End of the Summer Musings

I have been neglecting my blog the last few months, except for writing about convention, so thought I would do some catching up for August and the first part of September!

August, of course, is my favorite month of the year because of conventions. We went full-time to Freedom and Newry. The memory of those days is so special to me. At Freedom, I felt like I was coming down with a cold, and was a little feverish and had chills on Thursday, but I never did come down with anything! We ended up sitting in the back with Leigh, Jill, and the kiddoes, which was rather nice. I prefer sitting up front, but when I didn't feel too great, I didn't want to be conspicuous!

The 5th of August, which was Wednesday before Freedom began, would have been my mother's 100th birthday! She died at age 86. She was 43 when I was born, and often people thought she was my grandmother! She was a good mother and tried to teach me many things, including how to be nice and not say outrageous things! The most important memories are her example in reading her Bible and writing letters. I always thought she had beautiful penmanship. From her I learned to love to bake. She let me mess up the kitchen to bake things and would clean up after me. Cleaning up for me was a mistake, and she should have taught me to clean up after myself! Sometimes I wish I had been a better daughter to her.

When we got home from Freedom convention, I went to check the garden, and there was no longer any question in my mind that my beautiful tomato plants were afflicted with the virus. It eventually spread to all of them. The potato plants seemed to die off earlier, too, and the sunflowers that grew tall are now hanging their heads. The garden that I planted that grew and thrived through June and July has ended in disappointment and without much in the line of harvest. We have potatoes yet to dig, which I think are all right. We had enough zucchini to get sick of it, and we have lots of green peppers, too. I haven't heard the "ping" of a canning jar this summer!

On the Sunday before Newry convention, we had a hymnsing here. Four workers came from Newry, Delmar Stockwell, Audrey Fuller, Gordon Eady, and Martin Cobb. We had a wonderful evening with about 30 people or so.

Between conventions, I mixed up cookie dough and put it in the freezer. On Monday and Tuesday before Newry, I baked cookies big-time and enjoyed every minute of it! Ken and Ross were both off all that week, and Ken had said he would help me, but he had lawn mower trouble and ended up going to Frogtown for that. So he pretty much stayed out of my hair! Ross helped a little bit one afternoon, but he was busy getting ready for his move to State College. I do love to bake cookies, although I don't think I have baked any since!!

After conventions were over, my first few day seemed rather strange! Ross had his first day of classes on Monday, so of course, he was gone, and we were adjusting to the empty nest again. With the garden being a disappointment, there was little to do there. So, what was I supposed to do with myself? I finally decided to start on a quilt which is a gift. It seemed strange to be doing that in August!!

Ken's mother, Martha, turned 95 on Saturday, August 29. Wow! On Sunday afternoon we had an open house here for her with cake and ice cream. I think we had about 30 folks in.

Over Labor Day weekend, we went to Roy and DeAnn's. We left on Saturday morning. DeAnn and I went shopping at the Hershey outlets and Ken and Roy went to a tractor show. Sunday we went to meeting at Dick Clites' and stayed for potluck and the afternoon. Since we were on our way home, we actually stayed until about 6 o'clock. Dick made hand-cranked ice-cream for us! His son Ron and Steph and their family were there, and Sue and Mark and their family. It was nice to get better acquainted with them. It was special to go visit Sally's grave, which is on their property. It will soon be a year since she died of cancer.

Labor Day Monday dawned a very gray day! The folks who take care of the picnic at Cook Forest went and got a pavilion, and it was a good thing because it rained just about the whole time we were there! But we had a nice time anyways. Lots of good food and company! Some new ones this year were Dave and Mary Bolt from Newry, and their daughters Heather and Anna, and Marie Boring and her daughter Amber, and Earle, David, and Jennifer Walker.

Tuesday night began my tax course at H&R Block. Gene Patterson is the teacher and there are seven of us students. Six are women and one is a man. We have a very thick textbook/workbook. It seems a little overwhelming to me at this point, but I am sure it will come together better as I go on.

Today Anna and I went to a baby shower in Johnsonburg for Carrie Lindberg Marcheski. She got a lot on lovely baby things! Since they have chosen not to know whether it is a boy or a girl, a lot of it was green and yellow.

Yikes! That brings me up to the present! I wonder if I forgot anything? No pictures, sorry. I need to get something that puts up pictures easier than what I have.

Ah, Convention!

