This Wonderful Lady I call Mom

There are only a few people in this world that have known this lady longer then me. Ever since I can remember, I have considered her to be the sweetest, kindest, prettiest and nicest woman I know. I have always been aware that I will never be like her, but she has always been my inspiration, and when someone tells me that I am "just like her", I can only say, Thank-you!, I really try to be!"

Today she turns 87. Because I have known her always, I tend to forget what she has lived through....

She was born during the Great Depression, during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, on a farm in North Dakota, in a house without running water. And she vividly remembers the move from there to Northern California in the early 1940s, in an old Model T, owned by one of her parents' cousins.

She married her high school sweetheart, had 5 children, and moved more than a dozen times, in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and again Oregon, before the age of 32.

Then, she gave up her beloved farm in Oregon, to travel with her family to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and back to the US, at the ripe old age of 41. Once back here, she moved from Iowa to Florida, Texas and Montana, finally settling in Idaho. After living there until retirement age, she and Daddy moved to Montana.

She loves to be outside in her yard, playing with her flowers, listening to "her" birds. She adopts stray cats. She opens her big windows and watches the creek and wildlife that go by. She has always liked clothes and loves to dress nicely. She hates being left out of the fun...

She loves her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren with a ferocity passed on to her daughters and granddaughters. Now that she is in her golden years, she has lost so very many people she loves. Yet she continues to be positive and happy and only gets blue in the winter, when she cannot get out as much as she would like, and does not have much sunshine to brighten her days.

I love this woman with all my heart. Happy Birthday, Mama!

My Butterfly Collection - Part 2

This was the photo that started me thinking about my time collecting butterflies. It came up on a feed I follow by David Attenborough. The common name for this particular butterfly is Glass Wing. In Chiapas, Mexico, they came in a myriad of different color combinations. Many had gold and silver edging their transparent wings. I caught a lot of these.

As time went by, I began collecting moths. I found that moths were much more difficult to kill. This next part is rather morbid...

Because they did not die quickly, the moths would "wake up" and try to get away. I hated that after working so hard to catch them, and spending so much time getting their wings pinned down to show off the beautiful colors, they would wake up and decide they were going to escape, and their wings would get ruined. Not to mention that a person thought they were dead and they were not. It seemed rather cruel, even if it was just an insect.

Someone suggested that I inject the moths with formaldehyde to knock them out. I acquired a needle and syringes and a bottle of formaldehyde from the clinic and worked on that technique. And got pretty good at it. My collection grew...

One night, after the evening church service, a group of excited young male students came to our house and urged Daddy and I to come back to the church to see the huge moth that had been attracted to the lights. They insisted that it was a foot across in size. Of course, we thought they were exaggerating, but ran with them back to the church anyway.

Indeed, they were not exaggerating at all. In fact, the moth in point was every bit of twelve inches across, and perhaps even more. It took a lot of discussion to decide how best to catch it from up high on the wall, near the light, and still not ruin the wings.

These huge moths were referred to as the "White Witch", by the local natives. Once we had caught this huge moth, and gotten it sedated and pinned, everyone in the compound wanted to see it up close. It was certainly the Attraction of the Year! Students began telling us that this time of year, when these moths were known to emerge from their cocoons, the Indian tribes that lived in the mountains would build huge bonfires to attract them...then catch them, roast them and eat them...true story...I mean true story that this was the tale we heard!

It took weeks for this White Witch moth to die, and many syringes of formaldehyde, a bigger board that I had, and a bigger box to put it in when it finally was dead...and very preserved!!

I was so proud of my extensive and growing collection! Stay tuned for the end of the story...

My Grandma's Creed

My Grandma was born and raised in North Dakota, raising her family during the depression of the 1930s. Mama was born in 1937, and I know that much of Grandma's wisdom was passed on to her.

It is widely known that hobos who used to roam the country during that time, when encountering a farmhouse where the wife would hand out food to a wandering soul, would draw a cat on a fencepost or a tree, to alert others that a kind woman lived there.

I am happy to say that, even in these much less simple times, much of that desire to treat with kindness those less fortunate, abides in the hearts of Grandma's descendants.

𝗪𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮 𝗙𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝗳𝗲:

•Whenever you return a borrowed pie pan, make sure it's got a warm pie in it.

•Make home a happy place for the children. Everybody returns to their happy place.

•Always keep a small light on in the kitchen window at night.

•It's a whole lot easier to get breakfast from a chicken than a pig.

•Always pat the chickens when you take their eggs.

•Biscuits brown better with a little butter brushed on 'em.

•Check your shoelaces before runnin' to help somebody.

•Homemade's always better'n store bought.

•A tongue's like a knife. The sharper it is the deeper it cuts.

•It's easy to clean an empty house, but hard to live in one.

•Enjoy doing your children's laundry. Some day they'll be gone.

•All children spill milk. Learn to smile and wipe it up.

•There's no such thing as woman's work on a farm. There's just work.

•Invite lots of folks to supper. You can always add more water to the soup.

•A good neighbor always knows when to visit and when to leave.

•A city dog wants to run out the door, but a country dog stays on the porch 'cause he's not fenced-in.

•Always light birthday candles from the middle outward.

•Nothin' gets the frustrations out better'n splittn' wood.

•You'll never catch a runnin' chicken but if you throw seed around the back door you'll have a skillet full by supper.

•Visit old people who can't get out. Some day you'll be one.

•The softer you talk, the closer folks'll listen.

•The colder the outhouse, the warmer the bed.

-Unknown