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. 

Reading

I have been plunged back in time by 55 years.

My baby brother thought I might need some reading material.  So he ordered a box of books to be delivered to me.  I should read them first and then take them over to his almost completed lake home so someday his Grandchildren can read the books he read as a child. 

I was not aware that BOTH of my brothers read my books…

Mine were purchased at the old Woolworth Store in Detroit Lakes Minnesota.  Back then the books were less than a dollar (97 or 98 cents plus tax??).   The art work on the originals was slightly different also…the were called Cello Editions.  I can recall standing in front of the display of books and looking at all the covers…wondering which book I should buy next…decisions…decisions.

I finished the first book…I can see why the series first captured my attention…there is some kind of calamity or adventure in every chapter…it is a page turner…and leaves you hanging at the end of the book so that you will buy the next book in the series.

The original author (Julie Campbell Tatham)  of this series wrote just the first six books and after that many different ghost writers took over for the publishing company and wrote under the pseudonym Kathryn Kenny …it seems they found that young readers were buying their books and they wanted to continue after the original author stopped writing.

So now I am exploring books from my youth.

Happy St. Urho’s Day

We got the flag up!

We are ready to celebrate!  Chance and I may have danced around the flag if we didn’t have such huge snowbanks!

The big parade will commence tomorrow…it is okay to share the day with that lesser known St. Patrick.  I am certain that many Minnesota towns and cities will be wearing the purple and the green in honor of St. Urho…who chased those pesky grasshoppers out of Finland and saved the grapes!  I will be taking lots of photos of the parade! We are expecting sunshine and  40F ABOVE zero ( 4C eh!)…practically sunbathing weather.

St. Urho’s Day Poem

Ooksie kooksie kollme vee
Santia Urho is the boy for me
He chase out the hopper as big as pirds
Never before have I heard those words
He really told those bugs of green
Bravest Finn I ever seen
Some celebrate for St. Pat and his snake
But that Urho boy got what it takes
He got tall and strong on feelia sour
And ate Kalla Mojakkaa every hour
Thats why that guy dould chase those beetles
That crew as thick as jack pine needles
So let’s give a cheer
in our very best way
On the sixteenth of March
St. Urho’s Day!

Chance: A Walk

Hiya!  It is me Chance the most handsome Border Collie in all of Minnesota.

Tuesday morning

The mail goes everyday.  They told me it is not there on Sunday but a little creative whinning and a bark here or there convinces them that a walk to the mailbox is well worth it EVERY day of the week.  We walk way beyond the mail box now. (They are making progress!)

Most of the time Far Side goes along. Far Guy and I are allowed to go by ourselves…but mostly she goes along to supervise.  She has Yak Tracks now…courtesy of her baby brother who wants to keep her butt off the ice and out of the snowbanks.

She makes funny tracks now.

Wednesday morning over on the snowmobile trail.  The snow is getting a crust on it so I can walk where ever I want.

Most of the time I wear my red harness,  but I have been known to run up the stairs without it on.  I do not come downstairs without it on and someone guiding me down the stairs…again…I whine if I want to come down when they leave me on the landing all alone and lonely.

The warm weather has brought the skunks out and Far Side is certain that they can walk on top of the snow too…so she is extra careful at night…she goes out first and barks to scare everything away before I am allowed outside.  She doesn’t care if that is weird.

I am feeling pretty good for an old guy and as long as I am not allowed to scarf up bird seed outside or anything but “Far Side approved” food I don’t vomit or have diarrhea.  Yeah me! I suppose I could fill you in on my anal fistula/tumor too…but maybe that is TMI.  Leave it to be said that Far Side keeps my nether regions impeccabbly clean. She must love me alot!

 

Wistful Wednesday: Midway Memories

Last summer my baby brothers best friend stopped by.  It was good to see him!  At one point he worked for Far Guy’s parents.  I asked him if he had any old photos that he could share with us.  A few weeks later I got them by email.

This was 1973 or 1974.  In 1973 we were stationed in Florida so Far Guys parents had to hire some help.

Far Guy’s Dad ( Marvin) and Niles

Far Guy’s Mom (Evelyn)

Marvin

We were thrilled to see these old photos of the family business.  If you want to read more about our Midway Memories Here is a link to the first story in the series.

Sheeps

Sheeps always make me smile.

Some of my favorite things that make me smile sit on the shelf above my computer.

A Equinox Farm Calendar showed up in the mail, many thanks to Sara for all the smiles…her sheeps are special!

I think I live vicariously through Sara and her photographs.  A long time ago raising sheep and goats was a possibility for me…we tried to buy my Grandparents Farm (my uncle wouldn’t sell it)  and then we put an offer on a farm near the ND and MN border along the Red River…it was in the flood plain and had a few other problems so we did not purchase it.  Eventually I took one of those fancy smancy tests that tell you what profession you are best suited for…Police Officer…Child Care…Horticulture. Sheep/Goat farmer was not on that list.  I figured at 45 I was too old to be a Cop and I just wanted to be a Grandmother not take care of kids everyday…so I chose Horticulture. Funny how things work out.