Don and the Gopher, a Battle of Wills

I went out one morning and what did I see?  Right in our beautifully landscaped front area, the most wonderful little pile of dirt.  It was so perfectly formed, that one almost was afraid to touch it for fear it would just collapse.  It really was a work of art, and one could tell that it was the work of an industrious critter.

I  inquired of our neighbors if they too had been the recipients of these beautifully made piles of red dirt.  Low and behold they had and had found the perfect solution to these appearing on their property.  I was so excited, that I immediately went home and found Don and told him that it was an easy fix.  There are these little traps that you just stick down under the piles of dirt in their tunnels and amazingly that would take care of our little visitor.  Our dear neighbor said he would come over and between the two of them, they would set the trap and in a couple of hours, and at the most, over night all would be well.

A month or more later and many, many holes later we are still battling Sir Gopher.  He has made many, many of his wonderful creations all over our front property, including up our rock wall onto the dirt by the street.  Don will come in and say, the trap is no longer set, but no Sir Gopher and just to show us who is boss, another beautiful, perfect pile of dirt.   Don has had many ideas of what is wrong, as had our neighbor, but to no avail.  At this point we have to admire his determination and artistic ability and almost want him to continue to vex Don and all of his attempts to capture him.

It makes me think about how important it is to be industrious and persevere in spite of what others might do or think.  Just keep on keeping on.  Don't let anyone stand in our way, no matter what.  But we do have to be very clever.

I just told Don I was writing this blog and he said, Oh , I need to go out and check the trap. Personally, deep down I sort of hope Sir gopher has gotten away again.  He deserves it.  Don came in and here is what he caught......a rock.  He said, Sir Gopher put it there.  And life goes on for another day.

Writing my personal history

I have begun writing my personal history.  It is harder than I thought it would be.  I should have done it sooner, because I am sure there are things that I will forget, important things.  But is has been such great fun. My younger years seem to just come flooding into my mind as I sit and contemplate who I am and was.  At first I thought I can't remember any of that stuff, but the mind is a magic thing and it can help you remember things that you thought were long forgotten.  Recalling things such as:  things we as children used to do for fun, very different than what children do these days.  We spent almost all of our time outside playing.  If we were inside, we heard "Go outside and play".  So we really had no choice.

But what great times we had on the family farm in Hamilton, Illinois--walks in the woods, wading in the creek that went through the property, riding on the handlebars of my brothers bike, since he was the only one that had a bike, in fact sometimes he would ride two of us, one of us on the bar and of course, me on the handlebars;  picnics in the woods;  softball games with the neighbors across the road, hide and go seek; statue;  sleeping under the stars; making clouds into things....dogs, horses, airplanes....;  and watching for the real airplane that might just fly over.  That was a very big deal. Everyone stopped to watch the plane as it went by.  It was almost a celebration.  Of course, it was right after World War II, and we were so proud of our men in uniform.

And, were we  picky about what we ate for meals......of course not.  We were glad to have enough food to eat and we loved all of it.  I can't remember ever complaining about anything that  I was served.  I do remember fresh chicken....sure did hate the part that came before the good eating tho. But it was a necessity then.  No frozen chicken parts for us.  Well I did just think of a part of the chicken I didn't like-----the gizzard.  Too tough to chew.  Otherwise, it was all good.  Then the feathers were used for bedding quilts and mattresses.  Wow, am I old.

Why is it important to remember and write down these things---so that our children and other relatives will know who they are and where they came from.  If we don't record it, it will be lost. How many times have I wished that one of my ancestors had written about the time that they lived. How did you survive the Civil War?  Why did you only serve in the Civil War for a few months at a time?  How did it work for someone to go in your place?  What was it like to be part of the group of people that came over to settle Texas?  Why is our last name Glasgow, but my DNA tells me I am all Irish....no Scottish at all.  What is that story?  Who is that lady standing next to you in the really old picture that you left me?  How did you survive the depression?  And the questions go on and on.  I will probably never answer all of the questions that that nosey great great great grandson asks himself, but I will leave a little of me behind, so that I won't be a complete mystery.

Just know, that whoever you are,  even if I never met you,  that I have loved you and thought about you more than you will ever know.

God Bless you for asking.

Family Farm Hamilton Illinois

Farm with my great great grandmother in front ..my Grossmutter

Covered Bridge between Hamilton, Illinois and Keokuk Iowa across the Mississippi River.

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Catching up

I don't know why I don't write in my blog more often.  I have so many things to say, thoughts that come to my mind at the oddest times.  Times when I am not near a computer or have my tablet with me.

The last blog I wrote was when we have found out that Don needed to have open hear surgery.  Well that has been done (January 8th, 2014) and he is all recovered and doing really great.  He did have a cute pre-surgery visitor tho.



We have the best daughter.  Caroline and Alaina spent the first few nights in the hospital with him.  What a relief that was for me and him.







Thinking of some of the things that happened
during and after the surgery, brings to mind some funny happenings too.

One of the things that they bragged about to us before the surgery was that "he will walk from the ICU to his regular room".

 So the morning he was to leave the ICU, I was there waiting for the rehab people to come to get him.  While waiting, he got some pretty bad pain and they gave him some "meds".  Well about a 1/2 hour after, here they come to get him.  Well it was so funny, because they were absolutely positive that he needed to walk to his room.  Walk.....he didn't even know where his feet were, he was so loopy.  But onward they marched trying to get him to walk.  I got to laughing to hard that they were giving me evil looks. Finally, they gave up and off he went in a wheelchair.  I don't think those guys from rehab ever forgave me.

This was his walk from the ICU.  Just sayin'.

He was tough and did recuperate really quickly.  All the doctors said he had an "amazing" recovery.   Glad that is over.  He was blessed the whole time.

And here he is after 36 sessions of rehab.  He did spectacular.