Coffee Pot Requests

Our coffee pot is so smart. It tell us when we need to clean it by decalcifying. So I followed the instructions in the book/manual and ran vinegar through a cycle. Then two more pots of plain water. The darn thing is still saying, "Clean me."

Giant Sunflowers

These need to be transplanted soon. Into the ground.

Hollyhock

This flower is from 2002. We do not have any hollyhocks here at our house now. I think we should plant some for next year.

Evelyn's 90th Birthday - 1998

This is my mother-in-law, Evelyn, with four of her great grandchildren in May of 1998. Truthfully, I have lost track of how many greats she had! Today is her 107th birthday. She made it to 95 years, 11 months, which is a long life!

Wistful Wednesday

I copied (stole) this idea from another blogger. Thanks Far Side! This was high school graduation, 1949. I don't remember any thoughts from the speakers. I loved school and was looking forward to Hutchinson Junior College, just a few blocks down the street. Lots of classmates went there but of course, many went on to KU or KSU. I just plugged away at Juco (as we lovingly called it - now it's Hutchinson Community College. There is so much demeaning in the word JUNIOR when used in the name of a school!) Then on to KSTC, now Emporia State University because we can't have the word "TEACHER" in the name of a place of higher learning! 

Can you tell I am, like some older people, resistant to change? 

The Lone Rusty Rose

In other years, this poor, little rose bush has had one pale yellow rose tinged with pink. Lovely.

This year it is yellow and brown. Maybe the moon flowers leaves towering over it shaded it from the sun. L. had to pull them back for me so I could get the photo.

The Bamboo is Growin

We had one and three quarters inches of rain on Saturday, the 23rd. Everything is nice and

green. We are thankful we aren't having any flooding here.

The line across the lawn is a path the dogs have worn in going from one area to another.

There are three of these paths, two leading to the back door and this one connects to areas

where they bark at neighbor dogs.

 

Military Folks

Droopy Roses

I think it's the moisture that is making them hang low. This bush was here when we moved here and we don't do anything to it or for it.

Foliage Makes a Difference

These photos are reversed and I have no idea why the process did not go smoothly. Twice I was advised there was no blog to display. Anyway, we took down a vine that was covering our porch, climbing up some wires. It grows along the ground and has made friends with the bricks. We like it much better now.

Cousins and a Car

This car was a pedal car that you could actually drive and steer! I was in heaven at my cousin's house on West 9th. Wayne and Marcheta and I grew up together. I looked up to both of them. Doesn't Marcheta have the sweetest face? Wayne was a handsome guy. I still have big ears and bony knees and the hat is Sooo becoming!  We had a lot of fun.

Temperatures

This little jewel was installed by the power company to help us AUTOMATICALLY control

our environment.

Yesterday it was warm outside so the A/C was set on 73. I was chilly all day.

Today it is cooler  (61) and the furnace is going.

I wish we could find a comfortable temperature we both agree on and set it there year round.

(I have learned not to change it - he tells me to but I decline.)

Peonies

Our plants are really loaded with peonies this year.  They bend over so much that L.

has strung a yellow ski rope around them. It's not visible in this photo which is good.

Iris?

These pretty little blue-violet flowers on tall stems come up every year in a corner of our

yard.

I don't know what they are (my knowledge of flowers is almost nil.) They

remind me of iris.

Mad Women Series - Quilter

This pin was given to me by my cousin, Marcheta. The sewing machine was attached to her arm by the link. I started to put it on a blouse last week and the head snapped off. Gorilla Glue has fastened it to a piece of cardboard so I can save it but not wear it.

It represents how I felt yesterday. I just wanted to take my sewing machine and hop off to some quiet place.

It seems the pesky maple seeds have clogged our gutters in front and it was a world-shaking event here.

Adventure and Road Work

This morning we went to the shopping center five miles southwest of our town. We found orange cones and lots of road work. After our big purchases of giant sunflower seeds and castor bean seeds, we decided to head back to the big city on a dirt road. All went well until we turned to drive a mile to a blacktop. Straight ahead in the center of the road was a road grader. First thought: what am I going to do with this big van? The ditch? Suddenly I saw a driveway to a private home. Besides the drive, there was a circular area and I was able to turn around and did not have to back out onto the road! R. says God was looking out for us. Luck or God, I was very thankful to see that drive.

Dad

With all the time spent on Mother's Day, here is a remembrance of my dad, Dewey Russell Brown. He was born in 1898 on May 11th. He and Mom were married on the same date in 1928 and often Mother's Day was on the same day or near by! It stretched my 50 cents an hour pay from S. H. Kress to cover all the bases at one time. Dad was sensitive about his age. He is sixty-five in this photo from their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary photos and I think he looks very good for that age. He lived to be eighty-three and still looked younger than his years. We found his application for a hunting license in the stock of a rifle and he even fudged about his age when he was twenty-two! That is the only thing that I ever knew about him to be less than honest. He worked for the Kansas Power and Light as a lineman and later a foreman. Called out in all kinds of weather and restoring power is an important job and was the reason that he was classified with some odd number (4-C?) for the draft. He joked he was two young for the first war and too old for the second. He was a great role model because he treated my mother like I wanted to be treated as a wife. When she went back to nursing during the war, he did vacuuming, cleaning and just general helping around the house long before that was a common thing. I miss him.

Mother's Day

This probably has appeared on this blog before. It's a class at Halstead grade school and my mom is in the back row, third from the right with the Buster Brown haircut. This could have been about 1912 - she was born in 1904 and these kids look about eight to me. Miss her every day.

Favorite Photo of Mom

With her two grandsons, 1961.

 

Thirty-fifth Wedding Anniversary Photo

This was the last studio portrait of Mom made for their anniversary, May 11, 1963. I miss her.

The Wright Family

Mom is second from the right on the front row.

Mom as a Baby

A very long dress for a very small baby girl. There must not have been a shortage of white material in

1904. Selma Cadwell Wright.

RN

Selma Wright, graduate of Halstead School of Nursing, Class of 1923, and my mom.

Mom and Me

This was probably taken in September, 1931, when my parents adopted me. Mother's Day is a sad day for the mothers who had to give up their babies. The mothers who were able to adopt and raise those children as their own are to be blessed. They were made happy and they never forget the loss that the birth mother feels. I was told that two years after I was born, my birth mother wanted to try and find me but HER mother told her that would not be right. Not for her or the new mother or the baby. Those words were from the birth grandmother and told to me by that wise woman when we connected and she was in her late nineties. I am thankful to all three women.

Another View

This was taken the same day as yesterday's photo. I can only identify the two guys as doughboys in 1923.

My mom, shown with them, was nineteen years old. This is the same year she graduated from nurse's training in Halstead where Dr. Arthur Hertzler had built a large hospital.

Another Car - This one From 1923

That is my mom and her friend, Connie Amos Carter in 1923. Probably up to no good! She was a fun loving person.

An Old Truck

My Granddad is the balding gentleman on the left. I wish I had asked him what was in that tall load.

I can't imagine that the load was very stable on a bumpy road. After enlarging the photo, I see the word EGGS on the side!

Weeds?

Out in the lava rock are two plants that appear to be weeds. We are letting them thrive in case they put out a blossom. In the background is a small rose bush that hasn't changed one bit since we've been here seven years. It produces one yellow rose with pink edges on each petal. Beautiful. And Jill is just eyeing me with caution.