Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

Two Prompts

Two new prompt answers for this week.

Read a whole book yesterday. Cold is still with us. I fear a really cold winter this year.

A. What is the most expensive thing you want to buy right now.

Want to buy a multifuel stove for our home. We have a very nice propane 99 percent efficiency furnace for our home. Two years ago the price of propane to us went out of our buying power. We reverted to our older model wood furnace. This year the wood furnace may not be practical. Besides, I’ve been against the use of wood for some years for environmental reasons.

The problem is once you get into a groove it is difficult to get out of it financially. Don’t even know how it will play out yet. An elderly couple in another part of the state froze to death some years ago, because they could not buy fuel. Interesting that this would keep recurring to me during a pandemic year? Sometimes, I can’t stop thinking about something that occurred to someone else but, did not actually happen to anyone I know personally.

Time to shrug my shoulders and move on to a solution.

B. Share a memory about a family member.

I have good memories about my Dad. Besides working in a local factory he also milked cows and shipped a small amount of milk weekly. This was back in the late 1950’s. The barn in the winter was a great place to be during milking time. It was always warm in the barn from the insulation of the hay mow above the basement of the barn, where the animals, were kept and because of the body heat from the animals. While I played with brownie, Dad’s dog. Dad would be pitching loose hay out of the mow to the 3 cows in stanchions. He milked by hand and while he milked he sang spiritual songs. One of my favorites was “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” I heard it so many times sung in his voice, that when I want to revisit a memory of Dad, I can still hear that song echoing in the barn, in his voice, with the swish, swish rhythm of the milk hitting the bucket.

I’ve always found that clean barns in the winter are warm and welcoming. The animals are happy to be fed and appreciate the company of the person doing the chores. They like music and enjoy the breakup of winter monotony each day.

Dad did not sing this song like this but, I do.

Dad"s Version/ so cool.

A Time When a Battle Hymn is needed!!

An extra from Johnny Cash. Thank-you Johnny!!