September 7, 2007
The winds sound different this morning, and the air is cooler – fall is coming nearer to Sanctuary. On the first of this month, I was astonished to see a single oriole on the topmost branch of the hackberry tree on the south border because I assumed they all had migrated. Perhaps it was stopping for a few moments, because I didn’t see it again. Now we are getting more deer into the forty acres since the farmers in the area are starting to cut their corn fields into silage, and the creatures have to literally “get out of the dining room”. Alphie does a brief chase of the startled fawns because they do appear to be about his size, but they outrun him so easily, he soon returns to me with a canine shrug of shoulders as if to say that he wasn’t really interested anyway.
The bee story ended happily. We found a beekeeper who was delighted to gather a swarm because he’d lost twenty hives to the unseasonable freeze in late spring. He put on a beekeeper’s hat and long rubber gloves, and put a box directly under the great clump of bees. He struck the branch a mighty blow, and the bees fell as one, with queen in the center, into the container. He estimated that there were about 30,000 bees of the Italian species. Apparently, these are docile and devote their time to making great amounts of honey. This is not a good time to start a hive, but he said that he would feed them through the winter and hope for good outcomes next season. The next day there were about twenty bees sitting on the branch, forlorn and lost without their queen and mother, but later, all were gone. There was some scoffing at my hope that they somehow figured out how to find the rest and commenced to fly over the miles, but then who knows?
Two days ago, son John-paul and daughter Heidi drove “up to Iowa” with me. I put that in quotes because that has always meant a journey to my farm birthplace in western Iowa. My parents spent their entire lives in the county and now lie buried in the cemetery near the little white church on a hill. This place with an old Kilgan pipe organ and stained glass windows from Germany was built by my great-grandfather, and it embraces the story of my people. My parents were baptized, confirmed, married, and buried to the ritual words of the faith there and as their child, I was also baptized, confirmed and married inside that space where the view in all directions is one of undulating fields of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa.
The day was perfectly beautiful, and we arrived via “The Ridge Road” so named by the locals because it followed a trail formed by buffalo along the tops of the hills. From here we saw a family cohort of a bull, several cows and numerous calves of varying ages. (This is rare because now most cattle are in huge confinements and don’t have the luxury of roaming pastures at will.) All stopped their grazing to look at the sound of John-paul’s quite authentic mooing sounds.
From the church we drove on to the “home place” which is still farmed by my brother and nephew, and walked about under trees that stood there when I was a child but have since grown huge in the ensuing years. Large combines, planters, cultivators and tractors stood memorialized in aging sheds around the place – we were told that they were all outmoded and too small to be useful anymore. If ever times’ passage could be measured, it might be in the sight of these pieces of machinery; silent, dusty and cobwebbed with only the echoes of being essential hanging muted in the rafters.
After completing twenty-two days of injections, my tissues are gleefully moving forward sans chemical infusions. I feel more energy returning, and delighted that I can begin to pick up more activities. The other day I said that I would vacuum and Charles replied, “I will vacuum. Surely if you have limited energy, you don’t want to waste it on vacuuming!” Now this is reason enough for sainthood, however, doing more of the ordinary things of life without collapsing into a heap is huge and I am actually looking forward to life with household tasks included in the days to come.