Mom's Iris & Memories of Home

Mom's Iris have had a way of migrating to my gardens. When we lived in Randolph, she came in Oct 1970 to tend "us" when David was born. From somewhere in her gear, she produced a refrigerator crisper drawer full of iris roots. She had cleaned her flowerbeds and was sharing. I was glad!! ... But we need to remember that Dave was born the week before Halloween, long after Indian summer had left that frigid corner of Utah ... and so one evening I looked out the south windows, and there was Mom kneeling on the sidewalk, planting iris with rainwater dripping down her neck!

Fast forward to 1973 or so . . . we now have our own house . . . and a flowerbed in front . . . and another baby. Here comes Grammie to take care of us, bless her . . . with iris in tow. One of my favorite photos is of David (about 7 at the time of the picture) with Baby Joe on his lap, looking at our wonderful iris blooms.

I love iris!! They remind me of Mom because she always had them. I always thought they were a regal flower, prettier than orchids even. I am told that not all iris have a perfume to them, just the old ones . . . like Mom's!

I went out the front door the other day, and called back to Wayne, "Something smells good out here!" ... Some of that was iris, but mostly, our black locust

trees are in bloom with that wonderful heady perfume they have. They remind me of early summer, my birthday and home, and being a kid.

So . . . I have been revelling in an At-Home Experience this last week or so, waiting to get the right pictures and enjoying perfumes of long ago.

Thanks Mom!

Top picture: Our wonderful front iris bed, backlit by the afternoon sun.

The poppies came from our next door neighbor years ago. She is gone now, but the poppies are spectacular every spring and gone by June.

The Wings of the Air

Daddy taught us to watch birds and love them. He put a little square cardboard box up in the eaves on the back porch so the bluebirds could nest, and located it so we could watch from the kitchen window. Cats who tried to rob the nest bought trouble for themselves that they surely didn't want!!

Mrs. Sheehan sponsored a 2nd Grade birdhouse contest when I was in her class. I was so excited to see what I could do! I took my excitement home and told Daddy about Mrs. Sheehan's contest. Would he help me make a birdhouse?? Absolutely!!! And so we set to work. It was fun to watch Daddy measure and cut, explaining all the time what kind of birdie bungalow would be best for the kinds of birds we had around. Daddy even shingled the roof with cut-down asphalt shingles, and we decided that we would mount it up in the peak of the chicken house eaves.

That little birdhouse won the contest and earned me a 25-cent's worth First Prize. Daddy had done the work!!

So we were raised with a love for the little birdies, and Daddy would call Sue & I, "Chickadee".

A few winters ago, I noticed some darling little black-hooded birds who would come and bob around on the vines outside the computer room window. Immediately, I thought of chickadees. They were so cute, friendly and fat. But they weren't small enough for chickadees. The bird book told me they were Oregon Juncos, and they come back every year.

We started putting birdseed outside the dining room window three winters ago, enjoying watching our winged visitors feed. We have sparrows, who come in big flocks like storm troopers. There are morning doves whose tail feathers look like scalloped eyelet lace when they come in for a landing. And there are the little juncos who are calmer than the sparrows, although both birds are about the same size.

I've heard that some children refer to angels as Birdies . . . and those little feathered beings have brought that kind of joy to my life.

Above right: Dove & sparrows by Wayne's rock garden

Left: Two doves puffed up to stay warm on a power line.

Right: Oregon juncos and a sparrow feed outside the window

Froggies

Funny how your mind works . . . Wayne and I were sitting in front of the fireplace reading a wonderfully illustrated Planet Earth book when we came upon the picture of a frog. All of a sudden I was with Sue in the field out behind our house, looking at pollywogs in the water.

Our Greenville frogs were a nice, trim medium-sized frog, not toads like in Utah. I can't remember if they were greenish or brown, but we thought they were cute little fellows.

They had musical voices and we loved to hear them croak in the evening. A little ditch not more than a foot wide ran the length of the field, and in the spring and early summer when there was water in the ditch, that's where we'd find pollywogs.

It was amazing!! I suppose it was Daddy who told us what those wiggly little black things were in the water.

He said after they grew a bit, they would develop back legs, then front legs, finally losing their tail and becoming real little frogs. I remember finding one or two of those teeny cute little guys without their pollywog parts, but not too many.

Sue & I probably made enough noise that they heard us coming and hid before we got there.

When we did find adult frogs, we would look at them and play with them a while, and then put them in The Well on the side of the house, thinking they would be happy there where it was cool and somewhat damp. They could sing us to sleep at night.

Right: This is Daddy, some years later, in the driveway by our house. If you look just behind him on the wall, you will see the door to The Well, where our outside water faucet and hoses were kept. That's where we put the frogs.

Funny how those cute little froggies never liked to live very long in the gravel in The Well where it was dark and there were no bugs to eat, and where it was pretty dry under the house! But we thought we were benefactors to the froggie world by relocating them where we could hear their song. Besides, if they stayed out in the field, something was sure to get them, poor froggies! Never occurred to us that maybe if the froggies could avoid us, they might hide from other animals.

That field with its tall "braiding grass" (sedge) was a great place to play. We made grass huts by flattening down the grass, wove mats out of sedge and braided the "braiding grass" like boondoggle. And we got to watch the pollywogs in the early part of the warm season.

Left: The Field behind our house. We thought it was ours!

Pictures of Ann & Sue -- Top: taken in 1947. One of the first times Mom curled our hair. Usually it was braided . . . or not. I don't know that Mom allowed us to wander too far out of the yard at this age.

Bottom, right: I am guessing we are about 8 and 10 here. The blouse is one Mom bought so I could get my cast through the armhole when I broke my arm. These kids are probably the pollywog/ froggie hunters!