Between babies, (like Chappell Monroe born to Bill and Stacey) last week,

and Cousin Camp, things have been busy.

Add to that a birthday party for Kent and Natalie and a visit to Jonesboro
for Hattie's grad school orientation, visits with friends, Becky and Derrill
in Doniphan for the weekend, and just regular family things, and life
is full.

Oh, and the plants are growing like crazy.  The peonies are reaching the end
of their furious and marvelous blooming, the irises are beginning to fade,
the lightning bugs are just beginning to be glorious, and the frogs are as
maniacal as they have ever been.

We learned last weekend that Kent's mother, Oma, has a half-sister named
Barbara who is 83 and lives in Chicago.  Oma and her sister are planning on
meeting somewhere in between Chicago and St. Louis in the not-too-distant
future.

Ancestry.com did it again!  Bill posted a picture of Oma's father, Addison, who
deserted Oma and her mother when she was a young child.  Oma never saw him
again.  He then had a daughter (born in St. Louis) by a young teenage girl.  That
daughter was left in an orphanage in Indiana.  Unlike Oma, that daughter did see
her dad from time to time, and her 6 children remember him visiting once a year
and giving each of them a dollar bill and a box of whatever he was selling at the
time.

One of the grandchildren recognized the picture that Bill had posted and she
contacted Bill, and now Kent has a half-aunt and six half-cousins that we never
knew about.

Mike and Deb are headed to Florida in a couple of days to get their furniture.
Fernnook Lodge is not really move-in ready yet, but they are bringing their
things up here anyway.

And, dad's AC went out tonight.  We were all sitting around the deck when it
began to make some very suspicious noises and went a bit beserk.  Dad has
the emergency guys coming soon (hopefully at least).

Kathleen was here the other day and it was hot and she wanted to play outside
in the sprinkler.

K--Grandma, can we play in the sprinkler?

G--No, I don't have extra clothes for you.

K--You could take us to get some clothes.

G--No, I am too busy now.

K--Grandpa could take us to get clothes while you stay  here and work.

G--No, Grandpa is too busy.

K--Hattie could take us to get clothes while you and Grandpa stay here
and work.

G--Kathleen, you sure have a lot of ideas.

K--I have to have a lot of ideas; you keep saying, "No!"

From Fernnook of old.   Uncle Jimmy, the last on the left, sent me
this today.

G'ma Opal and her chicks.  I miss her, truly I do.

Tyler put some oranges out on the hummingbird feeders and we have
been enjoying a host of Northern Orioles.

They really, really like orange slices.

The other day, I was watching Kathleen and Judah.  After they had been with
me for several hours, I changed Judah's diaper.  When I picked up the old
diaper, to throw it out, I found that it was the new one, and the old one was
back on the baby.

So, I took the old one off and put the new one on again.  But then I couldn't
close it up because I had it on backwards.  Sigh.  Four kids, 8 grandbabies,
2 on the way, and I couldn't get a clean diaper on that poor child.  Kathleen said
something along the lines of, "Grandma, I think you need a brain switch."

But, on a brighter note, she was my sous chef for the day.  She did a fine job,
though she didn't really like the feel of the hamburger when we were patting
out the patties.

We took the bull to the butcher.  He has foot problems, and we always have
a problem keeping young heifers away from the bull.  We have a pretty little
heifer that we want to keep, so it seemed like a good time to turn Mr. Bull
into hamburger.

Our hummingbirds are humming along.  I have four feeders and a dozen or
so birds are busily zipping between them.  A few days ago, I spooked an
oriole on one of the feeders.  He quickly flew off and didn't return.  Then
today I received a text from Natalie saying that she had indigo buntings,
orioles, and cardinals on her feeders (some of the birds were on her
seed feeders, but the orioles were on the hummingbird feeders.)  It wasn't
but a couple of minutes and two orioles appeared on our living room feeder.
Their bright orange is astonishing to see up close.  We tried to not make any
sudden moves.  Tyler captured this picture, but the shadows make the stunning
color hard to see.

