Holy Week

The week began on Monday morning with a doctor's appointment. Usually I would say that with a slight groan. It seems I have too many doctor's appointments these days. But this was a visit to my chiropractor for an adjustment, and that was a nice way to start the week. As the son of a chiropractor, getting adjustments has been part of my life from my first day on earth. Moments after I was born, my father gave me an adjustment. During my early growing up years when my father had his practice on Bridge Street, all of us children got regular adjustments. My dad called it "cracking the birdies." I can picture in my mind the rooms in his office where the adjustment tables were. Later, after he gave up his practice and went on to do research and to teach, my dad still gave us regular adjustments. He always had an available adjustment table somewhere. Carrying on to the next generation, when my own children were born, my dad gave them adjustments soon after they arrived and onward over the years until we all scattered. These days I don't get adjustments as often, usually only when something has happened and I need one. We have a great chiropractor here in Coudersport, Dr. Fink. Over the years he has seen me for a number of issues – aches and pains, TMJ troubles, a spell of vertigo, and now, prostate cancer. Monday's visit was just to get an adjustment because I wanted one, like the good old days. I thought of my dad and smiled as Dr. Fink cracked the birdies.

While I was in town, I ran a few errands. Coudersport, our county seat, is a fifteen minute drive from our house. When we first moved here and I worked in town, I thought my fifteen minute commute was amazing, having just come from California and a two hour commute on L.A. freeways. Over the years as the edges of my world have contracted a bit, the drive to town seems more substantial. I don't just pop into town for little things. I need a good reason, or better yet, several good reasons to make the drive. The village of Gold is pretty remote. There is nothing close by. I drive up to Wellsville, a half an hour away, once every two weeks to buy chicken feed. To get gas requires, at the minimum, a ten minute drive. The closest grocery store, besides the Amish dry goods store, is fifteen minutes away. Walmart, Home Depot, and B.J.'s are all almost an hour away in Olean, New York. The closest Sam's Club is in Elmira, an hour and a half away. The closest Costco is in Rochester, two hours away. I don't like to drive, and I don't like to shop, so living in Gold, gives me a perfect reason for not doing those things. Stacey is the one who drives if we go anywhere else, and I'm fine with that.

Chionodoxa along the stone path.

Monday started out gray, but turned out to be a pretty nice day with high clouds and soft sunlight. It warmed to 60° which felt lovely. When I got back home that morning, Kurt called to see if it was a good day to work with the tractor. I had some things I needed him to do in the raised bed garden. He brought his tractor over and tilled and moved some soil for me. While he was doing that, I weeded the asparagus patch and one of the flowerbeds. When Stacey and Hannah got home from work, we worked some more. We put down landscape fabric on the part of the garden that is overrun with sunchokes. I'm hoping that after a year of being covered, they will be dead and gone. When we finished that, we planted the rest of the onions. It's a relief to have them all in the ground. Then we did some tidying, hauled the piles from my weeding to the compost, and called it a day. We accomplished so much, but there is a lot more to do.

Kurt and his tractor.

The sunchoke jungle covered.

Onion bed number two planted.

Monday night just as I was going to bed, a storm blew in. There was thunder and lightning for several hours. It rained. It wasn't a severe storm, but it heralded a change in the weather as cold air moved in. The forecast said that Tuesday would be chilly and rainy, but at dawn the sky was clear and I had hopes that the weather predictors were wrong, as they often are. I had to take Stacey and Hannah to work that morning and after that, I drove Miriam to a doctor's appointment. That took up most of the morning. By the time I got back, it was raining and a cold wind was blowing. Then at noon, the rain turned into snow. The snow came in bursts for the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes it was heavy. Several times there was thunder. The snow did not stick.

Tuesday morning before the rain came.

It seems that April is reluctant to give us two nice days in a row. I took a look back through my photo archive to see if other Aprils were any different, and they weren't. There were plenty of photos of snow, rain, and wind in April. Most years seemed a little sunnier, or maybe I just took more pictures on the sunny days. Some years the garden was a little further along, but not by much. I guess I'm just more impatient this year. I want things to get going. I should know after all these years that impatience causes problems in the garden. Trying to do things too soon usually results in disappointments. Take it easy. Go slow. Bide your time. That's my mantra these days.

Years ago, I don't actually remember when, I planted a white forsythia bush (Abeliophyllum distichum)  in the flowerbed at the front of the house under the bay window. I'd read about them in a catalog and thought they sounded lovely. When it arrived, it was a spindly stick and it remained that way for several years. Finally, after years of reluctant growth, it began to flourish. But that year, we had our septic tank replaced and the workers piled lumber on it and smashed it to the ground. It took several years to recover. White forsythias bloom early, before the yellow forsythia, and their little white flowers have a light almond scent. My little bush, still pretty scraggily, is blooming right now. It makes me happy to see it still hanging in there.

