Daycare

Miss Nona from the Daycare (connected with the school that I substitute teach for) just called and asked if I could work three hours a day during the week doing lunch duty at the daycare. I told her, "Yes! Yes!" I had worked there before, with great pleasure, for several summers as a teacher or an aide and have filled in at each level....cannot say I have a favorite room, though the infant room is so much fun...getting to hold, rock, and feed those little sweeties! Changing diapers and wiping up spit-up is okay, too. Just part of it. It was awesome last year to be at the Primary School and have many of the little kids, walking decoriously in line with their teacher, suddenly break away to run up and hug my leg, just to say, "Hello! I am glad to see you!" A few even call me "Granny", though I don't really know where they got that. They like me as well as I like them. A child knows when someone really cares about them. You cannot fool a child. I love children..they are the hope of the world. I will be at the daycare for a few hours each day, until school starts and I go back to being a substitute teacher all day at the school. I work at all campuses and all grades....I will go wherever I am needed. I especially enjoy the Special Kids, though that class is more demanding and sometimes a bit emotionally draining, as they have so many challenges to face every day.  With the outrageous cost of gasoline today, it is good that I live only 3 miles away from the daycare. This will let me help them out, I will enjoy being with the children, plus make a little money and still be handy to be back home soon to check on the old mare, Jet, who is to foal any day now.  So....this works out good for all of us!  

A Summer Tan

This summer has flown by so fast! Many of the things I listed on my "Summer-To-Do List" (thinking I would have more time in the lazy ? days of summer) just will not be done at all. It has been a very enjoyable, though extremely hot, Texas summer. That stretch of 11 straight days over 100 degrees each day has worn me out, physically and financially. The physical part is from having to be out in the heat more often, to take care of the new filly, Stormy, born June 18th, and her mother, Esmo. My old mare, Jet,  26-years-old, is to foal any day now, so I am paying particular attention to her, going out into the heat and checking on her several times a day.  The financial part comes from the almost twice as high as usual electric bill caused by the continuous running of the air conditioner to keep the house cool.   The heat is so oppressive!  It zaps your energy completely. When I have to go outside in the afternoon to water the horses and give extra hay and so forth, I put on my bathing suit and stay cool by getting wet from the water hose...just as my sister, Sue, and I , and the cousins and friends used to do as kids on those long ago hot summer days. I think longingly of Cold Springs, where we kids would run from our house to just across the street to jump into that ice-cold swimming hole in Cameron Park, chill in that almost freezing water as long as we could stand it, then run back home, thoroughly cooled off and so cold our lips were blue. I firmly believe that global warming is real and  the world is hotter now than when I was a child growing up. I do not think we could have stayed out in the heat like we did then, if it had been as hot as it seems now.  Maybe it is the humidity.  The best thing to come out of the heat this summer is the fact that I now have a really great tan, something I have not had in years.

Planning a Family Reunion

Due to Aunt Sister's failing health, I decided we needed a Head Family Reunion, to be held as soon as possible.  Wanted to wait til Fall, when cooler and we could all go to my beloved Cameron Park for a get-together. However, I am not sure Aunt Sister will still be here by then... so we are going to have an air-conditioned fellowship hall of a wonderful church as our gathering place.  How we found this great little church is a story in itself. When I and my classmates of the Waco High Class of 1964 had our 40th Reunion in 2004, I was the Chairman of the Planning Committee (that was work and fun!). After the reunion, we decided that some of us wanted to stay in touch, so I have the e-mail addresses of over 90 classmates , and we keep in touch. We try to meet at least twice a year for a mini-reunion, with any classmates attending that can happen to make it. This is such fun, as we sometimes meet every month to celebrate classmate birthdays, a Birthday Bash, if you will...even if the birthday boys and girls cannot make it....a lot of fun, as different classmates attend, as well as the handful of regulars from Waco. We were to meet at Cameron Park for our Spring Mini-Reunion last May, but the F-2 tornado that hit Waco blew through the night before. Shirley McDonald Fuller, one of our classmates, had offered the fellowship hall of her church in case of bad weather, so we took her up on the offer. It was so nice that I wanted to have a family reunion there one day. Hopefully, we will get to see a lot of family that don't get to see often..usually only see them at funerals or weddings. David Allen Head and his wife, Pat, plan to come in from the Houston area. His sister, Sally Head Temple, my first cousin also, lives here in Waco, and she and her son, Parker Lockhart, and grandson Jake Lockhart, plan to come. I hope her daughter Carol and family can attend also. My little brother, Charles Lee (Charlie)  Head, and his family plan to be there, too. Carolyn Head Kline and her husband, Jerry, may be in Colorado then, but Pereugene (Perry) Head and his wife, Phyliss, may make it. Uncle Frank Curre ( married to my daddy's baby sister, Aunt Toots, who died in 1994 about six months after my mother, Marie, died) is a true Head family member.  He and many of his large family plan to be there. (His daughters, Linda and Peggy, are two of my beloved cousins that I grew up with.) My sister, Sue Head Lee, will be there. Her son, Robbie Wooten, will be at a bass tournament that day, so he and wife, Brenda, and their three children will have to come to the next one. Sue's daughter, Amy Wooten Warren, and hubby, Chad, and family plan to attend if possible...so much going on for the younger set ..vacation time and school starts in a few weeks.   My daughter, Jon Marie Powell Russman, and her hubby, Nick, and her son, Noah Ross Johnson (Ross)  plan to be there..also, my son, Jimmy Powell, wife, Esther, and the girls and the new baby boy...also, my son, Bobby Powell, wife, Spring, and their two children are to come, if the boys can get off work......there could be about twenty-five people or there could be close to fifty....just have to wait and see who shows up! It was such a hurry-up idea to have it, a lot of the family already had other plans that could not be changed. Aunt Sister wants to come, if only for a little while, and if she feels up to it. One thing for sure is that we will have a great time just being together and reminiscing, though it will be sad and bittersweet, knowing that this will probably be the last time many of us will see Aunt Sister alive.

