Merry Christmas

It is Christmas Day. Scott and I went to 9:30 mass at Ave Maria Catholic Church. We sang several Christmas hymns, which was nice. Then at Scott's request we made a brunch of biscuits and sausage gravy. It was the first time I have made this, and it turned out well! I have been getting lots of recipes, or at least guidance, from the internet since I left all my cookbooks in storage. While I was making the food, we listened to last year's Prairie Home Companion Christmas Show, dated Dec. 20, 2008. I highly recommend this particular show - I have listened to it about five times and for some reason I just love it! Check it out on the PHC website. While we ate we watched Planet Earth: Deserts, and Ice Worlds. Then I tried to telephone Mom and then Karla, but I think they were on the phone with each other. Scott's daughter called him from Italy, where she is visiting her college roommate's family.

I know this photo of me is dorky - I was trying to keep from blinking because of snowflakes! I just wanted to post this photo of Rufus - he looks like a poster child for a homeless cat shelter. "Please give me a better home!" Looking right at the camera.

Here are a couple photos of Scott's cat, King. He is like an alien creature to me. Not sure if he is actually the same species as Rufus.

He likes to sit leaning against walls or furniture. Very alien. This is my fifth day here and he is finally letting me pet him a little bit.

I was pleased last night that Hanne, Dad, Barbara, Ron, Brian, Nicole, Tyler, and the other kids called me after they had had their Danish Christmas dinner, gift opening, and rice pudding dessert.

Snow in Parker, Colorado

It started snowing Tuesday evening in Parker. I'm glad to see the snow as long as I stayed here to avoid the storm. Here are a couple photos of the town.

Waiting in Denver

Hello! I really want to continue and finish describing my Thanksgiving visit to Lewiston, MN and Elgin, IL but first I wanted to let you know that I'm in Denver! I drove for two days from Ely, MN to reach here. I intended to have a day's layover here and visit my friend Scott who I met earlier this year in Ely.

My layover day was yesterday, and during that time I learned that a decent storm was brewing in the entire west, bringing snow. So for the time being I am watching the weather and staying right here in Colorado.

Scott lives south of the city in Parker and it is a really cute town. Hopefully I will get some photos to post of the Christmas lights. I was quite pleased with myself yesterday afternoon because I went on Scott's run with him, four miles at about 6300 feet elevation, and I was able to complete the run and felt pretty well!

You may know that I had planned to fly to Calif. for Christmas and New Year so why did I drive instead? Stay tuned to find out. Until then, Happy Holidays!

More about Luehmanns, Part 1

I've decided to drag out my Thanksgiving experience into several blogs! But this was a really milestone Thanksgiving, to be with the whole Rugh family - so I am going to indulge myself in blogging about them!

Here's some more about the Luehmanns. As I mentioned earlier, I arrived at their house on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. My route took me on the east side of St. Paul and from there I followed the Mississippi River the rest of the way. Here's a photo of the river:

When I arrived I met all the kids and they sure are a lot of fun! Laurel is 7 and very pretty, kind of quiet, but not shy. She plays the piano, rolls out pie crusts, and took me along while she fed their pony. Peyton and Jackson are 5 and as you would expect, have two different personalities! I noticed that Peyton liked his shirt tucked in and didn't mind keeping his tie on after church. Jackson helped me make pies, he also likes to make funny faces and voices. They both have a lot of green farm machinery toys, and know a lot about how they work. They explained combines to me. Olivia is 3 and is always smiling! I expected her to be up to mischief with that smile, but she's just a happy person! Abigail is about a year and a half and is kind of like one of those old souls. Very calm. In no time she was reaching up for me to hold her and is very easygoing. I really enjoyed getting to carry her around, and got to sit next to her for the ride to Elgin and back (sorry, Laurel!)

Katie made sausage corn chowder (I think it was called) for Wednesday dinner and I got to see how they feed their family of five kids age 7 and under. The food and dishes are placed at the head of the table next to Paul and Katie. They dish up the food and pass it down to the kids (and me - yum!) The same goes for drinks. That night they had milk from their own dairy. After dinner each person clears their own dishes (well, maybe not Abby). Then it is somebody's chore to sweep the dining area. Each family member took their turn sitting next to me. It was fun to be the guest!

As I mentioned earlier, I stayed in the boys' room (without the boys! as Katie had said!) and so they slept in the girls' room. Here you can see two boys on the top bunk, there are two girls on the bottom bunk, and Abby, whose crib is in there also.

I slept in and awoke to a view of a lovely yard with lawn and big spruce trees, swingset and sand box.
For breakfast on Thanksgiving day, Katie and Paul had made a (oh, what do you call it?) dish of eggs, ham, cheese, and more, baked in a 9x13 pan. The ham was from their own pig.

