You sunburned,
Dirty, smelly,
muddy boys
You grease-stained,
Shit-stained,
Weary-eyed
Farmer boys
You smarty-
Pants,
Laughing,
Silo-climbing,
daring boys
You working-
Til-you-drop,
Til the cows
Come home
And then
Some,
Boys
You John-Deere-
Driving,
Calf-hutch
Cleaning,
Bill-paying,
Heifer-chasing,
Fence-fixing,
Teasing boys
You milking
Men,
Fix-it men,
Fix-her men,
Feed-the-calves
Men
You farmer boys,
You farmer men,
You’re something
Else;
I love you
Farmer guys.
I saw someone using an implement of horticultural torture to gouge out a dandelion from her otherwise pristine lawn the other day, and I winced. Not that I haven’t ripped out weeds from my own lawn and garden: one person’s ugly invader is another’s herbal remedy, but I have always admired these little spots of sunshine amidst spring’s green, green grass. When it comes to the dandelion, I say, “Let it be.”
I didn’t know until recently that dandelions are also the symbols for military children, who are encouraged to bloom where they land, to stay strong, to flourish in sometimes tough conditions. When I discovered this piece of information, I realized in the next instant that all of my five grandchildren are dandelion children-all five have had a parent serving in the military for their entire lives.
At eight years old, our oldest granddaughter has lived in seven different homes in five different states. Her helicopter-pilot father has been deployed to faraway places for two of the eight years she has been on this earth. She and her two younger sisters have had to adapt to new schools, to say good-bye to old friends, and to find new friends. They have also been fortunate to experience new adventures such as reaching Pike’s Peak at a very young age and scampering about Lincoln’s Kentucky birthplace. From Pennsylvania to Kentucky and with lots of places in between, the three little sisters have learned to be strong and flourish.
Our son, who left full-time Army duty last year to come back to the farm, is currently away on a month-long training mission with the National Guard. Our youngest grandchild, an energetic nineteen-month-old, is probably wondering where the big, tall person is who used to carry him, feed him, and cuddle him when he cried. He’s too young to even give voice to his angst. When I asked his three-year-old sister where her Daddy was, she said, “He’s in heaven.” After a shocked second, I responded, “Nope, try again.” “He’s in the Army,” she corrected herself. Right-o, little one, and I know that you don’t even really understand what you are saying. He’s just far, far away, and none of us knows exactly where at the moment, but I can assure you that when he does return home, he will probably feel like he is in heaven.
As I have watched the dandy-lionesses, my daughter and my daughter-in-law, deal with being single parents at times as their husbands have done their military jobs, I have felt incredibly proud of them, as well as sad for them and worried for them as they have coped with holding down the fort, forging onward, doing absolutely everything to ensure that their little dandelions thrive.
Growing up during the Vietnam era, I had little connection to the military life and what it entailed. We were civilians, and war was bad. I never imagined that I would have offspring who would serve in the military. It is still somewhat of a shock to me that I have become a military mom/mother-in-law. You never know, do you?
But there is always something to learn in life, and I have a much better understanding and a deeper appreciation for our military families now, no doubt born of familiarity more than anything. I am beyond proud of my farmer children (and that’s another story that I will share someday), and I am equally tremendously proud of all of my young military relatives.
Life is not always easy, that’s for darn sure: I think that military children understand that as well as anyone does.
And as for dandelions, they have a special place in my heart.
This one is for Hadley, Lily, Finley, Mila, and Tate, with love from Nana/Jenjen
And thank you for reading this.
I’m just going to say this one in pictures because what can you say about daffodils that hasn’t already been said a million times better by William Wordsworth?
If you can believe Wikipedia, William wrote the famous daffodil poem on April 15, 1802, after a walk along the bay with his sister. What could be better?
Here is the poem, if you would like to take a walk amongst the daffodils with William:
https://poets.org/poem/i-wandered-lonely-cloud
Thank you for stopping here awhile.
There are puddles and fountains and falls and rivers of glorious gold sparkling in these Endless Mountains now. Some say that Forsythia can get out of hand and go wild. I agree. Most of the year ours is a raggedy mess, and we have plans to shape it up in a couple of weeks. But for now, I love this golden glorious gift of spring!
Man-oh-man, Mother Nature, you sure played a nasty April Fool’s joke this year here in northeastern Pennsylvania. For this first week of April, we have had nothing but rain, freezing rain, sleet, wind, clouds, snow showers, driving snow, sideways snow, and misery. Ha, ha!
But today winter ended. It was a quintessential blue-sky April Sunday, and we enjoyed it all the more after the crazy weather week we had just endured.
The first Johnny-jump-up showed up today with a smile upon its precious face. It’s here just in time for the solar eclipse tomorrow, and I hope it enjoys the show, with no need for eclipse glasses for this little darlin’.
My words are like
Dandelion parachutes
That float with the wind
When the gold
Has gone.
