Breakfast at Burger King

Photo by Richard Sacredo on Unsplash

On the way home from a week at our cabin in Knox County OH, we bought our breakfast at the drive-through window at Burger King and then found a spot in the parking lot. My husband was so charmed by our close encounter with a red-winged blackbird that he wrote this story. 

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We paid for our breakfast croissant sandwiches and parked to enjoy them. I put down the car window and started opening my sandwich. A bird is trying to fly into our car! What is happening? I start rolling the window back up. The bird is fluttering, suspended just outside the driver's side window, squawking.  It's a redwing blackbird,  its red (patch) brilliant in the morning light.

We get the message right away. He's earned a bit of my sandwich. I toss it out and it's quickly gone.

Wait. There are more of them. A whole family is on the pavement outside the car door. I toss out another crumb. An apparently young bird shyly pecks at it. Its siblings look on, but do not challenge him. They are taking turns!

Several more crumbs, and it's my turn. I settle to enjoy my croissant sandwich. But there he is again. The brilliant father is perched on my side mirror only inches away, looking me square in the face, squawking--resplendent in the prime of his life. How can I deny him?

These birds seem very orderly and know exactly what they are doing. So if you're heading east from Coshocton on Ohio's Route 36 and are stopping for breakfast at the Burger King, buy a little extra. 

We

Fine Dining on Raccoon

We try to attend this community fundraiser if we happen to be in Danville, OH on the first Monday in February. Bad weather usually keeps us home in Maryland. This year, heavy snow delayed our start by one day.  There was little chance of encountering more snow the day we traveled, but the temperature was bitterly cold. We arrived at our gate at 5 PM, only to find a frozen padlock.  We have several very nice neighbors and one of them stopped by on his way home from the auto shop where he works to help us out. Thank you, Mike!

Temperatures reached the mid-fifties by the day of the dinner, four days later. We went to the dinner with a former neighbor, who used to live in the farmhouse down the road, but has now moved to town. We walked with him through misty rain and darkened streets to the parish hall of St. Luke's Catholic Church, where the dinner is always held.   Thank you, David!

About 500 raccoons are trapped or shot beginning in the fall and frozen at a local meat locker.  The weekend before the dinner they are "dressed" and roasted by volunteers. The dinner is served cafeteria style.  Mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn bread and green beans are piled on each plate as it passes down the line. At the end of the line, you have a choice of either raccoon or ham, and you get to select your own piece of home-made cake.  Raccoon does not "taste like chicken," but it's not that bad, either. My sister-in-law likens it to pot roast. 

There were also three raffles (two fifty-fifties and one for a rifle).  We didn't win. We never do, it seems, but I have no idea what we would have done with the rifle if we had won it.

The Danville High School Jazz Band began the evening's after-dinner entertainment in the high school auditorium, followed by "Chestnut Ridge," a local gospel/bluegrass group. Sorry for the man's cap. I'm a rank amateur at point-and-shoot photography.

As we were leaving, I happened to notice this sign above the trophy case in the hall.  You wouldn't think such a sign would be needed in a close-knit community like Danville, OH, but there it is, a sobering sign of the times. 

Small Town Memorial Day Celebration

We were at our cabin in Knox County, Ohio, the week of Memorial Day, 

so we went to the parade and ceremony in nearby Danville.

Actually, we arrived too late to see most of the parade, but at least I got some pictures of the part of the parade I wanted to see most--the riding club for special needs kids.

PELIA stand for "Positive Equine Learning in Action".

I love it that the horses wore red, white and blue ribbons on their tails.

After parading down Main Street, they passed a bank  and a large pasture before turning right to go into a farm at the edge of town.  All the cows that had been calmly grazing near the bank building turned and dashed like crazy things across the field as if to greet the horses.  

After the parade, a brief ceremony honored the sons and daughters of Danville who had died defending their country. The high school band played "America the Beautiful."

