, tending to my little piece of farm life, right here in town. Right here in my back yard.

I tell my 80-year-old father that he farmed in the country and I farm in town. He laughs at that and agrees with me! I show him my corn rows, which are skimpy compared to the hundreds of acres he once grew! He and I mow my lawn. I tell him that my farm is puny compared to what he used to farm, but this is the closest thing to a real farm I can get!

Dad agrees with me, smiles, and off we go, each doing our “farm work” as the sun sets lower and lower in the western sky.

Friends are like butterflies

My friend Marilyn will be contributing guest posts from time to time. This is her first contribution.

Forrest Gump says, “Life is like a box of chocolates.” I like to think of my friendships as a "garden of butterflies.”

Butterflies thrive on a nice, warm stone. They warm their wings before flying off to hover over some waiting flower petal for refreshment and sustenance. They also need little sips of clean, fresh water in order to refresh their little bodies after they have flown hither and yon all day long.

And each butterfly is its own unique creation. Each one has a spot that is different from the others. Butterflies come in 28,000 different species and each butterfly has slightly different markings, the mark of our loving Creator’s hands.

Friends are like butterflies. As a friend, you flutter from this friend to that one, doing fun activities with this one, then sitting and drinking from your friends’ refreshing, encouraging words at the end of a long day. Or maybe you just sit on the deck and watch the sun set together, basking in the last glows of the warm sunshine and in the joy of each other’s presence.

When the weather has beaten you down, the chill in the air has spread to your heart, what better place to get warmed up than in front of a friend’s fireplace with a warm cup of hot cocoa?

Or how about those times when life has hit you behind the knees and knocked you down? Maybe one of your butterfly friends drops by and takes you out for a yummy piece of homemade apple pie a la mode! When you get home after spending time with a good friend, you feel refreshed and much safer.

So, Forrest, I love your chocolate saying, but I also like my butterfly saying! When I look at each of my four closest friends in the entire world, I see a lovely butterfly in each one of them. I see them each ministering to others who are in need of love and comfort at just the right moment. I see them spreading beauty in the world. I see each of them in need of such things in their own lives at times, and I watch as each butterfly in the group stops and ministers to one another.

Dear Lord, I love the way You made butterflies for our enjoyment and for us to learn from. We can learn a lot from the life of the beautiful butterfly. Thank You!

De-mint-ed

I should have listened to my mother.

Hubby and I planted mint in our vegetable garden. After we'd done the work, she warned us that mint was very invasive. We didn't want to undo what we'd done and we left that plant in our garden. How foolish was that!

Mint sends out wicked runners. All those runners must be removed from the garden or the plants will grow back. If we had listened and ripped it out, we would have saved ourselves much grief and work. Instead, every spring I "de-mint" the garden. When it's done, I say I am "de-mint-ed." I was demented to plant it in the first place!

The first year we de-mint-ed, we had to get fill dirt from a construction site because our garden had a crater in it. That evil plant had even sent runners under our sidewalk to infiltrate another garden. The crater's contents went into our driveway. The Frugal Gardener hates waste. We're still dumping our precious garden soil into the drive because of mint contamination, although the loads get smaller each year.

Unfortunately for us, we planted the mint right on our property line. It spread into the neighbor's lawn. The neighbor thinks the stuff is great and tends it. Therefore, it spreads right back into our garden. See the mint poking through the fence? I can't dig up the mint that's right on the line because my shovel hits concrete. So I'm stuck with it.

Yes, I definitely should have listened to my mother. Don't plant mint!

Solomon and the lilies

As I looked at my blooming lilies, this passage came to mind: "Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!" (Luke 12:26-28)

I confess to being a worrier. Faith and trust come hard.

Looking at my lilies reminds me that my Father cares for me just as I tend my flowers. I weed and water them, mulch and fertilize them. Their welfare is my responsibility. Flowering is their responsibility.

So it is with my Father. He tends me so that I may flower and produce fruit.

Why am I borrowing trouble and carrying responsibilities that are not mine to bear?

My Heavenly Father beckons me to give my worries to Him.

I wish I only had to do that once, that all concerns would vanish the first time I confessed my worrying. Such is not the case. I must repeatedly hand over my worries. Just as I build physical muscle through exercise, I build spiritual muscle through exercising discipline over my mind.

Worrying makes my flowers diseased and wilted. I want to produce beautiful flowers, so I must turn over my worries to the One who cares for me.

Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. (I Peter 5:7)

Friday the 13th

We were married on a Saturday the 14th. Therefore, our rehearsal dinner was Friday the 13th.

I remember that day every time a Friday the 13th appears on the calendar.

