The long way home - part 2

My drive home from Oklahoma City to Montgomery took 14 1/2 hours.  Not too bad, really.  I think I enjoyed the Dallas route better than the Memphis route.  It felt cleaner.  If you have ever driven I-40 between Memphis and Little Rock, you know what I mean.  And it wasn't that much longer.

A drive that long gave me lots of time by myself.  I wasn't alone, though.  Ben, David, and Jackie all called to wish me Happy Mother's Day, I was in touch with both sisters, my mom called to let me know about the river levels on my route, and I talked to Daryl all along the way.  He somehow always knew where I was before I told him.

Mississippi River on May 8, 2011

Even with all of those conversations I still had time for mental ramblings.  And part of having a blog is being able to bore you with, I mean share with you my ramblings....

 - On the other side of the river from where I stood to take this picture, the water was almost up to the bottom of the highway out across the river bottom.   I wonder what will happen if both I-40 and I-20 are flooded?

 - While driving on the outskirts of Dallas I saw an exit sign for Farmer's Branch, TX.  We lived there for a year while Dad got his Master's Degree at Southern Methodist University.  I was in the sixth grade and have pretty good memories of my time there.  It is not uncommon among children who move many times, but I don't remember the names of my teachers in school.  Or the names of many of my friends.  It is a very strange feeling.  But yesterday, when I saw the Farmer's Branch sign, I remembered Mrs. Hess.  She was my sixth grade teacher and I haven't known her name for a very long time.

 - I saw a sign for Ruston, Louisiana.  It made me think of church and preachers.  Do I know someone who lives there?

 - When I looked online to see the route I was planning to take home, I noticed the exit I would take off of Interstate 20 after I got into Alabama.  At dinner the night before I left I was talking about it with my family and couldn't remember the name of the town.  I said, "It is a four-letter word.  I think it is a person's name.  Like Ezra, but not Ezra."  Later, when I looked it up again, I saw that it was Cuba.  Why did I think of Cuba Gooding, Jr., and not Cuba, the country?

 - There is a pattern here - I have a bad memory!

 - While I was packing the car early on Sunday morning, Dad was in the kitchen packing snack bags for me for the trip.  He cut up apples and grapes for one bag and put chocolate and crackers in another bag.  Mom had just gotten home from the hospital the night before.  I had gone in her room to tell her goodbye, but just before I left she came out, on a walker because she is pretty weak, and made sure I had everything I needed. What a blessing it is to still be a daughter!

 - At one point in Mississippi the interstate had some great rolling dips!  I haven't had that much fun since the last time I rode a roller coaster.  Thanks, Mississippi!

 - We have the 13-year cicadas around here.  More about that in another post, but Mississippi has them too. I was driving 70 mph with a book on tape playing in the car, but when the woods got close to the sides of the road, I could hear the eeriest, loud sound outside.  It reminded me of aliens.

 - I saw an exit sign for Philadelphia.  Not the Philadelphia of Pennsylvania, but the Philadelphia of Mississippi. It made me miss you, Jackie.  I wish I could have taken the exit and dropped in for tea.

 - The Mississippi Welcome Center is on the banks of the river.  I got out to stretch my legs and snap some pictures.  There is something very moving to me about big American flags.  I love this flag!  Just thinking about a group of people deciding to fly this flag so high over the river makes me feel all patriotic and fuzzy inside!


The End.

The start of a garden

I love the idea of having a garden.  I love watching seeds grow into plants that give me food and flowers, walking in the garden, and just sitting and looking at it.  I don't love the hard work that it takes to get to that point.  Because I like the result so much, though, I put in the work.  It is always easier with some help and last week Daryl spent Saturday morning with me getting the soil ready to plant.

A few days before, I had gone out early to snap this shot of fog over the field.  You can see how neglected the garden was.  The vines on top of my pole teepee are from last year's green beans.  I think I need a ladder to get them down!

When we got out to get started, there was a hot air balloon floating over us.  Does that bring good luck, maybe?