Then a speaker talked about a recently fallen soldier.  Her voice broke. She had the mother come forward and she hugged her.  The words on the T-shirts on the couple in the photo captured the spirit of the day: "Danville: Small Town, Big Heart." 

Easter-Egg Colors

It only seems like it's rained 40 days and 40 nights. The last two weeks have been a succession of grey skies and dripping rain.  The sun was out briefly yesterday, but we had a thunderstorm last night.

Two weeks ago we were at our cabin in Knox County, OH. Half the days were warm and sunny, but the weather turned chilly and rainy toward the end of our week. Sunday, April 24th, the day we drove home, was warm and sunny. We saw a pretty sight on the highway near Berlin, OH--a group of Amish or Mennonite girls and women, all wearing white caps and all riding bikes, wearing dresses the color of Easter eggs--pink, lavender, yellow, robins-egg blue, aqua.

Silly Dilly

Her formal name is Dilberta Chase, but we call her "Dilly." We bought her the day after Labor Day from an Amish farmer. Although the Amish are notorious for running puppy mills, this is no puppy-mill pooch. The farmer had just two mixed-breed farm dogs, a male and female. He said he did not know who Dilly's father was, only that his dog could not be her daddy. She didn't look like him or any of the other puppies. 

"How old is she?" I asked.

"Gee, I dunno. So much goes on around here. I think maybe 4 months," he said.

This farm is where we buy eggs when we're at our cabin in Knox County, OH. When Phil had gone to get eggs on Saturday, he was smitten by a small, brown puppy. He told me about him when he got home, mentioning that he had a larger, white littermate. I said, "I don't really like white dogs."

"Why not?" asked Phil's sister.

"I don't know. I just don't. I don't like white horses or white cats either."

"That's weird," said Phil's sister.

Tuesday morning when we were getting ready to return to MD, Phil said, "I keep thinking about that little brown dog."  We both agreed that now was not the time to get a dog. We have an ailing cat and Phil is looking at knee replacement surgery before Christmas.

"We can stop at the farm on the way home to see if he's still there, " I said.

Up the gravel drive we went. Six horses stood outside the red barn, watching. A pair of Holsteins paid us no mind. The little brown dog ran out to greet us.

"We're kind of thinking we'd like to keep the brown dog," the Amish man said.

"Where's the white dog?" asked Phil.

"Sophie's usually here with Stan," he replied. "I don't know where she is now"

We called. He called. No Sophie. After a few minutes, we decided to leave, when suddenly she appeared. She was cute. Her head was black and she had a black spot above her tail. "I guess it's OK if she's mostly white, " I said. 

The Amish man told us she'd had a "Seven-way shot."

"Oh, did the vet come by?"

"No, I gave it to her myself."

"How much do you want for her?" asked Phil.

"Oh, you can have her."

"How about $20.00?"

"OK."

So "Sophie" was ours. The two of us sat in the backseat, as Phil headed east on Route 62 toward Millersburg. Before long, "Sophie" began going "ack-ack-ack." She vomited up her entire Amish farm- dog breakfast plus something else all over my capris. A bird?  A mouse?  A  vole? This was why she'd briefly gone missing. She'd been scouting for "field greens," but in her case, it wasn't delicate vegetation she wanted. Instead, she'd searched the fields for this delicacy, which was green because it was dead. She vomited again and again. And again. I screamed.  Phil pulled abruptly off the road.  He snapped on a leash and whisked the puppy out of the car. We happened to have  stopped by a bubbling spring. Before we could stop her, she waded right into the water that pooled beneath the spring. 

Using half a roll of paper towels, I mopped vomit off  the quilt, the cooler and the silvery folded-up sunshade. Then I fished a pair of grubby capris out of the "dirty-clothes" bag. I changed into them between two open car doors while milk trucks whizzed by.

As soon as we were on the road again, Sophie settled down for a long nap. We agreed that we couldn't call her Sophie. Close relatives had had a beloved dog named Sophie and she had died.  Our puppy needed a name before her first visit to the vet, which would happen the next day if at all  possible.

