October 4th, first Sunday of the month

 TERRY

Terry is about the same as the past few days.  Tomorrow we will get a new "in home caregiver".  It will be the gal who came last week with a fragrance that filled the entire house.  The company owner promised this time it will be different!  As I write Terry is sleeping and it is mid morning BUT she often does not sleep well at night.  

We have a rainy cloudy day.  

I am back as Terry woke up as I was writing.  I have now been to Costco for the day and am back to finish blogging.

We have an interesting week ahead.  Terry sees Dr. Cohen for her feeding tube which she wants out.  He needs to look at it and then set up a time to get it out.  Terry also has PT twice again and OT once.  She also has a doctor appointment Wednesday afternoon.

IT WAS OCTOBER OF 1961

Starting on Tuesday afternoon of the 17th there was excitment in the air.  A four day weekend was coming up and both Ronald and John were coming home as Ronald had dropped a note in the mail and we received it when Fritz came with the mail early afternoon.  It would be the second weekend of pheasant season and they wanted to hunt with Dad.  We had rye straw on the field to the east and it came right up to the groove of trees that ran parallel to the road.  There was a strip of land between the trees and the road that was about 50 feet wide and that was rye straw as well.  Dad had not been hunting yet as he had hoped the boys would come home and was saving the goove of trees for the weekend.  He knew there were pheasants in there.  He had been keeping a vigilant eye on the road as it was not unheard of for cars to drive bye, stop hunters to get our and shot into the trees.  In fact more than once we had pellets hit the house as hunters shot from the road towards the house.  We had a large groove of trees between the house and the road as well.  

I still had school on Wednesday and the day seemed like it dragged on forever knowing that Ronald and John were coming the next day.  At the time they both were teachers so they also had Thursday and Friday off.  As I lay in bed Wednesday night thinking about tomorrow my mind went to Dad and how he did things.  Here Dave and I were certainly old enough to hunt and both of us had 22 rifles that actually were gifts from Ronald, not Dad.  BUT the only shotgun in the gun cabinet was Dad's Winchester pump and for Dave and I--nothing.  OK so money was more than tight BUT!  Anyway I decided, as I lay in bed and thought that I would be the best bird dog ever!  I kind of mean that but of course I did not even resemble a dog but with NO gun I often was told to tramp through those bushes or those trees to scare up the birds.  

Thursday morning came with bright sun and little wind, a perfect day for hunting.  Ronald and John arrived about 9:00 and the hunt was on.  Dad said we would first walk through the trees to the east of the road.  He had Ronald walk through the northeast corner of the pasture and position themselves at the south end of the groove.  Dad said he would walk between the road and the groove to shot birds that flew west and John should walk on the east side of the groove for birds that flew east.  That left Dave and I to walk the trees with NO guns of course.  As we walked the groove which was about 1/5 of a mile it sounded like July 4th.  By the time Dave and I arrived at the south end of the trees John, Ronald and Dad had enough birds to fill their limit for the day.  We all walked to the barn yard where we used the water tank  and a long board to clean the birds.  Dad had told Mom that we would have birds for dinner (noon) and when we all walked into the house Mom had the table set and the fry pan hot!  It was a delicious meal and Mom had made mashed potatoes and yes, pheasant was and still is my favorite food.  

So what did we do for an encore?  We took the afternoon to walk the creek, the pasture and the trees to the north and yes we bagged our limit again.  Now of course that is not legal and it is perhaps the only time that I remember Dad doing anything that was illegal when hunting.  As I write this morning I can picture the plate of fried pheasant and taste it as well.  AND of course it was so special whenever John or Ronald came home.