Daryl gave me an awesome Stihl tiller for Christmas!  I have used it some, too, but he still does the tilling best!

My oregano that I planted last year is growing great right now.  I usually put flowers in this planter, but decided to plant an ornamental grass and some sweet potato vine this year.

This globe was spending time in the basement so I brought it out for a little garden art.

I planted lots of flowers, some corn, and three tomato plants.  I think I might plant one squash hill (they get so big) and some okra, too.

This is a picture from last year's garden taken on June 7th.  I feel like I am a little late getting started, but maybe not.  I just need to get the seeds planted around the green bean pole.  It's a great place for the grandkids to play!

The long way home

I am driving home tomorrow from Oklahoma.  Before I left to come out here I knew that there was a chance of Interstate 40 being flooded.  After all, the Mississippi River was 3 miles wide when I was out here six weeks ago and there has been nothing but rain since then

This photo was taken yesterday.  Both lanes are closed now.

.

The road was clear last week, but from Memphis to Little Rock there was an awful lot of water in the fields.  And during one of the rain storms I drove through, I got a glimpse of a river that appeared to be way too close to the bottom of the bridge I was driving over.

Now the interstate has flooded.  There are detours, of course.  One of them takes you 296 miles out of your way and the other is a mere 219 mile excursion.  On mostly two-lane roads.

So, I am taking another way back to Sweet Home Alabama.  I'll be driving south to Dallas and then due east to Montgomery.  This way is longer than our normal I-40 route, but hopefully without detours.

When Grandmother and Granddaddy Atkinson lived in Linden, TX, we took this route several times.  I remember one winter night during a snowstorm.  We could barely see the road, but the big trucks were speeding past us in the left-hand lane.  They knew that the road wasn't slippery, I guess, but we drove with white-knuckles the whole way.  The high temperature tomorrow in Dallas is 94 degrees so I am okay on that.

Have you ever heard of HAARP?  Me, neither, until today.  I talked to my uncle and he thinks that all of the bad/different/strange weather patterns the past few years are caused by it.  Maybe so...

The Battle with Burweed

I am still in a war to take back my yard from the pokies!  The crop of them this year is bigger than ever thanks to my great idea to put weed-n-feed in the yard.  

A few weeks ago I talked to a lawn professional about my problem and he told me that I am on a three year mission to totally get rid of the burweed.  Three years!  And that I should have started spraying chemicals on the yard in January.  ARGHHHH!

After trying Ortho WeedBGone, which worked some, but not as good as I had hoped, I went back to what Daryl had suggested -- 2-4-D.  I put some in a hand-held sprayer to test it out and it worked great.

The left side has been sprayed and has dead pokies.

Daryl got involved and built a fancy, pokie-killing machine.

Instead of the hand-held sprayer I now have a 25 gallon tank...

and a 7-nozzle spray boom.

This is war!

Bedside Manor

When I am out here with Mom, I consider her hospital room my home away from home.  We camp out with our computers, books, and yarn.  We usually eat in the cafeteria and for the most part, just stay put!  But today, Cathy and I got out and went shopping for a gift for Mom for Mother's Day.  I don't think we have ever done that before.  We found something fast and both of us knew it was the right thing immediately.  We texted Cheryl, got her approval, and were out of the store within 15 minutes.  We did good!

                                                   ~~~~~~~

                                                 ~~~~~~~

While we were out I told her about something funny that happened at the hospital today:

I was in the room with Mom and one of her nurses.  The nurse said to me, "When the doctors come in, ask them if they would take out the sutures from around there so that I can do this other thing a little easier."  (That isn't exactly what she said, but no need to go into detail on this story.)  I wasn't clear on her terminology, so I wrote down exactly what she said, read it back to her, and she said, "Right."