Our to-do list stretched forever and every agenda item required more time than we had planned. Decorating church and reception hall caused the most headaches. I wanted my ladies to have matching jewelry as my gift to them and I wanted them to help me choose it. We rushed through that, but we were hopelessly behind.

For whatever reason, I thought I had to dress for dinner. My bridesmaid Kelly and I had not thought to bring our fancy clothes to change into, so we drove to my parents' house to change. That took over an hour and made us very late for my own rehearsal dinner.

When we walked into the restaurant, my fiance snapped, "Where have you been?" He thought I had dumped him the night before our wedding.

I had battled frozen feet, so he had some reason to be worried. He didn't need to be. I had already decided that life without him was unthinkable.

Hubby and I had planned to do a nice presentation for each of our wedding party's gifts, but that had to be scrapped. At least I was present. Hubby didn't have to chase a runaway bride.

I really shouldn't have bothered to change clothes. I changed back into shorts for the actual rehearsal. My shoes pinched me and I refused to be uncomfortable. The bride should have some privileges!

I was out of that dress so quickly that no one got a picture of me in it until a post-wedding shower. The flowers on the guest book table are my wedding bouquet.

Living on my mother's time

Somewhere in Heaven, my mother is looking down and laughing.

I am a confirmed night owl and my mother was a confirmed early bird. My idea of paradise is a place where I don't have to get up until I feel like it. She greeted morning with joy.

When we were growing up, she often would sing and play "I Will Greet the Day with Singing" or "This Is the Day the Lord Has Made; I Will Rejoice And Be Glad in It".

I greet the morning with groans. "Can I please turn off that pesky alarm and go back to sleep?" Singing is not one of my morning activities. If I did sing, I might do a parody called "Morning Is Broken".

But now I have to rise at 5, while it's still pretty dark, and I go to bed at 9 or very shortly thereafter.

Sigh.

But I am doing it.

I know you're smiling up there.

I love you, I miss you and I'll see you again.

Dust Bowl Blues

Hubby and I watched American Experience: Surviving the Dust Bowl a few nights ago. Grandma's stories of life in the Dust Bowl years returned vividly to mind, made more real by the footage of that time.

Many people fled the Dust Bowl conditions, packing their belongings into whatever motorized transportation they had, then driving off with their house door standing open.
They were "Dust Bowl Refugees".

But many stayed, including my grandparents.

Dust filtered into everything. People caulked their windows with rags. They hung wet sheets in front of their doors. And still the dust filtered in.

Grandma reminisced about hanging wet towels above my aunts' beds to keep dust out of their lungs. They still coughed black phlegm.

When she served meals, she covered each plate and serving dish with wet towels, but they still had to eat grit with their food.

My grandparents' hired men did not get cash wages, just room and board. That was enough in those days. At least they had a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Many did not.

My great uncle was caught in one of the terrible dust storms and died of dust pneumonia. Pneumonia was epidemic during those years. Aunt Betty never remarried.

No wonder Woody Guthrie recorded "Dust Bowl Blues".

We read "The Grapes of Wrath" in high school, about a family who fled Dust Bowl conditions for "the promised land" of California.

I asked Grandma once why they stayed on the land.

"Why didn't you flee?"

"This is our home," she said.

The Sound of Music

My brain is just too retentive.

This morning, I sprayed Roundup on the last stubborn bit of bindweed. That particular plant looked pretty sickly, so this dose should finish it off. Then I sprayed the weeds growing between our patio's flagstones.

Gene Autry's "Heading for the Last Roundup" began playing in my mental jukebox.

"I'm heading for the last roundup. Gonna saddle Old Paint for the last time and ride. So long, old pal, it's time your tears are dried. I'm heading for the last roundup...."

This tune kept playing in my head until I got on the riding mower several hours later.


Then I thought how the mower is my own private place and the The Beach Boys began playing.

"There's a room where I can go and tell my secrets to. In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears. In my room, in my room, in my room, in my room. Do my dreaming and my scheming. Lie awake and pray. Do my crying and my sighing. Laugh at yesterday...."

These two tunes kept alternating, sometimes as a counterpoint to my thoughts and sometimes overriding them.

Then I saw a lady named Jean.

I suppose that could have triggered "Cheer up, sleepy Jean; oh, what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen."

But I'm a bit too young for the Monkees.

Instead, Michael Jackson's Billie Jean popped up in the mental jukebox: "Billie Jean is not my lover. She's just a girl who claims that I am the one, but the kid is not my son. She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son."

So now I had three songs running through my head on some kind of endless loop.

Or is that Endless Love?

"I know I've found in you my endless love."

Yes, my brain is definitely too retentive.