Ah, convention. How do I put into words what convention is? The English language is hopelessly inadequate to describe it because convenion is a spiritual experience. It is a feast of spiritual things. We usually go to two conventions, and those eight days are the very best ones of the year for us!

In my mind, convention has three parts, all of which are very special to me. They are: anticipation of it, the reality of the four days of being there, and the afterglow, which is the memory of it.

Anticipation--convention is hardly over until we are anticipating the next one we can go to, if we live! Since our conventions are in August is this part of the world, the month of February marks the half-way point for me, and the thought of convention brings a wonderful, warm feeling to my heart when the snow is blowing around and it is very cold!

The physical preparations of the convention place begin about a month ahead of time, in anticipation of 500 people being able to come and stay for four days. As it gets closer to the time, things come together nicely with the efforts of lots of willing people! I took this picture on the Saturday before convention of the meeting shed. We put our green cushions on the seats approximately in the center of the picture. And there we sat, listening, as the workers read from the Bible, and explained it, "gave the sense" of it, as we read in Nehemiah.





So, the anticipation is finally past and we arrive for the four days of convention. We made it! And there are many, many smiling faces as we greet one another!


These are the workers who brought us so much from the Bible. Some are our local Pennsylvania workers, some from NY state, some from Ontario, one from New Zealand, one from Minnesota, two from California, and other places!








So, the meetings begin on Thursday morning at 10 o'clock. There are morning, afternoon, and evening meetings for the next three days. On Sunday we have only two meetings and many people travel home afterwards. The meetings include beautiful singing (everybody sings together), a time for open prayer and a time for open testimony, plus three workers will speak a message from the Bible that has been laid upon their hearts.

In between meetings, we have a meal, some visiting, a nap if we wish, and on to the next meeting!

But what is it like to our souls? I have pictured it like this, and forgive my sense of humor about it. It's a little like a huge, warehouse grocery store. The store is like the Bible. We have a grocery cart, and God is filling the cart for us. He takes something on the shelf and says, "You need this" and puts it in our cart. And on and on we go. The cart that we started out with was empty, but it quickly fills up with the things that are going to be very important to us in the future. After four days of listening as intently as is humanly possible, we push our heavily loaded carts toward to check-out. We would like to stay in this storehouse forever because the atmosphere is so wonderful, but must go home and examine all these things that were placed in our cart, and use them in our everyday living.

Now we have reached the memory of it, which I like to call the afterglow. As we spend time with our Bibles and the notes that we took, God brings these things back into our hearts and minds. We look up the places in the Bible, and that makes us think of other places, and we turn and find new pasture there, too! The impressions made on my heart at convention are a source of strength to me for a long time to come, and even the memory of being there cheers my heart! Nothing else in my life that I have ever experienced has included a blessing in the memory of it like convention has.

Ah, convention! If you happen to be reading my blog and have never experienced it, or haven't experienced it for many years, I would invite you to come and see what it is all about!

Jill Turns Thirty!

Jill's 30th birthday was last week on July 14. I should have a more portrait-type picture of her, but nevertheless here she is and here is my story!

My pregnancy with Jill was rather nerve-wracking. The previous August I had had a 2-1/2 month miscarriage. The doctor told us there was no reason that we could not have more children, and to wait a month or two and try again.

During my pregancy with her, we had two concerns: 1. that I would miscarry again and 2. that we would not make it to the hospital once I went into labor. My labor with Todd, who was four years old, had been less that two hours of contractions, and he was breech! We made it through the months all right, and as I approached my due date (I think it was July 24th) we began to carry a suitcase with us wherever we went, and also some emergency supplies!

It was a hot summer. We had gotten Todd a wading pool for his fourth birthday in June, and I stuck my feet in it often to cool off. I remember eating LOTS of watermelon, too!

A night or two before her birth, we were shopping at the mall, and I found some white eyelet fabric, and I showed it to Ken. "If we have a girl, I want a yard of this fabric!"

I went into labor on Friday evening, the 13th, and we went to the hospital, probably before midnight, but it didn't happen fast like we thought it would! I think it was about 4:46 AM that she was born, weighing 6 lbs. 15 oz. This was my first delivery to be awake, although Ken was outside the delivery room and not with me. They told me I had a girl, and plopped her on my tummy to admire, and I can remember saying, over and over, "We have a girl!" When I reached out to touch her forehead, it was a wonderful, velvety feeling to me. Thiry years later, I can remember it, even if I cannot describe it very well! I was still on the delivery table and thinking about little white tights and black patent leather shoes!

