Reznjun

it was raining before i went to bed last night. i woke up a few times and heard it still raining. this morning i could see that the ground is saturated again. the rain is sitting on top of the ground. it is not getting soaked up because the ground is full of water.

we have water in the basement again. after hearing it rain most of the night, i kinda expected that. every time we get a lot of rain or snow melt our basement gets water. not much we can do except mop it up. that is a real hassle.

the winds were pretty strong yesterday. i had to pick up branches the wind broke off of trees. there were plastic trash cans that i picked up too. the wind blew them across the yard.

yesterday i took my dogs to get their rabies and distemper shots. they were also dipped for fleas and ticks. i think this is a good service. it was held at the tribal police department. they cosponsor the clinic. i dont know how many years i have taken my dogs to this. when they asked how old konugish was, i said 11. they thought older than that. i took him there since he was a pup.

mary picked one of the cabbages i grew. she fixed some home made cole slaw with it. it was the best cole slaw i had since the last batch she made. fresh cabbage makes it taste better. she picked about 6 more cabbages. some split on the top so we picked them. i will dice them up and save them for stew.

besides the cabbage from our garden we have eaten strawberries, kale, onions and radishes. even with all the rain we are managing to get something from our garden. our potatoes have flowered, so we should get some of them next. i picked more black berries. i froze them.

i was watching a tv show. it had indian people on it. the kind that were originally from india. that reminded me of when i used to help build bridges. i work with these red necks who always thought they were brighter than us indians.

on one job i seen this highway inspector. i said that is a real indian. the red necks asked how i could tell. i said ‘cuz he’s from india. they really didnt see any difference. they weren’t as bright as they thought they were.

at my last lab and doctor visit, the nurse checked my feet. i asked why. she said they have to do that with all diabetics. i said my feet are rough. i go barefoot a lot. even if i am just walking around in the yard. this is a hold over from my younger days. country indians didnt wear shoes all that much back in the day. except when they went to town.

as soon as my brother bubs would walk into my house, he would always take off his shoes. i do that too. when the nurse checked my feet she told me to put lotion on them. i doubt that helps much. i really do have rough feet.

what will this week bring.

it rained again last night. the thunder woke me up. i thought more rain. my corn is visibly getting taller. this rain will make it grow even more. my indian beans should break ground this week for sure.

it started raining again as i sit here. i like to hear the sound of thunder. when i was out bumming around this country i was reminded of home when i heard thunder. when i was real young we had to put tobacco down when it thundered. i always remembered that where ever i went.

i am glad i transplanted my sema a few days ago. it hasn’t gone into shock like it would if it was hot. that will zap many plants. it didnt happen because of the cool weather we had and the rain. my plants became acclimated to their new home in the ground. i gave some of the plants i had left to my sisters. i still have a few to give away.

i went to town yesterday. i paid for my things and eased on out. i got down the road a few miles and reached for my phone. it wasnt there. i remember the last i seen it was on the stand by the cash register. i turned around and went back to get it.

they said no phones were turned in. i left my wifes phone number and left. a few miles down the road they called to say they found it. i knew it was there somewhere. i thought maybe someone had glommed onto it. it was in my shopping cart.

i thanked them and said i didnt want to pay to have a replacement. i will use this old phone until it is totally necessary to replace it. i priced phones and seen that i probably will have to buy a pre owned phone. no way i will pay the price of a new one.

i went to the elders breakfast yesterday. i got there early. not many were there. i ate and went outside to smoke a cheap cigar. more people started arriving. i went back inside and spent the next two hours visiting with the elders. i never thought i would be included with this group. i am younger than many of the other elders but older than a few.

i like visiting by actually talking to people. yeah texting and face book is convenient but not the same as talking to some one. its nice to sit with people that all talk with each other and are not on phones. visiting is old school.

i went bowling last night. it was for my grandsons birthday. he wanted to bowl. i haven’t ever had any instruction or pointers on bowling. i just roll a straight ball at the pins. no spin or curve. i bowled a 136 and a 127. not enough to have anyone recruit me for their bowling team. i only bowl for the fun of it. in this case for my grand sons birthday.

