Birthday Boy: A Milestone Day

 

As a Kansas farm girl with a June birthday, my special day was often paired with slow trips to the elevator in a grain truck. It was a "hot" celebration, all right.

This year, Randy celebrated a milestone birthday while working, too. Of course, since he's the boss, he set his own schedule. But we gathered cows and calves from the Ninnescah Pasture on his 65th birthday.

As we were looking for a few stragglers, I made him pause for a quick photo. (He's looking pretty good, don't you think?)

 

Five years ago, he asked for a special birthday party, and we delivered with a gathering at the Stafford County golf course clubhouse.

October 2015 - Randy's 60th birthday

As I told him several times this year, I'm glad we did it for his 60th birthday, since we're in the midst of a pandemic this year. 

This year, we had a few party crashers - deer who darted through the pasture as we drove by on 4-wheelers and disturbed their hiding places. (They were camera shy. No photos of those party guests.)

Other partygoers were loud. The migrating geese and ducks honked their greeting as they traveled south for the winter.

I did a little honking, too. But my honking was with our pickup, using the horn to call the cattle up for an impromptu birthday treat of hay. It can't be a party without goodies, right?

Some were anxious to attend the party and dine at the "buffet." Others needed a little nudge to attend but then formed their own parade route to celebrate the special day.

I can't complain about the "decorations" - even with the muted autumn hues rather than the rich green of summer.

The birthday boy even gave me time to pause on top of the dam to take a photo.

 The "guest" most reluctant to leave the party venue was the bull. 

He was a wallflower, hanging out far from the party crowd.

But he finally joined the others - with a little encouragement.

 The only dancing at this party was choreographed by the fallen leaves in the ditches as we drove the cattle back home.

After many trips back and forth with three trailers, the mission was accomplished ... or so we thought. We count cows and calves as they come off the trailers, and we came up a little short. We had to go back the next day to look for stragglers. It was another nice day for a 4-wheeler ride.

I'm slow to post this. Randy's birthday blueberry pie is long consumed. But it was more important to help than write about it. 

2015 - Kinley, 3, and Brooke, 1 ... and Grandpa, 60!

It's amazing to see how the girls have grown during those 5 years. Even though we worked on Randy's 65th birthday, we did get to celebrate a few days later with Kinley & Brooke - and their parents, of course.

2020 - Kinley, 8, and Brooke 6 ... and Grandpa, 65!

 

More to come on fall cattle gathering and vet visits. 

 

Auld Lang Syne

A couple of books sit among a bevy of family photographs in my dining room. They have been part of my decor for nearly 20 years now, and, like most things we become familiar with, I haven't really given them a lot of thought for awhile now.

When we were sorting belongings after my mother-in-law's death, the two little books caught my eye, and, when no one else was clamoring for them, I brought them home.

One is called the Auld Lang Syne Birthday Book. There is no copyright, but it says that Marie Esther Ritts was given the book on June 3, 1942, in Springfield, Ohio, and, in parenthesis, it says, "Conference." I wonder if it was a gift at a Methodist annual conference, since Marie's dad, Alvin, was a Methodist pastor. She would only have been 10 years old at the time.

It's a birthday book with spaces to write down the birthdays of friends and family. Each page has a quote from poet Robert Burns. (Did you realize he wrote the lyrics for Auld Lang Syne? I didn't until I started looking for information about the book!)

The words "Auld Lang Syne' literally translates from old Scottish dialect, meaning, 'Old Long Ago.' It's about love and friendship in times past. The 'Auld Lang Syne' lyrics were first published in 1787, and the song has now become a tradition as we celebrate a new year.
 
I looked for information about the little book online, but didn't come up with any additional tidbits about it. For me, the value is in seeing important family dates written in Marie's hand. In the back of the book, she also has a Post-It note, where she remembered family collections. (Dana Fritzemeier collected keychains and bookmarks, and Wanda Morrison collected pigs, back when Marie made the notations.)

I wish she had lived long enough to write the names of other family members in the birthday book. She would have loved watching her grandchildren grow up and she would be over the moon with two little great-granddaughters.

The other book is titled, "Forget Me Not," but its purpose was the same. It originally belonged to Marie's mother, Laura Ritts. No copyright gives a clue to its age, but the binding is falling apart and the yellowed pages are fragile. When searching online, I found a copy of it on Worthpoint. The book is by Rev. Hugo W. Hoffman, Brooklyn, N. Y. There are 384 pages with a Bible verse and quote for each day of the year.

 

Each of the books has the two women's handwriting. Marie's is familiar to me. Laura's is not. By the time I met Laura, she was already fading into dementia, so I didn't have the benefit of knowing her in her prime. But her legacy was there in the family ties with her daughters and her grandchildren.

