Christmas light contest

And the winner of the Monterey Christmas light contest is...

Our neighbors, next house east on West Eby.

Competition was practically nil. Amish refused to participate.

third and fourth generations

Eighteen family members crowded into the Monterey house Sunday, December 23. Of the family of Lester and Elva, that's the whole bunch, except Mel and Patrick.

Late in the afternoon, the entire and third and fourth generations were there and the shop light gave this image of them. Standing: Bonnie, Chris, Joel, Stephanie, Sarah, Ryan; front, Helen, Manny, Angela, and lights girl Emily.

Wow. Great bunch! If Lester and Elva could see them now!

lights, action, Emily

You get the family together for Christmas. You got three generations from three states. Plenty of action. But, lights, please, for the historic pic.

Emily knows what to do. A picture of taking a picture. This so good maybe we'd do best just to imagine what the light's pointed at.

New light in time for solstice

In time for the shortest day, the winter solstice, a new light started to shine between the driveway and the house. On this frosty day baby icicles hung all four sides.

With this being December 13, there are only 7 more days until the shortest day. One father with two small children told me that he loves this time of year. It's dark when the kids go to bed and dark when they get up. Somehow that makes it easier.

The lamp was made in Hanover, Pa. It sits on a cedar post. The electric wire goes up a hole in the center the length of the post. I'd like to know how to drill such a long hole.

This is really outside light four. My parents had an electrician put up the high light at the corner of the house. Joel and I made that into a double light about 1997. When we put in the office at about the same time, we installed a light outside the office door. I forget when we put a light at the back door. It could have been in preparation for Sarah's graduation party.

Candlelight and zither

The first days of December the 1719 Herr House candlelight tours asked me to present one of the demos, on the Ausbund and early music

So, grim to survive the 40-degree upstairs temperature, I got the costume from the attic and the zither from the Harmonies office.

A healthy dose of the gift of gab, and a repetoire of one song (Silent Night), some research on the 1804 Mennonite hymnal's Christmas section and I was good to go for four hours--8-minute demo, 8-minute break while another person talked about the Martyr's Mirror, and on again.

Then people really sang with gusto one verse of Joy to the World, which was first published the year the Herr House was built.

first freeze

The first snow at Monterey this fall. Our uncarved pumpkin doesn't have much more time as an attractive vegetable.

But i'ts holding out against the 19 degrees along with the mums, trying to soak up the sun.

Last evening I drove back from Souderton, arriving home minutes after 10 p.m. It always amazes me--that driving 50 mph doesn't take much longer than 60 mph.

45 and 50 was the best the traffic could do on the turnpike and 202 and 30. When I turned off on Monterey Road creeping was the only sane speed. I understand why school's on 2-hour delay. I'm glad they didn't cancel.

work blog

Here's the entrance to Zion Mennonite Church in Souderton.

They invited me to serve an interim term which ends the end of June, 2008.

If interested, you can follow my work blog at www.singzion.blogspot.com.

I think it's a real cool place. Two days a week I plan to be on these premises. It's Monterey the rest of the time.

inside Zion

Tuesday I forget about Monterey and Harmonies for the day and start my work at Zion. By the end of the day I shot this picture after working out some pieces on the organ. The benches face to the left, so this is looking out the right side of the sanctuary.

That evening the worship committee met at the pastor's house, planning for Advent.

I'm eager to do this work.

After Thanksgiving

All the big things--the wedding and Thanksgiving--are over. Now time to take a break.

How to kick back and relax a day? Go to the big, bustling city. Find the Renoir exhibit. The sign's big enough.

The museum itself is some kind of work of art. It must have just been scrubbed. The Renoir pieces were all landscapes, his earlier work. So beautiful while we are living in an autumnal picture of yellow and red trees.

On the way home we can't miss a stop at Ikea for an office storage unit and a Swedish meatball.

wedding rehearsal

Time stopped at Monterey last week. Part of the world stopped.

A major building block was to be laid in the edifice of life.

That was the matrimonial union of Joel and Steph. Big, fun, seismic events don't take place with the stroke of a pen, a punch of a key, or the mouthing of a word with just one or two witnesses.

Something real happens. Camels and goats change fields. Servants flock around the families and prepare food, set up meeting places, make music, write documents, prepare rituals. Civil servants at the town hall write this up for the official record. Newspapers print it. Artists skilled in beauty, mirth, culinary arts, and dance are summoned by the leaders of the clans.