gotta go pick up my meds. will see what else happens today.

the weather man predicted we would get rain yesterday. i got busy. i had already tilled some ground next to my corn the other day. then i had to clean the fish i was given. i didnt get to plant squash because of that. that was alright. i got fish in the freezer now.

yesterday i hilled up the tilled ground and planted crooked neck squash seeds. i have 22 hills i planted. i didnt get to plant any in the corn rows. the squash does alright when planted in hills too. if i have it in the corn, i cant till the weeds under when the vines spread out.

the squash seeds had been soaked. that makes germination easier. i want to have squash to dry this year. i didnt get any last year. my supply of dried squash is running low.

i also put in two rows of sema. i added compost to each spot i transplanted the sema in. now i have 5 rows growing. it is suppose to be partly cloudy the next few days. my plants shouldn’t go into shock. i got a taker on what plants i will have left over. i dont want them to go to waste.

i got done before the rain came. it was a slow drizzle that soaked the ground. even though we got a lot of rain earlier the ground had dried out on top. i imagine we still have water deep down. this rain will make my corn and indian beans grow.

i cleaned out two of my rain barrels before it rained. they collect leaves, bugs etc. they also get some algae build up. i hooked a hose up to the barrels and watered one of my trees. couldn’t see just dumping the water out. i will get to town one of these days to get gold fish to put in my barrels.

now i have everything planted. i probably wont put anything else in this year. i will go with what i have. now i sit back and wait. i will take what i get. anything can happen between now and harvest time.

now that i am caught up with gardening i still have plenty of other chores i need to do. and i haven’t worked on any roaches for some time. i haven’t made any indian dice sets either. i also have to put up my outdoor tv antennae too. yep i have plenty to do. it aint like my work is ever done.

i have been wanting some catfish. i go to town occasionally for a whole fried catfish. it is really good. it is one meal i go to town just to have it.

yesterday i wasnt planning on doing anything but plant squash. good thing i had some time set aside. my nephew brought over a string of catfish. he and his daughter caught them. they usually give away their first catch. this year i was the lucky guy that got the fish.

i really appreciated that. i used to do that too. there was an older lady that lived near me. i would always take over my first rabbit, mushrooms or gooseberries to her. i am glad that some of our people still do that.

i not only got a string of fish they showed me a few pointers on cleaning them. annie and i cleaned 4 of them. they had something to do so benny asked me if i would do the rest. i said sure. i had a rhythm going. i finished the rest of them. seemed like every fly in the hood came over while i was cleaning the fish.

mary was cooking out for fathers day. she took some of the cleaned fish and grilled them. annie told her put lemon pepper on it and wrapped it in tin foil. it really tasted good. usually i get it fried. or blackened Cajun style.

i saved the big yellow cat for last. it was the biggest fish. i got some big fillets out of it. i told mary to put it in a separate freezer bag and mark it. i didnt want to mix it with the rest that were blue cats and flat heads. after it was all bagged up and in the freezer i felt good about that. now we have fresh fish to eat.

as i got done cleaning the fish i had to wonder why i haven’t gone fishing. i keep saying i will go. the grand sons are after me to go too. the new fishing poles mary and i won are now a year old. gotta make myself go fishing.

i kept seeing the flower pods on the nenwezhek by the house. last night before sunset i told mary lets go pick them. i like them in potato soup. it gives the soup a different flavor. we walked along our drive way and picked them. didnt take long to get enough for later use.

i didnt plant my crooked neck squash yesterday. i will do that today. i did get the ground tilled up. the seeds have been soaking. it wont take long to finish planting today.

will see what else comes up.

this Friday is the first day of summer. i was asked if i had any travel plans. i said not really but i will end up going some where. i usually do. i haven’t soaked in a hot spring for some time. i can travel whenever i want now that i am retired. well if my money permits. and if i dont have to watch the grand kids.