Summer Visit from the Grandkids

Some of my grandkids came and stayed a few days with me, the old granny, as I call myself! Cobey, 5, calls me "Waco Mamma",  because they call their great-grandmother on their mom's side also Mamma. The girls, September (Seppie) 10, and Summer, almost 9, call me just Mamma. My oldest son Jimmy's wife , Esther, brought  them up to stay with me for a few days. Sunday, 7, did not want to stay that long, so she went back the next day with mom and little brother, Noah Elijah, 6 months old now. Sunday was the baby until little brother came along, so I think she relished having mom and the new baby to herself for a bit. My son Bobby's wife, Spring, and another granddaughter, Callie, almost 3, came up Thursday afternoon and joined us at The Mayborn Museum, one of our favorite places. We love the old Pioneer Village that is behind the Museum. Bill Daniels, the fine Texas gentleman that donated the village to Baylor University in the 1980's, died just a few days ago. He and his wife, Vara, had purchased land that had these 1880- through -1910- era buildings on it....an entire small town, well-preserved...I remember visiting it in 1985, when it was just being set up next to Baylor. The kids love the little white church with a piano they can play, the little red one-room schoolhouse, working the handle on the pump on the well to get out the water, grinding corn by hand to feed the chickens, guineas, and turkeys....just all of it. As you sit in the shade of huge old pecan trees, enjoying the breeze off the nearby Brazos River, it is fun to imagine you are back in time and living in that simple place with its slower pace of life.  When the Texas heat finally forces you inside, you do appreciate the wonderful coolness of the Museum. In one day, we try to see everything in the Museum, which is quite a task. When Spring asked Cobey, only five years old, what he liked the best, I was surprised at his answer. I thought he might say he liked the miniature train display or one of the wonderful car or toy interactive displays that we had a time getting him to leave to go on to the next wonderful thing.  However, Cobey said he liked the elephant bones and the video showing the elephants (actually prehistoric Mammoths), and being able to walk and crawl around on the glass above the bones (actually plaster casts of the original bones) the best. The Mammoth Display is the centerpiece of the Museum and an important and unique prehistorical discovery. The actual site with the real bones from 28 or so Mammoths that died in a mudslide in the now-Bosque River, just a few miles away, will become a National Park open to the public next year. What is amazing is that the adult Mammoths tried to lift the baby Mammoths to safety on their huge curved tusks, but all died and were preserved that way by the mud about 65 million years ago. Perhaps Cobey is going to be a paleontologist, archaeologist, scientist, or something along that line when he grows up. That would have made my mother, Marie, who died in 1994, especially proud. She was a rockhound and charter member of the Waco Gem and Mineral Society in 1950, loved nature, and had a great interest in science. I was very proud of him for liking the Mammoths the best. The girls love anything pioneer (as do I), especially the Pioneer Village behind the Museum......We could stay out there all day if not for the heat this time of year. We also love  the Pioneer Room in the Museum. I had braided Summer and Seppie's long dark hair into two braids...  dressed up in the period dresses and sunbonnets , they really did look like Laura and her friends from "Little House on the Prairie". The Mayborn Museum is a great place to go and spend the entire day...fun and learning in one place! I was sad to see my grandbabies go back home...they were good help at the barn and in the house, plus we had a lot of fun. As it was so hot outside, we had frozen slushies, played in the water to cool off, and watched videos in the cool air-conditioned house. I have a good selection of films for young folks.....They especially like "Old Yeller", "Johnny Tremain", "Samantha: 1910 American Girl", "Black Beauty", "Where the Red Fern Grows", "Felicity: Colonial American Girl", the wonderful documentary "Seabiscuit" by PBS, and (surprise!) the 1940 black-and-white movie "L'il Abner" with Buster Keaton... It is somewhat like the Beverly Hillbillies, and it is funny! They also like the black -and -white episodes from TV of "Fury", "The Cisco Kid", "Bat Masterson", "Annie Oakley", "Jim Bowie", "Death Valley Days", and "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon", all shows that any kid from the 1950's would remember well. Cobey had also brought some of his videos: "Free Willie II",  "Captain Nemo", "Toy Story Two", "Lion King and a Half", and "Babe". They loved petting the new baby colt, Stormy, and  playing with the half-wild baby kittens... once they figured out out how to catch them.  I know they went away with wonderful memories of quality time spent at Mamma's house.

