I knew the week would be full of fun and excitement – eventually. But it didn't start out that way. Monday morning was drab. I was channeling Karen Carpenter all morning singing Rainy Days and Mondays. I think the anticipation of the things happening later in the week intensified the drabness. I seem to spend a lot of time waiting for the sun to shine these days. My solution, as usual, was to escape into a book. I've read a lot of books about war – Medieval wars, the American Revolution, the two World Wars. But I'd never read any books about the VietNam War (1955-1975). Maybe because it happened during my growing up years. Maybe because I remember watching reports about it on the nightly news. Maybe because I was too close to it. On May 2, 1970, when I was twelve years old and a new deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood, I was my father's home teaching companion. We lived in Tallmadge, Ohio, then. That day we had an appointment to visit one of our families, the Brueners, who lived in Kent. As we drove into the city, we were turned back by a police barricade. We didn't know why. When we got home, we found out that there had been a riot protesting the war on the campus at Kent State University and students had been shot. We were that close, just a block away from it. My closeness to the war felt even deeper. I saw the news footage and the body counts night after night during my teenage years. I knew that the war had gone on for a long time, my entire lifetime at that point. It seemed like it would never end. I knew that when I turned eighteen in 1976, I would have to register for the draft and might be sent into the war. The thought of having to fight terrified me. But in 1975, the year I turned seventeen, the war ended and registration for the draft was suspended. I never had to register. I bring all of this up because of the book I finished reading on Monday. I saw it on a list of highly recommended books and ordered it from our library. The book, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, was remarkable. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down.
The author says it is a work of fiction, but not completely. It is semi-autobiographical, a mixture of real places and people and events swirled into a narrative that isn't real, but at the same time, it is. O'Brien tells you in the book that telling war stories is complicated. Determining what is true and what isn't is difficult. He warns that war is disgusting, obscene, boring, complicated, compelling, gut wrenching, heartbreaking, and so are the stories about it. He did an amazing job taking me through it, page by page. This was my first VietNam War book and I was swallowed up in it. That's where I was on Monday. I read until I finished it and then sat back and had to ponder on it for a while. I kept thinking that I had barely escaped all of that. I know people who didn't.
Around noon the rain stopped and the sun tried to break through. Everything was dripping wet, but I went out to work anyway. The first thing I do anytime I embark on garden work is to take a walk around the property, evaluating the state of things, prioritizing the tasks at hand – at this point that mostly means fighting weeds. There are always weeds to tackle, but some areas are worse than others. I especially resent the intrusion of weeds into places where they are conspicuous and ruin a picture perfect patch of something in bloom. Quack grass protruding from a patch of poppies. Sheep sorrel poking up in an iris bed. Dock jutting out of a group of tall phlox. I go after them with fork and spade and show no mercy. I was still thinking about that book as I worked. I laughed at myself, the wager of war against weeds. My struggles with the petty problems of my little world seemed so insignificant compared to those who fought and bled and died in the great conflicts of history. Here I was, battling with my enemies, the weeds, feeling like the master of all I surveyed, and it was funny for a while to think on the trivialness of it. Then I spotted an offensive clump of speedwell and I gathered my weapons and advanced.
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| Irises. |
We had weather later in the day. First came severe thunderstorm warnings. Then flash flood warnings. Then a tornado alert. All of it missed us. We had some thunder and heavy rain, but that was all. I was thankful for that.
Tuesday was a brighter day. The rain that fell during the night made the world look sparkling clean. I did my morning chores, fed the chickens and the pigs. I needed to mow, but had to wait for the grass to dry. While I waited, I began a new book. This was another book recommended to me. The author, Dan Carlin, does a podcast called Hardcore History that I've listened to before. The book is The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments From the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses. That's a big title and it pretty much describes the content. I only had time to read a few chapters, but after looking at the news, I could imagine civilizations collapsing into anarchy and chaos. It's a very interesting book. I set it aside and went out into the garden as soon as I could. The garden, although it might seem a bit anarchic and chaotic, is actually a very ordered environment where the elements, if left to their own devices, behave according to the natural laws that govern plant, animal, and microbial life. Finding my place in that balance is a fascinating, if sometimes frustrating, endeavor.
