Participants: Joyce Neal
Series Code: GH
Program Code: GH000018
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00:01 Hi there! You know I bet you think that it is all fun and
00:04 games here at grandma's house, don't you? 00:07 Well the truth is we do have a lot of fun. 00:09 And we do, do a lot of games but sometimes there is a lot 00:13 of hard work involved too. 00:14 I've gotten a lot of letters from you, and you ask things 00:18 like where do I live? What do I do on an ordinary day? 00:22 So I thought maybe today I would take you into my private 00:26 life a little bit and let you see what 00:28 I do on an ordinary day. 00:30 Where I am right now is just outside of my house, it's the 00:35 place we call the summer house. 00:37 Just because we like to put on air sometimes. 00:39 This is a fun place in the summer. 00:42 Over my head, up here there's a robins nest that they built 00:47 earlier this spring out of some of the moss and leaves 00:51 and twigs and things that are around our place. 00:53 They have already raised one family of babies, but in this 00:58 box, let me show you some really special things that 01:02 I have found when I have been working out this spring. 01:05 One of them, look at this, it's a robins egg. 01:11 Some bird just dropped it when they were on their way 01:15 to their nest, didn't quite make it home to put the baby 01:18 to bed so I picked it up off the grass and saved it. 01:22 It is just perfect. 01:23 I like these kind of things to take inside and I decorate 01:26 my house with them. 01:28 Then I have, oh, I like bird feathers too. 01:33 This one is from an orange and brown bird that flies around. 01:38 I don't know if you can see the back of this feather how 01:43 nice and orange that is, I love the color. 01:45 And this one is from, we have lots of stellar jays around 01:50 here, they are very bright blue and they have a topknot 01:54 on the top of their head. 01:55 They are so noisy and they like to scold kids and adults 01:59 who get in their way. 02:00 Then, I bet you know I love go to the creek, well this is 02:05 one of the agates that has formed in a pocket inside 02:09 of a rock and it makes a perfect teardrop. 02:12 So some day I thought I should put a little chain on it 02:15 and hang it in my window. 02:16 Then I have another treasure, and this is a different 02:20 kind of one, some people are kind of grossed out by this 02:23 but I know you will love it. 02:25 I found this little skull out there when I was working 02:28 on under the rhododendron plants. 02:29 I think it is from a possum, but I'm not really sure so 02:34 if somebody knows for sure you could write in and tell me 02:39 what you think it is. 02:40 It even has its little teeth in here, they're kind of 02:44 sharp but I was very thrilled when I found this out there. 02:48 The last thing I have in here is the very best of all. 02:52 You saw me and Michael down at the creek one time 02:55 collecting rocks and agates. 02:58 Well once when I was doing that I saw something shiny and 03:02 red and when I picked it up, it's this perfect Indian 03:06 arrowhead, I was so thrilled you should have heard me 03:10 screaming and jumping up and down. 03:14 So those are some of the rewards I get for doing my hard 03:16 work, but right now wouldn't you like to come up on the 03:19 ladder with me and look down into the nest and see if the 03:21 babies have hatched? 03:22 Like I said this is their second family this year. 03:26 Oh I love surprises so come on up here and let's see 03:30 what's in the nest with me. 03:31 I want to go really carefully and quietly and you too, 03:36 climb right up the ladder with me. 03:37 This is a wonderful nest all made out of moss and oh, 03:43 there is one, two, three baby birds in here. 03:46 They are just getting their feathers and they are fuzzy 03:52 and some of them are half-naked too. 03:54 But look, come up closer and look right in there. 03:59 Oh what wonderful things God makes. 04:03 But they are napping too hard, I don't think they're going 04:05 to wake up for us, and that it's probably a good thing. 04:08 We don't want to scare them. 04:10 You know the mother is around, not too far away, so I think 04:13 I will get down now. We'll let her feed the babies. 04:40 Well here I am out in my garden. 04:42 One of the things I have to do a lot is get the weeds 04:44 out of here, down in these pansy plants, boy they smell good. 04:47 I wish you could smell them, one thing I wanted to show you is 04:51 what I have to do is after they bloom and they are 04:54 droopy, I come along and pick all these dead ones off. 04:58 That makes them bloom even more. 05:02 But if I don't pick those dead blooms off it becomes 05:06 like this, this is a seed pod. 05:09 If I leave that alone for a few days then, we end up 05:15 with something that looks like this. 05:18 When the seed pod opens up these are all the little 05:22 seeds to make new plants in here. 05:25 Actually that is where all these plants came from because 05:28 grandpa and I were so busy this year we didn't have 05:31 time to plant a garden, so most of the things in our 05:34 garden are what we call volunteers. 05:36 Come on I want to show you some more over here. 05:40 If you don't get every bit of potato out of the ground, 05:41 then it will grow a whole new plant. 05:46 Grandpa is going to come and help me now, 05:48 aren't you grandpa? - I certainly am. 05:50 He does most of the digging and I do most of the grabbing 05:52 when we do potatoes. 05:54 It is a lot of fun, get a little closer. 05:57 Oh, I think there's one in the mud here. 06:00 You know this is just like hidden treasure in the field 06:03 like in Bible times, you shake off the dirt and look 06:07 at all of those potatoes. 06:09 I want to tell you, if you have one of these for lunch 06:12 right out of the ground, oh Yum, Yum, Yum. 06:15 So good, have you seen this before? 06:18 Some of you, I am sure, knows what this is. 06:22 We fertilized last year when we put potatoes in we put 06:25 straw around the plants so they would grow more potatoes. 