The evening before the final event, all the major players gather and walk through the ritual. That's what a wedding rehearsal is. And here is Dorcas checking the rehearsal dinner tables.

By 6:30 p.m. the 30 persons came together and had Thai food here in the foyer of the East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church, Lancaster, Pa.

White oak pleads...

...pleads for a little bit more time. Look at those leaves straining to communicate. And that color--isn't that a shameless bargain for more life.

But the tree knows what time it is.

This white oak is growing in the southwest corner of our little triangle in Monterey. We chose it because the 1824 deed describes the lines of our lot as going from "the huge stone at the side of the road, direct south to the old white oak." The white oak in 1824 surely was original growth and could easily have been there since 1500. Now this upstart, no more than a teenager, is trying to push all limits since we gave it nutritional iron two years ago.

Behind it is the spruce we used as a live Christmas tree ten or so years ago. The weather will soon get freezing cold. The oak will hibernate. The spruce, tough it out. They each inspire me.

Saffron blooms

When it appears that the garden is done for the year, the saffron blooms. This flower here is part two of a complicated life of this member of the crocus family.

First thing in the spring they look like onions pushing up. When the garden is just beginning to produce, the saffron checks out and goes underground until winter is nearly here.

Each flower sports three red filaments. That's what you pluck and lay out to dry. And they become the most expensive spice in the world.

New roof

In church conversations you hear "the church is the people." True enough.

The family is the people, too. But the house demands attention from time to time.

This time it was the roof clamoring for renewal. The shingles had been put on some 35 years ago, I would guess by their looks.

So we signed a contract with R & L Siding and in one day with a crew of about seven and cranes and air hammers we had a roof that should keep us dry for a long time.

If this crane were not enough, look at the front porch and see a smaller hoist which was how they discarded the old shingles they ripped off.

Western Maryland leaves

I won't even tempt you with a single photo here. Just hit the link.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lehmangd/GrantsvilleOctober2007

Flagstone walk

Two property projects finally were done the same week--a new walkway and a new roof.

Here's the walkway torn up and the new curved path for the flagstone. Stacked up like books on a shelf are the squares of Pennsylvania Blue, the flagstone quarried in northeastern Penna. and across the border into New York state.

Maybe machines have replaced most physical labor, but not here. The Kilgore Landscaping crew just dug in with plain old shovels. They had only a few more feet to dig and they said to me, This is amazing! All this digging and we still haven't hit a rock.

That's good old Monterey.

Special couple at wedding shower

These are important and exciting days. Joel and Stephanie are getting married Nov. 10. It's kind of like building a new pyramid, a new Rome, a new civilization. You don't do it in one day.

Bible scholars point out that the wedding at Cana was probably a five-day shindig. The point is not being an extravaganza. The point is the rock-bed deep foundations.

Last week friends threw a wedding shower. I put up a pic of the gifts. Here's the couple having the first piece of cake.

Wedding shower

Here you see the gifts brought to the wedding shower for distinguished Monterey citizen Joel and his beautiful financee, Stephanie. The brunch event was held at a restaurant in Leola last Sunday, hosted by friends of Stephanie's family.
The wedding will be held November 10. We are in the count-down last 30 days. Table cloths, candles, silverware, menus, music, guest list, clothes--it's the current conversation and work.
We're all really excited for this.
Family and friends will come from Oregon, Ohio, New York, Virginia, Deleware, and many points in between.

Bill Moyers uses sounds from Monterey

Well, Monterey isn't the center of the world, but for a few moments anyone in the world who was listening to Bill Moyer's Journal would have been hearing a few sounds generated here.

Weekly, Bill Moyers produces a reflective television piece. Last Friday it featured the book Amish Grace. The sound of the hymn and the schoolhouse bell were supplied by Harmonies. We get a little link and credit.

This link should get you to it: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10052007/profile4.html

I dream of marrying...Jo Pee and Fundi

Bennerblog picked up another of my attempts at humor.

If you want to read it go here: www.bennerblog.com

Find out who Jo Pee and Fundi are and what kind of pre-marital counseling I would have provided them if Falwell had asked me to sub for him. All very suppositional.

Toadstools?

Mushrooms cuddling? Toadstools? What are these growths in the lawn?

Here are some definitions: "an edible agaric (contrasting with the inedible toadstool)"--whatever agaric is. "Fungi of Basidiomycota with a cap at the end of a stem arising from underground mycelium."