I enjoy mowing the lawn. When the grass is lush and thick like this, I don't mind mowing the required twice a week. I ponder as I mow. Sometimes I sing. I love how the newly mowed lawn looks and smells. That was my main activity on Tuesday, mowing. It takes me about two hours to mow the lawn. Sometimes, if I have the time and energy, I keep on mowing over in the yard next door around the pig pen and the big garden. I didn't do that on Tuesday. Kurt had just mowed the day before. Over the years, I've reduced the amount of lawn we have considerably by making most of it into flowerbeds, orchard, and meadow. I think I have just the right amount of lawn now, enough for a croquet court in the front yard and open grassy spaces to show off the gardens.
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| Poppies. |
We've been living with the effects of the fires burning in Canada for a while now. It's amazing that smoke from fires burning hundreds, even thousands of miles away can affect us here. The sky is hazy, day and night. The haze mutes the sunlight and makes the world look slightly out of focus and yellow, like living in an old photograph. At night it veils the stars and turns them into blurry balls of light instead of sparkling points. When clouds allow it, the smoke colors our sunrises and sunsets with red, orange, and pink. The last report I saw says that there have been over 1,800 fires across Canada so far, in Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, Labrador, and Newfoundland. Over eight million acres have burned. And they're still burning. It brings to mind scripture:
"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up." (Revelation 8:7)
"The mountains quake at him (the Lord), and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea the world, and all that dwell therein." (Nahum 1:5)
"For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven …" (Malachi 4:1)
That's all very apocalyptic and definitely influenced by the book I'm reading.
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| Fires burning in Canada on Tuesday. |
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| The extent of the smoke from those fires. |
Wednesday was a fine day – not too hot, not too cold, a nice breeze, sunshine and fluffy clouds. When I went out to feed the pigs, I noticed that the onion patch next to their pen was getting very weedy. I spent the next two hours pulling weeds. To occupy my mind while committing herbicide, I named my victims as I dispatched them. There was Quack Grass (Elymus repens), Sour Grass (Oxalis pes-caprae), Broadleaf Plantain (Plantago Major), Sheep Sorrel (Rumex acetosella), Galinsoga (Galinsoga paviflora), Chickweed (Stellaria media), Corn Speedwell (Veronica arvensis), Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), Redroot Pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus), and Smooth Pigweed (Amaranthus hybridus). I could have made a salad using most of them, but I don't think I'll ever be that hungry. Instead, I gathered them up and threw them to the pigs. They weren't interested in eating them either.
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| The weeded onion and garlic beds. |
June is a floriferous month. The early spring flowers, the snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses, and tulips are pretty. We cherish them because they mean that winter is at an end. But these late spring flowers that bloom just before the solstice and usher us into summer, are magnificent. Their stately forms and bright colors announce that warmth and light and color are the style of the season. This is poppy time and lupine time and iris time. There are bright cheddar pinks and sweet Williams. The foxgloves have begun to bloom, and in another week there will be peonies.
Poppies.
Lupines.
Cheddar pinks.
The first June rose.
Sweet Williams.
The Thayn Family Reunion officially began on Thursday. During the day members of the family arrived from various places in the west, mostly Idaho. Most of the afternoon was spent getting settled in. Most of them are staying at the Patterson House, some are staying at Sarah and Tosh's house. Sarah and Tosh turned their house over to the reunion and came here to stay for the duration. By 5:30 everyone had arrived and dinner was served. Tabor wanted his family to experience what life in Pennsylvania was like, so our first meal was Pennsylvania themed. We had Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches, pickled eggs, macaroni salad, my grandmother's famous baked beans, pirogies, and for dessert, chocolate chip cookie pie, apple pie, peanut butter pie, and shoofly pie, all washed down with birch beer. Most of the food was well received, but some of it was not to their taste. I saw quite a few half eaten pickled eggs and slices of shoofly pie. I guess some of the things I delight in are an acquired taste.
Tosh at the grill serving Philly Cheese Steak to Steve, Tabor's father.
Lots of Thayn cousins.
After dinner, we went into town to the movies. Stacey arranged for a private showing of How to Train Your Dragon. Before the movie we showed several short videos. One of them was an account of why we live in Potter County that Stacey and I put together. The other videos were about John Rigas, who owned the theater and whose family Stacey works for. The movie was fun. By the time it over, most of us were ready to retire for the day, although I hear there was some late night game playing over at the Patterson House.
At the movies.
Friday the reunion plans were to do some service projects. One of the projects was to go help our friends the Joneses. The other was to clean out the basement in the farmhouse next door. A group of us spent a couple of hours at the Joneses putting down mulch, removing a fence, weed whacking, and stacking firewood. Afterward, Nancy provided ice cream and cookies.