When I said, "Tell my husband!" they said you can tell him yourself, and wheeled me out of the delivery room, and there he stood. "We had a girl!" I shouted, or it seemed to me that I shouted, and then realized I was in a hospital where others were probably trying to get some sleep!

I enjoyed having a private room afterwards, because there were not semi-privates available. I was not back in my room very long until Ken and I began making plans to go to Quakertown for convention. He had a scheduled plant shut-down at that time, and we had hoped that if our baby was born early like others had been born, we could probably go. My mom and Aunt Bertha came to see us that day. Ken went down to Murphy's Mart and brought me back a yard of that white eyelet material!

So, we began life with a little baby girl. Roy was six and Todd was four. Jill was 3 1/2 weeks old when we went to Quakertown. We had hot sunshine the first day of convention and rain for the next three, but Jill fared just fine. Two weeks later we went to Newry, and I remember Leah Bolt telling me, "Alma, I can tell that your baby has grown since Quakertown!" We were so very proud of her.

Some months later I got the little white eyelet dress made for her, too!

And now, thirty years have past, and Jill has three children of her own!

I am back!

Wow, I haven't blogged for a while! Last week I put the garden pictures on facebook. It takes sooooooo looooooong to put the pictures here. I wish I knew how to do them easier and more efficiently.

So, it is time for an update on life around Beechwoods! The garden is growing wonderfully well, and we have had the first few zucchini. Soon they will be a bumper crop! I nearly have the whole garden covered with grass clippings now, and those rows that looked so far apart seem to be getting closer! I am glad I have room so that I do not have to crowd my stuff.

We had Heidi, Kirsten, and Shane for the week preceeding the 4th of July. We had lots of fun, and did some cooking and baking together, and toward the end of the week, we made the girls jumpers and t-shirt tops. They each helped on theirs and we had a great time in the sewing room! They were justifiable proud of the finished project!

Another memorable thing we did on Sunday, July 5, was to ride bikes on Rails-to-Trails in Brockway. We went with Teresa and her girls and my brother Glenn. Some went two miles in and two miles back, including four-year old Shane on his little bike--wow, could that kid pedal! Heidi, Hannah, Leigh, Teresa, Lily, Glenn and I kept going to the swinging bridge. When we got back out, my bike speedometer was at over 12 miles! Fortunately it is pretty much flat--otherwise this ole granny would never be able to pedal that far!

Todd and I convinced Ken to get a bicycle. He was concerned about biking because on his old bike, his hands went to sleep. He got on comfort bike, a Giant Sedona, the same model as mine. Last weekend we took two rides together and it was great! Biking is such great exercise, and it makes me smile!

Life has proceeded through July. I have been focusing on trying to get some sewing done this week and it has been fun. My new sewing room works very well. With three windows in the room, the natural light is wonderful, and I can thread my sewing machines without my glasses most of the time! I have four new skirts and two new tops so far.

We are enjoying our new downstairs bedroom. For a while it felt like a motel room! It has so much space and is close to our two bathrooms--no more nocturnal trips down the steps for me in the middle of the night anymore! We are pleased with our furniture, and haven't really filled up all the drawers yet! We have a table, about 30 inches square which I have set in front of the windows and it makes a great place for the laptop. Last week we moved a wooden rocker from the living room back to a spot beside the table. It seems like we end up spending time in this bedroom. I used to say we didn't "live" in our bedrooms--they were upstairs and on the small side, so we never spent extra time there, but this one is different. We used to always close the door on this room on Sunday morning, but now I am pleased to keep the room tidy enough that I am not ashamed to keep the door open!

We are looking forward to our conventions next month. Three weeks from now we hope to be at Freedom and another two weeks after that will be Newry. Tomorrow we go to workday at Newry.

Thursday's garden pictures

Well, it has been a busy time lately. I took some garden pictures last Friday but did not publish or blog about them. Once again the weather was dismal and cloudy. My sister Lois had arrived on Thursday and Friday at four thiry in the afternoon, Sheila became Mrs. Andrew Wyatt! This photo of the two of them is my favorite of all the wedding pictures I took.

The canopy was situated on a courtyard next to the Allegheny River in the picturesque town of Foxburg, PA. The sun came out in the middle of the afternoon and it was perfect for the outdoor wedding.