Next time: more about the Luehmanns, including the farm!

Visit with Katie, Paul & Family

There is so much to post about my latest trip that I've decided to divide it into three entries. First I'll blog about Katie's family, then about their farm, and then about my visit to the rest of the Rughs in Elgin. For those of you with dial up internet, I apologize if the photos make it a long download!

I had a great time visiting the Luehmanns and then the rest of the Rughs! There's nothing like a visit in person to really learn what everyone is up to. I had been intending to visit Katie ever since she and Paul moved to his family farm and it took me several years to finally get there. They live in southeastern Minnesota and I live in northeastern, and it took seven hours to drive to their place. Luckily, the weather was fairly good and it didn't start snowing until after I arrived on Wednesday evening, the day before Thanksgiving.

It was so great to see Katie finally. It was equally great to get to know Paul better and to meet all of the kids, who were totally charming. I was made to feel right at home and the boys gave me their room to sleep in which was very comfortable.

They live in a farm house which is not the house that Paul grew up in (where his parents still live), but is on an adjacent farm that Paul's family bought (I think in the 70's) that expanded their ownership to over 600 acres.

This photo was taken in Jessica and Ben's house after church: Paul, Katie, and Abby.

The rest of these photos (except one) were taken at Katie and Paul's house. This is Jackson and Peyton peeling potatoes for the Thanksgiving meal. Although the boys are not identical twins (a fact I learned while visiting) it can be hard at first to tell them apart. Jackson is usually wearing red, as in this photo. They like peeling potatoes and are very good at it.
Laurel, Paul, and Abby. In the background are some Thanksgiving projects the kids made.
Peyton and Abby.
The four oldest kids have daily chores posted on charts on the refrigerator. This is Peyton unloading the dishwasher. I was very interested in seeing how a household with lots of young kids is run. I was impressed and not surprised to see that Katie (and Paul) have a well-organized household. I also learned that the kids are homeschooled!
Olivia (Livvy) outside a cheese store on our way to Elgin.
Left: Jackson and their dog Lucy outside the house. Right: Laurel

Jackson on left, Peyton on right.

Left: Abby. Right: Livvy

Sauna

The sauna is coming along! No thanks to me; Sarah has done the whole thing.

She's applying chinking to the cracks. It's made of clay-type mud, straw, and lime.There are some tiles lying around in the carport so I offered to install them on the wall behind where the woodstove will be. We have had unusually warm weather and it seems everyone around here is taking advantage and pushing their luck to get more outdoor stuff done.



I may have mentioned that there's a rock ridge behind our cabin. I took a walk up there last Sunday to enjoy the beautiful weather. Since there was a little bit of snow in patches, it was a little slippery up there, but mostly fine. Here is the view:

This is what the rock ridge looks like:

And this is looking directly down at our cabin.

Next week: Thanksgiving with cousin Katie and Paul Luehmann and family in Lewiston, Minnesota! And then, all of us traveling to Elgin, Illinois to see Uncle Vic, Jessica and Ben and family, Sarah and Jeffrey, and even Molly and Matt coming from Texas!

Lake Superior

There isn't much exciting going on for me right now! The past two weekends I have stayed home and read, which is enjoyable, but I keep thinking I'm supposed to be doing something else. I bet most of you reading this would be happy to have enough TIME to just sit around and read or do whatever you want all weekend, so I shouldn't complain.

A major difference I have noticed between moving around in my twenties, and now in my forties, is that I have gotten used to owning a home and having everything I need around me. I kind of feel like half a person now, living in a rental with only the items I could fit in my truck or things I have gotten here from thrift stores. It is freedom to have only a few possessions to worry about and especially no home maintenance! But I miss my cookbooks, my garage and project stuff, my printer and stereo, and especially my family, friends, and neighbors. I really hate to admit that I want more "stuff"! And I don't want more, I just miss some of the things I have put in storage (thank you, Frank). I packed up everything in my house in April - completely emptied the garage and house, except for the washer and dryer, refrigerator, and one stack of firewood. While I was doing that chore (thank you, Carol and George), I vowed to move only half of those items back INTO the house when I return, after selling or giving away the other half. How realistic is that?

Anyway, here are some photos I've taken in the last couple weeks. This first one is a place we go past every day at work when we're headed out to the woods. I know it is fairly well-photgraphed, but I don't know the history behind it. Beavers are quite the pests around here.

Sarah had a birthday party at our house, and a friend of hers came over with three kittens and a bunny! She was looking for homes for them. They provided some entertainment for us. Sarah wants to get another cat, and she kept a couple of the kittens for a few days, but they eventually found other homes.

