Father’s Day Flashback
Meet my dad. This one on the left is one of my favorite photos of him as a child. Of course, he doesn’t look very happy (but given that diaper, are you surprised?) The first time I saw this photo, I couldn’t understand how my grandma could let her kid play on a lawnmower. But look closely. It’s clearly built for children, but I’ve no idea what to call it. Suggestions?
My grandpa’s family hails from Freelandville, Indiana where I have a number of distant relatives still farming. Visiting the family farm where my grandfather grew up and my father spent his childhood summers was always a treat. As kids, we wore the blue and white striped overalls long before Osh Kosh B’Gosh became trendy kid wear. 
We played in corn harvesters, jumped from hay bail to hay bail, rode in huge farm equipment, teased goats, visited the baby pigs (And were corrected every time. Hogs, not pigs). But my favorite place of all was the chicken yard.
With a look of great tolerance, my distant great aunt would send my sister and me out to collect the fresh eggs (no doubt we ruined the egg collection for days). Then, when the task was done, we were finally allowed to put the chickens to sleep just like my father had taught us.
No. Not that kind of sleep.
As elementary school age kids, my sister and I ran beneath low-lying branches, scrambled behind bushes, caught the chickens one at a time. (Chickens are fast, they can turn on a dime, but we kept at it for as long as it took.)
We’d catch each chicken, gently tuck its head beneath a wing, gently clamp the wing down on its head, and swing the chicken slowly – back and forth like a pendulum. And the chicken would fall asleep. And stay asleep.
We lined them up, one at a time until only the swiftest of the swift chickens ran free. Then – as only grade school children can – we’d scream at the top of our lungs. All at once the chickens would jump up, squawking and clucking and running for cover.
So Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Thanks for the chicken lessons.
Baby Wren Rescue
The wildlife just keeps trying to come in.
Last week a chipmunk, a few weeks before that a little brown mouse. (The cat was toying with it and when I rescued said mouse. Both he and I were convinced he was dead. Since there was no obvious injury, I carried him outside and as the shock wore off, mouse hopped to his feet, panted for a few moments, then ran off into the underbrush.)
This morning my eldest noticed a chittering sound and the cat pawing at a window. A baby wren (his tail was far too short to be an adult) was clinging to the inside of the screen. Somehow he’d managed to squeeze through a 1/2 inch opening, trapping himself between the screen and our closed window. Mom (or dad) was in the bush just outside the window hopping from branch to branch chittering his alarm/worry/displeasure at our presence.
My husband retrieved a scrap of material, I pushed open the window and caught the flapping baby in my hands. We zoomed through the house and out the front door. I held up the baby to his door and he hopped right back in the nest.
Not the best first day in flight school.
Here are the babies (you can see only one of three) as they were last week:
I sincerely hope our wildlife visitors don’t grow any larger.
Bandstands
in Historical, Victorian
as bandstand, Sayre, Victorian, Waverly
I grew up in small town America. The oldest buildings here date to the Victorian era when Sayre, PA was a major railroad town. This bandstand, built in 1886, was painted white during my childhood and was a major destination during walks. At one point the bandstand had fallen into such disrepair that the platform was blocked by a chain. Happily, sometime in the 1990s there was a resurgence of pride in the Victorian heritage of my town and the bandstand (along with a number of other buildings) was refurbished and repainted. I have no childhood memories of a band ever playing here, but now there is a summer concert series that sets up and plays from this 124 year old structure.
And in the next town over, Waverly, NY, another smaller bandstand.
