A Bit of Vacation

My grandson and I are skipping town for a "before-back-to-school" vacation. Sure am looking forward to it.  Preparation for leaving has kept me from sharing stories with you, but I hope to do better when I return. 

So long for a bit...........Nana Chuck

Me 'N Technology

Me 'n Technology = 00000000

I don't like admitting it, but I just ain't the sharpest scissors in the drawer when it comes to technology!  See...I have this problem with something in my electrical nodes (or whatever you call them) in my body.  It makes technology things jump around as if filled with poltergeists.

I was meekly sitting at my dining room table this afternoon trying to catch up on a bit of paperwork.  My phone was on the table a foot or so away so that I wouldn't knock it off when I started pulling my hair out from paperwork frustration.

Suddenly.....HOLY MACARONIS!!!!  My ears were filled with Pennsylvania bird calls .... LOUD Pennsylvania bird calls.  Where was it coming from?  The phone!!  The phone??  I haven't touched the dad-gummed phone!!  What do I do now?  I started checking out every possible thingy on the phone....more bird calls.  What should I do?  Call my kids?  They are all at work.  Where are the cotton-pickin' calls comin' from anyway? I know they are on iTunes.  Where is iTunes on the ding-a-ling phone?  HELP!!

Aaackkkkkkk.....Christmas music started screaming at me!  Now the dang phone was yelling Christmas songs at me!  Total panic.  Don't know what to touch...maybe better not touch anything.  Turning around in circles and staring at the ding-dong phone accomplished nothing.  Grab the house phone.  Just stared at it.  Who would know what's on my phone besides my busy kids?

 "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.....,"Good King Wenceslas....blah...blah...blah,"  "Chestnuts Roasting...."  That was my head roasting!! 

For some reason I howled:  "Siri, Stop the music!"

Silence....pure, blessed silence.  Then calm-voiced Siri said:  "Music stopped."

How did I think of Siri?  I didn't.  I just yelled it. Did my fingers hit something that had her listening.  How?  I hadn't thought of her.....I don't think.  Well, how could one think when one's mind went so swiftly on vacation when chaos erupted?  Dunno, folks.  I guess technology created a way for Siri to meet the needs of troubled souls.  So be it...me 'n technology are forever destined to meet--one way or the other.

Owww....my head hurts!

Whistle Hill Birthday Wish

This is a very special day for me.  It is the birthday of my daughter Deb.  So I am blogging her the best wishes of her day from some of her friends here at Whistle Hill.  (Oh...I must admit to a bit of borrowing from other Whistle Hill birthdays for her cakes.}

A Whistle Hill Birthday Wish 

Happy

 Birthday

To

You,

Happy 

 Birthday

To

You,

 Happy

 Birthday

 Dear Deb....

 Happy

Birthday  (Where's the cake?)

To

You!!!!

A very, very Happy Birthday, My Deb!!!

Here's your "Long Distance Cake.

(Listen...when I am 100 and you are still some years from that you will still be ..... My Baby....so there!)  (Oh...one more thing...I had to make the "Baby" from the clone stamp. Messy....but what can I tell you....that's me.)

Love you so much.....Momxxxooo

(AKA Nana Chuck)

Lovely, Normal Sunday Evening

Another lovely SunDAY:  friend over for lunch, lovely phone chats with my son and another with my Indiana niece.  Also finished a deadline on a library brochure after my Mac refused to discuss sharing with the library's PC.  Thanks to my daughter Deb and her husband Doug they worked it out beautifully (from a loooong distance via Logmein).  I met the deadline.

Then an irresistible, beautiful, golden evening sun started shining through my window. Still full from some decadent strawberry cheese cake indulgence (obviously not a diet day), I thought a stroll around the farm would be appropriate. 

From the house a long driveway leads to the county road from two directions:  one from the front of the house and the other leading back around the barn, and down a gravel hill between cornfields.  If I walk this total length a couple or so times, I can get in a mile walk. So...off I went up the front driveway.

A soft, golden warmth coated me as I walked.  Just...perfection! I did not have my camera with me so my handy iPhone would have to suffice.  In the photo above the cornfield is on the left of the lane and the wheatfield on the right.  The corn is about 10 to 12 feet high.  The tassels and the silk cascading from the top of the ears of corn glowed in the sun.  Absolutely delightful!

I could not resist a shot or two even knowing that I could not capture the scope of reality.   I took this one as I was going back down just because the corn seemed to be marching with me.  It amazes me to see the corn so advanced at this time of the year.  I grew up to the tune of "...knee high by the Fourth of July." 

The corn is well....absolutely lush in its growth!  I played around with a bit of silliness--wondering how my shadow would appear on the cornstalks.  Mmm...not so interesting.

I thought the ears of corn looked somewhat like girls bending their heads back to show off their long, silky golden locks so I tried to capture that thought.

