Riverbend Farm, Day 4

October 20, 2025 Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

This is the beginning of my fourth day, visiting in North Carolina. Everything is going pretty well.

Yesterday was exciting because I rode a horse again. There has been a period of time when I’ve stayed off horses. It ‘s because it seemed like the risk of injury was real and unnecessary. I felt the same way when I quit water skiing after nearly pulling my arms out of their sockets. But yesterday, I wanted to ride Andi. He is a beautiful gelding who used to be my horse and now lives with Julie on her farm. He’s been ridden much more regularly lately and there were four others going on this ride. It was on Riverbend property and all the horses are used to these trails. It felt safe. And it was fun. Andi is still quite energetic but he behaved well. It’s nice to not feel “too old” to do something I’ve always loved to do.

Where are my cowboy boots? I don’t know…

Some reflections on being two years old (not that I remember it personally):

Gwennie is 2, and in many ways I feel sorry for the stage she struggles with. It has to be hard. She is now so aware of herself as a separate person from her caregivers and parents. She has learned to say “no”, just for the feeling of power it embodies. But she’s still too inexperienced to know the good reasons for saying “yes” to many things.

Today she always says “yes” to ice cream, fruit snacks, and watching Bluey on any available screen. Tomorrow it may be different.

When she gives her attention to a person speaking to her, she looks at them seriously. You can see her focusing on what is being said. She is on task, learning what language is for. Because of that, her ability to speak has jumped tremendously since the last time I saw her.

She has learned how to beg, saying “please” with just the right wheedling inflection. Inflection and body language are not lost on her. We don’t know when or from whom she learned to stomp her foot when she’s mad and saying no, but she’s got that down too.

She has to be desperate before she asks for help with tasks she thinks she can do. She anticipates people stepping in to help. She often tells me “no Mimi, don’t help me” before I even think of helping her. I would describe her as “rough and tumble”, athletic and a risk taker. Last year when I visited, she would only spend a minute or two in the swing before being done. The motion seemed to make her dizzy and uncomfortable. Now, she climbs in the swing herself, buckles her own safety straps and wants a “big push”. There is always a lot of laughing and squealing for joy.

How would you get yourself up into something at armpit level? She did it.

These first few days she has almost seemed resentful of me. She has not wanted me hold her. She says no to almost everything I ask her to do. She clearly prefers mommy, daddy, her siblings and Emma to me every time there’s a choice. That’s gradually changing, mostly because I don’t try to get her to do anything. I sit and watch Lassie with her.

She runs most of the time. She has more blue jeans than I do. She wears cowboy boots. Her “princess hat” is a brown, winter sherpa with ear flaps. But she has learned to sit still while daddy puts rubber bands in her messy, blonde hair.

She has learned to pretend. She takes daddy’s order for pizza, puts some in his hand, and takes his imaginary money. I know that’s not how I learned to pretend, but times have clearly changed. She plays alone in her bed, putting moose and frog down for a nap and covering them. She has her private places where she plays and sings to herself.

Watching all these things happening is fascinating and thought provoking. I am seeing how a child soaks up everything in their environment, for better or worse. I am seeing how important parenting is.

Kevin and Julie are at their jobs already. Emma (super nanny) is playing with Gwennie. I think my task for today will be getting ready for Wednesday. A friend from Hayward is coming down to visit me and the family, and get a taste of North Carolina. My friend is a man, close to my age, and yes, we have been getting acquainted for the last nine months. I haven’t been writing about our experiences because I wasn’t ready to write. Maybe I am a little more ready now. More to come.

April A to Z Challenge: Keeping Company

April 13, 2021April 12, 2021 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

Welcome to the April A to Z Blogging Challenge! This year my contribution is the story of my great grandmother Alzina. She lived in the style of “Little House on the Prairie”and kept a record of her life through letters to family and her own journals. I find her story fascinating and intriguing. Each post will start (sometimes strangely) with a consecutive letter of the alphabet, just because they have to. My hope is that we can “catch” some of her courage to help us face challenges in our present times.

