It was cold again.......

We hit 29 degrees F.  last night.  It really isn't unusual for March but the warm weather before now has everything about a month early in maturation.  In town a freeze like this isn't too bad as the ground temperatures are not as cold so it doesn't damage as much.

With these conditions we receive a lot of useful or not so useful information on the TV.  One lady said on TV that the freeze was sort of a good thing as it thinned out some of the blossoms on the apple trees which actually helped the crop be a larger crop.  The strawberry people are not so happy about it.  A man near Des Moines had invested $900 in sweet corn seed and if it survived he would turn a profit of $20,000.  I did not hear if his three inch sprouts of corn survived last night's freeze.  He would be out money but he could easily replant that in plenty of time for a normal growing season.

We had two different events that we attended last night.  The first one was to go to the neighbor's house around 4:00 and eat fresh morel mushrooms that she had fried up for us special.  They were good and we appreciated it.

Then we traveled to Osceola for a visitation.   When my family lived on the farm we had close neighbors who lived on the farm next us.  They had two children a girl, Beverly, who was a good ten years older than me and a son, Monty, who was six years older than me. My older brothers were a lot closer to their ages. The father had died many years ago but mother, Mildred, lived to be 94 years old. Going to her visitation was like going back in time.  I had not seen Monty, who is now 68 years old, since I was a young boy riding the bus.  He was graduated and off the bus by my sixth grade year.  Needless to say we sort of recognized each other.  His sister actually had come to the visitation for both of my parents and my brother so I had seen her more often. Beverly was older and I remember her driving the Fordson Tractor by our place on the muddy dirt road to take us to the bus on a gravel road a mile away from us. I was in Kindergarten and she had to be a Junior or Senior in school.  By the next year we had a new road put in along our house and there was gravel on it.

My mother and Mildred had remained close friends even when my parents moved into town.  Mildred stayed out on the farm alone many years after her husband death.  Mildred was a phone call away and was there to give my mom help when my mom was ill. 

Mildred's two grandsons have now bought our family farm.  It was mismanaged for thirty years by the previous owners after my parent left it in the late 70's. Most of the farm fields were allowed to go back into trees and shrubs rather than be farmed. It was a 240 farm with 180 acres tillable and the rest was wonderful timber with a creek.

I am a high school physical education instructor this morning.  I was the pitcher for a game first hour of matball and really should have had a shower after that exercise.  They use a soccer ball like a baseball and they run to the four bases after kicking the ball.  The bases are large mats and the kids can group onto a mat and run at the same time as a play takes place.  The kids have a great time with it and insisted that I  pitch today. I  had health classes the rest of the time in the morning.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.