Weird Hair and Weather

On weird hair day at school, one student who has curly hair combed it out and up and generally every way except down.  He reported that his little sister took one look at him and said:

"Your hair looks like a cloud."  (That would have been a very dark cloud.)

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Norma and I plotted together to each do a skunk hairdo.  It was surprisingly doable and unalarming.

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I'm really sorry I never got to see Sharon's hair.  She was in and out teaching her Spanish classes and I never noticed.  She said she's glad no one took a picture, and that made me wish especially that I would have seen her.

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This past week we had some of the fiercest, most unrelenting winds I can remember in a long time.  Four days of it.  Wind speeds were in the 40s and 50s, and schools dismissed in the county west of us because of blowing dust.  Near zero visibility caused several vehicle pileups and at least one death.  Dust filled ditches in some places exactly as if it had been snow instead.

I thought the National Weather Service must surely have made a mistake when blowing dust was predicted here the day after a nice overnight rain on Sunday night.  They were right, and I was wrong.

Western Kansas is in a more severe state of drought that we are here in central Kansas.  I didn't see dust filling any ditches around here.

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Tomorrow the temperature is predicted to be a record breaking "almost 100" degrees.  Yesterday morning, people's thermometers showed 32 degrees.  Folks, this is no way to treat plants, animals, or people kindly.  Temperature complaints, however, seem a little small minded, given the fact that we've had some moisture, and several calm and sunny days.

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Right after our rain, the storms moved to the southeast, and resulted in a tornado in the southeast corner of our state, and then moved on to create really severe destruction in some places in Arkansas and Oklahoma.  Several deaths occurred in Kansas and Oklahoma, and more in Arkansas.  For some reason, our local media did not report this very thoroughly.  Baxter Springs was the Kansas town that was affected.

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On the day that Pilgrim's newspaper pages were published, Amy and Kathy from the "Hutch" News brought a copy of the newspaper for each student, and joy, joy, they brought pizza for everyone's lunch.  Then they sat down and chatted with  us over  lunch.

They bragged about the good job the students had done, and we had a good time together.

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Kathy told me on an earlier visit that the newspaper my cousin Duane W. works for had won a Pulitzer Prize.  He works as a copy editor for the Gazette in Colorado Springs.  Being awarded a Pulitzer is winning the "Super Bowl" of journalism, literature, etc.  I congratulate Duane and the others who researched and wrote the story on what soldiers face when they return home after being traumatized and "wounded" in various ways.  I understand that the government's treatment of such people was not idealized.

I personally think Kathy plays the Mennonite game better than some Mennonites.  Between her and Amy, they had some of my siblings, sons, parents, and cousins correctly identified when they first came to school.  They started the conversation down that road--not I.

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Hiromi gets a chuckle sometimes out of what his customers say.  One elderly lady attempted to use a debit card, and it didn't work.  This almost always happens because of insufficient funds in the account, but no cashier is supposed to say that out loud to any customer.  Hiromi had just suggested she talk to someone at customer service when an even older lady instructed the first lady:  "When it does that, it means you don't have enough money," she confidently told her.

Hiromi waited to chuckle till he got home, and then commented on how he loves when blunt "old" people like that help him out.

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A day later . . .

Three-month-old grandson Wyatt has been having problems with eczema,  a skin problem that is usually caused by sensitivity to food or something in the environment.  His mother believes now that her consumption of either milk or eggs is the problem.  After several weeks off of both, his skin is showing improvement.

He has 2-inch-long black hair on the top of his head and is bald in the back where he's rubbed off his baby hair.

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Hutchinson's high today was 101 degrees.  It's the earliest date ever for temperatures over 100 degrees--in Wichita, at least.

We're wishing for rain again.  Last weekend's showers didn't last long.  Some chance of rain returns near the end of the week.

