Riverbend Farm, Day 8

October 24, 2025 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

For the next few posts I will be writing about two people with the same first name, Kevin. To avoid confusion I will refer to my Kevin (Kevin May) and the other Kevin (Kevin Shanahan or Julia’s Kevin). I may occasionally call them Kevin M and Kevin S.

Yesterday I made the trip to Raleigh/Durham airport to pick up my Kevin and fetch him back to the farm. He met the Shanahans last August when they visited Hayward, but their time with him was brief. I reintroduced him to the family and gave him a walking tour of the house, barns, property and our Haw River trails. It was gorgeous weather. We hadn’t been together for a while, except on the phone, so there was catching up to do.

I have been helping Julia with the evening meals while here, so I enlisted my Kevin’s help in the kitchen. I think the hardest thing about mealtime is deciding what to make. Kevin has an idea for almost any kind of meat, so I was glad to hear what he would do with the several pounds of chicken breast in the fridge. We had a pretty decent dinner ready when Julie got home from work. Kevin S, his daughter Reagan and son Camden (aka Bubba), Gwennie, Julia, Keven M and I all sat down around the dining table and had dinner at the same time. I only mention this because it doesn’t happen a lot for various reasons. It was nice.

My Kevin has been making inroads with Gwennie, big time. For some reason, unknown to any of us, she has decided to call him Mr. Jim. It’s okay—I had been wondering what she should call him. I really didn’t want her to think all grown men were called Kevins. He made the astute move of calling up “Itsy Bitsy Spider” on his phone. That was followed by “No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” and “Twinkle, Twinkle”. Her fascination with screens is very evident and her memory is great. She now asks Mr. Jim to play songs on his phone every time she sees him.

My daughter Julia has always been great at making lists of stuff she wants done. Last Tuesday, on her day off, we rode around the farm in the mule. We made lists of everything that needed to be done. She says we need lists so that we’ll know what to do when we have a spare minute. After seeing the list I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any spare minutes, ever. It’s a farm. Farms are where things go to break, deteriorate and sometimes die. Except for brush, weeds and thorns which seem to thrive remarkably well.

My Kevin doesn’t like to be a freeloader. Today we looked at the list and chose a job to do which we didn’t think would be too difficult. I take that back. I have no idea why we chose that job. We decided to clear the weeds from around some piles of stacked black walnut lumber.

This valuable lumber had been drying in the open for quite a while and needed to be protected. The plan was to re-stack it under a large semi trailer close by. Many of the slabs were two inches thick and very heavy. They were stacked on pallets that had rotted. High grass and evil thorny vines were all around them, but we conquered. We weed whacked, raked, and made a huge burn pile with all the bark and waste wood. We are tired but quite satisfied with our work. Welcome to North Carolina, Kevin M.

Fortunately we put dinner in the crock pot before we went out to tackle lumber piles. Tonight we are having beef/ barley/vegetable stew and some good looking cheesy bread we picked up at Publix this morning. We will probably be having Ibuprofen for dessert.

So, on to the weekend. The weather is still looking good and I’m hoping for a nice walk in a nearby park.

Wood we saved. Some slabs were actually 3 inches and as long as the trailer was wide.

I spent a lot of time under this trailer today. Shady and cool.

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.

Back to RiverBend

October 18, 2025 Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

I finished the trip to North Carolina yesterday. The second half of the trip is always the prettiest, and challenging in a completely different way than going through the flat midwest. Coming down off high ground on I-64 is a little like a scary carnival ride. The traffic always seems to be almost bumper to bumper, around serpentine curves and at 60 – 70 miles per hour. Also, like the roller coasters, it’s expensive, with a $5 toll booth every few miles. Focusing that hard on driving gets me all tensed up, and I’m aware of all the beautiful views I’m missing.

The end of the second day of driving is the city of Greensboro itself, and I usually hit it at rush hour. That’s not relaxing either, unless you count the time sitting in a long line and measuring your progress in feet instead of miles.