Well, my Latin is not very good today, so whatever that means.

I remember seeing things like this which had popped up overnight when I was a kid. I was so fascinated. I don't think my parents (or any of my fiends' parents) ever bought mushrooms at the local pop and mom grocery. What a waste! Buying air. It's not food. It won't fill you up or stick to your ribs.

I knew enough to know that some people eat them. My Mom knew enough to tell me that some are poisonous. Which ones? She didn't know. I don't know. There was no internet to tell us how to tell the difference. The online dictionary reserves the term "toadstool" for the bad ones. So am I looking at a scrumptious topping for my hamburger or agonizing indigestion and possible death?

I'll never know, because I had to mow them down.

It just leaves me with the thought--why isn't the atomic bomb cloud called the toadstool cloud?

Gimmicks online--wow

I sent this to one of my movie buddies. I feel like I'm on the edge of techno-greatness.

Humor column published on blog

I write a 500-word humor column once in a while. One publication calls it Hallelujahs and Demurs.

Humor is touchy. As often as not someone who can cancel a paper subscription is not amused. Online it's free and they can just click it off.

Today EMU's Prof. Benner published a recent piece which I think is pretty funny. It is the first time I've gotten on a blog. Here's the link if you want to see it.

www.bennerblog.com

Final curtain for lambs

The lambs graduated Monday. Here Moe tries to climb the Smokehouse apple tree in the orchard. Is he telling me he's ready to move on? They boarded a shiney aluminum cattle trailer behind a new Mack truck.
Now I have to muck out the shed, put away the fence extension, give away the sheep feed that was left, and spread out the hay.
As much as I anthropomorphized Meeney, Miney, and Moe, I should examine what I was projecting.
I notice that often I attributed to them negative motives--getting a cheap break on feed, looking for an easy escape, etc. It occurs to me that I was just using them for an easy laugh.
The exact opposite could have been the case. Baaing might be telling me not to feed them, that I gave them too much already and gave them a tummy ache. Constant pushing at the fence might have been hints to tighten up security.
Anyway, they were good guys. I got a lot from them. Apologies to anyone who was disturbed by their baaing. They deserve a new, happy chapter in their lives.

Rotten apple new pate de foie gras

Try to keep your lunch down. But on their excursions to the pasture extension, the sheep go straight for the rotten apples.

They don't eat the rot. They eat beside the rot and thus get the ripest part of the apple. The best is right before it goes bad. Don't try to apply that to any metaphysical situations.

If you haven't ordered any pate de foie gras recently, it's goose liver butter in the same way that we use butter in apple butter. The French, who make snails into flights of culinary ecstasy, also make goose liver into a very pricey dip.

I can't remember if I ever had it.

Cousins are for funerals

What are cousins for, I asked just a few days ago?

I found out one reason sooner than anyone expected. My cousin Ernie Stoltzfus died this week. His funeral was today in York, Pa. I went with Milton. Those are Milton's hands. To the right is Richard Sensenig, the oldest of the 45 Lehman cousins. He is 74 and Ernie, not quite the youngest, was to be 47 in less than a year.

Cousins are for funerals, was the implied answer to the question. Just one of the reasons. But they do pull together.

Ernie just died because of a heart defect no one had ever known. It was touching to see the grief of a wife and son and other close family so rudely shocked.

Greener grass

Is grass really greener on the other side of the fence. O all creatures, I think sheep are the most gullible for this ploy. Their salivary glands don't seem to work unless they are pressing against one limit or another.
"The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence" implies that it's not, that it just seems that way, and we ought to learn to be content with what we have.

But the orchard extension to the pasture last week was really greener. And, full of dropped apples. So the new feeding pattern for Meeny, Miney and Moe is a twenty minute trip to the extension pasture where the grass is greener, the apples more lush.
But as soon as they get to the other side of the fence what are they interested in? Right, getting to the other side of the next fence.
I'm not going to go moral here, but there's something pathetic about their behavior. Is their goal to find refreshing, green, healthy grass? Or to cross another boundary. Or to get farther away from their shed?

Dawn's early light

The dawn's early light at Monterey. Meeny, Miney and Moe are still sleeping in their sheep shed, barely visible, center right. I know because they did not baa when my footsteps made noise on the driveway.

Our national poem's "dawn's early light" requires glare and rockets. Let me have it without the noise and artificial light. Just soft and pastel and shifting almost erotically.

