WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

I seem to remember that line from a song from back in the sixties or seventies.  I know where mine have gone.  All of the frosts this last month did them in and the morning the dogs water dish had a lid of ice on it last week finished off my hardy mums.  It has been a strange weather year.  Seems as though nothing has gone well around me what with illness, accidents, frustation and loneliness taking their turns at turning my world upside down and inside out.  That old Pennsylvania Dutch saying seems to fit me lately--"The hurrier I go the behinder I get."  What David used to call my Walmart Shuffle,  you know, two steps forward then one step back to look at something.  I start to do something then get sidetracked so I have many projects started that are just waiting for me to get the energy to finish them and that is the hard part--getting the energy.  Maybe I am just feeling my age, my body just isn't cooperating and sometimes my mind just seems to be put on hold.  And here it is birthday time again.  Time flies or seems to whiz by faster.  As one wise old friend said once--"It isn't that time is going faster, it's just that we are going slower!"  Maybe I can't seem to get my projects finished because I no longer have a helper to work with me.  I need to move on but, oh, how I miss him.

NOISE!

You would think that a small rural town smack dab in the middle of the country (literally!) would be quiet.  Not so!  Where I live on Court Street:  (1) railroad tracks are 2 blocks south and they are busy with trains day and night year round and where they cross the highway just 3 blocks away they blow their whistles each time they go through and when the whistle blows the dogs all begin to bark, mine included. and I am surrounded by dogs, (2)  the grain elevator if just on the other side of the tracks (straight south of me) and the rail cars are being shuffled year round (they seem to like to do this in the middle of the night!), from harvest on it seems like the grain dryer goes constantly (multiply the noise your clothes dryer makes a hundred fold plus and you get some idea of the noise IT makes), (3) the highway is a major one for this area with MANY trucks going through north and south and with a four way stop less that 2 blocks to the west all the starting and stopping of the trucks plus all the other traffic does produce a little noise (all the mufflers are not quiet around here), also the trucks turning off for the elevator especially at havest time but not limited to that time of year (6 months out of the year) then continue on another block or so to the east cross the tracks back to the north and come down Court Street to the four way stop and back on the highway, (4)  one block west of the four way stop is the city hall and the fire house, the siren is only one block away and when IT goes off (and with the dry hot summer we had it went off a LOT) so do the dogs, (5) the county court house is just half a block to the east with the county jail just on the other side of it, more traffic on Court Street, (6) the grade school is just  east of the court house, more traffic (busses etc.), (7) the alley by my house gets a lot of traffic from neighbors wanting to get to Court  Street and the convenience of the four way stop (at least since they paved it last year I don't get all the dust), (8) the post office is just one block west on Court, (9) the dogs also announce when the mailman has come or anyone elso stops, (10) and last but not least is the WIND!!!!, when someone asks me if Kansas is really windy I just say YES!!! 
    But that same wind is a blessing to me.  I can sit in my chair in the living room and hear my wind chimes almost every day and if I close my eyes I can still see David going up and down the aisle at Hobby Lobby testing them all until he decided on just the right sound before buying it for me just a couple weeks before he died, and then the look of pleasure on his face when he turned to me after hanging it and it began to chime along with the one he had bought for me the year before (they seem to harmonize).  He gave me music!  And as I sit and listen to them my small corner of this noisey world does not seem so dark and lonely.  I miss him.