I was tired that night but it always takes me a couple of hours to position my things in new surroundings. I didn’t lie down to sleep until nearly midnight. My room is in the basement, and so is the room where the two outside dogs sleep. Penny, the loud lab who eats rocks, has been wearing a bark collar lately and it has been quite effective. But tonight the battery was weak and she started barking around 4 am. I have a soft heart toward anything that needs to pee and can’t, so I got up and let both dogs out. That required a trip outside in the fresh night air which left me wide awake and unable to fall asleep again. My fitbit said I got 3.5 hours of sleep. It said it was a fair night. I’m not sure I agree.

I was glad that I arrived at River View Farm with a nearly full tank of gas. I’ll have to remember to do that whenever I come. I never know how quickly I’ll be doing some errand for the family, like early this morning. I got to play taxi for Tessa, Julie’s elderly dog with a swollen back leg. Kevin loaded her up in my car and I drove her to south Greensboro to the emergency vet clinic.

Tessa is used to sitting in the front passenger seat, but I thought that would be a little too distracting for me. I put her in the back with plenty of room instead. She didn’t like it. I could tell she was thinking of leaping over the seats to the front of the vehicle. Then she started barking, which always makes it seem like some next step is imminent. Looking back at Tessa, while looking forward at traffic, while watching my GPS for directions made the trip exciting. I guess I’m glad I can still do exciting. To her credit, she was much better on the way home.

What a nice, sunny day it was. In the afternoon, during Gwennie’s nap time, I decided to go outside for a walk, and maybe a drive to town. I went to the car to put my purse (with my key fob) in it while taking my walk, but remembered that shutting the door with the key inside causes the horn to alert. I didn’t want to wake the baby, so I decided to put my purse in Julie’s truck, which was parked beside my car. I opened the truck door and for some reason, which no one can figure out, the truck alarm started up. It honked for four or five minutes before I got inside, found the truck key and shut it off. Needless to say, the baby woke up.

I took my walk anyway. One change the last couple of visits is that I am no longer Gwennie’s main resource when I am here. Her regular nanny is still on the job, which leaves me free to help in other ways, or to actually rest. I still get to watch the cuteness but am not responsible for the “terrible two” times. Because I drove down this trip, I brought the small bike that I bought for her this summer when she visited me. She is very excited and possessive about her “Bluey Bike” and helmet. She hasn’t gotten the idea of how to pedal it yet, but wears the helmet and sits on the bike numerous times during the day.

There you have it – some of the highlights of Day 1 at Riverbend Farm.

At Riverbend Farm

September 24, 2024 Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

I am in North Carolina, sitting in my trailer listening to the roar of the pressure washer as Kevin washes Julia’s vet truck. As you can imagine, it goes in dirty places around the countryside and gets in need of a good washing. When I last saw her, Julia was walking around the yard with the baby, probably looking for the next project.

It has not been that long, Labor Day weekend actually, since I saw Julia, Kevin and GwennieRu in Wisconsin. They came at the last minute when they realized they were not going to be able to join us for Thanksgiving. While they were with us, GwennieRu pretty much gave up crawling. She is loving her freedom to roam.

But I had already put plans in place to be here at Riverbend Farm for Julia’s birthday (tomorrow), so here I am. I arrived Sunday, late in the afternoon, just in time to have dinner with the family and their invited friends. The invited couple, with their five children, got the tour of the farm, the river, the pool and the new picnic tables, where we ate dinner. I spent most of the time getting reacquainted with GwennieRu, and listening to all going on around me.

Yesterday was my day to get settled in with groceries and checking out the trailer. The guest bedroom and bath in the newly remodeled basement is nearly ready, and I could soon have that as an option. But that is a decision for another day.

JULIA’S DAY OFF

Today, I jumped into family life. The three of us, Julia, Gwennie and I went to Bible Study Fellowship. It’s Julia’s weekly group study and I got to sit in. Gwennie went to the SeaTurtles group for childcare, which she apparently loves. The Westover BSF in Greensboro has hundreds of women enrolled and the facility is large enough to get lost in. It’s impressive that so many women are interested in studying the book of Revelation, and going to great lengths to do so.

Next was a pediatrician appointment for GwennieRu. She had a good time tearing up the paper on the exam table, but did not like having her ears examined. We are happy to know that she is up to the 30th percentile in her weight, and 90th percentile in height. In other words, tall and skinny, but overall healthy.