There's plenty of time then for the noise, the baa-ing, the hustle, the grazing and the glancing. People pay $400,000 for a property but only see it from 7:10 to 7:15 in the morning and from 6:15 to 8:05, let's say, in the evening.

Some people never see their little place on earth.

Way beyond Charlotte

We're way beyond Charlotte Web, the early spider who evoked literary vibes with me. We're now down to hard core agression and capture with this specimen hiding behind the barn.

This does not make me think of sweet stories for children about little piggies on idyllic farms in New England being rescured by clever arachnoid brains.

I don't see a brain here. I see a pin point dedicated circuit hard wired for conquest. I see empire. I see Hollywood terror. I see fools in an oil rich desert, not knowing the climate will change in a few weeks and all that armor will fall and be kicked aside by the natives.

Well, I also see yellow design on an abdomen. Is there a similar creature within webbing distance whose heart will melt upon seeing this fine belly?

Hey, I was just trimming back a few grape vines. What made me think war? Is it time I move to Canada and see this as art?

Spider picks barn

Charlotte Web, the spider outside our door, has a friend or relative spinning a web every evening at the barn. And here's the picture.

I think they are both right-handed, because they build in the right corner of the openings, looking at the spider from their backbone.

These two spiders are just the tip of the iceburg of the spider population at our Monterey home. Walk anywhere after dark and you're sure to hit some web. I can guarentee it under the grape arbor or around the dogwood tree.

I have no idea how web strands appear out of nowhere, in the middle of the lawn, far from any vertical. I guess it's a bungee cord instinct in all creatures: let's drop this rope down, hang onto it and see where it goes, especially in this nice breeze.

Profounder than the fear of walking into a web in the dark, is the angst that spiders could possibly take over the world in a few short summers. Haven't I read that New York City, totally evacuated by humans, would revert to wilderness in a few years. I can picture the evolution of spiders in Manhattan: twenty-five pounders pulling skyscrapers into each other, helpless ensnared rats screeching like baby mice for help.

What's bringing the Halloween out of me already?

Cousins for counting

What are cousins for? For playing with when you are a child. Now, for counting at funerals of uncles and aunts. At the funeral of Uncle Irvin thirteen attended. Here they are, including the four children of the uncle (back row, right) and Aunts Gladys and Jane (front row left, and middle with laced collar).

Cousins are for knowing who you are, for knowing where you started out in the great maze of life. You can't fool your cousins. In a good family they won't fool you. What a great bunch!

Touch-Me-Nots

After Dorcas's birthday cake at Mascot, she discovered a stand of touch-me-nots just twenty feet left of where she was seated, by the stream.

With the camera set on sports, here one of the pods is caught as it begins to explode. The theory of evolution generally makes sense to me as I think of dandelions in our lawn flowering at lower and lower heights to beat the mower blade.

Yet, with these flowers I have to wonder how that first pod got the idea to explode and throw its seeds farther and farther to promote the species.

Dorcas loves the date of her birthday--September 5--and associates it with going back to school (a real big whoop for her in the early days), the end of the smoothering heat of summer, and the exploding touch-me-nots, for which she traipsed through the Maple Shade woods in carefree autumn.

Objets d'birthday

When I look at this picture, I think of the French "objet d'art," which means an art object.

Dorcas is the perfect objet d'art here. The location is the Mascot "park," along the Mill Stream. We went there along with Joel for desert after her birthday supper on September 5.

I'm handing her a piece of her birthday cake, a work of culinary art so complex and multi-layered I'm at a loss to describe it. Did it have a hint of peanut butter in the lowest layer? we asked. Or was that a hint of something else? Family heirloon fanatics will notice the plate is pure Miller, second set. The bottle on the picnic table is Italian Pergalozzi--fizzy water, not wine. Beside it is the red chunks of watermellon, ripe to perfection.

In the beer can holder to Dorcas's left is some decaf in her favorite bone china rose cup. On the bench are three gifts--two books, one of the history of Mennonites in New York City, where we met. One gift is our wedding service of 28-plus years ago transferred from the original cassette of the PA system of Maple Glen church to brand new compact disc--professionally enhanced as it was transferred.

Music at Uncle Irvin funeral

My Uncle Irvin died last week. I went to the funeral at Park View Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, Va. last Saturday. I was asked to lead the singing and to sing "The Holy City," a solo popular in mid-century. Both hymns were by Isaac Watts, first published about 1719--When I Survey, and Jesus Shall Reign.

