I Often Go Walking

Hydrangea grow prolifically in the south. We should have bought one 28 years ago. But instead we bought our first one three years ago. That first year, we had a few sparse blooms. The second year, we did not really see any blooms, but this year. Voila! We have bloom after bloom. They are so beautiful, I cut some stems to bring indoors. We also have a pretty pink one, gifted to me by Julie. It bloomed for the first time this year and is a beautiful pink. We hope it grows up to be as fruitful as our purple/blue one. I've always had a love affair with flowers and flowering bushes. I wanted to post about a billion pictures of the many varieties of flowers in my yard, but Russ restrained me.

My favorite primary song has always been, "I Often Go Walking." I'll just post the words to that song. That will suffice.

"I often go walking in meadows of clover, and I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue. I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over; Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.

O mother, I give you my love with each flower to give forth sweet fragrance a whole life-time through; For if I love blossoms and meadows and walking, I learn how to love them them, dear mother, from you."

Thank you, dear children, for singing that song to me over and over and for gathering flowers for me. Even today, I receive flowers from my children. Brad accompanied himself on the guitar and sang the song to me this Mother's Day. I will never outgrow the love of flowers and that song being sung by my children or grandchildren.

Hydrangea Bush in our backyard

New little pink Hydrangea in front yard

Cut stems brought inside for our further enjoyment

Hydrangea blossoms up close

The Birds

I guess it should come as no surprise that birds love our big pillars. They’ve been building their nests there for years, as long as we’ve lived in this house. It’s high up; it’s protected. While we enjoy these cute little creatures, their poop has been slowing destroying our front porch. I guess it’s the acid that eats away at the cement if we don’t get it washed off immediately. But with so many birds, sometimes we are neglectful.

I took pictures through a screened window last week. In one of the four nests there are five, yes, count them, five baby birds. As I watched in fascination, all five little mouths would open wide the minute the mother bird flew anywhere near them. It reminded me of my grandchildren—when I walk by with candy in my hands. I have to admit, the quintets are so darling that I’m forgiving of the mess they make on the porch.

From the two upstairs bedrooms and bath room, we can view all four nests, and it’s delightful.

Quintets (in Nest #1)

Nest #2

Nest #3

Nest #4

The mess below

Strawberry glitch or strawberry fields forever......

OK, in Tennessee strawberry picking and May go together like peanut butter and jelly. For years Russ has gone with the Sextons to pick strawberries. Early on, I would then make the jam, pies, etc. But when Russ retired, he not only picked the berries, but helped me make the jam. We’ve done this so many years that we’ve pretty much memorized the recipe and are in perfect sync. We smile, we chat, and the jars and jars of jam look beautiful all lined up on the kitchen counter.

This May, however, we (the experts) goofed!! We’d like to perhaps blame each other, but we both went along with the mistake of adding twice as many strawberries to the batch than what is called for in the recipe. So this year we have strawberry syrup. Russ has discovered that it tastes just fine when “poured” on his peanut butter sandwiches. We sent a jar home with our daughters, since they eat more pancakes and ice cream than we do. Anyone need some strawberry syrup? We’ve got plenty.

Thanks goodness we still have quite a few 2009 jars of jam in the freezer. Hope they last until May of 2011 when the strawberry fields will beckon.

2010 Strawberry Syrup and 2009 Strawberry Jam

Grandparenting 101

Grandparenting is wonderful. On many occasions we’ve had the opportunity (and sometimes challenges in our older age) to keep grandchildren in our home under our watchful eye and care while their parents take off on a vacation. We feel honored (and blessed) that these parents trust us. I mean, this is precious cargo they leave in our care. They trust us to keep them safe from harm and accident, to feed them, to discipline them (which we rarely do), to get them to their activities, to make sure they do their home work, brush their teeth, take their medicine, etc. So it is with a great deal of trust they drop off children of all ages and count on us to do it right while they are gone.

Oh, and don’t forget the “spoiling” – that’s part of a grandparent’s duty to their grandchildren.

We’ve kept grandchildren in our care from one day to 10 days. Each time, it’s a very sweet experience. Here’s a look back to some of the “sweet” experiences. This is just a sampling and does not include all years---but it gives a variety of scenes from around the kitchen table to attending an activity during the time they are with us.

Caring for Jonah, Silas, and Koen in Utah - February 2007

Caring for Trey, Allie, Tanner, Connor, and Sydney - April 2008

Caring for Carter, Jared, and Claire - June 2008

Caring for Silas - June 2008

Caring for Emma, Ben, Josh, and Lydia - July 2008

Caring for Tanner, Connor, and Sydney - February 2010

Caring for Carter, Jared, and Claire - April 2010

Caring for Emma, Ben, Josh, Lydia, and Afton - May 2010

Winner + 2

Since we had the largest number ever of entrants for this giveaway, we decided to award “surprise” prizes for the first three winners. I even used random.org to choose the winners. Drum role:

1) Ben: Dan-de-lion!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow a dande lion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2) Hale: "um, red, i mean um orange, green, blue, and white, and blue i think again, i think. i think blue and white and orange and green and blue again. that's what kinds of flowers i like."

3)Koen: "uh, tulip."



Ben, Hale, and Koen

CONGRATULATIONS, BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I learned that from Josh and Ben)

MAY DAY GIVE AWAY

As a child I would pick flowers from my family’s garden, (with my mother’s permission) and tie a ribbon around making a bouquet and deliver these bundles to widows and grandmas or anyone I felt could use some flowers. My best friend, Kathy K., and I would do this every May Day. In honor of a childhood memory today starts a giveaway that is just for children. Any child under the age of 18 may enter. Only one entry per child. The child may be 1 month old to 17 years old, but just one per child. Just leave a comment with the name of a flower in your comment. The prize is a SURPRISE! It will be something especially picked out just for the child who wins. This giveaway will run until midnight (EST) on May 7. Good luck! And if you want to give someone some pretty flowers from your yard, go right ahead. It’s a wonderful tradition.

Spring into Summer

During the winter months our thermostat is set at 65 in the daytime and 60 at night. Needless to say, the house doesn’t really warm up much. I’d like to say we do this totally out of our concern to conserve the world’s natural resources. But I must confess that we also like to pay less for that fuel, as well---so we keep things cool. We put sweaters on, one or two if necessary, and the house remains cool---or cold.

This “cold” house makes it difficult to make yeast rolls or bread because of the “rising” factor. So now that spring is here and rolling on into summer, the house is warm. No more igloo clothes and calisthenics to keep warm. It’s time to make bread and rolls to my heart’s content. No problem rising in the sun-kissed window ways.