Adeline Shirley (and her parents) made her first visit to the Farmhouse at
Fernnook today.  We had a lovely time holding and loving on her.  Tyler
planted more of his garden (he has promised me lots of okra this year)
and Jennifer visited inside with us.

I was explaining to Kathleen yesterday that Tyler & Jenn are planning on
moving to behind the old barn someday, and that she could then walk
through two fields and over a (not-yet-built) stile and could then take the
lane back to their house and visit her cousins.

She answered me back, "Wait a minute!  You mean Tyler and Jennifer used
to live in the brown house, and now they live in another house, and then
they are going to move again?  WHY DO THEY KEEP MOVING?"

She just couldn't fathom that.  But I think I explained it adequately to her.

June bugs were hitting the windows tonight.  Whippoorwills are whippering.
The moon is shining brightly.  Lovely, lovely May.

Jim sent me this the other day.  It is Oliver M. Chappell, who
was Toliver Chappell and Mary Mink Chappell's boy.  He was
born in 1872 or 1873 and died at 11 years of age from unknown
causes.  His records were lost in a courthouse fire. 

He was Great-Grandma Hattie's brother.  This picture was from
1880 when he was eight and Grandma Hattie (Happy) was 6.

Peeta looks very much like him!  And I thought Peeta was all
Gagliardi.

Bill decided to turkey hunt this year.  He talked his very pregnant wife
into coming to Fernnook two weekends in a row.  He heard turkey, he
saw turkey, he shot at turkey...but alas, he didn't bag a turkey.

In between the visits, he and Stacey left the kids here.  So counting
the time they were here with mom and dad, and the time they were
here without mom and dad, the kids and their cousins and Kent and
I had a glorious Cousin Camp.

We played and had a sleepover and the kids walked back and forth
through the field to visit each other every day.  That is the new and
very exciting thing that the little'uns do...walk through the field to
Grandpa and Grandma's house, or back to Joel and Natalie's house.

Tyler and Jenn are looking forward to when Adeline can walk through
the field between their (future) house and ours.

Adeline is 4 days old now and just an adorable little person.  She has lots
of hair and it seems to be starting to curl.

On the last day of Cousin Camp, Wilbur and I were spending a little time
together.  We walked to the big pond and then back to the yard to play
on the trampoline.  As we were walking down the driveway, Wilbur
asked why there were meatballs on the driveway.  They were really
gumballs from the sweet gum tree, but on the driveway they get smashed
by the cars, and they really do look like meatballs.  I just never noticed
it before.

Tyler found a lovely little bunch of morels and fried them up for us.  Boy
Howdy!  They are scrumptious.  I have yet to find my first morel ever.  But
now he has a secret spot, and maybe I can go with him next year to find
some for myself.

He also found some false morels which he threatened to eat.  They are poisonous,
but my Missouri Mushroom book says that whole families of Ozarkians grew
up eating them.

I know that is true because my good friend Liz grew up near Warm Springs,
AR and sure 'nuff, her family grew up eating false morels.  Her parents thought
the true morels were the poisonous ones.  You just have to know how to cook
them, I suppose.

No excuses...just very busy and so sleepy!

I'll toss out a few snapshots of what we've been up to here at Fernnook Farm.

First, the kids came running in with this one evening.  I had no idea what it
was, so we put it in a bug cage and watched it for a week or two.  After a few
days it began to wiggle around, if it was disturbed at all.

I researched it, and came to the conclusion that it was a luna moth chrysalis,
and I kept hoping that it wasn't dying.

Then one day, while Kent and I were sitting at the table we heard an odd noise,
and turned around to see that Mr. Moth was emerging.  I tried to get the kids
down before it came all the way out, but that Moth was too fast for me.

Anyway, they did get to see its wings get bigger and stronger.

Here it is fully developed.  Unfortunately one of its wings didn't fill all the way out.
So, I am afraid that it might have become a meal for the cat or a bird.  Luna moths
only live one week after emerging and do not eat or drink during that week.  They
only mate and (if they are female) lay eggs.  One of their preferred trees is sweet
gum and I have a lovely one (under which the chrysalis was found by the kids), so
I will look for more of these next year.