This poem was in the preface of the book:

... Images on this cold surface traced
Make slight impression and are soon effaced
But we've a page, more glowing and more bright
On which our friendship and our love to write
That these may never from the soul depart
We trust them to the memory of the heart
There is no dimming, no effacement there
Each new pulsation keeps the record clear
Warm, golden letters all the tablet fill
Nor lose their luster till the heart stands still. 

As we turn the page for another year, it's good to remember that legacy but also to look forward to new challenges and blessings and writing new friends and family members in the book of life.

The verse on the January 1 page says: 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 

Hebrews 13:8 

And the accompanying verse says,

"The opening year, Thy mercy shows; 

Let mercy crown it, till it close." 

That sounds like a good plan to me. Happy New Year to you and yours!

60 Reasons to Love the Halloween Weekend

60 reasons to love the Halloween weekend:  I could easily share 60 photos from the Halloween weekend. I could share double that number. I took 138 photos, to be exact. But loading 60 photos into the blog would make everyone's computer run too slowly. And, let's face it. With a 3 year old and a 14 month old involved, there were a fair number of outtakes anyway.

But there were definitely 60 reasons to celebrate!

1. First of all, we got to celebrate Randy's 60 years on October 30.

 

2. The kids and granddaughters were home for an extended weekend.

3. We got 0.75" of rain on Randy's birthday. It was the best present possible.

Nephew Derek, son-in-law Eric, niece Abby, Jill, Randy & Brent

Randy & his "much younger" sister, as Kathy would like everyone to know!

4 through 44 or so. We celebrated with lots of friends and family.

45. There were party hats and noisemakers, two essential party ingredients, according to the 3 year old, who helped me shop for decorations.

46. There were balloons, a hit with the 14 month old.

47. We had family photos taken bright and early Saturday morning. (Let's hope for good results despite an overcast, chilly morning.)

48. Grandpa had expert help feeding the "livestock" on the farm.

49. Kinley made a new friend and christened her Cozy. The name seems appropriate when you look at the two new friends together. That kitty was patient!

50. Listening to Kinley talk to Cozy, saying, "Kitty, kitty! You're so pretty!"

51. Listening to Brooke talk to the kitties. I have no idea what she was saying.

52. Discovering yet another musical prodigy.

 

53. Having the cutest Ariel around stay for trick or treating in Stafford.

Trick or treating is serious business!

54. Having her sidekick, Flounder, stay, too!

 

 55. Watching the girls play together and seeing Kinley watch out for her little sister.

56. Going to church with the whole family.

57. Watching Kinley during children's time at church and helping her take communion.

58. Having a snooze after everyone departed (after getting things sort of, kind of back in order). Kinley wasn't the only one with a power nap this weekend.

59. Having plenty of leftovers for Sunday supper - no cooking required!

60. Watching the Royals win ... even if they kept me up way past my bedtime after a full weekend and a time change.

Kinley is 3!

Photo by Terra Herring Photography

This year, Kinley Marie Ladd doesn't have to crash the party because she's the guest of honor.

Three years ago, our little immediate family was scheduled to have Christmas 2011 at Jill and Eric's house the final weekend of December. Jill and Eric weren't traveling for Christmas that year, since they were expecting their first baby January 12, 2012. Brent was home from his graduate studies at the University of South Carolina.

We were planning to arrive late in the day on Friday, December 30, so we could begin our celebration after Jill and Eric arrived home from work.

Instead, we got an early-morning phone call. Kinley Marie Ladd was crashing our Christmas party. This was one party crasher we were glad to welcome!

She was born at 4:30 AM, December 30, 2011. She weighed 5 pounds, 15 ounces, and was 20.75 inches long. She was about the size of her Christmas stocking. (Grandma had already replaced the sonogram photo with a newborn photo in her stocking by the time she arrived home from the hospital.)

It's hard to believe how much she's grown in these three years. Grandpa added her 3-year-old height to the wooden growth chart in the dining room when they were here for Christmas. She is taller than her Mommy at age 3, but shorter than Uncle Brent.

 She's now a big sister.

 

 She loves swinging ...

... and helping Mommy in the kitchen. 

She likes music.

And she loves books. 

 Sometimes, she pretends to be a kitty cat.

 And she loves all things PRINCESS!

Uncle Brent supplied one of her favorite Christmas gifts here - an Elsa doll.

Mommy and Daddy won Christmastime points with her Elsa costume and the Princess Playdoh set.

Today, she's taking cupcakes with the Frozen theme to preschool. We're looking forward to Saturday, when we can celebrate the joy that Miss Kinley has brought to our lives the past three years.

Happy Birthday, Kinley. Grandma and Grandpa are so glad you crashed the party 3 years ago!