Our church in Larimore, N.D., bought tickets for its youth to go to last night’s Fargo-Moorhead Red Hawks game so Brian and helped chaperone. Along with Brendan and Thomas, we took two other kids and an adult friend of ours so our Venture van was full for the trip to Fargo.

    It was a sold-out crowd at the game which the Red Hawks eventually won 7-6. The boys had fun trying to catch errant game balls and one of their friends came home with one. They all play Little League so they enjoyed watching how the bigger guys play ball. They also had fun eating ballpark food and sugary drinks.

    We left the game, which was a lengthy one, after the bottom of the sixth inning. It was already 9:45 p.m. when we departed so we didn’t get home until midnight. I had to work today and the boys had a Little League game so we didn’t want to roll in to the farm any later. I’m not as young as I used to be so the short night is making for a tired day. It was worth, it though, to spend an All-American night with our boys.

    I hate to say it, but we could really use some rain at the farm. We don’t want a deluge, but an inch or two woud be helpful. Obviously, there’s a lot of subsoil moisture left from the heavy rains last fall and this spring, but the top is dry and there was dust flying when I was hoeing in the garden over the weekend. I assume the topsoil in the farm fields around us also could use some rain.

    Recent rains seem to be fallling on every side of us, but skirting our area.  We even missed the rain that Grand Forks got last week. Every day the forecast gives me hope because scattered showers are predicted to fall. However, so far, they’re scattering elsewhere.

     I figure today our luck might change because I left the house with the windows open. Every other day I’ve shut them in case a thunderstorm came through when I was gone. My sons also have baseball games and my daughter has swimming lessons scheduled today so that should also tempt fate. Maybe I should also wash the car…

    Just a quick blog note to say that my daughter Ellen and her famous golden retreiver puppy will be at the Alerus Center Saturday morning (June 20) beginning at 9 a.m. for a meet and greet during the orgnzation’s Walk for Wishes fundraiser. The Make A Wish Foundation of North Dakota asked Ellen if she could be at the walk with Rosebud, the puppy that she received after she got her wish last winter to be on the set of an Air Buddies movie being filmed in Vancouver.

     Ellen is excited about introducing Rosebud to people. Rosebud, who is blissfully unaware of her celebrity status, will enjoy being petted. She loves people and the more attention she gets from them, the better.

     If you’d like to register for the walk, which begins at 10 a.m., go to www.ndwish.org or call (701) 280-9474.

     Last night’s tour of our gardens revealed that this past week’s warm, humid weather has helped our flowers and vegies (and weeds) grow by leaps and bounds. The flowers in our two gardens alongside the house have grown enough to determine what they are and soon will catch up to the plants we put in. We buy mostly flower seeds because they’re much less expensive and usually end up blooming about the same time as the plants.

     Out in the vegetable garden, the watermelons and muskmelons are starting to take off and have grown a third leaf. Like the flowers, we also plant those fruits from seed. Experience has taught us that, though the watermelon and muskmelon are slow growers at the beginning, once they take off they grow like wildfire and we harvest them as early as the ones that are transplanted.

      The row crops also are starting to look like "real" vegetables and need to be weeded so they will continue to be hardy. This weekend I plan to spend some time on my hands and knees plucking out the weeds. I think I might leave the weeds in the beet row, though, to help camouflage them from the deer. Last year I weeded the row, only to have the deer eat nearly every beet green. I never can figure out why the deer have to come into the garden when they have a half dozen acres of woods and grass they can munch on. I guess the garden must be tastier.

      Monday was my 6-year-old daughter, Ellen’s monthly chemo treatment day at Altru Clinic and hospital, and by the end of it I was exhausted, but inspired. To begin the day, Ellen had an IV of chemo at the clinic. After that she had a breathing treatment at the hospital which helps keep her from getting a type of pneumonia that people receiving chemotherapy are susceptible to. At home she took three different kinds of oral chemo throughout the day for a total of 13 pills in all. 

     On top of the stress of the chemo and treatments, Ellen’s port line was plugged. Before she could have her blood drawn and get her IV, it was re-accessed to make sure the needle was in the right place. It was, so she had to have medication to unclog the line which apparently was blocked with a piece of tissue. Ordering the medication and waiting for it to thaw added another hour at the doctor’s office on to her (our) schedule.

      I was exhausted by the time we got home from the clinic and hospital and felt like I’d put in a 10-hour day at work, but Ellen was full of energy. She came home and played baseball with her brothers, ran around the yard with Rosebud and colored and drew pictures into the evening hours.

       It’s hard to complain or feel down as a caregiver when the person with the cancer is so full of life. Ellen definitely is living testimony to the power of positive thinking, reminds me of the importance of living in the moment and keeps me young.

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    Though I grew up on a farm and love country life, I don’t think I could be a farmer. I worry too much. Each spring after I plant our garden, for example, I agonize about whether I sowed the seeds so deep they’ll never sprout or too shallow so they will get washed up out of the soil when it rains. I still recall the time my dad observed a row of peas that were lying on top of the ground after a rain and asked me if I was trying to plant by the broadcast method.

     This year our garden, like many others, was planted later than usual because conditions were cold and wet. And since the temperatures remained below normal, I didn’t expect the seeds to pop out of the ground a few days after they were planted. I began to fret, though, when days turned into weeks and the ground was still void of green, except for the weeds.

    Much to my relief, mid-last week I saw a few peas were emerging from the soil and the beans were also beginning to poke out of the ground. By the weekend the beans were a few inches high and a few more peas were filling out the rows. While we always seem to have good luck with beans, our success with peas is much more "iffy." I don’t know if it’s our soil or bad karma, but peas just don’t seem to produce well in our otherwise fertile garden soil.

    Besides the peas and beans, the carrots, beets, lettuce and "hill crops," such as pumpkins, squash and watermelon also started to come up last week. Meanwhile, our flowers, except where the dogs squashed them, also are growing.

     I haven’t been out to the garden this week, but I doubt, considering the cool temperatures so far this week, there’s been much change. I expect to see a lot of growth, though, if the temperatures warm. Now I can start worrying about keeping up with the weeds so they don’t choke out the vegetables, fruits and flowers.