Click here to listen to about eight minutes of exerpts. I found the words online, but I was playing the piano by memory and ear.

http://www.box.net/shared/d3elrzbqit

A good dozen of my cousins, one coming as far as from Wisconsin, came to the funeral.

Charlotte outside the door

If you leave our house at nightfall, walk straight ahead, don't turn to the left.

Charlotte has been spinning her web each evening. I could get the broom from the kitchen and wipe her out.

This morning a slightly smaller spider had entered my car by the window I had left open. In the close space, my pacifistic feelings were overcome by my survival instincts--it's either you or me.

Off came both my shoes and the splot of protoplasm disappeared in mid-air. I feel no guilt.

Deadly Mascot wreck

It is so much fun to ride the bumper cars at a fair. But in real life, a pick up broadsiding a two-door at over 50 mph, killing the driver beside an idyllic tourist spot, seriously catapulting the passenger out the back window, such banging of one metal shell against another upends and sometimes ends a whole life.

Such was the case in Mascot, a little twin town of Monterey. Hundreds of tourists stop at Mascot every year to see the water-powered grist mill. Mascot is at the intersection of Stumptown and Newport Roads, about 1 mile southwest of Monterey.

The Mill Stream runs through the town of about 8 houses. See the falls in the background of photo. On the other side of the stream runs a narrow sanctuary enjoyed by egrets and kingfishers. When I was a boy tramps camped in the woods there.

The intersection is dangerous. A tourist was killed here only about 4 years ago. This evening I saw the cross with flowers in memory of a Lisa. How many persons died natural deaths in Mascot? Did an original American, centuries ago, take an arrow in the sternum here?

Monterey this summer is bracketed by fatal accidents, the last day of July and about the last day of August, both on Newport Road.

Manger working for sheep

How quickly the fate of things can change.

A manger was installed, hay bought, and here are Meeny, Miney, and Moe feasting on the mixed greens--timothy and alfalfa.

One day they were just one loud bellow away from the cattle truck, and the next day they are back in the good graces of the shepherd.

Actually, we've been through two bales and here you see them munching on the third.

The learning--presentation of the food. I've tried hay previous years, by spreading it on top of the straw on the floor, or just scattered in the pasture. Finally, put it up in the air and they're hooked. What can that say about humans and our eating habits?

Haunted Monterey house sold

Monterey's haunted house for 20 years was sold. Before its fame as haunted, the house was Furman funeral home from about 1954 to 1964. Before that is was Overly funeral home. Overly was bearded and a member of the Church of the Brethren. A neighbor has an invoice for his services i n the late 1940s--$70, exactly. He was known to flush his formaldehyde down his well. It overflowed sometimes and sickened the ducks across the road.

After 1964 Furman moved his undertaker operations to much better digs on Main Street, Leola. The owner made the house into three apartments which became abandoned about 1990. Children avoided it on Halloween. Weeds grew. Paint peeled. Windows cracked. Rodents invaded. Who knows, maybe ghosts hovered.
In the photo here the focus is on the building behind the house where the bodies were prepared for funerals.

The property sold at public auction on Tuesday for $157,000.

Last uncle dies

My Aunt Jane called today and told me Uncle Irvin died shortly before 10 p.m. last evening, apparently in his sleep, between routine nurse checks. He was born in 1915 and was 92 yrs old. George, his son, who lives in Harrisonburg, Va., wants to wait until son Peter gets back from a truck run in Wisconsin to make final plans. As soon as I find out when the funeral is, I’ll look at my schedule to see if I can fit it in.

My uncle was known as G. Irvin. The G was George, the name of his father, my grandfather. There were eight sons in that family. My father, Lester, was the next to oldest. Irvin was the last of the boys living, the fourth youngest. Of the family of twelve children, only two remain—Aunt Jane and Aunt Gladys, the next to youngest and third to youngest.

I always liked Uncle Irvin and when I was twelve or so, stayed at his house the first time I (with parents) visited Milton at EMU. I was proud to have an uncle with a Ph.D. and a professor position at EMU. His first wife, Edith (Eddie), died about 1970, and that loss was catastrophic for their four children. The oldest, George, graduated from EMHS that year. I was proud to have an aunt who could play the piano pretty well, and I remember her banging out “Ben Hur’s Chariot Race March” one time in the early 1960s when they had a meal with my folks at Monterey. I promised myself I’d learn that awesome piece sometime, and I did a few years later.

