Wednesday, March 30, 2011

What's Happening In Wisconsin


We brought Jack home with us from Nebraska.  He is a lot of dog with a lot of energy to burn.  Wow! have we ever been having a doggy time of it around here. He is as good as gold MOST of the time...like for traveling. He was perfect all the way home. Even when we let the tail gate down too fast and caught the very end of his lovely fan of a tail in it he only yowled and howled for as long as it took three of us to frantically get it lifted again.  Poor dog!  He forgave us immediately however with his kisses and hugs even more profuse than ever.  EWW!

 We live in a village where "Indian" dogs abound on the loose, so we are obliged to keep pretty good tabs on Jack.  The first couple days we kept him tied or in the porch constantly.  Which led to Frances and Elv deciding that he needed a bath. Again the gold showed. He simply sat in the bathtub and let them give him a good going over.  Ummm, have you ever had a wet dog unleash a good shake in front of your living room hearth?  Oh well, he came out of that looking soft and beautiful. I think he still smells rather doggy!
    As of yesterday, we have been allowing him to run free outdoors as long as the guys are home.  And he absolutely loves it.   
 He gambols back and forth between them and their projects endlessly.  Moreover he stays entirely off the roads on either side of our property even though Elv for lack of a better place to work is parked right on the road with his Tool Truck. 
    And yes he brings back good memories of Shep, the dog we had when we were married. He woke us from our sleep in time to get out when our house was burning.  Jack has the same repertoire of barks for what is going on and one of these days we're going to know them all just by listening.
 The county road mower went by yesterday morning with his blade high in the air clipping off tree branches.  Does that strike you as dangerous? I couldn't believe what he was doing when it went whirring by our living room windows.  But I found these maple tree branches on the road afterward.
 I saw someone was getting apple tree twigs to sprout blossoms in a vase like this and had been thinking how fun that would be.  And I wondered if any tree would make me a bouquet of leaves if not blossoms.
 So I brought these in.  Maybe I can have a bit of spring indoors anyway, if we can't have it outdoors.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Perspectives

   Well, there is snow in Wisconsin. Lots of it.  Almost two weeks ago the children and I headed down to Nebraska and I blithely informed Elv that I was seeing the last of snow for this winter.  How wrong I was!  There was snowfall in Nebraska, too! 
   I was going to come home to yard clean-up and spring house-cleaning. Not that there aren't sorting and culling projects to do indoors.  We have too many THINGS in our little house and for the first time in my entire married life we are considering a yard/rummage/ garage sale to get rid of extra books, furniture and other household paraphernalia. Except we will have it on the lawn not having a garage to my name.  
   But I wasn't going to post about spring cleaning.  I was going to pontificate about the inequalities of life about cars, Jeeps, and value.  
   We headed home Saturday morning in good time from Gabes.  As soon as we hit the highway two miles from their house we knew we were in trouble.  There we were driving on interstate 80 in second gear with home being 600 miles distant.  Nobody in their right minds would drive that far screaming along in second gear with an Australian Shepherd breathing down the driver's neck. But that's a different story...the dog part, that is.
   So we turned round and headed back to Gabe's while Elv and Gabe talked on the phone about what to do.  Which meant that the Jeep Gabe has been talking with Elv about the last two years was to be our way to get home and also to replace the Sidekick, as it happens.  
   Now I'm ready to state how odd it seems to me that a Jeep with a broken windshield, lots of corrosion (note, I didn't mention rust), and layers of Nebraska dust can be worth $1,2oo, while my own car of the same year ('93 model) having absolutely no rust, a good engine and being moderately beautiful as cars go, to my mind, can be worth only $200, or so, just because the transmission is out!  Elv has been patiently explaining to me that the Jeep is 4-wheel-drive, of all things! It's like duh! what can you possibly be thinking?! Okay, so it's a man's world stamped plain and clear with a man's perspective of value and that is what carries the day in my world. Get real, woman!
   So here I am, car-less and snowed out of yard work.  I can whine and complain and focus on my thwarted life, or I can get busy with the work at hand.  Even more, I can trust God who knew He was going to keep my car in Nebraska with a "For Sale" sign on it long before we headed down there.  So what is next shall be another adventure! Get at it!
   

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

More Nebraska Days

   We are having a windy, sunny day.  The clothes on the line are whipped dry in a few minutes, and thunderclouds range  close by, so we're keeping our eye on the weather.  
   The men have gone off to town to buy worms to go fishing.  They took Lance's pick-up so that they could all get in along with poles and paraphernalia accordingly.  Elv just called me to ask a question about the toy tractor he is looking at for Jube.  Lisl has asked for a "real" tractor and wagon for him and says that Thailand hasn't any. 
   A batch of monster cookies cools on the counter top while dry laundry waits to be folded and put away. 
   This morning Jenny and I stopped at their favorite used shop for a few minutes. I found another Corrie Ten Boom book I haven't read and a very nice oil lamp for the cabin, and a Fisher Price toy for Gwen for her first birthday.
   Yet, this week we plan to celebrate her birthday, scrapbook, and sew with my sister Amy for a day.  
   Jenny and the new little Myles are doing excellently.  She is resting well, and he is about perfect as babies go, sleeping and eating on a schedule to rival ANY ideal.  