One day Colyn spent the day with me and he wanted to cook bread.  We needed
more Lord's Supper bread at church so we made some.

Colyn enjoyed the whole process, even the kneading.

So did I.

The eight loaves we made for church.

And, the one we kept for supper.

Uncle Jim typed out a couple of recipes for me and brought them to Peeta's
Birthday Party last night.  At the bottom of the recipes he wrote this:

These Recipes were written by Grandma Hattie Chappell Simon, and saved
into her White Ribbon Cookbook.  (Her cookbook is not in as good a shape
as the one pictured above.)

Cottage Pudding
1/2 cup sugar.  1 cup milk
1 pint flour, 2 tablespoons
melted butter.  1 teaspoon
soda.  2 of cream tartar.
2 eggs.  A little salt.
Little ginger or cinnamon.
Bake 1/4 hour in small pan.

Gingerbread
Mix one cup molasses with
one cup sour milk.  Mix and
sift 2 1/3 cups flour, two
teaspoons ginger, 1/2 teaspoon
salt and 1 3/4 teaspoon soda.
combine mixture and add 1/4 cup
melted shortening and beat
vigorously.  Pour into a shallow
pan and bake 25 minutes in a
moderate oven.

I am going to try them when I get a chance.

I also saw one, as we were flipping through the pages in Uncle Jim's
yard, for Burnt Sugar Cake.  Now, I just made a burnt sugar cake last
weekend from a recipe in Tyler's Wooden Spoon Cookbook.  It was
pretty yummy, though Debby said it wasn't exactly like her mother's
recipe.  So, I am hoping to get both her mother's recipe and the one
from Grandma Hattie, make them both , and then I can compare all
three of them to see which is the yummiest of all.

I found William Blake and below is the poem:

To Spring

O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell each other, and the list'ning
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavillions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee!


I also found the poem I wrote.

Early Spring

The morning was cold upon my face,
But the promise was there:
The promise of noontime warmth;
The promise of afternoon kissing breezes;
The promise of perfume wafting on the evening air.

We birthday partied with Peeta tonight.  Our sweet guy turned 3 a few
weeks ago, and we are sometimes slow to arrange the celebration.

He wanted macaroni and french fries.  So Natalie made macaroni and
I made jojos.  We also added brisket and roast, stir-fry zucchini and
mushrooms, green beans, cantaloupe, bread, salad, chow-chow, and the
cutest cake.  Natalie baked a chocolate cake with chocolate whipped-
cream icing.  Then she took a toy scoop truck and placed it on top
with a hunk dug out of the cake for effect.

Peeta had no problem blowing out his three candles.  He was so
sweet opening his gifts and so careful to look at his cards and tell
everyone, "Thank you."

Last week I was visiting Uncle Jim and I mentioned that I needed to
get some kitchen chairs.  A few of mine fell apart and needed
to be replaced.  He suggested I take Grandma Opal's chairs.  So today
Kent and I and Uncle Jim went in and got the 4 kitchen chairs.

They needed to be bleached and cleaned and I did that and we used
them at the party tonight.  We also found an old cookbook that belonged
to Grandma Hattie Simon.  She has several old handwritten recipes in
the book.  It is a treasure for sure!  Maybe Uncle Jim will post some
of the recipes on his Facebook page.

So, so busy.  But I had to share this.

One of the mothers at our church texted me this today.

"Jedd keeps talking about his teacher, so I asked him
who his teacher was."

(aside...I am his Bible Class teacher)

"He said, 'That tiny girl. She is this tiny.' And then he showed
me with his fingers how tiny she was."

I knew when I got older I would end up just an oil spot on the
floor.  It has begun!

Also, just so you know, there are violets in bloom.  And, of course,
my second favorite tree, the miniature magnolia that the kids use
as a climbing tree, is in bloom.

And, so are the bradford pears, but they are just boring, copycat
trees, hardly worth remarking about.

I had a poem about spring that I was going to share from a book
of poems by William Blake, but Hattie has been reorganizing the
house with a vengeance.  She has reorganized my book somewhere
that I can't find.  So, that may be a blessing or a curse for you,
depending on your love for poetry.

