Thursday’s Chatters.......

We bought iPhone 8, plus a week or so ago and we are still learning things.  I try to call my wife on the phone while at the old place and the phone opens up in a totally different format. It isn’t bad for doing that but I haven’t learned all that is going on with the cell.  I will get it, it just that the phone is a miniature computer that seems to be in control.  I do have a handle on it, I just haven used it for very long.

The salesman’s busy transferring data from my wife small Samsun photo. I am sure that he thought I would be back the next day but I did get all the passwords figured out. I didn’t need to return.  My MacBook tells me what all my passwords are so I could go home and get it all set up correctly.

I have been on the internet a lot the last few days checking up on things about family. I posted this years ago that I wanted a better copy and over the summer a very distant cousin sent to my first cousins a very good scanned copy of all my dad’s side of the family.  My great grandmother sits in the middle of her fourteen kids.  My grandfather stands in the back row four from the left.  The size of that family is overwhelming.

Other searches that I have been doing was finding relatives on my mom’s side.  My mom was not very good about sharing family on her side in any detail.  Now today I have a second cousin who was younger than me who died from cancer.  As I follow back on his life and all that he was in this world, I have to go back to get him on the family tree.

I knew Arlen as one of the distant relatives that showed up every Memorial Day at Macksburg, Iowa. My Grandmother Brooks had five brothers and that group that were living would show up with their families.  My mom always called him Uncle Lee but would not explain that he was my Great Uncle Lee.  He had one son and three daughters. Arlen’s mother was  Great Uncle Lee’s daughter.  My mom and Leila were great friends and I now know was because they were first cousins.  When my mom had me in 1950 she named me Larry, and Leila had a boy at the same time and also called him Larry.  Arlen was the youngest of the family of two other boys and one girl.  I now have Facebook connection with LeAnn, Arlen’s sister, and have reacquainted with Leila family, Great Uncle Lee’s grandchildren. All of this one branch of my family all lived south to the Madison County covered bridges.

It is interesting to see each other’s life take place.  Arlen, a second cousin, six year’s younger than me, married right away out of high school.  He had four boys in his first marriage .  When Arlen died he had  12 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. The irony of it all, is that I did not see Arlen ever again after 1970s when he was still a teenager. He lived his life to the fullest with a lot of family and me never knowing until I found his sister on Facebook.

While on the north shore next to Duluth, Minnesota, I looked dow to see the monarch feeding.  It was our last day on the shore before we headed back to Iowa. I mentioned earlier that we saw monarchs along I-35 down towards Iowa. I sign said it was a major migration route of that kind of butterfly.

This smaller variety of sunflowers were in bloom in Duluth . They were growing in the nose garden there as an extra I guess.

I remember now that they had other flowers planted ant the south end of the rose garden in Duluth. There were these and hydrangeas in bloom along the edge of the area.

My sunflowers didn’t germinate well this year so I have only two growing and have yet to bloom.  I will share them when I see the buds opening. I have cut back some of my hollyhocks to make them look better and I removed some of the asparagus growth. It seems early to clear flower gardens but I do see people in the area doing that.

I worked up at the old place today getting more things done.  I threw away a large container of wood and drywall things which helps to clear up the clutter.  I hope all is well with you.  Thanks for stopping by today.