Stormy

  My palomino mare, Esmeralda, "Esmo" for short, had her beautiful little filly in the middle of a huge thunderstorm in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 18th, 2006. Stormy came with much fanfare.....thunder, lightning, and lots of rain. Just before midnight, I had gone to the barn to check on Esmo, found her pacing up and down the fence drenched with sweat and realized a birth was imminent. When a mare is foaling the only thing you can do is stay out of the way, watch that all goes as it is supposed to go, and hope for the best.  I have been present at probably ten or twelve foal births over the years, so I know the way it ought to go. However, after 45 minutes of trying to spit that little darlin' out, without success, I called the vet, Dr. Tom Meurer from West. Thankfully, Doc is only ten minutes away down I35.  For quite a while, I had been able to see the two front feet and about half of the little head on top of the feet, still in the placenta, protruding from the mare, as supposed to be. But no further progress was being made, as it should have been. I was  getting worried that Esmo could not have the foal without some help. I was praying hard that all would be well. However, having been around Nature all my life and knowing how cruel it can be, I had to be realistic. I could lose both mother and baby, if things did not go right. Doc got there just as the big storm hit. Both of us thought we would get to the stall and find a dead foal and a mare in real trouble. We were relieved and thrilled to see a little reddish-brown foal just born and trying to get up on those long wobbly legs! Doc stayed a while to be sure all was well....and it was. It was raining too hard for him to leave right away anyway.... I stayed in the stall most of the night with the mare and foal, a blaze-faced, stocking-legged filly who looks just like her sire, Mighty. I told Mighty, who was in a stall nearby, that he had a new baby, a girl, and gave all the horses some extra hay. It stormed and rained heavily for three hours. About an hour after the vet had left, the mare caught the hanging placenta on the side of the stall, and it was forcibly removed from her uterus, rather than slowly releasing itself naturally over the next few hours.  Now I had a new worry. The blood ran for a while, then thankfully stopped. It was chilling to realize Esmo could have bled to death right then and there. I also had another big problem. The new filly had not figured out how to nurse her mother.  Esmo's bag was full and tight, and, never having a foal before, the teats were short and hard to get a little baby mouth around.  A new foal MUST have the mare's first milk, the colostrum, within eight hours of birth, when the foal's intestines are able to absorb the antibodies, or it can die within a few days from massive infection.  I milked out the mare's bag a little, then held that new baby up to the mare's side for several hours. As a last resort, I rubbed white Karo syrup on the mare's bag, and the baby finally nursed! I had spent most of that stressful night, about five and a half hours, hoping the mare was going to be okay and that the baby would nurse. My sister Sue said the name for this baby had to be Stormy...and Stormy it is! Baby and mother are both doing fine a few weeks later. The best thing is that Stormy and I bonded after all those hours spent up close and personal. We are friends. She accepts me as a natural part of her life, probably because I was there with her from the beginning. She is very gentle and likes to be petted and scratched. She even nickers at me as if I am another horse! She also tries to kick me as if I were another horse! Oh, the joys of a new baby!

Aunt Sister

My daddy's last living immediate relative, Juanita Head Merritt, known and loved by all of us cousins in the family as "Aunt Sister", born March 31st, 1921, is not long for this world. She told me not to be sad, that she has accepted it and has lived a long and full life. She has courage.  She was comforting me, instead of the other way around, when she told me the doctors could do no more for her, that her heart is worn out and her time is short. She has trouble breathing, as her heart does not get enough oxygen, and sometimes the spells of not being able to breath are quite scary. At those times, she must take an anxiety pill and a nitroglycerin pill and go to bed to rest. Her loving grandson, Bill, is taking care of her, along with hospice and assorted helpers. She just about raised him, so he is paying his debt to her. He will get a star in Heaven for his kindness and caring. Hospice has been coming about a month now, so it will not be long.  She is the last of  Daddy's immediate family, the last of the older Heads, that I have known and loved all my life, the Old Guard. She will soon be with the beloveds already gone but not forgotten. She will be reunited with Uncle Thomas, her husband of many, many years, gone a few years now, and with her oldest son, Tommy Merritt, my first cousin and a rodeo cowboy who died at the age of 54 in 1997.  I ask that the Lord bless and keep Aunt Sister, and make His face to shine upon her, and lift up His countenance upon her and grant her Peace.