Meanwhile next door, another group worked on the farmhouse cellar. They brought up assorted trash and dozens and dozens of old canning jars, some still full of very old food. Good jars got saved, bad jars went to the dump. It was great having such a large crew of hard workers. Afterward they played a game of baseball and then headed back to the Patterson House for lunch. I stayed home and took a nap.
That evening, dinner was Italian. We gathered at the Patterson House for Caprese salad, tortellini salad, bruschetta, green salad, and pasta with pesto. Miriam made cookies for dessert. After dinner everyone gathered for a fireside chat. Then we celebrated birthdays. It was Miriam and several of the Thayn cousins' birthdays. Miriam made her own birthday cake, a chocolate layer cake with chocolate mousse filling and covered with chocolate ganache. Hannah had a special treasure hunt prepared for Miriam to find her presents. She had a long string strung through the house to guide her gift to gift. The big gift was a new metal detector. Miriam loves to go metal detecting and her detector was pretty basic. A bunch of family members chipped in to get her a very nice new one with lots of bells and whistles. She got a lot of other nice gifts.
Miriam's cookies for dessert.
After dinner fireside.
Miriam's birthday cake.
On the treasure hunt.
Opening gifts with lots of helpers.
Last week when the Thayns came up, they brought their incubator and left it here so that the eggs would hatch during the reunion. The first eggs hatched Friday morning. By Friday night a second egg had hatched. They took the incubator down to the Patterson Friday night so they could watch the rest of the eggs hatch there. By Saturday morning, there were three, but one died. They ended up with five successful hatches.
Hatching eggs.
The reunion crowd was originally planning to go to Watkins Glen on Saturday, but the weather was not good and they didn't want to drive the hour and a half to get there. Instead, they opted to go to visit some of the Amish stores and then go to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. We drove to the Anish Variety Store in Ulysses and then to the new Outdoor Gear Store in Bingham Township. After that we made our way to Wellsboro and had lunch. Then we headed to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, also known as Pine Creek Gorge. The gorge is forty-five miles long. It was formed when a glacial lake during the last Ice Age overflowed and drained south forming Pine Creek, which becomes the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. It flows through two state parks, Colton Point and Leonard Harrison. We went to the visitor's center and hiked the Overlook Trail. It was a drizzly, misty day, but the gorge was beautiful. Some of the company wanted to hike further and others did not, so we split up. The hiking group went on the Turkey Train, a long stairway down the side of the gorge and then they hiked the main trail up to Darling Run. I went with the group that didn't want to hike. We drove the cars from the Visitor's Center up to the parking lot at Darling Run, left some of our group there to meet the hikers, and the rest of us came home.
Pine Creek Gorge.
The Thayns.
We got back as dinner was being prepared. Dinner was an All American Theme – hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and bratwurst all cooked by Tosh on the grill, various salads, leftovers from all the other meals, and cupcakes made by Sarah. After dinner we did fireworks.
Sarah's Cupcakes.
Sparklers.
Fireworks.
Today is Father's Day and it has been a great day. With the Thayn clan in attendance, we had sixty-four people at church today! Tabor's parents were our speakers in sacrament meeting. They gave great talks. The children sang a special musical number. With all those cousin children there, we had Primary and a Young Mens and Young Womens class. We had a Father's Day treat. Stacey was up early this morning and made cinnamon rolls to give to all the men after the meeting. Another important event took place today. After our meetings, we had a baptismal service and Mabel was baptized. Tabor baptized her and it was so great for her to have so many family members there for this important day.
Primary today.
Mabel and her dad.
After church today.
So we are home from church. There are things planned for the rest of the afternoon, but I don't know what exactly. I'm only concerned about a bit of lunch and doing the chores and maybe catching a quick nap before we head down to the Patterson House for whatever. Tomorrow the reunion will begin to disperse. They are going up to Palmyra to visit church history sites and Niagara Falls. Then they will spend the night somewhere up there and on Tuesday they are going to Six Flags Darien Lake. Back here at home things will collapse into quiet as our lives return to normal, if there is such a thing. The reunion was great. It rained a lot, but it didn't seem to dampen the excitement and energy. There was a lot of energy. The Thayns are great people. I'm so glad we got to spend this time with them and get to know them better.
It looks like a lot of the week ahead will be rainy too. What else is new. I have work outdoors that needs to be done regardless. And on Friday the 20th, we will arrive at the Summer Solstice. Time never slows.
