Diane Stringam Tolley's Blog: On the Border, page 122

Happy Rainy Days

Not quite. But almost . . .My Husby's father was a wonderful man.GenerousCheerful.Loving.Devoted to his numerous offspring and grand-offspring.Who, in turn, loved him and anxiously awaited any opportunity to go for a visit.I must admit here that seeing and visiting with their Grampa wasn't their only reason for wanting to spend time at his house.No.Their motives were a bit more . . . self-serving.Because Grampa had treats.Really yummy treats.He had learned over the years to put a little something away for, as he called it, a 'rainy day'.And 'rainy days' were much sought after and appreciated.Especially by the younger set.Inevitably, when visiting Grampa's house, after the initial excitement of greeting and getting everyone inside and settled, Grampa would say, “Well, I think I'll just go and see if I have anything for a 'rainy day'.Which meant that he did.Yummy-ness was forthcoming.Moving ahead several years . . .My Husby learned many things from his father.One of which was, to the joy and delight of his children and grandchildren, the stashing away of 'rainy days'.He does this religiously.Religiously.And, as a result, generally grows more than it diminishes.His present stash consists of two huge cardboard boxes and several bags, taking up the entire space under his desk.Several fancy wooden chests of 'treasure'.And a shelf full of boxed chocolates.Do you fancy a treat?You're invited.Rainy Days for everyone.And I do mean everyone.Please?

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More conversations with Erik

Conversation can be so . . . Educational? Enlightening? … Effervescent? All of the above?Case in point.Second Son, hereinafter known as ‘Erik’ was having a discussion with his wife, ‘Kallie’.Kallie: “How long do eye exams take? Just an hour or so, right?”Erik: “Usually less. Unless you have a cavity.” You have to know that this comment was immediately followed with the impressively accurate sound of a drill. (ie. dentist’s.)And was met with the usual response.Eyerolling.Kallie: “You’re thinking of the wrong kind of doctor.”Now I know that many of you will be agreeing with her. Conversation over, right?You don’t know Erik.Erik: “You’ve never worn glasses.”Somehow a visit to the eye doctor just got a whole lot more terrifying...

Bread Dough Days

A poem.Because . . .
The water's there. The yeast is, too.The sugar, eggs and oil.A pinch of salt. Some scoops of flour.A spot of manual toil.Then there it sits. A work of art.A dough that's fine and ready.Just waiting for the final touch.The hand that's firm and steady.It starts to rise. Increase and grow.Progressing, moving on.Then nears the top. Success so close,Then, suddenly, it's gone.That hand so sure that works with careDeflates all it's achieved.And in a blink all progress seemsImposs'ble to believe.Again it tries.Again it grows.E'en lighter than before.Again that hand, again the push,The dough is flat once more.A third time tries. A third time grows.Now tasty and perfected.Achieves at last it's sought-for goal,No flaws or faults detected.At times I feel much like this dough.My progress interrupted.When wise hands press me to my knees,All dreams and goals disrupted.But praying hard, I realizeThough setbacks are in store,I rise each time, a better meThan e're I was before.

True and Trusted

Okay. Do you have one of these . . .? You'll need some of these.For years, Husby and I drove vintage cars.Just FYI, 'vintage' is a classy name for 'old'.Moving on . . .Wonderful vintage cars.They were affordable.Comfortable.I could sympathize with their creaking joints and less-than-stellar performance.And they had real engines.Or at least engines where the components were recognizable.But they did have their drawbacks.They really were old.And their parts were equally old.At times, like me, they could get . . . balky.Allow me to illustrate . . .We were driving a Buick.Station wagon.It had developed some internal problems.Gall bladder, I think. Or, in car talk, an stubborn solenoid.While we waited for the funds to actually fix said solenoid, we were reduced to a two-person starting method.One to crawl under the car and whack the balky part with a hammer and the other to actually turn the key.It worked. Sort of.On with my story . . .We were visiting with friends.It was a warm summer evening.The sky had been threatening rain all day.Toward the end of our visit, the threat became reality.The sky opened up and dumped everything it had on us.At the exact time we decided we should be heading home.Sigh.I took up my position in the driver's seat, key inserted and ready to turn.My Husby quickly slipped underneath the car, hammer in hand.*Tink*. *Tink*. “Okay! Try it!”I turned the key and the engine roared to live.My Husby crawled out – remember, it was pouring rain at this time – and started towards the driver's door.He paused.Someone was laughing.Loudly.We both looked toward our friends' front door. The two of them were silhouetted in the light from their front room. They had watched the whole procedure.We laughed with them.Then my Husby shrugged and jumped into the car and we drove off.We learned an important lesson from this.Always choose your friends with care.They should be fun.Generous.Kind.Supportive.Loyal.And be able to laugh you through your car troubles.

