Dot`sThoughts

Sunday, May 15, 2011
Been quite a while since I wrote in my blog. Been staying busy trying to get a lot of things accomplished. Started my garden seeds
in the house at beginning of March and now have four kinds of tomatoes growing- Beefstock, Delicious, Rutgers and Cherry
tomatoes. Cherry didn`t grow first time, so I planted more, some of which are growing. Cherry seeds not doing as well as they used to. Last couple years they were hard to find locally and the local places also were not selling the cherry tomato plants. Haven`t checked there this year. Had a problem getting zucchini seeds growing this year, usually have good luck with them. Son Walter had good luck this year and gave them to me- said he only grew them because I wanted some. Last week gave some of my tomato and a couple lettuce plants to sister Ginny (Virginia) and her husband Walt. She doesn`t care for zucchini and the pepper plants weren`t large enough yet then. . Yesterday I gave some tomato, lettuce and pepper plants to daughter Theresa and her husband that live next door to me. For the past 5 or 6 years his father has been sending up some tomato plants for me, that he had grown in his greenhouse. He is in his 80`s now and getting too hard for him to work that much in his greenhouse, so he decided to buy his this year. I will always be grateful to him for thinking of me that way. Before that, I used to grow my own.
My youngest great granddaughter finally came home from the Hospital a couple weeks ago and has gained weight and now weight 7 lbs. . Little Lacy Mae whose birth date was expected to be not until July, was born early on Feb. 04,2011, weighing only 2 lb 4.4 oz. She has such nice coloring and is soo active and doing so good now. Went with Theresa and Gino to their trailer yesterday to visit her, her 3 brothers, her mom and dad ( my grandson). Have another new great grandson, Lucas James, born on March 06, 2011. Have only seen pictures of him so far since they live in Virginia. He is beautiful like all my other great grandchildren and also my grandchildren and even my own children. Guess some might say I am prejudiced, maybe I am. . His mom is one of my granddaughters . Never made her wedding because it was around the same time as a grandson ended up in an accident with his motorcycle and was then in bad condition and I felt that his mom, my oldest daughter, needed me more. I would have loved being at her wedding. This grandson is the youngest of my grandsons and today is confined to a wheelchair. Won`t be a year until July, so, God Willing, I am still hoping for a miracle for him to walk again. Seems like there has been more cycle accidents lately, have to wonder if kids are being more careless, or in some cases, maybe some vehicle drivers are showing less respect for cycle drivers. Had two brothers and two sons who owned them for years, but only my youngest daughter owns and rides one today. I do remember how much I enjoyed driving them when I was younger, so can understand them loving it. My youngest daughter works as a Prison guard. I don`t let myself dwell on where she works, that way, I don`t worry as much, especially when I hear on the TV of riots there, or other things happening that causes a lock Down of all prisoners. Youngest son works in Construction, also one to cause worry especially when doing roofs in the snowy or icy winter conditions. Glad I don`t know when he is working outside this way until the jobs are done. Wish all roofs would stay in good condition till warmer weather and all new houses were built also in nicer weather, but then carpenters might end up with no work all winter, and how would they feed their families that way. Makes me feel that all carpenters should receive more gratitude for the dangers they face while building or re-pairing. Then there is talk about closing some schools and some prisons, hope neither one affects the places where another son and the youngest daughter work. Live is getting so much harder for the younger ones with work being less jobs available. Makes me wonder how much things like computers and other inventions have replaced many of the jobs that were available when I was younger. Now they have made it available to pay most bills on line with the computer, what will happen to the post offices and mailmen when less mail is being delivered. You can read the newspaper on line today, so will the newspaper keep being delivered to the door in the future, or will they cut out the delivery jobs ? When I was younger two of my brothers had newspaper delivery routes to earn spending money, then all three of my sons delivered them. Today most delivery people are men driving cars instead of the boys on bicycles. So many jobs being replaced by machines today, leaving less and less jobs for the next generation to find.
Weather is slowly warming up, after such an awful cold winter, now, even getting into the 40`s and 50`s F. seems warm when the wind isn`t blowing. . Worry this might make it harder for people to handle the hotter 80`s and 90`s this summer, when they get here. Hope this cold weather we are still having doesn`t make our garden growing season shorter than usual. Never has lasted long enough to grow as much as we would like to. Cannot plant until after May 30th, due to frost danger, and it starts getting colder usually by September . Only 3 good growing months, can sometimes extend it by covering the plants on Sept. nights. Love having the fresh veggies, and even better when have enough to can or freeze for winter.

All the thinking of starting my garden brings back lots of good memories from when I used to go out and help my mother pulling weeds in her garden. She never once asked any of us kids to help in the garden even though we all enjoyed eating what she grew. We were expected to help with the normal house chores such as sweeping floors and doing dishes, but never asked to help in the garden, rake leaves, shovel snow, etc.. But we often did do them without being asked. I remember thinking how much fun it was working beside my mother in her garden, in her glower beds, or going with her to pick those small delicious wild strawberries and blueberries, or some dandelions greens for her to cook- tasted a lot like spinich the way she cooked them. I remember one time when she was in her 80`s and I drove down to spend time with her. When I arrived I found her in the back room standing up on a step ladder with wall paper thrown over her head to allow her hands to hold the brush (used to press the pasted wallpaper against the wall)as she climb the ladder. I told her to stay on the ladder and I would put the paste on the back of the paper and hand it up to her. That way I was able to hold the paper straight while she used her brush to press it in place on the wall. She had always used pretty patterned wallpaper, often with flowers, so the wallpaper had to be cut wherever it was needed to make the pattern fit together nicely.She was so good at it that the pattern never showed where each sheet stopped and the next one started, always looked like one pretty wall with the extended pattern continuing perfectly. I remember telling her to phone me the next time she planned on doing any such job and I would gladly come down and help her. So glad I enjoyed helping her so much or I wouldn`t have so very many wonderful memories to look back on today. This is the month that always keeps her on my mind, not only is Mother`s Day in May, but my Mother`s Birthday was May 14th (yesterday) and she passed away on May 10th, 1995, just 4 days before her 92nd Birthday. I feel so lucky to have had two wonderful parents with good rules to follow and good reputations and good standards for us to follow- and they let us know we were expected to raise our families with the same goodness. Like the old saying, the name was clean and respected when they gave it to us and we need to keep it that way for our children, which is what all my brothers , sisters and myself managed to do. Feels good just thinking how we never had any bad reputations to live down. Thanks to Mom and Dad for accomplishing that.