Heidi?  No.  
                          Daisy?  No.
                                                  How about Dilly?
                                                  Yes, she looks like a "Dilly."
                                                   Dilly it is.

                                                   She's going to be a wonderful pet.

The Friendly Beasts

We just got back from a wonderful week at our cabin in Ohio. It wasn't as 

"muggy and buggy" as it usually is in July. 

One afternoon, after planting geraniums at the cemetery, we took a side trip on the way home. When we saw some grazing horses, we stopped to take their picture. The "horses" turned out to be friendly and curious donkeys. 

The dirt road got narrower and narrower and steeper and steeper and the ruts got deeper and deeper. Side trips may not be such a great idea if you don't really know the neighborhood. 

Earlier that day, on the way to Mount Vernon to buy the geraniums, I saw a "calico cow". Yes! Its legs and its body just above the legs were black and the rest of it was tan and white. We kept going, thinking we'd take its picture on the way back. By the time we returned, the "cow" (could have been a male calf, I suppose) was nowhere to be seen, of course. 

Phil's sister spent the night, Phil's cousin spent the day on Sunday and a neighbor came for dinner another day. We watched yellow finches at the bird feeder, saw a few deer and spotted "our" blue heron, who hangs out at the creek. Phil scared a baby duck when he crossed the bridge tapping his walking stick. The duckling took off like a rocket, paddling and squawking frantically. Phil then heard a commotion up the creek, as if the members of the duck family were trying to find each other.

I slept out on the screened porch one chilly night. The stars were bright. At dawn, birdsong! Maybe 20 species of birds sang and chirped for an hour or so, and then, as morning came on, the chorus abruptly fell silent. A week at "the farm" shows me how far removed I am from the natural world most of my days.

Do the Amish Celebrate Halloween?

Do the Amish celebrate Halloween? While individual Amish people do not dress up in costumes for Halloween or otherwise celebrate, several groups in Holmes and Knox Counties, Ohio, dress their horses up as cows for Halloween. These horses are on the way to the barn where they will be given apples and carrots to celebrate Halloween. 

Year of the Snake

Yesterday our younger daughter called to say she'd found a "garter" snake in their bedroom. It had come in through an air vent. She e-mailed a picture to help her dad, or someone, identify it. Meanwhile the snake disappeared down the vent again. They were almost happy when he later reappeared in  the bedroom, because they didn't like to imagine him trapped in the vent. Tom captured the little guy and released him in the woods, where they hope he will be happy.  And stay. 

A naturalist we know in Knox County, OH thought he was a juvenile eastern ratsnake. They are notorious for getting into people's homes, she said.

Clarence, the elderly cat who lives full time in the bedroom, ignored the intruder. 

Quirky Cabin

Our cabin in Knox County, OH has a few quirks. This is because we weren't around much during its construction. Things happened. Such as the installation of two totally out-of-reach electrical outlets.

See what I mean?

The cabin was built by an Amish man and his crew. Although the Amish electrician had no electricity in his own house, he made sure we had plenty of outlets in the cabin.  There's even an outlet inside a kitchen cabinet. Now that I can understand. But this? Apparently he took it upon himself to install a couple of spare outlets while the scaffolding was up. When we asked about them, he said, "Well, I thought you'd need them for Christmas lights." Guess it didn't occur to him that the scaffold would be long gone by then. 

About a month ago, my sister and her husband were staying at the cabin. The builder's crew--all Amish, of course-- came back one day to power-wash the exterior. Margaret and Russ were sweeping fireplace ashes into the chute, when part of the lid disappeared down the chute. They called us. We suggested they ask Roman, the foreman, about how to retrieve it.

Russ approached one of the men.  "Is Roman here?"

"Nope."

"Well, can I get in touch with him?"

"Nope."

He turned away. Russ heard him mutter, as if this should have been obvious, "He don't have a cell phone."

