Hurtling Along
Life is interesting right now, and it's a shame I'm not taking time to reflect on it and record it properly. So I'll do snippets again.
****************************
I'm helping prepare displays for a 3-evening series commemorating 50 years since Center church started. My dad is speaking each evening, and Paul Yoder and my sister Linda and I are trying to pull together displays of old newspaper clippings and photos. We posted a timeline and are hoping to have ready a digitally recorded and projected showing of photos. We're also updating and proofreading some of the information my composition class and Anabaptist history class compiled on our history. This will likely be published in the future, after others add to it and edit it. We have some good people helping, but it's a big project, and I'm not getting a lot of other extras done these days.
**************************
Yesterday Hiromi and I and many others attended the funeral of Mahlon Wagler, who died at the age of 88. He was a big part of Center Church's beginning, since he was ordained as the deacon very shortly after the group was organized. He served until the early 90's, I believe. In recent years dementia and strokes had robbed him of his ability to participate in church life. Several weeks ago, after another stroke, he lost his ability to swallow, and after that, he sort of faded away, dying with much of his family at his side, and a glad and bright expression on his face at the very end.
My father spent many hours on the phone with Mahlon. At certain times in their lives, they talked nearly every day, sometimes more than once a day. Besides being on the same ministerial team for years, they served together as charter members on the board of Mission Interests Committee. Mahlon was the secretary, and he kept on decade after decade, as other members came and went.
Before Mahlon was married, he spent 2 years in France, near Germany, doing reconstruction work after World War II. He returned to Europe several times after that, and traveled also in the Middle East. He was in Egypt for his nephew's wedding.
The poignancy of Mahlon's passing in the middle of our 50th Anniversary celebration was not lost on me. He was there during all of those 50 years, but he won't be here for the next 50--just as many of us who are far younger will not be.
**********************
Next month when each member in our church has a chance to meet with all the ministers, I plan to suggest that we put in place now a historical library committee, or at least some mechanism for recording historical data, collecting what has already been recorded, and making it accessible to others in the future.
I've seen so many interesting things that were pasted in scrapbooks that are already beginning to deteriorate. And, along with the people in my classes, I have tasted how time-consuming and fraught with potential errors it is to chase down details a long time after they've happened. I still haven't found anyone who can tell me exactly when Lydia Stoltzfus died, for example. She was a childless widow, and most of her closest relatives have died too.
I'd also like to see us do regular pictorial church directories. At least every seven years seems like a good idea. It would be more difficult to do, but I'd love to see a picture taken of each person at the age of 7 weeks, 7 months, 7 years, and then 14 years, 21, 28, 35 . . . . . Can you tell I'm really getting used to thinking in "Sabbath" cycles?
Here's a shout-out to everyone about pictures. Label them with the date they were taken (or developed, at least), and identify the scene or the people in the picture. Do it right away. On clippings, be sure to record the name of the daily or periodical, date, and page number. Use acid-free materials for scrapbook pages to insure that the paper does not deteriorate.
***********************
In my walks along Illinois Avenue, I'm seeing signs of fall in seedheads on the native grasses, and in the flowers blooming right now. Within the past week I've seen the following: Switchgrass, Bluestem, and some kind of Foxtail. I've also seen Goldenrod, Smartweed, Pitcher sage, California Loostrife, Ironweed, and Coreopsis. I see ragweed in full bloom, and I'm thankful that my immune system behaves properly now in this misery-triggering environment for seasonal allergy sufferers. I credit the food supplements I take--which everyone knows cannot "treat, cure, or mitigate any disease."
**********************
I'm doing lots of reading on Health Care Reform, and gradually some things are emerging that I can either affirm with confidence or reject with confidence. I'm not tipping my hand now, since I want to do all I can to let students develop their own conclusions without fear of disagreeing with the person who will grade their written reports on Health Care Reform. After the deadline for the student assignments is past, I want to do what we've asked them to do--write a one-page essay on the subject.
