Good bye March

So long March.  Don’t let the door hit you in the butt.  Onward to the month that boasts Spring Showers that bring May Flowers.

We are in a different season up here in the snow fields of MInnesota.  Either is is muddy from snow melt or the snow covers up the ice. 

I gave Chance a foot trim…the hair between the pads of his feet was getting long…he was tracking his fair share of sand into the house.  I trimmed up the feathers along his legs also…they get muddy when he walks to get the mail.  It is funny when he was a pup he couldn’t pass up a mud puddle and he would bark at the water under the ice when it moved when he stepped on it…now he avoids all standing water and puddles especially ice covered puddles…he has become a Senior dog. Last night he was walking himself in the house round and round…I think he may have had enough winter too.

We got about an inch of snow Thursday night/Friday morning there is now 12 inches at the snowstick. We are in a winter blizzard warning Friday overnight into Saturday…no travel is advised. Now they say we may get a foot or more of snow and the wind will blow. March is most certainly going out like a lion.

We are home safe and sound for the duration of the storm.

Update:  There is only about 1 inch of snow at 6AM so maybe it missed us.  It is bitterly cold out there feels like  deep winter.

Winter Forcast for Spring

Winter has a real grip on us now. 

Here is the snowstick.  This is important because the snow at the snowstick will likely double in the next two days.  We have one snow event followed by another in our forecast.

Seriously.  I laugh…because April 1st is when many snowbirds come back after a long warm winter in the south…it is Minnesota nice to share.

Want a look at June?

Here she is…if the snow gets real bad I may have to change her name to July.

I suspect after this cold spell it will warm up and be summerlike…but we will have to see about that.

Got Snow?

We have enough snow now but it sounds like more is on the way and cold…deep winter cold with wind chills…yuck.

March will be going out like a Lion…we are paying for those in like a Lamb days we had the last days of February and March 1st.

The Easter egg hunts will be quite easy unless they don’t color the eggs.

The snow hung in the trees and then when the sun came out the snow fell again…some in huge plops as it hit the ground.  Much of this snow melted and made mud.

We stay busy.  Far Guy is working on a woodcarving and I am working on cards and a few bead projects…my desk is full of projects.  We had dinner guests one night Adobo Chicken was on the menu.

Our card playing neighbors have the flu at their house so no cards have been played.  Our daughter sent us a CDC warning about Influenza B being on the rise and the Flu shot only being 42% effective. Uffda  …sounds like a crap shoot to me.

 

Wistful Wednesday: Easter

First we will revisit Far Guy’s Easter memories.  It was a snowy Easter that year, they are standing in front of the of the house you can see the highway and the forestry trees in the background.

Far Guy holding the Easter eggs and his sister holding a purse and wearing a Easter hat/bonnet.  This photo was taken in 1955.  Far Guy says he remembers that day because he wasn’t very happy to get all dressed up….he didn’t like the bow tie. Easter dinner would have been at his paternal grandparents home… chicken dinner with noodles and pie and lots of times it was blueberry.  His maternal Grandmother was in the sanatarium because she had TB in the early 1950’s….visits to her were restricted and the children were only allowed to see her through a big window.

This one was taken in 1958 and it is me along with my baby brother we have Easter baskets.  The photo was taken in the house at the farm, we are standing in front of the door that led upstairs.

It was traditional to go to my maternal grandparents home every Sunday for dinner and Easter Sunday was not much different…ham, chicken and scalloped potatoes with a few more jello salads to melt into a rainbow of colors on your plate and many desserts.  My paternal grandfather became a widower in 1953 so family meals and big get togethers didn’t happen very often.

One thing I recall the eggs that we colored on Saturday would show up in our Easter Baskets and from there they would go to a soup bowl on the table to be eaten during the week…sometimes the dye would infiltrate the eggs and they would be turned bright colors.

Snow on Monday

It snowed…heavy wet snow.

There was 15 inches at the snowstick but it snowed quite a bit after that.  We got somewhere between 6 and 7 inches of new snow…covered all the crappy yucky snow up.

Snowstick Monday morning.

Far Guy and Chance returning from mail duty.

I am feeling better after I hit my head on Saturday…spring cleaning will kill you!  I was either unplugging or plugging in the vacuum cleaner ( I cannot remember that part) and hit my head on the old oak telephone that is hanging on the wall….the telephone did not move.  I was dazed for a long time and slept very sound and had a real hard time waking up. Someone hovered and made sure I kept on breathing…he said maybe I need a helmet.