Didn't It Rain, Children!

Ohio Haiku

Rainy nights and days

A green corn-forest so dense

Deer can hide in there.

Peggy Sue's

Every time we're in Ohio, we always have to go to Peggy Sue's for pie. Peggy Sue's is a little restaurant on Route 36 in Newcastle, a tiny rural town. There's lots of home-cooked comfort food on the menu, including a reasonably-priced BLT sandwich and the best banana cream pie this side of heaven. If someone presented a piece of Peggy Sue's pie to Saint Peter, he'd take one look at this creamy confection with its mile-high cloud of whipped topping and close the Pearly Gates for lunch. Banana cream isn't the the only pie on the menu, which is posted on the whiteboard in the photo, but it's my forever favorite. On one visit, I held open the door so that a man and his little boy could go in ahead of us. The child ordered the last piece of banana cream pie. I don't even remember what I ordered instead, but I was very disappointed, especially when I noticed that the boy ate only half of his pie. My husband always has cherry, blackberry or apple.  The waitress brings a generous piece, offering to warm it up before serving it with ice cream on the side. They treat you like family at Peggy Sue's.

The decor is "modern diner" set off with mounted deer heads. The deer in the photo keeps company with several others on the opposite wall.  One blustery day in early February, which was the last day of deer season,  we were the only two customers in the place not wearing camouflage. 

Going west on 36 toward Mount Vernon, we pass the Fox Hole, a decrepit-looking BYOB place featuring topless dancers. Although members of a local church once filled the parking lot in an attempt to discourage the goings-on, the entertainment industry may offer some local ladies their only opportunity for employment. I just don't know. 

Further west, a farmer set up a series of large signs four years ago alleging that experts had determined that Obama's birth certificate was a forgery and blasting congress for not  booting the foreigner out of the White House. 

The Silly Goose of Mt. Gilead

So here we were on our way back to the cabin from Marion, OH on two-lane Ohio State Route 95. Rounded a corner outside Mount Gilead, when whoa! What was this?  A Dodge Ram pick-up was stopped just ahead of us. Its caution lights were blinking. Oncoming traffic was stopped as well. A young Amishman  alighted from the passenger side of the pick-up. Flapping a green handkerchief, he tried to herd a large white goose to safety. The silly goose waddled resolutely up the highway, stubbornly hugging the center line. Sometimes it would head briefly to one side of the road or the other. Five minutes passed. Everyone waited patiently. No one honked, not even the goose. Finally, the man managed to shoo it into someone's yard. He climbed back into the truck and we were off. 

We had just come from dinner with my college friend, Mary Jane, and her husband, Byron at the Red Lobster in Marion. This is the third straight year we've met. They're from Lima, OH and our cabin is near Danville, OH, and Marion is in between.

Marion is the birthplace of Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th president of the United States. The first year we got together, we arranged to meet first at the Harding Memorial. The memorial-- a white, marble wedding cake--resembles the Jefferson Memorial, only it seems larger and grander. We wondered about this. Why such a grandiose memorial for such an allegedly mediocre president? Wasn't he supposedly the "worst president ever"?

Another former resident of Marion, John W. Dean--who was involved in a little scandal of his own  known as Watergate--attempted to show in his biography* of Harding that he wasn't that bad. Certainly others have been vying for the dishonor of being the "worst president ever" since Harding's day. Who knows? By the end of the 21st century, historians may well have nominated someone else as  "the worst president ever."

John W. Dean, by the way, is a graduate of the College of Wooster, as are Mary Jane, my husband and I. According to Dean, William E. Chancellor, a racist professor at our beloved alma mater, tried to derail Harding's nomination by circulating a flyer stating that Harding had black ancestry. Although Chancellor's scandal sheet turned up at the 1920  Chicago convention,  it was ignored. This did not stop the Democrats of that day from distributing handbills containing Chancellor's so-called "research" during the campaign.  Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

*John W. Dean, Warren G. Harding (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2004)

The Other Horsey Set

We've just returned from a long weekend at our cabin in Knox County, OH. The weather was mostly cool and drizzly, but the sun peeked out occasionally.

