Sunday, March 14th of 2021

 TERRY

Terry is doing about the same.  As I write today she is into the Sunday paper and will be there for some time.  She has ONE more therapy session this week and then an evaluation after that.  I think her evaluation is on Thursday but not sure.

For several reasons we are having a St. Patricks Day meal today instead of Wednesday.  I have corn beef, potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker which went on at 7:45 this morning.  I think it will be done about 4:00 this afternoon.  I have never ventured into this kind of meal so we will see IF it is any good.  

For a couple of OLD people I think Terry and I did OK with the change of time!  ALL the clocks in the house were set ahead yesterday afternoon and I didn't even say to myself at 9:00 PM, "Well it really is 8:00 PM!!!

I am excited about the next few days as daughter Cynthia will fly down tomorrow and be here until Wednesday afternoon.  She has not been here in the past so we will spend some time seeing the sights of Naples.  Well not too much time as there is really nothing exciting about that but it can be interesting to a point.  Mike and the kids have spring break but it will NOT be much of a BREAK for Mike as he takes on the eight kids.  Well I am guessing Faustina will be a big help.

Nothing planned for the day.  It will be home with church in the den as it has been for some time now.

I did get in some time yesterday with the paper work for taxes and I think I have them pretty much ready to send in.  Again there is a way one can do it from home and I may call TriFound (Melissa) to see IF I can do it from home or if I should just send the papers in.  It certainly would be nice to get them out of my hands and maybe get them filed soon.  I am thinking we will get some kind of refund which will be a BIG difference from last year when the bill for selling Terry's place in Minnesota was huge in terms of taxes.

Not much else to write about so I will go onto writing about our farm.

I do not know when this picture was taken but I assure you that when I was still living at home it was not quit this bad.  It was dilapidated when I was still at home BUT not to the degree that you see here.  So here is about what you see in the picture.

The small building is where Dad had his welder and did his work with that.  That also was where he kept the oil barrels etc in the later years.  IF I remember right it was moved onto our farm from Grandpa Lee's place but I am not sure about that.  The light pole that you see was when REA brought in electricity and from there it came into the house and barn.  It was a big deal when we first got it as you can see there is a yard light and that was nice when that became real.  You can see a steel bin in the back ground and actually there were three of them in a row.  I remember when Dad and Grandpa poured the cement for the floor for the bins.  But back to the granary as that sat in the middle of our yard and in the days of MY farming it was perhaps used for much.  In the days of our cook stove we would get a load of coal in the late fall to burn in the cook stove.  The coal went into one of the two center bins as you entered through the large doorway.  We would burn corncobs, coal or wood in the cook stove.  Mom really liked the coal as it would burn longer than the wood or corncobs.  As you entered and went to your right there were two rooms on the west side of the granary.  I do not remember ever using the first room for anything but in the second, the SW corner, that was where we would put the 100 baby chicks when they arrived.  We had a metal tepee shaped thing with a light bulb in the top as they needed to be kept warm.  We also had a gallon jug that had a watering device so as you turned the jug upside down the water would fill the plate so the chicks would have water all the time.  As you entered through the large doorway there was one big room.  That was used for kerosene.  The standard oil guy, Art, would come in the fall and fill three or four 55 gallon barrels with kerosene.  It was then Dave's and my job to make sure the kerosene stove in our living room never went dry.  For many years we had to carry 5 gallon cans into the house and walk through the kitchen into the living room with the can.  One then had to be careful NOT to spill as you poured the kerosene into the stove.  One can imagine what it would smell like IF there was spilling!  Later, maybe in the late 50s, Dad went modern (for us!) and put a 55 gallon barrel on the north side of the house and ran a thin line into the house and attached it to the stove.  Then there was NO more carrying into the house AND if one was on the ball you could take the time to carry several cans in a day and then you were good for some time.  I have to admit that more often than not I carried kerosene at the last minute!!!  

The center room where the kerosene was also served as a place for the oil barrel and the grease that was used on the farm.  If a person went into the granary and took a left turn there were two more rooms on the east side and they pretty much were not used for anything.  I would say as the years went by more and more shingles came off the roof and of course they were never replaced so the granary become less and less useful as rain and snow came in.  

A person can not see the bottom of the building but there was NO foundation.  The joists of the granary just sat on the dirt IF I remember.  AS I write that it seems that the wood would rot if that happened but I do not know.  What I do know is you could lay flat on the ground and see the entire length of the stringers  from front to back.  That is important as that is where feral cats often came to visit and they often would stay under the granary and howl at night.  It was in that setting that more than once Dad took the deer rifle and flash light and headed out to the granary at night.  He could find what stringers the Tom Cat was hiding by and with a flash in the night there was no more Tom Cat.  

So goes the story of our granary on the farm.  I was not there when the fire destroyed the farm but I am guessing that once a flame caught the granary it was a ball of fire in no time.  I have no idea when it was built but it was all old weathered wood and a perfect victim of fire in a short time.  

So here it is 9:30 and time to sign off.  I will check the corn beef but it is only two hours since I turned it on and I am thinking it is not even started get done as it should take about 8 hours.  Anyway my FP is finished so on with the day.