March 26

Today is my baby brothers birthday.  He was born a long time ago on a stormy March day.  My status as an only child was never the same again.

I was 2 1/2 years old when he was born. 

In a few years he will retire.  He is building a lake house nearby, it has been fun to watch the house come together.  I have been the official photographer.  After 15 months it is almost ready for furniture…and that will probably happen later this week.

Living room, dining room and kitchen.  Beyond the french doors is the porch.  It will be a wonderful gathering place!  The ceiling is pine from some Norway pines that had to be removed and the oak floors are from oak trees that were removed to make room for the house.

Happy Birthday Baby Brother!

Saturday

I hit my head whilst cleaning…hurt so bad I couldn’t even mutter bad word bad word.  We bought a new area rug for under the dining room table…and the tile floor needed to be scrubbed…just a bit of spring cleaning.   The rug is a bit small…I may look for another and put this one in the living room.  Tile floors are a bit more cozy when there is a rug on the floor.

Chance and I went outside late in the afternoon.  There is still eleven inches of snow at the snowstick.  The snowstorm missed us…it must have gone south of us.  Tomorrow another snowstorm may come in…maybe that one will miss us too.

Mikey 10 months old

Our Great Grandson is 10 months old.   How is it possible?  Soon he will celebrate his first birthday.

We headed up North to pick up a few things at Hobby Lobby, Menards, JC Penney…so we met our Daughter Trica, our Grand Maddie and our Great Grand Mikey in the Mall.

Hey Mikey you are getting so big!  Here he is driving a small car in the mall.

When the others were standing in line for snacks I took Mikey in his stroller to find a place to sit down…he was fine as long as he didn’t know who was pushing the stroller.  I found us a table… he was a little confused to see me…and he scrunched his face up and began to bawl.

 

So I took the advantage of the situation and took a photo!   He cried real tears… his Auntie Paige can do that too…cry real tears just like that. It is a perfect photo of his six teeth!

His Mom showed up and he stopped crying right away. 

His shirt says Rule Breaker and his Granny Trica has one that says Rule Maker.

He is still using the blankie I crocheted a year ago…Maddie says it has been washed many times.

He has his Aunt Savannah’s eyes…and his Great Grandpa’s long eyelashes.

He is a happy baby as long as his Mom is in sight…she left for a bit to get a glass of water and his “ Mama is missing radar” went off right away.  He is very ticklish and Maddie reports that he likes green beans, bananas, mac and cheese, little hot dogs, spaghetti and alfredo and mashed potatoes….he likes water…he can drink from a straw…and he doesn’t like juice of any kind…or pears.  He can feed himself.   He is growing up too fast!

Bark Houses

The carving group is carving ducks…a Pintail I think.  There are about five of us that are still doing our own thing.

The carvers always say “Whatcha working on ?  Those little houses again?”  If I am not working on some kind of Christmas Ornament then I am carving with bark.

Yes I like to carve cottonwood bark, it is easy to carve and my arthritic hands don’t mind it at all.

I work on these little houses and when I get them so far then I drill the holes for the windows and door.  Soon I will take a small file and clean up the windows…maybe make some different shaped windows.  After that I will paint them.

Truth be told I have a whole box full of finished houses upstairs…they might be Christmas Ornaments again some year…who really knows. A few of these new designs will go to the winners of the Snow Stick contest IF and when our snow melts.

No two bark houses are ever alike with me…you have to let the wood speak to you.

This is what I start with.

The two bark pieces in the middle will be houses someday.

Spring Spits Snow

Ever since it became spring the weather has been cloudy gloomy and gray.  Snow is spit into the air, it melts on the walk but sticks on the snow covered areas. 

At least the bad looking snow is covered up…but so is the ice.  Now there are hidden dangers out there.

There is still 12 inches of snow at the snowstick.

Besides looking out the window and remarking “look at it snow…AGAIN” I worked on some carvings for the snowstick contest.  Far Guy is working on a gift for a friend.  We clean house and cook…it is almost a race to see who will say “What do you want for supper tonight?”  Far Guy likes salmon, I like steak so that is what we had last night. 

The Red Polls were gone but when it began to snow they came back again…or maybe it is a different group of the hungry little buggers.

It sounds like it will do more than spit snow for the next few days…Spring needs to send a memo to Winter telling him that his time is up!

