A Season of Sorrow

I have been intending to write this post for some time now.  I want to capture for our collective memories the events and emotions of the past year for all of us here in Fernnook.

It was just about a year ago that we began to be worried about Uncle Jim.  He wasn't right.  He wasn't himself.  But, we were not sure what was going on with him or what to do about it.  As winter melted into spring, he became more and more erratic in his behavior and less and less stable in his ability to walk.  We began to take him meals, to get involved in getting him to his doctors, and to check on him multiple times a day.  

Then Aunt Jenny fell and broke her wrist.  That entailed a middle of the night trip to the ER for my cousins, an operation, and a hospital stay that was very traumatic for her and for her family.

So, the family was stretched...some caring for Jim and some for Jenny.  A couple of days after Jenny was released from the hospital, I saw an ambulance going down the gravel around midnight.  Cousin Sandy was staying with Stacy at Jenny's home helping to care for her.  I was sure the ambulance was for Jim, and called Cousin Kenny.  It wasn't.  He told me that it wasn't for Jim, it was for Jenny, and it didn't look good.  I was so grateful that Sandy was with Stacy when her mother died.

The next morning we decided that things had gone too far with Jim and we took him to the ER.  We were pretty sure he had lung cancer, but didn't know what was affecting his thinking and walking so severely.  Well we found out.  The lung cancer had spread to his brain and he had a tumor.  He was in a hospital in St. Louis recovering from brain surgery while we were at Jenny's funeral.

We fought so hard to get him treatment in time.  We all fought so hard for him.  But it was not in God's providence.  Two weeks of severe nosebleeds, two nose surgeries, and a stroke caused by one of the surgeries put off treatment for too long.  

We all came to the end of the summer tired, sad, and numb.  

For me personally, and for Kent, this was on top of a previous year which had us facing the deaths of Kent's father, Opa, and three very close church friends.  So, emotionally, when Jim died, it seemed our cup of sorrow was full to the brim.

In December, though, a series of events began that made us all feel like we were punching bags.  First, Andrew (our grandson who has CF) was hospitalized.  We were thankful to the Lord that what looked like a possible two week stay was cut down to four days, and he did get to be home for his family to celebrate Christmas a few days after the holiday itself.

Then, we were all heartbroken when Hattie, who was 12 weeks pregnant, miscarried two days before Christmas.  She and Ethan grieved deeply, as did we, over their loss.

Two days after Christmas, Uncle Ken (visiting his daughter Kelly in Houston) had a heart attack while he and Kenny were traveling home to Fernnook.  It happened in Tyler, TX, and he spent the next 38 days in the hospital in Tyler.  He responded well to a pace maker, but developed pneumonia, a UTI, a prostate infection, esophagitis, and ended up with a PEG feeding tube.  He was unable to swallow and lost the strength in his legs, and so was unable to walk.

Meanwhile, back in Fernnook, Papa (my dad) got a partially blocked lower intestine and was hospitalized for a week.  Then he also developed pneumonia.

One night, a few weeks later, Cousin Stacy called me at 3 am to see if I could come get her daughter Lizzie, because her other daughter, Emily, was unconscious after having a seizure.  Emily had seizures from bleeding on the brain 5 years ago, but she has been doing really well for several years.  That entailed a trip to the ER and a transfer up to Barnes.  Thankfully, there was no new bleeding and they believe it was a UTI that caused the episode with her.

Then I got a call from my Uncle David's caretaker.  She told me that they were putting David on hospice.  I have only seen him a few times in my life, but he is a dear, gentle soul, and this has been very sad for me.

Meanwhile, my brother Mike had a blood vessel growing toward his pupil that was affecting his eyesight and if left untreated could cause him to lose his sight in that eye.  So, he had a painful eye operation.

All this happened while Ken was still in the hospital in TX.  Just a week and a half ago, Ken took a rough ambulance ride to Van Buren to a rehab place there, but was immediately transferred to a different ambulance and taken to the hospital in Poplar Bluff.  They kept him for a week to get his heart rate back under control, then moved him to a rehab facility in the Bluff.  That was a disaster, and Kenny pulled him out yesterday and brought him home.

He is beginning to eat again, and, we pray, will be able to regain strength in his legs soon.  

If we have seemed distant or distracted or difficult to be with, forgive us.  We don't doubt the Lord's care for us, but it has been a long, rough season of sorrow for all of us here in Fernnook.