they say Friday will be the longest day of the year. it will still be a 24 hour day like the rest. i guess they mean the longest amount of sun light in a day. tonight will be the full moon, the strawberry moon.

i picked a sandwich bag full of black berries yesterday. still glad i didnt get rid of that berry bush on the north side of my house. there are some volunteer bushes coming up next to this bush. i may transplant them to a slope in the back yard that i cant mow too good. i will fill it with black berries instead.

i got three rows of sema plants in now. i still have some in starter pots. i will transplant two more rows. i probably will have some plants left over. i try to give them away to some one but dont get any takers.

i am soaking some crooked neck squash seeds. i will plant them today. that will be ambitious. i will till a place to make some hills. i will plant the seeds in some hills and some seeds in the corn rows. i want to have squash to dry this year. soaking the seed will give it a better chance of germinating.

i haven’t put up my outside tv antenna yet. been busy. i will make an attempt to get that done. i am serious about cutting my cable service off. there were a few shows i wanted to watch this past month. i grew up with the 3 local channels. i have also had hundreds of channels with a satellite dish. and still nothing on of interest to me. so why pay all that money.

its per cap time. that means i have to renew my virus protection on my computer. i paid for it last year. now it is due. i always get virus protection. had a computer freeze up once. never let that happen again. as i have said i grew up with out electricity and running water but now i need my cell phone and computer.

i bought a 10 foot slide at a garage sale for $15. i have been wanting to build a play ground set for the grand kiddies. the slide is the first component. i will make a play house structure and add the slide and swings to it.

as soon as the grand kids saw the slide they asked what it was for. now i have to build it. i got some carpentry skills. i bought a coupla books with playground set plans in them. i want ideas on how to build it. i suppose i could just wing it but i want this to last.

nothing planned this week but something will come up.

i had my quarterly lab and doctor check up this morning. good news for me. my blood pressure and blood sugar levels are down. i am glad. i attribute that to me being more active in the spring. my garden and spring chores keep me busy.

the rain we got is good for my corn. it is looking good. i may be one of the few that will have corn this year. just lucky i guess. my indian beans are coming up in the rows of corn. next i will plant my squash. that will be the last thing i plant this year.

i mowed yesterday before the rain. i am glad i did. i try to keep up with it. seems i am mowing more this year. the rains we have had makes the lawn grow quickly. i noticed our hay is real tall too. probably the tallest i have seen it in years.

i transplanted some of my sema plants. they were the big ones i dug up when i tilled my plot under. the rains we had made the weeds grow fast and they took over. i have more plants i started from seed i will transplant today. i do that while it isn’t hot. they dont get into shock like they would if it was real hot.

we have the grand sons every weekend. yesterday we went to a garage sale and bought bunk beds. they will have their own room now. they already claimed that room as their toy room anyway. now they will sleep in there.

today is per cap day. i didnt rush to town to spend it. mine hits the bank and i slowly spend it on things when the need arises. i lived here before the money came. we managed when we didnt get per cap. now we are living in the best economic times of our existence and some still aren’t satisfied. i dont get that.

i have a black berry bush that came up as a volunteer. it is on the northeast corner of my house. it has berries forming on it. i am glad that i didnt cut it down when i first seen it. i will eat the black berries.

that reminds me of back in the day. i was hitch hiking thru northern California. i was hungry while standing by this bridge waiting for a ride. i looked down and seen lotsa berry bushes. i went down there and had my fill of black berries. i always remember those berries. they were good.

the young fellas that have done jobs for me finished cutting the elm for me. i ended up with a good pile of wood. i have enough to make a number of ceremonial fires. i am happy about that. i thanked the young guys. i haven’t heard from the tribal guys yet. no matter i got it done. even if i had to pay for it. dont know why some just wont help their own people.

we had a great experience meeting a group at sugar creek. they were retracing the potawatomi ‘trail of death’ march. mary and i arrived before they did. we parked and walked up to the gate to wait for them.

they usually walked at different times as they retraced the route. we waited for them as they walked the last two miles into sugar creek. they did this because the potawatomi had to walk the entire distance from indiana to Kansas. we walked the rest of the way with them down to the camping area.