Blossoms on my white forsythia bush.

Wednesday morning I awoke to find a crust of snow over everything. I was not surprised. I'd checked the forecast the night before and knew that it was coming. I prepared myself mentally by not planning to do anything outdoors. And I knew it would not last long, which almost made it seem tolerable. It was cold all day. The temperature barely rose above freezing. I kept myself entertained with various distractions. I began with Mozart. Mozart wrote twenty-four divertimenti (from the Italian divertire "to amuse"). They are light-hearted compositions for small ensembles, meant simply to entertain. They were the perfect music for that cold and snowy morning, bright, cheerful, and melodic. As I listened to them, I worked on some family history research. That lasted until almost noon when I felt the need to do something else.

Wednesday morning.

Miriam is working on a watercolor project, so I decided to join her and do one too. While we painted we watched movies. We really only half-watched them as we couldn't look up from our painting. I don't know much about watercolor technique, but Rachel got me these great books with a completed painting on one page and a sketch on the opposite page and instruction on how to paint. I'm learning bit by bit.

Doing watercolors.

Midday on Wednesday, I looked out the window toward the orchard and saw two Canada geese grazing in the grass. There are always geese at the beaver pond across the road. I'm pretty sure there is a nest there. I don't know why this pair decided to visit our orchard. Kurt told me later that day he saw them out in the big garden too. He watched them for a few minutes and then they flew over to the beaver pond.

Geese in the orchard.

At her doctor's appointment on Tuesday, the orthopedist decided that Miriam's broken arm was not set correctly. They scheduled her for a procedure on Thursday morning. They thought they would have to rebreak and reset her arm. So that's where Miriam and I were most of the morning on Thursday. We left for the hospital at 8:00 a.m. Her procedure went well. They anesthetized her and took her away. It turned out they didn't need to rebreak the bone, it was still pliable enough to reset without that. They put on a short, tight cast. She'll have to go back for check ups. She'll have the cast on for five to six weeks. She's doing great. I'm glad it wasn't more serious. We got home at 11:00 a.m.

It was a very pretty day, a little chilly, but sunny. As soon as we got home from the hospital, I went to work in the garden and Miriam took a nap in the sunshine. My shipment of trees and plants arrived late in the day on Wednesday, so I spent the rest of Thursday afternoon planting things. I planted a cherry tree, a peach tree, two elderberry bushes, ten raspberry plants, and a rose bush. It was nice working in the sunshine. I still had a hundred strawberry plants to put in, but I didn't have a place ready yet. After planting, I mowed the lawn. The grass was just tall enough to notice that I had mowed. It looked good and smelled great. I love the smell of freshly cut lawn.

Friday morning, after Stacey and Hannah left for work, I observed one of my favorite Holy Week traditions. I listened to Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The recording I listen to is two hours and forty-four minutes of bliss. Bach wrote the St. Matthew Passion in 1727 using as its libretto, chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew with added chorales and arias. Its first performance was on Good Friday, April 11, 1727, at the Thomaskirche where Bach presided as music director. Scholars believe it was only performed five or six times during Bach's lifetime. Bach died in 1750 and interest in his music began to fade, being deemed as too old fashioned, and the St. Matthew Passion was seldom performed for decades as Bach's music began to slip into obscurity. Then in 1829, Felix Mendelssohn performed a version of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin to great acclaim. That performance brought on a revival of interest in Bach's music that has grown to the point where most classical music scholars now consider him to be the greatest composer of them all. And many consider the St. Matthew Passion to be his greatest work.

After almost three hours of deeply moving music telling of the betrayal, trial, and crucifixion of Christ, the St. Matthew Passion ends with the Lord in the tomb and choir sings a final chorus Wir setzen uns mit Tränen neider … ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh, We sit down in tears … rest peacefully, peacefully rest.

At the Tomb by Carl Heinrich Bloch.

I have never attended a live performance of the St. Matthew Passion, but I have several recordings. The one I prefer was done by the Netherlands Bach Society in 2014. Sometimes when I listen to classical music, I can do other things while listening. Not this music. I immerse myself in it, letting nothing else interfere. It is in German and I have a limited understanding of German, but the music speaks as completely as the words. It is a profound experience for me every time and one of the highlights of my Holy Week.

