scribbles from the past

It might not qualify as hieroglyphics, but for my money, finding this date scratched in concrete 60 years ago motivated me to photograph it.  January, 1955.  I was in 5th grade.  My father was 45 years old.  We were celebrating the dedication of a new "indoor" outhouse with a real window and double walls and a septic tank style disposal area.  I found this date when we tidied up the shop a week ago.  I had seen it over the years.  As most of his peers, my father exited school after the 8th grade.  So he never "majored" in anything. Yet I knew him as attentive to history and having a kind of reverence for dating things, especially concrete he poured around our house as property improvements.  So, with Father's Day coming up:  thanks, Dad (Lester Lehman, 1910-1981).

sweet potato harvest in the lot

The neighbors are harvesting their sweet potatoes in our lot, where in the 1950s my parents had a garden.  A team of horses pulled a shovel beneath the row and brought to light the several varieties.  Next they pulled them to the top of the mound to dry before packing them.

mysterious hieroglyphics

Sunday night reading in bed, I heard a thunderous roar of a crowd of Amish youth,  after the singing at the next door neighbors,some walking past our house, some at a distance.  A primal scream?  A ritual of that gang's leaving after a day of volleyball and singing by gas lanterns?

Today a silvery marking on the zelkova tree caught my eye.  Youth on a rampage marking territory, or doing graffiti?  Some ancient spirit writing hieroglyphics as a warning, as a sign.  Or, a lost snail confused about which way is up in the dark. Or two snails' courtship, leaving their slime which in sunshine turns visible.

All speculation.

first corn picking

Here's the first picking of my sweet corn this week.  On May 26 I planted 4 rows of Butter and Sweet.  Maturity was supposed to be 75 later.  But I picked it 70 days later and it was a little too old.  We froze this picking here and got 8 pints of frozen.  There's nothing quite like walking down your rows of corn the first picking.  Three weeks after May 26 I planted 4 more rows, to spread out the harvest.