Boon Lake – Part 9
Nothing brings back more memories of our family’s time in Boon Lake on the farm than a bright day with birds singing and the smells that come when being outside is all that is desired.
Carrie and Kevin were active busy kids. Orlin brought home a puppy for the kids and he was given the name Snoopy. Though he wasn’t a house dog and our back entry was small . . . there was room for Snoopy and his blanket most nights. He soon became a fierce watch dog.
Kevin didn’t have an easy time from the get go. Asthma was the determining factor on how his days went. The nights were the most difficult when it hit. Dr. Bretzke in Hutchinson sent us on to Dr. Cushing in St. Louis Park in the metro. He specialized in small children and asthma. A skin test indicated that Kevin had high reactions to cow dander and peanuts. Hmm. The lungs are like shafts of airways. The air could be taken in, but asthma wouldn’t let the shafts relax and open to let the air out. Kevin’s first birthday ended up with a wee fellow that was wore out from the family gathering and having a bad night. We had made preparations but always hoped he would sleep well with no problems. We had borrowed an additional crib from family that could be set up quickly in the living room for a croup tent. It was a plastic covering over the crib that allowed us to set up a steamer to vent in moist damp air. Those nights I slept in the over-sized rocking chair that had been Grandma Esther Schafer’s. During the night when Kevin woke, he and I would rock away for a bit until sleep would take him and back in the croup tent he went. Kevin wasn’t taking a bottle at that tender age as he couldn’t take the milk from the bottle and catch his breath. The secret was that the rubber nipples were cut with a larger hole so he was actually drinking milk a mouth full at a time.
With Carrie still taking the phenobarbital for the time when she had ingested nitrates from the well water when she was an infant, we became protective parents. My sibling’s kids were kids that played hard and sometimes rough. It could never be totally predicted with Carrie if she fell and hit her head that she couldn’t catch that breath, or if she couldn’t catch her breath and then fell. Eyes in the back of the head would have been helpful. When Kevin played we needed to pull him back a bit so he didn’t become so exhausted that the hard breathing would bring on a light cough that could easily become the gut wrenching cough that triggered the asthma. Ya, we weren’t the most popular adults with the rest of the small kids in the family. Orlin would all but stomp on some of them when the play got out of hand.
Orlin and I worked it out and Kevin wasn’t near the livestock barns. Carrie was old enough and her voice carried well enough that when they would be playing by the house and Kevin would make a break for it heading in the wrong direction, either Orlin or I would take a break from the chores and head him back in the right direction. It became like shift work sometimes . . . but for the most part . . . it worked. We needed to think long and hard about our future with our family.
—-to be continued.
A great sunny day and I refuse to pay attention to the forecast for tomorrow. What!! Snow on Easter Sunday. Hopefully the weather will straighten out after this storm, so we can get on with spring. For 99% of the time we are adhering to social distancing. When I go for my walk on Stauffer, June comes out and we visit as she stands on her house steps. There was a quick trip to the store today as the ice cream bucket was no longer around. There is a limit as to what can be given up.