Not that winter is over, mind you, but today was spring-like enough to get me to take another stab at the beginning of cleaning up after a winter that was snow and ice and wind and more snow and ice and wind and a lot of really cold temperatures – the kind that make you say to heck with everything else, just do your task and get back inside.

This is our little pile of stick when we started; we’ll use them for kindling when it gets cold again. It is now a big pile, but I forgot to take a picture.

This is a broken bough that wound up by the woodpile by the door.

And this . . . this is the old pioneer beam that fell off of the two big rocks on which it was balanced.

Oh, and here’s the woodpile by the hedge that was three rows deep and did the little avalanche thing while covered with ice and snow. It was an adventure to climb up and chisel some logs loose.

And here is Sydney, thinking “So much work” and lamenting the fact that the squirrel that split the cone on the driveway is long gone.

And, finally, the blue spruce with some branches in front of it that just might be getting ready to bud.

I was working outside today at my own pace; it was warm and the breeze caused strands of hair to flutter across my eyes and dry leaves to scatter along the driveway. It’s times like that I get to thinking and today I was thinking of this guy:

“He looks like he’s going to cry.” That’s what my dad said when he saw the picture one of the times he and Mother came to West Chester. I can see my dad now, sitting at the end of the trestle table, eating a sandwich and chuckling at the picture. Sometime I will post  my school picture when I was that age – I looked like I was going to chew nails and spit them out. Kind of my usual expression.

Yes, I stuck my head out the door today and decided to grasp the rake and approach the hedge. This is a big step for someone who is not a gardener, a goal-driven twenty or thirty-something, nor a person who looks much beyond herself.  But there I was, thinking, “Let’s make this place look good.” It is quite possible that spending the day drinking iced tea and then Diet Coke with a splash of Coke has caused an out-of-mind experience for me.

Nevertheless, I raked and saw some myrtle spreading out from the hedge onto an area plagued with shade and faltering grass and decided to rake those leaves right back over that greenery to protect if from a really cold snap or a blizzard. Yes, well I remember the St. Patrick’s Day Blizzard we had here about 35 years ago.  And just a few years back, Quentin and I drove to Indianapolis between two ice storms in April.

I puttered on over to the spot where I had run over a section of fence that had been leaning against one of the woodpiles and slid to the ground during the windy spell before being covered with snow. We have since moved the remainder of the fence, but there were a could of splintered boards I picked up. I am actually thinking of patching the pieces back together and putting a fresh coat of paint on the section and sticking it someplace for vines to grow on. It occurs to me that the infamous thought – Let’s make this place look good – could be overwhelming.

Then I picked up some errant logs, dropped while scurrying inside from getting wood for the fireplace. And, then, wait for it, I thought, “I don’t want to tire myself out.”

So I went inside. I came out later and did a little more. Easy does it, dontcha know.

This is a 2006 post  from another blog – but one I wanted to make certain was included here.

William Vance. Age: about 20. Era: WWII. Job: tail gunner.

My father-in-law, William A. Vance Jr. will have a Masonic Funeral Service tomorrow morning. Reading this paragraph from his obituary in The Daily Gate City, you can see why it is fitting:

He was a 50-year member of Denver Lodge 464, Denver, Ill., Gate City Chapter 7, Royal Arch Masons, Damancers Commandery 5 Knights Templain, Apolla Council of Keokuk, Valley of Quincy Consistory, KAABA Shrine of Davenport, Order of Eastern Star and served as district deputy grand master of the Seventh Western District of the State of Illinois in 1982 and 1983. He was awarded the York Rite Cross of Honor in 1953. He also was a member of the Past Masters and Past Commanders of the York Rite, State of Iowa. Recently, he received an award for 50 years of loyal service from the Quincy Consistory. He served as captain of the Keokuk Chief Patrol for the Keokuk Shriners. He received the E.L. Lawrence Award for an Outstanding Mason in 2000.

Masonic funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Lamporte Funeral Home, Carthage, with the Denver Masonic Lodge officiating.

Following is the conclusion of the service cited above:

There is no death. What seems so is transition. All that is beautiful and good and true in human life is no more affected by the shadow of death than by the darkness that divides today from tomorrow.

Our paths lead not to the grave but through it. Immortal we are and ever shall be. We look not to another life, but to the perfecting of this one. In God’s good time we shall be raised by His right hand to that higher, fairer phase of life for which this is only the preparation.

Friendship is refreshment and sweetness as we pass this way. It is much to feel that, wherever we are, we have friends, and that their friends are ours as well. Our Brother’s friends are lonely in this hour, but the friendship we felt for him extends to them. We, too, loved him.

We, too, feel the pain of parting. Our sympathy, our love, are theirs as they were his. Our entire fraternity surrounds his loved ones with the assurance of its affection. We offer the support of our sympathy, the comfort of our faith, the inspiration of our hope, that they, with us, may look beyond this hour through the opening portals of the infinite. So then, let us be unceasingly grateful for every God-given virtue which the life of our Brother expressed, and let us be comforted and sustained by the assurance that life goes on unbroken and uncorrupted and that God alone is the life and light of men.

AND HERE IS A RELATED POST: A REMEMBRANCE OF WILLIAM VANCE by Wayne Botkins.

As I have written, my father-in-law, William A. Vance, passed away last Tuesday and was laid to rest following a Masonic Funeral at Harmony Cemetery on Saturday. What follows is an emailed memory of him from his high school days:

This by cousin Wayne Botkin:

My best recollection of Bill Vance was in 1941;we we were at
Carthage High;Bill was a sophomore and I, a senior & on the
varsity football–Bill played guard and I, tackle. Bill
being two years younger and smaller played only parttime.
When Bill was in the game he played long side of me. When
a running play was over our side, I would say “Come on Bill.”
We opened holes many times for the running back to make a
good gain. Oftentimes when we were unscrambling from a
pile-up, Bill’s helmut (being too large) would be half
turned on his head and I could only see a big smile on his
face. Yes, Bill was “tough and scrappy” which he had to use
too many times during his life.
Yes, I am proud to have been his cousin. May his soul rest in
peace.