She was a nurse by profession, and I visited her at work the last time I figured I’d see her, when Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community was not much more than one brick building, the last one on the left as you leave campus on Virginia Ave. I think it is, the street than runs next to MapleWood.

In the hayday of my growing up, I had seven uncles on the Groff side (five by marriage) and ten on the Lehman side (four by marriage) for a total of seventeen uncles. Uncle Irvin is the last family uncle. I have one uncle by marriage on the Groff side, Earl, who was a classmate of Uncle Irvin's at Manheim township high school.

Rat in the cellar

I post this reluctantly...hopping many are out of town for an end of summer vacation. Several week ago I called our pest company and asked them to analyse a hole in the cellar, freshly dug, right next to the cnetures-old stone wall.

After two service calls, they determined that it was a rat hole and two deadly traps were set. It seems that the outside cellar doors had been left open overnight and a wandering rodent checked us out.

Now there are two possibilities--that our investigation, our plugging up the hole, our placing of traps at two places, has scared the rodent away; or, that the critter is lying low, waiting for the dust to settle. In either case, we've got it covered. Well, I'm not letting the dust settle. We're doing a full-court press. The outside door is being closed. And all manner of things will be well, as the saint said--not for the rat but for us.

That's organic peanut butter as bait on the trap.

dirt cellar woes

Here's a photo from about 1960 of our place. The original stone house was built after 1825. We know that because it never had a fireplace. The Franklin stove, which made the fireplace unnecessary, arrived in the Monterey area after 1825. So I like to think our 18 inch think stone walls were there since 1835.

It was probably built as a retirement house for the Eby family farm behind it. The addition to the house is a late 19th century wooden structure, circa 1890. The barn was built by my father in 1954, with a little help from me. Much of its timber frame was taken from the previous barn.

The house was also built over a spring. It has been dry since at least 1951 when my parents bought the property, the the hole was always there and serves as a french drain (a plain hole in the ground).

All this to say, that having a 19th century dirt floor in your cellar is very "green," but comes with a bit of a cost. This year we've been aware of two.

1. Is borderline level of radon in the house coming from the earth?

2. If we laid concrete would that solve our rodent problem in the cellar?

Details later.

Sub organist at Lititz Church of the Brethren 19 Aug. 2007

The past six months I've been a supply organist at perhaps 20 churches. Here are excerpts from the first hymn, "Brethren, we have meet to worship," which I played Aug. 19, 2007. It's written in A major, but I started in A-flat so I could kick the last verse up in pitch.

The organ is a local Lancaster-made organ--Gundling. The church has as good acoustics I have heard in any of the churches I've played the past half year.

sub Lititz COB 19 Ag 2007 hymn.mp3

Locust molts

Much is made of the butterfly and its emergence from the chrysalis. The lowly locust gets short shrift. But Saturday I saw one newly emerged from its old skin. See the twisted wings in the left photo? About one hour later (right photo) is is not ready for flight, but the wings are stretched out and it walks away.

Inspiration for this I got from neice Lois Maust, who has splendid photos of the butterfly.

Stuck in Kinzers

Friday noon promised an educational, fun get-away for my brother Milton and me. On the way to Kinzers I bought my first biofuel (5% ethanol). From there, on to the Rough and Tumble Reunion to see the steam engines.

Then lunch. Then a downpour forced everyone into shelter. After probably 45 minutes and maybe an inch and a half of rain, the shuttles to the field parking didn't run right away, so we walked. We were totally stuck and a tractor pulled the Mazda out.

My father first introduced me to this event 40 or so years ago.

Reprieve on the lambs

In case you've been afraid that Meeny, Miney, and Moe might lose their citizenship papers at 34 West Eby Road, you can relax for the moment. They may act a little illogical at times, but I'm no longer into the illegal thing about them.

Steps were taken, and things are better.

Background: they are getting larger, needing more food and the pasture is getting drier as August heat keeps pounding and rains are few.

It was decided to add hay to their menu. It hadn't worked before. In past years I had the experience of piles of hay in their pen going untouched, being confused with straw. This year, in desperation, I thought of putting the hay up in a manger--one of those things you see horses eating out of at about eye level. It seems to work. Joel reported he saw all three eating ouf of it at once.