Season Mash Up

A few weeks ago Andrew was at Children's Hospital and the other
kids stayed with us.  The morning were a leeetle bit cool, not much,
but enough for the kids to rummage through my coat closet for scarves,
gloves, and hats.  But, underneath all of those cold weather paraphernalia,
they had on shorts and short sleeve shirts.  It got me to thinking about
seasonal mashups.

Of course, when the cold air moves in to where it is warm, or, when warm
air moves into where it is cold, it creates unsettledness in the atmosphere,
and storms and wild weather can be the result of the warm/cool mashup.

But there are plenty of other mashups as well.  For instance, baseball and
football.  Sometimes my poor dad and uncle are all nervousy just thinking
about which they should watch this time of year...football or baseball.  That
is especially true if the baseball Cardinals are in the playoffs as they are
this year.

But nature has its own mashups.  On the same day in early fall I can see
a late summer hummingbird at my feeder and an autumn glow-worm.  The last
hummer I saw this year was October 6th and just about that same time my
spider lilies popped up.  The lilies are a sure sign that it is autumn.  They are
like fall surprise lilies, because they do not even show their stems until
October and then they just shoot up, almost overnight and quickly blossom.

I love that summer has a toe hold yet and brings warm afternoons to top
off a chilly morning.  This is a mashup that could last for weeks, and I
would not complain.

True Confession:  I love mushrooming, but in all the years I have done
so, I have never, until today, found a morel.

Thank you to Tyler for organizing a morel hunting trip in his morel sweet
spot!  The kids loved it too, but I must admit, I think they loved playing
in the nearby creek even more.

Here is Peter with two of the delicious morsels.

And, here is Adeline with the catch of the day.  Now to clean and cook
them.

It reminds me of a story G'ma Opal once told me.  She had gone down
Over the Hill to the creek to fish.  While she was climbing back up the
hill with her stringer of fish, she tripped and fell flat on the ground.  As
she lay there for a second, she glanced in front of her and she had
landed right by a group of morels.  She was thrilled!  She collected those
babies and took them home to eat with her fish.

Today was a delicious, warm, windy, sunshiny, woodsy, morely day!

The leaves lay swirled
On the ground
Beneath the sweetgum tree,
Like a carelessly dropped
Spanish shawl

Seasons

"Wyrd is mightiest, winter is coldest,
Spring is frostiest, longest cold;
Summer is sunniest, sun is hottest,
Autumn most glorious giving to man
The fruits of the year that God brings forth."

From: Cotton MS. Maxims
which is contained in--
an anthology of Old English Poety
translated by Charles W. Kennedy

Signs of Spring keep popping out. On Sunday we saw our first
turtle of the season crossing the road.

Our first Clematis bloomed.















Hattie took some pictures at G'ma Opal's house yesterday. Here
are my two favorite.

Did I mention clematis and hoot owls?





























Turkey Season started this week. The practical implications
of this at our house are one boy (man) who gets up at 4:00 am
every morning to sneak out of the house and go hunting. He
was going to get up at 3:00 am to cook sausage and biscuits
for breakfast, but I talked him into cooking it the night
before and reheating it in the microwave. Since I am a rather
light sleeper, I thought that might gain a tich more sleep
for myself. The pictures are of Tyler preparing for T.S. by
checking out his gun.

I forgot to mention the peonies that are ready to pop,
the redbuds, the dogwood, the 20 shades of green in the
forest, the mayapples, the butterflies, and the April full
moon. It has all been rather distracting.

Lilacs in full bloom (and I didn't even know they were ready to
bloom yet), and whippoorwills, and thunderstorms, and green-green
grass, and the hummingbirds that arrived this morning, and the
baby leaves and oh my, more than I can keep up with. Spring
just plum makes me dizzy.

The birds are this year's key to a Fernnook Spring.

Of course, there are the ducks and chicks that Joel
has (BTW one of the fat ones that will eventually
ask to be eaten bit the dust). Chicks can be
tricksy like that...as I well know.

There are the chubby and cheerful robins that are spread
hopping all over the front yard.

There are the many smaller birds that are busily building
their nests in the bushes in front of our home. Hattie
worried yesterday because one of them is in the midst
of thorns. That seemed rather painful to her, but I
explained that the thorns were really a protection for
the little bird family.

On Saturday Kent and the kids were playing basketball
outside when Tyler came running in to get his binoculars.
They called me out to see the bald eagle that was
swooping to the east. Tyler got some pictures with
his binoculars, but the eagle was too far away to get
any that were clear. I think that is the first time
I have seen an eagle in a natural setting.