we were told before their arrival that they were gonna spend the night. we brought our tent so we could camp with them. we brought some corn soup, dried squash and nenwezhek. we ate supper together. none of them had ever eaten nenwezhek. they all liked it.

after supper we sat around the camp fire and talked. we had a good conversation. members of the group came from different parts of the country. i met three of them before. i was in the caravan 11 years ago with two of them. some were seminary students. one was Palestinian and one was from Ethiopia.

all of them cared for people. they retrace the trail of death so that the potawatomi on it would not be forgotten. some asked mary or me questions. they wanted to learn about the potawatomi people. they will do this again two years from now. i was asked if i could meet them again. i would be happy to.

some gradually went to their tents to sleep. they were tired from the trip. some of us stayed up til almost midnight talking. it was so easy to converse with everyone. i like talking with people. eventually the rest of us agreed it was time to go to sleep.

mary and i went to our tent. i didnt go to sleep immediately. my mind wouldn’t shut off. i laid there going over every thing we had done and what was said. i enjoyed the company of these good people.

next morning we had breakfast and coffee. many of us shared the need to have that first cup of coffee. after breakfast we formed a circle and talked again. a few gave mary and me a gift. we were given maple syrup from indiana and a girl from Georgia gave me some soap from there. mary was given a pair of earrings and some honey. we broke camp after that. we seen the group off.

mary and i stayed after they left. we walked around the grounds. i wanted to smoke my Cuban cigar. my son brought it from his cruise. i enjoyed that good cigar. we headed for home after i finished it.

it is a two hour and 15 minute drive home. we stopped for lunch about half way home. mary took over driving because i was tired from not enough sleep the night before. i took a short nap and we were home.

my grand daughters came over for a visit. i like spending time with any of my grand kids. the young guys that help me also came over. they were gonna finish cutting the elm but it starting to rain. they said they would come back.

i am glad for the rain. earlier this spring it seemed like it would never end. now it will make my indian corn and indian beans grow. i am grateful for that rain.

i took the week end off. i usually do whatever work i need to do. not this week end. we had an adoption ceremony. we took some one to fill my brother garys place. we got a good man in kabot for it.

tomorrow i am heading to sugar creek. they forced marched over 800 potawatomis from the indiana area there in the late 1830s. it was part of the indian removal act. it was called the “trail of death” because over 40 died on it. the dead were buried along the way.

i dont hear much about the fact that over 600 died at sugar creek in the decade after they arrived there. many unmarked graves are in the area. they arrived late fall to find no shelter available. the government forced them there but didnt provide for them as promised.

many of the descendants of those on this march ended up on the citizen band roll. some of them married into the prairie band. some prairie band have ancestors that were on the march. they were the ones that married into the prairie band.

i have been on the retracing of that march bout 11 years ago. they have done this every 5 years since 1988. that was the 150th anniversary of the march. we drove in a caravan along the whole route. historical markers showed where the potawatomis walked and camped along that march.

i met the last retracing when they got to sugar creek. i knew some from the time i went with them on the route. i have also met a group of students that also retraced the route. i spoke to them about a general history of potawatomis. i am not lecturer but i know a few things from our oral history.

i will meet a group of students tomorrow. i met a few the last time they came to sugar creek. we decided to cook a few things for them. we will also camp out with them. i will take my pipe with me. i plan on smoking while i am down there. our people there must have suffered. losing that many relatives would have been a big loss to them.

i will be back the next day. i have my chores here to do. gotta take care of my animals. the grass will need mowing. etc etc. there is work to be done all the time.

i have only been back on face book a few days. i have already blocked a few. i really dont want to read some of the trash that people put out there. that is the very reason i got off fb in the first place.

will see what this week brings.

kinda gonna paraphrase a quote from the movie colors. ‘you f@$^#& up now homes, you went and joined a gang’. i didnt join a gang but i did rejoin facebook. after that i had to do a friend request of people i dont get to see that often.