My Friends

“How much is it worth?” he asked,“This friendship that you hold?Can you count its price in dollars?In rubles, yen or gold?”
“Let’s face it! You’ve not even met!You’re strangers. Yes, it’s true,How can you say these friendships areWorth anything to you?”
I thought of years of good or bad,Of stories near and dear,Those times of sore discouragements,When close, are aches and tears.
Then others, where the laughter Dashes out across the miles,Alive with love, encouragement,And bringing naught but smiles.

We’ve shared it all, my friends and me,My girls I’ve ‘never met’.Though there’s miles and miles between us,
We’re as close as we can get! 
So no, they’re not of blood or bone,And we haven’t met o’er tea,But my ‘distant’ connections areMy most precious now, to me!
To Delores, Jenny, River, EC, Karen and all you others who have followed so faithfully over the years, a huge thank you. I love you all!We've been together eight years now. Here’s to many more, my friends . . .
          
Mondays do get knocked a lot,With poetry, we three besought,
To try to make the week begin
With pleasant thoughts--perhaps a grin?
So Jenny and Delores, we,
Have posted poems for you to see.
And now you've seen what we have brought . . .
Did we help?
Or did we not?
Next week, it will be so sublimeWe'll talk of how we spend Free Time!

Fleeing the Pests

Uncle OwenRanching is beset with problems.Too little rain and the grass doesn’t grow and the cattle don’t have enough to eat.Too much? Well apart from the obvious, flooding, there are the mosquitos.Sometimes . . . well, I’ll let my Uncle Owen tell you about it . . .
The year of 1925 and ’26 was extremely wet. We had something over twenty inches of rain fall in just two or three months—highly unusual in our area. On our leased land, I remember of an evening, the cattle would scent a breeze which was coming and move against it just as fast they could, even though it may only be three or four miles an hour, trying to keep the mosquitoes down. And in the evenings when there was no wind moving, they would collect in herds of two or three hundred head and mill in circles all night long trying to create their own breeze to ward off the little, biting pests. Once a breeze did spring up, they headed into it and never stopped for fences or anything else. One year, we received a telephone call from Fort Macleod saying there were at least two or three hundred head of cattle around the buildings just south of the C.P.R. station. The gentleman that phoned said he was sure that they were ours. So I rode from Glenwood over there, about thirty miles, and sure enough, he was right. Well, the wind had swung into the west about that time, and the mosquitoes of course can’t stay on an animal when there’s a heavy wind, so I only had to turn them back toward the leased land and most of them headed right out themselves. My brother, Alonzo, came up from the lease and met me and we brought the cattle back again. We found that they had gone through at least ten fences in this trip and forded the Belly River which was quite a sizable river when it got south of Fort Macleod. There was nothing that could stop them once mosquitoes bothered them.
We get a lot of those little, biting pests in the summer around here. We either apply bug spray (Everyone else) or hide in the house. (Me)It never occurred to me to walk into the breeze.For thirty miles.Yeah, I think I’ll stick with my solution.
It’s Ancestor Sunday! The day I celebrate my Fascinating Forebears.Tell me about yours!

Visiting

Mom. Doing dishes with Aunt Grace in the motel bathroom.
Getting in her visit where she can...I come from a long line of church-attending people.Call it a tradition.When I was young we attended with amazing regularity.Did you know that Sunday comes every. Single. Week?Well, it does.Now a little background here . . .We lived 20 miles from the nearest town of Milk River, Alberta.The ranch we lived on was its own little village. With an ever-changing population.Sometimes, there were other women (foreman’s wife, female cook). Sometimes not. (Foreman: single. Cook: Mom)For my Mom, living there year after year, it could sometimes be a bit lonely when her husband was off ranching, serving on several committees, veterinarian-ing, searching out new bulls by attending sales in far-off places. Far, far off places.And she ached for someone to talk to.Then Sunday would come around.Presenting her with myriad visiting possibilities once the church services had ended.I remember her standing and talking almost desperately. There was a lot to say and only a short window of time in which to do it.Because her children would be antsy to head home to the delicious dinner they knew was waiting. She carried on doggedly through a progression of frowns and eye-rolls. Throat-clearings. And finally sleeve-pullings and increasingly louder expressions of, “Mo-om!”.I admit it, my next older brother and I were the worst.Moving forward half a century. Mom has been happily visiting with friends in Heaven for nearly two decades . . .
I had attended Sabbath meetings with my brother and his sweet wife. The services were over. I was standing in the foyer, waiting while my brother and his wife finished their respective conversations with friends.I knew that a delicious dinner was waiting for us at their home.I sighed and briefly considered moving right to sleeve-pulling and, “Ge-orge!” but I restrained myself.How far I’ve come. Brother and Sweet Wife