Dr. B. is a very good surgeon.  Everyone tells us this.  But he does not have much to say.  Today when he made his rounds he brought an entourage with him of about 37 (maybe it was only 8) doctors-in-training and they all came in our little room to check on Mom.  After he had said all he was going to say, I asked my well-rehearsed question.  "Dr. B, the nurse wonders if you could take out the sutures from around there so that she can take care of Mom better."

And all 38 doctors just stared at me.  It was very quiet in the room and I heard the clock make a few ticks.  I looked down at my notes and asked the question again.  You would have thought I was speaking Chinese.  He really had no idea what I was talking about.  Neither did I.  I was just asking for the nurse.  Then one of the doctors-in-training spoke up and explained Mom's surgery to her surgeon and he proceeded to tell me that the nurse needed more training and that, no, he would not be removing the sutures.

Which is fine with me and fine with Mom.

And that is the last time I will relay questions in foreign languages I don't understand to doctors who don't have much to say.

                                                 ~~~~~~~

I took this photo last week while Daryl and I were working in the garden.  I just love the little garden ball.  And I like this picture because I can see myself and Daryl in the reflection of it.

                                                 ~~~~~~~

Hope you had a happy Cinco de Mayo!

My peeps

I haven't put many pictures up lately of all of my peeps, but I'm still practicing my photography "skills" on them.  They are very cooperative.

This is Bella while Daniel had gone to the doctor one day.  As much as they love each other, they do enjoy some time as the only two year old in the house!

Bennett does not usually wear orange and blue, but it sure looks good with his red hair!

Lily was sitting on Midnight when I took this picture.  She is really growing up, isn't she?

Daniel and his toad :)

You know how kids just can't find their natural smile sometimes?  That's the way Jonathan was when I took this, but he LOVES Buzz and Woody and I had to get their picture together.

Pretty cool

Here is Bobby McFerrin doing something really cool.  I love this!

Blooming Magnolias

Over the past few weeks our magnolia trees have been shedding their leaves.  They have dropped so many that I was wondering if they were going to die.  If many more leaves fell, the trees would have been bare and  Daryl and I wondered if this was some sort of delayed reaction to the drought a couple of years ago.

Then, just as soon as it all started, new leaves started to sprout.

And the trees bloomed.

Here and there

I woke up this morning in a familiar, sunny room at Mom and Dad's house.  The drive out here on Sunday was cloudy and rainy.  The cloudy is fine, but the rainy part was a little stressful at times.  Usually, I am driving one of the biggest, baddest trucks on the interstate, but this time, in an effort to save money on gas I drove Ben and Abbie's Honda Accord.  I'm not used to sitting that low to the ground with tractor-trailer trucks slinging misty rain on the windshield.  I think I should make the adjustment, though, because their car got 33 mpg compared to the Yukon's 14 mpg.  Huge difference, isn't it?!  If anyone is in the market for an extremely comfortable, roomy, gas-guzzling Denali, I have one for sale!

The reason for my visit is that Mom had surgery yesterday.  So we are back at our OU Medical Center home away from home.  The operation went well.

This is Mom in the waiting room yesterday morning.  Doesn't she look beautiful?  Her hair has come back a little more white and a lot more curly and I love it.

I cropped the picture a little, but had to keep Cathy's McDonald's Coke cup.  She is usually holding one!

Meanwhile, back on the farm....

I wonder why Shiloh has made another path to go around the house?  I worked pretty hard to lay the stones that are there, but she has her own way.  Kids these days!

Hope for Tuscaloosa

This has been a sad week for Alabama.  We have grown accustomed to spring storms and the tornadoes that come with them, but no one could have been prepared for the death and devastation that hit our state on Wednesday.

I have been especially pained by the storm that hit Tuscaloosa.  Ben, David, and Jackie all lived there while they were in college and three of Daryl's nieces are in school there now.  The nieces were in a bathtub together when the worst of the wind was less than a mile from them.  We think that the house Jackie lived in for two years has been destroyed.

This video is a compilation of pictures from Facebook.  It shows the terrible devastation, but finishes with hope for Tuscaloosa.  And there is hope.