Probably 1888

In Alzina’s words “mother wouldn’t allow any teasing about beaus, either. She said that she believed her two older sisters might have married happily if they hadn’t been discouraged by teasing.” Her sisters went to work in Vermont factories, and contracted tuberculosis and died.

So Alzina’s experience was markedly different. As a young girl, she had been given a gift of some cows from her grandmother (a gift we all dream of getting, right?) She asked permission to sell the cows and buy an organ on which she and her sister could take music lessons. Permission was granted, and having learned to play, their home became a gathering spot for the young people of their church and community, nearly every Sunday afternoon, for years. In this way, “dating” commenced for the Pomeroy girls.

“Our birthday is coming up soon Alzina. Would you let me plan an outing? I have something that I want to show you.”

Willard was planning what that evening would look like as he drove his new buggy to Alzie’s boarding house and helped her down. He had become so fond of her during their time of “keeping company”. They were becoming quite an item, he thought.

“Yes, that is our mutual celebration day. We might as well share some time with each other, although you are the “old man” by three years.” Alzie teased him. Ever since they had discovered their February 6th birthdays, it had seemed to be a bond of a sort. She thought well of Willard, and he did have a fine buggy. It had also been nice to have an escort to school and social affairs in the community.

As it turned out, Willard showed Alzie a ring on their birthday and asked her to marry him. It was a bit unexpected. Alzie promised to consider it, and she did over the next few months. And then she said “no”. That was not good news to Willard, to say the least. Their courtship was over.

One day some time later after the school term had ended, Alzie returned home. She found her mother in tears over something in the morning mail.

“Mother, what’s wrong? You hardly ever come to tears over letters! Did Father’s carload of hay come to disaster? Was it that bad?”

“Oh no, no loss of hay returns would concern me so much as the letter you got today. Look who it is from.” Mother, with a sad face, handed her the envelope with familiar signature on the back.

Alzie looked curiously at the envelope and went over to hug her mother. She didn’t even need to read the letter to know why Mother was troubled.

“Mother, please don’t be grieved over this. You know I refused Willard because I didn’t care for him enough to marry him, and that sentiment has not changed at all. I would never want you to worry about that. I know it was difficult for us all and having decided, I am quite content and glad. Willard was not the Christian man I had in mind, but I do have hope that he will someday be just that – for someone else who loves him better than I.”

And that is exactly what did happen. Some time later when Alzie was engaged to someone else, Willard came to call on her and asked her if she was truly happy. She was, and after hearing that, Willard was glad. About a month later he did marry a girl who loved him, and Alzie was glad for both of them. Once again, her prayers for others had been heard and answered.

Till Death Do Us Part

January 14, 2014 Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

Forty-one years ago we said those words, the husband and I. I think we had a better than average understanding of what that meant, and here we are, still not parted by death or anything else. I cannot speak for both of us, but for myself, I have learned many useful things about marriage. And about men. And about the husband in particular.

The most interesting thing is that we are still changing, and there is more new stuff to learn as that happens. For our anniversary we are going to start a program called Prepare/Enrich (prepare-enrich.com) and our first task is to answer online questions about ourselves. After all these years of living with the husband there are still things about his early years that I probably don’t know. And there are things about my early years that have formed my ways and views that I might not be aware of either. I am warned that there are about two hours worth of this questioning to wade through before we start the next part of the program.

The next part is called “dating”, something we haven’t done regularly since being married. Actually, it’s going to be double dating with a mentoring couple, and it’s supposed to be fun. This whole concept is intriguing to me because it sounds very personal and potentially helpful. It’s not a roomful of people at a marriage conference where no one knows what you’re thinking, it’s just the husband and I with two other people kind of like us but capable of objectivity and insight into our natures (because they get to see our two hours worth of answers from the online portion). We’ve never worked on our relationship intentionally like this before (yeah, it’s about time…) but like I said, forty-one years and we still haven’t killed each other. Isn’t that what it means when you say until death do us part?