My conscience reminded me that I was supposed to be getting in a little cardio.  So I continued back down the driveway and around the barn to the back lane. 

The sun had painted the stockyard fence with a golden brush, so I woke my phone up from its nap.

Looking down the lane I felt a bit intimidated by the tall cornstalks seeming to loom on each side.  I recorded my shadowed presence thinking that me and my shadow might appear "looming" to the cornstalks and whatever little critters could be slithering or skulking within.

Down the lane I marched, then back up to the front to start my second "lap."  About a 100 feet up the lane, I stopped and snapped a photo of some cornstalks.  For no reason--just snapped one.

Suddenly -- a big, growl ending in a whuffly "Humph!" came from within the cornstalks!!!

I did not stop to consider, I simply turned around and in the same marching cadence went back down the driveway.  I did not turn around to look.  (Was I scared?  Truthfully, I don't know--just curious...I think...maybe.........) Reaching the house I considered my options as to what I had heard.  A dog?  Nope....that was not even close to that sound.  A deer?  Nope.  My sister has lots of deer in her yard in Illinois and over the years I have become quite familiar with the various deer vocalizations. 

Then another thought struck.  "Could it have been a bear?  Naww...bears like the woods....but the cornstalks are very high and very close to one another..could it be a confused bear?"  Even though concerned that I might be considered a bit foolish, I called Robin downstairs and told her what had occurred. After a bit of a pause, Robin said:  "We thought we saw something big going down a back hill a day or so ago and it looked as if something big had tracked through the wheatfield.  Our two dogs have also been very agitated at times. So, Nana Chuck....I believe you did hear a bear!"  The conclusion?  I had a bear as my companion on my evening stroll.  Needless to say--no walks down the lane for awhile....just watching TV while using my trusty, bear-less treadmill. 

I decided to put on a little music and read a book for the rest of the evening.  Lurking in my mind, however, was the thought that it would not be "visions of sugar plums" dancing in my head that night!

  

Whistle Hill Farm

Now that I have finally become brave enough to begin blogging,  I’m so happy you're visiting me!  I’ve been sitting in my rocking chair, looking out my window watching kittens chase one another on the patio below.  I live at the top of a big white farmhouse.  Out my window I can see barns, farm fields, woods, pastureland and off in the distance a ridge of mountains.  Far down at the bottom of the fields two rivers rush to join one another in a journey to the ocean.  Along the edge of the rivers  a train track runs from which came the name “Whistle Hill Farm.”  The sound of the train whistle echoes off the mountains and bounces up from the rivers as it goes by.   It is a sound that I loved as a child and love it still. It is so beautiful here at the farm! My camera is always focused on kittens, the farm dog, cows, pigs, goats, birds, butterflies, flowers and trees and…..oh my….I could just keep on going about all there is to see and all the stories that nature tells me everyday just by watching out my window.   Some take place at Whistle Hill Farm….some from  trips I’ve taken.  But all begin through the eye of my camera. I hope by sharing them with you that you, too, can see all the beauty and fun that nature shares with me every day.

Come Walk With Me....

I belong to a walking club which is a member of the American Volksmarch Association.  (It is so much easier to write AVA because I always have to look up the spelling of Volksmarch...or is it Volksmarche....oh what the heck!)  Anyway, I had to get up at 6 a.m. (Yuk!) today in order to get to the start at 8 a.m.  Now, my dears,  it was a glorious-blue sky-puffy white clouds, brilliant colors of summer-eye bedazzling day.  Uh..Uh....that was the sun bedazzling!  A big, bright .... HOT sun bedazzling!  The walk started with all my buddies briskly stepping out in true AVA rhythmic determination.  One block....three blocks......a half mile.....and I began to wipe the sweat from my brow.  3/4 of a mile and I used my shirt to wash my hands free of the makeup that had blobbed onto them when wiping my perspiring brow.  One mile and I noticed that I could now use my jeans for a washcloth.  No...not what you think happened...it was just a heavy "glow" bedewing me from my waist down to my sneakers.  Remember...ladies do not sweat....we glow (Ha....if any flies had landed on me they would have instantly drowned!) By a mile and a half I was looking for any interesting flora, fauna, bugs, buildings, rocks, trash, whatever to  show my buddies so that they would stop for a look.  The purpose?  To take a rest no matter how brief.  My 10k (6.4 miles for you who don't want to do the figuring) turned into a plodding, sweat laden, miserable 5k (you figure out the miles, I'm tired.)  When I staggered to my car at the end of the walk and opened the door, I was greeted by a blast of furnace-hot air!  Had I any strength left in my body, I would have yowled in misery.  While waiting by my open car door for the A/C to bring relief, a younger, perky buddy walked by and said:  "Great walk, wasn't it!"  Should you like to know my reply, just look at the photo above.

But....come the next walk....I will be there.  And....dreaming of walking in the winter.