Hello there.
I have decided that rather than spend the afternoon cleaning the basement, I will start a new project. The seed for this project germinated as I stooped down to take a picture of some crocuses as my dog and I were coming home from our walk.
Here is my plan: I am going to use this not-used-enough blog to document all the flowers as they appear in our lawn and garden this year. If you follow along, I think that you will be amazed at how many flowers show up to at least nod hello, and I am starting today… instead of cleaning the basement. Actually, I am starting two weeks ago. Two weeks and ten years ago, to be precise.
I am going to have to cheat right off the bat, because the first flowers to appear were the snowdrops about two weeks ago, right before a week of horrible weather. I took a picture of those brave little souls, but I can’t find the darn thing on my phone or laptop. Where the heck did it go? So here is a picture that I took in 2014 of the first brave flowers of the season:
Snowdrops grow from tiny bulbs, and they multiply each year, so we have drifts of them here and there at the lower slope of our yard, sometimes amidst snow, sometimes bending in the wind. Sometimes possibly crying? Seeing the first snowdrops always makes my day.
Fast forward to the present. The snowdrops have withered and wilted.
Now the lovely lavender crocuses with their saffron stamens are blooming where I live in the countryside of northeastern Pennsylvania, and if you look closely at the photo, you can see that the edges are a bit weather-beaten. I can relate. But look how gorgeous these little gems are that bloom faithfully each year. They always make me happy.
I did not know the name of this last flower until I happened upon an article about it somewhere. It is a Hellebore, and it takes shelter against our basement wall. It is also called a Lenten Rose because it is likely to bloom around Lent, but sometimes it’s called a Christmas Rose because it also might bloom near Christmas, just not around this cold neck of the woods. These flowers are also extremely toxic, and I just held one up in order to get a better picture, and I’m thinking maybe I should go wash my hands before I die of Hellebore poisoning. Wouldn’t that be a tragic start/ending to my flower-picture project?
Ok, hands washed and still breathing fine, so you can stop worrying about me, if you were.
Anyway, it’s amazing what you can find on the Internet. Here is what the site tesselaar.net.au has to say about Hellebores: “There is a tale of Dionysus, who used his powers to turn the daughters of Argos mad. They roamed naked and hysterical, until Melampus of Plyos made a brew of Hellebore to save them from madness.”
How could you not love Hellebores?
That’s all for today. Well, maybe not.
I’m sitting here in the sunroom next to my Poinsettia that a dear friend gave me for Christmas and my Anthurium that I purchased at Longwood Gardens a couple of years ago. I think that the Poinsettia and Anthurium are jealous. They want their pictures taken. Ok, they are blooming. I’m throwing in a bonus here.
There are some interesting alternative names for the Anthurium, and I’ll leave it at that.
In a world that is a bit of a crappy mess sometimes, flowers never fail to make my day better. Flower power! Maybe that’s another reason to do this project: I hope that these pictures of humble flowers will also brighten your corner of the world.
Thank you for reading this!
One upon a time I was a French teacher.
And I must admit, come the grey days of February, I made the most of Mardi Gras. During the week leading up to Mardi Gras, my students and I, first we talked a bit about masks and thought about the various reasons that they are worn; then the students made fancy masks adorned with sequins and glitter-glue, and we displayed them on the bulletin board; we also watched documentaries about the French and Canadian history and the Cajun culture in Louisiana; and we watched (G-rated) YouTube videos about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. In preparation for the Big Day, I would buy a shit-ton (one of the perks of being retired-you can say shit-ton without worrying about the consequences) of cheap Mardi Gras necklaces, purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.
On Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, I would get up at 4:00 am, make crêpe batter before school, haul it to school along with my electric frying pan, strawberry jam, chocolate sauce, and whip cream, and also fruit and cheese and crackers for those who didn’t eat sweets. The morning bell would ring, and all my classes would “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” We would listen to New Orleans jazz and Zydeco music as I fried crêpes and they munched on crêpes. I felt compelled to justify the fun by also handing out informational packets about Mardi Gras, along with vocabulary lists of associated French words. After the crêpes were made, I would ask questions from the packets and throw a necklace to the person who could answer a question first, making sure that everyone eventually got at least one necklace. All day the smell of crêpes would waft from my room into the hall, and French students would strut around the school bejeweled with purple, green and gold necklaces. Ok, it might have been a little over-the-top, and it might have driven a few other teachers nuts, but oh well, it was great fun and wonderful PR for the French program, and God knows, French teachers need all the PR that they can get.
But now that I am retired, this is one of the days I miss the most from my crazy, hectic career. Mardi Gras was so much fun! It was a golden day.
Today in honor of Mardi Gras, I am wearing my festive lavender and green tee-shirt emblazoned with “Peace, Love, and Mardi Gras!” that my teacher-friend Heather gave to me one year.
But no necklaces, no smiling students, just quiet here on the farm on this cold, grey-sky day.
