The interview(s)

Miss Kat interviewed my Dad last night.  She's writing a paper for her Comp class and it's a biography about someone she knows.

Initially, she interviewed Kev, but she told us he was too boring.  I say she interviewed Kev, but...well, here's a wee bit of how their interview went.

Miss K:  "Where were you born?"

Kev:  "I was born in Akron, Ohio.  I think."  He turned to me and said, "I was born in Akron, right?"

Me:  "Yes, you were born in Akron."

Later...

Miss K:  "When did you get married for the first time?"

Kev:  "I married L. in..."  Turning to me again, he said, "When did L and I get married?"

Me:  "1984"

Kev:  "Yeah, 1984 and we were married for..." again, he turned to me and asked, "How long were we married?"

Me:  "Four years dear."

Kev:  "That's right."

Miss Kat thought that maybe she should interview ME about her father's life since I seemed to know the details!

So, she decided that maybe she should interview someone else.  Kev suggested my Dad, so we made arrangements to have Mom and Dad come up last night for supper and Kat could interview him.

Most of what he told her I knew, and had heard before, but he did share some stories I hadn't heard and some details to stories I knew but not to the extent he shared.  It was fun!

It was also interesting to see Kat's reactions to some facts that I just took for granted.  Both of my parents were born at home.  To me, it's a fact, not anything special...but to Miss Kat, it was a little exotic.  My parents remember when they got electricity and indoor plumbing.  Dad went to a one-room country school. Horses were his toys.

All things I just took for granted that are special and unique.  Not just Dad's story, but Mom's too!

Mom was so proud that Dad didn't have to ask her when they got married, he actually knew!  We did argue about when he broke his leg once, but decided that maybe it really was in late 1979...maybe...we're still in debate about that one.

I've always been one to ask my elders questions.  I used to ask all my grandparents for stories.  Listening to Kat and Dad last night, I realized that those conversations should happen more often between grandparents and grandchildren.  I'm glad it happened in our house last night.

August showers bring...

Since the 23 of July, we've received 12 inches of rain at our house.  That much rain while in the midst of a drought is unusual.  Much needed, received with much gratitude, and enjoyed. 

Our yard consists primarily of Buffalo Grass.  During times of drought, it goes dormant and brown awaiting enough rain to trigger growth.  Then it greens up and takes off.  Personally, Buffalo is my favorite kind of grass.  It's soft underfoot (while green, when it's dormant, it tends to crunch underfoot.)  It's a fine bladed grass and is just a nice soft shade of green.  Plus, given enough time, it can squeeze out weeds and stickers on its own--without the need of chemicals.

 Rain also can bring a lot of water.  This creek runs to the north of our house.  During one of our rainstorms, we got 1.5 inches of rain, but those 10-20 miles from us received 5-7 inches.  All that water came downstream through our creek.  The highway leading to our house was closed for an hour or so as the water crossed over the bridge.  The shot below is after the water levels started to drop.  There are a lot of farmers/ranchers in our area who are now rebuilding fence and water gaps.

 I've appreciated the rain because it's caused the wildflowers to bloom.  This batch is in my yard.  Not sure what it is, but they sure are pretty!

A not so nice "benefit" of rain are these.  Stickers, or Goat Heads, or Texas Tacks.  They've been dormant until it rained.  And now they are popping up all over the place.  Kev and I can't go outside without spotting and pulling up a plant or 10.  The pretty little yellow flowers will turn into nasty stickers.  Any time we see a little yellow flower, we get down, find the base of the plant and pull those suckers out!  The plants then go into the trash because we don't need any stickers growing into new plants.  With all the rain, the ground is nice and soft, so they pull easily.  And yet, we can't walk anywhere outside without stopping to pull stickers.  And if you walk off and leave it, you might not spot it again until it's dropped lots of stickers.  Simple trips outside now aren't so simple or quick!

 And this stuff also grows.  It however doesn't go dormant during dry spells, but grows when nothing else will.  Bindweed...the bane of my existence!  I pull and pull and and it just comes back!  It's become a jungle in many spots now.  We've not been very diligent in pulling it.  Probably because we've been picking stickers.

But we'll put up with the weeds, and the flooding, because we love the rain.