I also wrote a poem the other day when I was out watering the cows.
It was also about spring.  Well, I didn't write it while I was outside,
but I composed it as I waited for the water containers to fill.  Then,
when I went inside, I wrote it down.  But, it disappeared.  I don't blame
Hattie this time.  I just have no idea where I put it after I wrote it.

The robins are flocking.  In my yard now there are dozens of them.  Yesterday
and today I've also seen red-wing blackbirds, blue jays, and flickers in the front
of my house.  Oh and my cardinals...the ones that so sneakily steal the cat
food from off the deck.  They are very, very careful to check for Debut before they
flit in and out.

Cousin Mary fractured her back in two places last evening.  She had been down
to visit Uncle Jim, and when she got home, she slipped walking up the hill to
her house.  Uncle Jim took her to the ER.  Poor girl!  She is going to hate
sitting around when the garden needs planting.

Last weekend Bill and family were down and we had some exciting times.
It rained all day on Saturday...so the kids were pretty much stuck inside.  By late
afternoon, they were a tad bit stir crazy.  My lovely daughter-in-laws, Natalie
& Stacey were cooking, I was in the computer room texting directions to a
lady, and the guys were all in the living room talking.

The kids, meanwhile, were amusing themselves.  Boy howdy were they amusing
themselves.  They were spinning themselves around on one of the computer
chairs.  We heard a crash and loud cries and went running.  Somehow Peeta
got hit in the forehead and it popped out a foot.  It really did seem like it was
that big of a goose egg.  Natalie and Joel hopped in Joel's truck to try to get to
the ER, but it had been raining so hard that we were totally flooded in.  After
they came back and we re-evaluated, we could tell that he was really fine, just
gargoyle looking.  Poor baby.

Besides that, Papa has had the flu, but what a strange case.  He couldn't stay in
for long.  When Kent had the flu, he couldn't leave the bed for days.  We had a
quiet little birthday party for Tandy and Jim on Friday.  The kids were gone to
Georgia because Natalie's Grandma Gagliardi died and they were down for the
funeral and to visit with their Georgia family.  I really liked Grandma Gagliardi.
She was a home economics teacher and a lovely person.

The down-daffy-dils are up.  What a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day they are.
I have three on my table that the grandkids picked for me yesterday.

Straight from the Mayberry Times (Spoiler alert...it's been quite
some time since I laughed as hard as I did when I first read this.)

From Speak Out:

Yeah, I'd like to know where the county got these boulders they
put on the dad gum roads.  Them boulders are as big as golf balls
and they call them gravel.  That's boulders.  I don't know where
they got them at but man alive that's hard on your car driving on
them rascals.  So, I thank you but I'd like to be able to get smaller
gravel put on these roads instead of big old boulders and I'd like
to see them get the maintainer-man out doing what they're supposed
to do instead of bucking them along, they get washboard-y.  Thank
you and bye.

I am reminded of the time Kent and I visited G'ma Lil in her
apartment.  She told me the MainTainAnce boys were
supposed to come to her place.  I know now she meant the
maintenance guys, but it took me a good half hour after
I left for the light bulb to come on.  I just had no idea who
she was talking about at first.

As seen on Facebook:

Opal: How long does it take to get to America?
Bill: We are in America!  Let's name some other countries. 
             China, Rusia....
Elsie: Texas!
Opal: Chick-fil-a!

Recently I quoted from Augustine on humility, the
following rounds the thought out nicely.

"Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten."
Missionary Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf

I received a text from Natalie the other day.  This is what
she wrote:

"At supper, Joel was talking to Kathleen about using your
imagination.  Then after a pause he said, 'It's men's imaginations
that get them in trouble.  Take Solomon for example, he had a
really big imagination.'"

That's my boy!

I Kings 11
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the
daughter of Pharoah:...Solomon clung to these in love.  He had
700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines.  And his
wives turned away his heart.  For when Solomon was old his wives
turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly
true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.