A recent editorial in our local newspaper recommended the same article that Caleb recommended in a comment on an earlier blog post. It was in The Atlantic. I recommend it also.
*********************
One lady at Farmer's Market has always seemed strange to me. I think she's harmless enough, but she seems belligerent when there's no obvious reason for her to be that way.
Today she told me that her dad was a stubborn Mennonite, and her mom was on the Amish side of the divide, which meant that she would see a doctor only grudgingly, and her dad was too stubborn to listen to her (the daughter) when she said he ought to take her to the doctor. So now her mother is in the hospital due to fluid on her lungs, being admitted after a trip to the emergency room--right after the daughter left Indiana to return to Kansas--with her father at that time still not wanting to hear about taking his wife to the doctor.
**********************
James Taylor brought me some Mexican cucumbers today, also known as Mouse Melons. They are smaller than a small cherry tomato, and look like a perfect miniature Crimson Sweet Watermelon--really cute. He says they taste a bit like a cucumber, and, after we've showed Grant, we plan to eat it. I gave one to Norma at market so she could show her children. James says he took some to the state fair on the spur of the moment--after Pam Paulsen, the county horticulture agent who had given him the plants--urged him to do so. He got a red ribbon, which pays for the plants and his trouble.
***********************
I was on the phone with Joel tonight while he and Hilda were searching one of the state fair parking lots for their car. They had carefully noted its location, so as not to repeat the scenario last year when its whereabouts had apparently been a mystery way too long after they were ready to leave. They tried the panic button trick, and apparently thought at first that the car that responded couldn't be theirs because it was in the "wrong" place.
Been there. Done that. I'm fortunate that Hiromi is much better at keeping track of little things like cars than I am.
***********************
I am so proud of Hiromi. Last week he canned 30 quarts of tomato juice. Before school one morning I assembled all the supplies and set things up in preparation for the whole procedure. Then I demonstrated a quick run-through, after cooking a kettle full of tomatoes he had cored and chunked and refrigerated the evening before, while I was at a meeting for the 50th Anniversary display. He had wanted me to tell him all about it before I left for the meeting. I didn't have time, but I said I would do so the next morning.
The next morning I meticulously wrote out instructions and left it on my computer screen, after I discovered that I couldn't print it since the printer had gotten zapped during an overnight thunderstorm. Hiromi never read the instructions. I am choosing to consider my demonstration to have been so effective that it was not necessary. That's more reassuring than worrying about some of the details I did not demonstrate--which I suspect were overlooked--like timing the processing after it starts to cook rather than as soon as the jars get put into the canner.
I finished up the very last batch after school so Hiromi could go to town for a new printer.
*******************
The same lightening strike that fried the printer also did in the wireless router that allowed my computer to access the internet. So, until we got a new router delivered, I was isolated from the ether net. (I hope I used that term correctly.) It's good to be back.
All of our computers are fine.
We all heard the pop that must have marked the fateful frying moment. Right after than Hiromi got up and unplugged everything around the computers. Too late.
*******************
We've had 4.75 inches of rain within the past few days. Fall crops look marvelous, but the cool weather we've been having keeps things maturing at a slow pace. In my garden, it means that the corn I hurried out to harvest when I remembered it on Friday was still too immature. I had thought last weekend it should be ready by midweek, judging by the size of the ears and the color of the silk.
I wonder if this might be one of those years when a fifth cutting of alfalfa will be possible. It rarely happens, but all the rains have prompted very good regrowth since the last cutting.
The week of the state fair in Hutchinson seems always to be a rainy week, even now that it's been moved ahead one week to avoid the equinox, which apparently was thought to be one rain trigger worth avoiding.
*******************
At market today we sold pullet eggs laid by grown-up chicks that Lowells raised this summer. One small child looked at them in amazement. "Why are they brown?" he asked. His grandfather grinned as I explained that the eggs are the same inside as white eggs, and some chickens lay eggs with different colored shells. I showed him the picture Lowells had furnished of the hens and told him that those brown chickens laid those brown eggs. (That explanation should work until he encounters white chickens that lay brown eggs or brown chickens that lay white eggs--if there is such a thing.)