Page 4 finished!

See what happens when you have a streak of hot days?

Don't know about you, but I spent a lot of evenings inside, stitching.  Much nicer to be inside where it's 75 instead of outside where it's 100+!

page four continued

I told you that I probably would't work on Eldar much during June!  I actually took this shot 2 days ago, and I did work some last night while we were in the house, but it's close enough to where I actually am that you probably wouldnt even notice what I've added in one day.  He has an eye now and you can see the shape of his face.  It's slow going.  Lots and lots of color changes.  Lots of subtility in shading.  I was so excited to start using green, and now I'm rather sick of green!

But, we've got the garden weeded, the flower beds are weeded--for now, and as the temps go back into the high 90's and 100's I might stitch a wee bit more in the evenings.  Maybe I'll get this page finished before Volleyball season starts!

Vacations...

Growing up as the child of Ranchers/Cow folk, I didn't go on vacation every summer.  Reasons for this include:

Not having the money for a vacation
Summers are busy times with harvest, and County Fairs, and getting ready for County Fairs
Dad didn't trust anyone else to take care of the cattle


Really, the first and last ones there were the biggest reasons we didn't do vacations.  Actually, the last reason is the main reason we didn't take vacations!

I can remember three vacations...one trip to Colorado Springs/Limon, Colorado for a Woodruff/Smiley reunion.  I was 5 or 6.  The second vacation was to Red River, New Mexico when I was 8 or 9 and the last one was when I was 15 or 16 and we went to Branson, Missouri.

On our Colorado trip, I really remember bits and pieces of being at the Family Reunion and going to the North Pole near Colorado Springs.  The trip to Red River, I remember we stayed in a cabin.  I remember it got cold at night and Steve and I loved playing in the creek--which was COLD!  I also remember watching hummingbirds.

I do remember more of the Branson trip.  I remember we packed a lunch and ate it in a park in Winfield, Kansas.  I remember Mom worrying about us being able to find a hotel room in Branson and Dad telling her to not worry, they'd have plenty of rooms.  I remember Mom also being worried that we wouldn't be able to find our way out to Silver Dollar City, and Dad telling her that he'd bet all we'd have to do was follow the traffic. (Dad's more fly by the seat of his pants, and Mom's more of a planner.  On this trip, we tended to "fly" which caused Mom some stress, but she did really well!) I remember the traffic crawling all the way out to Silver Dollar City, and thinking we'd N.E.V.E.R. get there!

I remember loving the "Fire in the Hole" ride.  I remember Mom picking out a mirrored picture with dried flowers behind glass.  It hung in our living room for years and years.  (Do you still have it Mom?  Because I think I could find a spot for it at my house!)  I remember being fascinated by the craft demonstrations.  And I remember that on the next day, we went to a water park and had a blast.

It's interesting...like my family, Kevin's family didn't do many "real" vacations.  They spent most of their vacations back in Ohio, visiting family. So neither Kev nor I have a real tradition of taking vacations.  We neither one feel neglected, or feel like we've missed out on anything.

We always intended to go on vacations.  We went to Ohio three times to visit family and one summer, we, with Kev's folks, drove to Niagara Falls.  We vacationed once in Corpus Christi.  We spent several summers camping with friends and family up near Steamboat Springs.  But there have also been several summers when we've not taken a vacation.  And the only vacation where it was "just" we four was the trip to Corpus Christi!

Our family vacations have been at the forefront of my mind these past couple of weeks because Kev and I "planned" a rather spontaneous vacation to Branson for our family this past week.

Andy graduated from college last month.  He earned his Fire Science/EMT degree, passed his National exams and found a job.  In three weeks, he'll begin his career as a Firefighter/EMT for the City of Liberal Kansas.  For some reason, it hit Kevin and I that this could be our last chance for a family vacation that would consist of "just we four."

So, Kev told me to figure out a place we could go that was relatively close and somewhere we'd never gone before.  I picked Branson--probably because it was the last vacation destination that my family had gone on, I have fond memories of it, and it was somewhere new for Kev and the kids.  So, unlike my folks, and thanks to the Web, I booked a room in advance, bought tickets to Silver Dollar City in advance, and we went on vacation.

We had a great time!