Monday, April 17, 2006, 01:52
Easter Dinner
Who would think that sitting around all afternoon eating and talking would be so exhausting. But after spending all afternoon over at my brother and sister-in-law's (the farm where I grew up), eating Easter dinner and talking and laughing and then eating lunch before we went home (lunch! after that big dinner!) -- I am worn out. We had ham and scalloped potatoes, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and a variety of my sister-in-law's sumptuous homemade pickles (dill pickles and watermelon pickles and sweet pickles and bread-and-butter pickles and beet pickles). Not to mention lots of desserts. Jeepers.
When Randy and I arrived home this evening we fed the horses, and then we decided we had better take Pixie and Charlie for a fairly decent walk. Charlie was lying around all day not doing much of anything, and we were stuffed to the gills, so a walk was definitely a good idea.
Between the amount of food we ate today, and the fact that it was quite warm, in the 70s, we both felt terribly sluggish and, well, lazy. I think we did well to go for a mile and a half walk!
My great-nephew still has not arrived. His mother has a doctor's appointment tomorrow, first thing Monday morning, and then they will most likely induce labor. She was very disappointed that Eli had not been born this week so that we could all see him today at Easter dinner.
I baked a birthday cake for my sister (her birthday is in March) and for my sister-in-law (her birthday is in April). Randy said the birthday cake should be for Eli, too. I said that by the time we went for Easter dinner, Eli might not have a birthday yet. Which he didn't. But, when we sang Happy Birthday to my sister and sister-in-law, we included Eli and sang Happy Birthday to him, too. His birthday ought to be coming along in the next several days. And by this time next year, he really will be able to have a little bit of the birthday cake!
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, April 14, 2006, 19:06
Spring Cleaning
On the way to the Maundy Thursday church service last night, I was listening to public radio.
One thing I learned is that people who meditate regularly develop more antibodies when given a flu vaccine. Meditation, they have discovered, helps your immune system work better.
Another thing I learned is that exercise facilitates neurogenesis.
In other words, physical activity helps your brain build new neuron cells (which is called neurogenesis). For years, researchers thought the brain did not regenerate itself, but they now know that the brain keeps growing new cells throughout your whole lifetime. And exercise helps your brain grow new cells.
So that's what Randy and I have been doing today -- "facilitating our neurogenesis." That is, we've been helping our brain cells grow by cleaning up the manure piles.
Randy -- who ended up with the whole day off today, Good Friday, because he took some comp time for this morning -- everyone where he works gets Good Friday afternoon off -- took the 460 Farmall and drove it to a friend's place to borrow his manure spreader.
By 1 p.m., we had loaded Isabelle's pile of manure from the winter into the manure spreader.
The next step was to clean up Kajun's pile of manure from the winter, although the second pile wasn't as bad because Randy could get the manure spreader in closer so we didn't have to walk to dump the fork into the spreader.
The 460 Farmall is, incidentally, the tractor featured in the story "Spring Cleaning" in *Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam.*
My father would probably think we were a little batty using a "big tractor" like the 460 for hauling manure -- or at least he might think so -- until he saw the size of the manure spreader that Randy borrowed. The thing is at least twice as big as the manure spreader we had when I was a kid. As Randy says, "it's just a beast."
Another thing I noticed today is that I can see purple buds on my lilacs! The big lilacs are covered with purple buds, and so is the little lilac bush that I transplanted a few years ago. If it doesn't freeze hard between now and the middle of May, we might actually get lilacs this year! Last year the bushes had plenty of buds, but it was so cold and damp, that they only partially opened and then instead of blooming, they just turned brown.
My friend from the newspaper called this afternoon, too. She asked me to cover two meetings next week. She also wanted to know what I was doing on this "fine afternoon."
"Cleaning up manure piles," I said.
"Oh, I wish I was there with you. Even cleaning up manure piles sounds like fun on a day like today," she said.
I guess it's all in how you look at it, isn't it. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