The bad news is that they have been banned from the orchard pasture. Saturday I had taken them on their daily excursion. While I was guarding the low section of the fence over which they escaped in the past, they found another spot, pulled it down with their neck, and quickly jumped over into Glick's alfafa. That's a factor of Meeny and Miney being taller and older. I was nonplused, frustrated, plain mad, and shoo-ed Moe across too, thinking it would be easier to keep them together for the round-up and rescue.

With a little help from Dorcas, we soon had them back.

Meeny, Miney, and Moe at the crossroads

As innocent as our scruffy-kneed small bovines may look, they have been pushing the limits recently and pushing the buttons of us living at 34 W. Eby. Not to cast aspersions on them--but they have been baa-ing at inappropiate times and much too frequently and loudly. We have provided them with fresh water, lots of molassus-tinged grain, ocassional excursions to the orchard pasture extension. Gratitude and shutting up never seems to be a result of this care. Therefore we had to take some decisive measures. No more trips to the orchard until they stop jumping the fence into the Glick's alfafa field. No more extra helpings of grain until they stop baa-ing after being fed. And, we've added, just yesterday, a little manger, custom-made at the back of their shed. Benuel and Junior Smoker, two Monterey boys, brought them a fresh bale of hay. So far Dorcas and Joel have claimed some success at getting them to transfer their voracious appetites from sweetened grain to hay--but so far it requires human time of standing there and soliciting the eating of hay. I hate to say this, but the thought of the Beiler cattle truck has popped into my head more than once. But we are taking all possible measures for forestall this eventuality. I am frustrated because I am by nature very forgiving of the friendly beasts of the field. But the happiness of people (family and neighbors) comes first, after all. So, for all of you who have petted Meeny, Miney, and Moe and who helped name them, I just wanted to update you. We will take no drastic actions without consulting with you. You did name them. Incidentally, their ceremonial names are: Casper, Melchior, and Balshazar.

Accident sobers Monterey

Tuesday, the last day of July, a motorcyclist was killed in Monterey when a car driving in the lane beside him changed lanes and collided with the motorcycle. In minutes traffic was shut down, the people of the village assembled at a respectful distance from the accident and the emergency responders. We passed around information: who was killed, who knew him, why did the car turn, was anyone hurt in the car which swerved in front of the cycle in order to cross the road and stop at the roadside stand where a young girl was selling sweet corn.

The pic is small, but on the sign at the left is "Monterey harness shop" and one can see cows dumbly grazing while humans do the hard work of absorbing the information, accepting the tragedy, caring for the wounded, and taking away the corpse.

Joel and I rode our bikes to the scene after he heard about it on the scanner. He shot a few pics.

July Get-away to Westhampton, NY

Besides one week in Kentucky, we took four days off and went to Westhampton, NY. There Dorcas visits a college friend and her husband. Often another Hood College classmate shows up. This time it was the standard--Paulette and her husband Tom, and Candy. Here's the scene.
I'll get the photos up asap.

Kentucky Vacation

Let's go way back to June 27 and the beginning of Dorcas and me vacationing in Kentucky. Joel drove with us to Columbus, Ohio, where we were the guests of Lois Maust, enjoying a meal at Hoggies, with a tractor hanging from the ceiling, and the best little ice cream place east of the Mississippi. Lois treated us to an exclusive screening of her Monarch butterfly documentary.

From that great hospitality, Joel went to the airport for his flight, and we headed for New Haven, Kentucky. There we found the little house we had reserved for four days.

From our base house, we launched out to Trappist (a type of monk) worship services based on singing the psalms, to a local excursion train ride, to me getting my 63rd birthday and the attendant gifts, particularly the camera which took these pics, and just loafing and reading: "working hard to make sure we didn't care about anything too much," as I heard someone say this summer.

We also attended a performance of "Stephen Foster: the musical," a show at the "My Old Kentucky Home State Park."

We went to Lexington, Kentucky, on Sunday and enjoyed a visit with Laban Miller and family and Jim Miller and family. Besides giving us lunch, the youth were launching out to Ohio for several days of a service project. Before they left some of them posed for this photo with their Aunt Dorcas on a sofa.

On our way to the next stop we drove through the Daniel Boone National Forest and saw some of the features of the Red River Gorge.

Then at the end of a roller coaster hills-of-Kentucky road we arrived at Snug Hollow, a bed and breakfast. What can I say:

Then, on the way home, a stop at Grantsville, where Ruth had breakfast and costumes. Very satisfying, the whole week.