********************
Lisa told me today that they have at least 50 pumpkins in their pasture. It all began several years ago when their tenants planted pumpkins in the garden. They threw what they didn't want of the harvest into the pasture where the cows ate them, and subsequently scattered the seeds in their manure. Every year some of these have sprouted and produced, and this year the crop is quite good. They're considering bringing them to market for us to sell. I hope they do.
********************
I wonder if jiggling and bouncing while playing is a prerequisite for an accordion player. Today a group of ladies played at farmer's market, and I got a kick out of noting that some of them swayed from side to side and one little lady bounced straight up and down as she played.
They played lively fun music, and some hymns.
*******************
Hiromi decided to experiment the other day with leaving Max untied while the ducks and guineas were out. Shortly thereafter he found Max tormenting a duck he had cornered. He caught and tied him--except that the latch on the chain had apparently rusted a bit and didn't click shut, so Max was loose when I left for school. He would not come when Hiromi called, so Hiromi watched, and shortly caught him in the act again of harassing a duck. It was exactly the teachable moment we all hoped would come, and, after Hiromi punished him right then and there, Max fled to the garage and stayed there most of the day. He hasn't gone near the poultry since then.
On our walks, he races through the water standing in the fields with as much reckless abandon as he did through the standing wheat earlier. He really loves to run.
**********************
We had a lively conversation with a lady who lives in Careyville, a section of Hutchinson in which sinkholes have developed, apparently over cavities formed in the process of mining salt below ground. As a result, the area has been determined to be unsafe, and all the houses there are being purchased by the owner of the salt mine. If they are not moved, they will be demolished.
The Smiley lady we talked to has a house for sale, and she and her husband would like for an Amish or Mennonite family to buy it. It sounded like it would make a nice home for someone.
The people in that section of town understandably feel imposed upon, but the woman who talked to us was clearly trying to find God's will in it.
House moving is done here more often than in some places, and it can work out very well. The house we live in was moved from Burton, about 25 miles away.
****************************
I'm helping prepare displays for a 3-evening series commemorating 50 years since Center church started. My dad is speaking each evening, and Paul Yoder and my sister Linda and I are trying to pull together displays of old newspaper clippings and photos. We posted a timeline and are hoping to have ready a digitally recorded and projected showing of photos. We're also updating and proofreading some of the information my composition class and Anabaptist history class compiled on our history. This will likely be published in the future, after others add to it and edit it. We have some good people helping, but it's a big project, and I'm not getting a lot of other extras done these days.
**************************
Yesterday Hiromi and I and many others attended the funeral of Mahlon Wagler, who died at the age of 88. He was a big part of Center Church's beginning, since he was ordained as the deacon very shortly after the group was organized. He served until the early 90's, I believe. In recent years dementia and strokes had robbed him of his ability to participate in church life. Several weeks ago, after another stroke, he lost his ability to swallow, and after that, he sort of faded away, dying with much of his family at his side, and a glad and bright expression on his face at the very end.
My father spent many hours on the phone with Mahlon. At certain times in their lives, they talked nearly every day, sometimes more than once a day. Besides being on the same ministerial team for years, they served together as charter members on the board of Mission Interests Committee. Mahlon was the secretary, and he kept on decade after decade, as other members came and went.
Before Mahlon was married, he spent 2 years in France, near Germany, doing reconstruction work after World War II. He returned to Europe several times after that, and traveled also in the Middle East. He was in Egypt for his nephew's wedding.
The poignancy of Mahlon's passing in the middle of our 50th Anniversary celebration was not lost on me. He was there during all of those 50 years, but he won't be here for the next 50--just as many of us who are far younger will not be.
**********************
Next month when each member in our church has a chance to meet with all the ministers, I plan to suggest that we put in place now a historical library committee, or at least some mechanism for recording historical data, collecting what has already been recorded, and making it accessible to others in the future.