Getting home around noon left time for the big project of the week, castrating sheep. If you will, please go back and read post August 1, 2024 where the sheep almost died. Dr. Julia did not want to repeat that story. Fortunately, it turned out well this time. Not only did one sheep get castrated, but two got fixed, or broken, depending on the point of view. They are both doing well. One other “guy” got a reprieve since he was anemic, and another was also allowed to remain virile – I’m not sure why.

I helped with the first one, but after that GwennieRu woke up from her nap and needed someone to play with. I find both jobs very interesting.

We are teaching GwennieRu to play soccer. She’s a natural. Gonna be a goalie.

This story has been interrupted several times today, illustrating how difficult it is for me to find time to write. It is now night and I must get to bed so I can get up again early for another day at Riverbend Farm.

Adventures at Julia’s Farm: The Haw

February 1, 2024February 1, 2024 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

There are quite a few things that fascinate me, among them are recreational fires (not forest fires!) and rivers. They don’t have to be big rivers either. As a child, I discovered a small creek at my grandparent’s farm and you would have thought I’d discovered a new ocean, even though it dried up completely in dry years. Just the thought of water coming from somewhere distant and flowing past me in seemingly endless supply was so alluring.

That is now one of the most exciting things about being in North Carolina, where there are rivers and creeks EVERYWHERE. You aren’t here long before you notice that most of their roads are named after churches or rivers and the mills and bridges connected to them. Indeed, Riverbend Farm where I am staying with my daughter’s family is on Brooks Bridge Road, and Brooks Bridge crosses the Haw River. The Haw borders the northeast boundary of Riverbend Farm and the riding trail that follows it is one of my favorite places to explore.

Pre-flood, the Haw has some whitewater stretches

The black line shows the river trail. Arrow 1 was our first try, arrow 2 ends at the junction of Shanahan Creek and the Haw where the lake was.

I get to look at about half a mile of this 110 mile river. It used to have quite a few dams blocking it, providing power for early industrialization of the area. One of the dams is along this half mile, just north of Brooks Bridge. There are projects planned to remove some of the dams and restore the river to a cleaner, more recreational use, but there is nothing like that happening on the stretch I see. I feel sorry for this part of the Haw, especially when there are heavy rains like we’ve had this winter. It is swift, muddy and choked with uprooted trees and debris.

But it is still fascinating to see what a river does, when it is the recipient of a large watershed. “I should go down there and check it out”, I said to myself after our last two day deluge. I had heard reports of water high enough to cover the road, although I could hardly imagine it could happen.

Kevin, Julia’s husband, creates the riding trails through his property down to the river and through 30 acres of land that was clear cut a few years ago. The forest will grow back, but right now it’s treacherous with downed trees, undergrowth of berry bushes, holly and other thorny plants. I followed the trail down a steep hill to the path along the river. Did I mention that GwennieRu was with me in the buggy? Yes. And the hill was steep enough that I turned the buggy around and backed down it. I didn’t plan on having to go up that hill again. So much for plans.

We eventually came upon places where the river breached the trail. Even though the backwaters were not flowing, there was no telling how deep and muddy they were so I had to go back the way we had come.

We tried another trail accessing the river and at the bottom of that one there was a lake where there’s not usually a lake. A small creek drains much of Riverbend Farm and it enters the Haw at this junction. The banks are usually four or five feet above the creek but on this day there were no banks.

This ever changing nature of the river, along with the power of its moving water is both eerie and fascinating. Although not in danger ourselves, being close enough to hear the rapids, and see huge trees that have fallen in and been carried along – it’s breathtaking. I can’t get enough of looking and imagining.

Log jams like this are not uncommon and difficult to clean up.

I would love to see this part of the river cleaned up and made navigable but it is far too big of a project for an individual landowner to tackle. Fortunately, most of the time the river is much lower, the trails dry out and life along the river returns to normal. It’s a beautiful place to walk or ride horse, and I feel blessed to finally have an interesting river in my life.

But you will not catch me down there when it’s chigger season, no, no, no. Been there, done that. Just sayin’… (Click here for that story.)