Wistful Wednesday : Old Neighbors

A very very long time ago we got some new neighbors…it must have been 1957 or 1958. 

The house they bought was moved onto a piece of property just one mile from where I grew up.  It was a pretty place…it still is.   The house was set on wooden pillars…I recall the step on the back of the house was quite a stretch for my legs…I was just six or seven.  My parents helped to do some work in the house.  Something about painting and cupboards.

The living room was quite large and it had a picture window looking out toward the road.

My parents played cards there, us kids ate cake and cookies, it was a fun place to visit.  It was on our Trick or Treat route and we delivered May Baskets there too!  One of the most beautiful girls in the whole world lived there…and she was real nice too.  She rode on my bus.  She would babysit for us sometimes and we loved having her as a sitter.  She was a Cheerleader…I know my Mom fixed one of her cheerleader outfits once…her name was Carol.

Carol’s Mom was named Edla and her dad was named Morgan but I think he had a nickname.  Morgan had been a logger, I think he tried his hand at a bit of farming and logging in the winter.  He was a big guy about 6 feet tall with the prettiest blue/gray eyes and a thick head of hair. Edla was a tiny little thing with jet black hair and eyes that smiled.

Edla became very sick…as time progressed her husband brought a bed into the living room so she could see out the big window. We visited her many times in that room. Edla was very ill with Liver Cancer and she just wasted away.  She died in June of 1963. 

That was about the same time that Carol graduated from High School.  She married a football jock and moved away..out West.  Sadly at the age of 31 she died from some kind of cancer.  On her tombstone it says “She lived, she loved and was loved.”  It is a perfect epitaph.  I recall when we heard that she died it seemed unfair because she was so young. 

Carol had a older brother named Lane who died in 1999 ( I am not sure I ever met him) and her father died in 2004 out West( He had remarried.)

I cannot recall going to Edla’s funeral in 1963.  I recall her death….but no funeral or burial.  Morgan and Carol both moved away shortly after Edla’s death.  I have been searching Find A Grave for her grave site with no success. Update: Edla 's grave has been found by a good friend and researcher!  Edla is buried in Maywood Cemetery just south of Oak Park Minnesota.  Her family is buried there.

When ever we pass this pretty little house in the country…I think about the fun times I had there as a child and the people that used to live there.  Happy and sad memories all mixed together.

Egg Review

Far Guy likes to have eggs every other morning.  I was making him scrambled eggs but then I kind of slacked off…so he bought a new fangled container with “stuff” in it and you just add an egg and heat it all up in the microwave…it has potatoes, some kind of meat, peppers and onions and maybe even some cheese….and lots of preservatives.

All I could taste was peppers…and peppers are not my favorite food.  Far Guy ate it…I wouldn’t have, one taste was enough for me.  He will eat something he really doesn’t like…I won’t… I go get the peanut butter and a slice of bread.

Who tests these kinds of food?  They must not have any proper taste buds in their entire mouth.  There is one container left and we will donate it to the Food Shelf. I give it a 0 out of 10.  Far Guy gives it a 2 maybe a 3  out of 10.  

Far Guy is much more adventurous with food than I am.  If we have something he doesn’t really care for he usually says “Well… it will make a turd or push one out.”

A photo from last Fall when something was green

Roadkill

This time of year there is new and from the melting snow newly exposed old roadkill along our roads…they are a feast for an Eagle…and the ever present Crows..yes Crows eat carrion too.

This is a backroad we took to the parade.  When we went there was an Immature Bald Eagle feeding. On our way back there was a Baldy feeding.

The Crows sure give the Eagles the what for.

The snow is melting slowly.  There is still 13 inches of snow at the snowstick in our yard. We can almost taste spring…the gravel roads are real muddy.

St Urho’s Day Parade 2018

It was a great day for a parade!  The grasshoppers were escorted out of town in style!

Sweet smiles!

Royalty

St Urho

Another St Urho

Some grasshoppers were on pitchforks and others were drug out of town followed by dogs.

Beautiful smile

Flag bearers

Instead of the normal horses and wagon, the King was riding in a pick up truck…I hollered “Where are the horses?”  They shouted back the horses were getting too old.

I think perhaps I know these kids!

It was a fun  parade, Chance was a good boy and quietly growled at all the dogs…with one sharp bark for the last dog in the parade.  The parade lasted all of ten minutes mostly because the Police Officer was driving her vehicle really slow.