We thought Rufus was very polite when he met each of the kittens and the rabbit but right after I took this photo he hissed at this kitten and ran up the stairs. He didn't want to deal with them at all after that. We had just lost Chunky only three days earlier, and were still trying to see if Rufus would act any different without her. Although I liked the kitties, I really wanted some time to just pay my respects to Chunky. This week, Rufus seems to be just fine as the only cat here but who knows.

Sometime soon I will write more about work when I can get some photos there. Here you can see a couple guys talking about axes, which I found amusing. On the right is Adam, who is on my crew and who I carpool with. He was a professional lumberjack this summer, going around and performing at fairs and stuff, so his axes are very important to him. On the left is Tom, who works in the wilderness all season and therefore uses all hand (not power) tools. They must have talked about these axes for about 15 minutes. In the background is our office - the LaCroix Ranger Station.

I drove to the north shore of Lake Superior on Veteran's Day. I am still getting used to having paid holidays - especially this one in the middle of the week. Thank you, Veterans, for your service!

It was hard to capture the world's largest freshwater lake in photos, but I tried. It was an overcast day. This photo is at Temperance State Park and this shows the Temperance River going into Lake Superior. Further up the road was Temperance Liquors. Hmmm.

Looking down toward the town of Grand Marais.

Waves! (It was a pretty calm day out there.)

I think this is an ice house:

More Lake Superior

That's all for now!

More fall color, sauna, shower, and Chunky

I don't understand how a month has gone by again since my last post! October was a beautiful month for leaves. Shown here are the red maples on the 4th.

The following photos are from the 9th - it was a rare sunny day so a good time to go boating and see the colors. The reds are maple, the yellows are aspen and birch.

At the Blue Heron B&B, our first task in the morning was to put out black sunflower seed for the birds (and squirrels). Here are some evening grosbeaks, and a red squirrel. I took these photos on my last day of work there. The next guests will come in early December, and there will be fewer of them than in the summer.October 24th was another nice day so Sarah and I walked to Angleworm Lake. This was a neat bridge/boardwalk over a marsh.

By then the hardwood colors were past their peak, and the tamaracks (larches) were showing brilliant yellows against the dark green of spruce and balsam fir. I thought this was an interesting scene.

On the 25th, I went canoeing with Scott. It was a rainy day and I decided to get serious about the clothes I was going to wear. Not sure what my military-like pose is about, but at least I am smiling! Actually, I think this is a Gilligan look.

These are my boots! I'm very excited about them. They are insulated rubber with neoprene uppers. The Forest Service bought the boots for me, so I have to give them back when I leave that job. There's so much water here that it's pretty common to walk through a swamp so I think rubber boots are worn a lot in the spring and fall. Then for winter the F.S. bought me insulated leather boots.

This is Sarah working on the sauna. I don't know much about its construction because she is building the whole thing. I can see that it's pretty solid, and has an insulated floor.

Here are a couple photos of the shower I made. It was hard to capture it in a photo because of its location under the stairs. Anyway, here you can see that it has a frame of PVC pipe which is hanging from the ceiling. The shower curtains go into a large rubbermaid container, and there is a second square of PVC inside the curtains at about hip level, which makes the shower more spacious and keeps the curtains from sticking to you. The pink thing you see hanging inside is a shoe bag to hold our shampoo and soap. The rope you see going to the right is what we use to pull the filled water container up above head level, with a pulley (see next photo).

Here you can see the 2.5-gallon water container hanging from the pulley, and the "heat" lamp. The shower is next to the refrigerator, on top of which we store our drinking water. I have found that I use around 1.5 gallons or less for a shower. So instead of devising some sort of a drain, we found that it is pretty easy to just dump out the Rubbermaid container after showering. And that's that.

***************Chunky******************

Chunky had a "fibrosarcoma", a cancerous tumor, since April 2008. It was removed twice and grew back, so last January the vet and I decided no more surgery. She lasted over ten months after that with the tumor growing on the outside of her ribcage, but sadly, she finally had to be put to sleep on Friday the 30th. We took these photos of her on her last day here.

The tumor had broken through the skin this week and there was really nothing more to be done. You can kind of see it in this photo above her back leg. Over the last three months she moved around less and less but was still able to walk up and down stairs and outside.
We live on two acres so Chunky is buried on the property here. I had her for eleven years, and she was 13 or 14 years old. She's done traveling now, and I miss her!

It is November 1st as I finish writing this post. It was 32 degrees outside when I checked this morning, and fall here seems no more harsh than in Mt. Shasta/Weed. We have had snow, but nothing that stayed on the ground more than a few hours. In November, the ground and the lakes are expected to freeze and then the snow will come - at least, that's the way they hope it will work here. I have planted some bulbs in the yard knowing that we'll need some cheering up come April and May.

I plan to drive south to visit Katie, Tim, Greg, and Jerry. So if any of you are reading this, beware! I hope to see Katie this month.