The Thayns came up to spend the weekend with us. They arrived on Friday afternoon at the Fosters where we gathered for dinner. After dinner, we went to the movies to see King of Kings. It was alright. I loved that it told the story of Jesus in a very simplified way to appeal to children. I did not like the style of cartooning. Most of the people, especially the apostles, were hideous. After the movie, the Thayns came here. They are staying at our house. It was a lovely warm evening, so we went on a night walk through the yard. The peepers across the road in the beaver pond were very loud, but we had one little peeper in our lily pond. We walked out into the big garden and looked at the stars. The Murrays arrived that night to spend Easter with us.

Friday dinner at the Foster's house.

At the movies.

As always, the energy level here is very high with the grandchildren here. Yesterday we had projects to work on to try and harness some of that energy. It rained a little in the morning, but by the time breakfast was over, it had stopped and we went out to do some work. I had three projects I wanted to accomplish, picking up sticks, putting up the pigpen, and planting strawberries. We tackled the sticks first. Hazel, June, and Mabel walked the entire property with the wagon, gathered all the sticks and twigs, and put them on the bonfire pile. It began to rain again and it came down pretty hard, so work stopped and we came indoors. The rain lasted about an hour. As soon as it stopped we went back to work outside.

Next we planted strawberries. We had a bigger work crew by then. We rolled out landscape cloth, cut holes, and put in the bareroot strawberries. I had a hundred plants and I thought they would fill the row, but I was wrong. They only filled half the row. I will order more plants. Hannah and Rachel weeded the old strawberry beds.

Planting new strawberries.

We dragged the panels for the pigpen out of storage to the place where they will be in the big garden. We are hoping to get three piglets this year, so the pigpen needs to be bigger. I needed two more livestock panels, so Tabor and I drove into town to get them. When we got back, Tabor, Tosh, and I set up the pigpen. Tabor pounded in the posts, then he and Tosh fastened the panels on. Just as we were finishing, the rain began again and all worked stopped, again. It was time for lunch anyways. I was very thankful that we got done what we did. I love having a work crew at my disposal.

Putting up the pigpen.

While all of that was going on, in the kitchen preparations for our Easter feast were underway. I had already made pickled eggs and beets earlier in the week because they're better after they've aged a few days. Miriam and Sarah made chocolate covered Easter eggs on Friday, and more on Saturday. Saturday morning, Stacey made zesty carrots and funeral potatoes. That was most of the feast done and ready to warm up on Sunday. We went to the Foster's for dinner that night, hamburgers and bratwurst and salad. After dinner we celebrated Mabel's birthday. She turns eight tomorrow, but we wanted to celebrate while we were all together. She will be baptized this summer when the Thayns have their family reunion here. After the birthday cake, the children colored Easter eggs.

Saturday dinner at the Foster's house.

Happy birthday Mabel!

Coloring eggs.

I was hoping for a glorious, sunny, warm Easter morning, but it was chilly and pale. I compensated by listening to glorious music, my traditional lineup – Part III of Handel's Messiah that begins with the beautiful aria, I know that my Redeemer liveth and ends with Worthy is the Lamb that was slain; and Et resurrexit from Bach's Mass in B Minor; and the hymn This is the Christ, sung by the Tabernacle Choir. This music always stirs me deeply. By the time I was done listening (with headphones), sun was up and shining brightly, the house was stirring, and people were up and getting ready for church. The children hunted for their hidden Easter baskets. Stacey and I left for church first because I have responsibilities to tend to before the meeting begins. The others followed later. Our service was good. We sang the great Easter hymns. I was one of the speakers. Sarah played a piano medley of Easter hymns. The Relief Society sisters sang. I always feel a deeper, more profound emotion when I take the sacrament on Easter Sunday. Having just spent the week more intensely contemplating the suffering, sacrifice, death, and resurrection of the Savior, partaking of the emblems of his body and blood seemed more vital, more holy.

Pale Easter sunrise.

Mary and the Risen Lord by Harry Anderson

Easter baskets before church.

After church today.

After church, we gathered at the Foster's for our feast. There were twenty-one of us, the Howes, the Fosters, the Thayns, the Shilligs, the Murrays, the Olean missionaries, and our friends Sandy and Al Lewis. The food was great, the company was excellent. After dinner some played games, a few of us sought out a comfortable chair and tried to catch a short nap. Then everyone disbursed. It was a fine day. We just got home. I did the chores late, but I had a bucket of food scraps from dinner, so the chickens forgave my tardiness.

At our Easter feast.

Doing Legos after dinner.

The week ahead looks promising. Aside from a chance for rain on Monday night, the days look clear and mild. We got a lot done this weekend and I'm very grateful for all the help. I have a lot more that needs to be done and I'm looking forward to doing it. I hope you had a joyous Easter. He is risen! He is risen indeed!