Here we are on Friday, July 9th, 2021

 TERRY

There is nothing new concerning Terry.  Here it is mid afternoon so she is well past the paper etc and is now watching TV as she does close her eyes from time to time.  She is still bothered by those darn kind of dry heaves as she had that early morning again.  It seems funny but one of the things I notice is she is finished with the paper in not a lot of time.  I am guessing that if she spent 90 minutes with the paper a few months ago now she is finished in maybe 30 minutes.  When I asked she said she just kind of looks at many of the pictures.  She has been tired the last few days.  So it is one day at a time as usual.

I am really enjoying the stick of pictures John M sent.  I say that and it is true but of course there are many many sad moments as I look at them.  He sent several pictures of the burned out farm.  Now I arrived the evening of the fire and stayed with Mom and Dad for a couple of days but I did not take any pictures.  I mostly spent time with them and then searched for some things in the burned house.  IF I remember I did pick up some things of Mom's.  So here are some of the pictures.

Here I am confused as I think that is the road that went past the place but I do not know what some of the tings are in the distance.  Yes this is our gas pump which I think Dad did not use any more as the gas barrel under the ground had a leak and he put in an above gas tank near the barn.

Here is our beloved "Big Red" as we called our truck.  You can see just behind the cab is the hoist that tilted the box as we unloaded grain.  That was maybe one of the more modern things on the farm as I do not know if others farmers had that on their trucks BUT I assure you that we had maybe the oldest truck in the area!  Dave and I had MANY MANY happy times in Big Red and a close call too.  The front windshield cranked out for a nature AC unit!!!  I the back ground you can see the combine that almost looks kind of un scathed by the fire.  

Here is what was left of the tractors.  Th one on the right was not on the farm when I was at home.  The one on the left is the one full of memories "for sure".  The reason I know we did not have the one when I was home is ours did not have the little raised canister on the top.  Our "M " had the exhaust coming out the top and we always put a tin can on the top if we thought it would rain!

this is what was left of the barn.  Dave had stored several things in the barn when they moved to Iowa so that is what you see.  To the left is the gas tank that Dad used.  MANY memories in and out of the barn and they were pretty much ALL good.  The grove of trees that you see in the back ground is pretty much all removed now as it is farm land that Robert Lee has.

The pole that you see is the pole that was right by the barn door and was the one I would shimmy up to spend time on the barn roof dreaming of what my life would be in the future.  I assure you my dreams did not come true in any sense of the word!!!  Actually as I look closely at the picture I think I am wrong.  The pole that one sees was our light pole with the yard light on and all the things that you see on the ground were in the old granary that had more hole in than a paper target!

That is all for today.  I am really happy to get the pictures but so so sad that all of that happened to Mom and Dad.  AND yet I promise you that losing the farm did have some hidden good for Mom AND I know that losing the farm was not in the same category as losing Ronald and Janet.  THINGS are nice to have but life is precious.

A short time after the fire Mom and Dad sold about 75% of the land and then the last of the land was sold after Dad died.  

So that is it for today.  I had my FP a long time ago so life is good for today.