06:28 Well the straw was made out of oat straw, and there 06:31 happened to be a few oats attached. 06:33 So this year they just grew up like this, and if you have 06:37 oatmeal for breakfast this is the sort of plant that your 06:42 oatmeal comes from, then if you're going to have oatmeal 06:46 you must have strawberries right? 06:49 Heh grandpa can you help me find one or two? 06:51 I think there is a few in here, they are blooming 06:54 really well, um, um, um. 06:56 Oh, Yum, Yum, Yum. Ah, here is one, here's one for you. 07:07 Yeah good, huh? Oh yummy. 07:13 I hope you guys like strawberries as much as I do. 07:15 Anyway that is a lot of what I do in the garden. 07:17 I'm down in the dirt lot, and I get pretty dirty as you 07:21 can tell from my clothes. 07:23 But there is a lot of other things I have to do too, like 07:25 mow the lawn, would you like to see me drive the lawn tractor? 07:28 Come on, it is over this way. 08:04 Ah, some of you know that I have a new puppy. 08:07 She doesn't look much like a puppy now, does she? 08:10 Well she is seven months old, this is Sophie. 08:12 She is a wonderful puppy but I want to tell you, she makes an 08:17 old woman out of your grandma, I have to work really hard to 08:21 keep up with her. 08:22 But this is one of the things I do every day is to play 08:25 with Sophie, and since she likes to do some of the things 08:29 I do, I like to come down here in the creek. 08:31 Every year when the rain comes up it washes bigger rocks 08:34 down into the creek like this and I like to take them and 08:38 put them on the side, now Sophie likes to do that too. 08:41 And she also likes to snorkel for rocks. 08:44 Sophie, find a rock down here. Get that rock, get it. 08:47 Get it, find one, oh, good girl, good girl. 08:51 Wee, come here, come here, come on girl. 08:54 Come on let's go down into the water, look here Sophie. 08:59 Whew, get it, get it. 09:02 Needless to say Sophie is a water dog, she loves the 09:06 water, you can hardly keep her out of it. 09:08 She takes after her grandma that way. 09:10 I love being down here in the creek. 09:12 Let's see if she will catch this one is a little bigger 09:15 one, hey Sophie, Woo! Get it! 09:19 Get it girl, anyway that is a lot of the things we do 09:22 around here, but you know grandpa has work to do too. 09:25 Let's go see were grandpa is, huh, come on. 09:31 Sometimes our trees fall down when the wind blows in the 09:33 winter time, well here is one of them that came down 09:35 last winter, we had some real windstorms. 09:38 In fact we probably lost seven or eight trees. 09:41 What we do with them once they are down is grandpa, 09:44 in all his radiant glory, is the mighty woodsman. 09:48 He didn't fall the tree, but he cuts it up for us to have 09:50 firewood, so let's go and get some firewood grandpa. 10:00 Having fun yet grandpa? 10:29 Well you know as you can see there is a lot of work to 10:31 this place, we did show you the half of it. 10:33 You will have to come back another day, and I just can't 10:36 wait to see you again. 10:38 Anyway you have a view of what it is that happens 10:41 when you are not here. 10:43 Anyway come back soon, will ya? 10:46 In the meantime, get out your paper and your pencil 10:49 because I would love to hear from you and what goes on 10:52 at your house when I'm not there, can you tell me that? 10:55 I love getting the mail. All right are you ready? 10:58 Here is the address: 11:02 Hey kids Graham Joyce would love to hear from you. 11:05 So why not sit down and write her a letter? 11:08 Like every grandma she loves to get pictures, 11:10 drawings or anything else you send her. 11:13 Just write to: 11:25 So what are you waiting for? Write her today. 11:31 An ordinary day becomes a holiday when I'm with you. 11:36 I just remembered that song from a long time ago. 11:40 I haven't thought about it for a while, but I was just 11:43 noticing that I called my days at home ordinary. 11:47 Well why did I say that? 11:49 Not one of my days is actually ordinary, or plain Jane. 11:52 I guess I've gotten used to the blessing and the beauty 11:56 of each one, and maybe I am not as grateful as I should 11:59 be, what do you think? 12:01 I am thankful to God that He gives me wonderful 12:04 healing work to do all around the yard, and the 12:08 gardens, and the woods. 12:09 Sometimes when I get stressed out with something in my 12:12 life that isn't going the way I want it to, well I just go 12:16 outside and I start puttering. 12:17 Before very long I have found something to do that is 12:21 a real effort for me, and soon my mind is soothed and 12:24 calm again, He restores my soul. 12:29 Do you think your days are ordinary? 12:31 Maybe you have gotten used to the routine and you don't 12:34 think about it much, if you don't think about it much 12:36 your days will become ordinary. 12:39 But each one is unique and a rare gift from God and 12:43 He wants us to cherish each one. 12:45 It's kind of sad how we humans let miraculous things 12:49 become ordinary just because they are always there. 12:53 It's like our eyes get tired and we don't really see 12:56 the faithfulness in God in providing us with things 13:00 we take for granted, like even breathing. 13:03 You never think about it unless you can't do it. 13:05 So I'll tell you what, let's be more grateful for the 13:09 ordinary things that fill our days like chores, school, 13:14 homework, maybe even broccoli. 13:17 What if you didn't have chores to do? 13:19 That might mean you didn't have anything to take care of 13:22 like clothes, your room, your pets, your house. 13:26 Some people don't have those things you know, and if you 13:30 have them to take care of, you are very blessed. 13:34 What about Robin's eggs? They may be ordinary on this 13:37 planet, but what if they live somewhere else in the 13:41 universe, how precious would a Robin's egg appear on Mars, 13:45 or floating around in some other galaxies? 13:47 Let's open our eyes wide to the beauty of the ordinary. 13:52 Till next time, an ordinary day becomes a holiday. |
Revised 2014-12-17