I've seen so many interesting things that were pasted in scrapbooks that are already beginning to deteriorate. And, along with the people in my classes, I have tasted how time-consuming and fraught with potential errors it is to chase down details a long time after they've happened. I still haven't found anyone who can tell me exactly when Lydia Stoltzfus died, for example. She was a childless widow, and most of her closest relatives have died too.
I'd also like to see us do regular pictorial church directories. At least every seven years seems like a good idea. It would be more difficult to do, but I'd love to see a picture taken of each person at the age of 7 weeks, 7 months, 7 years, and then 14 years, 21, 28, 35 . . . . . Can you tell I'm really getting used to thinking in "Sabbath" cycles?
Here's a shout-out to everyone about pictures. Label them with the date they were taken (or developed, at least), and identify the scene or the people in the picture. Do it right away. On clippings, be sure to record the name of the daily or periodical, date, and page number. Use acid-free materials for scrapbook pages to insure that the paper does not deteriorate.
***********************
In my walks along Illinois Avenue, I'm seeing signs of fall in seedheads on the native grasses, and in the flowers blooming right now. Within the past week I've seen the following: Switchgrass, Bluestem, and some kind of Foxtail. I've also seen Goldenrod, Smartweed, Pitcher sage, California Loostrife, Ironweed, and Coreopsis. I see ragweed in full bloom, and I'm thankful that my immune system behaves properly now in this misery-triggering environment for seasonal allergy sufferers. I credit the food supplements I take--which everyone knows cannot "treat, cure, or mitigate any disease."
**********************
I'm doing lots of reading on Health Care Reform, and gradually some things are emerging that I can either affirm with confidence or reject with confidence. I'm not tipping my hand now, since I want to do all I can to let students develop their own conclusions without fear of disagreeing with the person who will grade their written reports on Health Care Reform. After the deadline for the student assignments is past, I want to do what we've asked them to do--write a one-page essay on the subject.
A recent editorial in our local newspaper recommended the same article that Caleb recommended in a comment on an earlier blog post. It was in The Atlantic. I recommend it also.
*********************
One lady at Farmer's Market has always seemed strange to me. I think she's harmless enough, but she seems belligerent when there's no obvious reason for her to be that way.
Today she told me that her dad was a stubborn Mennonite, and her mom was on the Amish side of the divide, which meant that she would see a doctor only grudgingly, and her dad was too stubborn to listen to her (the daughter) when she said he ought to take her to the doctor. So now her mother is in the hospital due to fluid on her lungs, being admitted after a trip to the emergency room--right after the daughter left Indiana to return to Kansas--with her father at that time still not wanting to hear about taking his wife to the doctor.
**********************
James Taylor brought me some Mexican cucumbers today, also known as Mouse Melons. They are smaller than a small cherry tomato, and look like a perfect miniature Crimson Sweet Watermelon--really cute. He says they taste a bit like a cucumber, and, after we've showed Grant, we plan to eat it. I gave one to Norma at market so she could show her children. James says he took some to the state fair on the spur of the moment--after Pam Paulsen, the county horticulture agent who had given him the plants--urged him to do so. He got a red ribbon, which pays for the plants and his trouble.
***********************
I was on the phone with Joel tonight while he and Hilda were searching one of the state fair parking lots for their car. They had carefully noted its location, so as not to repeat the scenario last year when its whereabouts had apparently been a mystery way too long after they were ready to leave. They tried the panic button trick, and apparently thought at first that the car that responded couldn't be theirs because it was in the "wrong" place.
Been there. Done that. I'm fortunate that Hiromi is much better at keeping track of little things like cars than I am.
***********************
I am so proud of Hiromi. Last week he canned 30 quarts of tomato juice. Before school one morning I assembled all the supplies and set things up in preparation for the whole procedure. Then I demonstrated a quick run-through, after cooking a kettle full of tomatoes he had cored and chunked and refrigerated the evening before, while I was at a meeting for the 50th Anniversary display. He had wanted me to tell him all about it before I left for the meeting. I didn't have time, but I said I would do so the next morning.