Knox and the neighboring counties of Ashland, Coshocton, Holmes and Wayne are home to many Amish. You often encounter their slow-moving buggies on narrow dirt roads or on paved 2-lane roads, where cars zip past them at 50 mph. Five hitching posts stand outside the Holmes County Courthouse in Millersburg. The sign says "Horses Only."

We saw this lineup of buggies in Berlin, OH, where we always stop at a bulk-food store owned by old-order Mennonites. The buggy without the legally-mandated "slow vehicle" triangle belongs to a member of the conservative Swartzenbruber group.

As part of Appalachia, eastern Knox County has some hills to reckon with. We recently found ourselves creeping up a steep grade behind a buggy carrying the parents and 3 or 4 kids. From what we could see, the horse had extremely slender ankles. It seemed to be struggling. Then, as it neared the crest of the hill, it sped up! Our Knox County neighbor, David, said, "Oh, that's a pacer."

We're from the city. "What's a pacer?"

 David replied, "That means it's not a trotter. It puts down both hooves on one side at the same time."

On Monday, we stopped at the Amish farm where we buy eggs. We saw a half dozen magnificant draft horses on the way up to the house. "Percherons," I said. My husband confirmed it with the egg lady.

My husband was impressed. He later asked, "How did you know that?"  

"You just pick these up things," I said, airily.  I like to read the horse ads in The Vendor, a biweekly newspaper for "plain folk everywhere." Phrases like "a good boys' horse" or "nice horse for taking girls to Singing" intrigue me. I reminded him of the time some other Knox County neighbors, "English" like us,  fell in love with a horse named "Dutch." They had gone to the auction not intending to buy, but soon found themselves bidding against a couple of Amish men for a beautiful Percheron. They won the bid. The minute they got home with their prize, the phone was ringing. It was the Amishmen, offering to board the horse for free in exchange for letting him "stand at stud, " as they say.

After buying our eggs, we went to the Amish bake shop for apple dumplings and a carrot cake. In the adjacent field, a straw-hatted Amishman was stuffing long stalks into a wooden contraption while a horse walked round and round it in a circle. We asked the bake shop girl what they were doing. "Pressing sugar cane, " she said. 

Trip to Knox County

Last weekend my husband and I went to our cabin in Knox County, Ohio. New life was everywhere. The roadsides were resplendent with white and purple dames rockets and the fields were nurseries for newborn kids, foals, and calves. 

We always buy eggs at a certain Amish farm. "I'll have to go over and see what they done," replied the egg lady doubtfully, when we asked for our usual two dozen.  She returned with just one dozen. Sundown was approaching. The hens were getting ready for the Sabbath. 

The sign at the Amish bake shop said the shop would be closed on Thursday, May 17th,  in observance of Ascension Day. 

My husband's cousin, Billy, came down from Cleveland  on Saturday. They discussed their mutual interest in genealogy, speculating on why some of their forebears denied their Polish heritage.  My semi-retired husband recently started piano lessons at the Senior Center in Laurel.  He's serious about daily practice, so he decided to buy an electronic keyboard for the cabin.  He called both the music stores he found in the yellow pages--one in Mansfield, OH and the other in Millersburg, OH--on Sunday. No one answered.  Of course. They take the Sabbath seriously in rural Ohio. He tried the Mansfield store early Monday morning, found out what brands they carried and got directions. About five minutes after he hung up, he received a call from the Millerburg store. Our phone number had apparently been recorded when Phil called on Sunday. Since Millersburg is closer, we went there. While the owner was writing up the sale, Phil mentioned how close we'd come to going to Mansfield. Mr. Young, a very genial guy, smiled and said, "Oh, the Lord looks out for me." 

