Memorial Day

In Flander's Field by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Arlington National Cemetery

Between my junior and senior year of high school I was selected to go to Hawkeye Girl’s State.   Several of the girls in my class were chosen to interview for the chance to attend.  We were asked that day to write a short speech to present to the American Legion committee.  Mine must have been decently put together as I got the honor.  As part of my duties I sold poppies before Memorial Day on the main street of town.  This was definitely out of my comfort zone.  There were lots of nice people who bought from me and for that I was grateful.   Since then I always buy a poppy when I see them for sale.  I attach it to my purse for a few days.  Some years I end up with several of them.

My scrap book is full of clippings of Girl's State from the Cedar Falls/Waterloo Courier.  Alas my picture never once made the paper as I was not nominated for any of the positions of high government.   I recall having a good time but I suspect I spent more time socializing than politicking.  There is a group photo of my ward.  It is interesting to see that my hair style is much the same today.   My hairdresser calls it a classic style- I call it what works

Spring means Tulips and Gardening

Summer is just around the corner.  Actually I thought it had arrived last week.  After a, mostly, very cool spring it warmed up.  So much so, that we put a few screens on some not too clean windows. In a perfect world windows would not need cleaning.  In this imperfect world I clean my windows
the least possible. I have already done the downstairs windows once this spring.  The plan is to do them again before the screens go on but after the corn comes up.  This way the dirt does not blow as much and they stay a bit cleaner.  The corn in front of our home has just popped out of the ground.  It was planted a few days later than the corn that is up behind our homestead.  This puts windowing washing a couple of weeks away. The Iowa saying that "If you do not like the weather, just wait a day and it will change" adage proved true.   By the end of the week it was cold and windy.  The last two nights I have covered plants and brought some into the garage. The frost forecast have not materialized but it was better to be safe than sorry. I planted my tomatoes and egg plants this morning.  Our garden has five variates of tomatoes.  Among the ones I am growing is a yellow tomato.  A few years ago we grew one that we found was lacking in flavor.  But since it looks to pretty mixed with the red ones I am trying a different yellow plant variety.

Tulips are such lovely sign of spring.