Sunday, March 20, 2011

What's Happening In Nebraska

Here what's happening. Gwen has a new little brother. She has accepted him into her little world with open arms...
And kisses...literally. Myles Andrew is not nearly as impressed with her as she is with him, apparently. But we are confident that one day they will be best friends.

From where Gwen can survey her outside world as long as Jack the big dog at her house isn't trying to lick her face. She's "ready for anything" most of the time. Can you tell?

Well, mostly. Just as soon as she can get her skirt out from under her shoe, that is.
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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Blessings

I am counting today because of Japan's suffering. 

~ We have warm, spacious houses far, far removed from the threat of tsunamis. It's not like they in Japan deserve what they're getting right now anymore than we deserve what we enjoy. 
~I am thankful for salvation and the freedom to live and share it.  
~  I heard the chickadees calling to each other this morning that spring is coming. One chickadee would sing Sol-Mi, and the other would answer Mi-Do over and over. 
~ A clothesline to dry laundry. 
~ We're glad for work to do.  A lot of people are either looking for work or worried about losing what they do have.  

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A Day In The Life Of This Mom

     My day started with a cup of coffee with Elv.  It happened to be warmer upstairs in the living room so that's where we sat.  I am studying to teach Sunday School next Sunday.  We're in Nehemiah 7 where all the family names of the returned Jews are listed.  At the end of the list is a few families who claim they are Jews but their names cannot be found in the old records.  So they decide to put that on hold until the priests can consult God through the Urim and Thummim.  Isn't that an interesting little story? 
     Elv and Lance went out the door fortified with breakfast sandwiches.  I called the girls and sat back down to my computer for a few minutes.  I like the quiet till the children appear.  
     After breakfast for the rest of us, we had school devotions and then school for the children and writing for me for a couple of hours.  Brad is learning about circle graphs, and I was organizing some observations on "paper".  
     At eleven I "came to" for some house work and then lunch.  In the meantime because the wood is wet the fire downstairs was still not burning and the clothes not drying. Clammy! 
     After lunch I got Amy to bring me her Language book and thrust a quick test of the last six units under her nose.  She did pretty well what with jumping right in the middle of the last unit to do it.  So we sat together and learned about predicate nominatives, direct objects, indirect objects and the like for an hour.  I enjoyed that more than she, no doubt.  
     Wrote a letter to my sisters, to Susan, and to Jake and Mary Coblentz this afternoon.  My sisters and I are planning a sister day or two for next fall.  
     Frances prepared meat loaf and baked potatoes for supper and Amy swept up the house while I coaxed the recalcitrant fire downstairs again and folded laundry. 
     Yesterday the girls took a nap since they're still recovering form our current virus.  Frances came down and said, "Mom, I woke with the weirdest flash-back like I have ever had before.  I woke up and thought it must be time for Jenny and Lisl to come home from work...is was summer and Jenny had been at Gladyses cleaning... It was so real."  Sigh! That really tugged at me for a minute or two.  She didn't enjoy it, either.
     Clark put his little car in the ditch this morning avoiding a deer on icy roads.  And Lance sold his pickup today.  Jenny is at home in Nebraska waiting for that baby to come.  Haven't heard from Lisl today, yet.
     A good day at home. Elv praised me for staying at home all day.  Silly man! I love it, too.  I think I'll do that again tomorrow.
 

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Our Cabin

Everybody is curious about how we came to have a cabin in Minnesota. Some of you will be satisfied to know that the owner thereof didn't think he could use it anymore and offered to sell it to us. So we bought.
At any rate, this cabin is "off the grid" and rather unfinished.  Even so, it is habitable and nestled in the spruce on the iron range in NE Minnesota.  At night, the stars hang just above the tree tops out the bedroom window and the sound you hear is the ore train now and then instead of traffic. It's quiet there. A cook stove in the kitchen is the soul of warmth and a grand place to cook and bake.  I still have to learn the quirks of this particular stove in order to bake in it. There are muddy bear paw prints on the outside of one of the living room windows that I am anxious to wash off. No kidding. In fact I think we will leave the print that is on the tyvek when we wash the window.


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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Snowshoeing



Starting Out At The Cabin


Elv's and Brad's snow shoe tracks.

Coming Up Buck Mountain





Lance wondered just how much good these snowshoes were doing.


As long as we without snowshoes stuck to the snowmobile track we didn't sink down into the snow.

On a Sunday afternoon tramp up to Buck Mountain behind our cabin.

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