We had a little "fun with hearing loss" on the way home on Tuesday. Phil said, "So many people have plaster deer in their yards."  I heard this as, "So many people have plastered deer in their cars." What a picture!

April Day Ohio

After Thanksgiving, we spent a few days at our cabin in Ohio. The weather was miserable. Cold, drippy, grey and dreary.  Not the kind of weather that inspires pretty poems, so it seems like a good time to recycle April Day Ohio  from  Free Verse and Worse, one of my two other blogs that I'm closing down to keep things simple. 
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The stubbled fields are brown and bare,
the daffodils wrapped tight.
The cat-tailed pond displays a hundred downy tufts.

A woodpecker wraps on a distant door,
a groundhog ducks through a hole
in the abandoned kennel.
As we come near, the blue heron rises clumsily from her spot
by the stream and wings away over the cornfield.

Near the crest of the pebbled hill,
on the way to town,
we edge round an Amish buggy.
Three deer stop grazing to watch us pass.
A lone turkey crosses the road ahead.

At Reuben's farm,
white sheets tug at the line.
Denim pants and jackets
dance in the wind
with the goats in the field.
We soon reach Reuben's one-room school.
It's noon. He's playing second base.
A black-bonneted girl in an aqua dress
tags the small boy who hoped to steal a base.
A batter in a blue dress thwacks the ball--
a homerun for sure.

At Malabar Farm,
white-painted gourds atop a pole
invite the purple martins to summer there.
A white duck paddles on the pond,
his tail a saucy curve.
The Clydesdales turn away,
but Drifter, the quarter horse,
nuzzles my hand at the fence.
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Whenever we're in Danville, I always pick up a copy of The Vendor at Miller's Hardware and turn immediately to the ads for Amish buggy and draft horses. This time an ad for a "10-year-old Belgian mare" caught my eye. "Well broke single or double," the seller wrote.  Her height was 16.2 hands and her weight approximately 1800 pounds. "Too much horse for me," he added. 

Arrowheads

We may buy us an A-frame

on Jericho Road,

where few that pass by are strangers,

near that little clutch of houses

called Greer, for those who farmed

the land 200 years.

In the bottomland by the Mohican,

the corn shocks stand dry and mute.

They used to hunt here, but they are gone.

We now and then kick up an A-shaped flint.

Sometimes at dusk 

it is easy to think

that the shocks are silent, 

ancient watchers,

but they are gone now

who once walked this land

and took the deer

with bow and arrow.

There once was a man 

who hunted on our posted lands,

and when another came,

his license on his back,

this man complained.

"He seems to think,"

laughed Alice Greer,

"that in Knox County

all the deer are his."

He's a Cribber.

I've already told you about how much I enjoy the horse ads in The Vendor, a biweekly publication for "plain people." Sometimes the ads mention a horse's pedigree. That means nothing to me, but it's fun to see some of the other details:

"A boy's horse."
"Can take girls to singing."
"Women can drive."
"Not for seniors."
"Traffic-safe-and-sound."
"98 percent traffic-safe-and-sound." (!)
"Shies some at large trucks." (! !)
"Up-headed."
"He's a cribber."

At the Amish vegetable stand, we asked Mr. Weaver about two descriptions we didn't understand. One was "up-headed." Every buggy horse we'd ever seen certainly looked "up-headed" to us.  Mr. Weaver replied that an "up-headed" horse has an especially proud  bearing. 

Well, then, what's a "cribber?"  

"Oh," said Mr. Weaver, "you don't want a cribber. That's a horse with bad habits, almost like an addiction to cigarettes. A cribber is a horse that gnaws the wood in his stall." 

Temptation, Bodacious, and Incredible

"Temptation," "Bodacious," and "Incredible" are all varieties of corn.  

The corn stood tall and glossy-green when we were in Ohio the weekend of July 23rd.  Our neighbor, David,  hoped for rain that weekend. When the corn is tasseled, it needs moisture to carry the pollen from the tassel to the strands of silk.  Each strand forms one kernal on an ear of corn. 