It has been a season of busyness.  It has been a season of sickness.
These two combined have made it a season of bloglessness.

Kent had a bad case of the flu.  (Emily...aka Sparkle Pop has
had her second bad case of the flu, followed by a stomach bug,
and now followed by a secondary bacterial infection.  Poor baby,
she just cannot get well.)  But, Kent's case of the flu meant that
I got to play farmer a bit more than usual.  It was sorta fun to go
out mucking in the mud (and other stuff) while moving the cows
in and out of their hay pen.  It was sorta fun to be the main wood
loader.  But it wasn't fun having a sick husband. 

Papa Bob purchased a wood splitter.  It initially had some issues,
but now is fixed, and he gave Billy and Tyler a demonstration the
other day.  They were most suitably impressed.

We had a birthday party planned for Mike and Bill, but Kent's
flu made us put it off for a week.  It did come off though, complete
with shepherd's pie, cheeseburger in paradise soup, the last of the
frozen peaches from last summer, and German chocolate cake.
Mike and Bill are safely launched now to enjoy another year of
life.

There have been lots of comings and goings in Fernnook over
the past few weeks.  Bill and Stacey and the kids were down for
several days last week.  It was cousinopia. 

One of the days was gloriously warm and sunny...one of those
special 75-80 degree February in Missouri days.  We took advantage
of it by getting the mule and piling the 6 oldest grandkids in it and
going for an adventure ride.  The highlight of the ride is always
going over the log that crosses one of the paths.  The kids love,
just absolutely love, going over that log.  Their second favorite
part is eating marienda in the old barn.

You can see what a great time Wilbur had.  Wilbur's little brother
is coming in May.  Tyler and Jenn's Adeline Shirley is coming in
April.  And...a new little creation by Joel and Natalie is due in
September. 

Somehow, I don't think life will be getting slower and simpler for
us anytime soon.

I got to thinking that maybe the other Fernnookian Home Owners
might be hurt that I didn't give names to all the houses.

After all, I have eaten meals at every relative's house up and down
the gravel.

So, if you have a suggestion for a nickname for your house, toss
it in the pot.

We have already:
The Big House (Papa's house)
The Lodge (Mike & Deb's house)
and
The Farmhouse (that which belongs to me)

Possibilities might be:
The Cabin (future cabin of Derrill & Becky)
The Cat's Meow (Uncle Jim's, soon to be overwhelmed with kittens, house)
   or how about Kitty Corner
Deer Alley (Ken, Ann, & Kenny Jo's home)
Kid Central Zone (Joel & Natalie's)
The End House (Jenny's place...end of the relative houses on the road)
Mary & Rick's Hideaways (belongs to, Mary & Rick, of course)
The New Old Homeplace (Future possible home of Ty and Jenn)

If you have a better idea, I'd love to know it.

Of course, somehow, none of them quite match G'ma Opal's house and
all the memories that we all have of it.  Although, for the next generation,
these other homes may be for them what her home is to us.

It is hard not to enjoy a book that has chapter headings such as:
In which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to Bath, and goes
accordingly.

It is nice to know finally where Mr. Grundy comes from.  You
know, as in, "He is a regular Mr. Grundy."  I knew what it
meant, generally, but never why it was said.  Now I know.

Mr. Pickwick had dropped in for a bit at the Magpie and Stump,
while there he joined in a group of the usual crowd, one of which
was Mr. Grundy. 

There was a pause in the conversation and the chairman of the group
said, "Mr. Grundy's going to oblige the company with a song."

"No he ain't," said Mr. Grundy.

"Why not?" said the chairman.

"Because he can't," said Mr. Grundy.

"You had better say he won't," replied the chairman.

"Well, then, he won't," retorted Mr. Grundy.  Mr. Grundy's positive
refusal to gratify the company occasioned another silence."

A spotted salamander was found by Tyler while digging a hole for
a fence post.  The little guy had been happily sleeping the cold
weather away.

Kathleen, Colyn, and Peeta enjoyed him immensely.  They so take
after their Daddy (and their Mommy).  Don't worry, he is again enjoying
his winter hibernation.