Ian has left for drill.  It is his weekend to play soldier.  I know that after classes today, Jason will be off for his weekend also.  The big guy is out in Kansas doing his duty for our country.  Probably sleeping with a big smile on his face since he won both of his fighting matches yesterday.  Adam is over there playing in the big sandbox as his older brothers call it.  MK is off at school, looking forward to me coming to pick her up for the weekend.  Last weekend was a study in contrasts for her.  Fun while she was working with her heifer, not so fun when she was thinking about not being at home.  Matthew is upstairs sleeping.  Hopefully sleeping off this cold or flu or whatever has aflicted this house.  And Doug is gone to work.

As I sit here the ghosts are playing all around me.  

I hear the sound of Adam running through the house yelling and laughing.  There was never a time when Adam wasn't smiling.  Hug was his first word and he is still giving out the best hugs.  I can see the circle of drool on the front of every shirt that he ever owned and the muddy streaks that covered his face from the moment he went outside in the morning until I gave him his bath before he got tucked into bed.  His voice is floating on the air calling to me "Can I go play in the bug garden today?"   I want to call out to him and say, "Of course you can.  Just make sure you dress warmly and brush your teeth before you go out!"  Boy could Adam dig!!!! 

Right behind Adam's voice is Jason's calling, "Wait for me!"  Jason was never one to be left behind.  You climb that tree, Jason will climb higher.  You dig that hole, Jason will dig it deeper and faster.  I remember the day that this picture was taken like it was yesterday, at the State Fair.  We need volunteers to be handcuffed.  Sure, Jason will volunteer.  Just step right up and put your arms out little boy.  "Slow down a minute Jason, I need to tuck your shirt in, where are your glasses?  Lost again!  Can you never keep track of where you put them?  Now here's your jacket and make sure your teeth are brushed and your shoes are tied.  Where's your hat?  Don't worry Adam is waiting, the fun will be there when you get there."  That's my Jason, don't miss out on a second of the fun.

 

I think more than the others I hear Ian and the big guy.  Only because they are the oldest and have been around the longest.  Inseparable from the minute the big guy could walk they are what I call Catholic twins.  Eleven months apart but since the big guy was so big to start with they were of a size from the start.  Two kids couldn't be more opposite but better friends.  Ian is like the energizer bunny.  From the minute he woke up in the morning until you laid him in his bed he was going.  Nothing was safe from his curiosity.  Why was his first word and I think that he is still thinking it although he doesn't say it so much anymore.  The big guy is as laid back as his picture implies.  The term couch potato was coined just for him.  Not lazy by any means, he just prefers to take things at a much slower pace.  Why expend physical energy when a little intelligence might get the job done faster and better.  I will never forget the day I went to the bathroom and came out to find that Ian had climbed up and gotten a bottle of blue food coloring and fed it to his brother.  The Smurfs weren't bluer than my boy.  To top it off, the big guy had one of his endless dr. appointments for an ear infection and that was back in the day of white lab coats and white nurses uniforms.  When we got done with that visit I offered to dry clean the dr's lab coat and the nurses uniform.  They were nearly as blue as my son. 

I see the innocent looks on their faces when they came down from playing in their room to have lunch and informed me that Adam wasn't hungry.  When I went up to investigate Adam was tied to the bedpost with their wooden blocks piled all around as if they were burning him at the stake.  They were playing St. Joan of Arc and Adam was St. Joan.  So much for trying to raise good Catholic boys with stories of the saints. 

 

Perhaps loudest of all I hear the ghost of Mk.  She had a voice like a siren going off.  Girly to the core but determined to follow in everything that her brothers did.  She was born in January which is a cold month around here.  The first time that I put a little pair of overalls on her, I thought her brothers were going to stage a revolt.  She is a girl and their girl at that, put a dress on her.  She wore only dresses after that.  She was her daddy's girl from the minute that he saw her.  He'll deny it but it is true and you can see it whenever they are together.  The only thing he wouldn't tolerate from her was her tantrums.  He used to pick her up bodily and put her in her room and close the door.  That was a sure way to end a tantrum.  No audience, no crying fit.  When she was about 5 she wanted her ears pierced.  Her dad said no and was determined to hold to that decision.  Then she got scarlet fever.  She was a sick little girl.  When she was in the hospital she wouldn't let the dr. examine her and her dad said that if she cooperated he would let her get her ears pierced when she got better.  You never saw a child cooperate so fast.  It was a long haul but when she got better she didn't forget and her dad was true to his word.  Everyday she calls him at work and talks with him.  They talk over everything that she is doing and dreaming about.  She can't be far from her daddy. 

Matthew doesn't have a ghost yet.  Although the little boy with the camo shorts and the winter boots is still running around here somewhere.  He's probably still trying to tunnel from the side hill under the garden and the driveway to the house.  Or maybe he is riding his bike like a crazy man through the pastures terrorizing the heifers and racing the dogs that once lived here.  I don't really know yet.  I look forward to hearing that spirit when it materializes, I think it will be the most fun of all because it will have been the product of all the siblings that have come before.

This is one that I had Matthew memorize when he was in sixth grade.  It was kind of fun listening to him recite after he had finished memorizing and had learned what it was about.       The Charge of the Light Brigade

---

   

I.

Half a league, half a league,
   Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.


 

II.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
   Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.


 

III.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
   Rode the six hundred.


 

IV.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
   All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
   Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
   Not the six hundred.


 

V.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
   Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
   Left of six hundred.


 

VI.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
   All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
   Noble six hundred!
 

Some really big storms blew through here last night. 

All we got was a few sprinkles but somebody north of us really got some weather.

After the clouds went through there was just the sliver of a sunset beneath the dark clouds.

What grand show the Lord put on for us last evening.

 

Better than going to the theater for a movie, and for free too.

 

 

 

 

Since April is National Poetry month, and since I am not much of a poet, I thought I would post someone else's poem a day.  I will start out with my favorite poet, favorite style, and favorite poem.  Enjoy.

CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

Lupus missing her master.  When he gets home again she will smile again.

 

One of her big, silly Lupus grins.