We’re kicking off the month of May by experiencing cool nights and hot days. It’s also dry, dry, dry! As I mentioned, last week, all of these things make growing a garden quite a challenge, but we’re hanging in there.
While we’re ‘hanging’, how about we participate in another Wednesday Hodgepodge? As always, thanks to our gracious hostess, Joyce, for keeping The Wednesday Hodgepodge up and running!
1. April showers bring May flowers or so the saying goes. Is there a flower you associate with a particular memory? Explain.
I always associate “azaleas” with “Easter Sunday” because about 80% of the family Easter pictures we have [in our collection] were taken beside some kind of azalea bush. For the other 20% of our Easter pictures it either rained on Easter, or Easter fell too late for the azaleas to still be blooming.
Whenever possible, before our annual egg hunt, we always take a “family Easter photo” with everybody standing in front of a backdrop of our very old, very large azalea bushes. We’ve done this for several years.
Easter 2015 (a few azaleas)
Easter 2017 (no azaleas)
April 1987…a family of five (beside those same azaleas)
Oh, my goodness! Where does time go? The ‘young’ couple in the photo, above, is now the ‘old’ couple in the two photos preceding it, and those three children are now the middle aged adults we used to be.
2. Last time you helped someone? Tell us how.
A few days ago, Ed and I kept our two oldest grandsons while their mama went to a doctor’s appointment. And, last week, I prompted Ed to build those same grandsons a fence for their blackberry bushes to run on.
3. It’s National Salsa Month (the food, not the dance) so tell us, do you like salsa? I’ll eat salsa, but I can live without it.
Hot, medium, or mild? Mild or medium, not hot!
Homemade, store-bought, or from your favorite restaurant only? I only eat salsa at Mexican restaurants, and that’s not very often.
4. When I was twelve years old… I was in the seventh grade, and had a crush on the person who would later end up becoming my husband! That’s right, when I was twelve (and in 7th grade), and Ed was seventeen (and in 12th grade), I had a crush on him. He didn’t even know I existed, back then, but I knew who he was!
5. It’s the first of May so let’s run with it-first things first, don’t know the first thing about it, first dibs on something, first impression, first-rate, first cousin, first string, first come first served, at first light-which phrase can best be applied to something in your life currently or even recently?
Ed and I always begin our days by doing some Bible reading, then feeding our animals, then we eat breakfast ourselves. First things first!
Random: “Perils of Farm Living”
Ed and I live in the country, and have always gotten our water from a shallow well, located in the corner of our yard. One evening, many years ago, while brushing his teeth, Ed remarked to me that the water coming out of our faucet smelled bad. I told him I really hadn’t noticed, and thought it was okay. Thankfully, he didn’t listen, but went out to investigate the well.
It turned out we had a dead snake floating in our well!!! Needless to say, our entire family turned a bit ‘green’ at the thought of the water we’d been drinking! Ed rigged up a contraption with a stick and some string, and had a grand old time trying to lasso that dead snake out of 23 feet of water! Finally, he succeeded in removing the snake from our well.
We sanitized our well, with chlorine, but continued using bottled water for cooking/drinking, for quite sometime. (I won’t even elaborate about what heavily chlorinated well water does to your dark laundry!) Last, but not least, Ed made sure any openings in the top of the well were sealed and secure.
Flash forward about twenty years. This time it was me who noticed the foul smell of the water! It was after 10 p.m., on Sunday night, but when I said something, Ed immediately grabbed his flashlight and headed to the well! This time he discovered a dead rat floating in our well! Once again, we felt our stomachs growing queasy, and once again, Ed rigged up another contraption and went ‘fishing’ in our well–at 11 o’clock that night!
Ed accomplished the mission of removing the intruder, and we’re about to begin the process of sanitizing the well, today. (Trying to get all of our laundry washed up first) Needless to say, we’re using bottled water for cooking and drinking purposes! Now, what were the chances of this happening to us twice in our lifetime, but we weren’t alone in our misery, this time?!
Our daughter and her family, who now live in that house next door, also get their water from this same well. They’ve been dealing with some queasy feelings, as well, and are also using bottled water for cooking/drinking. I guess Ed and I won’t be the only ones wearing faded clothes, either.
You know what they say, misery loves company!
Reflections...by Kathy 