The next morning I meticulously wrote out instructions and left it on my computer screen, after I discovered that I couldn't print it since the printer had gotten zapped during an overnight thunderstorm. Hiromi never read the instructions. I am choosing to consider my demonstration to have been so effective that it was not necessary. That's more reassuring than worrying about some of the details I did not demonstrate--which I suspect were overlooked--like timing the processing after it starts to cook rather than as soon as the jars get put into the canner.
I finished up the very last batch after school so Hiromi could go to town for a new printer.
*******************
The same lightening strike that fried the printer also did in the wireless router that allowed my computer to access the internet. So, until we got a new router delivered, I was isolated from the ether net. (I hope I used that term correctly.) It's good to be back.
All of our computers are fine.
We all heard the pop that must have marked the fateful frying moment. Right after than Hiromi got up and unplugged everything around the computers. Too late.
*******************
We've had 4.75 inches of rain within the past few days. Fall crops look marvelous, but the cool weather we've been having keeps things maturing at a slow pace. In my garden, it means that the corn I hurried out to harvest when I remembered it on Friday was still too immature. I had thought last weekend it should be ready by midweek, judging by the size of the ears and the color of the silk.
I wonder if this might be one of those years when a fifth cutting of alfalfa will be possible. It rarely happens, but all the rains have prompted very good regrowth since the last cutting.
The week of the state fair in Hutchinson seems always to be a rainy week, even now that it's been moved ahead one week to avoid the equinox, which apparently was thought to be one rain trigger worth avoiding.
*******************
At market today we sold pullet eggs laid by grown-up chicks that Lowells raised this summer. One small child looked at them in amazement. "Why are they brown?" he asked. His grandfather grinned as I explained that the eggs are the same inside as white eggs, and some chickens lay eggs with different colored shells. I showed him the picture Lowells had furnished of the hens and told him that those brown chickens laid those brown eggs. (That explanation should work until he encounters white chickens that lay brown eggs or brown chickens that lay white eggs--if there is such a thing.)
********************
Lisa told me today that they have at least 50 pumpkins in their pasture. It all began several years ago when their tenants planted pumpkins in the garden. They threw what they didn't want of the harvest into the pasture where the cows ate them, and subsequently scattered the seeds in their manure. Every year some of these have sprouted and produced, and this year the crop is quite good. They're considering bringing them to market for us to sell. I hope they do.
********************
I wonder if jiggling and bouncing while playing is a prerequisite for an accordion player. Today a group of ladies played at farmer's market, and I got a kick out of noting that some of them swayed from side to side and one little lady bounced straight up and down as she played.
They played lively fun music, and some hymns.
*******************
Hiromi decided to experiment the other day with leaving Max untied while the ducks and guineas were out. Shortly thereafter he found Max tormenting a duck he had cornered. He caught and tied him--except that the latch on the chain had apparently rusted a bit and didn't click shut, so Max was loose when I left for school. He would not come when Hiromi called, so Hiromi watched, and shortly caught him in the act again of harassing a duck. It was exactly the teachable moment we all hoped would come, and, after Hiromi punished him right then and there, Max fled to the garage and stayed there most of the day. He hasn't gone near the poultry since then.
On our walks, he races through the water standing in the fields with as much reckless abandon as he did through the standing wheat earlier. He really loves to run.
**********************
We had a lively conversation with a lady who lives in Careyville, a section of Hutchinson in which sinkholes have developed, apparently over cavities formed in the process of mining salt below ground. As a result, the area has been determined to be unsafe, and all the houses there are being purchased by the owner of the salt mine. If they are not moved, they will be demolished.
The Smiley lady we talked to has a house for sale, and she and her husband would like for an Amish or Mennonite family to buy it. It sounded like it would make a nice home for someone.
The people in that section of town understandably feel imposed upon, but the woman who talked to us was clearly trying to find God's will in it.
House moving is done here more often than in some places, and it can work out very well. The house we live in was moved from Burton, about 25 miles away.
posted by Mrs. I at
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