Lois left on Tuesday this week. Tomorrow Peggy and Marie are coming for the weekend and on Sunday we are meeting Leigh and Jill to bring Heidi, Kirsten, and Shane here for a week. Methinks I had better keep my running shoes on!

And now for my garden pictures. It was so sunshiney this morning I decided to take my pictures a day early.

My impatience do well by the door going into the back of the garage. It gets shade there most of the day. Looks like I should get a new pot for next year, though!

This is a hollyhock that I planted last year. It has flower buds on it and I can hardly wait til they come out! Hollyhocks are an old-fashioned flower. I think they are biannuals.

My row of sunflowers in the right picture are looking toward the sun as usual!

The second row of potatoes that I planted in the garden near the house were big enough to hill this week.

A close-up of one of my tomato plants, thoroughly mulched with grass clippings.

Below is a picture of my tomato patch. It is time to get the stakes in and start tying them up.

The first row of potatoes that I planted is still growing vigorously and I have hilled them several times. There are blossoms coming on them as well as on my tomato plants.

Ah, zucchini squash. I planted some seed inside in little pellets to get a head start on the season, and this is one of them. We love it stir-fried with peppers and onions and cheese. And zucchini bread, and z-bars. We can hardly wait!

So far, I am almost keeping up with the garden. It usually gets ahead of me come August, but I really do love June in the garden!

Oops, I just realized that a couple of pictures that I was downloading are missing. I do them three at a time, and it is rather tedious. One was of my potato patch in my outer garden, which is doing well. The other was a close-up of a potato plant that showed the blossoms. If there was a third one, I cannot remember it! I sure wish it was as easy to do pictures here as it is on facebook...

Next week my garden pictures will have grandchildren in them hopefully!

Todd Turns 34!

Yik

es! Our kids are getting to the age where I have to stop and figure out how old they really are! All our children were born in odd-number years, so once they all have their birthdays, they are either all odd or all even numbers. This is an even year.

Here sits Todd with the birthday cake his wife, Sue, (in the background) made with the help of their six-year old Laura. They also have another daughter, Abby, who is 2 1/2, and are expecting a boy on August 3.

But long before Todd was a husband and father he was our second baby. We had wanted our first two children two years apart, and our first son, Roy, was 2 years and 2 1/2 months old when Todd was born June 13, 1975. I have a picture in my mind of Roy sitting outside the back door on the old well, and thinking how lonely he looked, sitting there all by himself. It made me glad we were having another baby! And, of course, in those days, we did not know if it was a boy or a girl.

Like my other pregnancies, I did not have morning sickness. But my pregnancy with Todd was a little different in that I seemed to have so many of the Braxton-Hicks contractions. They seemed to exhaust me in the last months. I also gained all my weight in the first 6 months, and none in the last two--Todd was born about a month early. He was due on July 9, but was born June 13. There were no routine sonograms done then, either, to determine if we had goofed a month on the due date. I don't think we did. We had taken some Lamaze childbirth classes, too, in preparation for our second childbirth experience.

Thursday night, June 12, I had worked out in the garden, crawling around on my hands and knees, pulling weeds or whatever. About 10:40 that night, I got up from a chair in the kitchen and whoosh! My water had broken with a big splash! I called the doctor and talked to his nurse, and she said I would probably go into labor within 48 hours. I told her I had been planning to wash my hair and get a bath, and she said, "Honey, get a shower, but I wouldn't wash my hair!" So, that's what I did. About 11:30, when I was getting ready for bed, I noticed a slight contraction, and then I had some bloody show, too. This time when we called the dr. the nurse told us to go to the hospital. We called Martha to come stay with Roy, who was in bed sleeping and didn't know anything about what was going on!

I remember telling Ken, "Our baby will be born on Friday the 13th! I am going back to bed!!" As if that would have made any difference....

Off we went to the hospital. The contractions were getting stronger. Walking into the hospital, I had to stop during a contraction because I felt such pressure in my bowels! Ken said, "It must be close, because we learned at those classes that that is something that happens near delivery! How right he was! When the nurse examined me in the labor room, they called the doctor to come from Brockway for the delivery (about 10 miles). We probably got to the hospital between 12:30 and 1:00 AM. When Dr. Devlin arrived, I was in the delivery room, and he explained to me that my baby was in the breech position and he would have to put me to sleep to deliver the baby. He knew that I had taken classes and wanted to be awake for the delivery. At that point, all I could say was "How soon?" I welcomed going off into oblivion for a while!