Plastered

“Please! Please!” Mom begged. “I’ll only be gone for fifteen minutes. Can you two girls try and behave? And husk the corn for supper?!”
I smiled and nodded. “Of course!” I looked at Sally.Who was gazing out the back window.“Sally?”She turned toward us. “Hmmm?”“Did you hear what Mom said?”Sally squinched her eyes up thoughtfully. “Ummm . . .”Mom sighed. “I asked you two girls to behave. I’ll only be gone fifteen minutes.”“Oh, that! Yeah. Sure.” Sally shrugged and turned back toward the window.“Okay, then,” Mom said uncertainly. She started toward the door, her eyes on her youngest daughter. “I’ll be right back.”“Bye Mom!” I said cheerfully, waving. “See you soon!”“Yeah.” She was still watching Sally as she slowly pulled the front door shut.Sally leaped to her feet. “Come on!” she shouted, grabbing me by the ear.I got up hurriedly. “Come where?”“We only have fifteen minutes!”“Ummm . . . what are we going to do?”“We’re going sledding!”I looked outside at the sweltering August afternoon. Heat was rising in waves above the houses across the street. A small sprinkler, looking like an afterthought in the eerie quiet, struggled mightily to moisten a corner of Mrs. Casper’s lawn. It was so hot that even the vast army of neighbourhood children had taken refuge indoors. The uncommonly still street closely resembled a scene out of The Walking Dead.I know because it’s my favourite show.Sally released my ear and disappeared up the stairs. “Come on! I saw this on YouTube! It’ll be wonderful!”I followed slowly. You have to know that Sally’s idea of ‘wonderful’ seldom meshes with mine. “But we were supposed to husk the corn,” I said without much force. I looked at the six little cobs stacked neatly on one end of the table. “Sally?”I climbed the bottom two stairs and gained the lower landing. 
“Look out below!”I had a brief glimpse of my sister perched at the top, seated on a magic carpet. Without hesitating, I leaped away in one quick movement. I’ve been Sally’s sister for fifteen years. Out of necessity, the reflexes are pretty good.“Yahoo!” I could hear the thump, thump, thump as Sally gained momentum on the thick carpet.By the way, I should probably mention here that our stairway is not open to the world. It has walls on two sides, and ends at a landing and a third wall, with two extra steps leading down to the right and left. When descending, one must, of necessity, turn 90 degrees to avoid contact with that third wall.I really don’t think Sally was anticipating this.There was a loud bang.Followed by a muffled screeching.As there seemed to be no further movement, I ventured forward.How can I describe this? Sally had made the descent without incident. But . . . who was it who said ‘It’s not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop at the bottom’? Unable to make that last turn, Sally managed to hit the wall in such a fashion that her head went right through the plaster. 
There was some good news. She somehow managed to miss any of the wall studs that must lie somewhere behind the drywall.But my errant sister was neck-deep in it. So to speak.At first, I was understandably alarmed. But as she continued to screech, my fears soon evaporated. No one could make that much noise while mortally injured. I hurried to her side and put my hands on her shoulders. “Hold still!” I shouted. “Here. I’ll get you out!” Say what you will about Sally, she knows when she needs help. She grew quiet.It took some maneuvering, but we finally managed to pull her head out, whilst ensuring it was still attached to the rest of her.Sally blinked plaster out of her eyes and grinned at me. “That was fun!”And that’s when we both heard the front door open.“Hello?” Mom’s voice. From the vantage point of the front door, nothing of what had just taken place was visible. I so wished it could remain thus.I peeked around the corner and our eyes met.Mom’s hopeful expression vanished like a wisp of smoke. “What happened?”Sally stuck her thickly-powdered head around the wall. “Hi, Mom!” she said brightly. “You’ll never guess what I did!”