To be honest, I’m finding things a bit bleak this February with so much turmoil, hatred, and sadness in the world. It worries me.
“Nature’s first green is gold” wrote one of my favorites, Robert Frost.
I was wearing the green and purple this morning, but I went out for a walk with my beloved canine companion. I needed to find the gold midst the grey today.
I found it, of course. It’s always there. The Gold is there. You just have to look for it.
Thank you for reading this!
January 25, 2024
Sometimes
The best way
To get through
The doldrums
Is to slog
Through the fog
With a dog.
Happy trails to you, and thanks for reading.
Greetings from the Arctic Circle, actually Pennsylvania, where I am struggling to get a running start on 2024. I had all my good intentions, and I am chasing them, but there are too many trails off to the side, and I have to go down each one to the point that if I had to say what I’ve accomplished so far this year, I would have to respond, “Er….um….” Yeah.
For example, the one thing that I am going to accomplish this year, as long as I am alive and breathing, is to finish my Storyworth Memoir, the subscription of which my daughter bought for me either in 2021 or 2022. It’s a bit fuzzy how long that I’ve been working on this tome. In fact, the good people at Storyworth stopped asking me questions about my life a long time ago. “Who was your hero growing up?” and many other questions have gone unanswered. Several months ago, well maybe it was last year, come to think, I sent the Storyworth people an email inquiry as to whether they would still publish my book once I finished, since it’s been a long time since I started. “Yes,” they responded, so I might have promised them that I’d get it done by a self-imposed dead-line, a dead-line which has passed me by, I assure you.
The problem is that I get sidetracked very easily. For instance, this afternoon I was going to write about my life in the 80’s and specifically about my foreign-studies abroad experience in Strasbourg, France. I kept an extensive journal about the experience, so I wanted to refresh my memory by reading my journal before I started writing about that period of my life. First, I had to find the journal. That’s the problem. I went up to my attic, a place which I have written about before. Alas, the attic is no more organized, reamed out, tote-a-fied than it was the last time I wrote about it. I did not find my French journal there, but I did find the ivory high heels that I wore for my wedding thirty-five years ago. Possibly I might bring myself to donate them to the Salvation Army. They are still pretty…only worn once. My feet have somewhat flattened out since that bright day, and maybe someone else might want them. Actually, I just found one shoe, so I will have to find the other one up there in that hellscape before I can give them to anyone. My attic=ugh.
But for today the attic was not my objective. So, I reminded myself of my objective and started looking for my journal in the back of my clothes closet, where I have stashed some other journals. (I have kept a journal pretty faithfully since I was a child, sometimes writing every day, sometimes once a month, and I have assorted journals here-there-and-everywhere around the house.) I did not find my journal from France in the back of my closet, but guess what else I found?
I found the Christmas candy that I had stashed there, planning to put it on the dining room table on Christmas morning. I had forgotten it. There it all was hiding out in the back of my closet, and the buttercrunch chocolates were calling my name. I ignored them for a minute because another goal for 2024 that was inspired by a book I just finished, Fat Mom on a Mountain, is to be almost as fit as the author, Kriste O’Brien, was when she reached her goal of summiting Half Dome in Yosemite National Park after months of preparation.
By this point of my own quest, I was feeling weak in body and spirit. Recently I’ve also been listening to Jason Seib’s podcasts about how you should embrace your discomfort and ignore the comfort zone of procrastination and eating chocolates in order to become one of the very few (5%) of the self-disciplined souls who conquer the bullies in their head and take freezing ice baths, run ultramarathons and write their Storyworth memoirs in the allotted timeframe. After about a minute of weakly mind-wrestling the bully within, the chocolates(s) won out, I’m afraid. I had one (ok several) and they were delicious.
Here is what I would like to tell you now: that as I’ve been writing this essay, I glanced up at my bookshelves across the room and discovered my French journal there, sandwiched between an old Methodist Hymnal (I did not steal it; they were giving them away) and The Official U.S. Army Survival Handbook. I did walk over to the bookshelves, but unfortunately, I did not discover the journal that I kept while I was a student in France. What I did find was a little, old, brown, 5-year diary with a clasp but no key. Thankfully it was unlocked. My very first diary. Of course, I had to start reading it. “Jan 1, 1972- Today Daddy suddenly had a spurt of energy and before I knew it, I was helping clean out Mommy and Daddy’s room.”
And now the afternoon has disappeared like a startled chickadee, and I have things to do before I sleep, so I will leave you, dear reader, until the next time when I hope that I will be able to tell you that I found my journal that I wrote as a Penn State student when I was far, far from home, that I captured some insights into my young-adult mind and finished writing about the decade of the 80’s, and that I have pushed onward towards my goal of finishing my memoir during this year, 2024.
I just hope I don’t keep getting side-tracked.
Thank you for reading this, and Peace to you in 2024!
Dandelion Parachutes 