Todd Franklyn Grady was born at 1:34 AM on Friday, June 13. I had had less than 2 hours of labor contractions. He weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was the biggest of all four of our babies. He is still the biggest! Ken had chosen Roy's first name, so I chose Todd's first name. I had always liked the name, and I think it had some connection with Abraham Lincoln's sons?? Not sure about that one. His middle name came from Frank Porter, a worker who had been in our part when I was in grade school. I was very fond of him, and the y in the spelling is also the way his name was spelled.

So we had a second boy. His first day of life was rather miserable for him, because he did not like to be moved and would cry in a high-pitched screech when I unbundled him to count his toes, etc.! He was battered up from the delivery. When the doctor visited later in the morning, he said that if Todd had been head first, he didn't think he would have made it to the hospital for the delivery, and maybe I would not have either!

We began life with our two little boys. Todd grew and gained weight like crazy on an exclusive breast-milk diet for the first four months. I ate like crazy, but still got down to about 135 or so very easily.

Todd is the tallest of our children. I say he must have grabbed all the tall genes off both sides of the family tree, because neither of our families have any exceptionally tall people in them. Todd's namesake, Frank Porter, is 6'4", so maybe he was taking after him!! When Todd was still 12, he grew into size 12 shoes.

Yes, indeed, all our children are very special and unique, and I love to write about them and remember all these things!

Friday's Gardens, Week 3

Friday's garden, week three was another dismal day, weather-wise, but I took pictures this morning anyways. The garden has really changed a lot since last Friday. Tuesday night, Ken mowed the grass and gave me lots of grass clippings to use as mulch in the garden! More pictures on that later. Ross took this picture of me, and calls it "Mom watching her garden grow"! In reality, this was Tuesday night, and I was resting and waiting for more grass clippings. But, I really do spend a fair amount of time watching my garden grow! And now, for my Friday morning pictures:

The porch boxes are starting to show lots of color.

Tuesday night's mulching around my tomato plants is already getting brown. If weeds dare make an appearance through two or three inches of grass clippings, they are easy to spot and pull out.

The potatoes are growing vigorously. I really enjoy hilling potatoes. And the neat thing about growing potatoes is that to harvest them, you just dig them and put them in the cellar! No hot afternoons filling hot glass jars are involved! And store potatoes are such a disappointment after growing our own.

Lots of mulch around this tomato plant, too. I have a few volunteer potato plants coming up in my tomato patch. I will let some of them grow and dig them for "new" potatoes.

This is my experiment with the sunflower and moonflower growing together. I think I have about three moonflowers coming up that I am hoping will grown on the sunflowers.

Oops! I loaded that one twice! No wonder it took me all afternoon to load these pictures!

Our rhubarb patch is soon going to seed and weed. I made several pies a few weeks ago, and Ross picked enough yesterday to make a couple of pies to take to Ohio with him. He is going out to spend the weekend with the Wyatt's, and help Andrew enjoy his last days of bachelorhood before next Friday's wedding.

Yes, Ross has some pie-baking experience! It's just another one of the ways he reminds me of my brother Ben.

Not real impressive yet, but it is coming!

This is a zuchini plant surrounded by mulch. Plants seem to take a growth spurt right after you put grass clippings around them.

Ken's mother bought me this sign several years back--"This garden is hopping!" I think she was impressed with the size of the tomato plants the year before.

My "kitchen window" view

The flowers around the back door are starting to look nice, too. Ross pressure washed and stained the deck for us last week.

These petunia and red salvia are thriving in a leaky canner out by the double doors of Ken's shop.

Flashback to Tuesday night: Ken is coming to unload some clippings.

I heaped them up!

A more distant view of the garden Tuesday night...

Lots and lots of grass clippings! I will never forget seeing Bob Harper's garden is Cheswick about 15 or 20 years ago. It was thick with grass clipping, and starting to compost. His tomato plants were beautiful, and so were the tomatoes! It was September, I believe, so there were lots of ripe ones. Forever after, I wanted a garden like his. And while my garden tends to get ahead of me in August and September, I really enjoy June in the garden. I think it must be the nurturing instinct in me. I like to watch those little plants grow!

Ah, well on its way to becoming one of my prized tomato plants!

Perhaps I will take some pictures on a sunshiney day and post them, even if it isn't Friday!