once that starts then i get friend requests. i wonder who the $^%& is this. you add them anyway. gotta keep up with the people with a thousand friends. they may have that many friends on the net but dont have any to take their picture. gotta do selfies.

i have been off facebook for over a year. dont remember when i deleted my account. to be honest i got tired of it. i had my friend list up to 600 or so. i deleted half because they didnt actually communicate with me. or they posted too much like recipes or the feel good quotes. i didnt need that. then after i trimmed the list to under 300 i started to unfollow some. i only kept the ones i had interaction with.

now i am back on facebook. mainly to advertise my roaches. otherwise i wouldn’t mess with it. i probably already spent too much time on there. but i am retired. i stay home a lot because i work at home. i can reach people with out leaving my house.

yesterday i started sorting porcupine hair. i haven’t done that in some time. i have a lot already sorted. i spent many hours doing that this past winter and last fall. i gotta start making more roaches. i want to go have a stand at one more pow wow at least. maybe more. will go with what ever happens.

i am glad i tilled between my rows of corn. got no weeds. the corn stalks are growing good. they are about 5 inches tall. that is when you plant indian beans. i did that too. it rained after i planted them. i soaked them before planting. it wont take long before the beans pop out of the ground.

it looks like i am gonna have to mow the yard again. it grows fast. i noticed our hay field. the hay is the tallest i seen it. we are locked in on a lease that under pays us for what the hay is worth. we wont get any more $ for an outstanding crop like this year. i can hear it now “you cashed your cobell check didnt you chief?”

the two young indians that came over to do some work for me came back. i had some elm trees that needed cutting. they are falling over. if they lay on the ground they rot out and are of no use. we use elm to keep our sacred fire going.

i am glad these young fellas help me. i got a good load of elm i can use for ceremonies i have here. they gonna come back Monday and finish up. a tribal program said they would do it two years ago. aint happened.

gotta get busy.

Monday i tilled between the rows in my corn field. it was suppose to rain all pow wow weekend. then it was suppose to rain Monday night. it didnt. i took advantage of the ground being semi dry to till. i had to till the weeds under because more rain is predicted. gotta work when the opportunity is there.

my rows are about 100 feet long. that is too much area to keep up with the weeds. that’s why i leave enough space in between the rows for a tiller when i plant. that machine weeds faster than i can. it saves me back pain too. i will till it again today. it is drier so it will turn over good. there are some weeds that i missed.

i am getting short on dried indian corn. it looks good so far. i have a few spots where it didnt come up but over all it is evenly spaced. i have plenty of stalks growing. i am lucky i got my corn in the ground when i did. others weren’t so fortunate. it rained so often that the ground stayed wet most of this spring. some wont get corn because of this.

i want to have a good crop this year. the trick is to get the right amount of rain and sunshine at the times when it is needed. a lot can happen between now and when it is ready to dry corn. that is some thing i have no control over. i can’t count how much corn i have until it is dried and stored away for the year.

i planted clover in the rows of corn. that brings nitrogen up to the surface. beans do the same thing. yesterday i planted my indian beans in the corn rows. i have 7 rows of mattwaoshe beans and 7 rows of rabbit beans. the bean vines will climb up the corn stalks.

i am hoping i get a good crop of indian beans. i haven’t eaten any of them in some time. the past few years i only got enough to save it for seed. it is important to keep that seed stock going. not many grow our indian beans.

i also tilled up my sema patch. it was weeded over. it too was muddy all spring. it finally dried up enough to till it under. i then hilled it up. i like to plant in hills. it will be ready when i transplant my sema plants. i have seeds in starter flats that germinated. i also dug up the plants that were in the ground. i didnt want to till them under.

i still have a pile of compost. i used half of it in my grow boxes and tomato beds. i saved the rest to put in my sema patch. i have a composter that i started a new batch in. i also have a big compost pile on the ground. i have to get it ready for next year.

i got some work done but more awaits me. people ask me what i do now that i am retired. i say my life is a full time job. i am always busy.