In Times of Trouble

It will soon be time to turn up the clocks one hour for daylight savings time. What a ridiculous notion, considering that farmers get up before dawn to feed and water their stock and begin work in the fields, plowing and planting. What does the ordinary housewife need with the extra hour of sunlight to do her work? She works from the time she gets up to the time she finally goes to bed or when exhaustion takes over. As the "old saying" goes, "Man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done." How true for most of us women.

Sorry I haven't posted for four months. I need to post at least once a week. So much happens during the week that it slips my mind to post. But, I will try to do better.

Updates on my mother: she has been coughing a lot and recently began coughing up bright, red blood. I took her back to see her pulmonologist, Dr. Puthawala, in Havre de Grace. He wants her to have another cat scan and also a breathing test. After that, he will speak with her about her means of treatment. It may mean a dreaded operation on her left lung. I pray that something can be done to resolve the lung issue for her.

My younger sister, Barbara, has her 69th birthday today. Mother and I will meet with her and two other sisters for a birthday luncheon Saturday. It always makes me very happy to be with my family again. And just to think back a bit, when we were children, we did not particularly want to be together all the time. Kids jealousies and so forth. But now we can't wait to be together for a few hours. So much to talk about. We have a good old-fashioned "hen party." Woe for her husband, Bill, this time because he's coming too, the only man amongst five gabby women. Sorry, Bill, but you asked for it.

The ultimate sadness in our family is that not only is our Mother ill, but Barbara has been diagnosed over a long year of illness and hospital visits and endless testing, to have Lou Gehrig's disease. At first they (the doctors) said she was getting Alsheimerz, then she was having Petit mal seizures. Now they have settled on Lou Gehrig's disease. We all suffer with her because she has been given such a short time to be with us, perhaps six to twelve months. She has come to terms with her diagnosis and says she is at peace in her heart. In fact, she says she can't wait to meet Jesus, face to face. I am happy for her in that instance, but it breaks my heart to know that we are losing her every day, a little at a time. If anyone is reading this, please pray that she does not suffer. Better a quicker, less painful passing than one that lingers and is in terrible pain every moment of the day. We have had our lovely sister 69 years now. In heaven we will have her for eternity.

Some really good news is that I am now a real published author. This past December I published my poetry book, "God's Potpourri of Love." I am so thrilled to see a lot of my poems in print and available to the public. I pray to God to have a boatload of sales this year. I have sold 29 copies of the ones I ordered. I'm not getting rich, but the book is paying for itself in the long run. I pray that God will bless it's sales and also those that buy and read it.

God bless you all out there. Pray for one another, especially in this day and age of no jobs, little income, illness and pain, hunger and sorrow. God has all the answers for us, if only we would go to Him in ernest prayer.

Hello, dear friends.

I hope that you've been ejoying a fun summer, although it has been very hot, near the three digit mark. We have spent a lot of time in the house again this year. We're getting up in age and the extreme heat is over powering some days. Charlie and I still manage to cut grass though. We usually come in afterwards, soaked as if someone trained a hose on us from head to foot.

My flowers really look good this year. The garden? Not so good. It got too hot too fast after the rainy early spring. I did not get the garden tilled so it grew it's best crop...crab grass and ground ivy. It grew as much as 12-14 inches high before it's first cutting. It needs cut again before it gets really high. I may do that later today, after the grass dries.

Does everyone have the wet grass in the morning, or are we the only ones favored with the "after the rain" effect in the morning? It takes until lunch time for it to dry and then it's so hot in the afternoon that we don't want to be out in the heat, but we have no choice. If we cut wet grass, it lies in clumps all over the place, if it can even be blown out of the chute of the lawn mower. Sometimes it clumps up beneath the mower deck and is thick enough to stop the engine from running. We have to get a stick or something and dislodge the wet clumps of grass beneath the mower deck, freeing up the blades again. It usually starts right away and we can get on with the job. But, I'll say it loud and clear...It ain't no fun! That's why we usually wait until afternoon and cut, and we sweat, sweat, sweat! A nice cool shower feels so good afterwards. Then we put our feet up and enjoy a large, cold drink, relaxing on the couch (me) and in the recliner (Charlie). We do nothing else the remainder of the day.

The only thing in the garden this year (besides the grass and weeds) are four cucumber plants that my dear neighbor, Jean, gave me last month. I put a wire cage around them this year because the deer and the groundhogs are night-time marauders. I've had more than my share of their pillaging ways. It's so disheartening to go to the garden for a cucumber or two and find the vines chewed off and the cucumbers gone. I was glad this past winter to help our son-in-law, Tom, drag a couple deer out of the woods after he shot them during hunting season. That was two more I didn't have to fight with over my vegetables. Now, if only I could shoot a groundhog or two while they are in the act of stealing my vegetables. But, when they see or hear me coming, they make a fast bee-line to our shed and duck under the steps and to safety. They are really fast little critters.

Well, no camping this year. Our camper needs some work to be done and so far we haven't had the chance to get to it. I did get up on top and scrub the dirt and grime off the roof. I got it all ready to start caulking the seams around the air conditioner and air vents and it rained just enough, for ten whole minutes, to mess up my plans. We quickly (if that's possible) put the tarps over the camper and tied them down so the rain couldn't get through the seams again. By the time we were finished tieing it down, it had stopped raining. Wouldn't you know? By then it was too wet to get the caulking done. So, we've been stalled again. We're behind, as usual.

Well, friends, take care and enjoy the rest of your summer. School will begin in another week. The house will be quieter for a couple hours and mothers, take my advice and lay down for a nice morning nap. Your hyper little rascals will be home sooner than you think and be bending your ears the rest of the evening until they go to bed. God bless you all.

Evelyn Bonnie