Memorial Day....

On Memorial Day, as a kid, we always had a family reunion in Macksburg, Iowa.  It is a very small old town and was the area my maternal grandmother and great grandparents lived. Nearby were the towns of Lorimor and Winterset. It was the only time each year we saw that set of relatives unless a funeral would happen. All my great uncles and their wives lived in the area and their families all seemed like distant relatives when they really were not. I felt like a stranger to the cousins as they were living in such a different part of the state.

All who are gone now are buried at Moon Cemetery outside of town down a dusty gravel road.  As a kid we visited the cemetery where my great grandparents were buried.  Also there was buried my grandfather Brown who I never had met and my Uncle Marvin's first wife who died of TB when young leaving my uncle with four kids. We would lay our glass jars of peonies or iris on the graves and I could build a little on my family history.  I haven't been there since 1972 when my Grandmother Mabel Zella Brown Brooks was laid to rest next to her first husband, my grandpa Brown. 

After all of this writing, I guess I am reminded of the old cemeteries of Macksburg and Murray by the iris shown above.  The smaller iris of old would be laying or standing in containers the white, the yellow and brown ones, and the purple iris. My cemetery iris that I have collected have not bloomed.  The one you see above was protected from the hail storm.  I haven't been able to go out and see if the others are ok. 

I went out yesterday to check on my baby birds and what I saw was a lot of destruction from the hail.  This rhubarb shows what happen to it.  I lost a lot of stalks of buds of iris as they were snapped off in the high wind and large hail.  I should have at least a couple of buds that will bloom from each kind but I was going to have many blooms this year.

I was very disappointed to find my robin babies have flown away already.  One blogger friend told me that it doesn't take long from the time they hatch to the time are big enough to leave the nest.  I took the last photo eight days ago so you can see they matured fast. I don't know if they will reuse this nest.  I hope they do.






I won't dwell on my health but I am some better.  My wife is a wonderful person who has kept me alive.  I hope that I am well enough that she can get rest now and not worry so much.  My antibiotic is working but it is going so slow.  I am not back to full strength and am limited at about everything that I would like to do.  I expected my body to just bounce back and it isn't doing it very quickly.  I won't be back to school ever for this year as school will be out before I am well enough to return.  That is ok by me as I probably caught this thing from someone there.

On this Memorial Day, I think of all those that I have known who were in the service when they lost their lives and those who survived the wars and have now passed.  Their sacrifices are so little recognized.  I don't ever want to forget them and thank you veterans today who served for our country.

Thanks for stopping by.