And we head into May this Monday.

 TERRY

As I write it is 7:50 and Terry is awake.  She is looking at her phone before she gets into the paper.  I would say she is doing OK this morning.

Well we start the week with cleaning to do.  The kitchen is a mess.  The living room is a mess.  AND the TV does not work in the living room so I need to call about that.  Other than those things everything is going OK!

I do not have may calendar in front of me but I think I see the doctor early next week.  I think at that time I will be able to start playing tennis again, I think.  If I do not start then at least I will have a time line as to when I can start.  

It is starting to feel like summer here as people have left already.  The people to our left are gone for the summer and the people to our right will be gone by mid May.  For now they are gone for four days but will be back for a while after that.  I am thinking that by this time next month there will be few guys left to play tennis with.  

I do not have a lot planned for the week.  It seems I have a way of filling up the days as they come and go but really nothing planned ahead of time.  I do need to get a few things at the grocery store but not much.  After I blog I may go over to the courts to see who is playing but not to play.

I will not go into a long story about Wood Lake School but will go back a little.  May was always a fun month.  It seemed that school was almost out and there was something in the air that stated that summer was coming and it would be a good thing.  Yes, there would be the usual rock to pick on the farm and then by mid summer there would be hay to stack but really summer was a fun time on the farm.  The creek would be running for a month or two.  That would mean the rock dam below the outhouse would be a place that fish may get stuck.  I would often walk alone the creek and try to find things to fetch or catch in the creek.  It would also mean the cows would stay on the side of the creek where we would easily round them up and bring them up to milk.  AND there were always the calves that would run with the cows for a while until we penned them up so that we could milk the cows.  The one thing that I did not like was the dehorning of the calves.  We had short horn cows so the calves had to be dehorned so they would not grow long horns.  We would catch the calves and use a large knife like thing to cut the horns.  Most of the time that was it but once in a while they kept bleeding so was had to catch them and sew them up.  Not a fun job but it had to be done.  

Rocks always had to be picked but Dave and I would hope that the crops would grew quickly as we would not pick rocks after the grain started coming up.  There was a period of time between the time when we stopped picking rocks to harvest that there was not a lot to do.  Well there was a lot to done but Dave and I somehow figured out how to get out of some of the work!  Anyway from maybe the first of June kind of until the first crops came in maybe in early early August we, Dave and I, could figure out how to keep out of the way of Dad and it was kind of like out of sight and out of mind.  Yes there was work to be done but not so busy busy as some times.  It was times like this that I could practice my knife throwing and other things.  I could, if I times it right, make my way to the barn roof and dream of days ahead!!!  And yes there were days when Ricky would come down and we would play ball etc.  Of course we always had to had up to the lake on our bikes for an evening swim and if it was late enough catch some fire flies and bring home to show Mom.  

So life on the farm was fun for the most part.  Yes, there was the itchy oats which I did not like and failed to realize that with each. hopper of oats it was cash in the bank so to speak.  So life was full of fun, of work and just playing around with the calves etc.  But now the farm is no more.  If you were to go where the farm was you would just see a field of oats or some grain.  There would be NO evidence of the farm of long ago.  And in that area where there was once maybe 9 farms there are only 3.  Where we plowed with a three bottom and a two bottom plow one farmer can do the same work in maybe 1/4 the time.  Time change and that is called progress I think?  

So will wrap it up for today and maybe, just maybe, get some work done, I think!!!