Just a few thoughts from this last weekend and my visit with mom.
I got up there friday morning and spent a wonderful day visiting with mom and working in the yard.
I went over to town later to get mom a few groceries and as I was driving by this copy store, I thought I had better take a picture of it because nobody would believe me if I just told them about it. This was the copy store I would always go to...long before the convenience of home computers and printers. When you had to make copies for school or church, this was the place to go. The thing was, there was never anybody there running the store. You would just go in, use their copy machines and then add up your own bill (2 cents a copy!) and drop your money or a check in the metal box that was marked..."please pay here". Hence the name...Honor Copy.
Just thought it was cool that it was still open after all these years, so I thought I would stop by. It looked just like it did 30 years ago, except the printers were all newer improved models. Same little metal box in the corner asking kindly to "please pay here". It did my heart good and renewed my faith in humanity to see that a place like this can still exist in this crazy world that we live in. Maybe only in Logan.

When I went up to mothers room to get her some clothes, this is how I found her bed. Had to sit down and cry for a minute.
I asked her about her cute bed partner later, and she said he makes her feel a little less lonely.


Mom and I got up early Saturday morning and got her all ready for the day. Then I went up and turned the water in, followed it all the way to mothers to be sure it wasn't being diverted somewhere else. ( She has always had a problem with one of her neighbors that turns the water into her place when it's mothers turn.) Anyway, I got that going down through the back yard and started working in the rock garden. That last hail storm they had up there really beat up her ferns. They were all brown and broken off, so I just trimmed them back to the ground. It looked a lot better. The morning glory and dandilions have really taken over there too. I did the best I could with it.
By this time Kelley and Candice had gotten there. I was so glad that Candice could come spend the day with Grandma. She has a real gift with the way she is with older people. I can see her doing something like that with her career. She is more like Mary where I am more like Martha. She is very content to just sit next to mother and hold her hand and ask her questions about her life and patiently listen to her talk. I am always running around, cooking or cleaning or running here and there...I'm going to try to take a lesson from her, slow things down and try to pay attention to what really matters.
Kelley took over with the irrigation and did a really good job with it. I don't think it had been watered that well for quite some time. He even put aside his spider phobias and crawled back behind the chicken coop to get to the ditch so he could pull out the plug so the water could come through that pipe. That has got to be about the creepiest place in the whole yard. Sooooooo many cobwebs! That place always reminds me of the year that daddy hatched some baby chicks. He had them in this big metal cage that looked like a big cake carrier. He kept them back there behind the chicken coop and would bring them out on the lawn for us kids to look at. I remember him putting a little ball of yellow fluff into my hand and me thinking that was about the coolest thing ever.
We always had chickens ..usually between 7 to 10 of them. It was a part of my childhood and carried on till mom and dad were older. Everyday the old rooster would start crowing at the crack of dawn. Then the chickens would come out of the hen house out into the chicken run. That would mean we could go in and get the eggs. You didn't want to go in there while they were sitting on their nest. They were not nice birds and would peck you if you tried to reach in to get the eggs before they were ready. I loved collecting the eggs! You would reach in there and find the eggs still warm... it was like finding a treasure and was kind of magical every time...even though I did it a million times.
When daddy would get home from his milk route about noon, he would take whatever had been collected that day in the "chicken bucket" and go up to feed the chickens. We all thought the chicken bucket was pretty disgusting and smelly, but the chickens loved the smorgasboard of all of our left overs, and would come running after you when you walked into the chicken run with it. When I was a little girl this used to scare me to death, so I would usually watch from the other side of the fence while they had their lunch. It was always a fun ritual though ...to go feed the chickens with daddy, then when the grandkids came along, it was always the favorite thing to do with grandpa...I can still picture the kids walking up to the chicken coop carrying the chicken bucket with one hand and holding daddys hand with the other.
We all loved the chickens though, (even though mom would complain about the smell when she was having a party or some event there in the yard) and the sound of them clucking and pecking around in there was always kind of comforting to me. It was always really sad when a mink would escape from the mink farm down the road and come after the chickens. We always knew just what was happening when we would hear the chickens squawking and screaming in the middle of the night. We would lay there frozen with fear as we heard daddy fly out of bed and run to his den to get his gun and out the back door to try to save the chickens. We would usually hear the gun go off, then silence. Occsasionally, he would kill the mink, more often, the mink would kill the chickens. That was the worst part...going out the next day, and seeing a few less chickens in the pen and traces of blood where the mink had done it's damage. There would be a feeling of sadness and quiet around the chicken coop, I know it sounds crazy, but it was kind of like the other chickens were mourning the death of their fellow chicken.
I would love to have chickens here. It kind of ties you down though, just like the milk route did all of the years we were growing up. Daddy always had to be there to collect the milk...every day...rain or shine, sick or well, never a day off...ever! I guess that is part of a farmers life. The cows don't stop giving milk cause you are sick or want a vacation, or even because it's Christmas! So that was our life. I don't think he ever missed a day of work. Seriously. The consistancy was very comforting to me though and made me feel safe. I look back now and see how hard daddy worked and the sacrifices he made so we could have the comfortable life we had and live in our own little piece of heaven there in that beautiful yard. I have so many wonderful memories... wouldn't trade my childhood for anything in the world.

About 4:30, the Teina and Lynn showed up. Then Brenda and Dennis, and their family. Alan and Leslie came with Gavin and Kelsie's dog Brutis. Kelsie and Steve showed up later. Kelley had Elijah and and Gavin out there helping him with the irrigation. Pretty soon all the grandkids there wanted to play in the water too. I was sure missing Olivia. This is Lauren and Autumn, Brad and Amy's kids. I couldn't believe their baby was a year old and we hadn't even seen her yet. Now Julie has a new baby too...can't let that time get away without making some visits...my new goal is to make a better effort to stay closer to family and extended family!

Roasting hotdogs in the firepit. Everyone brought great food for our potluck so we had a real nice dinner.

We had a good visit and really enjoyed spending the time together...decided it must be a annual event, only next time we will start earlier in the day so we have more time to do more things!

Sure do love my family!

Gavin enjoying a perfectly cooked marshmallow...he is such a sweet little guy. Him and Kelley are friends for life now after Kelley showed him how to put the irrigation pipe together and told him that next week he was in charge of getting the watering done.