Back to the same daily chores

Hello, I am back writing for the Austin Daily Herald. I hope everyone had a good summer and has recovered from the devastating flood that hit Austin and the surrounding areas.

I spent my summer gathering wild plants and flowers and have been making healing lotions, oils and salves with the many different plants. Each body product I am making has different healing properties. Nature is our true medicine cabinet I reconfirm every day I that I have been out gathering. We are so fortunate to have so much bountifulness surrounding us.

Not a whole lot has changed as far as my house getting remodeled. My kitchen still has the feeling that I am working in a cave, my barn has sunken into the ground more and two other buildings need to be re-shingled. My husband, Tom has been tearing parts of the old kitchen off and I hope that it can be repaired before it becomes too cold. I don't want frozen pipes like last winter. We all have good health and that is the most important thing to have.

Last week my three sisters and I got together and stayed at a cabin near Lucen, Minn., which is 20 miles south of Grand Marais. We took my 83 year old mother along. She had fallen at the assisted living facility where she lives the day before we left, but we told the staff at the hospital that we would take good care of her. Mom was confused the first two days of our stay. She would tire easily but we kept making her get up to walk around the cabin with her walker. She didn't like it and complained loudly at what mean daughters she had and we didn't understand her. Every evening around 6 p.m. she became owly and pouty and humphed loudly that she was never, ever coming anywhere with us girls again. We would all answer in unison, "That's great, don't come with us again."

My sister Kate and Mary took turns sleeping with mom. She woke up in a good mood each morning and the second morning she said for the first time in our lives, "I am so lucky to have such nice daughters."

She has never told us girls that we were nice before. She also watched us practice yoga every morning. The first morning when we were doing yoga she said, "You aren't going to get me to do that."

"You should Mom, it would be good for you," said Kate.

Mom grunted and looked at us in disgust.

The second day while we were doing yoga mom said, "All you girls are so nice and slim. You have such nice shapes."

Twice she said something nice to us! We were shocked. But every evening she was back to being her old crabby self. Watching mom age reminds me that life is too short and I want to be happy with my life. Everyday I am working at achieving this goal. Mom has been unhappy her entire life. I remember watching her drink her endless cups of coffee out of her hard orange plastic coffee cup when I was growing up on my parents farm. There was always a lot of activity going on as she had six sons and five daughters. She would sip at her coffee, sigh and shake her head sadly. I often asked her what was wrong. Mom would scowl at me, shake her head and turn away and never answer me. I don't think she has ever known that it is OK to be happy. Hey, I am happy to be back.

Respect the grave diggers

"Come my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers and gravemakers that hold up Adam's profession."

A quote from Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Last week I was working with a woman named Lisa at my son's school. We were choosing photos that will be in the annual school calendar that is sold each year as a fund raiser. Lisa asked me if I had to be home at any certain time.

I said that I had to be home by 4, as I had to take my son to a floor hockey game in Owatonna.

"My husband, Tom would take him to the game, but he has to fill in at 4," I said.

"Oh does he do that often?" Lisa asked.

"Well no, usually he doesn't usually have to fill in so late in the afternoon. Most burials are scheduled earlier in the day," I said.

"Oh, well, sometimes I have to stay later at the hospital where I work. I help fill in for someone who has do to something else," Lisa said.

"No, he is not filling in for someone. Well, yes he is filling in for someone. It's someone's grave, but he is not taking someone's place. He is filling in a person's grave with dirt. He's a grave digger," I said.

Lisa looked startled and then started to laugh, "I forgot that is what he does for a living. He really is filling in for someone. He literally is filling in for someone, filling in a person's grave with dirt."

"Yes," I said nodding.

This has happened to me so often, being misunderstood when I talk about Tom's job. Not many people believe me at first when I say that my husband digs graves for a living.

"He does not!" some people say immediately. Then there are those that comment, "I used to do that." I have found that digging graves has often been one of the first jobs that many young men in rural communities do when they are old enough and strong enough to move dirt with a shovel.

Digging graves was one of the first jobs that Rod Stewart, the British rocker did when he was growing up. Saint Anthony, who was born in Egypt in the year 251 is known as the patron saint of Grave-Diggers.

Grave diggers deserve respect. They are doing the last thing on earth for a person, laying that body to rest. This poem by Carl Sandburg is a true ode to those who care for those on their final journey on earth.

"To Certain Journeymen" By Carl Sandburg

UNDERTAKERS, hearse drivers, grave diggers, I speak to you as one not afraid of your business.

You handle dust going to a long country.

You know the secret behind your job is the same whether you lower the coffin with modern, automatic machinery, well-oiled and noiseless, or whether the body is laid in by naked hands and then covered by the shovels.

Your day's work is done with laughter many days of the year.

And you earn a living by those who say good-by today in thin whispers.

My brother Tim dug graves with my dad for 10 years. One time during this period in his life he went to visit a psychic with one of my sisters. The psychic took Tim's hand and said, "I don't know what you do for a living, but I can tell that whatever you do, it is really down to earth."

Tim laughed and said, "It sure is."

Dinner went off swimming

I spent the weekend gathering the last of my herbs and digging up bulbs in the garden.

The floor in the room that we eat in is covered with drying plants that I will use for making tea and infusions this winter.

Sunday afternoon my eleven-year-old son Timmy and I took a walk, and we found a large puffball mushroom under an old apple tree. I cooked it up by saut/ing it in butter. It tasted a lot like chicken.

If you have never seen a puffball mushroom, they look just like a large white soccer ball.

Besides the mushroom, we gathered sumac berries, which make a red tea, and the best treasure of all according to Timmy was finding a skull of a dog. The skull was intact and bleached by the sun. I told Timmy that I didn't want the skull in the house, so it is setting outside on a rock wall.

We took care of my oldest son Dan's dog for a week while he went away with his wife. His dog is a golden retriever puppy named Jack. The dog loped around the yard and was underfoot anytime anyone was outside. I have two smaller dogs' and they were extremely annoyed with Jack. Our hens hid in their barn and didn't set foot outside until two days after Jack returned home. Besides the hens, I have six ducks and they had disappeared while Jack was here. The two oldest ducks, that have been residing here for four years, showed up Sunday evening. My young ducks, which I plan on butchering, were nowhere to be found.

"I'm going to go and look for those ducks," I said to Tom.

"You won't find them. Jack probably scared them down into the woods and who knows what could have eaten them," Tom said.

"We did hear coyotes one night when Jack was here," I said.

"Those ducks are gone. We will never know what happened to them," Tom shrugged.

I didn't agree with him and said, "I think they are still around here. I'm going to go and look for them."

I told Timmy to come with me to look for the ducks. He was dragging his feet as he followed me outside. Timmy said that I wasn't going to find the ducks as they were really, really gone.

I know that Tom and Timmy give up on anything quickly. I walked outside straight to a wooded, wet area that is not far from the house and there swimming in the water were my renegade ducks.

"HA!" I said to Timmy. "See, I knew they were alive. Now we can have duck for dinner this winter."

I am looking forward to eating those young ducks as we took good care of them this past summer. I was going to be very disappointed if anything had happened to them. There is not a lot of meat on a duck, and it can be a pain to get all the feathers off, but the end results of a good meal will be worth it. Those two older ducks won't be that disappointed to see the young ducks go as they act like they are too good for their company anyway.

Last year a fox killed and ate my older duck hen when she was setting on eggs. The two older ducks were upset for days when she died and so was I.

Those two old ducks have the run of the place and spend most of their time hanging out with the wild ducks in a pond across our road. They are fat and hearty and tough. They can hang out here a long time