Each month, we of Karen's crew volunteer words to the collective.
And receive words back.It's a wonderful, challenging, fun prompt!This month, my words were: 
by the way ~ this ~ wonderful ~ ear ~ cobAnd were given to me by my good friend Jules at The Bergham Chronicles
 There are quite a few of us involved in the challenge!
Care to see what my friends have crafted?
Baking In A Tornado 
The Bergham Chronicles
Southern Belle Charm
The Blogging 911
Cognitive Script
Part-Time Working Hockey Mom
My Brand of Crazy
Climaxed

Along for the Ride

My sometimes ride. And chauffeur.
 For many of you, the statement: ‘The Tolley family tends to spend a lot of their summer outside on bicycles’ will come as no surprise.
I’m almost sure I’ve mentioned it before.And it's true.Every morning, weather permitting, we saddle-up—Grampa, Gramma and as many of the chicks and chicklets as are out of bed and/or conscious.With 22 members of our family living within town limits, at times it’s quite a group.And the fact that we live in a community riddled with small lakes and a veritable web of biking trails makes the whole thing . . . in a word . . . easy.Even taking into account that our town crowns the highest hill for miles and there is, of necessity, a lot of up-ping and down-ing.With such a trail of cyclists, it’s a blessing that we have to cross only the occasional major street.Our mishaps have been relatively few.In fact, the only people who have pitched off their bikes are Granddaughter #4 (our newest little rider) . . . and Grandma.And guess which one holds the record?I did it again just yesterday.And yet I still insist on going.Sigh. Finally, sitting on a park bench, putting yet another band-aid on Grandma's much-abused knee, and while the kids played at that day’s choice of park, Daughter #1 came up with an ingenious solution. One, I should point out, that would still allow Grandma to continue on the rides, but would be marginally safer and include two-wheeled death traps only peripherally.Ahem . . . Her answer? Pump Grandma full of helium, tie a string to her ankle, and float her along behind one of the bikes.Like a balloon.Can’t you just see it?Her idea sparked all kinds of responses: “Ahhhh Reel me in! Low bridge! Low brid . . .!” and “Kids! Power li . . .zzzzaaaap!” and the ever popular: “I told you not to untie Grandma! Now we’ll never get her back!” That little beauty was also followed closely by: “Good thing we wrote her address on her forehead!”There were suggestions of “Old Air/Wind/Gas bag” and something to do with “being full of hot air”. But by that point, I was already on my bike and halfway out of the parking lot.My family’s for sale if you want them.  You get the idea . . .

It's Official

With special days all through the year to celebrate the great and small,
It’s sometimes difficult to choose a single topic from them all, With things like ‘Ice Cream Sandwich Day’ and ‘Girlfriend’s Day’, to name a few,And ‘Tell a Joke Day’, ‘Bow Tie Day’. And don’t forget ‘Spumoni’, too!There’s ‘Single Working Women’s Day and ‘Be an Angel Day’ as well,And ‘Kiss and Make Up Day’ (to follow that one day of ‘Kiss and Tell’!)‘Work Like a Dog Day’s’ special too. And while we’re on that subject, there,There’s ‘Dog Appreciation Day’ for those with dogs for whom they care.We’ve ‘Sister’s Day’ and ‘Lover’s Day’ and ‘Son and Daughter Day’ besides,And even one called ‘Lighthouse Day’ for those who love to watch the tides!There’s hundreds more for all of us, a ‘Day of Beer’ and ‘Day of Sun’,A ‘Fresh Breath Day’ and one for ‘Hoyle’ and one for ‘Middle Child’ fun.But with them all, we chose the one that spoke to each of us for sure,Not ‘Creamsicles’ or ‘Eat Ouside’ or ‘Chocolate Pecan Pie’s’ allure,I’m sure you’d like to know the champ. (And yes, I feel like such a tease!)It’s ‘Relaxation Day’ today! I get to catch up on my ZZZZZZZZZ’s!

Each month we have a challenge
Yes, we voted on a theme,
Then each put on our thinking caps 
And hurried to our screens.
Now you know the theme's official,
There won' be any flack,
It's National Relaxation Day,
So get ready to RELAX!


I'm not the only one taking advantage.
See what my fellow 'relax'ers' have done . . .

Karen of Baking In A Tornado: If You Insist Dawn of Cognitive Script: A Balm To My Soul Lydia of Cluttered Genius: Relax, my Foot