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Merle Burkholder preached a wonderful sermon at our church this morning, eliciting many chuckles and assenting noises in the process.  He directs an organization that our very own Joe and Marilyn Kuepfer plan to work for soon, in Haiti for the time being.  Open Hands helps people in poverty-stricken areas form savings groups.  What I've heard about Bengali Muhammed Yunis' micro-finance groups reminds me of what I'm hearing about Open Hands, except that the emphasis is perhaps slightly different.  What is similar is placing the responsibility for sound financial management in the hands of people who are hard-working, but need help to break cycles that limit their chances for financial success.  As I understand it, Open Hands helps in organizing the groups, and then expects to turn things over to the groups as soon as possible.

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Hearing Merle B. preach this morning prompted some reflection for me on the phenomenon of extraordinarily gifted people "throwing away" their giftings in places of obscure service.  I don't see their service as worthless, of course.  I'm only noting that if they had chosen a more conventional American lifestyle, or even a more conventional Mennonite lifestyle, they would have undoubtedly been considered an outstanding success.  As it is, their success is  largely unknown in America and among Mennonites.

In Merle's case, he has served First Nations people for 27 years in Canada.  He has worked in Haiti for a much shorter time.  During those years, however, he also served on founding boards for several US based boards--Anabaptist Financial and a missions training school in Asia.  This morning we heard how he had volunteered his time as a board member for a food bank in an Ontario city, and saw it grow into a many-faceted ministry to those in poverty.

I deeply admire and praise God for such diligent, faithful, vision-filled, in-the-foreign-trenches service.

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We had our first gallon of apple mint tea for the season this evening.  It was a long time before I learned the English name for what we always called mahl-balzum in Pennsylvania German.  It has rounder, fuzzier leaves than peppermint or spearmint.

I learned from others to make ice tea the way I like it:  Heat 4 cups of water to boiling.  Steep two cups of fresh tea leaves.   Remove leaves and add sugar  (I added 3/4 cup).  Stir to dissolve.  Pour over ice in one-gallon jar.  Fill with water.

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Tonight when Shane's family was here, he picked off rabbit #15 for this spring.  Who knew that our little 3-acre place harbored that many rabbits?  Grant and Clare had killed 16 one year when they lived here.  Yes.  Grant AND Clare.  She's a huntin' lady, unlike me.  

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I love noting the return of the summer birds.  We've been regaled with Brown Thrasher songs for several weeks.  This past week I heard and then saw Western Kingbirds--a summer fixture for sure.  Today I saw a Northern Oriole--or Baltimore Oriole, as we called them earlier.

The Roadrunner pair that Susanna saw earlier may have shifted locations slightly west.  Grant has seen it/them several times in the area SW of Partridge Road and K61--around their place and Jared O's place.

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We're in our final sprint toward the end of school.  By this time next week the school year will be history.  Eleven enrolled students and a number of homeschooled students are graduating from high school.

In Marvin Mast's family, there will be three graduates this year--from 8th grade, high school, and college--Dietrich, Kristi, and Benji.  Benji attends a local college, so no travel is involved in any of the graduations.

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For the food production class, the last crop is ready to be moved out from under the lights at school into home gardens.  All the plants there now are vine crops--melons, squash, and cucumbers.

After the school year is over, the students have one more obligation (besides what their parents require).  They will each host a garden tour, to which all the other students and I are invited.

Indications are that an enthusiastic class of gardeners has been unleashed on the community--a wonderful thing, in my estimation.

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Tristan is getting quite good at subject-verb-adverb sentence construction--articulate enough to give away some family secrets, according to Christine, who works there once a week.  Carson is in the throes of teething--number six at eight months.  At such times, he's not very open to care-giving from anyone other than his mother.

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We're seeing a gratifying number of little toads this spring.  I don't think any could have hatched this spring, since we've had too little water around and too little warm weather, so they may be survivors of our copious late summer rains last year.  I guess I don't really know whether amphibians lay eggs only in the spring, as I always thought, or whether they will do so later in the summer if weather conditions favor a later egg-laying season.  Do my readers know?