There was more than enough rain that sultry weekend. We stopped at an Amish produce stand and bakery. We bought zucchini bars at the bakery and corn, tomatoes, and green beans at the produce stand. Mrs. Weaver told us that the two-color corn we bought that Saturday  was "Temptation," but that "Bodacious" would be available in a few days, and after that, "Incredible." When we went back on Monday (the stand is closed on Sunday),  her husband, Atlee, said that he picks the corn for the day's sales every morning. If any is left at the end of the day, he feeds it to the horses!

I almost howled in dismay, like that dog in "Ultimate Dog Tease" on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw

At the Hen House

The Tree Hugger and I drove to our cabin in Ohio last weekend. Halfway through our nine-hour drive, the temperature hit 103.

No threatening tornadoes during the weekend, as we'd had in June.  Just several end-of-the-world rainstorms. On Saturday afternoon, we stopped at Roman's house. Roman is the Amish man who built our cabin six years ago. A falling branch ripped a hole in the cedar siding last February, cracking the wallboard and knocking a kitchen cabinet askew. After assessing the damage, Roman sent an estimate to the insurance company. The check arrived just before we left for Ohio. We needed to tell him about it, but  he has no phone. So we stopped at his farm.

Roman's family was about to have a cookout to celebrate Gary's birthday. Gary is their "English" neighbor. He, or more often, his answering machine, takes messages for Roman.  Roman also uses Gary's phone for occasional calls. Roman was in the shower. Two small boys, each pushing adult-size mowers, were cutting the grass. One of the girls had just laid a rack on the grill, which was ready for dozens of hamburgers. Esther, Roman's good-natured wife, chided her duaghter gently for placing the rack upside down. Then she said, "Oh, well, I guess we'll just use it like that." 

While Phil was waiting to talk with Roman, I watched ten or eleven red hens strut around in their grassy pen, pecking at bugs. The air was heavy. Three little brown birds flew out of a small opening at the base of the hen house. Could any of these plump dowagers squeeze through that narrow door? What would happen if they panicked and all tried to get in at once? Lightning was flashing in the sky and thunder was muttering in the distance. Suddenly, directly overhead, BOOM!  

One of the larger hens registered a brief look of surprise. She stopped pecking, stood upright, elongating her neck. Her beady eye widened momentarily. The others kept on pecking. There was no hoped-for squawk!, no scramble for the henhouse.  What a disappointment!

Then it was time to go. All eight of Roman and Esther's well-behaved children lined up quietly on the porch, watching us drive away.  We were a few miles down the road when the cloudburst hit. I wonder what the chickens did then. 

A Little Extra Excitement at the 50th Reunion

So we went to my husband's 50th reunion at the College of Wooster, or at least to part of it. The big dinner on Saturday night was supposed to be a formal affair. The Tree Hugger said, "No way."  So we settled on the late-Friday-afternoon patio picnic. We met up with a couple of old classmates and were having a great time at our table in the big, white tent when a woman came up and said, "Please pick up your plates and follow me."

Over 100 members of the class of '61 and their spouses crowded into the basement of the nearby Lowry Center to wait out a tornado warning. The TV weather map showed tornados threatening to touch down here and there north of Wooster. The sky grew black and the wind blew. Buckets of rain fell. We were down there for about an hour, until the danger was past. 

The storm continued after the warning was over. Phil and I headed back to our cabin in Knox County, certain that Ramsey and Violet (two elderly dogs) were in a state of panic. Lightening flashed across the sky all the way. The dogs seemed fine, although they had unmade our bed. 

Phil spent most of the rest of the weekend planting three American chestnut seedlings, which he received from the American Chestnut Foundation. The weather turned from muggy to cool after the storm, which should give the seedlings a good start.

Phil and nephew-in-law, Pat, planting a chestnut tree