Hoary Frost!

Hoary Frost

No, not a cheerleader for some sport team or a stripper on some pole, rather the white builded up of moisture on anything out of door on a cold morning.  Prairie Home is covered with a new coat of frost this morning.  Everything that stood still is blanketed from top to bottom making for a wonderful morning to wake up to.  The temp is hovering at zero, the skies are clear and there is no wind to speak of, so the frost remained to be seen by those of us that are up early in the morn. 

Silly hen!

Just prior to sundown, I went out to check on the chickens, put down some feed, gather up the afternoon eggs.  If all the chickens and guineas are inside roosting, I close up the coop for the night.  However, sometime one or two are late to go in.  Most often I can just guide them and close up.  With the temperature falling, I really wanted to make sure they all were in.  Well, I found three of the mixed hen roosting on the frame of an goat pen. I told that there is no way they were going to camp out, not tonight!  So, as I started to herd them to the coop, they decided to play a game of ring around the goat pen. We did this until two flew to the coop's roof and the other desperately tried land on a long died stalk of giant ragweed.  I gathered that one quickly and off to the coop with her.  The other two were going to be a challenge.  The silly birds refused to walk on the ground with new white stuff all about, but for some reason the snow covered roof of the coop was OK.  I got a long pole and was able to usher one of the chickens off the roof and inside.  The other, the last one, decide we were going to again play a game.  After a few trips around the coop, she changed the rules and flew up into the large pine that over looks the pen and coop.  There was about 40 minutes til dark, so I left her be in hopes she would see the errors of her ways and get inside.  After a great pork roast supper, I was back out to lock up for the night.  The silly bird is still in the tree.  I fear she is a goner, for the night air is heading for zero and maybe lower.  As I end this post, I peeked at the thermometer.  It reads 3 above!  Hang on silly hen! Hang on!

Remembering!

I don't know why! Or why now, but my thoughts are racing towards memories on my grandmother Edith Reynolds.  It has been a busy day here today as I finished off a major database move from one server to another.  Lots of updates, broken links, users not able to log in and now I am taking a break as the phones are quiet... This is when my grandmother came to mind and I don't know why!  I didn't know her very well at all.  I did meet her in the spring of 1968 when she came to visit us in Arkansas.  I don't recall her voice, her appearance or her eyes, it was such a short visit there just wasn't time.  I do remember that she could recite the alphabet backward faster that I could forward.  She taught me to spell Mississippi with humpback, dotted and crooked letters.  She tricked me into a game of  "Who could count to one hundred" the fastest!  She said start and off I started counting as fast as a 12 year old could.. 1,2,3...21,22,23.  But! But, she wasn't counting yet... I got to 90 and she rang out 10, 10, double 10, 45, 15. And then declared that she won...  Sitting there confused, she had me add up the numbers... we laughed!  She was with us for three or fours days before she passed away. She had seen me as a baby and a boy, as we traveled with the military to an oversea duty station and back.  She, however had not met my youngest sister to this point, who was now about 6 years old. Grandma made sure that she was able to see us all again and then left.  The only other memory I have of my grandmother Edith R. Reynolds is, she loved the song Old Rugged Cross, which was played at her Wake.  We laid my grandmother to earth in the Edson Cemetery in Lowell Massachusetts. One of these days I will revisit my grandmother and tell her that I love her.

Did you know....

Do you know who Passaconaway is?  I bet the answer for most is no! Passconaway is an anglicized translation of Papisse Conewa which means Son of Bear.  He was the Sachem of the Pennacook tribe of the New Hampshire and the Massachusetts area back in the 1500's.  Passconaway is one of the most important Sachem in the Americas, but few have ever heard of him.  It was his people that kept the early Pilgrims from starvation and from being over run by the powerful Mohawks.  For some time, the Europeans and Pennacook lived in peace, traded goods and knowledge, until the Europeans started to get land greedy.  

Back in 1899, the Improved Order of Red Men of Massachusetts erected a bronze statue of this great sachem, which others theft upon.  My first introduction to the sachem was 1968 when we laid my grand mother, Edith Ruby Heaney Reynolds to earth.  I was a 12 year old at the time. My elders (aunts and uncles) told me about the sachem's statues, that stands in the same cemetery where my grand mother rests; Edson Cemetery, Lowell Massachusetts.  They said that we are related to the sachem through my Great Grandmother; Elizabeth Anna Waters Reynolds.  Thus far, I haven't been able to prove this link at all, but it is an interesting story and possibility.  The sachem's statue over the years has been vandalized; tomahawk, spear, hand and other parts carried off to no regard at all who he was and what he did in life.  I can only imagine that on some bookcase somewhere a green patina hand, or spear standing in a corner collecting dust. And no more a thought!


Provided by
Edson/Westlawn Cemetery
2010

The good news is that the statue of the Great Sachem, Passaconaway has been restored this year 2010.  Though an incorrect depiction of the a Pennacook of the time, it is still a good thing.  It's a good thing to remember our past and those who made it possible for the rest of us.