On Sunday I was puttering in the house when I heard a
raucously loud noise outside. Thinking it was a gaggle
of geese flying over, I ran out to see. No geese. Rather,
the noise was made by a large flock of (ugh) starlings
across the gravel in an overgrown field. They were perching
by the hundreds in a brushy group of trees. Suddenly,
on my left, not more than 20 feet away, a hawk, flying
like a bullet, shot past. He was calling out his high
pitched eee eee eee battle cry. Unfortunately I was not
able to see what happened when he reached the starling
flock. Hopefully he got himself a good dinner.

I guess we'd better think about getting the hummingbird
feeders out and cleaned up, though we still have a little
time before they arrive.

Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely spring. It is such a beautiful
reminder of the hope God has laid before us for eternal life.

Uncle Jim, the weather man in Fern Nook, sent me
some interesting places to explore.

Archaeoastronomy calculates exactly how many days, hours and
minutes it is from now until each of the Equinoxes,
Solstices and Cross-Quarters.

The Astronomical Information Center has an enormous
amount of information about the heavens. If you put in
your exact location you can calculate the sunrises and
sunsets for the year. This will be very useful for me
when I begin on my book about a year of Fern Nook sunrises
as seen from the front porch.

Genesis 1:14-19
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for
signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for
lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the
earth"; and it was so.

Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the
day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the
stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to
give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw
that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the
fourth day.

I've been thinking and here is the end of all that
thought. When life gets less complicated and I have
more time on my hands I should buy a better camera
and create a book to be published.

The title will be: A Year of Sunrises from the Front Porch

It will have to have a sequel of course: A Year of Sunsets from
the Back Door

And here, in the very midst of Autumn, the promise
of things to come.

Here in the foothills of the Ozarks there are
certain signs for each of the seasons. Right
now we are in the middle of Spring.

Early Spring is easy to tell. There are the
Forsythia, the Daffodils, the Redbuds and the
Dogwood to be delighted in. Mayapples pop up
all along the roadsides and a tinge of green
appears everywhere. This is all only a memory
now for the present year.

What we are experiencing now is Mid-Spring. It
is just as evident as Early Spring. The nights
are dotted with fireflies. They dance about to
some hidden music that only they can hear. The
turtles are on the move. They cross the roads
in hordes and we measure our trips to town and
church by how many times we have to swerve to
keep from crushing a turtle. There are three-
turtle trips, five turtle-trips, etc.

A new music fills the air at night. The peepers
have given way to the cricket and the bullfrog. One
of my greatest gifts from God is a husband who likes
to leave the window at the head of our bed open as
much as I do. The window comes down to the top of
the bed itself. We don't have a headboard, so any
time at all I can just lift my head and look out
and see the moon or the stars or the fireflies or
the lightning going about their appointed businesses.

The hummingbirds are back in droves. Many minutes
at a time can be spent watching their attacks on one
another. What bravado!

And the ticks are here. I can't figure out why I have
so many on me these days. I've not had time to meander
through the woods in the gloaming. I've not even been
working in my yard any. But daily these little guys
are having a heyday crawling around on me and finding
likely looking spots to stick their little head into.

Just yesterday I was with G'ma Opal and while we
were chatting she turned her head a little. I
thought, "She's got a mole on her neck I've never
noticed before." But when I peered closer it was
a tick just in the process of digging in. I picked
him off and happily flushed his little body into
the sea.

Good days. Good gifts from God's hands.

There is balm in Gilead.
The frost that did this to my trees...



















Spared me my Peonies.

He Is Risen!
Have a wonderful Easter.

Lilacs in March. Unheard of. Unthinkable.
Unimaginable. True.

Yesterday I saw both a frog and a turtle
cross the road. In March. Incredible.
Amazing. Wild.

I am needing a really good thunderstorm
to let off some energy. We could stand
out on the porch and watch it roll past.
That would be a marvelous way to wave
good-bye to March and hello to April.

Ooh La La...Red Buds AND Dogwood AND a waxing moon.

Peepers AND Johnny-Jump Ups. Life is delicious.

And I can't even show you because my camera is
on a trip to The Big City. Billy kidnapped it.

Spring is not a good time to have a kidnapped
camera.

I know I am in a rut with these peepers, but I thought that
you might enjoy listening to them. This site has a lovely
peeper sound. Just click on the words "Listen to its call."
And then, just be jealous of me and mine. For the full effect
set your computer by your bed and let it play the peeper noise
all night long. Nice.

For a good picture of a peeper go here.